Regina stayed at the window, biting her bottom lip, watching as Thomas made his way toward the corner of the building, then disappeared. Where was he going? What had he seen?
She started counting, timing his disappearance, and had gotten all the way to five hundred by the time he appeared again, running from behind the building, straight into the trees.
Five hundred. She thought about that. He must have been gone—what? Just above five minutes? Only that long? It had seemed like hours. Still, whatever the time, Thomas had seen something, and now he was safely back in the cover of the trees.
It was time to leave, if David could bear to tear himself away.
Regina looked around the room, searching for a bellpull, but there was none. She couldn’t chance going down the stairs to search for anyone, because Allerton might see her, recognize her.
Recognize her? Now that was a thought!
She ran over to the dressing table, pulling open drawers, praying that the flush in Lady Bellinagara’s cheeks had been as false as she’d believed it to be when they’d met. Because where there was one paint pot there would be more.
Sitting down at the dressing table, Regina began pulling the pins from her hair, ruthlessly ridding herself of the lovely upswept style Maude had fashioned for her that morning. “Go away!” she then called out as someone knocked on her door. “I cannot abide interruption when my stomach is unwell. Please just have the carriage brought round and tell my brother I wish to leave in in fifteen minutes. Thank you!”
“But, miss—” a maid said, opening the door.
“Don’t come in, don’t come in!” Regina shouted, her tone frantic as she hid her face in her hands. “I’m so afraid. There are these... things . . all over my face. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God help me! What if it’s smallpox?”
Regina grinned at her reflection as the door shut with a bang and she heard the maid running down the hallway in search of Mrs. Cooper.
She got up, turned the key in the door, just in case Mrs. Cooper was more curious than she was terrified of smallpox, and went back to the dressing table. She had work to do...
~ ~ ~
Brady was looking out one of the drawing-room windows overlooking Portman Square when Bram rode up on his large bay mare, and was already in the foyer when his friend entered the mansion. “Well? What did you learn?”
The duke started to answer, but then just stood back, pointed at Brady. “What in God’s name is that?”
Brady looked down at himself. He was dressed in tan buckskins, but there were bows at his knees. Lace foamed at his throat and cuffs, his yellow waistcoat was embroidered with horses’ heads, and his bright green jacket had so much buckram padding at the shoulders that the moment he stepped outside half of London’s pigeons could roost on them. “Watkins’s idea of what the Continental gentleman should wear while out riding,” he said, dismissing his ridiculous outfit. “What did you learn?”
“Well, first I learned that Lady Belle knows words I thought no lady knew,” Bram said, brushing past Brady to enter the drawing room, going to pour himself a glass of wine. “It’s a good thing Gawain Caradoc is going to do a flit soon. Otherwise, the earl wouldn’t be the only one in the family looking for a way to slip a knife into his back.”
“I’d send round flowers and an apology, but I’m not a nice man,” Brady said, his tension easing, just for a moment. “What else? What about Allerton?”
“He’s gone to Little Woodcote,” Bram told Brady, downing the rest of his wine. “He often goes out there, Lady Belle said, just for the day. You know, I’ve thought about purchasing some sort of quaint country cottage closer to the city, so that Sophie and I could do just that... get the children out of town for a few days, seek a little respite from the—”
Brady held up his hands, so that the duke stopped talking. “He went to Little Woodcote? Alone?”
“Well, now, Brady, how was I going to ask that question? I’m a duke, I have consequence and all that sort of thing. But how odd would it look for me to interrogate Lady Belle about her father’s comings and goings? I don’t know if he went alone. But he’ll be back in town by this evening.”
“So will Regina, if you’re right,” Brady said, picking up his gloves and curly-brimmed beaver. “What do you want to wager that Thomas and David learned where Allerton was going, and then came back here, told Regina, and now they’re all following the man? Possibly all three men? Does that sound logical?”
