Truly a Wife (Free Fellows League 4)

Daniel winced. “I won’t. Not as long as I rest. But rest is the one thing I won’t get if anyone in there suspects I’m injured. All I’ll get is questions I can’t answer and a stream of curious callers I’d rather avoid.” He reached out and took her hand. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders and you spent an entire summer helping Alyssa Abernathy devise all sorts of healing concoctions. I know you learned something, and despite our past differences, Miranda, I trust you to keep this our secret.”

“Daniel, I can’t,” she faltered. “I can’t keep a secret that might endanger your life. I won’t use the front entrance. I’ll go around back to the service entrance and ask to speak with your mother … I’ll tell her it concerns you …”

“You’ll be wasting your breath.” Daniel sighed. “My mother won’t believe anything you have to say …”

“She can’t deny the blood on my dress,” Miranda argued.

“Of course she can.” Daniel attempted a lopsided smile. “Her son is a duke, and everyone knows that a duke’s blood is royal blue.”

“Daniel, this isn’t a joke.”

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “It’s a matter of life or death. My life or death, and believe me, my dear Lady St. Germaine, my life won’t be worth a penny if word of my injury gets around. And it will get around if you return to the house like that. Someone is bound to notice and ask questions I cannot afford to have asked, much less answer.”

Miranda knew he was right. She couldn’t return to the party with bloodstains on her gown, and she had nothing with which to cover them. She hadn’t worn a wrap, and her evening cloak was hanging in the cloakroom along with a hundred other evening cloaks deposited there by the footmen and maids collecting them at the door as the duchess’s guests arrived. Without her cloak, there was no way Miranda could hide the damage that had been done to her dress, and the only other option was to dispense with her gown and go back inside Sussex House in her undergarments.

As a peeress in her own right, Miranda had always been a bit more independent and daring than was considered proper for an unmarried lady. She had garnered her share of gossip since she’d made her curtsey, and had earned a reputation as the ton’s perpetual bridesmaid. She was unconventional in many ways, but Miranda was a lady to her core, and dispensing with her ball gown wasn’t an option she could seriously consider. Unfortunately, a bloodstain the size of the one on her dress was nearly impossible to disguise.

Nor could she dismiss Daniel’s concerns. He knew the situation better than she, and Miranda would never forgive herself if what Daniel said was true and some eagle-eyed member of the ton raised a hue and cry and demanded to know what had happened. Or if someone recalled the fact that the Marchioness St. Germaine’s exquisite ball gown hadn’t been stained until after she’d accepted the Duke of Sussex’s invitation to dance the waltz—an unprecedented occurrence at his mother’s annual gala.

Miranda gritted her teeth in frustration. If only she’d realized how foxed he was before he’d asked her to dance, before he’d ordered the orchestra to play the waltz, she might have persuaded him to make his exit in a less noticeable manner, but she’d foolishly succumbed to the temptation of being held in Daniel’s arms once again, and now they were both going to suffer for it. But once they were safely away and Daniel was settled into bed with someone to look after him, Miranda was going to demand an explanation.

She looked at Daniel. “You’re right,” she stated matter-of-factly, extending her hand to him in order to pull him to his feet. “Unfortunately, we’ve no choice but to make a run for it. So, let’s be about it, Your Grace, before you’re too weak to support your weight or before you expire on the spot.”

Chapter Three

“Now or never was the time.”

—Laurence Sterne, 1713–1768

Tristram Shandy

Daniel took a deep breath, steeling himself for the ordeal ahead. He pressed his hand against the front of his waistcoat in a vain attempt to suppress the ache and offered Miranda his arm as they left the gravel path. “I can’t promise I’ll succeed,” he said, stepping onto the lawn before removing his hand from the front of his waistcoat and reaching into his jacket pocket for a handkerchief. “But I’ll do my utmost to prevent you from having to bear the bulk of my weight.”

“You’ll succeed,” she returned in a no-nonsense tone she hoped masked the terror she felt. “You’ve no choice. If you falter, I will leave you where you lie and go for help.” She glanced at him from beneath her lashes, watching covertly as Daniel dabbed his handkerchief along his brow, mopping up the beads of perspiration that dotted it.

“What happened to your resolve not to endanger my life?” he asked, frowning at the crumpled square of handkerchief linen that bore smears of blood where he’d gripped it.

“The way I see it, your life is in danger either way. You started this by insisting that we waltz out of the ballroom in order to get you safely out of the reach of prying eyes,” Miranda reminded him. “And until we succeed in getting you away, you’re going to act a part worthy of the Bard and carry yourself like the duke you were born to be. You’re going to cross the lawn as if you hadn’t a care in the world. And if we encounter any late arrivals or early departures, you’re going to protect yourself by living up to your reputation as a quick wit or by being fast on your feet. Whatever seems most appropriate.”

“I’m muzzy-headed, but believe it or not, I comprehend the situation, Miranda,” he murmured dryly, still clenching the handkerchief in his fist. And the danger. “I am, after all, the one bl—”

“Good evening, Your Grace.”

Daniel froze at the greeting, and Miranda took a step back, hoping to hide her dress from the other man’s view.

But it was next to impossible to hide anything at Sussex House tonight. The place glowed with light like a birthday cake covered with candles—and all for the benefit of the guests attending the Duchess of Sussex’s annual gala.

The entire house was blazing with hundreds of candles, and the gardens and grounds were equally well-lighted with an almost equal number of lanterns. The duchess had insisted on installing a series of gas lamps along the front and side entrances to Sussex House after thieves had accosted Lady Gentry and her daughter at knifepoint earlier in the season as they’d returned home from the opera. The fact that the Gentrys lived on the opposite end of Park Lane from Sussex House hadn’t seemed to matter to the dowager duchess.

She had had workmen from the Gas-Light and Coke Company working day and night to lay the gas pipe and install the lamps in time for the gala. The duchess had also hired a veritable army of footmen, and lamp- and lantern-lighters and tenders, whose job it was to light and tend the candles and oil lamps inside Sussex House and the gas lamps and oil lanterns outside, and to keep everything glowing until half past two in the morning, when every light in the place would be extinguished so the duchess could delight in waking the rest of London with a show of three a.m. fireworks. And after the fireworks, the army of lighters and tenders would be put back to work illuminating the way for the departing guests.

It was costing Daniel a bloody fortune. But no expense was spared, no whim was too extravagant when it came to the Duchess of Sussex’s Annual Gala.

Daniel almost pitied the pickpockets, cutpurses, housebreakers, and footpads seeking the shadows of Park Lane tonight. There were no shadows around Sussex House—for thieves or for the amorously inclined. Heaven forbid that the duchess’s party be marred by robbery, by scandalous behavior, or by her blue-blooded son’s clandestine activities.

He gritted his teeth, allowing the breath he’d been holding to escape. He’d known all along that the optimal time for escaping the party was the golden hour and a half between the extinguishing of the lamps for fireworks and the relighting of them to aid the departing guests, but that meant enduring the entire evening, and Daniel was quite sure that suffering through his mother’s party was not something he was prepared to do—not if he wished to keep his injury a secret.

Daniel had intended to ask his cousin and Free Fellow colleague, the Earl of Barclay, for assistance, but he’d deliberately delayed his entrance to avoid being pressed into duty standing beside his mother in the receiving line. Because he’d been engaged in the business of avoiding his mother, Daniel had missed Jonathan. And although he’d spotted his cousin several times, Daniel hadn’t the energy to leave his cozy hiding place and make his way through the growing crush of people to reach him. He’d decided to lie in wait until Jonathan or someone else he knew he could trust made their way close to him.