Regency Rogues: A Winter's Night: The Winterley Scandal / The Governess Heiress

Chapter Seven

‘Eve…’ The desperate whisper came before someone noticed she and Carter were standing on the fringes of this wild party and came to find out who was hiding under their ingenious disguises.

If they weren’t careful they’d be seen by too many curious eyes under the glow of what looked like a thousand candles in the noisy ballroom ahead of them and someone might recognise her. Eve could just see the curtains of an alcove off the corridor they were almost at the end of and thanked heavens they had not had to brave the full glare of the crowd ahead to search for her almost cousin.

‘Verity?’ she whispered sharply. ‘What the deuce are you doing here?’ she asked, hoping the boy who carelessly drew a fifteen-year-old girl into this rowdy chaos didn’t come to find out if she had turned up for an assignation she was far too young to understand.

‘I was looking for a way out,’ Verity said, looking very pale and deeply shocked by what she had seen so far, as well as a bit woebegone.

Perhaps this latest escapade had overwhelmed even her high spirits and it would make her think twice about trying to run before she was ready to walk in so-called polite society. Eve couldn’t think it very polite, or even glamorous after this circus herself, so maybe letting Verity see the dark side of it all wasn’t such a bad idea, if they could only get her out of here relatively unscathed and with her reputation intact, despite Rufus Louburn’s worst efforts.

‘At least you have done one sensible thing tonight, then,’ Eve whispered sharply, not inclined to be disarmed after what she and Mr Carter had already been through on this little madam’s behalf.

‘Leave her be for now, you can scold her once we have all got safely away,’ Carter cautioned softly. ‘And let’s hope we don’t have to go back the way we came. Those two drunken idiots could be awake and howling for revenge on us by now,’ he murmured in her ear. She stifled a giggle as he managed to make a joke of what could have been a vicious struggle for more than she wanted to think about right now.

‘Ah, I thought so. I knew there had to be more than one back stairway down to the vast basement there must be under the house,’ he whispered as a jib door Eve hadn’t even thought to look out for opened under his probing fingers and showed her once again that he was a lot more composed than she was after that earth-shaking kiss. It had seemed about to make her world anew for a wild moment and perhaps it was only one on a long list of such sweet encounters for him. Didn’t soldiers have a sweetheart in every town they passed through? The contrast between dashing Mr Carter of the 95th Rifles and the shabby clerk she’d met that night at Derneley House made her wonder if there might be other versions of this complex man for her to discover, if she dared to look.

At least the narrow stair he’d found was lit by the occasional ensconced candle, she saw with a shudder. The bareness and gloom behind the narrow door made her feel as if the walls might press in on her, but this was what maids endured every day of their lives so their employers could enjoy the privacy and luxury of nigh invisible service. If she and Verity had been born to poverty they might be the ones labouring every hour God sent at this very moment; enduring the insecurity and danger that went with being young and female in such a household. Instead they were stumbling down the bare wooden stairs in Mr Carter’s wake and Eve couldn’t let her fear show with Verity between them and her fragile young shoulders shaking so hard she was clearly on the verge of hysteria.

‘Oh, Eve, thank God you came.’ Verity launched herself at Eve once they reached the bottom of the cramped stairway and it opened into a grim little stairwell with gloomy corridors stretching four different ways. A storm of frightened tears threatened until Carter bowed as if Verity was a lot more grown up than she appeared right now and bade her a smooth, ‘Good evening, Miss Revereux.’

‘You’re Eve’s Mr Carter, aren’t you? I remember you from the park.’

‘Maybe I am then, but we really must get out of here before midnight when everyone is obliged to take their masks off, you know? If we meet any servants on our way, we shall have to pretend to be a very scandalous trio indeed. You and your cousin are going to be my pretty ladybirds for the night. Do you think you can act such a wild part? I know it’s a lot to ask after all you witnessed tonight, but I really don’t want to be dragged back into that ballroom and made to unmask, do you?’

‘No,’ Verity said with such a fervent shake of her head Eve wondered once again exactly what she had seen tonight.

