Verity launched herself at Eve once they reached the bottom of the cramped stairway and it opened into a grim little stairwell with gloomy corridors stretching four different ways. A storm of frightened tears threatened until Carter bowed as if Verity was a lot more grown up than she appeared right now and bade her a smooth, ‘Good evening, Miss Revereux.’
‘You’re Eve’s Mr Carter, aren’t you? I remember you from the park.’
‘Maybe I am then, but we really must get out of here before midnight when everyone is obliged to take their masks off, you know? If we meet any servants on our way, we shall have to pretend to be a very scandalous trio indeed. You and your cousin are going to be my pretty ladybirds for the night. Do you think you can act such a wild part? I know it’s a lot to ask after all you witnessed tonight, but I really don’t want to be dragged back into that ballroom and made to unmask, do you?’
‘No,’ Verity said with such a fervent shake of her head Eve wondered once again exactly what she had seen tonight.
‘Very well, you only need endure this pretence for a few more minutes and then we’ll have you out of here and back at Farenze House as if you were fast asleep all the time,’ he said with a grin Eve caught herself being fiercely jealous of.
She wondered at herself again when he draped an arm round each of their shoulders and hugged her so close every inch of her skin felt man-warmed and prickly and responsive to him and him alone. Heaven forbid Verity felt even a hint of the sizzling excitement that was running through her like wildfire. At least that notion sobered her sharply enough to seem cool when he looked down at her with one raised eyebrow, as if to say, Needs must when the devil drives, so don’t blame me.
‘Is my scar visible?’ he asked prosaically and she gave an almost wifely sigh and raised both her own brows at his unexpected vanity. ‘I don’t want us to stand out in any way but the obvious,’ he whispered as if he had read her mind and couldn’t believe she thought him so shallow.
‘Set me free,’ she demanded and reached up to ruffle his unruly hair until it curled as far as Mr Carter had left her length enough to work with. As she pushed and pulled it to hide the mark of his ordeal at Waterloo her hand shook as the reality of how close he’d come to death hit home and made her eyes water at the thought of never being able to know him at all. Reminding herself she couldn’t afford to fall in love with this mystery of a man, she stood back and eyed her handiwork critically. His hair had felt as intriguing as she thought it might the first night they met. Soft and at the same time full of life and she still wasn’t quite sure if it was more gold or brown in the dim light, any more than his eyes could decide between the same colours as they watched her with a question in them that had nothing to do with how unmemorable she had managed to make him.
‘That’s better,’ Verity said in a whisper that barely wobbled at all, so at least she was beginning to recover some of her usual spirit.
‘And don’t push it out of your eyes when you’re not thinking and ruin my handiwork, will you?’ Eve chided him. And how had she let herself notice that he did exactly that when he was distracted? They had not met enough times for her to need two hands to count them on and she was picking up on his habits as if he was her lifetime study. This silliness really would have to stop. ‘And you had best lean some of your weight on me and do your best not to limp as well,’ she added briskly.
‘I suppose I must,’ he said ruefully. ‘Now if you will both loosen your laces and ruffle your own hair and try to look a lot more undone than you are right now, ladies, I think we will be able to get on with this private masquerade of ours and have you both safely back home before the clocks strike midnight.’
Two hours could drag by on broken wheels or be so full of incidents it was almost impossible to believe so little time had passed since she set out, Eve mused. Verity even seemed to be enjoying the joke now. She unbuttoned her velvet jacket and undid the laces of her shirt so it would gape open to prove she really wasn’t the uninformed youth her breeches argued. If this charade reignited her step-cousin’s adventurous nature, Eve supposed she had to be glad, even if she didn’t want Verity thinking such folly should ever be repeated. She would just have to find a way to calm her down when they got home, lest Verity wake half the household with overwrought high spirits. Eve felt cool air on the exposed upper slopes of her own bosom as she did as Carter asked as well. Very adult emotions shivered through her when his gaze followed the soft stuff of her borrowed gown as it fell open, then he lingered hungrily on the last remaining slice of ribbon that left her shift straining on the edge of decency between her breasts, as if he badly wanted to undo it and explore even more of her than he already had.
‘That will have to do,’ she told him severely, because she badly wanted him to as well and that was wrong in so many ways she could hardly count them.
‘At least that much temptation should distract any healthy males we happen to meet on our travels,’ he said as if that was all that mattered, and he was right, wasn’t he?
Luckily most of the servants were still upstairs waiting on the company and the kitchen maids too busy in the scullery to see aught but steam and a mountain of dirty dishes and pots and pans. Which only left a chef sitting at the smaller table in the kitchen and trying not to fall asleep in the remnants of one of his own creations and a pastry cook to be shocked by the quality sneaking out through their domain with a few flustered giggles from the so-called ladies and a bad-dog smirk from a happy-looking gentleman who was stealing away from this wild party with a woman under each arm.
‘Lucky dog,’ the chef said with a regretful sigh and a jaded look at the bridling cook, as if to say some men had all the luck tonight and he wasn’t one of them.
‘Devils the lot of them and just look at that brazen hussy flaunting her legs and everything else she has like some doxy in the Haymarket,’ the cook said in disgust. ‘All of them no better than they should be and yet they calls themselves quality, disgusting is what I say they are.’
Verity giggled delightedly and Eve gave Carter an angry nudge to let him know he would have to put more of his weight on her shoulders if he was to pass as a run-of-the-mill rake and not a limping one. ‘La, but he’s even more drunk than I thought he was,’ she hissed at Verity in a stage whisper, hoping any sign of a stagger in his step would seem to be from too much alcohol and not war.
‘Let’s hurry up then, before he finds another bottle and climbs into it for the night,’ her devious little relative by marriage replied in the affected tones of a lady intent on being very unladylike indeed and daring the world to stop her.
Eve managed a false titter and even wiggled her hips so provocatively the chef ought to remember her walk and not Carter’s, if anyone asked him to describe such a disgraceful trio, should the Louburn brothers escape and start baying for Carter’s blood.
‘You win,’ he murmured so softly only she could hear him and he finally let some of his weight fall on her shoulder until they were safely across the vast kitchen and out of the open door, into the dark coldness of the night and up stone steps into the street that served the back of these tall town houses.
‘Hush,’ he ordered them both when Verity would have said something gleeful about their lucky escape and danced about in triumph, ‘you’re not safe home yet. Take off that mask now and button yourself up again before you catch your death, there’s a good girl.’
Eve could sense Verity’s mouth firming sulkily at being called a good girl after such a grown-up adventure, but if anyone deserved to be treated like a naughty schoolgirl tonight it was she. ‘Or shall we call you a crass idiot for what you did tonight if you prefer not to be called so?’ she whispered severely in Verity’s ear.
‘I’m so sorry, Eve, really I am,’ the contrary, exasperating and disarming girl said humbly.
‘There will be plenty of time for all that later,’ Carter told them both impatiently.
Eve felt his fingers searching for the strings of her mask because she hadn’t hurried to do as she was bid fast enough. This has to stop, she told herself, as her breath caught at the heady sensation of his fingers