Page 11 of A Widow for the Earl (The Gentlemen’s Club #5)
CHAPTER TEN
“ T he game is simple,” Valeria said, adopting a commanding tone as she walked around the old ballroom, pulling the drapes closed one by one.
“I have hidden the ceramic frog somewhere in this very room, and you must find it, but you will not have the advantage of sight. You must find it in the dark, with touch and instinct alone.”
The old ballroom was the largest room in the manor, and never used. Not by Beatrice, anyway. She wandered into it sometimes and daydreamed of hosting the most magnificent ball, then remembered what society thought of her and left again, sadder than when she had entered.
“I will surely come away from this game bruised,” Prudence said with a laugh, as Valeria moved to the last of the French doors, making a dramatic display of pulling the drapes across.
“Do you all know what you are looking for?” Valeria asked, coming to the final drape.
Beatrice nodded. “My favorite frog. So, please, do not break it if you are lucky enough to find it.”
It was the ugliest ornament she had ever beheld. The moment she first set eyes on it, in the days after her third husband’s death, it had been the most immediate and unyielding love. Every time she had looked at it, it had cheered her spirits a little more. Even now, she smiled whenever she saw it.
“What do we get if we find it?” Duncan asked brightly, getting into the spirit of his wife’s game.
Valeria chuckled, blushing a little under her husband’s admiring gaze. “You win the use of our seaside residence, whenever you desire.” She paused. “Of course, Prudence, you will have to be accompanied if you win.”
“I would not mind that,” Prudence replied. “As long as all of you are the ones accompanying me.”
She cast a subtle glance in Frederick’s direction, though she was not as discreet as she might have hoped.
Beatrice frowned at the sight, looking to see if Frederick was gazing back at the young debutante.
To her relief, he was not, his eyes flitting around the room as if he meant to spot the frog before the last drape closed.
Beatrice breathed a small sigh of relief, for though she adored Frederick, he was not at all suited to Prudence. They were too alike, too chaotic… and Vincent would never allow it, once he discovered Frederick’s association to Beatrice.
“Then, let us begin,” Valeria said in a spooky voice, as she sharply yanked the last drape closed, plunging the old ballroom into almost complete darkness.
As she heard the first shuffles of tentative feet on the parquet floor, Beatrice took a moment to get her bearings.
She closed her eyes and imagined the old ballroom, thinking of all the obstacles and potential hiding places.
She was positioned close to the center, and knew there were dust-sheet covered chairs and tables to her right, with a fireplace and a timeworn chaise-longue further to her left.
There were half-empty bookcases down at the far end, and another fireplace. At the opposite end, cupboards that were designed to look like part of the wall, where a variety of rugs and fresh table linens were kept.
Where would you hide the frog, Valery? Which part of the room would call to you?
An idea came to her, and she set off with her arms stretched out ahead of her, feeling her way through the darkness.
“Ow!” someone yelled, the scrape of a chair leg sounding out the cause.
“I am not sure I like this!” Teresa called out, laughing nervously.
“You live in a castle, my darling,” Cyrus called back to her. “You cannot be afraid of an ordinary ballroom.”
Teresa chuckled in the darkness. “It is because I live in a castle that I am ever conscious of ghosts, my love!”
Would a ghost scare you, Vincent? If I could conjure one, and make it believable enough, would you run from here and never return?
Beatrice considered the shadow puppets, wondering if there was a way she could use the same method to create a ghost at Wycliffe Manor.
Failing that, perhaps the performers would be willing to help her cause.
She could pay them to dress in white and run through the hallways screaming, or have them appear at Vincent’s window, or have one ride across the lawns in the dead of night in a costume that made him appear headless.
“Ow!” a cry came again. Definitely Prudence.
Pausing for a moment, Beatrice listened to the breaths and footsteps of her fellow searchers.
Tilting her head, she thought she heard a door open and close: the cupboards, perhaps, or the door to the storage room.
The sound disoriented her, for if it was either of those, then she was too close to the northern end of the room.
Turning to try and get her bearings again, making matters worse, she shuffled forward, reaching out her fingertips. Hoping to feel something that would give her an idea of where she was in the room.
