Leo knew that it was wrong to hide in other people’s gardens and then follow their maids, but he had been left with no other choice. If he wished to find her, he would have to partake in some unruly activities, and that was simply how it had to be.
Besides, dukes were hardly ever spoken down to even if they did commit some mild misdemeanors.
He had not known, truly, why he had done it. He only knew that he received an invitation to a ball at Bedford Manor and knew that he had a real opportunity to find the girl he had known so long ago. She had disappeared without a trace one day, and no matter what had become of her, he needed to find answers. Perhaps that was why he required a moment with the maid.
She was intriguing, to be sure, and she did not know that he was a duke, or at least she did not seem to care at all, which only served to interest him further. There was simply one problem; she was not who he was looking for, and had they been caught together they would have been wracked with scandal, and he may well have been forced to marry a maid. He did not care too much for status, of course, but his lady was by no means a maid, and he would only make the poor girl miserable by trapping her in a loveless marriage.
Walking into the ball, he did not feel any more confident that he would find her. He had taken the opportunity to attend a masquerade ball at the earl’s home, as he could conceal his identity while trying to locate her, but he had not considered that finding a lady he could not remember all too well would be difficult, and he only had her name to go by.
Be it a miracle or magic, he would need something to achieve his goal.
“Good evening, my lord,” he said politely to his hosts, the only two that were unmasked. “My lady.”
“And good evening to you,” the earl said with a smile. “Who might you be?”
“The Marquess of Shrewsbury,” he lied.
Leo, the Duke of Alnwick, was all too aware that his father had been an extremely close friend of the Earl of Bedford, and so it was easier to use the name of a friend who was traveling. There was no need for the new earl to be on his guard about what the late earl’s close friend would be there for.
“A marquess,” the countess replied with a smile. “Why, you simply must meet my daughter!”
This must have been the daughter that the maid had been talking about. She was not the lady that he was searching for; he knew from the moment he saw her blonde hair, but she seemed pleasing enough. That was, if he ignored the sour expression she had when she momentarily pulled her mask away.
“Perhaps.” He nodded. “Might the two of you have any other young ladies with you?”
They all seemed to take great offense to this, and Leo wondered if he had truly hurt their feelings so much by not pledging his life to the young lady in front of him the second their eyes met.
“No, only our darling Imogen,” the countess said in a measured tone, “but I can assure you that she is everything that a gentleman such as yourself could possibly want and more.”
“I do not doubt that, but I am not here to find a wife.”
“Then why are you here?”
Had he not been using the identity of a friend, he would have been far more coarse with the three of them, but he could not in good faith ruin a friend of his through speaking out of turn.
“I was invited,” he explained. “And should I find a match, then that is all well and good, but in truth, I am here to acquaint myself with the ton. I am new to my role, you see.”
“I thought you became the marquess five years ago? Surely, you have adapted by now.”
His cover practically blown, Leo decided that it was better not to speak at all. With a polite nod, he excused himself and escaped into the mass of people laughing and drinking and gossiping. Usually, he hated such pastimes, but this time, he knew that he had to listen out for something, anything, that might aid him in his search.
“Brother!” Came a booming voice, and several of those in attendance turned to look.
Leo knew perfectly well who it was, of course.
“Brother,” he responded calmly, followed by a hushed, “the Marquess of Shrewsbury does not have a brother. Watch your tongue!”
“No, but the Earl of Colchester does. That is the name I gave the hosts. Fools, the pair of them.”
“We are in agreement about their intelligence, to be sure, but even so, you cannot greet me like that! We have a job to do here.”
“No, you have a job to do here. I am in attendance for the brandy and the ladies.”
“Then go dance with the hosts’ daughter. They certainly seemed eager to hand her over to me, even without knowing about the dukedom.”
“If you think that I would be willing to dance with Miss Imogen Cottrel, then you ought to attend the nearest asylum. She is awful.”
“How do you know of her?”
“The gentlemen at my club have told me all about her. It is not so much her, in all honesty, but her parents. They are so desperate to marry her off that it can only be seen as them trying to rid themselves of her, which does not bode well for her.”
“Can you not even do it for me, Dylan?”
“Leo, my answer is no. If you want it doing so much, then do it yourself. I do not care about whatever request you are fulfilling. I want no part in it.”
“But Father—”
“Father asked you to do it, and you agreed to. I had no part in the conversation, and I am only here because there is alcohol. Now, if you wish to find more information, Lady Imogen is just there. She will be more than happy to dance with a marquess, as you said.”
With a sigh, Leo dragged himself back to where Lady Imogen was standing and bowed.
“Might you accompany me for the first dance?”
At last, her expression changed to a smile, and she curtseyed politely and took his arm.
As the music began, he noticed that she was holding his arm tightly. For such a small and slight lady, there was certainly a good amount of force in her.
“So, my lord,” she began, “what made you change your mind about dancing with me?”
“There was no change of my mind required. I simply required a moment to think about you.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think that you have a pleasing smile, when you are smiling.”
“Thank you, my lord, but I must admit that nobody has ever told me that before.”
This was likely because she hardly ever did, Leo thought, but he did not say as much to her, partly because he might have been thrown out of the party on the spot but also because he needed her to talk.
“Are you not well-liked by gentlemen?”
