Cinderella in the Regency Ballroom: Her Cinderella Season / Tall, Dark and Disreputable. Deb Marlowe

horrible,’ she breathed.

      They had reached the stone gate. Neither of them paid it a bit of attention. Jack steeled himself and spoke again.

      ‘I believe that you might be in a position to help.’

      Shock widened her eyes and hitched her breath. ‘Me?’

      ‘Yes. You—and your cousin, Matthew Beecham.’

      ‘Matthew? What can he have to do with any of this? He is in America!’

      ‘Actually, he has gone missing.’

      Now suspicion darkened her eyes and clouded her features. ‘How could you possibly know such a thing?’

      ‘Miss Beecham—Lily,’ Jack said, half-pleading. ‘You appear to be well aware that slavery remains a reality in America, just as it does in the British colonies. It is the trade in slaves that has been made illegal in our country and the import of new slaves that has been outlawed in theirs. But apparently Captain Batiste, the slaver we spoke of, misses the days of putting his ship into port and selling poor souls like cattle right off his deck.’

      ‘But what has any of that to do with Matthew?’

      ‘I’m nearly there. From what I can gather, your cousin got into some kind of trouble with Batiste. A debt of some sort. Batiste demanded repayment—in the form of some adjustments made to a few of his ships. False compartments, secret holds, that sort of thing. All to enable him to resume his illegal trafficking in people, with those slaveholders unscrupulous enough to deal with him.’

      Jack walked away from her horrified stare. The old gateway beckoned. If only the legends were true. He could pass through the archway and his problems would be solved. Well, hell, he would take help where he could get it. He tried the iron gateway set into the stone arch. His arm protested the effort, but it was to no avail anyway. The gate was locked. He should have known.

      ‘The American government caught on to Batiste’s tricks,’ he continued. ‘But the man is as slippery as an eel. They next went to speak to your cousin, but found he had fled. They want him for questioning.’

      ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said flatly.

      ‘I don’t care about any of that, Lily. I just want Batiste. And your cousin may be able to tell me where to find him.’

      Her expression hardened. ‘And that is what all of this has been about, has it not?’ Her slate eyes turned to chill, blue ice as she gestured about them, to the park and the house and the carefree revellers grouped in the distance. ‘Or has it been only that from nearly the very beginning?’

      He shook his head.

      ‘What a lucky coincidence that it was I who you nearly ran down in the street, no?’ she whispered.

      ‘No. It’s not like that,’ Jack protested.

      ‘I think it is. You think that I, in turn, will be able to tell you where Matthew is?’ She gave an ugly, bitter laugh. ‘Well I am destined to disappoint you once again, Mr Alden, because you know far more about all of this than I! I knew nothing about any of this. Nothing! I did not even know that Matthew had left his home. And I refuse to believe that he could be mixed up in something so foul as slavery.’

      She whirled around and walked away from him and the gate. Before Jack could call out, she let out a sudden gasp and turned back. ‘Does your mother know all of this as well?’

      ‘No! Of course not,’ he said.

      Her shoulders slumped in relief.

      ‘She knows nothing about it and she won’t unless you choose to tell her. Please, just listen to me,’ Jack asked quietly. ‘You said you were close with your cousin, that you still correspond. All I ask is that you tell me if you hear from him.’

      He’d thought her indifference was painful. The contempt that shone from her now cut deep and was nearly unbearable.

      He winced and sighed. ‘I can help Matthew. I want to help him. All I need to do is ask him some questions about likely spots where Batiste would hide away. He’s spent a considerable amount of time with the man; he might know something that will enable us to find him.’ He took a step towards her, held out a beseeching hand. ‘My brother has a great deal of influence. He will use it to help your cousin.’

      She turned her back on him once more. ‘And if he does not possess the information you want? What will you do then?’

      Jack did not even wish to contemplate such a thing. ‘Charles and I will still help him, even if he does not. I swear.’

      Her head dropped and she began to pace. Jack watched her graceful form and sent out a silent plea to the heavens. He needed her help. God help him, he was beginning to fear he needed her.

      Avoiding his gaze, she passed him and approached the gate. She ran a hand along the elaborately carved stone until she came to the middle. There she ceased her restless motion and gripped the iron railings of the inset door.

      ‘You don’t know what you are asking!’ She spoke not to Jack, but to the empty park beyond. In the distance people chatted and laughed, but Jack’s world had shrunk alarmingly. Naught mattered save her and him and this gateway to their future.

      ‘I simply cannot believe my cousin would be mixed up in this. Matthew is a good person. He’s the only person left alive who knows me. Really, truly, deep down inside, he knows me. When we were young he never cared that I preferred a good gallop to gossip, that I would always choose to climb a tree over embroidering a sampler.’ She sent a pleading look over her shoulder. ‘Even now, when he writes, he doesn’t ask me the same inane, irrelevant questions that the rest of the world seems to focus on. He asks me about the crops, and my tenants, and whether I’ve convinced my mother that attendance at a local assembly will not taint my soul.’ She turned to face him again and he saw that her gaze had grown distant and unfocused. ‘He even occasionally remembers to ask if I’ve seen two blackbirds sitting together on a fence post.’

      ‘Blackbirds?’ Jack began to feel as if they were carrying on two separate conversations.

      ‘Blackbirds,’ she answered firmly. ‘You see—he understands me and all my foibles and still he cares for me. That is the person you think could stoop so low, the one you are asking me to betray.’

      ‘It would not be a betrayal. You can trust me, Lily.’

      ‘Trust you?’ Her voice fairly dripped scorn. ‘I do not even know you, Jack Alden.’

      ‘Don’t be absurd. You know me well enough to trust my word.’

      ‘Not I! In fact, I question whether anyone in your life can claim to truly know you. I thought you hid behind your books, but today I begin to wonder if perhaps it is only in your intellectual pursuits that you are open and accessible. At all other times you’ve shown yourself to be distant and cold—closed behind walls that you only think are protecting you.’ She crossed her arms in front of her. ‘I cannot know you or trust you, Mr Alden, until you learn to know and trust yourself.’

      With her every word Jack could feel the intelligent, rational man he knew himself to be fading away. She was an innocent, naïve little fool, but he felt wild, frenzied, like a child on the verge of a temper tantrum. She did this to him. Every time he got near her she shone a light on his every flaw, magnified his every emotion until he thought he would go mad with it.

      He thought of Batiste, a malevolent threat hovering over Trey and Chione and their family—in just the same way his father had hovered contemptuously, dangerously in the background for most of his life—and he knew he would indeed go mad if Lily Beecham did not co-operate.

      ‘You don’t know as much as you think you do, Lily. Of a certainty you don’t know what you are asking of me. But perhaps you are right,’ he said, moving closer, his heart pounding, his blood surging. ‘There are also many things that I do not know—including why you feel such antagonism towards me.’