Bram pursed his lips, nodded. “It does, it does. Sophie would do that. Not the sort of woman to sit back, let someone else have all the fun. Do you remember me telling you about the night the two of us went skulking about, trying to return something my dear aunt had—”
“My horse should be out front by now,” Brady interrupted. “Are you going with me?”
“Gawain, my dear,” Bram said, tapping his own hat back onto his head, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
~ ~ ~
Regina was just putting the finishing touches to her now vastly altered appearance as another knock came on the door. “Rose? Rose! Open this door. Mrs. Cooper says—my God—”
Before David could say anything else, like: “My God, Gina!” Regina pulled him inside and shut and locked the door behind him.
“What in bloody blazes are you doing?” he asked, looking at her, bug-eyed.
“I’m getting us out of here in one piece, that’s what I’m doing,” Regina told him, going over to the bed to pick up her bonnet, fortunately one with a large brim, that partially hid her face.
“But why? I was having a perfectly wonderful time down there,” David protested, obviously having lost sight of the reason he and Regina were here in the first place. “The room is chockful of very interesting people, not that I could understand more than every second word. But Mrs. Cooper brought in these small cakes—all drenched in icing, and with little candy flowers on them—”
“David!” Regina exclaimed, grabbing his arms. “Try to remember why we’re here. I saw Thomas through the windows, and he’s seen something, and now he’s gone back into the woods. They’ll be waiting for us, but if Allerton sees me, they’ll be waiting forever, because you and I will be dead. Do you understand now?”
David frowned, nodded, then pointed at Regina. “But... this?”
“Necessary, believe me. Allerton will want to come out, bid us farewell. I can’t let that happen, now can I?”
“Yes, bu—”
“David,” Regina said, fighting down the urge to slap him senseless—which would have been a fruitless exercise because he most certainly was already senseless, if he didn’t recognize the danger they were in as long as they remained under Allerton’s roof. “David darling,” she said, keeping her temper under control. “You were wonderful. Splendid! But now it’s time for you to take your bows, and leave the stage. Are you up to a last scene?”
David looked toward the windows, then back at Regina. “All right, all right. I’m sorry, Gina. I believe I must have gotten a little carried away. What do you want me to do?”
“Just go back downstairs, order our carriage brought to the door, tell everyone that your sister is quite ill, and then come back upstairs to get me. Nobody will protest, I’m sure, especially if they think I might have smallpox. Take my arm, keep your body between mine and Allerton’s, and get me out of here, all right? Can you do that?”
“Certainly I can—smallpox? You have smallpox? Gina, do you have any idea what that would do to my face?”
“David, do you have any idea what lying under six feet of dirt would do to your face?” Regina asked, longing to shake him. “Now go, go!”
Regina went back over to the dressing table, to inspect her appearance one more time as she tied the bonnet strings under her chin. She allowed her posture to slump, dropped her eyelids to half-mast, worked her jaws together until she had enough saliva to push some of it out of her mouth, to drool down onto her chin. “Perfect,” she said, then took a deep breath and waited for David to come back.
She didn’t have long to wait, but when David returned he wasn’t alone. Mrs. Cooper was with him, her apron held up in front of her, covering her nose and mouth. She stood just outside the opened door and peered in at Regina, who was leaning heavily against the chair in front of the dressing table.
“Oh, please, stay back,” Regina pleaded, raising one arm as if to ward the housekeeper off, then covered her mouth as she began to cough. Loud, terrible coughs that racked her body, shook her shoulders. She moved her hand away, and drool was running down her chin. “So sick... so sick...” she said. “David... David, help me. I want to go home. I need Mama... I want Mama...”
“My stars!” Mrs. Cooper said from behind her apron.
“Rose, darling, you can’t leave here. You’re too sick.” David turned to Mrs. Cooper, put a hand on her arm. “You’ll nurse her, won’t you?”
The housekeeper shook off his hand and stepped back several paces. “Me? But the child wants her mother. You heard her, sir. And your carriage is already outside. Just get her out of here, sir, before His Lordship sees her. As it is, I’ll have to burn everything in Lady Belle’s room. Oh, how will I explain this? Get her gone, sir—get her gone!”
