Miss Goodhue Lives for a Night (7 page)

“Mr. Hudson . . .” she began, but then coughed and started again. “Mr. Hudson and I knew each other a long time ago.”

“And?” Phoebe prompted. Even the ladies' maid paused in sorting gowns to hear the exchange.

“And we don't know each other now,” she said, surprised to find her voice a little sad.

It was true. They didn't know each other now. He didn't know how she had spent the past ten years. No amount of telling could make him know. About the quiet, and the littleness of it all. Of the propriety, and how she would let herself get caught up in the breathless gossip of the town because it was the only way to pass the time. About how she still dreamed of a bigger life, and loved those dreams, even though she had little hope of achieving them.

And she knew nothing of him. He had spent a decade in London, becoming a lawyer, building a life . . . although, had he? He had not spoken of a wife or children. And the way that he had kissed her implied their nonexistence.

At least, she prayed for their nonexistence. The kissing was confusing enough. If on top of that, he was married . . .

No. She shook her head. He wasn't. She knew it instinctively. Wholly. Like she knew the press of his hand over hers.

Perhaps they did know some things about each other.

“Time shifts people, but not away from their center,” Phoebe said contemplatively. “At their core, people remain the same. You just have to learn new ways in. That is, if you want to.”

“I . . . I don't know what I want,” she replied. “Mr. Hudson—he hurt me. Long ago. If I were a romantic I would say he broke my heart.”

“And you?” Phoebe's eyebrow rose. “Did you hurt him too?”

“I . . . I don't know what I did to him. I used to think that my moderate dowry offended him. But now . . .”

Now, Theo hadn't blinked at handing over a twenty-pound note for the tickets to the ball. He practically waved her off when she offered to pay for it. And who on earth carried a twenty-pound note? Not someone who had to scrounge for pennies to piece together a living. The way he had looked when she said she had her own funds . . . as if he was surprised she had any funds at all.

“He was so very terse when I fibbed to Colonel Birmingham, and when I spoke with the other officers with interest,” she said. “Mr. Hudson was, I mean.”

“Did he not know you would do what was necessary to find your cousin?”

“It wasn't that. It was more as if he thought I would absolutely do what was necessary—and that I was somehow a master of deception.”

Phoebe seemed to snort—if countesses snorted, that is. “Any teacher is a master of deception,” she replied. “She has to be, to be able to catch her students out when they try it.”

Cecilia smirked for the first time all afternoon.

“I have little knowledge of Mr. Hudson,” Phoebe mused, pointing to a certain gown in the pile, having the ladies' maid pull it. “But what I do know is that he is considered quite honorable, smart . . . and very closed.”

“Closed?”

“He's polite, and deferential, but my husband said he never suspected in a million years that he would have taken over the investigation himself. He thought he would have handed it off to runners.” She peered at Cecilia closely. “Mr. Hudson holds to himself very tightly. Only someone important to him could have made him do it.”

“I didn't make him do anything,” Cecilia protested. “I certainly didn't ask anything of him.”

“Of course you didn't,” she reassured.

“I'm just here to find my cousin. That is all. I'm grateful for Mr. Hudson's help—and yours and Lord Ashby's of course—but I'm not here for this!”

“This?” Phoebe's second eyebrow joined her first high on her forehead.

“Dancing, and balls,” she replied, flustered. “And Mr. Hudson and gowns . . . oh, goodness.”

Cecilia suddenly lost the power of speech. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, and the gown the ladies' maid was holding up made her breath hitch.

The cut was fairly plain, letting the beauty of the light pink silk shine forth. The neckline and sleeves were square, with a single ribbon as a trim. The bodice was tight, stiff through the ribs, then the gown fell in gentle waves to the ground. The color of the gown put warmth in her cheeks and cream in her skin. Her hair seemed to shine like a river of molasses, and when the gown was on, there was no doubt that she would be transformed.

