A Midsummer Night's Sin (5 page)

“Doris Ann?” Regina’s mind was whirling. He had just said he was driving her to his residence? So that he might change out of his shirt? Was
she
being abducted now? “Doris Ann will not be questioned. She’s only the maid.”

“And lucky for her that she is. Aren’t you, Doris Ann?”

The maid bobbed her head in agreement.

“And she won’t say a word to anyone, or else she will be escorted out onto the street without a reference, if not tossed into gaol. Will you, Doris Ann?”

The maid shook her head so violently her mobcap flew off.

“Good. I located the coachman and groom without much difficulty, and they have been persuaded to believe they have been beset by a band of cutthroats who dragged your cousin off at pistol point before disabling the coach, which is why it will not return to your cousin’s domicile until morning. Damned uncivilized place, London, even in the finest neighborhoods at times. I’m surprised anyone is safe. Related to the Earl of Mentmore, are you?”

Regina’s head was spinning. “How…how…”

“The crest on the door. Only an idiot would arrive at Lady Fortesque’s ball in such an easily recognizable coach. How do you think I located the correct coach so easily? You’re not very proficient at intrigue, are you?”

“But you are?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am, luckily for you. And now that we’re settled on that head, my coachman has been instructed to drive straight to the mews behind my residence, where you will remain with the coach while I nip inside to rid myself of this betraying costume. You have between now and the time I return to come up with any missing details sufficient to the problem. I suggest you think in terms of where you were, why you were farther afield from wherever you should have been, why you have no chaperone and why you weren’t taken, as well.”

“I…I stabbed the man who had hold of me. With my hat pin, the one Mama says all chaste young ladies always carry with them. And…and he let me go.”

“Very good, for a beginning,” Robin Goodfellow complimented as the coach pulled into a narrow alleyway and stopped just outside a stable. “Perhaps even too good. You’ve the makings of a commendable liar, Regina.”

“Yes, I know. It’s in my blood,” she said forlornly as he opened the door and jumped out, even before the coach had come to a complete halt.

While Doris Ann sat sniffling, Regina did her best to concentrate on the fib—the great, big, whopping
lie—she would tell her mother. Except that her mother had been left alone with her “company,” and even if the wine had been watered, by this time of night she would be of no help to Regina or to anybody.

And her father? Regina felt her stomach turn over inside her. No, her father wouldn’t be at home when she arrived in any case. How she loathed the man. He was as base and as common and as uncouth as…as any man who would sink to attending such a licentious ball.

She reminded herself that Robin Goodfellow had been there.

This did nothing to lighten her mood, which was rapidly descending into the very depths of desolation.

Yet Miranda’s brother had received an invitation. There were bound to have been other men, supposed gentlemen of the
ton,
in attendance.

Were all men so
base?

It really was too bad she had no desire to enter a nunnery…?.

“Miss Regina? How can we go home without Miss Miranda? Her mama will be that upset, and his lordship will go spare, he really will.”

Regina reached up and at last untied her mask, tossing it out of the dropped-down coach window with some force. “My uncle Seth will have every right to go—that is, to be angry. Terrified. But we must think of Miss Miranda, Doris Ann. We will think of her, and we will be brave. If not entirely honest,” she added, squeezing the maid’s hand.

“Yes, miss. And how will you explain Mr. Goodfellow?”

Regina opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again before making a decision. “He said he would handle the broad strokes. We’ll leave that up to him, shall we? Now quiet, please, I hear footsteps. Yes, here he comes.”

Regina sat forward on the cushion seat and squinted into the darkness, waiting for him to step into the moonlight so that she could finally see his face without that extraordinary mask. She probably would one day convince herself that it was the mask that had destroyed her common sense, that its odd design had somehow enthralled her into doing something she would otherwise have never considered. That her compliance had nothing to do with his pleasant, cultured voice or the way he had placed his hands on her shoulders and nearly caused her heart to stop or the mischief she’d seen in his intelligent blue-green eyes.

