Treacherous Temptations(42)

The footmen had been little help, having lost her almost immediately in the London crush. The only clue they had provided him was her general westward direction, although that of course could have changed. Still, Hadley set out with an army of servants and linkboys to light their way, combing the streets and alleyways, while he prayed to a God he didn’t quite believe in, that she was safe.

Two hours later, Hadley clawed a hand through his hair, cursing for the hundredth time. “Bloody, bloody hell! Where the devil could she have gone?”

He couldn’t fathom what could have driven her alone and unprotected into this most dangerous of places. He wondered briefly if in desperation she might have tossed herself into the Thames, but then shook it off. Mary was far too sensible to do such a daft thing. No, akin to a vixen in the hunt, she would surely run to ground someplace she might feel safe. The thought struck him dead in his tracks. Where would country-bred Mary Edwardes most likely seek solace and safety?

“The parks!” he cried. “Forget the streets and taverns. We must divide and search the green spaces. “You,” he ordered Barbara’s head footman, “take three men and go to St. James. Two more of you off to Green Park and the rest will search Hyde Park.”

Hadley’s hunch led him to Kensington Gardens, with a linkboy to light his way. He dispensed several shillings to bribe the guard at the entrance, and not long thereafter, found her shivering in her sleep, curled upon a bench in the Queen’s Temple overlooking the Serpentine—the same place they had spent the afternoon together only days before.

The lamplight struck her face. Painted with a thick mask of ceruse, she was ghastly pallid and barely recognizable. The rest of her exposed skin was powdered to a fashionably pale hue with the exception of her rouged cheeks and lips. Even her curly red hair appeared to have been straightened and powdered almost white. In the ivory gown, the sum effect was almost as if she had been transformed into a statue of marble. “Good God, Mary! What the devil did they do to you?”

Startled awake, she bolted upright with a fearful cry. “I won’t go back to them!”

Fearing she would dash off again, Hadley grasped her firmly by the shoulders. “What the devil did you think you were doing running off into the night? Do you have any idea what dangers lurk in London? I thought to find you dead…or worse.” He fought the urge to shake her until her teeth rattled. “What madness has driven you to flight?

“Do you have to ask? Just look at me, Hadley!” Mary’s lips quivered. She wiped the back of her hand across her face, smearing the red across the white. “Madam and her accursed French maid cropped my hair. I am shorn like a sheep!” Mary clutched her wig with a sound of distress. “My poor hair!”

“I see it, my pet.” He tossed the wig aside and ran gentle fingers over her face followed by feathery kisses that lightly brushed her jaw, her cheeks, and then her eyelids. He fingered the short curls that framed her face. “It will grow back.” The distress and abject misery in her eyes stirred him to add, “Do not believe you are any less without it, dear girl.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I do.” He dismissed the linkboy with another shilling and joined her on the bench. “It’s alright now, Mary. You are safe with me.” He doffed his frock coat and put it around her shoulders, regretting that he had foregone a cloak in his earlier haste. He then retrieved his handkerchief and gently wiped the cosmetic mask from her face.

“Thank you, Hadley,” she sniffed. “But you can’t understand. It’s not just my hair. I w-won’t go b-back to them!”

“I can only presume by your actions that Sir Richard has finally shown his true colors?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t believe you, but y-you were r-right all along,” she said. “Sir Richard intends to auction me off like so much ch-chattel!”

“Auction? Surely not!” Hadley scoffed. “I only spoke figuratively. Even Sir Richard cannot be that callous.”

“But it’s true!” she cried. “He has a list of potential bidders!” She still shivered.

He pulled her close, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. “Please, my dear. I don’t patronize you, but you knew he brought you here to arrange your marriage, and the sad reality is that most are contracted in such a way. It almost always involves an exchange of favors, land, or money.”

“I thought I would have some say regarding the man I would spend my life with, but it matters not what I desire, for Sir Richard is only bent on furthering his political career.”

“What if you just refused? When would you come into your inheritance?”

“Not until I turn thirty.”

“Thirty?” he whistled through his teeth.

“Yes. Papa wanted me settled in marriage but knew I was disinclined to wed. The terms of his will were meant to give me incentive to do so, but he never intended for me to have no choice at all in the matter. He never would have approved of this!”

“How old are you now, Mary?” he asked. “When will you reach your twenty-first year?”

“My twentieth birthday is in October.”

“Then only fourteen months remain until you attain your majority, at which point your guardian will no longer have the legal right to dictate to whom you are wed. ‘Tis not an eternity.”