The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (3 page)

Nigel felt, rather than saw, her enter. The entire ballroom surged with a wave of shock as heads turned one after the other toward the open glass doors where Lydia stood, eerily haloed by the flambeaux on the terrace behind her. She was a mess. It was worse than he’d imagined. Not only were Lydia’s bodice torn and her hair down, but her face was smudged with tears. She looked lonely and frightened. Guilt washed over him; her shame was really his fault. He was a covert operative for the Home Office, by Jove! He should have known better than to allow her to trick him that way. Nigel coldly noted the censuring looks the guests were shooting Lydia’s way. She was being tried and convicted right then and there. There was not a drawing room in London that would receive her after this.

He could not let her stand alone.

Squaring his shoulders, he took a last look at the fairy queen and then turned away, wishing she truly were a fairy and could do magic to change what had happened that evening. If she could only wave her sparkling wand and—

Just then, she did.

The wand made solid, swift contact with his backside. Nigel spun around, and the fairy queen neatly stepped around him on her way to Lydia’s side, where she stood, almost challengingly, staring back at him. Nigel almost groaned aloud. The two must be acquainted.

And her assault on his now-stinging backside had been intentional!

Obviously, Lydia had already told the fairy some version of what had transpired upstairs. But Nigel had no opportunity to ponder it further, since Lydia caught sight of him at that moment.

“Blackshire!” she cried, capturing the eyes of every goggling guest. Nigel noted more than one head bobbing in his direction, including the ancient dowager Countess Rangnor, who whispered near him, “I knew it had to be Blackshire. Randy fellow—lucky gel!”

The dowager wasn’t the only one with an audible comment. Into the shocked silence, the fairy queen interjected her own venom.

“Lydia was having such fun until the cur got rough!”

The entire assemblage gasped, and a chill like a hundred-year winter pervaded Nigel’s spine. Not only had the fairy queen just announced Lydia was willingly compromised, but she was also implying Blackshire had attacked the silly girl! Perhaps Lydia really saw it that way. He had firmly grasped her shoulders to put her aside . . .

She must have embroidered the tale when she told it to her friend, the fairy. And that spelled matrimonial doom for Nigel, judging by the disconcertingly public and determined way the fairy queen projected her voice across the room. Lydia, for her part, stood in mute silence, staring open-mouthed at the fairy queen.

But then something extraordinary happened.

The fairy turned to him and placed a dramatic hand over her suddenly wrinkled brow.

“Oh, my Lord Blackshire! You were correct,” she said, loudly enough for the entire ballroom to hear—which was not surprising, as one could have heard the wind stir a dandelion’s fluff at that moment. “That dog was vicious.” The fairy’s eyebrow crooked pointedly a fraction of an inch before she continued. “Lydia and I should never have attempted to feed the mongrel. But we just couldn’t help ourselves; it was so piteously starved.” She slipped her arm around the other young woman. “Isn’t that so, Lydia?”

Lydia’s mouth hung open and she said nothing for the space of two heartbeats. Then Nigel could have sworn he saw the fairy give Lydia a nudge in her side.

Lydia stammered. “I . . . well . . . yes. Yes, that is so. Uh . . . we were feeding the dog some scraps we procured from the kitchen and—”

“And our supply was most distressingly inadequate,” the fairy supplied, “so I left to ask Cook for more.” She looked at Lydia.

“Yes,” Lydia agreed, attempting without much finesse to go along with the Banbury tale. “Yes, and . . . and then the scraps were . . . gone?” Her voice trailed off into a question as she looked back at the fairy, their heads nodding in unison.

The fairy nodded emphatically. “All gone. Eaten. Completely depleted. That’s when the cur turned on you!” the fairy finished. Almost as an afterthought, she drew one dainty hand to her mouth in a surprisingly convincing display of shock.

“Yes,” Lydia agreed, with more confidence in her voice now. “It bit me.”

“
Nearly
bit you, you mean. Thank goodness only the bodice of your gown was torn and not your very flesh!”

“Oh my, yes! It nearly bit me, and I . . . I had to scramble over the terrace wall just now to escape! I even lost my diamond bow.” Lydia-as-Artemis sniffled convincingly and even wiped a tear away from her cheek.

Nigel was impressed.

The fairy smiled. “There, there, Lydia. No harm done.” She turned to Nigel, “My Lord Blackshire, I take full responsibility. It was I who persuaded Lydia to accompany me on a quest to relieve the poor mongrel’s suffering. It was I who refused to listen when you tried to convince us our actions were foolish.”

