Regency High Society Vol 7: A Reputable Rake / The Heart's Wager / The Venetian's Mistress / The Gambler's Heart

Morgana’s maid stepped in front of her and brought them all to a halt. She leaned right into her sister’s face. ‘What would have happened to you if Miss Hart had not come after you? You ought to be grateful to her. I cannot understand you.’

Lucy folded her arms across the low bodice of her gaudy dress.

Morgana gave them each a push. ‘Let us be on our way.’

She ushered them into the house through the servants’ door. Tears stained Lucy’s cheeks and Morgana wrapped her arm around the girl and brushed the hair from her eyes. ‘Why don’t you take some time to get cleaned up? Then, if you like, you can come to my room while your sister helps me dress.’

As Lucy ran up the back stairs, the door from the hall opened. Cripps, the butler, with nose lifted, gazed first at Lucy’s retreating figure, then at Morgana.

Morgana stared back, but spoke to her maid. ‘Amy, please go to my room and set out a dressing gown for me. I shall be there directly.’

Amy gaped at Cripps with frightened eyes. ‘Yes, miss.’ She bobbed a quick curtsy and fled up the stairs after her sister.

Morgana felt a sinking chagrin. When she had hired Cripps and his almost-as-taciturn wife as butler and housekeeper a month ago, she had hoped to thaw some of that chilly reserve of his, but all her friendly smiles and solicitous questions as to the Cripps’ health or their contentment with her employment had been to no avail. The butler kept himself so contained, she’d been unable to take the measure of the man.

He would likely resent her interference in his responsibilities, but she could not risk him playing the strict upper servant and admonishing Lucy. The girl might run again. ‘I have handled this situation, Cripps, entirely to my satisfaction,’ she said in an even voice. ‘You need not be involved.’

‘Very good, miss.’ He bowed.

She tried a smile, hoping it would ease his sombre expression. ‘I suppose I have delayed dinner, haven’t I? Were Grandmama and Miss Moore served?’ Morgana had ordered a light supper to be sent up to the dowager Lady Hart and her companion in Lady Hart’s room.

‘Yes, miss,’ Cripps responded, his tone bland but, Morgana suspected, disapproving. ‘I ordered Cook to keep your dinner warm.’

She made herself keep smiling. ‘That was good of you, Cripps. You may have it sent up to my bedchamber.’

He bowed again and retreated towards the kitchen. Morgana sighed. Perhaps if she’d known more of the man behind Cripps’s austere exterior, she might have sought him out to chase after Lucy instead of going herself.

But then she would not have encountered the magnificent man who came to their aid. She could just see him, dark brows and eyes peering from under the brim of his hat, so at ease with the violence, moving as gracefully as a dancer and as lethally as a charging lion.

Placing a bracing hand against her chest, she stepped into the hall and climbed the staircase to her bedchamber on the upper floor. Amy was there, smoothing out her dressing gown.

Morgana walked to the wash stand and caught sight of herself in the mirror above it. ‘Oh, I look a fright!’ Her hair was completely out of its pins, falling on her shoulders straight as a stick and her face was smudged with dirt. She stifled the urge to laugh. What must Cripps have thought of her?

Or, more significantly, what had the gentleman in the park thought?

She poured water into the basin and took a cloth to scrub her face, then Amy helped her out of her dress.

Why could the excitement of this evening not have occurred during one of the many excruciatingly dull days she’d endured this last month while awaiting her new wardrobe? Tonight was her first chance to experience London’s many entertainments. She was to attend the opera in the company of her aunt, uncle and cousin, having been included in the invitation of the gentleman her cousin planned to snare as a husband. Certainly opera would seem tame after witnessing a man wield a swordstick as if it were an extension of his arm.

Amy worked at the strings of her corset. ‘I do not know what got into Lucy’s head, miss. I am sorry for troubling you with our problems, but what would we have done without you?’

Morgana looked over her shoulder at the girl. ‘The thanks belong to the gentleman who helped us.’ She smiled to herself. ‘If he was a gentleman.’

In the mirror she saw a dreamy look came over the maid’s face. ‘He looked like a pirate to me, miss. A handsome one.’

‘A very handsome one!’ Morgana laughed. ‘What a treat to be rescued by such a man.’

She made light of the incident for Amy’s benefit, but in truth it had deeply affected her. She was appalled by the man trying to take Lucy away and stunned by Lucy’s willingness to follow him. She was also stirred into a cauldron of excitement by the gentleman who had rushed in to help them. He was tall and dark-haired, like any good pirate should be, but in an impeccably tailored coat and fine linen. Like the stick he carried, he looked sleek and expensive on the outside, but, on the inside, hid a violence ready to be unleashed. She could barely catch her breath just thinking about him.