David made a grand scene out of crossing the room, reluctantly taking Regina’s arm, very reluctantly allowing her to lean her weight against him.
Regina wondered if the man was an even better actor than she’d supposed, or if she were the better actor, and David half believed she did have smallpox.
It didn’t matter, really, and within moments they were heading down the stairs, Regina hard-pressed not to break into a run as they passed by the closed doors to the drawing room.
And then they were in the carriage, and Rooster was driving them back to the gatehouse, to the roadway, to the dirt road where Cosmo and Thomas would be waiting for them with news that would either swell Regina’s heart... or break it yet again.
~ ~ ~
Brady and the duke rode in silence once they’d gotten beyond the confines of London streets, not galloping to the rescue without a thought to their horses, but with a controlled urgency that would get them to Little Woodcote in under an hour and still leave their mounts the stamina to leave Little Woodcote in a hurry if that became necessary.
This left time for Brady to think about all that had happened since his first trip to Little Woodcote. The mistakes he’d made, the lessons he’d learned. And time to work on his plan to make Gawain Caradoc disappear while at the same time convincing Regina that if she disappeared, his life would have no meaning at all, the lessons he’d learned would have no value.
He even had time to contemplate the lovely sight a bonfire of his Gawain clothes would make, and reason to contemplate that sight, because his bow-bedecked buckskins were definitely not fashioned for anyone who wanted a comfortable ride in the country.
“Brady—look up ahead,” Bram called to him, just as Brady was trying, yet again, to find a comfortable seat on his mount. “Isn’t that your coach coming toward us?”
Brady peered into the distance, instantly recognizing his coach, and Rooster on the box. He pushed his horse forward, riding to the center of the roadway, and raised both his hands, waving to them so that Rooster saw him, brought the coach to a crashing halt not ten feet from horse and rider.
Brady was off his mount in an instant, and running toward the door of the carriage, pulling it open—just to have Cosmo come tumbling out at him.
“That’s it,” Cosmo grumbled as he picked his bulk up from the ground. “I’ll keep to our wagon, and our peaceful Hecate and Hector. Man drives like a madman, and then stops without warning.” He stood up, began brushing himself down, and then realized to whom he’d been talking. “My lord Singleton?”
“Matilda,” Brady said, tipping his hat. “I think you’ve misplaced your corset.”
“Yes, my lord,” Cosmo said, stepping away from the opened door, so that Brady could see the tangle of arms and legs still inside the carriage. “We’ve good news, my lord.”
“You mean you left her alive so that I can kill her?” Brady asked as Thomas, his long legs exiting first, also disembarked from the carriage. “How very kind.”
Brady’s heart was beating so quickly that he was surprised it didn’t burst from his chest—although the snugness of his horse-head-covered waistcoat would most probably prevent that particular embarrassment. “She is in there, isn’t she?” he asked as David, looking a little less handsome than usual, exited the coach.
The duke had also dismounted, and now stood beside Brady, looking at the three men who had accompanied Miss Regina Bliss to Little Woodcote. “You know, Brady, it wasn’t as if she was unprotected.” He looked again... at Cosmo, who was, for some reason, stuck all over with briars. At Thomas, who was busily patting at his cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief. At David, who was actually running both hands over his face, as if taking inventory, making sure he still had two eyes, one nose, one mouth, and that none of them had been damaged when Rooster stopped the coach and sent the four occupants to tumbling about like dice in a box.
Bram sighed, added, “Well, maybe not protected exactly. But she wasn’t alone, and she is safe. So don’t shout Brady. Believe me, you’ll get nowhere if you shout.”
Brady turned his head slightly, looked at Bram with one eyebrow arched high on his forehead, then turned back to peer into the dimness inside the coach. “Regina!” he bellowed. “Get out here—now!”
“Why is it that people listen to Sophie, when she gives advice?” the duke grumbled, walking back to the two horses before they could wander off.
