Stephanie Laurens - Tangled Reins

After their second dance he drew her into a shadowed alcove. There, with Dorothea standing, unconsciously, within the comforting circle of his arm, they swapped their news.

‘And Lord Peterborough has been so attentive,’ sighed Dorothea, eyes dancing.

‘Oh?’ said Hazelmere, a frown in his eyes.

‘Mmm,’ she murmured in confirmation, adding innocently, ‘He told me to tell you so.’

The laugh this elicited made her tingle. His hazel eyes were wreaking havoc with her composure. ‘I must remember to thank Gerry next time I see him. In the meantime, sweet torment, come and dance.’

For the rest of the evening Hazelmere devoted himself to making her forget the existence of the note. He tried every trick he knew to bemuse and amuse her, hoping to divert her thoughts sufficiently to enable him to leave her, unsuspecting, with Fanshawe while he kept her midnight appointment. But while she certainly paid attention to all he said, blushing delightfully at his more provocative suggestions, she clearly possessed a distressingly calm and collected mind. He suspected that she guessed the reason for his behaviour and, short of kissing her in the middle of the ballroom, he could think of nothing that might succeed in distracting her. As midnight approached he gave up the attempt.

The rules for the ball called for a general unmasking at midnight. As the clock over the door approached five minutes to the hour Hazelmere, knowing that Dorothea, too, was keeping track of the time, drew her over to the windows leading on to the terrace.

‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ he asked.

‘But of course!’ She assumed that his evident wish to spare her the midnight meeting stemmed from the belief she would be overcome by some missish sentiment. She felt slightly aggrieved that he didn’t know her better.

‘Before I permit you to go out on that terrace I want you to promise you’ll do precisely as I say.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that it was her note and therefore her adventure, not his. And she certainly did not need his permission to go out on the terrace! But there was no time to argue, and the gleam of amusement in his eyes suggested that he had guessed her thoughts anyway. Mastering her annoyance, she agreed. ‘Very well. I promise. What must I do?’

‘Open the door and go out, but don’t shut it behind you. I’ll stay behind in the shadows. Walk on to the terrace but, whatever you do, don’t go more than halfway to the balustrade. And only go a few yards either side of the door. Understand?’

She nodded. Satisfied, Hazelmere held the heavy curtain aside for her to slip past, and followed her into the darkened alcove between the curtain and the window. He opened this and Dorothea moved out on to the moonlit terrace.

Directly in front of her was a flight of stone steps leading down to a gravel path, with the lawns and shrubbery in deepest shadow beyond. Mindful of her instructions, she moved to her left, keeping close to the house. She had only gone a few paces when a voice came to her from somewhere near the steps.

‘Miss Darent! This way!’

At exactly that moment someone inside the ballroom flung back the curtain over the next window along and opened it, but then, as the call for the unmasking was heard, closed it again.

The sound of running footsteps retreating along the gravel path came clearly to both Dorothea and Hazelmere, still in the shadows. Stepping up to her, he whispered, ‘Stay here.’ He went past her and lightly down the steps.

The last echoes of the footsteps were dying in the distance. The rhododendron bushes that bordered the terrace were dense and taller than Hazelmere himself. A most convenient setting for an abduction, he thought grimly. He was too wise to go searching in the darkened garden, leaving Dorothea unattended on the terrace, even though it seemed as though the mysterious leaver of notes had departed. Removing his mask and pushing back the hood of his domino, he returned to the terrace.

‘There’s no sign of anyone now,’ he said. ‘A pity, but no harm done.’

‘But who could it be, to play such a silly joke?’ she asked, tugging at the knots Julia Bressington had made in her mask strings.

‘Here, let me.’ He reached over her and undid the mask, removed it and pushed the hood back from her hair. Then, taking her face in both hands and tilting it up, he kissed her. After a moment his hands left her face to slip beneath her domino and gather her, unresisting, into his arms.