It was either that or believing that Grandmother Hackett had taken up permanent residence on her shoulder.

“Oh…” Regina blinked, looked again. “Oh, my goodness.”

He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Now that she could really see him. He was still dressed mostly in black, but his shirt and his faultlessly tied cravat were startlingly white in the moonlight and he had tied back his long, blond hair somehow. He was English, she was certain of that, but he had a nearly
foreign look to him: so very neat, sophisticated, compellingly romantic. The gold-lined cloak was gone, as was the beribboned walking stick that had dropped to the ground when he’d been kissing her, to free his hands so that he could— No, she would forget that, too. She would forget all of that!

He stopped, bent down and picked up the discarded mask before opening the door of the coach. “Lesson number two, fair Titania. Never leave incriminating evidence strewn about for all to see. If you’d kindly pass over the two dominos and your cousin’s mask? Ah, thank you. Gaston!”

A second figure appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and Mr. Goodfellow tossed the
evidence
at him as the fellow exclaimed in French, scrambling for the green mask, which had eluded him and fallen to the ground.

“My apologies, Gaston. I have no experience in throwing clothing. Only in catching it,
si vous prenez ma signification.
Burn them, and stir the ashes,” he instructed the servant, who then hustled back into the shadows.

Inside the coach, Regina had recovered herself sufficiently to roll her eyes at the man’s outrageous behavior. But any feelings of superiority vanished immediately when he bounded into the coach and plunked himself down beside her.

He looked good. He smelled delicious. This was no boy; this was a man. Very much a man. And he was gazing at her in open appreciation.

“Stop looking at me that way. My cousin has gone missing,” she reminded him.

“And yet I have not been struck blind,” he responded just as quickly. “You are as beautiful unmasked as you were mysterious half-concealed. Doris Ann, close your mouth. Your mistress and I are flirting. Aren’t we, Regina?”

“We most certainly are not! And you aren’t to call me Regina, any more than I will agree to continue addressing you as Mr. Robin Goodfellow. What a ridiculous name.”

He put his crossed hands to his breast as if mortally wounded. “You mock my name? My not precisely sainted mother will be devastated, I’m sure, as she so loves it.”

Regina didn’t know if she could believe the man, even if he’d told her the sky was blue. “Oh, she did not. I mean, she does not. Stop grinning like that! You’re an impossible man.”

“Yes, I know. Very well, you may call me Mr. Blackthorn. Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn.”

Regina felt hot color flooding her cheeks. “Then you weren’t lying?”

“Not completely, no. And now if you will return the favor?”

“Return the— Oh. Hackett. I am Regina Hackett. My cousin is Lady Miranda Burnham, daughter of Viscount Ranscome and granddaughter of the Earl of Ment more.”

“E-gods, all of that? And yet we’re still missing one
important fact. Two, actually. Where should I be instructing my coachman to drive us, hmm?”

Regina had been giving that some thought. Her mother was less than useless by this time of night, and with luck could be persuaded upon rising tomorrow that she had indeed accompanied Regina and Miranda this evening. She’d feel more confident if she had a few lemon squares tucked up in her reticule, but her mother could be convinced she’d already eaten them. Regina wasn’t proud of these facts or of using her mother’s problem so shamelessly, but these were desperate times, and desperate measures were in order.

“I reside for the Season in Berkeley Square, but we will be dropping my mother off there and continuing on our way, seeing as how the poor woman is completely overset by the recent terrible events and must take to her bed with a strong dose of laudanum. We will then drive directly to my grandfather’s domicile at Number Twenty-three Cavendish Square, where we will explain all to Miranda’s parents. My grandfather, I’m relieved to say, remains in the country, suffering from the gout, so we may see either Aunt Claire or Uncle Seth or, if we are to be extremely unlucky, both of them. What is the other important fact?”

“I’m not sure. I’m still attempting to wade through all those names and titles. Oh, I remember now, and you’ve already answered it. Your mother accompanied you and your cousin this evening? I look forward to hearing how you’ll convince her to go along with your lie.”