Cecilia stood in the mirror, frozen, as the girl she was ten years ago looked back.

“The length can be easily pinned. But still, with her height,” the ladies' maid said, “there will be a bit of a train.”

“I think this gown could use a train, don't you, my dear?” Phoebe asked, coming to stand next to her, the baby still asleep in her arms.

Cecilia could only nod, dumbstruck as she was.

“She cannot wear a corset,” the ladies' maid added.

“She won't need one in that gown.”

Cecilia's head cocked to one side, but she could say nothing. It was too beautiful a gown, and she was too in awe of its possibilities, corset or no.

“And if I may proffer one more opinion,” Phoebe said, “perhaps tonight, while you are looking for your cousin, you can allow yourself a moment.”

“A . . . a moment?”

“A moment to wonder. To wonder what it would be like if you had come to London for balls, and dancing. And Mr. Hudson.” She met Cecilia's eyes in the mirror. “To wonder what that life would have been like.”

Cecilia looked at herself in the mirror again. And let her mind drift to what it would be like to be in London for herself, and not for her cousin. If neither she nor Eleanor had been foolhardy in love, Cecilia could have been in London now, under entirely different circumstances.

She would be dancing because she had been invited to a ball. She would be having an afternoon tea and gossip session with Lady Ashby not because she was helping her, but because they were friends. And Theo Hudson would be coming to call, not because he was saddled with helping her, but because he was honored to escort her that evening. And when they danced—and they would dance—it would be as if the room stopped, but the music continued on, playing a different tune, just for them.

Oh, what a life that would be.

And maybe, just for one night, Cecilia could let herself live it.

7

I
t was utterly unfair the amount of time women took to get ready, Theo decided. If one said something was occurring at a certain time, a woman's ears heard it as that time plus fifteen to thirty minutes extra. There was no reason for him to determine this—Theo had no sisters, and his mother always prized punctuality. But in his current mood, Theo was more than happy to put the seven minutes he had been kept waiting in Lord Ashby's study squarely on the shoulders of an entire gender.

“Have a drink, Hudson,” Lord Ashby said, lounging by the fire. After the blustery morning and the breaking sun of the afternoon, the spring evening had turned chilly and crisp. He wouldn't be surprised if the ground became crunchy with frost during the night. Of course, he wouldn't be at liberty to investigate the state of the ground if he died from self-immolation brought on by the friction created via his pacing on the study's fine carpet.

“Dammit, man, you're going to burn a hole in the rug,” Lord Ashby said, proving Theo's point. “What has you so nervous? It's just a ball, for god's sake.”

“Yes, of course,” Theo mumbled. For all intents and purposes, it
was
just a ball. But it had been an awfully long time since he'd been to any ball—let alone a ball with Miss Cecilia Goodhue. “I had a very long afternoon, looking for this cousin.”

“Yes, Miss Goodhue said the officers had referred you to some boarding houses,” Lord Ashby said as he moved to the sideboard. He poured out a glass of brandy from a tumbler, and pressed it into Theo's hand. It had the intended effect—Theo stopped pacing. “None of them pan out for you?”

“None,” he replied tersely. The afternoon had been a fool's errand. He had driven from boarding house to boarding house, in seedier and seedier parts of town. At each place he spoke with the proprietor, and asked them if an officer—possibly of the cavalry—was boarding there, with a woman. But without names to give (considering the circumspection she had shown with Colonel Birmingham, Theo thought Cecilia would have preferred if the name Eleanor stayed out of it), there was no help to be given.

He tried to describe them. He thought the man would certainly be a younger officer. And he knew Eleanor's age and coloring, so he tried to describe her.

“She's smallish. Dark hair, dark eyes,” he would say, and see the proprietors shake their heads. “She's . . . she's an innocent. You can see it in her face,” he would continue. “Wide-eyed, and hopeful, and . . .”

