The prince regent was having a dinner party. He’d planned it for weeks. Carlton House was to be filled with sumptuous food, beautiful people, and witty conversation. Afterward they would dance and gamble and then have a midnight refreshment.
The prince regent never made it to the dancing.
The weather and the renewed activities of Wrexhall’s Wraith conspired to keep many of his guests at home. Feeling put upon and unappreciated, he’d cried off directly after dining, leaving his company to look after themselves.
Those who remained were stalwart revelers, determined not to let any happenstance interfere with their pursuit of pleasure in all its forms. The Norths, along with Anne Wilder, were among their number.
Brilliant blue-white light filled Carlton House’s huge windows. The brief flash went unnoticed by the revelers. Except Anne. A few seconds later the floor beneath the crowd vibrated. She lifted her head and watched the chandeliers dance in time to thunder so low and deep it hid beneath the chattering of human voices. The storm grew nearer.
Anne gazed down into her punch and swirled the ruby liquor in the glass, creating a tiny whirlpool in the center. Each day, it seemed to her, spun by as uncontrollably as the fleck of cork spinning madly around her glass. Ever since Jack
No. Not Jack. She wouldn‘t think of Jack.
She looked around, hoping to seize upon some distraction, and a short distance away saw Sophia with Lady Dibbs, Lady Pons-Burton, and Jeanette Frost. They slowly wended their way toward her. Sophia, she would think of Sophia.
Anne had heard rumors lately, from concerned acquaintances, helpful dowagers, and knowing gentlemen whose words had commiserated but whose eyes told a different tale.
“High spirits, Mrs. Wilder,” they’d say. “I recall you kicked over the traces when you were that age, too, didn’t you? Didn’t hurt you any though, did it?”
The little whirlpool in the middle of her glass grew deeper as the wine swirled faster. Oh, yes, mustn’t pass any opportunity to extract a bit of late payment from the merchant’s daughter for having tricked a peer into marrying her.
Their graceless innuendos simply did not hurt her. They had no subtlety to them. Jack Seward would have killed her with courtesy. He would have
No. Sophia.
Three nights ago she’d gone to Sophia’s room and discovered the girl missing. Sophia had returned just before Malcolm arrived home.
Poor bit of luck for Sophia, Anne thought. He’d shouted abuse at Sophia and the servants and most especially at Anne herself. Fearsome sight, if you were capable of caring. But wasn’t that her stigmata? The inability to care deeply enough or love? That’s what Matthew had said. And he should have known.
Sophia and her coterie stopped a few feet away, their conversation humming like the buzzing of bees in a hive. Yes, Anne thought, studying Sophias low décolletage and practiced smile, she’d done a fine job of guiding Sophia. With any more of her guidance, Sophia would end up in a brothel.
She’d tried. She had honestly tried. Just as she had tried to love Matthew.
Rain began pelting the glass panes. The cold water against the heated glass caused fog to mist them over. The thunder crackled closer now, interrupting the conversation of the four women.
“Ghastly weather,” Lady Dibbs said when it had ceased. “And me in new shoes. But where was I?”
Sophia smiled politely as her gaze wandered freely among the men.
Poor Lady Dibbs,
thought Anne.
She doesn‘t even realize she’s been preempted.
Just a short while ago Lady Dibbs had ensured Anne’s silence regarding her debt to the Home by threatening to have the Norths ostracized. She didn’t have that power now. Sophia had decided to see to that task herself.
The girl’s smile deepened. Anne looked over her shoulder to see who now had attracted her attention. Strand stood a ways off, Jack by his side. Anne’s pulse quickened at the sight of him. His gaze touched her and moved on.
She’d wanted Jack Seward to abandon his courtship of the widow in favor of his pursuit of the thief. Her desires could not have been better realized. He no longer sought her company. He avoided even looking at her. He gave her only the barest minimum of what his exquisite manners demanded.
She should smile. She should feel triumphant. After all, her planher oh-so-clever planhad worked, hadn’t it? Her throat closed on the welling pain.
It had been five nights since she’d gone to Jack’s room. On each subsequent night she’d gone out and stolen gems and baubles, trinkets, and heirlooms, growing bolder with each theft. She simply no longer cared.