‘Very well, you only need endure this pretence for a few more minutes and then we’ll have you out of here and back at Farenze House as if you were fast asleep all the time,’ he said with a grin Eve caught herself being fiercely jealous of.

She wondered at herself again when he draped an arm round each of their shoulders and hugged her so close every inch of her skin felt man-warmed and prickly and responsive to him and him alone. Heaven forbid Verity felt even a hint of the sizzling excitement that was running through her like wildfire. At least that notion sobered her sharply enough to seem cool when he looked down at her with one raised eyebrow, as if to say, Needs must when the devil drives, so don’t blame me.

‘Is my scar visible?’ he asked prosaically and she gave an almost wifely sigh and raised both her own brows at his unexpected vanity. ‘I don’t want us to stand out in any way but the obvious,’ he whispered as if he had read her mind and couldn’t believe she thought him so shallow.

‘Set me free,’ she demanded and reached up to ruffle his unruly hair until it curled as far as Mr Carter had left her length enough to work with. As she pushed and pulled it to hide the mark of his ordeal at Waterloo her hand shook as the reality of how close he’d come to death hit home and made her eyes water at the thought of never being able to know him at all. Reminding herself she couldn’t afford to fall in love with this mystery of a man, she stood back and eyed her handiwork critically. His hair had felt as intriguing as she thought it might the first night they met. Soft and at the same time full of life and she still wasn’t quite sure if it was more gold or brown in the dim light, any more than his eyes could decide between the same colours as they watched her with a question in them that had nothing to do with how unmemorable she had managed to make him.

‘That’s better,’ Verity said in a whisper that barely wobbled at all, so at least she was beginning to recover some of her usual spirit.

‘And don’t push it out of your eyes when you’re not thinking and ruin my handiwork, will you?’ Eve chided him. And how had she let herself notice that he did exactly that when he was distracted? They had not met enough times for her to need two hands to count them on and she was picking up on his habits as if he was her lifetime study. This silliness really would have to stop. ‘And you had best lean some of your weight on me and do your best not to limp as well,’ she added briskly.

‘I suppose I must,’ he said ruefully. ‘Now if you will both loosen your laces and ruffle your own hair and try to look a lot more undone than you are right now, ladies, I think we will be able to get on with this private masquerade of ours and have you both safely back home before the clocks strike midnight.’

Two hours could drag by on broken wheels or be so full of incidents it was almost impossible to believe so little time had passed since she set out, Eve mused. Verity even seemed to be enjoying the joke now. She unbuttoned her velvet jacket and undid the laces of her shirt so it would gape open to prove she really wasn’t the uninformed youth her breeches argued. If this charade reignited her step-cousin’s adventurous nature, Eve supposed she had to be glad, even if she didn’t want Verity thinking such folly should ever be repeated. She would just have to find a way to calm her down when they got home, lest Verity wake half the household with overwrought high spirits. Eve felt cool air on the exposed upper slopes of her own bosom as she did as Carter asked as well. Very adult emotions shivered through her when his gaze followed the soft stuff of her borrowed gown as it fell open, then he lingered hungrily on the last remaining slice of ribbon that left her shift straining on the edge of decency between her breasts, as if he badly wanted to undo it and explore even more of her than he already had.

‘That will have to do,’ she told him severely, because she badly wanted him to as well and that was wrong in so many ways she could hardly count them.

‘At least that much temptation should distract any healthy males we happen to meet on our travels,’ he said as if that was all that mattered, and he was right, wasn’t he?

Luckily most of the servants were still upstairs waiting on the company and the kitchen maids too busy in the scullery to see aught but steam and a mountain of dirty dishes and pots and pans. Which only left a chef sitting at the smaller table in the kitchen and trying not to fall asleep in the remnants of one of his own creations and a pastry cook to be shocked by the quality sneaking out through their domain with a few flustered giggles from the so-called ladies and a bad-dog smirk from a happy-looking gentleman who was stealing away from this wild party with a woman under each arm.

‘Lucky dog,’ the chef said with a regretful sigh and a jaded look at the bridling cook, as if to say some men had all the luck tonight and he wasn’t one of them.

