A Noble Masquerade (5 page)

Miranda grinned. This was significant information indeed. “Truly?”

Griffith nodded. “I can't tell you where he is, but I do know that Georgina's obvious machinations would not appeal to him. Race you to the lone oak!”

He kicked his heels against the sides of his horse and charged across the field, leaving Miranda scrambling to send her horse flying after him.

If he thought he was going to get by without sharing more about that little nugget of information, he was sadly mistaken.

Miranda frowned into the mirror over her dressing table. Sally was going to have to completely redo her hair. The long blond tresses had become an utter mess during that mad dash across the field. She began plucking the pins out and letting it fall down in chunks around her face.

A small giggle escaped as she took in her appearance. She really did look a fright. There were leaves stuck to her riding habit, mud on her boots, and even a twig tangled into her mussed coiffure. If she didn't know better, she would think she had fallen off her horse. It had been a close thing when she'd ridden through a hedge in an attempt to cut corners and beat her brother to their favorite picnic tree. Dismounting into a mud puddle upon their return hadn't helped her appearance any either.

She pulled the bell to let Sally know she had returned and began peeling off her possibly ruined jacket. Since she didn't want to soil the upholstery on her chairs, Miranda propped a hip against the window ledge while she awaited her maid.

The view from her window was glorious. The meandering trails, hedges, flower beds, trees, and lawns stretched before her,
creating the peaceful sense of home. She savored the expanse of grass where she and her siblings had played, the lake she'd learned to swim in, and the stunning collections of shrubs and statuary her mother had labored over the placement of. If she were successful in finding a husband this year, the view would become an occasional pleasure instead of a daily comfort.

She'd never thought about that before.

Miranda trailed a hand along the simple tone-on-tone green brocade drapes where they met the ruffled lace edging. Such a contrast of the fussy and the practical. Did she and Georgina complement each other as well?

Griffith had certainly been shocked when she'd revealed Georgina's list. Little did he imagine that both his sisters were infatuated with the same man. A man they had never even met. It was a testament to how strong Griffith's high opinion had come through in his letters home from school.

While Miranda was clearly the more levelheaded of the two, possessing no ridiculous notions of enticing the man to marry her, a locked trunk full of letters pouring her innermost thoughts out to him did not make her a pillar of sensibility.

Miranda's smile dropped slowly into a frown. Had she gone back to the library to retrieve her letter from the night before? She was normally so careful with her letters. She even wrote them on precious blue paper so her maid would never confuse them for ordinary correspondence.

With a shrug, Miranda continued to pull pins from her hair. She would go get it when Sally finished fixing her hair. A gasp from behind her indicated that the maid had arrived and taken note of her mistress's appearance.

Miranda grinned. She had pulled out only half of her hair pins thus far, leaving her with a tangled blond tidal wave hanging down one side and the mussed and twisted remains of her coiffure on the other, complete with a twig decoration.

“My lady!” Sally rushed forward to take the mussed jacket from Miranda's hands.

“I'm afraid I had a run-in with some shrubbery.”

As Sally fussed over the ruined jacket and her mistress's overall appearance, Miranda fought the niggling feeling that she needed to remember something about her journal letter. Something important. As Sally's hand flitted over the mess crowning Miranda's head, the niggling memory rushed full force to the front of her mind.

Marlow telling her he had mailed her letters this morning.

Where had she hidden the blue letter last night? Had he found it?

“Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no, no, no!”

Miranda tore out of her room, Sally yelling after her. Miranda wrapped her fingers around the railing at the top of the stairs, swinging herself around the corner and down the first two treads. She snatched her skirt up a little higher than was decent to avoid tripping on the hem as she scampered down the stairs.

The path to the library was blessedly empty. Harsh breathing scraped her throat and lungs as she searched the room. She started with the desk, even riffling through the stack of clean blue paper. When it wasn't there, she refused to believe the inevitable. It was somewhere in the room. It had to be.

She was crawling around on her hands and knees to search underneath the furniture when Sally finally caught up with her.

“My lady!”

Miranda ignored her. She felt around the cushions of the couches and chairs. She looked in every container, no matter how unlikely. Did she really believe it had floated from the desk to the inside of a pottery urn on the fourth shelf?

“My lady, please! We need to redress your hair. And your person. No one is going to touch anything in here. We can come back and look for . . . whatever you need later. It can wait.”

“No, no it can't.” Frantic fingers dove into the hair at Miranda's temples, further tangling the already disastrous arrangement. “Maybe he hasn't actually sent it yet!”

As Miranda shoved by Sally to return to the corridor, possible outcomes flooded her mind. What if he read it? He could show the letter to Griffith. He could share it amongst the other servants.

She tripped her way back up the stairs, one horrible scenario after another crowding her brain. Could he have posted it? Was it even possible? She had no direction for the Duke of Marshington. She hadn't thought anyone did until Griffith mentioned occasionally exchanging correspondence with the man.

Which meant somewhere amongst Griffith's personal effects was the direction for posting a letter to the Duke of Marshington.

Miranda thought she might swallow her tongue in panic.

Flying past her own door, she ran down the corridor toward Griffith's chambers. He would need to change after their ride as well, so it was the most likely place for the valet to be. She started to charge into the room unannounced but the possibility that Griffith would still be in a state of undress had her stumbling to a stop. Really, they both should be spared the embarrassment that would cause.

She dropped her forehead to the wall, breathing heavily and erratically. Hand folded into a white-knuckled fist, she pounded upon the door.

It swung open to reveal the valet standing there, one muddy boot in hand. “My lady?”

Miranda turned her head and became mesmerized by his quicksilver eyes. She blinked to focus her mind on the task at hand. “Did you actually
send
my letters?”

