Page 12 of Portrait of a Lady
Regina ran across the wetlands,her white fingers clenching the sides of her cloak together as her bare feet sank into the mire with every swift step across the foggy moors. She was chilled to the bone, wearing nothing beneath her cloak except a thin chemise—but there had been no time for clothing, no time to give thought to anything but escape. This might be her only chance to break free of Faremoor Castle, that dark, frigid tomb in which she’d been held prisoner for over a fortnight. Her heart leaped against her breast, her throat constricting as she recalled the cold, dark eyes of Baron Redgrave. The man and his decrepit ancestral castle had been cursed, but Regina was determined that they would not prove the death of her. She must not allow him to claim her...she must escape.
With a sharp cry, she pitched forward, her foot having become entangled in a wild growth of underbrush. Her frozen hands did little to help break her fall, and she landed on the muddy ground, her cloak and chemise now soaked through. He was coming. She could hear him, his footsteps heavy upon the earth, his panting and snorting stoking her imagination with thoughts of some wild beast covered in coarse hair and sprouting fangs and claws. But, it was only the baron, that madman who seemed determined to possess her giving chase.
She came to her hands and knees, crawling and sobbing like a babe, her hands sinking into the mire, hot tears trailing in her wake. Just then, a hand closed around her ankle, wrenching a cry of despair from between her lips. Regina clawed the ground, her sharp wails rising up to become lost in the fog. No one could hear, and so no one would save her as the baron began to drag her toward him, back to Faremoor, into the darkness and toward certain death…
“Sorry to interrupt, Miss.”
Evelyn smothered an oath as her quill went still on the sheet of paper before leaving a rapidly growing splotch of ink. Glancing up from her writing desk, she spotted Joseph the footman lingering in the doorway. In her morning room facing the small courtyard off the back of the house, Evelyn spent many hours each day indulging in her favorite pastime—penning Gothic novels. She’d been so immersed in her work onThe Mad Baronthat she hadn’t heard Joseph enter. The footman might have called out to her half a dozen times before she’d finally heard him, so engrossed she had been with her task. She wanted to be annoyed with the man for interrupting her just as Regina attempted her third escape from the villain Redgrave, but merely gave the servant a placid smile and motioned for him to enter. Her small household staff knew only to interrupt her while she was writing if the matter was urgent.
“What is it, Joseph?”
“This missive arrived for you a moment ago. When I had it sent to your chambers, Patience insisted I bring it to you at once. She said you would want to read it right away.”
Furrowing her brow, Evelyn accepted the envelope, wondering who it could be from. She had few friends in London and had yet to respond to the letters from family sitting inside the drawer of her desk. Samantha, who had been the one to tell her about the Gentleman Courtesans, had left town to care for her ailing grandmother.
“Thank you,” she murmured, dismissing the footman as she turned back to her desk.
After sinking back into her chair, she tore the envelope open and found a short note written in a haphazard scrawl. Despite it being nearly illegible, Evelyn was able to make out words that made her hands shake.
Evelyn,
I would be honored if you would give me the pleasure of your company at the masquerade being held at Vauxhall tomorrow evening. It seems as good an event as any for us to meet discreetly and begin coming to know one another. Enter through the proprietor’s house and follow the Grand Walk to the Cascade. I will await you there at nine o’clock. Please send the particulars of your attire, so that I know which of the masked maidens is you.
I look forward to meeting you.
Hugh
Her mouth fell open as she skimmed the address written beneath his signature, the paper crinkling in her grip as she fought to control her trembling hands and failed. The note had come from her newly-hired courtesan, and only a few hours after Evelyn had agreed to Benedict’s terms, but Evelyn hadn’t expected such swift action.
She glanced up to find Patience hovering in the doorway, a mischievous smile stretching her mouth wide. Her companion seemed downright giddy, appearing far younger than her thirty years.
“It’s from him, isn’t it?” she chirped, entering the room and closing the door behind her.
“Yes,” Evelyn croaked, handing the note off and slumping in her chair.
She took a few deep breaths while Patience read the note, hoping to calm her rattled nerves. What was she thinking? This man had not been hired to court her...he’d been employed to take her maidenhead and initiate her into the pleasures of the bedchamber. She would be naked with him, allow him to touch and kiss her, and…
“Oh, this is terribly romantic!” Patience squealed, clapping her hands like an excited child and nearly destroying the note in the process.
Evelyn sighed. “Then why do I feel as I’m going to be sick?”
Patience laid the crumpled note onto the desk and perched on its edge, reaching out to rest a comforting hand on Evelyn’s shoulder. “You’re just a bit anxious, is all. It will pass once you’ve met him.”
Once I meet him, and he proceeds to deflower me.
She pressed a hand against her roiling belly. “Do you know what sort of licentious happenings go on at Vauxhall masquerades?”
“That’s what makes this idea of his all the better,” Patience replied with an impish smirk. “Fancy dress offers the freedom of anonymity so you needn’t worry about things like social niceties.”
That brought Evelyn no comfort, not when social niceties had been the thing saving her from embarrassment and scorn. Behind a smokescreen of respectability, she’d become an unnoticed wallflower, one who—after her first Season—hadn’t had to worry about the overtures of gentlemen or the consequences of scandal. No man courted a woman he couldn’t see, and no one had seen Evelyn in quite some time. She’d been content in her invisibility, happy to wile her days away as a spinster who wrote Gothic novels which contained her secret longing for romance and all-consuming love. She’d never been the sort of woman to inspire such devotion, so she’d contented herself with a life in which she lived vicariously through the characters inhabiting her mind.
Now, she had a chance to at least experience passion, but the idea of it had just become very, very real and outright terrifying.
“No one will know who you are,” Patience went on. “And I can assure you that the other revelers will be so busy indulging in their own scandaloustête-à-têtes, no one will pay you and Hugh the slightest bit of attention.”
Evelyn had never attended a Vauxhall masquerade, but was no stranger to the stories of the kinds of things that went on there. Flowing wine and spirits, along with the masks, lowered the inhibitions of the attendees, and all manner of debauchery became permissible. Her face grew warm as she recalled tales of the illicit meetings that occurred in areas where the lighting was near nonexistent.
She could imagine that Hugh might wish to lead her down one of those dark paths, at the end of which would lay her ruination.