“I am liked well enough, but unlike my parents, I am looking for only the best for my husband. I have been raised to a high standard, and I shall require the same of any matches that are suggested to me.”
“That is…sensible.”
“Thank you. I would agree. Perhaps I simply need to find a gentleman who is as sensible as I am?”
“As for the other young ladies in your family, do they have the same idea as you?”
She froze, her hold on his arm slipping.
“There are no other young ladies in my family, my lord. There is only myself.”
“No young ladies in your entire family?”
“None at all, which is perhaps why they are so willing to marry me off. For me, however, it only shows me how important it is that I make the perfect match.”
“And so you have no cousins, or sisters, or even half-sisters?”
She seemed to redden, irritated that he would dare press the matter further, or even the suggestion that she might be a liar.
“I am the only one.” She nodded. “Why do you ask? Am I not pretty enough for you?”
“You most certainly are pretty!” He almost choked then continued, “No, it is nothing like that at all, I am only curious because it is strange for a family to only have one child.”
“My parents were content with me,” she said brightly. “I am all that they need, they say, and they trust that I shall make a good enough match that they shall have never needed a son at all.”
Leo wondered exactly why her parents had been so intent on making her this confident, since if she wished for a match, it would have been far better for her to be meek and demure. He could not stand ladies like that, but he knew that most gentlemen adored them. Strictly speaking, her behavior did not make sense. She was certainly nothing like Genevieve, that much was certain.
Genevieve, from what he could remember, had been a bright and vivacious girl. She made him laugh, but she never had to be unkind to another person in order to be. She was simply funny, kind, and secretly very intelligent indeed. He called it a secret, but it was not because she hid it deliberately but because nobody seemed to ever ask her.
His father adored her wholly. He always had, and had called her the jewel of London on more than one occasion. He had been the best friend of her father, but then the late Earl of Bedford had passed and suddenly his daughter vanished. Leo had only known her from when they were children, but he had heard so much about her that when his father requested that he find her, he simply could not refuse.
Then again, one does not refuse a dying man’s wish, not when it is their father’s.
And so there he was, trying in vain to find a girl who seemingly did not wish to be found, and there was nothing that he could do about it.
“My lord?”
Leo came to, and he was reminded that he was dancing with Lady Imogen. She seemed perturbed, likely because he had not been listening to her for who knew how long.
“My apologies,” he said quickly. “As you were saying?”
“I asked if you were looking for a wife. You told my parents that you are not actively seeking one, but that if the right lady came along, you might change your mind.”
“That was…That was out of politeness.”
She hated his confession, he could see as much instantly.
“In truth,” he continued, “I am grieving my father’s death even now, and I do not think it is the right time to marry. I, therefore, do not think it would be right to court a lady and make her think I wish to marry her when I cannot, when she could just as easily find another gentleman that wishes to marry her now.”
“I would be willing to wait,” she said softly. “I understand completely that you are grieving, although five years is a long time to do so. To the extent that you cannot marry, that is.”
“One year.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It has been one year,” he explained, “not five.”
“But my parents said that—”
“And I am sure that you have fabricated parts of yourself, too, Lady Imogen. The Marquess of Shrewsbury lost his father five years ago. My father died less than one year ago. Forgive me, but I require more time before marriage, and that applies to every lady in London, no matter how desperate they might be.”
It was cutting, and he had tried so hard not to speak in such a manner when disguised as a friend, but he would find a way to make amends if anything were to end badly. Unfortunately, he had been pushed too far, and he could no longer stand to be around the young lady.
The music ended, and they bowed and curtseyed before he returned her to her parents, nodding before rushing away. If Lady Imogen did not wish to tell him what he needed to hear, then he would ask others. He had to find out the truth for his father’s sake, whether he was there to see what came of her or not.
“Excuse me,” he addressed a group of older ladies. “You wouldn’t happen to know the whereabouts of the late earl’s daughter, would you?”
The ladies seemed to exchange glances with one another from behind their masks until at last, one of them spoke.
“You see, she disappeared when her father died. After his death, she was never heard from again. It was all so sudden.”
“You mean to tell me that nobody will have seen her?”
“It is my assumption that no,” she replied sadly, “the rumors were rife at the time, of course, but over time everyone seemed to accept that she was gone.”
“I heard that she passed when her father did,” one of them said suddenly. “And I suppose that is the one that I always assumed was correct.”
“Personally,” another added, “I heard that she was taken to the country to be with an aunt. Her mother’s sister, if I recall correctly. She was a spinster that was all too happy to have the extra help.”
“The poor girl. She had such prospects here in London, and now…”
Their bright chatter had been destroyed, Leo knew that much. He thanked them for their time before leaving them be. Once again, he had taken something nice and ruined it, but he tried not to let it get to him. He had a task to do, and he could not let the fear of upsetting people stop him.
But he froze in the middle of the ballroom and thought for a moment. What if they were right? What if Miss Genevieve had passed away at the same time as her father, or a short time after, and so the message of her death was never sent? What if she had been gone all along, and his father had never known?
And if that were the case, and she was long gone, he had failed to make good on the vow he had made on his father’s deathbed. Not only that, but his father might not have been important enough to Miss Genevieve to have been told at all.
Leo did not know which was more heartbreaking to hear.