Brady had just enough time to reconsider his demand when he was suddenly attacked by a robin’s-egg blue gown and matching cape, a straw bonnet whose brim gave him a sharp poke in the eye, and a pair of arms that nearly strangled him.
“Regina!” he exclaimed, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight as her feet remained at least six inches off the ground. “My God, Regina, I thought I’d never see you again.” All his anger forgotten, he whirled about in a circle, squeezing her to him. “But you’re here, I’ve found you...” He reluctantly put her down, stepped back to look at her “... and you’re covered in spots? What in bloody blazes—?”
“That’s what I said, my lord,” David piped up, confident now that his pretty face hadn’t suffered any damage in his unexpected tumble onto the floor of the coach. “She said smallpox, but I say she looks much more like measles. What do you say?”
Brady was still looking at Regina. Her hands, her entire face were dotted with red bumps, the complexion beneath those red bumps a pale, sickly white. He lifted a hand, rubbed his thumb over her cheek—and the red bumps smudged. “Do I want to know about this?” he asked her.
She shook her head, smiling through tears that streamed down her face, washing away that sickly complexion. “No, I don’t think you do, my lord,” she said honestly, and then launched herself into his arms once more. “They’re alive, Brady! Mama and Papa—they’re alive!”
“Yes, I thought they might be,” Brady said, closing his eyes for a moment, wondering how and where this would all go now, with this added complication—a delightful complication, but a complication just the same.
“I have a suggestion, Brady,” the duke said, as if able to see inside his mind. “One of these fine gentlemen can accompany me back to town on your horse, and the other two can keep Rooster company on the box. Or am I wrong, and you and Miss Bliss don’t feel the need for some private conversation?”
By way of answer, Brady picked up Regina and, with a dexterity that amazed even him, got the both of them inside the carriage, the door closed behind them, and the shades drawn tight... all within the space of a heartbeat.
~ ~ ~
Regina clung to Brady’s neck, unwilling, perhaps unable, to let him go. “I didn’t see them, but Thomas talked to them and they’re just fine, fine. They’ve been prisoners, with Papa forced to produce another black tulip. Oh, Brady, Papa’s promised success this time, and they have only a few days left before the blooms open. We’ve come to the rescue just in time! Of course, not just now. We should probably go back to London now, and come back later because... well, never mind about that. You probably already know, don’t you?”
She lifted her head slightly, looked at the smears of makeup on Brady’s jacket. Inanely, because her mind was still having trouble thinking in anything resembling a straight line, she said, “Oh, dear. I’ve ruined your coat.”
“Ah, such a pity.” Brady pulled her close once more. “Come home with me, Regina, and promise me you’ll ruin the rest,” he told her, and she smiled as she felt his chest rise and fall as he laughed out loud.
Oh, how she loved this man. And, oh, how she must have disappointed him. Leaving Portman Square after he’d specifically told her not to, going off to Little Woodcote, nearly getting herself in some very, very bad trouble.
Regina put her hands against Brady’s shoulders and pushed away from him, even if she remained seated in his lap as the carriage moved toward London. “How? How did you know that Mama and Papa are still alive?”
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Can’t we talk about this later?” he asked, moving his head closer to hers.
“But... but we’ve got to do something. We have to rescue them... get them out of there tonight. We are agreed on that, aren’t we?”
Brady untied the ribbon at her throat. “Tonight. Definitely.”
“Yes, tonight... before the tulips can... and I must look terrible...”
She was probably going to say something else, but when Brady’s lips touched hers, and her eyes closed, and her stomach did this rather odd little flip inside her... well, Regina seemed to forget exactly what that something else might have been.
“Oh, Brady.” She sighed against his shoulder, as he broke the kiss, began nibbling at the side of her neck. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I shouldn’t have taken you to my bed last night. I shouldn’t have left you this morning,” Brady said between kisses, as he ran his hands over her body. “I should have told you that I love you... told you how much I love you.”
