Page 19 of Unmasking the Earl

With great effort, he forced himself to loosen his hold. “We are in each other’s power, it seems. If I reveal your secret, you will expose mine, and vice versa. An impasse, Miss Blythe. I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to appreciate that.”

Her shapely lips thinned. “Oh, well done, sirrah. You manage to make a compliment sound like an insult. Just let me out of here, you odious oaf! I promise I won’t say anything if you don’t. For the time being.”

There. He had what he wanted. So, why this wash of regret as he opened the closet door and watched her scurry out into the hallway?

She was misguided but had a strong spirit. He had to admire that. And she’d been prepared to stand up to him…even though she was a head shorter, with a fraction of his strength.

He blew out the lamp and stepped from the cupboard, pretending to dust off an old apron, just as the front door was opened to Miss Blythe’s maid. Miss Blythe hurriedly donned her pelisse and bonnet, keen to make a hasty escape. If she had any idea he was standing there watching her, she gave no sign of it.

Would she come back, even after his warning? Did she not realize the threat to her reputation from visiting Wycherley?

Worse, did she have any idea—and he sincerely hoped she did not—how close he had come to kissing her in that closet?

Chapter Ten

Ned swilled platters around in the lead-lined sink and mopped at them irritably.

Wycherley had been right. Ned was an idiot. The amatory adventures of foolish young females like Miss Cassandra Blythe were as nothing compared to his quest. He should never have risked revealing his true identity by interfering.

If he had stormed out and gone to see her father, it would definitely have raised eyebrows. Not at all the kind of thing a genuine servant would do. And with the raised eyebrows would come questions, and descriptions of that servant. Memories would be stimulated, and he would be found out.

Gone would be his best chance of ever finding his sister Georgiana again. And he must find her, whatever her fate.

He propped a pewter dish on the wooden drainer and stared out at the bright spring day. The second week of May and it had been quite promising so far, with only a little light rain, enough to nurture the plants. It was damnably warm down here in the South, though. The cow parsley, ox-eye daisies, campion, and vetch were out in profusion in the hedgerows on the edge of town. In the North, back home, spring would just be on its way, and the wind that blew across the stone walls and feathered the backs of the sheep would still be chilly. How he missed it!

He supposed he might get used to the South, eventually. But he much preferred the wild landscape of Yorkshire, with its romantic ruined abbeys and dark, rain-fed skies, and the lonely cries of the buzzards over the jagged outcrops.

He held a glass with a twisted stem up to the light and polished it with a thick cotton cloth. Undeniably, Wycherley had good taste, but that was the only good thing Ned could think of to say about him. The number of different women he entertained—including Lady Lucy and the Blythe girl—was quite shocking. At least Miss Blythe had not yet been in Wycherley’s bed, while he knew for certain Lady Lucy had. But with a man like his master, it was only a matter of time.

Which would be a shame, for Miss Blythe was a charming girl with a healthy pink in her cheeks. Her bronze-colored hair shone in both sunshine and candlelight, and she had the most delightfully peach-colored lips. How infuriating that all these appealing attributes should conceal such a stubborn and determined—and very misguided—character!

But Miss Blythe was not Ned’s problem. There was no need to wonder if and when she would be back again, how she might react to him, or what she might say.

It was Georgiana he wanted to save, needed to save. Not Cassandra Blythe.

He rested his hands on the edge of the sink, the knuckles whitening as he revisited the tragedy of six months previously. It seemed like only yesterday—he could still see, with vivid clarity, the grim sight of his aunt’s house after the fire—a blackened, smoking ruin, with the servants standing about in tears and pale with shock. The fire assurance machine stood to one side, the men gamely pumping its wooden handles, first one side, then the other, damping down the ashes to make sure the greedy flames could not consume another dwelling or ruin another life.

On his arrival, Aunt Claudette had run to him and flung herself, weeping uncontrollably, into his arms. When she’d looked up, the tracks of her tears were like white scars through the soot on her face. He would never forget her expression.

Lamps had been brought and lit all around them, and spectators stood in hushed groups, some still clutching their water buckets, waiting to see if the crisis was over.

It was not.

“Ned! Ned, is Georgiana not with you?” Aunt Claudette had asked him breathlessly.

“No. Should she be?”

“We have asked all the neighbors, and none have seen her.”

He recalled the first trickle of unease. “But…surely, she was here at home with you? It’s after midnight.”

He had looked at his aunt’s desperate face, and gradually the awful truth had begun to sink in.

“You’re saying she is missing?” He dreaded the answer, but the question had to be asked. “She has not been…found?”

“Not a sign. Perhaps she’s wandering about somewhere, too shocked to find her way back to us. She went up to her room at the usual time. We all did. In fact, she went early. I had to chide her because she was yawning so much.” His aunt had gazed up at him with overflowing eyes. “You look exhausted. You must have ridden like a demon from Highmore House.”

He had, as soon as word had reached him of the disaster at his aunt’s home, all the while fearing the worst—that they had all been killed, or severely injured.