Regina shot a quick look at Doris Ann, who was coughing into her fist. “That is my problem, Mr. Blackthorn, and I will handle it. Now, please instruct your coachman, as I wish to arrive in Cavendish Square to hear what information it is you learned at the ball and have thus far refused to share with me.”

“It’s a tale that should not have any telling, not even in Cavendish Square, but if you will allow for some small changes and keep your silence except to sniffle sorrowfully a time or two in the correct spots, it is one I wish to tell only once.”

“I
am
sorrowful! I’m frantic.”

“You hide it well.”

“I’m used to— Would you please just give the coachman my uncle’s direction!”

He looked at her strangely for a moment before he leaned past Doris Ann, opened a small square hinged door and recited the Cavendish Square address.

Regina thought about her aunt, who adored her only daughter. “It’s that terrible? You know who took Miranda?”

“If I knew the
who,
Miss Hackett, I would have handed you over to my coachman and sent you on your way, and damn your problems with your respective parents when they discovered you’d been at the masquerade. But I only learned a possible
why,
I believe, which makes the
where
immaterial.”

Thoughts no well-bred young lady should know enough about to even consider went flashing through Regina’s head. But her father owned a shipping com
pany, and he had told many stories at the dinner table about mysterious cargos, human cargos, being shipped off to foreign parts, where the men and children were sold into slavery and the most comely women paraded about on stages, for sale to the highest bidder. He seemed to delight in the telling, probably because each only served to make his wife ill and to seek ever more comfort in the contents of a wine decanter.

How she hated her father.

How she feared for Miranda.

Regina put her hand on Mr. Blackthorn’s forearm. “We must find her. We
must.
”

He covered her hand with his own. “And I will.”

“No,” she corrected him. “
We
will. This is my fault. I should have said no. Miranda’s incurably silly, but she wouldn’t have gone if I had refused to accompany her. I should have known better. If you will not assist me, I will investigate on my own. I will. Really.”

He looked at her for long moments, saying nothing until the coach drew to a halt outside of Number Twenty-three.

“Very well. Your uncle will call in the Bow Street Runners, I’m sure, but we two can conduct our own investigation if it will make you more comfortable, which it very well may not, not once I’ve said what I have to say to your uncle. Still, if you’re of the same mind tomorrow, I will meet you in Hyde Park at eleven. Come on foot, with only your maid.”

“And you’ll be there? You’re not just saying that now
to fob me off? Because I know I have been something of an annoyance to you.”

“Miss Hackett…Regina. It is precisely because you have been, in your words, such an annoyance to me that I can safely promise you that, yes, I will be there.
Pour mes péchés.
”

“For your sins?”

He stroked one long finger along her cheek and over her mouth, stealing her breath.

“Both committed and contemplated, yes,” he said softly. And then he did something that took her totally by surprise—he reached behind her neck and unclasped her pearls, sliding them into his pocket. “You’ve been robbed, remember? I’ll return them to you tomorrow, when you come to the park.”

“Were you thinking I might not come? That I’ll change my mind?”

“The possibility presents itself, yes.”

“Well, I won’t! I’m going to find Miranda, and since you’re the only person who knows we needs must start with what happened at the ball, you’re the only person who can help me.”

A groom opened the door and put down the steps and Mr. Blackthorn eased past Regina and hopped to the ground before turning to hold out his hand to her. “And we begin…?.”

T
HE FIRST THING
P
UCK
noticed once they’d been escorted into the drawing room at Number Twenty-three was the general shabbiness of the place. He would do some investigating of the Earl of Mentmore in the morning, but for now, he believed he could safely assume that if a ransom were demanded for Lady Miranda, the family would be hard-pressed to comply.

Strange. The family had the name but not the money. He and his brothers had the funds but not the name. Of the two circumstances, he believed he preferred his own, and yet, Society looked down its nose at him and accepted Mentmore and his offspring everywhere. A day would come, he felt certain, when one side would have to compromise with the other, and if he were to project a winning side, he would wager on money over birth every time. For one thing, it kept you warmer at night.