And then he realized he wasn't describing Eleanor, a person he had never met. In his mind, he saw Cecilia—his Cee—as she once had been.

If their day together had taught him anything, it was that she wasn't that girl anymore. No, the person she was now . . . was better.

He hid a smile with a swallow of brandy.

The way she turned weepy eyes to Colonel Birmingham, knowing exactly what he needed to hear. While at the time, it reminded him starkly of her talents at deception, in retrospect he was struck by how alarmingly
bad
she was at it. Any other man would have seen right through her ruse. And she was doing exactly what she had to, to find her cousin. There was no wrong in that.

And then she had called him out in the carriage. Told him that she was the one taking care of everything, and he was simply along for the ride.

By God, he'd almost kissed her right at that moment.

Instead, he'd managed to hold himself in check for three extra minutes. Truly a feat.

Why was it still there? The attraction that had driven them to glance at each other across a luncheon table all those years ago—the need to run across a field to return her gloves, and the hope to catch a word from her lips? He thought he'd buried it. Thought it had died when he'd learned of her true intentions, if not her true nature. But all it took was one morning, one mischievous lie to an officer in the royal army and a short dressing-down in a carriage to send shock and heat running through his veins in equal measure.

“That's unfortunate,” Lord Ashby said, drawing him back to the study, and to the ticking clock, on which now eight minutes had passed.

“Yes. Sadly, it seems as if tonight's ball is our only lead.”

“Well, if it proves as useful as the boarding houses, we will hire out runners tomorrow and paper the city looking for the girl. Circumspection be damned, this Eleanor likely doesn't even know that her family wants to find her.”

“That's for Cee—for Miss Goodhue to decide.” But to his mind, it would be what would have to happen. Because there was no way he could handle spending another day in Cee's company without losing every bit of resolve he'd held fast to the past decade.

That resolve, he realized, was crumbling quickly. Faster than time ticked away on the clock, because at that moment, Lady Ashby came through the door.

“Darling. Mr. Hudson. May I present Miss Cecilia Goodhue?”

And there she was—dressed in pink and looking for all the world like a lady of society. But underneath that silk he could tell she was trying very, very hard to look like she did this every day. And failing spectacularly.

Damn.
The word ran through his mind as anything that resembled strength and resistance dissolved completely.

“Well,” he said, surprised to find he had a voice. “We should go.”

A MILITARY BALL
was not like every other London ball. Or at least, Cecilia assumed it was not. Having never attended a ball of the military or
ton
persuasion, she could not be sure. But the guards at the gate, wearing formal dress and sabers at their sides, were a bit of a clue.

One might have thought the ball would be held at St. James's Palace, as Horse Guards was essentially its entrance hall. However, the king's guard did not hold its celebrations in front of the king, and therefore this particular ball was held three buildings down from Horse Guards, in a rented hall of absolutely no importance.

While the building was ordinary, the guests brought the color and consequence. Cecilia had been to a few public balls this past winter in Claxby with her friend Margaret, and there, men wore stark black with blinding white shirtfronts, while the vividness came from the ladies' gowns, spinning and bursting like flowers set free of their stems. But here, Cecilia thought, as they stepped down from the carriage and made to join the receiving line, the color came from the uniforms. The line in front of them was a sea of red and blue wool, marked with gold buttons. There were only a few black coats dotted throughout the room, and the most formidable by far was the one standing beside her.

“You're glowering,” she said in a whisper.

“No I'm not,” he replied automatically. But he straightened his posture and smoothed out his expression at the same time.

“Better,” she replied with a smile. “No one will speak to us if you look like you're going to murder them if they don't. Besides, I believe most of the men here are armed.”

He shot her a glance. “You could have told me this in the carriage, if it was so important.”

“You could have said one word to me in the carriage,” she replied, trying to keep up her cheer. “But you didn't.”

It was true. Beyond the occasional “excuse me” and “thank you” when he managed to steer clear of her long and flowing skirts, there was not a single word said during the carriage ride. Instead, Cecilia stared at him as he stared out the window, letting herself wonder.