She has hidden the frog behind the drapes. I would bet my life on it. Valeria was clever, and that was the smartest place to hide the object in order to achieve the maximum amount of chaos before it was found.
But Beatrice could not figure out where the French doors were, utterly lost in the darkness.
“Is everyone still there?” she asked, chuckling.
A chorus of assent echoed back, bringing a merrier laugh to her lips. Valeria had done well to suggest this, putting everyone back into the spirit of the party.
She was not the only one amused, as a series of yelps and shouts and curses ricocheted through the room, followed by giddy laughter.
“I am hopeless at this!” Prudence said, cackling.
“I am not moving!” Teresa insisted, laughing heartily.
“Do you have a statue of Aphrodite in this ballroom, or have I merely found my wife?” Duncan asked, and Beatrice could hear the loving grin in his voice.
“Duncan!” Valeria scolded, giggling like a giddy newlywed.
“Tess, I am coming to save you!” Cyrus called out, warming Beatrice’s heart.
“I am here, my love!” Teresa called back. “Come to me, my darling!”
Beatrice listened to it all, so full of sudden and intense joy she thought she might burst.
She had never wanted to be married, and resented the entire institution all the more after her array of misfortunes, but she would always champion the marriages of her friends and loved ones.
Sometimes, she would observe them in their utter happiness and feel as happy as if she were the one in love.
Indeed, she had no doubt that, for her, that was all the love she would ever need: the affection she felt for her friends and her cousin, and getting to witness their joy and their lives together.
“Oh, I think I found something!” Prudence declared. “No… never mind, it is just the doorknob.”
Beatrice stifled a snort, resuming her own search for the hidden frog.
Just then, a hard edge collided with her thigh.
She stepped backward sharply, surprised by the bump, only to panic as she felt her foot catch on something.
In the light, she would have righted herself easily.
In the dark, as she tried to free herself, she felt herself begin to fall, her foot caught in fabric, tripping her.
“Oh!” she yelped, losing her balance.
Her breath abandoned her lungs altogether as an arm grabbed her around the waist, pulling her hard against a firm body, righting her where she could not right herself.
Still startled and not at all steady, she grasped for purchase, her hands seizing the silky fabric of what felt like lapels.
It would not be Duncan or Cyrus. They would not be so bold.
“Freddie?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
“Did you say something, Trixie?” Frederick’s voice replied, too far away to be the man who now held her close to a chest that rose and fell with the rasp of harsh breaths.
Beatrice swallowed thickly, a prickle running down the back of her neck.
If it was not Frederick, and it was unlikely to be Duncan or Cyrus, then who on earth was holding her in his arms?
Still holding her, though the danger had passed, and it was not at all proper for him to have his arm around her waist like that?
Warm breath tickled the curve of her neck as the man bent his head, whispering, “Is this how a viscountess behaves? Are you enjoying yourself, Trixie ?”
Her breath caught in her throat, that prickle down the back of her neck becoming a shiver… a shiver that was not entirely unpleasant. The intensity of his voice gripped her tighter than his embrace, until she could not have moved away, even if she had wanted to.
“Vincent?” she rasped, surprised by the strength of him.
Of course, she was not unaware of his athletic physique and towering height, and had not failed to notice how the fabric of his tailcoat sometimes strained to accommodate the powerful muscles of his arms. But seeing such things and feeling such things were two very different things.
Before she could stop herself, her hands relaxed on his lapels, her palms feeling the rock solid breadth of his chest instead. Beneath her hand and the silky feel of his waistcoat, his heart thudded wildly. The beat of a man who was either furious or overcome.
She did not need to see his face to know which it was; she had heard it in his tone.
“Enough of this!” he barked, stepping away from Beatrice. “Open the curtains at once!”
Somewhere in the room, Prudence squeaked, and Teresa gasped, but it was a stony-faced Valeria who pulled open the drapes.
Gray light glanced in through the French doors, raindrops chasing each other down the panes, the clouds unburdening themselves of their soggy cargo as a wild wind shook the oak trees and made the canvas screen for the puppet show snap like a sail in a storm.
Beatrice’s eyes widened as she looked upon Vincent’s glowering face, realizing that though he had stepped back, his hand had her by the wrist. She had been too stunned to notice.