“Yes,” Lydia agreed, “and I know it was most foolish of me to follow when you went off to find our chaperones. But I so wanted to help that poor, starving creature! I pursued you hoping to divert you from your errand, for if you had been successful in finding my duenna, she would have insisted I abandon my folly, of course, but at the time I really did not see how feeding the unfortunate beast could hurt. I do apologize for disregarding your wise counsel. Will you not forgive me?”

As she stood there, a bit of stable-straw fell from her hair. It spiraled and fluttered slowly to the floor, and Nigel crooked an eyebrow at Lydia. Without taking her eyes from him, Lydia neatly covered the straw with one silver slipper. The barest hint of a mischievous smile danced in her eyes, and Nigel fought down a chuckle.

“Do not think twice about it, Miss Northam,” he said, “I assure you it is nothing. I am only relieved you are uninjured.”

A strangled sound came from the doorway as Lydia’s duenna entered the room and spied her charge’s disheveled appearance. Lydia’s smile bloomed, and she moved toward the old woman. “Well, I must remember that what seems a good idea at the time is not always so. I am too impulsive by half.” Coming abreast of Nigel, she paused and stared meaningfully up into his eyes. “Wouldn’t
you
say so, my lord?”

“Indeed,” he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear. Sweeping his highwayman’s cloak from his broad shoulders, he offered it to her. As its blue satin lining settled over Lydia, the guests turned away, and the dancing resumed. The tale was outrageous, but there was a disappointing lack of proof of any indiscretion, and the matter was therefore settled in their minds. They all set about the task of finding some other scandal to discuss on the morrow, and Lydia departed, her duenna clucking in her wake.

Nigel turned to the fairy to express his gratitude, but she was already moving in the opposite direction. What a clever, generous woman!

“God’s blood!” Mr. Jeremy Scott appeared at Nigel’s elbow. “That was a near miss. I was afraid you were caught in the parson’s mousetrap that time, my friend.” Nigel and Jeremy had fought together in the army. He was a trusted friend.

Nigel’s eyes followed the fairy queen as she approached Ophelia Palin. “There are worse fates than marrying Lydia Northam,” he said.

Jeremy’s eyebrows rose. “Thinking of getting married?”

“No. Just thinking.”

“Please . . . do think on it. Put yourself out of your lovelorn misery.”

Nigel grunted. When his body had received that last fateful bullet, Jeremy had stayed by him in a filthy field hospital for a fortnight. Out of his head with delirium, Nigel told Jeremy things he’d barely admitted to himself. Jeremy knew Nigel would not willingly marry for anything but love—or honor.

Jeremy prodded him. “You’re almost thirty, for God’s sake. Isn’t it time you secured the blessings of your bloody tile and fortune to your bloody fortunate descendants?”

“You know I don’t give a damn about continuing the line. I just want a loving wife.”

Jeremy nodded the way Lydia had gone. “As you said, you could do worse. Why not marry Miss Northam? She’s beautiful, intelligent, wealthy. Come, old man, what is she lacking?”

Nigel considered for a moment and then chuckled. “What she lacks is a good aim, my friend.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder. “A good aim and a willingness to use it.”

The younger man, who had not witnessed the fairy’s unconventional use of her magic wand, scowled at Nigel’s enigmatic answer. “What the deuce is that supposed to mean?” the younger man demanded.

Nigel only smiled and shrugged, then cocked his feathered hat to one side and took his leave. Whistling to the waltz the orchestra was playing, a bad habit he’d picked up as a Hussar while in Spain, Nigel went in search of his fairy queen.

He found her standing on the small dais at the end of the room beside their hostess, who sat enthroned on a tall, carved-stone chair. Ophelia was smiling fondly up at her and holding her hand. As he watched, the fairy bent and kissed the old woman’s cheek. Obviously, theirs was a close acquaintance. Nigel wondered briefly why he’d never seen the fairy queen before. She was obviously new to London, but still she knew Ophelia. Of course, who did not know Ophelia? He put the thought aside as he realized his own status as a great favorite of Ophelia’s could be nothing but an asset to his current objective. His smile broadened.

As he approached, Ophelia was listening to her companion speak, but when she spied Nigel, she motioned for the fairy queen to be silent. “Come here, dear boy, and meet Titania. Titania, this is the Marq—umm . . . the Highwayman.”