What if . . .

What if she let herself enjoy tonight?

What if she danced? Flirted? Went through the party with a smile on her face?

What would Theo Hudson think? What would he do?

He had been nothing but grumpy the entire day. From the moment they saw each other in the rain to the interview with Lord Ashby to their trip to Horse Guards. The only time he ever showed another emotion was when he had kissed her.

Would he kiss her again?

Did she want him to?

Yes
. The answer came unbidden. She did want it. In spite of his grumpiness. Or perhaps because of it. Because when he was kissing her, it was more than just a press of lips and bodies, smells and sighs. It was the first time he was himself—he was the boy she remembered.

And she wanted to see that boy again.

Almost as much as she wanted to see the man smile for once.

She glanced up at him. He wasn't smiling. His jaw was hard, his eyes straight ahead.

“Theo?” she said softly.

His head didn't turn, but his shoulder twitched.

And suddenly, a frosty breeze cut across her back. Because she'd seen that shoulder twitch before. That steady gaze. From two stories up at an inn, just before he climbed into a carriage.

Her own smile faltered.

“You brought the tickets?” he asked.

“They are right here,” she replied, patting her reticule. “Don't worry. If I neglected to bring one, I'll be sure to let you know how the refreshments taste.”

“God, I hope this works,” he muttered, eyeing the reticule.

“It will.”

And it did. No one blinked at their tickets. Not the porter, or the announcer. He simply rolled their names off and they were ushered up the line.

“See, I told you.”

“You don't think that having a very loud announcer call your name is a detriment to finding your cousin?” Theo asked.

“No, I think that with any luck she's here, heard my name, and is even now rushing up to meet us.”

“We can only hope,” he sighed.

They stood there for a few moments. Waiting. Watching the crowd, the laughing men in uniform, the women coyly flashing fans and dropping handkerchiefs in a language Cecilia had never learned, but immediately found fascinating.

“What on earth are they doing?” she asked herself.

“Who?” her constant companion answered, as she realized she spoke aloud.

“The women, with the fans,” she replied, nodding in the direction of a group of young ladies in a corner. “It's as if they are signaling for a waiter.”

“Not for a waiter,” he replied, a soft chuckle coloring his voice. “They are communicating across the room with some young man. Sending him signals.”

“Signals? Of what?”

He glanced down at her, his head shaking ever so slightly. “Interest. How do you not know this?”

She looked at her gloved hands, the little reticule that hung off her wrist. “I never came out, remember? Not in London, at least. I didn't get to learn these things.”

He looked into her eyes now, and for the first time that evening, she felt as if he was really looking at her. Not a peripheral glance, not a simple check to see if she was still within his orbit, but properly looking at her. She felt herself blush under his scrutiny.

“I take it I've revealed myself to be rather naïve,” she said, dropping her eyes from the intensity of his.

“No . . . yes,” he replied, his voice marked by something new. Something remarkably akin to wonder. “All these years . . . I just never thought of you as still being so very innocent.”

Her eyes flicked up. “I don't know if that is a compliment or an insult.”

“Neither do I,” he said simply. “But if it's an insult, it's of me, not you.”

“Oh.” What else was there to say?

They fell into an awkward silence, which was quickly and blessedly relieved by someone bumping into them.

“My apologies,” Theo said to the man, who muttered the same words. Then Theo turned to her. “We are right in the path of foot traffic.”

“If Eleanor is here, I don't think she heard my name called,” Cecilia said, coming up on tiptoe to see if any familiar faces moved in their sphere—although the face she sought would no longer be that of a girl, but of a young woman. If she was much changed . . .

“I cannot see anything. Not from the side of the room, at any rate,” she said.

“Then let us start looking,” he said, taking her arm and guiding her into the crowd. “The sooner we find your cousin, the sooner—”