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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

N ot since her unfortunate scandal with Nigel Halman had Diana been alone with any gentleman but her husband. But she wouldn’t be in that room for long. She had already decided how to justify her entrance into and exit from it.

As she passed under the transom, the laughter and music from the ball lessened.

She perceived a low chaise longue by the unlit stone hearth and an end table with a three-pronged candelabra in the right corner.

The candles cast eerie shadows onto a portrait of some long-dead relative of Lord Mandeville dressed in the attire of a cavalier, making the man glower at the viewer even more so than he no doubt had in life.

Edward Langley stood near that dim light from the candelabra, brow puckered, immersed in the note. Diana drew in a deep breath and then stumbled toward the chaise longue, grabbing one of the soft embroidered pillows and clutching it to her chest.

“Oh dear,” she fretted, careful to keep her voice low enough to sound as if she was only speaking to herself.

“I shouldn’t have had that last flute of champagne.

I fear my stomach ill tolerates such potent stuff.

” She collapsed onto the waiting longue and withdrew her fan, rapidly brandishing the panels before her face.

The young man crumpled the missive in his hand but did not have time to deposit it in one of his pockets before Diana cried: “Edward Langley! I didn’t see you here. How felicitous! You know my husband, but I’ve not yet been honored to make your acquaintance.”

“Lady Higgins?” He was still clutching the note, though his fingers quickly closed around it.

“May I impose on you to keep me company for a few short minutes? Only until I regain my senses. I came in here since the fire was unlit. I thought the chill might do me good.”

In truth, she wanted to shiver, but this didn’t seem evident to Edward, not even when she rubbed her arms.

“Should I fetch your husband?”

“Oh no,” she said blithely. “Albion is entertaining His Royal Highness at the card table, and I shan’t deign to disrupt their shenanigans. I need a respite. Please stay here with me.”

“At your service,” he said with a chivalrous bow, though Diana detected a hint of annoyance in his tone.

She closed her eyes, fluttering the fan languidly. When his leather boots pressed against the floorboards, they squeaked. She opened her eyes sufficiently to make out the indistinct images of Edward hovering over the candelabra, note in hand.

Did he mean to burn it?

In the space of five seconds, she sprang to her feet, tossed her fan aside on the chaise longue, and snatched the paper right out of his grip.

“This seems no trifle. Rather, it looks like a love letter. Why, Edward, you Casanova.”

His countenance assumed a disturbing pallor, such that she thought he might attempt to wrestle the note from her. Thankfully, he was far too well-bred for that.

“Now I am all the more curious. Who has the good fortune to have attracted your affection?”

“Please, my lady.”

On instinct, she made a drastic move. While laughing and backing away from Edward, she bumped into the candelabra, knocking one of the lit candles onto the floor.

She let out a little cry. He hurried to stamp out the flame with his boot, allowing Diana sufficient time to read the contents of the correspondence.

Meanwhile, satisfied he had averted a fiery disaster, Edward righted himself. Diana leaned over to destroy the rest of the missive in one of the remaining candle’s gentle flames.

“Forgive me for teasing you,” she told him. “I don’t know what came over me. Your affairs are your business alone, and now your secret shall disappear so no one else can see it. As you intended, I imagine.”

He released a breath, and his expression relaxed into a smile.

“Will you be so kind as to accompany me back to the tea board?” she asked. “An orange flower meringue will go a long way to making me feel better.”

During a brief respite from the green baize Faro table, at which Albion had declared lady fortune to be a right rotter, he lounged against the door frame, watching guests come in and out of the tea board, an open room designated for refreshments.

A space not unlike the hidden retreat at Lady Bellingham’s garden party, he thought with a heavy heart, where he first kissed Lady Diana Stewart.

Hanging on the wall outside the door was a watercolor depicting an elegant Georgian-style manse, which he assumed to be Lord Mandeville’s country seat.

The current session of Parliament would soon end, and, with it, the ton would retreat to their summer estates.

A decision would soon need to be made. Would he and Diana continue to live together?

