Confessions of a Little Black Gown (26 page)

It was like falling into heaven to have her like this, and if the entire world hadn’t been about to implode around them, he would have carried her to the sofa across the room and made love to her.

And so it was that he reluctantly pulled away from her. “You must trust me.”

Her eyes were afire with passion, her breathing coming in ragged gasps. Beneath his hands, she was trembling, for it seemed she felt the same as he did.

And if she did, if it were true that she loved him, then he had to do something. “I give you my word. I will not kill him.”

She paused and looked deeply into his eyes. “Truly?”

“Yes. Please, Tally, I must know—” But he never finished his plea, for over her shoulder and out the window in the clear moonlight of the garden was the answer to his question. “Dashwell!” he gasped as he let her go and rushed to the window.

For there indeed was Thomas Dashwell, along with that odd cousin of Lady Philippa’s, and a woman…

“That’s not—” Tally began to protest as she followed him. “What the devil is Mrs. Browne doing out there?” Then she paused. “That isn’t Mrs. Browne, but the woman from the inn.”

“Not Mrs. Browne?” he repeated, as he looked anew at the lady prodding the other two along. “What is the quickest way out there?”

She shook her head. “I will not let you—”

“Tally, don’t be a fool. I will not kill Dashwell. I gave you my word.” He paused. “I can’t do it now. For if I did, you would never forgive me and I cannot live without your regard.” He paused and then found the courage to speak the truth. “Without your love.”

This brought her startled gaze up to his. For a tenuous terrible moment, he thought she was going to deny him, deny his heart. But the moment passed and she nodded quickly and waved toward the door. “You need to go to the end of the hall and then through the second parlor. There is a set of French doors in the salon beyond that let out to the corner of the house near the old stables. I would guess that is where she is taking them,” she said, nodding toward the window where the three were disappearing around the corner.

“Thank you,” he said, kissing her quickly and shooting toward the door. When he got there, he turned around and told her. “Go find Hollindrake and tell him what has happened. He’ll know what to do.” He opened the door, but then paused again. “And Tally?”

“Yes?

Was it him or did she sound hopeful?

“I love you.”

And then he disappeared before she could reply.

T
ally started for the ballroom and nearly tripped with her first step. “Bloody wretched shoes,” she muttered as she kicked them off and ran in her stocking-clad feet back to the ballroom.

And though Larken had told her to go straight to Hollindrake, there was no way on earth she was going to tell her brother-in-law what had been going on under his roof.

Not that he probably doesn’t already know
, a rather practical voice chided.

Ignoring it, she made a beeline straight for the only person she trusted on this. The only other person who had as much at stake as she did.

Pippin.

And she found her quickly, for she had only to look over the heads of all the gentlemen to find the tall, handsome figure of Lord Gossett. She slid though the crowd, muttering apologies and trying to ignore
the complaints of “poor manners” and “all the shoving and jostling” that followed in her path.

“Pippin, there you are,” she said, breathlessly. “I fear I must steal her away from you, my lord. There’s an emergency of sorts, um, I, well, that is, I need Pippin because—” Tally searched for an excuse, not that her cousin’s face hadn’t grown pale with panic. “My shoes,” she blurted out. “The heel broke and I wanted to wear Pippin’s pair that will go with this gown, but can’t for the life of me find them. Would you be a dear, and come with me?”

She’d already wound her hand around Pippin’s arm and was towing her from her admirer, so that they barely heard Lord Gossett bidding her to return soon.

“Whatever has happened?” Pippin whispered as they made their way out of the crush.

“I’m not entirely sure, but someone who looks like Mrs. Browne has kidnapped Dash and Mr. Jones. Lord Larken believes she is a member of the Order of the Black Lily, or something like that.”

Pippin pulled to a stop. “Are you jug-bit?” she asked, using one of Aunt Minty’s favorite expressions. “You’re talking madness.”

They had made it nearly to the door and were about to enter the foyer, when Tally stopped her and pointed to the stairs beyond. “Look there. What do you see?”

“Mrs. Browne. That hardly gives any credence that she’s—” Pippin’s arguments failed as she saw exactly what Tally was pointing at.

The pistol in the lady’s hand.

“Oh, dear,” Pippin gasped as the matron disap
peared into the darkness above. “Do you think she—”

“I don’t know,” Tally said, pushing Pippin forward, a plan forming in her head. “Follow her,” she told her cousin. “Just as Felicity and I taught you how to follow someone. Keep to the shadows and if you can find a way to stop her, do it.”

Pippin started for the stairs, but then she paused. “And what of you?”

“I am going to save them,” she said.