Nigel was sure Ophelia had not suffered a slip of the tongue. The sly old girl had just given the fairy notice that he was a marquis. Nigel relaxed and decided he would ask her to dance the
Sir Roger de Coverley
with him at the end of the ball. He almost never danced the
de Coverley
. As the last dance of any formal evening, it was a sign of excessive fondness between those who stepped out for it together, so naturally Nigel avoided it. Being seen dancing the
Sir Roger de Coverley
with the Marquis of Blackshire would be a major social
coup
for Titania, he thought, and he smiled benevolently up at her. It was just what a girl making her debut needed to clinch her status. He looked forward to her expression of delight.

“My fairy queen,” he said, sweeping into a low bow and cocking his head to grin up at her.

“Yours?” Her brow rose insolently into her cloud of shining curls. “Humph! I hardly think so.”

Nigel nearly fell over.

CHAPTER THREE

K
ATHRYN’S EYES WIDENED
, and she stared at her aunt with disbelief. “‘Dear boy’ my—”

“Titania!” Aunt Ophelia interrupted her and tapped the devil’s sleeve familiarly with her fan. “Perhaps you should come back later, dear—er . . . boy,” she finished lamely, smiling wanly at the man.

What was his name? Kathryn tried to remember. Blackshire? Yes, that was what Lydia had called him. Blackshire. And Kathryn hadn’t missed her aunt’s bit of social subterfuge; he was a marquis. The Marquis of Blackshire. That made his crime all the worse. To think a peer of the realm would . . . oh! Kathryn couldn’t even think straight, she was so outraged.

“Madam,” she addressed her aunt, “you obviously do not know this man. He is—”

“Titania is a bit...dyspeptic,” Ophelia interrupted her again.

“Not anymore,” Kathryn denied smoothly.

“And she is suffering from a . . . megrim,” Ophelia went on as though Kathryn had not spoken.

“I am recovered!” Kathryn glared at her aunt.

“She is over-warm.”

“I feel fine.” Really, Auntie didn’t know the man’s true colors if she thought to pair her off with him! She clenched her fist tightly around her wand and slapped it smartly against her open palm, hoping to show Blackshire that her “indisposition” had not deprived her of the adroit use of her hands.

Ophelia went on. “She was just about to retire to her—er . . . to one of my rooms to lie down.”

“I think that is best,” the marquis said with apparent solicitude. “It wouldn’t do to have such a . . .
delicate
young lady staying up beyond a reasonable hour.”

Delicate? Young? The truth of the situation hit her between the eyes. The beast must think she was as young and green as his previous victim. That explained his solicitous application for an introduction.

“I am quite healthy, I assure you, and though I may look as though I just stepped from the nursery, it is many years since I had a regularly enforced bedtime, and I am—”

“Months!” Ophelia blurted. “She means many months. Don’t you?” She said, turning a little too urgently toward Kathryn.

Kathryn suppressed a sigh. “I am nearly three-and-twenty. And I am staying.”

“Why, I am glad to hear it, my lady,” said Blackshire. “If you should leave now, the ballroom would pale considerably.”

Kathryn knew any fool could see she was angry with him, and the Marquis of Blackshire was clearly no fool. Those shadowy, obsidian eyes of his were deep wells of the keenest intelligence. He had only one reason to continue this maddening conversation: he was toying with her, like a barn cat with an hour-old chick.

The cat’s eyes glittered. “These maladies have a way of making one believe they have gone and then returning without warning.” He lifted Kathryn’s hand as though to feel her pulse. She snatched her hand away, and Blackshire smiled. “But it seems, dear Mrs. Palin, that fair Titania has experienced a most brilliant recovery.”

“Yes . . . quite,” Ophelia agreed dryly. “Quite extraordinary, that is!” she amended and smiled nervously over at Kathryn.

Poor Auntie. She was transparent as a summer sky. It was obvious to Kathryn—as it was to the marquis, she was sure—that Ophelia was trying desperately to push the two of them together. When Blackshire had approached the dais, Kathryn had only just greeted her aunt, who sat stunned and blinking beneath her bejeweled purple turban, speechless, for once, at her grand-niece’s surprise arrival and startling performance with Lydia Northam. Kathryn hadn’t had time to tell her about what she’d seen and heard upstairs, and she knew Ophelia was distressed by her niece’s apparent lack of manners toward Blackshire, but Kathryn would not, under any circumstances, do the pretty for
him
.

The marquis persisted. “Since my lady is so favorably recovered, may I have the pleasure of the next dance?”