He doubted it. After a few social engagements, they would probably go their separate ways, as so many married couples in the ton did.

To make him even more morose, wouldn’t you know it?

His wife was chatting with none other than Edward Langley as they made their way to the evening’s delicacies: the Prince Regent’s standard bearer shortbread biscuits, orange meringues, elderberry cordials, and a makeshift tree filled with bonbons in colorful wrappers.

That she would speak to Edward of all the gentlemen in the room could be no coincidence. Diana must have been attempting to gather information.

Albion took a step back into the relative darkness of the gaming room, his heart nearly bursting with longing.

Everything about his wife was perfect, from her elegant cheekbones, sun-dappled golden hair, and brilliant eyes to her luscious form in the Orcan gown.

For all the world, he wanted to cut between her and Edward and sweep her to the dance floor for the waltz.

To show her his true self once more, not this ridiculous English fop.

Even after what Reginald had relayed. Even after he knew she would not confide in him. She had not shared Reginald’s plans to enlist her to catch the Phantom, which told him everything he needed to know. Albion could not trust his wife.

And now she stood next to a gentleman scheduled to leave for Chamberly the next day.

That was too dangerous. He needed to warn Sir Edward. Which made it all the more imperative they read his message and stick to it.

He watched Diana laugh with Edward, playing a cruel game with himself.

If she turned to look at him and smiled, he would tell her the secret as soon as they arrived home.

He would share his fears and allow her to hold him and stroke his hair and his horns, plant kisses all over his face, and tell him it would be all right—that nothing could stop the two of them when they were together.

Albion would show her everything that made him who he was, both the strengths and the weaknesses of which he was all too aware.

But she did not turn. Her focus remained entirely on Edward Langley, who behaved with perfectly chivalrous aplomb. He neither flirted nor betrayed any apprehension.

So be it. Albion had found the purpose for which he had always longed. He would not betray that purpose by giving in to his hopeless love for Daisy.

“What’s all this, Lord Albion? Haven’t the heart for the gaming tables any longer? Sorry to be so flush with my own good fortune, but one must enjoy fine spirits after such a damnably splendid run.”

The Prince Regent placed a hand on his shoulder before coming up alongside him. “And thank you, Albie,” he added in a lower voice.

There could be no better time than this.

No matter what the future held for Diana and himself, he had his duties as the Phantom to which to attend.

He had pledged his word to the Comtesse.

The Langleys were counting on him. He put his heartbreak aside in the compartment of his mind where he stored all negative thoughts, for they would do nothing but hinder his efforts.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure none of the other gentlemen in the room were approaching. They seemed well occupied with their port and snuff boxes. He, too, lowered his voice so no one else could hear.

“An honor to assist, Prinny. Why, how fortunate that you chose this moment to speak to me. I was just contemplating our recent conversation.”

Prinny held his lapel in one hand, briefly resembling their old enemy Napoleon Bonaparte. “You clearly remembered the dialogue well. Again, I thank you for it.”

“Indeed. And you spoke of a favor.”

“Ah, yes. Helping your lady wife recover from all that trouble of the past season, if I recall. By accompanying the two of you to his lordship’s ball. I take it that went over well?”

“Very much so. Yet I confess I have another indulgence to ask of you.”

Prinny smiled, still puffed up on his winnings. “Name it.”

“I require safe passage to Chamberly.”

The Regent’s smile and hand dropped simultaneously. “Are you mad? Why would you want to go there?” He narrowed his eyes as though he might ascertain the reason via mind reading, like a fortune teller at a carnival.

Albion had realized that asking for this courtesy might betray his identity as the Phantom. He hoped the persona he had spent the last months constructing would shield him from it, but a small dose of the truth behind his planned voyage could also protect him.

“I’ve a blasted fine opportunity, you see,” he said, slurring his words slightly as though he had drank too much port wine at the card table.

“Now, let me see if I got it right. Dunc said something about a newspaper article. Yes! That’s the very thing.

He wants me to visit my sister-in-law and the good Sisters of Benevolence.