But she was not the sort to waste time mooning over a man, especially one she might never see again. Although perhaps he would attend the opera this night? Her cousin said everyone would be there—

Morgana caught herself again. It was foolishness to get worked up about something that might not happen. Her father had always told her so.

She changed the subject. ‘Do you know anything of why Lucy would try to go off with that man? Did she confide in you?’

Amy shook her head. ‘She’s been a moody one for a long time, but she shares no confidences with me.’

Amy and Lucy Jenkins had come recommended to Morgana by her aunt’s housekeeper, a relative of some sort. Amy proved to be a treasure, aged twenty, a very young but talented lady’s maid. Lucy, on the other hand, two years younger, was another story. More than once Morgana had found her in a room, dust rag in hand, staring into space, looking… tormented.

She gave Amy a look of motherly reassurance she did not entirely feel. ‘We shall discover what troubles Lucy. And then we shall solve it.’

Amy returned a grateful smile, full of a complete confidence Morgana did not share. Although Morgana was a scant three years older than her maid, she’d seen a great deal of the world at her father’s side in his diplomatic posts on the Peninsula and lately in Paris. Affairs of a carnal nature between men and women, however, were still somewhat of a mystery. Could such desires lure Lucy to follow that disreputable man? Morgana had no doubt he would turn her into the sort of girl men purchase for an evening. The vivid memory of one such woman Morgana had spied in Portugal still haunted her, the hopelessness that had shown in her eyes.

Desperation and hunger might drive a woman to such ends, but Lucy had plenty of food and Morgana was a kind employer. Why would she choose to run off?

Morgana washed herself with rose-scented soap she’d brought from France, noting with some alarm bruises on her arms and legs. Luckily her clothes would cover them.

Amy helped her into a dressing gown and tied her hair back with a ribbon. She looked nothing like the person who had engaged in fisticuffs, but more like the baron’s daughter she was.

There was a knock on the door. Amy answered it, taking a tray from the footman and carrying it over to a table.

Morgana pulled at a chair. ‘See to your own dinner, Amy. And try to induce Lucy to eat something, too.’

‘Yes, miss.’ Amy curtsied. ‘I’ll be up directly to help you dress for the theatre.’

After taking just a few bites of her meal, Morgana pushed the tray aside. She was restless after the incident in the park, and thoughts of their rescuer all too easily filled her mind. She fancied she remembered each move he made, each expression on his face. It had been a strong face, long and lean, with piercing eyes, a Roman nose and what she could only think of as sensual lips.

She rose from her chair a bit too quickly, knocking against the table, clattering her dishes. She caught the wine glass just in time before it spilled. Releasing a relieved breath, she slipped out of her room and walked more carefully down the hall to visit her grandmother’s sitting room.

‘Hello, Grandmama,’ she said as she entered the room. Her grandmother Hart, a tiny woman who seemed not much more than paper-thin skin hung loosely over frail bones, sat smiling in her winged-back chair.

Her grandmother’s eyes lit up upon seeing her. ‘Why, hello, dear.’

Morgana was not fooled. The dowager Lady Hart greeted everyone who entered the room in the same manner, even the footman who came in to tend the fire. Morgana leaned down and kissed her grandmother’s cheek.

Her grandmother’s companion, the faithful Miss Moore, well into her sixties, handed a cup of tea to Lady Hart. Lady Hart stared at it a moment before smiling up at Morgana again. ‘Would you like a cup, my dear?’

‘That would be very nice.’ Morgana sat in a nearby chair. The cup of tea trembled in Lady Hart’s hand, still poised in the air. Morgana held her breath, not daring to speak until her grandmother remembered to take a very slow, shaky sip and to put the cup on the table next to her.

‘Did you have a nice day, Grandmama?’ Morgana nodded her thanks to Miss Moore, who had handed her a cup of tea.

‘Oh, I had a lovely day, my dear.’

Morgana smiled. Her grandmother always had lovely days.

Morgana would not dream of telling her grandmother about the incident with Lucy, nor about the gentleman who came to their rescue. Not that it mattered. Her grandmother would not remember a word of the conversation the moment Morgana left the room. She did chat about attending the theatre that evening. Her grandmother smiled and said, ‘Oh!’ and ‘How lovely’ in all the right places.

It was good that Morgana’s father and his new wife had gone straight to his new post in Naples rather than travel with Morgana to England. Her father knew nothing of his mother’s failing memory, or of her increasing frailty. Morgana would withhold that information from him until he’d had more time to enjoy his newly wedded bliss, absent of family concerns.