The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (22 page)

Kathryn’s heart beat a pounding staccato at her temples. She moved with apparent aimlessness to a far corner of the room steeped in shadow where Lydia could not observe her trembling fingers.

Blackshire was not the devil she had thought he was! He was good. Kind. Generous.

And Kathryn had mistreated him dreadfully.

He had only been trying to rescue Lydia. Just as he had rescued the kittens and the puppies—even if he was determined to banish them to his estate in Northumberland. He spoke in the House of Lords for laws to protect the poor. He knew how to extract a stain out of a carpet. And then there was little Thomas, to whom Blackshire had given a sense of belonging in a real home. He’d given Jane a home, too. And perhaps Bankham really was a rakehell and Blackshire was quite properly keeping Jane from his clutches. And—oh!—the clothes he’d sent to Lady Marchman’s! He’d been trying to rescue “Kitty Davidson” too!

Lydia busied herself with her costume, fussing with her masque and elaborate headdress, while Kathryn thought about what had happened in Lady Marchman’s library, when she’d shoved the tea tray and cut her finger. She thought about the tender way he had held her hand then—and about the belligerent way she had treated him.

Regret coursed through her.

“Kathryn?” Lydia asked, breaking into her thoughts. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. I—was just considering your feelings,” she lied. “Your poor heart must ache.”

“Mine? Why, no, I am feeling quite the thing just now. Why, do I seem blue?” She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head.

“You do not love him then?”

“Who? Blackshire?” She laughed. “Heavens no! To be sure, Nigel Moorhaven is the best of men, and I daresay any woman would be lucky to have him, but matrimony was not really my aim. You see, I—”

A knock sounded at the door. Lydia squeaked in alarm and blew out the candle. Kathryn froze.

“Hello? Lydia?” A voice penetrated the door. A rich, masculine, all-too-familiar voice. Blackshire’s! The doorknob rattled. “Lydia!”

“What is happening?” Kathryn whispered. “Why is he—”

“Shhhh!” In the darkness, Lydia laid a small, warm, reassuring hand on Kathryn’s arm. “Everything will be as it should be,” she whispered. “Stay here. I am going to the door. The room is dark. He will not see you.”

“No! You mustn’t open the—”

But it was too late. Kathryn heard the lock turn, and then weak light from the single sconce down the hall stabbed across the floor. To her horror, she watched the dark, massive form of Blackshire move into the chamber before the door slammed shut once more. Then Kathryn heard the lock turn again. What was Lydia up to?

“Lydia?” Blackshire said. “Who is here?”

No answer.

Kathryn heard the doorknob jiggle and then Blackshire swore. “You impudent chit!” he said, projecting his voice in the direction of the hallway outside the door. “You have locked me in!”

She’d done what?

He pounded on the door. “Unlock this door at once, Lydia. I do not know what game you are playing this time, but if you do not open this door, I shall break it down.”

“No!” Kathryn cried. “Someone will hear you! We’ll be found together!”

“Who are you?” Blackshire demanded, whirling about.

Kathryn bit her lip. “A friend of Lydia’s,” she said, disguising her voice as best she could. She made it higher, softer, more hesitant, silently praying that in the darkness he would not instantly recognize her after they’d just spent most of the day together. My name is . . . Rose,” she said, using her second name, “and I swear that this was not my idea. I am as surprised at what Lydia just did as you are, my . . . uh . . . my goodness.” She had almost addressed him as “my lord,” but she was not supposed to know he was a titled gentleman!

“I am Nigel Moorhaven, the Marquis of Blackshire. Have we met?”

“Oh!” Kathryn feigned surprise. “I am certain we have not been formally introduced, my lord.” That much was true. Kathryn hated to lie, and did not wish to do so, and if she could only get out of this tangle with her reputation intact, she would hie off to Heathford and never, never tell so much as a fib ever again!

“Your voice seems familiar. What is your surname?”

“Oh, I... I am very young, my lord, and I come from the country, and I am sure you do not know of my family,” she averred.

“I see.” A bark of cynical laughter erupted from the pitch-blackness. “What am I saying? I see nothing at all. I saw light under the door when I arrived. Where is the candle? Lydia blew it out, I presume.”