Show the orcs of the Hidden Realm what’s what in that land, you see. ”

Prinny remained silent for a moment.

“Albie,” he said at last. “You can tell me.”

Albion felt suddenly sick, right in the pit of his stomach, but he forged on. “Tell you what, precisely?”

“Your brother. His Grace. The Duke of Barrington.” His voice lowered now to a whisper. “He is the Benevolent Phantom?”

The sick sensation spread, but Albion would not drop the charade. Not now. He let out a high laugh. “Dunc? Now, I daresay you are mad, Prinny.”

That was the worst possible thing he could have said. It had come out before he’d had a chance to think better of it. Mad. Like poor King George. The Prince Regent might use that word in relation to others, but no one dared to say it about him.

His Royal Highness had never before been anything but charming in Albion’s presence.

Now, his entire demeanor changed. The militaristic attire seemed to suit him better.

He stood taller. And for all that they might have been chums before, Albion recognized that one did not toy with the English Crown.

Even the Hidden Realm had never done so.

“I have granted your favor, Lord Albion,” the Regent said stiffly. “I do not think another is required of me.”

As the Regent retreated to take a pinch of snuff with the other men in the gaming room, Albion released a long breath. What a fool you are, stringling. Have you any mind in that lanky body, or are you pure bean pole?

The old taunts. The shame of it all. The shame of not choosing the honorable path.

But not this time. Even if the Regent would not guarantee his safe passage to Chamberly, Albion would not back down from his plan. Who depended on him? The Langleys. Jacques. The Comtesse. And perhaps Lillian Stewart.

Albion checked his pocket watch against the ormolu clock on a nearby end table. Nearly midnight. He must gather himself. He must not let anyone see that Albion Higgins, never the sharpest quill, even understood he’d just insulted one of the most powerful men in the world.

Fully in character, he ambled to the very room where, not two hours prior, those at the ball who had not attended the opera that night had enjoyed the first seating for dinner.

Lord Mandeville would also host a later supper.

The servants were busy preparing for the repast and had not cleared the dishes and serving platters from the previous affair.

After such revelries, everyone in the Hidden Realm was expected to pitch in.

It was a sign of respect for one another that, for all the rules of etiquette, he found sorely lacking in London.

Blast it! Albion shook his head once ruefully.

He was beginning to sound like Dunc, if only in the space of his thoughts.

The state of the room saddened him, and he wondered if he didn’t miss his homeland more than he let on.

At any rate, he had more urgent matters with which to concern himself.

He had told William and Edward he would avail himself of their company at quarter past midnight should they need to clarify his instructions regarding the earliest possible voyage to Chamberly.

Albion found it unlikely that anyone else should find their way in here, given the current state of disarray, but he couldn’t take any chances.

He tuned out the sounds from the fête seeping through the thick walls and the vague essence of rotting fruit that fouled the air.

Albion settled on a chaise longue, hardly long enough to contain him.

He adjusted his form, bending his knees and moving his legs to fit on the quaint piece of furniture, fluffing the embroidered pillows before positioning them under his neck and shoulders.

The tassels and threads were stiff when they came into contact with his skin.

He lay on his back, hands on his abdomen, closed his eyes as though tucking in for a nap, and waited.

After leaving the tea board, Diana found it surprising, and not especially reassuring, how quickly Sir Reginald Addington caught pace with her.

“You have something for me? Something that links Edward Langley to the Phantom? Is it him?”

Diana wished she could sink into the ground and vanish from the face of the earth forever. She shook her head weakly.

Reginald stopped before a side table housing a shelf of thick books. “You followed him into the chamber. With due haste, I might add. Did you not learn anything? Or have you already grown bored with your marriage?”

Her cheeks flamed. “I am devoted to Albion. You shouldn’t believe your nephew’s dubious tale.”

“Then what were you doing in there? Have you come to your senses at last?”

“God forgive me,” she muttered, hating herself more with every word. “Edward is not the person in question. But I learned something that might help you ascertain the Phantom’s identity.”