Regina didn’t notice the tears that ran down her cheeks. “I—I returned the pearls,” she said, tilting her head so that he could continue to kiss her throat, press his lips against the skin of her chest where it rose above the low neckline of her gown. “I thought it would be better for you if I left London. I thought you were only grateful to me. I thought—”
“You think too much,” Brady told her, raising his head to look down into her face. “You talk too much, and you think too much, most especially if you thought it could possibly be better for me if you left London. The only thing that would be better, for me, princess, is to never again wake without you in my arms. I love you, princess. I love you so much.”
“Oh, Brady, and I love you. I love Gawain. Mama and Papa are alive. I love everybody!” Regina told him, then gave herself over to his kiss once more.
~ ~ ~
“You know, old friend, you should be careful, walking around with that smug look on your face. Someone might want to wipe it off,” the duke said, as Brady entered the drawing room just as the clock on the mantel struck the hour of eight.
Brady, fresh from his tub and dressed now in his own familiar—and comfortable—clothing, grinned as he poured his friend a glass of wine, then another for himself. “Now you know how I felt each time either you or Kipp looked at your lovely brides. Amazing, isn’t it, how one small woman can barge in, change your life.”
Bram accepted the glass Brady offered, then sat back, crossed one long, muscular leg over the other. “Thomas and I had a very interesting discussion on our way back to town. So it’s true. The mother and father are alive. I know we’d thought so, what with Kenward going on about fortunes and posies.”
“And colors,” Brady reminded him, sitting down on the facing couch. “Of course, if you’ve spoken to Thomas, you now know that we all came to the same conclusion by traveling along entirely different roads.”
“Yes,” Bram said, smiling. “I heard.”
Brady shook his head. “Regina has finally told me everything. I don’t believe it—I still don’t believe it. She didn’t want to tell me she had gone off into the bushes for... personal reasons, and then when she came back, the wagon, and her parents, were gone. Her parents just left her there, almost as if they’d forgotten she existed, or at least that’s how Regina sees it. I’m not so sure. To me, I think her parents didn’t want anyone to know Regina was with them at all—that they were protecting her. Anyway, she didn’t want to make her parents sound uncaring, so she lied to us. She never woke to shouts, her father never told her to run—”
“Run like the wind, I think is what Thomas said she’d told him. Highly dramatic words. You should have suspected something then, old friend.”
Shrugging, Brady said, “True, but in my own defense, they are a family of players. I saw nothing too strange in the melodrama of the thing. I think I’m only surprised she didn’t say her father spouted some Shakespearean quote to warn her.”
Bram put a hand to his heart. “‘Over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough brier—’ run, run, my dearest child.”
“Yes, something like that,” Brady agreed, smiling. “But it wasn’t like that at all. Her parents went off willingly enough with Allerton, they just didn’t come back. And, since Allerton never saw Regina, he had no idea that she was out there, waiting for them to return. The rest of it is pretty much the same, with Regina going to the estate, seeing her parents’ wagon. She waited, for days, a week, perched on the stone wall, watching for them, but they never appeared, and on the third day, the wagon was burned.
“I believe I would have come to the same conclusion Regina did,” Bram said, sighing. “Why burn the wagon if there were people to ride in it? Thomas told me they’d waited for Regina and her parents for nearly two weeks, but then moved on because they had to earn their supper and couldn’t do it where they were. They followed the usual circuit, the one they’d traveled for years, hoping that Regina and her parents would catch up with them, but they didn’t. Because the parents were locked up in Little Woodcote, and Regina was in London with Cast-iron Gert, then with Kipp and Abby and, finally, with you.”
“But when Regina met up with Thomas and the others again, and she told them her story, Cosmo got it into his head that even Allerton wouldn’t be so stupid as to kill the golden goose, that as long as he believed Blissington could produce a black tulip, he’d keep them alive. And he was right.” Brady looked into his empty glass. “I suppose Thomas also told you what he learned from Regina’s parents today?”