Kathryn’s heart thudded in her chest. The candle was on the dressing table, alongside her costume, but she could not let Blackshire light it! Even if he was the archangel Gabriel himself, Kathryn would not let him see her face—or her costume. “I . . . I don’t know where the candle is,” she told him, groping frantically for the candlestick. Finding it, she quickly tucked it under the chair. “I think Lydia took the candlestick with her.” Straightening up, she met something solid. Something warm. Something male.

Blackshire was looking for the candlestick, too. But what he found was Kathryn.

THE CONTACT SURPRISED him, for as the girl bumped into Nigel and he reached out to steady her, his hands came into contact with an unusual contour fanning out from the top of what must be a dressing table. Wire, fine mesh. Rounded. Thin.

“Wings!” he cried.

He didn’t know why he should have been so surprised. Hadn’t Ophelia promised to give him what he sought if he came to the masquerade? Well, here he was. And here was his fairy queen.

He’d come to rid himself of his idiotic fascination with Kitty Davidson. His attraction to the chit had to be fueled by her physical resemblance to the fairy. The attraction between Nigel and Titania had been immediate and mutual. Their kiss in Ophelia’s garden had set him afire.

Like the fairy, Kitty Davidson was beautiful, clever, kind, and resourceful. Nigel had thought Kitty at sixteen was a charmer. But at eighteen, she was bloody dangerous. He hadn’t had a moment’s peace since he’d learned her true age. There was no way he was going to chain her, an innocent, to a man like himself. A twenty-nine-year-old soldier who had looked evil in the face—and killed it. A man who had seduced a score of women in service to his country.

Kitty Davidson might be marriageable, all right. But she wasn’t marriageable to him.

He had to get her out of his system. And the only way he could think of to do that was to go to the source of the problem. The fairy. And here she was.

“I suppose you have a wand to go with your wings?” he drawled.

“A wand, sir? I do not know what you mean.”

“Do not attempt to play me for a fool.” He took her by the shoulders, splayed his fingers over them and skimmed them down her back. He pulled her to him and felt her tremble. “You are my Titania and no other.”

“Yours, my lord?”

“Apparently that is what you are about to become whether either of us wishes it or not.”

“
What
?! What can you mean?”

“Though I cannot imagine why, Lydia intends to compromise us.”

“I do not think so. She went out of her way to tell me no one would discover me here.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. She specifically stated that no one is permitted in this wing of the house from dusk to midday, by order of Ophelia.”

“Ah yes. Ophelia. She must be in on it too.”

“No . . . it cannot be. She would not—”

“I received a note from the old girl today, which said that if I came to this ball, she would give me what I’ve been seeking.”

Kathryn’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Which is?” she whispered.

“You.”

In the darkness, one large, strong hand found her face and cradled it reverently. “You are beautiful.”

“Nonsense, my lord. You cannot see me.”

“I can with my touch, with my fingers, with sightless eyes,” he whispered, and showed her what he meant, moving his fingers slowly, searchingly to the top of her head and then slowly over her face. “Since we kissed, you have invaded my waking thoughts and haunted my dreams at night,” He caressed her throat and then the underside of her jaw, tilting her face upward.

“What are you doing?” Kathryn asked, though she was certain she knew what the answer would be.

“This.” He kissed her lightly, once, twice. “Kissing you. I’ve thought of little else since the night of the ball.”

She sighed. “Oh . . . neither have I! Kiss me again. Please.”

“As you wish,” he whispered. His warm breath skittered past her ear, raising gooseflesh up and down her side. He drew her even closer to him, and his mouth descended over hers. He kissed her with a mixture of urgency and gentleness. She responded immediately, intimately, naturally.

“I’ve never been kissed like this before,” she murmured against his lips.

It was true. This kiss was different from the kiss in Auntie’s garden. That time, she had been fighting her attraction to Blackshire. She had thought him a blackguard. This time, she knew better.

When his lips left her mouth to trail over her jaw and down her neck, she made a small sound of protest. What he was doing to the sensitive area below and behind her ear was intoxicating—John Bothwell and Robert Brice had each stolen a peck on her lips when they were children, but now they attempted nothing more than a chaste brushing of their lips across the backs of her fingers.