“His lordship and my lady will be down shortly,” the starchy butler pronounced from the doorway as Regina, who had been pacing the carpet in front of the fire these past five minutes, mumbled a brief thank-you to the man she called Kettering, then quickly found herself a chair and collapsed into it.

“Wonderful,” Puck pronounced, as if complimenting the man on some lofty achievement. He walked over to the butler and put an arm around the man’s shoulder confidingly. “Kettering, you look an intelligent man. Can I trust you? Your employers are, I fear, about to suffer a great shock. I say this because I am convinced you will know just how to handle the situation. I would suggest wine for the lady, and perhaps some burnt feathers. Brandy for his lordship?”

“He favors gin,” the butler whispered, frowning to show his own distaste for such a lowly spirit and, it would seem, his employer, as well. “Does this concern Miss Miranda, sir?”

“Oh yes, it does, it does,” Puck said, shaking his head, his sorrowful expression saying more than his words, drawing in Kettering as if he were a fish on the hook. “It will be left to a fine man like you to keep body and soul together under this roof, I’m afraid. But if there is anything, anything at all I can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact me. In fact, I all but insist upon it.” He then handed the man his card and a small but heavy purse.

Kettering slipped both into his pocket, one eye on Regina, who sat contemplating her shoe tops, blissfully unaware of what Puck was about. “It would be my pleasure, sir,” the butler said. “I will see about refreshments for you and the young lady, as well.”

“Again, wonderful. But no gin for me, if you please. Horrid, bitter stuff.”

“There’s a bottle of wine in the cellars his lordship has been saving. He’ll never know.”

Puck patted the man’s back and then asked his question. “I only met Miss Hackett this evening and, unfortunately, under trying circumstances. Do you know her well?”

Kettering looked about, to make sure no one was listening from the foyer and that his employers weren’t on the stairs. “She’s fine enough, sir. Not that it means anything. The mother is sister to the viscount, but the father?” He leaned closer. “In trade. Owns ships. Bought himself his bride, and now he’s trying to sell the daughter to a title. The family’s that embarrassed, sir.”

Puck kept his smile with some difficulty. The butler looked down on Regina Hackett? What a strange world they all lived in. “And yet she’s welcome here?”

Now Kettering looked positively evil. “It’s like I said, sir. The family’s that
embarrassed.
If you take my meaning.”

“Yes, I think I do. Pays for all of this, does he?”

The butler seemed to realize that he’d been speaking out of turn and to a complete stranger. “Was there anything else you wanted, sir?”

“Thank you, no. You’ve been extremely helpful.” A gold coin appeared in Puck’s hand and also quickly disappeared.

Kettering looked about himself once more, wet his lips and confided, “The mother, Lady Leticia? Poor thing is nearly always three parts over the windmill,
and the father is a nasty piece of work. I’d steer clear if I was you, sir. There’s better pickings out there for a fine, set-up young gentleman, such as yourself.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Again, thank you, Kettering. Ah, and I believe his lordship and his lady wife are about to join us. And you have some refreshments to organize. Remember, I’m counting on you to keep me informed. Most especially, I think, about the actions of your master concerning this entire affair.”

“Indeed, sir. He so much as sneezes, sir, you’ll know about it,” Kettering promised, bowing to him before scurrying off, not bothering to announce his employers or their unexpected guests.

Yes, in the end, perhaps in ten years, perhaps not for another hundred, it would be money that would decide who held all the winning cards. Money, and charm. Puck, with all modesty, believed he possessed both in considerable measure.

It was a pity he was bound to be tossed out of this house on his illegitimate ear in the next ten minutes by one of the eventual losers.

“My lord, my lady,” he said, bowing to each of them in turn as they entered the drawing room. “Please pardon the intrusion, but I must tell you that something untoward has occurred. Concerning your daughter, Lady Miranda. Please, I would suggest you both sit.”