The duke nodded. “After at least another half dozen failures, Mr. Blissington has promised that, this time, he has done it. There will be at least one hundred black tulips going from bud to bloom before the week is out. That’s why Allerton has his foreign guests, and that’s why he’s told his son they’ll soon be rich as Croesus.”
“But if Blissington fails this time, he will be dead. Allerton’s desperate, in part because of me. I waved Regina under his nose, wore those damn tulips in my buttonhole, went after Thorndyke. He has to know something has gone wrong, that someone—either Gawain or myself—is on to him. Now that I think about it, even if those tulips turn out really to be black, the Blissingtons are already as good as dead. Allerton can’t afford leaving any evidence around, just in case I decide to tell the world what I know. Still, we’re lucky in one thing. The Blissingtons have been prisoners for so long that Allerton has gotten careless—or doesn’t have the funds to hire more than a single guard. A tap on the guard’s head, and we’re in the greenhouse, then out again with the Blissingtons.”
“You’re right. It’s barely a challenge. So we go back to Little Woodcote tonight, get them out of there,” Bram said, standing up, signaling his readiness to be off. “And Allerton, if he hears that they’re gone before we can do anything to expose him, will probably bless his luck, because then he won’t have to worry about disposing of them. As long as we leave the tulips behind, that is.”
But Brady shook his head. “I’ve already involved you enough, my friend. Sophie would have my head if anything happened to you.”
“Brady,” the duke said, grinning, “Sophie would have your head if you spoiled my fun.”
“We’ll be leaving in about five minutes,” Brady told him. “As soon as Thomas joins us. I thought it best that the Blissingtons saw a familiar face when we break down the door to rescue them.”
“Good point. And Regina? What about her? Surely she wants to go along.”
Brady smiled. “Regina is quite content to stay here in Portman Square and allow me to effect the rescue, thank you very much. She trusts me, you know.”
The duke looked at him curiously. “My God, man, you may be full leagues ahead of either Kipp or me, if she already listens to you like that. My compliments.”
“Accepted,” Brady said, shooting his cuffs. “I don’t see why you and our friend Kipp had so much trouble. I explained the situation, pointed out that she’d simply be in the way, and she agreed. I’m the man, she’s the woman. I effect the rescue, and she waits here, ready to serve tea or whatever when we get back. Where’s the problem? Perhaps you’d like lessons... ?”
“Very amusing. Now come on, let’s go. I’d like to be back in town before morning—because we’ll need a full day to plan exactly how you’re going to make this all come right.”
“Oh, I’ve already worked that out in my head,” Brady said, following his friend to the foyer. “Didn’t I tell you that? Regina says I’m brilliant. And I think she’s right.”
~ ~ ~
“There they go,” Regina said, peering out the window overlooking Portman Square. “With any luck, they’ll be back before midnight, Mama and Papa with them.”
“Or even earlier, as the night is fine, the moon will be full, and the earl’s horses are the finest, even if Rooster is in the box.” Cosmo, who had been sitting at his ease in one of His Lordship’s chairs in front of the fireplace, looked at David and said, “Are you going to be all night? The pawn, boy, the pawn. It’s your only move.”
“But then you’ll have my queen,” David protested, shaking his head. “I’ll never win at this game.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re so pretty, isn’t it?” Cosmo said, as Regina came up behind his chair, leaned over it, kissed the top of his head as she slid her arms down and over his shoulders. “The key isn’t in my pocket, dearest, but with the earl. We’re as locked up tight in here as you are. I think we’re only here to make sure you don’t tie the bedsheets together and go out the window. That would be your alternate plan, I suppose?”
Regina hit her palms against the top of the chair, muttered something unlovely under her breath, and went back to the window. “I can’t believe he locked us in here. I did say I’d stay, didn’t I? I even promised him. Anyone would think he didn’t trust me.”
“Yes,” Cosmo said, winking at David. “Anyone would. I really like that young man.” David sighed, finally made his move, and Cosmo leaned forward, picked up the black queen: “Checkmate.”