She knew it was mad, she knew it was improper, but she reached for Nigel anyway and brought his lips back to her own.

Seconds ticked by, marked only by the beating of his heart. His face, where it brushed against hers, was clean-shaven yet rough. His scent rose between them, warm and masculine, inviting her to inhale more deeply. She was lost in a swirl of sensation.

Heaven help her, she didn’t want to stop, for kissing—kissing this way—was lovely.

Voices sounded down the hall. Nigel forced himself to draw away from her. There was nothing to do but wait for the door to open.

“Oh dear,” his fairy queen whispered in dread.

“I can think of worse fates,” he said. “Marriages have been founded on less.”

“You know nothing about me, my lord!”

“On the contrary. I know you are kind, loyal, intelligent . . . and very pleasant to kiss. I have no regrets.”

Even as he said the words, a traitorous image of Kitty Davidson flashed into his mind. And then there was someone at the door. Several someones.

There was nothing left to do but propose.

“Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Kathryn felt tears welling in her eyes. It was all too much. She could not fathom it. She’d fallen in love with a scoundrel, torturing herself over her foolishness for days. And now she was going to be his wife. Only he wasn’t a scoundrel. He was a beautiful, generous, and loving man whom she adored. She just knew her parents would love him. And of course Auntie would be in raptures.

He did not truly love the fairy, but he cared for Kitty Davidson, she was certain. Kathryn had only to confess they were one and the same, and all would turn happy.

The jingling and clanking of keys sounded at the door. She opened her mouth to answer yes, but her breath caught in her throat.

Aunt Ophelia!

The old woman’s diary was still lost at Lady Marchman’s.

What if whatever secret it contained were heinous enough to bring down the powerful Marquis of Blackshire? Perhaps not, but if it was bad enough to induce Ophelia Palin to retire for good to the country, then it was most certainly bad enough to have some effect upon Blackshire and Lady Jane by association. Would the scandal have a negative effect upon Nigel’s influence in Parliament? Or hurt Jane’s chances at making a happy match?

She couldn’t take the chance. Too many people were counting on her. Before she could have her own happily-ever-after, she had to find that diary, and she could think of only one way to do that. She groped for her costume masque and, covering her face with it, she waited by the door, ready to spring.

Nigel waited for her to answer as someone in the hall fitted a key into the lock. Any sane man would be panicked. But it was useless to fight against the inevitable, and Nigel, though he had not come to find a wife and by all rights should have been unhappy, felt only a sense of calm anticipation. It was time he got married. His thirtieth birthday was approaching, and he had not found a woman more suited to his needs than this one. Rose, the fairy, was “almost three-and-twenty,” much closer to his age than—than other women of his acquaintance. She was therefore much more suitable for a man like himself than someone like Miss Davidson. Nigel was certain Rose would make an admirable marchioness. They were obviously well suited physically; their attraction for each other had been palpable since the very moment their eyes met.

Perhaps, in time, love might even grow between them.

And perhaps, in time, he could think of Lydia Northam and Ophelia Palin again without an accompanying urge to strangle them.

The door finally opened. Light slashed into the room, and three silhouettes appeared in the doorway. Lydia, and two shapes he thought he could identify as Lady Jersey and Princess Esterhazy. Of course. Who better to witness an indiscretion? Nigel almost laughed. Ophelia meant business.

Suddenly, a fourth shape burst from out of the deep shadow flanking the doorway. Rose! She rushed through the cluster of women at the door and ran headlong down the hall. She wore her masque!

“Who is that?” Lady Jersey demanded.

“I do not know,” Nigel lied.

“Indeed!” Princess Esterhazy huffed.

Nigel turned to Lydia. “Do you know who that young lady was?” he demanded sternly.

Lydia hesitated, searching his expression. “No,” she finally said, shaking her head. “No. I do not know her.”

Nigel didn’t know if she ought to be sainted or drawn and quartered. He looked down the long hall, but there was no sign of Rose. She hadn’t answered—or even acknowledged—his proposal.

“Hell and blast,” he thundered. She’d escaped him again.