He looked uncomfortable. “There are ways we do it with blood pigeons and private messengers and other techniques.
But that’s beside the point. I just came here to…er…” He looked at Angelica and the heat that passed between them with a mere glance was enough to make Maia’s knees weak.
“He came to report that there isn’t any news about Corvindale,” Angelica said. At last she stepped away from her fiancé, and for the first time, Maia noticed that her sister was garbed in no more than a night rail, as well. “And to let me know that he was safe.”
“We’re doing everything we can to find him. When Woodmore returns, I’m certain he’ll have other ideas about where to look and how to track him. One would expect Moldavi to be involved somehow, and since Dim—Corvindale isn’t one to…uh…spend time around women, whoever was there and dropped the hairpin is likely in Moldavi’s employ. And now that I can move about in the day, it gives me more freedom.”
Angelica looked at him. “But you are no longer Dracule. Which makes you more vulnerable.”
Dewhurst waved this off in the way men did when a woman raised an issue they preferred to ignore. “But I’m smart and fast and I no longer have an Asthenia.”
“Your Asthenia now is a bullet,” Angelica reminded him flatly. “As well as a sword, a stake and many other implements. Not to mention fire, and…” Her voice trailed off. “Please take care.” These last words were little more than a heartfelt sigh, leaving Maia to feel like more of an intruder than ever.
“And you, as well,” he said, looking at both of them. “That’s the other reason I’ve come. Cale and I have arranged for more guards to keep watch over you now that Corvindale is missing. Both day and night. I suspect Moldavi has had him removed so he can more easily get to one of you. So don’t go anywhere without an escort— particularly at night.”
“But vampires cannot move about during the day,” Angelica argued. “We’re safe enough shopping and visiting the park.”
“Corvindale was taken during the day,” Dewhurst reminded her flatly. “Do as I say, Ange.”
“I suppose I should return to my bed,” Maia said, turning toward the door. Why she felt so bereft was one thing, but the other thought that followed her as she climbed the stairs was the realization that she, the very proper Miss Woodmore, had just left her sister and a man alone in the study with hardly a second thought. At night.
What had changed her?
Maia slept fitfully for the rest of the night, and in the morning the first thing she did was send a message to Alexander that the wedding would need to be postponed until her guardian returned.
And then she sat down at the breakfast table. Alone.
Maia couldn’t remember ever feeling so…alone. Angelica was clearly deeply in love with her viscount and didn’t have time for sisterly talks—although it appeared that they might have much to talk about, if the position of Dewhurst’s hands on her last night was any indication.
Even the thought of where they’d been made Maia blush.
She sat down with another batch of invitations and calling cards, determined to remind herself where she’d seen the hairpin. Only partway through her first piece of toast and cup of tea, the dining room door opened to reveal Betty.
“I’ve got some news for you, miss,” she said. Betty was a plump, cheery woman old enough to be Maia’s mother—or at least a much older sister. Her eyes were glinting with pleasure as she approached. “Tracy Mayes, who works for the Gallingways—easy way to remember with a bit of rhyme—says that Rosie over to the Yarmouths’ knows she’s seen that same type of hairpin before. It didn’t have no rubies, but sapphires, though.”
Maia felt a spark of excitement. “It was the same, just different gems? It must be made by the same jeweler. Who had the hairpin?”
“That’s what I thought, too, miss. I could send over to one of the servants at her house. It was a Mrs. Rina Throckmullins, and Rosie said as she met her and her maid at the milliner’s last week. She remembered it because it was such a rainy day, and they shared an umbrella when they left the shop, so she had a good look at the pins in her hair, huddled as they were under it. Mrs. Throckmullins is a…well, miss, I’m not one to speak out of line. But she’s a single woman who ain’t looking for a husband, if you know what I mean.”
Which meant she was a woman who interacted with men outside of wedlock. Likely of the demimonde, or perhaps even a widow who didn’t move about in the
Giving a mental shrug, Maia finished her toast, contemplating this new information. Perhaps Mrs. Throckmullins wasn’t the owner of the ruby hairpin, but at least knew the designer. It was the best lead she had so far, and Maia decided it was worth investigating. She’d have to wait until the afternoon when social calls were made.
Thus, later in the day after a brief practice session in the special, empty room (this time without Iliana) and a bit of lunch, Maia called for Tren and the carriage. Angelica was otherwise engaged with a dress fitting for her wedding, and Mirabella wanted to look for some new lace and so they declined to go with her.
Mindful of Dewhurst’s warning not to go anywhere by herself, she advised Crewston, who arranged for two other footmen to accompany them. Her plan was to call on Mrs. Throckmullins under the guise of returning the hairpin, which would allow her to find out whether it belonged to the woman or whether she merely had one similar. If the latter were true, then she could find out where it had come from and follow on that lead.
And she’d be home in time to get ready for tonight’s dinner party at the Werthingtons’.
Maia opened her eyes.
Confusion and a dark, unfamiliar room made her mind groggy. She tried to sit up and realized her limbs wouldn’t move. An ominous clink indicated the reason why.
Panic trammeled through her and she drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes, ordering herself into calmness. What had happened?
She flipped back in her mind…she remembered riding in the carriage to Mrs. Throckmullins’s home, a room she’d let in a boardinghouse in a respectable area of the City, not far from Bond.
Mrs. Throckmullins was pleased to meet her in the parlor of the house, and Maia introduced herself and explained the purpose of her visit. She remembered giving her the hairpin, and Mrs. Throckmullins pressing her to stay for tea so they could talk about the jewelry. The next thing she knew, the room was wavering and spinning…
And now she was here.
Wherever “here” was.
Maia tried again to move and realized that her wrists were bound to some object and that she was lying on a bed or sofa.
It was difficult to tell, for the room was dim. Whatever was beneath her was soft, however, and the object to which she was tied moved beneath her when she pulled on it. Curtains covered the windows, and a faint gray outline told her that it was late in the evening, but not yet dark. So she’d been here for several hours.
The panic that could have spiraled out of control settled again. If she’d been missing for that long, someone would be looking for her. Angelica and Dewhurst and perhaps even her wayward brother.
Tren and the other footmen would have returned to Blackmont Hall when she didn’t come out of Mrs. Throckmullins’s boardinghouse…if they hadn’t besieged it in the first place, looking for her. And if not, they knew where to search for her.
But Maia became aware of the pungent scent of fish filtering through the air; something she hadn’t noticed in the parlor. So either Mrs. Throckmullins—who was clearly the villain or at least in cahoots with the villain, as Mrs. Radcliffe would describe it—had moved her to a new location, or someone else had.
Either way, that would make it even more difficult for the others to find her.
But on the bright side, perhaps Corvindale was here, as well.
Maia lay there, waiting for her vision to become used to the dim light, listening to every sound around her that might give her more information. She’d read enough Gothic novels to know what a heroine who was in a
