Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction (Mackenzies & McBrides #9)(78)
It was all she could do to suppress the vision of the peril he headed to and focus on her friends’ conversation. She forced her lips to smile, her voice to be light, as she chatted with them, wondering that she’d ever looked forward to their inane conversation.
Now that Celia was respectably married—though the ladies made certain she understood she’d made a grave mistake marrying so far beneath her—her friends no longer shunned her company. Of course, each young lady in the circle made it a point to mention her husband’s or affianced’s house, lands, investments, and gifts, and to flash her jewels as often as possible.
Celia countered this by remaining modest, quiet, and admiring, and exuding—when she could get a word in edgewise—that she’d married for love.
“Mr. Finn and I have discovered an enjoyment in strolling along together, speaking of anything and everything,” she would say. Or, “Mr. Finn is teaching me the most marvelous techniques of drawing—he is quite talented, and is helping me with my small skill.” Or, “Mr. Finn and I discovered we both very much enjoy reading. I know I am a bit of a bluestocking about books, but it is fine to have someone with whom to discuss them on a quiet night.”
By the end of the conversation, several of the ladies looked wistful.
Celia tried not to glance at the tall, ornate clock in the corner of the ballroom, or even look at the door through which Alec had departed. She continued to chatter with her friends, but her lips were stiff, and her heart jumped and banged. She wasn’t certain whether she hoped Alec found his brother or that the house would prove to be empty.
Celia noticed after a time that Lady Flora too had disappeared. Her friends remained, commanding plenty of attention, but Celia saw that Mrs. Reynolds, drifting from group to group, gazed about in some concern.
The dancing would not begin until after supper. Celia and Lady Flora had convinced the duchess to not have a sit-down meal, but for guests to eat as they wandered about, as though this were an indoor garden party. That way, there would be no pairing off to go into the dining room, when Alec’s absence might be noted.
Celia wondered now whether Lady Flora had yet another plan up her sleeve—had she come up with the idea of no sit-down supper so her own absence wouldn’t be noticed? And where the devil had Edward got to?
Mrs. Reynolds worked her way through the crush to Celia, putting a hand on her arm and giving her a look that said she needed a quiet word.
Celia walked away after her, pausing to speak to friends as she passed them, so it would not appear as though she was hurrying out with Mrs. Reynolds. At one point, Uncle Perry’s sons—Celia’s vapid cousins—stalled her to tell her at length their opinions on her misalliance, but at last she broke away and left the ballroom.
Mrs. Reynolds waited for her at the stairs, and they ascended to the relative privacy of the gallery.
“I can’t find her.” Mrs. Reynolds said in a whisper, and Celia realized the woman trembled. “I know why Lord Alec wanted Lord Chesfield to bring the regimental officers with him tonight—but I fear … Flora has been behaving so very odd lately.”
They were alone in the gallery, away from the stairs and the noise from the ballroom below.
“She has indeed,” Celia answered. Lady Flora’s entire part in this affair had been odd—from her allowing Alec to stay in her house at all, to her broken sobbing after the soldiers had searched her home, to her idea for Alec to abduct Celia and put her into his power. “Tell me what you fear.”
Mrs. Reynolds shook her head. “She is fixated on the regiment at Lord Chesfield’s. I don’t know everything, but this week she’s been very excited, and she ceased talking to me. I very much worry that … We must find her. Please help me, Lady Celia.”
Her eyes glittered with tears, alarming in a woman usually so unruffled.
“Where did you see her last?” Celia asked.
“I thought she came up the main stairs. I do wish your mother would have set lights up here.”
“And waste the candles?” Celia lifted her skirts, panniers creaking as she started down the gallery. “One can peer at my father’s paintings just fine in the dark.”
Mrs. Reynolds’s heels clicked as she hurried after Celia. “Yes—Flora must have suggested they view the collection.”
“Suggested to whom?” Celia asked in bewilderment.
A male voice roared down the corridor, as though in answer to her question. “What the bloody hell are you doing, woman? Put that down before you hurt yourself.”
Mrs. Reynolds increased her pace, passing Celia in a graceful flash. Celia kicked off her useless shoes and ran after her, stocking-footed, her skirts swaying like a galleon in high wind.
At the end of the hall, double doors led to an anteroom where, in the days of Charles II, courtiers would remain while the king viewed the duke’s extensive collection of paintings in relative privacy.
Three people stood in the high-ceilinged little room tonight, which was lit by candles they must have ignited. One was the colonel billeted with Chesfield—Kell, Celia believed his name was. The other man in the room, also in a scarlet regimental coat, was her brother, Edward.
Lady Flora faced them both, a polished flintlock pistol in each hand, their mother-of-pearl handles things of beauty in the candles’ flickering light.