Kathryn put her hand up to her head as dramatically as she could, wilting like a morning glory at noontide. “I find I am quite fatigued at the moment. I could not possibly dance...” —she hesitated the barest fraction of a second— “with you.”

Blackshire only nodded his head and bowed, first to her and then to her aunt. “My ladies,” he said softly and then walked away.

“Are you mad?” Ophelia whispered just as he stepped out of earshot. “Do you know who that was? He is the—”

“The Marquis of Blackshire. Yes, I know, Auntie.”

“Lord take us, you
are
mad!”

“I am quite sane, I assure you, but I do owe you an explanation.”

“I daresay! And how do you know his name? I only let slip his rank.”

“Auntie . . .” She patted Ophelia’s shoulder and smiled. “I know perfectly well you let nothing slip.”

“Answer my question, gel, and none of your impertinence!” Ophelia said severely, but she returned the pat and the smile.

“Well, I was upstairs just after I arrived, when Blackshire and—”

Ophelia shushed her. “Later, dearling. There are some introductions to be made.” She nodded toward a group of three young men dressed similarly in pirate costumes who were approaching the dais with obvious intent.

“My lady.” The first bowed over Kathryn’s hand, an enormous faux golden earring hanging low over his clean-shaven jaw.

“My queen.” The second took her other hand and brushed his faux-mustached lips over her fingers.

“My angel.” The third dropped down to one knee, drew his faux cutlass from his leather waistband, and held it to his throat. “I would rather die if you will not grant me the honor of the very next dance.” His comrades scowled at his bold approach.

Kathryn laughed—softly, as Ophelia had taught her. “I cannot let you ruin the pristine floor with a pool of blood, now can I?” she said. “I shall be delighted to dance with you.” After having petitioned dances for themselves, the other pirates moved off.

Kathryn had not missed her aunt’s small intake of air as she accepted the pirate’s offer of a waltz. She knew her acceptance so soon after her refusal of Blackshire’s offer was tantamount to the cut direct, and she was not sorry, as that, after all, had been her intention. In fact, the only thing she regretted was that no one but her aunt and Blackshire would know of it.

As she stepped out onto the floor with the young gentleman, Blackshire, at the edge of the ballroom, was already leading out another lady. Upon seeing Kathryn and her pirate sweep onto the floor, the blackguard stopped cold and watched her, his partner trying her best to look as though the delay were her idea as she fussed with her fan and reticule.

His expression held neither reproach nor malice. It was simply cold. Unfeeling. Glacial. She shivered. She certainly did not need a fan this evening, for Blackshire’s stare was enough to freeze the blood. She thought of poor Lydia and longed to shatter his icy composure. Perhaps an audience for her rudeness was what was needed.

As the pirate swept Kathryn past Blackshire and his companion, Kathryn suddenly said gaily, as if in answer to her partner, “La, I am not at all too tired to dance with pirates—only with highwaymen.” She flicked a glance at the marquis, whose expression remained irritatingly impassive, but several of those nearby wore shocked expressions.

This time, the cut direct was public knowledge.

She smiled and dismissed the demon from her mind.

Kathryn loved to dance, and the waltz was an especial favorite. Her parents did not believe in the waltz’s inherent impropriety, so in Heathford she had been allowed to dance it, unmarried or no. She knew the steps well. Unfortunately, however, the pirate did not. The complicated steps were enough to occupy his brain without the added confusion of Kathryn’s last cryptic statement. The confused fellow faltered at her words and lost his way, blundering onto Kathryn’s satin-slippered feet and trodding on her swollen toe.

“Owee! Owee-
me
!” As always, the chant slipped out before Kathryn could stop it.

Her eyes darted to Blackshire, who froze and swiveled his gaze in her direction. He’d heard her silly, childish pain chant once before. Her heart pounded in her chest as she hobbled off the floor, assisted by the crimson-faced pirate, who beat a hasty retreat on the excuse of procuring her some lemonade. She couldn’t take her eyes from Blackshire’s.

A spark of certain knowledge passed between them.

You were the one upstairs.

You know I was the one upstairs.

Squaring his shoulders, he started toward her, weaving determinedly through the throng of ball guests and never taking his eyes from hers. His strong features were determined, ruthless. He did not yet know who she was, but Kathryn held little doubt he intended to find out one way or another. What would he do to her? What would he do to
Auntie
? Kathryn could not allow him to reach her.

Rising, she winced with pain, but fear drove her through the dreadful crush and past the open terrace doors. Then she ran.

