Page 77 of Three Weeks with a Princess
“I thought you were avoiding me by claiming a headache because you never have headaches.”
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I might very well be getting one now. And I’m not avoiding you on purpose.”
“To quote you,ha. In any event, my suspicions were aroused, particularly because Gillian had seen you for tea only a few hours earlier and claimed you were perfectly healthy. I was annoyed until Lady Hunter took me aside at the interval. She said she’d found your behavior these last few days worrying and suspected you were up to something. Not wishing to alarm the others or embarrass you, she asked me to excuse myself to check on you.”
Lia winced. “Aunt Chloe is alarmingly perceptive, I must say.”
“Indeed she is. At the Hunters’ town house, Smithwell informed me that you were abed. After I asked him to check, he returned with the unhappy news that you had absconded from the premises. He was quite stunned by your ability to slip away undetected.” He tweaked one of the bedraggled curls tumbling down from her disheveled coiffure. “From what I’ve heard, no one slips anything past Smithwell. How did you do it?”
“I went from Aunt Chloe’s study to the terrace and then over the back wall of the garden. It was easy to cut through the back alley to the street.”
“Splendid,” he said. “Nothing dangerous about that at all.”
“It wasn’t anything I haven’t done a dozen times before at Stonefell.”
“May I note that you’re no longer in the country? No respectable woman would go lurking about the city alone. It’s insane.”
“I didn’t lurk. I simply walked a few blocks and caught a hackney to the theater. It was a completely uneventful journey.” She frowned up at him when he muttered a low curse. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
“You don’t want to know. Anyway, Smithwell guessed that you’d gone to the Pan, so that’s where I went. There was a lad watching the stage door—”
“Sammy. He’s there on nights when the theater is dark.”
“Yes, the lad informed me that you and your companions had raided the costume closet and then met Prudhoe. Fortunately for me, young Sammy made a point of eavesdropping on Miss Baxter and Miss Carson’s conversation regarding tonight’s outing, which led me here.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t think to swear Sammy to secrecy. I suppose that was a flaw in our plans.”
“Just one of many.”
“You needn’t be insulting, Jack,” she said, sounding wounded. “Everything would have been fine if not for the fact that Sir Nathan is a monster. I still think we should report him to the magistrate, even if we have to keep Amy’s name out of it.”
He had to battle the urge to rip out his hair. “I’m trying to keep you from being ruined, you daft woman.”
She clapped her hands together and briefly pressed them to her lips. “Jack, you need to get it through your thick skull that I am already ruined.”
“Not yet, although you’re doing your best to get there. Please tell me that you kept your mask on at all times tonight.”
“Of course I kept my mask on. I’m not a complete nincompoop.”
“That remains to be seen.”
She let out an outraged squeak and tried to push by him.
“Wait,” he said, holding her back. “Aside from Prudhoe and Sinclair, you’re positive no one else recognized you?”
She started to glare at him, but then her full lips pursed up with uncertainty.
Jack sighed. “What?”
“It’s nothing,” she finally said, shaking her head. “I was very careful to conceal my identity. I don’t want anyone to find out who I am until I’m ready to move ahead with the next step in my plan.”
He did his best to keep the frayed threads of his patience intact. “Your plans, which I have no doubt are entirely demented, must remain unfulfilled. I will not allow you to destroy your life this way.”
“It’s not your choice to make, Lord Lendale,” she said, shoving past him. She all but charged along the path to the exit.
“Put on your damn mask,” he yelled after her.
He caught up with her at the door as she was struggling to retie her mask. Jack brushed her hands aside and untangled the ribbons. After properly fitting the mask to her face, he secured the ribbons in a sturdy bow at the back of her head. Every second he gazed at the tender curve where her neck met her shoulder, he was tormented by an insane urge to bite that very spot.