‘Devils the lot of them and just look at that brazen hussy flaunting her legs and everything else she has like some doxy in the Haymarket,’ the cook said in disgust. ‘All of them no better than they should be and yet they calls themselves quality, disgusting is what I say they are.’

Verity giggled delightedly and Eve gave Carter an angry nudge to let him know he would have to put more of his weight on her shoulders if he was to pass as a run-of-the-mill rake and not a limping one. ‘La, but he’s even more drunk than I thought he was,’ she hissed at Verity in a stage whisper, hoping any sign of a stagger in his step would seem to be from too much alcohol and not war.

‘Let’s hurry up then, before he finds another bottle and climbs into it for the night,’ her devious little relative by marriage replied in the affected tones of a lady intent on being very unladylike indeed and daring the world to stop her.

Eve managed a false titter and even wiggled her hips so provocatively the chef ought to remember her walk and not Carter’s, if anyone asked him to describe such a disgraceful trio, should the Louburn brothers escape and start baying for Carter’s blood.

‘You win,’ he murmured so softly only she could hear him and he finally let some of his weight fall on her shoulder until they were safely across the vast kitchen and out of the open door, into the dark coldness of the night and up stone steps into the street that served the back of these tall town houses.

‘Hush,’ he ordered them both when Verity would have said something gleeful about their lucky escape and danced about in triumph, ‘you’re not safe home yet. Take off that mask now and button yourself up again before you catch your death, there’s a good girl.’

Eve could sense Verity’s mouth firming sulkily at being called a good girl after such a grown-up adventure, but if anyone deserved to be treated like a naughty schoolgirl tonight it was she. ‘Or shall we call you a crass idiot for what you did tonight if you prefer not to be called so?’ she whispered severely in Verity’s ear.

‘I’m so sorry, Eve, really I am,’ the contrary, exasperating and disarming girl said humbly.

‘There will be plenty of time for all that later,’ Carter told them both impatiently.

Eve felt his fingers searching for the strings of her mask because she hadn’t hurried to do as she was bid fast enough. This has to stop, she told herself, as her breath caught at the heady sensation of his fingers winnowing through her disordered curls. A foolish little shiver slid down her neck when he brushed against her vulnerable-feeling nape and the whole of her body wanted to respond to him as if he was her lover now. A longing she had never wanted to feel until she met him shook her right down to her toes. She told herself it was a sigh of relief that she let out when he found the strings of her mask, undid it and put the silly, frivolous thing in his pocket before she could grab it as a keepsake of a night she ought to want to start forgetting even before it was properly over.

‘That’s better, this time we are going to be a respectable, middling sort of couple with a very sulky young gentleman in our charge. As long as you keep that cap on and don’t speak above a whisper we may get away with it in the dark, Miss Verity,’ he said softly as he pushed the odd stray wisp of golden hair under the velvet jockey cap Verity had at least had enough sense to wear when she set out on this shocking scrape tonight.

Carter offered Eve his arm as if they were about to take a stroll in the park and what could she do but take it like the obedient wife she was supposed to be right now? Control of their latest misadventure had slipped inexorably from her fingers the moment they got into Warlington House and she supposed he had got them this far without disaster, so she might as well go along with officer Carter for a little longer. They crept round the most shadowy edge of the square and were soon out of it and back in the wider world again. Eve allowed herself a moment to imagine how it would feel to be creeping through the darkness without him and terror whispered in her ear. Luckily he was here, though, and she could wait to review imagined terrors when they were safely at home and in their beds. Right now it was still quite early by ton standards, so now and again a fashionable town carriage would rattle past on the way to a different party or to clubs and less public assignations. It wasn’t as busy as it would be in the spring, but Mayfair was still lively on a chilly October night.

Eve was glad she could walk in Carter’s shadow as they passed tall town houses where entertainments were being held tonight, or a smart coach swept past on the way to somewhere else. How could she feel so safe and oddly interested in how the night felt when she wasn’t part of that busy round of doing nothing much in grand style? Because Carter was here, she let herself know. His muscular arm was warm under her fingers and his body so close it felt as though he was her security and such a sure strength—why would she let him go at the end of this reckless adventure? You know why, common sense and her mother’s blasted reputation whispered in her ear and how ardently she wished they would go away right now.