What did it matter now? She made herself one with the role. She relished it, reveled in it. She
needed
it because the only thing she would ever have of Jack Seward was his pursuit. The widow wouldn’t have his regard; the thief wouldn’t know his passion.
Sophia would never suffer from Anne’s acts. They were related by only the most slender of associations. She was Sophia’s cousin’s ill-bred wife. Indeed, society might offer sympathy to the poor girl who’d been so taken in by
“The Wraith forced himself on me last night.”
Anne’s head snapped around. Stunned attention met Jeanette’s hushed statement. She might as well have dropped a dead cat into their midst.
“He stole my broach and then he ... he kissed me.”
“My dear child!” Lady Dibbs cried, her eyes alight with speculation.
“How exciting!” Sophia said. “And terrible, of course. Do tell us what happened.”
“Yes,” Anne urged dryly, “do tell us so we can contrive to escape your fate.”
Jeanette needed no further prompting. “Well,” she said, “the clock had just struck midnight.”
Midnight? It had been three hours shy of dawn.
“I awoke to the feeling of a shadow passing over me. I opened my eyes. He was bending over me. I was terrified.”
“I should say,” Anne said. Jeanette Frost had been snoring like an asthmatic mastiff during the entire time Anne had rifled through her drawers and jewelry boxes.
Jeanette clasped her hands to her bosom. “ ‘Blackguard!’ I shouted. He leered down at me, a tall broad-shouldered brute of a man, and said, ‘Aye, wench! And since I’m a blackguard I may as well take the blackguard’s portion.’ He seized me and kissed me and laughed again when I slapped his face.” She giggled.
“Is that all?” Sophia asked.
“Oh!” Jeanette’s maidenly gasp didn’t come accompanied by the slightest of maidenly blushes. She glanced about her audience, undoubtedly deciding what ending would lend her the greatest cachet. “But of course that’s all.”
The other women’s faces collapsed in disappointment.
Cowardly, Miss Frost,
Anne thought. But definitely the wiser course. She looked over at where Jeanette’s red-eyed father divided his glowers between his daughter and Jack. A ravished daughter in the Frost household might as well be dead.
“One kiss?” Lady Pons-Burton asked, her plump cheeks distended in a pout.
“Just one kiss.” Jeanette nodded, her eyes straying toward her father.
“How awful for you, Miss Frost,” Sophia said, and Anne had the disturbing notion Sophia wasn’t consoling Jeanette on her adventure but on its tame ending.
“I must tell you all something,” Jeanette said, looking about. “I don’t think the Wraith is a commoner.”
“And why is that, Miss Frost?” Lady Dibbs asked.
“I can’t exactly say. He just had such an air about him. And he was well spoken, if gruff. I should think he may well be some”her voice dropped as her gaze slanted to where Jack’s broad back stood against themagainst her“nobleman’s by-blow.”
“Well, we know how interesting they can be.” Lady Dibbs bit her lower lip provocatively.
“A lot of commotion about nothing if you ask me,” Sophia replied blandly. “Or wishful thinking.”
“Why, Miss North,” Lady Dibbs said, glancing at her companions to see if they shared her feigned amazement at the unsolicited opinion of so young andostensiblyinexperienced a girl. “Whatever are you referring to?”
Jeanette and Lady Pons-Burton snickered.
“I’m speaking about Colonel Seward, of course,” Sophia said, her eyes narrowing slightly. “I don’t think the man nearly as transfixing as the stories about him.”
“But how would
you
know, child?” Lady Dibbs purred. She looked over Sophia’s head directly at Anne.
She blinked as if she’d forgotten she was there. “Perhaps dear Mrs. Wilder here is better qualified to tell us about Colonel Seward, seeing how he quite shadows her. Or did. I thought you’d adopted a new pet there for a while, Mrs. Wilder. But then, they call him ‘Whitehall’s Hound,’ don’t they?”
The four ladies dipped behind their fans and tittered.
