“Yes, yes,” she said hurriedly. She had bent down to grasp the letter again. She stared at the name.
Oh God, she was right. Asturt. The letters rearranged were…Stuart.
Lord Asturt did not just know of the count descended from the Stuarts. Hewasthe count. Hewasthe gentleman he considered a suitable replacement for the Hanovers, and a restoration of the Stuarts. At the masque, he’d even dressed as a king.
Now, he had arranged to meet Lord Langley at midnight, all the while claiming to be Lord Ryland.
She did not know why Lord Asturt would attempt something against Lord Langley, other than if the lord was getting too close to the truth. Whatever the reason, Lord Langley was walking into a trap. A very dangerous trap. What wouldn’t a man who wished to be king try?
She leapt up and shoved the letter into her bodice. “Lady Annabelle, you must make my excuses.”
“Excuses for what?” Lady Annabelle asked.
“For leaving the house rather than going into supper.”
As she raced from the retiring room, she heard Lady Annabelle say, “Oh, dear, I am sure nobody will like that.”
*
Jasper had mountedhis horse and turned him toward the park. He glanced at Marcus standing at the open doors to the house. What was the fellow doing? Why had his valet come to tell him his horse was ready anyway?
He supposed Perry and the footmen were being run off their feet and Marcus had decided to step in. Still, the fellow was odd, just standing there like that.
He kept his horse at a walk as he was in good time, it was not quarter to midnight yet. He must turn his attention to the matter at hand and away from Miss Wilcox! He’d acted abominably to her, that was all too true. But if she knew what he was doing this night, she might not mind it so much.
He was doing everything he could to catch out the Stuart and bring this ridiculous plot to a close. Once that was done, Miss Wilcox would be freed from whatever obligations her father had placed her under. Whoever was making contact with Baron Manley would disappear like a vapor, as if they’d never been there at all. The baron would not know why the contacts had stopped, but over time he would realize that they had stopped permanently. Miss Wilcox would be free.
The Grosvenor Gate lay just ahead. Let him get this bizarre meeting with Ryland done with so he could consider his next move.
*
Georgiana raced tothe back of the house toward the door leading into the gardens and the stable. She turned a corner and ran smack into Mr. Perry. A tray of champagne glasses crashed to the floor and the butler stared at her with some mixture of horror and outrage.
“Mr. Perry,” she said, before he could comment on the destruction before him, “there is no time to explain, but Lord Langley is in grave danger and Marcus is not who he claims to be. Find Marcus and lock him up.”
“I knew it!” Perry cried. “I had my suspicions all along.”
Georgiana skirted round him and headed for the back door at a run.
“Wait!” Perry cried. “Who is he, then? What did I suspect? Where are you going?”
“To extricate Lord Langley,” Georgiana called over her shoulder.
She did not hear clearly what Perry said next as she was already in the garden, but it was something to the effect that he would do his duty despite the world gone mad.
Georgiana picked up her skirt and sprinted across the garden, the stones on the paths poking painfully through her feeble ballroom slippers. It was no matter, she must just get there in time. She must get there before Lord Asturt, or whatever his name really was, did something that could not be undone.
She crashed through the garden’s back gate, ran along the side of the stables to the door and threw it open.
At her noisy entrance, Carstares and the grooms burst out of the stablemaster’s room to investigate the racket. One of the grooms held up a threateningly sharp-looking hoe in case she was a very loud horse thief.
“Miss Wilcox?” Carstares said, looking rather amazed to find her there in her ballgown and now very muddy slippers.
“Saddle Minerva,” she said. “Lord Langley has gone to the park and he is walking into a trap. And give me the most lethal horsewhip you have. Hurry!”
For a moment, Carstares and his grooms stood like statues, as if they were attempting to parse the information she had just delivered.
“Hurry!” she shouted.