“Who the bloody blazes are you?” the viscount asked, his clothing looking as if he’d dressed in haste,
a betraying crease on his right cheek announcing that he’d just lately had his head on a pillow.

No, no. I would remain anonymous a while longer.

“The bearer of bad news, I’m afraid. Your daughter has been abducted by brigands.”

Well, that neatly served to distract the viscount from more personal questions, as he was immediately too busy attempting to prop up his fainting wife to ask them.

Regina rushed to her aunt’s side, sparing only a moment to glare at Puck before she assisted her uncle in getting the woman to one of the couches near the fireplace.

The next minutes were spent with the requested burnt feathers being waved beneath her ladyship’s nose by her worried niece while his lordship snagged the decanter of gin from the tray Kettering had produced and drank down two full glasses in quick succession.

Puck stood in front of the fireplace, watching everything, missing nothing, and sipped the wine, which was actually quite fine. Good on Kettering. And good on him, knowing the most direct route to any secret lay with making allies of the servant staff.

At last her ladyship seemed recovered enough to sit up, and the viscount demanded that Puck explain himself.

He, in turn, looked to Regina. “Miss Hackett? If you would be so kind as to get us started?”

The look she shot him this time might have had a less courageous fellow ducking behind a chair, but she
didn’t waste more than a few seconds on him before sitting down beside her aunt and taking the woman’s trembling hands in her own.

“We were on our way to the soiree, as you know. Mama was very much looking forward to the lemon squares— Oh, I’m sorry. My nerves are still overset, because that isn’t important, is it? We, that is, the coachman seemed to have gotten lost, turned about in his direction somewhere, I suppose, as he looked for a way around the crush of vehicles on every roadway, and we ended up in a fairly isolated street. Somehow, one of the coach wheels found a hole in the cobbles as we tried to turn the coach, and one of the spokes splintered.” She could not hold back a small sob. “Everything just seemed to go wrong.”

“Incompetent idiot! I’ll have the man’s position!” the viscount bellowed.

And you’ll be within your rights,
Puck thought, taking another sip of wine.
Can’t blame the coachman for my lies, but he deserves the sack for delivering his master’s daughter to that den of iniquity.

“Yes, uncle, but it would only have been unfortunate save for…for those horrible brigands.” Now she looked to Puck, and there was no mistaking what she wanted him to do.

“Mine own coach was passing by the opening to the street, and I heard a commotion, a woman’s scream. I leaped down from my coach and went hotfoot in pursuit of the source of that scream, mine own coachman and grooms assisting me. We arrived on the scene not able
to do much more than take charge after the fact, move the ladies to my coach and offer any other assistance I could. But I can tell you the events that transpired as they were told to me by your coachman.”

“Then tell us, damn it!”

“Yes, my lord, I was about to do just that. It would seem that several creatures of the night saw an opportunity present itself to them and acted upon it, surrounding the coach and demanding all jewelry and money the occupants might have on their persons.”

Lady Claire choked back a sob. “But—but there was no money, and those pearls were paste—”

“Claire, that will be enough,” her husband warned tightly. “Continue.”

Puck bowed, pretending a convenient deafness to her ladyship’s admission. “As you can see, Miss Hackett readily gave over her jewelry—pearls you said, didn’t you? And her mother’s jewels, as well,” he added as an afterthought.

Regina obligingly raised a hand to her bare throat. “We took Mama home before coming here. She was overset. Miranda’s pearls were paste? I didn’t— That is, I don’t believe the brigands knew that. They…they seemed much more interested in Miranda. They seemed very taken with…with her looks.”

“Her hair,” Puck explained, drawing on what he’d learned at the ball and marking, for future consideration, the fact that Regina seemed to have figured out for herself why her cousin had been taken. “Her blond hair, her blue eyes, her fair English complexion, her,
Miss Hackett tells me, petite stature. Young women of similar description have been going missing in and around London for months now, I understand. It took only a few questions to learn what I am attempting to tell you. A sad, sad story.”

