A Midsummer Night's Sin

She would have to tell Mama, who would cry and bring up Grandmother Hackett again. Papa would be livid that she might have destroyed his dream to marry her to a nobleman. They’d have to tell Aunt Claire and Uncle Seth. They’d be aghast, terrified.

And everyone would blame her.

Not that such a minor thing mattered. What mattered was that Miranda was gone, God only knew where and to what purpose.

Regina picked up a green glass stone that had fallen into her lap.

And she hadn’t gone voluntarily.

She squeezed her hand around the stone and closed her eyes, began to pray.

“Regina?”

She looked up at the sound of her name, frowning before she remembered that Robin Goodfellow must have heard Doris Ann refer to her as such. She quickly got to her feet. “You’ve learned something?”

“A little. We need to go now.”

“Go? But I can’t leave. What if Miranda comes back? She’d need me to be here.”

“She won’t be coming back.” He signaled for Doris Ann to come with them and led them outside to the street, where a strange coach awaited, a footman holding open the door, the steps down and waiting. “On my honor, such as it is, after a very brief stop at my residence for a change of shirt and cravat, I am taking you directly home, wherever that is. I will accompany you inside and speak with your mother and whomever else you wish me to speak with, telling them whatever story the two of us manage to conjure up on the way. I’ve already worked out the broad strokes, but I will leave it to you to fill in the details.”

“But … but we have to tell them the truth.”

“Only as a last resort and only if you make a botch of the lie. Remember, your father was in attendance tonight. I doubt he’d be best pleased to know his daughter had been here, as well,” he said, handing her up into the coach. “How trustworthy is the maid?”

“Doris Ann?” Regina’s mind was whirling. He had just said he was driving her to his residence? So that he might change out of his shirt? Was she being abducted now? “Doris Ann will not be questioned. She’s only the maid.”

“And lucky for her that she is. Aren’t you, Doris Ann?”

The maid bobbed her head in agreement.

“And she won’t say a word to anyone, or else she will be escorted out onto the street without a reference, if not tossed into gaol. Will you, Doris Ann?”

The maid shook her head so violently her mobcap flew off.

“Good. I located the coachman and groom without much difficulty, and they have been persuaded to believe they have been beset by a band of cutthroats who dragged your cousin off at pistol point before disabling the coach, which is why it will not return to your cousin’s domicile until morning. Damned uncivilized place, London, even in the finest neighborhoods at times. I’m surprised anyone is safe. Related to the Earl of Mentmore, are you?”

Regina’s head was spinning. “How … how …”

“The crest on the door. Only an idiot would arrive at Lady Fortesque’s ball in such an easily recognizable coach. How do you think I located the correct coach so easily? You’re not very proficient at intrigue, are you?”

“But you are?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am, luckily for you. And now that we’re settled on that head, my coachman has been instructed to drive straight to the mews behind my residence, where you will remain with the coach while I nip inside to rid myself of this betraying costume. You have between now and the time I return to come up with any missing details sufficient to the problem. I suggest you think in terms of where you were, why you were farther afield from wherever you should have been, why you have no chaperone and why you weren’t taken, as well.”

“I … I stabbed the man who had hold of me. With my hat pin, the one Mama says all chaste young ladies always carry with them. And … and he let me go.”

“Very good, for a beginning,” Robin Goodfellow complimented as the coach pulled into a narrow alleyway and stopped just outside a stable. “Perhaps even too good. You’ve the makings of a commendable liar, Regina.”

“Yes, I know. It’s in my blood,” she said forlornly as he opened the door and jumped out, even before the coach had come to a complete halt.

While Doris Ann sat sniffling, Regina did her best to concentrate on the fib—the great, big, whopping lie—she would tell her mother. Except that her mother had been left alone with her “company,” and even if the wine had been watered, by this time of night she would be of no help to Regina or to anybody.

And her father? Regina felt her stomach turn over inside her. No, her father wouldn’t be at home when she arrived in any case. How she loathed the man. He was as base and as common and as uncouth as … as any man who would sink to attending such a licentious ball.

She reminded herself that Robin Goodfellow had been there.

This did nothing to lighten her mood, which was rapidly descending into the very depths of desolation.

Yet Miranda’s brother had received an invitation. There were bound to have been other men, supposed gentlemen of the ton, in attendance.

Were all men so base?

It really was too bad she had no desire to enter a nunnery….

“Miss Regina? How can we go home without Miss Miranda? Her mama will be that upset, and his lordship will go spare, he really will.”

Regina reached up and at last untied her mask, tossing it out of the dropped-down coach window with some force. “My uncle Seth will have every right to go—that is, to be angry. Terrified. But we must think of Miss Miranda, Doris Ann. We will think of her, and we will be brave. If not entirely honest,” she added, squeezing the maid’s hand.

“Yes, miss. And how will you explain Mr. Goodfellow?”

Regina opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again before making a decision. “He said he would handle the broad strokes. We’ll leave that up to him, shall we? Now quiet, please, I hear footsteps. Yes, here he comes.”

Regina sat forward on the cushion seat and squinted into the darkness, waiting for him to step into the moonlight so that she could finally see his face without that extraordinary mask. She probably would one day convince herself that it was the mask that had destroyed her common sense, that its odd design had somehow enthralled her into doing something she would otherwise have never considered. That her compliance had nothing to do with his pleasant, cultured voice or the way he had placed his hands on her shoulders and nearly caused her heart to stop or the mischief she’d seen in his intelligent blue-green eyes.

It was either that or believing that Grandmother Hackett had taken up permanent residence on her shoulder.

“Oh …” Regina blinked, looked again. “Oh, my goodness.”

He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Now that she could really see him. He was still dressed mostly in black, but his shirt and his faultlessly tied cravat were startlingly white in the moonlight and he had tied back his long, blond hair somehow. He was English, she was certain of that, but he had a nearly foreign look to him: so very neat, sophisticated, compellingly romantic. The gold-lined cloak was gone, as was the beribboned walking stick that had dropped to the ground when he’d been kissing her, to free his hands so that he could— No, she would forget that, too. She would forget all of that!

He stopped, bent down and picked up the discarded mask before opening the door of the coach. “Lesson number two, fair Titania. Never leave incriminating evidence strewn about for all to see. If you’d kindly pass over the two dominos and your cousin’s mask? Ah, thank you. Gaston!”

A second figure appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and Mr. Goodfellow tossed the evidence at him as the fellow exclaimed in French, scrambling for the green mask, which had eluded him and fallen to the ground.

“My apologies, Gaston. I have no experience in throwing clothing. Only in catching it, si vous prenez ma signification. Burn them, and stir the ashes,” he instructed the servant, who then hustled back into the shadows.

Inside the coach, Regina had recovered herself sufficiently to roll her eyes at the man’s outrageous behavior. But any feelings of superiority vanished immediately when he bounded into the coach and plunked himself down beside her.

He looked good. He smelled delicious. This was no boy; this was a man. Very much a man. And he was gazing at her in open appreciation.

“Stop looking at me that way. My cousin has gone missing,” she reminded him.

“And yet I have not been struck blind,” he responded just as quickly. “You are as beautiful unmasked as you were mysterious half-concealed. Doris Ann, close your mouth. Your mistress and I are flirting. Aren’t we, Regina?”

“We most certainly are not! And you aren’t to call me Regina, any more than I will agree to continue addressing you as Mr. Robin Goodfellow. What a ridiculous name.”

He put his crossed hands to his breast as if mortally wounded. “You mock my name? My not precisely sainted mother will be devastated, I’m sure, as she so loves it.”