‘Is there some way you can get back inside without being found out?’ Carter murmured when they finally reached Farenze House and all seemed serene, so at least neither she nor Verity had been missed.

‘Yes,’ Eve whispered. ‘Goodnight and thank you, Mr Carter.’

‘Hasn’t he got a given name?’ Verity asked a bit too loudly.

‘Hush, Verity, and don’t be nosy. Remember what you did tonight before you say another word to those of us who were forced to lie and risk far too much to rescue you from your stupidity.’

‘I was going to say then we are deeply in your debt, whoever you are, sir,’ Verity managed with almost grown-up dignity.

‘Please don’t mention it and I mean that in every sense, by the way. It will be best if we pretend we can’t really remember one another if we ever happen to meet again, Miss Revereux. Now I must bid you both goodnight and try to smuggle myself back into Derneley House unseen, before Mr Carter scandalises the whole neighbourhood by being caught out here with two young ladies so late at night.’

A brief touch of Eve’s hand as if he was bidding goodnight to a nodding acquaintance and Mr Carter strode off into the darkness as if they had imagined him. He might be gone from their sight, but Eve knew somehow that he stopped to watch them creep inside the house and make sure they were finally safe. He was simply that sort of man, she admitted to herself as she rushed Verity up the stairs so she could light a candle and show it at the window just long enough for him to know they were safe home and had not been caught.

‘Go to bed, Verity, you will answer to me in the morning and you’re lucky I didn’t call Papa and Chloe back from their dinner with the Laughraines. I only decided not to do so because I won’t have Chloe upset by your idiocy at the moment and risk harming the baby.’

‘I thought you weren’t going to ring a peal over my head until tomorrow,’ Verity said sulkily.

‘Then you’d best hurry to get into bed before I change my mind, and before you do kindly hide that disgraceful disguise you stole before Bran finds it and raises the roof,’ Eve ordered wearily, sinking down on to her own feather bed and wondering if she had it in her to undress, let alone brush her curls into good order, then hide the best gown she must somehow get back to the head housemaid’s room in good order tomorrow, before the girl realised her box had been tampered with and it was gone.

‘He is very handsome,’ Verity said with a sneaky look, as she pulled off her cap and let her golden mane tumble down over her shoulders. Then she even had the cheek to sit and brush it with Eve’s hairbrush as if this was a night much like any other. ‘Lend me a nightdress and I will go,’ she responded to Eve’s unspoken demand to be left in peace.

‘Why should I?’ Eve demanded grumpily. It seemed unfair that Verity had come out of tonight’s brouhaha looking like a part-time angel and Eve’s whole life felt as if it had been turned upside down and she couldn’t seem to get it right again.

‘Because I don’t want to be caught wandering the corridors at night in these very comfortable breeches and a gentleman’s shirt. I won’t go away and let you dream of Mr Carter until you let me change into something less improper.’

‘You should have thought of that before you stole those breeches from the attic and remember you’re the one with cause to feel ashamed of herself tonight and not me, Verity Revereux.’

‘True, but I didn’t drag the most intriguing stranger I ever met into the midst of a potential scandal, then watch him deal with it as if I couldn’t take my eyes off him either.’

‘At least I didn’t risk my reputation for the sake of an idiot.’

‘Rufus is very silly, isn’t he?’ Verity said with a heavy sigh that admitted she was shocked and disappointed by her evening.

‘Yes, and his looks are only on the outside, Verity, inside he is no better than his brothers.’

‘He didn’t even bother to wait for me. I went to so much trouble to get into that horrid house undetected, but he was dancing with a woman old enough to be his mother when I got there. Then he kissed her and they disappeared for ages and ages,’ Verity said tragically, then shrugged and went back to plundering Eve’s drawers until she found a nightdress warm enough to roam draughty corridors and not catch cold. ‘I realised Rufus is fickle as the wind and dim as a rushlight tonight,’ she added mournfully. ‘And he isn’t even very nice either; I really can’t imagine what I ever saw in him now.’