“But…but what about Regina?” Lady Claire asked, looking to her niece with what could only be termed displeasure that she was there and her daughter was not.

“They did not take Miss Hackett here because she is tall, dark-haired. The others taken have been servants, shop girls, the occasional actress or ballet dancer, which is why there has been no great stir in society. But your daughter? She’d be a real prize, my lord.”

The man looked stricken. “I’ve heard…whispers. At my club, you understand. Young girls disappearing off the streets. Nobodies. But things like this don’t happen to people like
us!
Damn this city!”

“My baby,” her ladyship whimpered. “A
prize?
Seth! What is this man saying? What has happened to my baby?”

“And yet it is that, dear lady, which we cannot know,” Puck said. “We can only hope for the best.”
And that beautiful young virgins bring a higher price at whatever market the bastards plan to sell her, so that she’ll be relatively safe until we find her.

Puck hadn’t said the words out loud, but he felt certain that the viscount had heard them anyway.

“I’ll…I’ll hire a Bow Street Runner. I’ll hire ten of them! But quietly. No one can know she’s gone. We’ll
put it out that she’s taken ill…that her mother has taken ill…?. We’ll keep this between ourselves.”

“Yes, my lord, that also would be my suggestion. Second only to your daughter’s safety is her unsullied reputation. And now, if you will excuse us, I should think Miss Hackett desires to return to her home and see to her mother’s welfare.”

“Yes, yes,” the viscount said, looking at Regina angrily, as if he, like his wife, was incensed that she hadn’t been the one who had been taken. “Regina, please inform your father that I will call on him first thing tomorrow. The Runners will demand payment before they’ll help us and…and my funds are currently all tied up in the Exchange.”

“Yes, uncle, of course,” Regina said, getting to her feet with more alacrity than might be seemly. “Aunt Claire, I’m so, so sorry. But we must be brave. We’ll find her. I promise we will.”

The woman nodded and then went back to weeping into her handkerchief.

Puck held his arm out to Regina, but before she could take it, the viscount asked the question Puck had so far avoided.

“I failed to get your name, sir, or to thank you for the assistance you have rendered us this evening.”

“There is no need for thanks, my lord. I was simply fortunate to have come along when I did. Miss Hackett was hysterical and in no fit state to take charge of her mother or anything else.”

Regina’s gasp of outrage was quickly cut off, but
Puck felt certain he’d hear her thoughts on this remark on the way to Berkeley Square. In fact, he was rather counting on it. If she agreed to accompany him after what he now had to say. Their acquaintance was short, but he felt fairly confident that she would, if only so that she might berate him for calling her hysterical.

“In answer to your question, my lord, I am the third and youngest son of Cyril Woodword, Marquess of Blackthorn.”

The earl stuck out his right hand, said, “Marquess of—” and then just as quickly drew it back, his expression suddenly so horrible Puck could have thought himself to have just announced that he carried the plague. “You’re one of Blackthorn’s bastards?”

Puck inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I am. I am Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn, known to my friends as Puck. A bit of nonsense, yes, but many say it suits me. A word in private, my lord?”

“A— No! There are ladies present. You will leave my house at once, sir!”

“Uncle Seth!” Regina stepped between her uncle and Puck, as if to protect at least one of them from the other. “Mr. Blackthorn has been exceedingly kind this evening. The good Lord knows what would have become of me—Mama and me—if he had not come along as he did. Only think how Papa would have seen the thing if any harm had come to us while I was in
your
coach. You should be thanking Mr. Blackthorn, not ordering him out of the house.”

God, I must know this woman better. For so many reasons.

“Thanks are not necessary, Miss Hackett,” Puck told her. “Although I would appreciate that private word? My lord?”

The viscount seemed to be considering what his life would be like—and what it would be worth—if Regina’s father were to become upset with him in any way. “Very well,” he said, and then walked toward one side of the large room, motioning rather rudely for Puck to follow after him.