When Anne didn’t respond, Lady Dibbs turned her bright gaze back on Sophia. “And then what with the two of them having such similar histories and all ... Oh, dear! I haven’t offended you, have I, Sophia?” Lady Dibbs’s bright-red mouth dribbled artificial laughter. “I mean, it’s not as if no one knows, is it? One must be apprised of what and with whom one associates. And Mrs. Wilder never did care who knew how . . . unassuming her ancestors are.”
Despicable woman.
“It’s his manner,” Jeanette broke in, utterly oblivious to the byplay. “Such a violent history and such refined manners. The combination is simply galvanizing.”
Anne refused to look at him. It would be as if she’d never mated her tongue with his, as if she’d never strained against him, stroked the warm, hard wall of his chest, felt his pulse thundering in the silk-hard manhood.
God help her, when would she forget?
She bit the inside of her cheeks as hard as she could until she tasted the metallic tang of blood. In the last days she’d resurrected a specter of the girl who’d once dazzled London society. No one seemed to mind that her laughter sounded brittle, that her sharp wit had no kindness, and that the promises she made with her eyes were empty.
She bewitched and teased, nearly manic in her determination to fill the emptiness. The gentlemen flocked to her, their expressions avid and speculative, eager to see what this newest incarnation of Anne Wilder might allow. She’d tried so hard not to remember. It had been futile. It was futile. He possessed her
“Mrs. Wilder.” Lady Dibbs’s tone suggested she’d repeated Anne’s name more than once.
“Yes?”
“Surely you could entertain us with some interesting information about Colonel Seward?”
Damned if she wouldn’t give the woman a subject to coil that venomous tongue around, Anne thought. She’d already lost everything important. Nothing Lady Dibbs took from her mattered anymore.
“I don’t know any stories about Colonel Seward, Lady Dibbs. I do know some interesting ones about you, however.”
Lady Dibbs stared at Anne in disbelief. Her mouth dropped open and snapped shut and then opened again. “Really, Mrs. Wilder, I don’t think”
“All too obvious,” Anne said. “But let me clarify. The donations, the thousand pounds you pledged to the Soldiers Relief Fund on two separate occasions? I never have received a single penny of them.”
The women around them fell abruptly silent. Lady Dibbs drew herself up. “Transferring sums that large takes time,” she said coldly, warning in her voice.
“Certainly no longer than the time it took to acquire that necklace,” Anne replied calmly, her gaze touching lightly on the pearl and diamond pendant. “I believe you were telling some of the ladies it is new, isn’t it?”
“Are you insinuating that I reneged on a pledge, Mrs. Wilder? I advise you to think carefully before you answer.” If Lady Dibbs thought to set Anne’s knees to trembling, she’d far misjudged her woman.
Anne’s smile burned to ashes all signs of the humility and submissiveness Lady Dibbs and her sort demanded as entry fee to their exalted realms. Lady Dibbs stepped back. Anne stepped forward.
“Insinuate, Lady Dibbs?” she said clearly. “The facts speak for themselves. You
pledged
two thousand pounds; you
gave
nothing. Except a very public demonstration of your munificence.”
Lady Pons-Burton snickered. Lady Dibbs quelled her laughter with a vicious look.
But Anne wasn’t done. “The only reason I brought it up at all is that being such a champion for veracity, so adamant that people’s lives and histories be opened to your scrutiny, I felt sure you’d jump at the chance to make your own known.”
“I think you’re done now, Mrs. Wilder,” Lady Dibbs said tightly.
“Do you really believe so, ma’am?” She looked around at the ladies who stared at their erstwhile leader with undisguised embarrassment. “And here I thought you were.”
“Oh, brava, Anne.” Sophia had caught up to her by the time she’d reached the door into the ballroom. Her tone brought the heat to Anne’s cheeks as none of Lady Dibbs’s barbs had done.
“If you want to be blacklisted, fine,” Sophia continued. “But since you’ve spent the past two months lecturing me on the importance of society’s approval, I must own I’m puzzled. Or did you not think how your actions would reflect on me?”
Anne’s patience with Sophia was at an end. Whatever course the girl was set on, she’d started long before Anne’s arrival. “You’ve been testing society’s tolerance all season, Sophia,” she said. “You should be glad I’ve given you an excuse to tell your father why you’ll not be accepted into the better salons and homes.”