“Of course, my lady. His Grace said his needed to leave right away so I posted them first thing this morning.”

Miranda closed her eyes in despair. “Was there a blue letter amongst the others?”

“Yes, my lady. I took the liberty of completing the direction on it so that it could be posted straightaway.”

Miranda opened her eyes to find Marlow discreetly looking her up and down, taking in her total state of dishevelment. She must look like some sort of madwoman. Griffith had returned in a similar state of dishabille, but it never looked as bad on a man as it did on a woman. Cursed ladylike expectations.

Her head dropped limply back on her shoulders. The plaster patterns on the ceiling swam before her unfocused eyes. She wanted to sink down onto the floor in despair, but too many of her mother's how-to-be-a-lady lessons had been drilled into her to allow her such a release. “Dear God,” she whispered, “please let the postman lose it!”

“My lady?” he asked.

Miranda simply shook her head in response. Small arms wrapped around her shoulders. Sally must have followed at a more correct, sedate pace. Her maid tried to guide Miranda down the corridor by turning her shoulders. Without a protest, Miranda allowed Sally to lead her away.

The letter was gone. It had been delivered to the posting inn and would be—Miranda's eyes snapped open.

“Wait!” Miranda called.

Marlow pulled the door back open.

Miranda lurched toward him. “Was the post about to leave?”

“I beg your pardon, my lady?”

“The post. Has it already left for London?” Miranda felt as if part of her was standing three feet away, perfectly coiffed, wondering what in the world had come over the crazy woman who now had her hands fisted in the valet's jacket lapels.

“Yes, my lady. He planned to leave for London straightaway, since His Grace . . .”

Heaviness filled her ears, like the pressured quiet when she dove into the lake or swam with her head under the water. Whatever else the bewildered servant said was lost. She heard only a low moan as she gave in to the urge to collapse against the wall.

The letter was going to London. Someone was going to see it. There was no way to keep such a scandalous
on-dit
hidden. Not only was she writing intimate personal letters to a man she had no connection or relation to, she'd confessed to jealousy over her sister. Any hope she had for a modicum of social success this year was lost.

Sally tugged at her shoulders. Miranda looked up to see her maid and Marlow exchanging worried glances. No wonder, that. She'd tossed ladylike decorum aside like last week's newspaper.

Finally, with considerable assistance from Marlow, Sally was able to right her mistress and point her back down the corridor toward her room. The maid looked over her shoulder. “Never mail the blue ones.”

Miranda allowed herself to be led back down the corridor to her chambers and sat obediently at the dressing table. A welcome numbness worked its way up from her toes to the top of her head. Practical thoughts once more began to surface.

If anyone had the right direction it would be Griffith, and his valet must have access to it. Perhaps the duke's personal correspondence sat in a pile for days or even months. It was sure to be lost amongst the host of other missives the missing man got and mysteriously answered at his leisure. By the time he read it, she could be safely married.

Maybe he wouldn't read it at all. Even if he did, why would he care?

With a sigh, Miranda wondered for the second time in as many days where the Duke of Marshington was. He was in
for quite a surprise when he got her letter.
Dear God, please let him be far, far away, where the letter can never reach him.

Ryland Montgomery, the Duke of Marshington, was much, much closer than Miranda could have imagined. He'd tried to bury his true identity and truly become Mr. Marlow the valet, but everything about this job made that difficult. Finding the letter and handling the questions it raised made it impossible.

“Was that Miranda?” Griffith asked. He lifted his chin to allow Ryland to finish tying his cravat.

“Indeed it was, Your Grace.”

Griffith sighed. “Do you have to talk like that when we're alone? It's rather, well, disturbing.”

Ryland snapped a light brown coat in the air and held it out for Griffith to slide his arms into. “I do apologize, sir, but the safest of disguises are the consistent ones.”

“Marsh,” Griffith began, reverting to his friend's nickname from school.

“Marlow, sir.” Ryland inclined his head in a small bow before turning to gather the dirty riding clothes. If his good friend didn't start treating Ryland like a valet, someone was going to be suspicious. While a valet and his master could grow quite close, no one would believe that intimacy occurring in a mere two days.

Griffith sighed. “Marlow. I know I agreed to this whole farce because you told me it was a matter of national security, but we haven't really discussed what it is I'm supposed to do.”

Hoping his oldest friend would let it pass, Ryland continued setting the dressing room to rights. The large form of an irritated duke was hard to work around though.

Ryland looked hard at Griffith for several moments. The man in front of him was one of the very few people in this world
that Ryland could say that he loved. Griffith would never know how much his friendship had mattered during those unbearable school years.

That friendship had been tested greatly in the last decade, and the man deserved a boon. It wouldn't hurt to shuck the servant demeanor for a few moments behind closed doors.

“Okay, Griff.” It felt good to slip into his own skin and personality, if only for a brief time. Dangerously good. “Someone on your lands is gathering and transporting secrets to France. There's a great deal more to it, but the less you know about that, the better. I don't want you acting suspicious around anyone and cluing them in to my presence.”

“There are spies on my estate?”

Ryland nodded.

“And you're planning to find them?”

Wary of the direction the conversation was taking, Ryland nodded once more.

Griffith leaned against the doorjamb, blocking the path out of the dressing room. “I still can't believe you've spent the last nine years as a spy for the War Office.” He shook his head. “You're probably a great one, though. You always were incredibly observant.”

Ryland waved a dismissive hand in the air. “We'll cover my past once I get through this mission. Suffice it to say, the War Office provided an opportunity when I felt I most needed one, but now I'm ready to come home. I wasn't even going to take this mission until we discovered it involved your lands, which brings us back to the matter at hand.”