Her cousin nodded and made her way up the stairs as silently as a cat, and Tally had turned to dash down the hall to Hollindrake’s office when she came face-to-face with the last person she wanted to find blocking her path.

Felicity. “And where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

Larken made it to the gardens and found his way past the maze and along the grassy lawn toward the old stables. A lantern hanging from a carriage cast a beacon of light that drew him along. The carriage was ready to travel, the horses in their traces, but there was no sign of a groom or driver.

Which didn’t bode well.

In fact there was no sign of anyone, which made it even more eerie, considering the crush of carriages, servants, and grooms in the front drive.

Grudgingly, he had to acknowledge it was a good plan. For who would question a stray carriage leaving the house early? A local baron who’d drunk too much, a lady overcome by the heat of the ballroom, a couple arguing over another’s indiscreet behavior.
Any of those could be inside, and no servant was going to look twice into such private business.

But that was just the point. There were no servants about, and Larken knew he was on the verge of discovery. He crept closer and closer to the old stables, and as he drew near, voices came into earshot.

“Aurora, be reasonable,” Dash was saying. “Forget the debts between us, we are friends, allies. I have to surmise it was you who sent word to Lady Philippa about my hanging, wasn’t it? Certainly you wouldn’t see me freed just to put me in a grave, now would you?”

“But you’ve outgrown your usefulness, my love,” she purred.

Larken froze. The woman’s voice, her very words pulled the past right into the present.

“…you’ve outgrown your usefulness…”

The exact same words this bitch used before she’d killed his father. It was nearly enough to send him pitching forward, gun drawn, to kill her where she stood, but she was continuing to rail at Dashwell, and her revelations were stunning.

Enough to stay his course, at least for the moment.

“Aurora, I would never betray your confidences. How many years have I helped you?”

“And been paid handsomely.”

“For the last two years?” Dash struggled to sit up straighter. “All I’ve seen during that time is promises. Promises of gold. And still I helped you. Didn’t betray you. Why? Out of loyalty.”

She laughed. “
Capitaine
, you would sell your own mother to save your neck. Besides, I didn’t pass along the news of your hanging to your little English
mistress to see you out of jail,” she told him. “I had every conviction that she would bungle the entire affair and see you all killed, before you struck some sort of bargain to save your neck. Gave the English something worth letting you live.”

“Ah, but my dear Aurora, you overstate your worth. Believe me, I tried to sell your secrets and no one believed me. Didn’t want to be peddled old myths. Didn’t believe you even existed.”

“Liar,” she hissed.

He shrugged. “It’s the truth. The English don’t care about you and your Order. I fear you are a relic from another time. You have no queen to protect, only an upstart Corsican to aid. And now he’s off to Elba, an emperor no more. Hardly the noble cause you once defended so admirably.”

“Shut up,” she cursed, her entire body trembling with rage. “Shut up. You know nothing of my cause. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Then why kill me?” Dashwell posed.

Larken would have grinned at the captain’s dangerous and reckless statements, but his taunting was going to get him killed if he didn’t cease.

“Really, madame, as I’ve said before, I do believe you’ve made a mistake,” Mr. Hartwell began. And was cut off by the sharp retort of a pistol. Larken heard the man groan his last as he slumped to the ground.

“Christ!” Dash cursed. “Aurora, there was no reason to kill him. He’s naught to do with any of this.”

“He’s naught to anyone now,” she said, the sound of a second pistol cocking.

Larken had heard enough, and came around the
corner, pistol drawn, ready to shoot this mad witch where she stood. For a split-second he held her in his sights, his finger poised over the trigger and about to pull it, when suddenly he was pitched forward, a thunderous crash sounding in his ears and stars bursting before his eyes.

Even as he fell, he turned and spied a large man with a shovel in his hand. Dressed in the coat and hat of a driver, it was apparent that while legend held the Order’s women worked alone, Aurora had help.

Help that now grinned wolfishly down at him and looked ready to finish his handiwork.

Felicity stood with her hands on her hips and faced Tally. “Where do you think you are going?” she repeated.

“Duchess, there is just a bit of trouble,” Tally stammered. “Uh, with my shoes,” she offered, holding up the hem of her gown to show Felicity her stocking-clad toes. “Pippin is going to loan me her white slippers. You know the ones—with the bows—that you insisted she buy just after you were married.” Tally smiled, hoping it hid the panic welling up inside her bones.

And she thought she’d managed it, for Felicity nodded and turned to return to the ballroom.

Tally breathed a soft sigh of relief. But it was a wee bit early to be celebrating.