As the kiss deepened, Dorothea, again, lost all sense of time. He did no more than reinforce the lessons he had taught her in the orangery; there was no time for more. His experienced mouth claimed hers, gently persuading, while, under her domino, his hands drifted caressingly over her breasts, her waist and her hips. Then, reluctantly, he released her. Before she could recover he drew her hand through his arm and moved back to the door, saying in his usual manner, ‘We’d best return to the ballroom before our absence becomes too difficult to explain.’

Back in the ballroom before she could gather her wits, Dorothea had no chance to say anything. They were quickly surrounded by friends, all laughing and talking at once. But during what was left of the ball she was conscious of the hazel eyes resting on her often, their expression doing nothing for her peace of mind.

Later, as they left the ballroom together, Hazelmere remembered the note. ‘Incidentally, my love, should you get any further notes inciting you to do anything the least bit improper and which purport to come from me, you might remember I’m much more likely to make such suggestions in person.’

It was impossible to reply to that in any acceptable way. Dorothea wisely left it uncontested.

Leaving Bressington House a short time later, Lords Hazelmere and Fanshawe insisted on handing the Darent sisters into their carriage. Belatedly realising that she had allowed Hazelmere to monopolise her for the entire evening, Dorothea threw him a glance that she hoped conveyed her disapproval of his managing ways. She could hardly claim success, as he laughed and murmured in her ear that if she continued to cast such provocative looks at him he would be unable to resist the temptation to kiss her again. In the shadowy carriage drive he suited the action to the words, before helping a thoroughly flustered Dorothea into her grandmother’s coach.

Hazelmere was more perturbed by the mysterious note and the incident on the terrace than he had let Dorothea guess. Walking back to Cavendish Square in company with Fanshawe, he considered the possible explanations.

Young heiresses had been abducted and held for ransom-that was one possible reason. However, most of the previous targets had been very wealthy. Dorothea, although commonly held to be well dowered, was not immensely rich. So, if it was an abduction attempt, the far more likely intention would be to have a touch at the Hazelmere coffers. It had never occurred to him that by making his interest in her so public he would make her a target for such attacks.

He considered the figure by his side. All was not well with his friend and, presuming from his silence on the matter that the cause was the younger Miss Darent, he did not like to add any extra burden to a brow already overwrought.

The romance between Fanshawe and Cecily was not proceeding as his lordship had hoped. He had discovered his love had a definite mind of her own and having once taken an idea into her head could hold to it buckle and thong in the face of all reason. She had objected to what she termed his proprietorial attitude at the masquerade, leaving him feeling decidedly rejected. While she had relented later, allowing him to escort her to their carriage, she had remained coldly aloof.

The two friends continued on their way, sunk in abstracted silence. They parted at the corner of Cavendish Square to retire to their respective chambers, troubled, for quite different reasons, over what the future held.

The Friday, Saturday and Sunday following the masquerade saw Hazelmere dancing attendance on Dorothea in a way that, had anyone still been watching, would have made them wonder at the power of love. Lady Merion was moved to make a number of rude comments to him when no one else was by, regarding the inadvisability of over-indulgence. Hazelmere listened politely and let the shafts fly by. He was thankful that his mother had returned to Hazelmere on Friday morning, archly refusing her dutiful son’s offer of escort, saying she knew how many other things he had on his mind.

Keeping a watchful eye on Dorothea at the balls and parties in the evenings presented no great problem. He could with confidence leave her in the company of a great many friends, both his and her own. But from the time she returned from riding in the Park to the time she left Merion House for whichever of the evening’s entertainments she was to attend, her day was a mystery to him.

On Friday he solved this by inviting her to drive with him in the Park in the afternoon. He almost committed the blunder of asking her to come out with him again on Saturday but, catching a glimpse of her face, realised that she was already becoming suspicious. She was quite capable of linking his sudden attentiveness with the incident at the masquerade. He returned to Hazelmere House and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to devise a means of keeping watch over her without being overly conspicuous.