NIGEL WENT AFTER her, his mind full of questions he meant to answer. The fairy queen was his witness. She’d been hiding in that room upstairs, the room Lydia had lured him to. Had she been there by prearrangement with Lydia? Was she to have served as a witness to Lydia’s ruination? Had Lydia been trying to force him into marriage? If that was so, then why had her friend the fairy so cleverly saved Lydia’s reputation with the story she concocted about feeding the mongrel kitchen scraps? And if she hadn’t been in that pitch black bedchamber by prior arrangement with Lydia, why had she been there? One thing was certain: Nigel wanted to know her name now more than ever.

The clumsy lad who had stepped on his fair partner’s foot was still stammering an apology to her back. Nigel was amazed when she, in a voice designed to carry, declared that she was the clumsy one. That it was she who had forgotten the step and twisted her ankle in the process. And her pirate, the puppy, was all too relieved to agree. Her care for the senseless pirate’s sensibilities was admirable, and Nigel shook his head in wonder, for she was not what one expected from a young lady making her debut. She was . . . different.

But “different” did not begin to describe her.

Her cloud of blond curls shone in the candlelight as she fled through the tall terrace doors. Her gown swirled lightly about her feet, and her iridescent wings fluttered gently over her narrow back. She looked like an angel, but heaven—and now Nigel—knew that, in spite of her cleverness, her kindness, and her gallantry, she was not an angel. She was a hell-spawned imp with a magic wand she knew how to use. A hell-spawned imp Nigel ached to take into his arms.

He’d kiss the devil right out of her.

He was not surprised to see that, by the time he gained the terrace, she wasn’t there. There were two sets of steps leading down and away, one that led toward the gardens at the side and back of Palin House, and one that led to the front of the house and the square.

The gaslit square and the terrace
flambeaux
were soon far behind him, and darkness enveloped the garden. Then the half-moon peeked from behind its curtain of thick clouds, and in the weak illumination Nigel caught a slight movement at the base of a chestnut tree. But he had no time to investigate for the fairy emerged from between two hedgerows and gasped.

“You! Wh—what are you doing here?” she demanded. Her hands fluttered to her masque once more, and Nigel saw them trembling violently.

“I am out for a moonlight stroll,” he plainly lied. “Might I ask you the same?”

“Why, like you,” she said, pulling her gloves on tighter, “I am out for a moonlight stroll in the garden.”

Nigel shook his head. “There is little moonlight. And you were not strolling. You were hurrying.”

“You are mistaken, my lord. I was not hurrying.”

“You were running. Fortunately I am faster,” he said, “or I should never have had the chance to speak with you alone.”

She crossed her arms. “That seems to be the theme of the evening. ‘Speaking’ with unaccompanied young ladies. Tell me, my lord, do all such meetings end with the young woman running from you?”

Her words stunned him to silence. She thought Nigel had attacked Lydia!

“What you witnessed upstairs . . . it was not what it seemed to be. It was . . . it was a misunderstanding.”

“Is that what they are calling it these days? A misunderstanding?”

“You must believe me. I don’t know what Lydia told you, but—”

“She told me nothing. We are not acquainted.”

“But you were in that bedchamber waiting for—”

“For someone else. I was there waiting for someone else.”

“Someone else.” Nigel’s pulse quickened. She could be lying. Or not. Had that unused bedchamber been meant as a trysting place for Titania and a lover? He felt a hot, quick stab of jealousy and immediately the thought of wooing her away from whoever the ungrateful dastard might be. Nigel made no effort to hide the quick, passionate direction his thoughts took him. He allowed his angular face to slide into what he knew was an expression of blatant desire, playful speculation, and obvious invitation.

He was not disappointed.

He watched as her exposed skin flamed crimson, from the bottom edge of her silvery masque on down, over the smooth flesh of throat and her chest, where it curved and disappeared into her low
decolletage
.

He nodded in the direction of the stable yard. “Is your carriage back there? Is it in need of repair? Come,” he said, not waiting for her to answer. “I shall accompany you.” He proffered his arm. She might have her family’s crest emblazoned on her carriage. And if not, then a guinea applied to her footman’s palm would probably serve Nigel’s purposes just as well.

“No,” she declined. “My driver has parked my carriage in the square. I am merely strolling the gardens before returning to the ball.”

“That is odd, for when you emerged from the hedgerows just now, you appeared to be trying to escape something. Or someone.”

Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment she appeared to be ready to acquiesce, but at the last moment, her eyes hardened and she said, “I am taking a walk, I tell you.”

“Alone? What will your chaperon say?”