Felicity paused, half turned, and glancing over her shoulder asked with quiet precision, “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Dashwell being upstairs in your suite, would it?”

It was as if the foundation of Hollindrake House
had been ripped out from beneath her toes. Tally staggered back and caught herself by grabbing hold of the door jamb. “What sort of ridiculous notion is that?” She managed to laugh.

Felicity swept forward and caught her by the arm, towing her into a nearby alcove. “What is going on? Hasn’t Mr. Jones gotten him out yet, or have you ruined that as well?”

“How did you know?” Tally whispered back. “How did you know that he was Mr. Jones and not Mr. Hartwell?”

Felicity’s gaze rolled upward. “Pippin’s cousin is seventy-four years old, and I sincerely doubt he would be pinching the silver as Mr. Jones was doing last night during dinner. Bruno has told me often enough that his brother Tarleton is the finest lift in all of London.”

Tally cringed. What had Tarleton been thinking? Pinching the duke’s silver! And at dinner, no less. Yet that was hardly the point. “Before that, what gave us away?”

“From the moment Aunt Minty took ill.” Felicity huffed a sigh. “Aunt Minty has never been sick a day in her life, and when I questioned her as to what was going on, she told me.”

“But…but…” Tally tried to put the words together.

Meanwhile, Felicity had thrown up her hands and was pacing the carpet. “Why didn’t I stop you from trying this harebrained scheme?” She shuddered. “Because I knew Pippin was determined to see Dash freed. And I could have put my foot down, but that would have only prodded her to do something
utterly rash. At least your plan had Miss Porter’s approval, so I had to assume there was some sanity behind this madness.”

Tally nodded. Without their former teacher’s help, her knowledge of the Foreign Office operations through her marriage to Lord John Tremont, and Bruno’s brute force, none of this would have been possible.

“Oh, Tally, couldn’t you see the risk you put us all at? How ruinous this might be for Hollindrake?”

“I knew,” she said miserably. “I felt terrible, but Pippin couldn’t do it alone. And she—”

“Wasn’t going to fail him, yes, I know.” Felicity reached out and squeezed her sister’s hand. “What has gone wrong?”

“Larken says—” Tally began. “Oh, the man you think is Mr. Ryder is Lord Larken, sent by—”

“Yes, yes, the Foreign Office. Of course I knew, for he was—” She stopped for a moment. “Never mind that. What does Larken say?”

Tally eyed her sister and tried to determine what it was that Felicity had been about to reveal, but shook it off and continued, since time was of the essence. “He claims that a member of
L’Ordre du Lis Noir
has been following us, and with Mrs. Browne’s help has kidnapped Dash and Mr. Jones. He’s gone off to the old stables to stop them, and sent me in here for help.”

“Mrs. Browne?” Felicity’s gaze leapt up as if that was the only point that mattered. “What has she to do with all this?”

“I haven’t the vaguest notion,” Tally said. “We could ask Miss Browne, for there she is.” She pointed
to their former schoolmate, who was preening and posing between two dangling lordlings, with a glowering Grimston just off her elbow. “I told you not to invite her.”

“I wondered when you’d get around to that,” Felicity said, glancing back toward the ballroom. “What have you in mind?”

“I was going to get Hollindrake’s pistol from his desk and follow Larken. I fear he is walking into danger.”

“He most likely is, if the
L’Ordre du Lis Noir
is involved.” She shook her head. “I always knew when Papa said they were just make-believe he wasn’t telling the truth. I think he feared if we knew they were real, we would have run off and joined them.”

“He was probably right,” Tally said.

“Indeed,” Felicity agreed. “You go fetch the pistol, and I shall bring Miss Browne to help us.”

“Miss Browne?” Tally said. “Do you think this is wise?”

“Well, if her mother is involved, then we can use her daughter to our advantage.” She straightened her shoulders and turned to get to work.

Tally caught her by the elbow. “Felicity, you aren’t just using this as an excuse to get even with Miss Browne for all the times she taunted us and paraded her wealth before us, are you?”

Her sister ruffled, and shook Tally’s hand from her arm, then made a polite show of smoothing out her gown for a passerby. When he was gone, she whispered back, “Tally, I would never do such a thing.”

But the sly smile on Felicity’s lips said something else.

“Hollindrake,” Lord Gossett said, as he moved beside his host. “Have you noticed something odd?”

The former army major looked over and smiled as if there was nothing wrong. “That my wife, her cousin, and her sister are all missing?”

“Yes.”

“Actually, my wife is over there,” he nodded across the room to the doorway and the foyer beyond. “It appears she is kidnapping Miss Browne and dragging her from the ball.”