The Highwayman's Lady (BookStrand Publishing Romance) by Karen Lingefelt

Author:Karen Lingefelt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance
Published: 2015-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

These damned eyeholes! Jack could barely see a thing through them without tilting his head around this way and that like some gin-soaked drunk in Seven Dials. All he could ascertain was another man in the bedchamber who he assumed was a manservant. If he was wrong and the man turned out to be the Duke of Halstead himself, then Jack—not to mention Felicity—would be deep in the suds.

“Your Grace?” The other man’s voice cracked with a mixture of trepidation and skepticism. “Is that you?”

“Pray, who else do you think I am? Prinny? Boney? Brummell? Byron? Or maybe just some anonymous brigand who came breezing through the front door, bold as brass, to engage in a bit of burgling? Mayhap that’s what you’re up to.”

“Oh no, Your—”

“No? Well, of course it’s me.”

“I was only picking up the clothes Your Grace wore earlier today and turning down the bed, as I always do every night. I didn’t know you’d return so early from Lady Whitbourne’s masquerade. You quite startled me.” Jack caught a glimpse of hands reaching for his face. “Shall I help you off with—”

“No!” Jack batted the valet away. “She wants me to leave it on.”

“She…?”

“Yes, she! Since when did you insist on an explanation for every woman I bring home after midnight? Now be off with you.”

The valet sidled past him to the doorway. “I thought you meant the duchess, Your Grace. Do you mean there’s another—another—?”

“Woman? Yes. Send her in here at once. I’m sure you’ll find her hovering just out in the hallway. She’s the one masquerading as a ghost. It may look like a lady’s night rail to you, but she’s supposed to be a ghost, meaning you’re not really supposed to see her.”

“Indeed, there is such a person out here, Your Grace. She’s hiding her face in her hands. Did she lose her mask? Shall I look for it?”

“By all means, do. But don’t bring it back up here. When you find it—if you do, and mind I don’t want to see you again until you do—just leave it on the table next to the front door where she can pick it up on her way out.”

“Don’t you mean I should leave it on the table next to the side—”

“Wherever!” Jack roared. “Just go! And leave the candelabrum.”

Footsteps scuttled down the hallway. Jack took only two steps across the bedchamber before he tripped over something heavy and very stationary. With a curse he pitched over it straight to the floor. What the bloody hell?

“Perhaps if you took off that mask, you wouldn’t trip over all the furniture,” Felicity said sweetly.

As Jack rose to his hands and knees, he enjoyed an extraordinarily clear view of the intricate pattern of the rug. He tugged the mask back into place and patted the wig, his heart thundering as he realized just how dangerous this was—not as much as anything he’d done in battle, but more so than it had been the other night when he waylaid this vixen’s carriage.

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