Clandestine by Julia Ross Read Free Book Online Page A

Callaway, and a small army is at your disposal. I hope you’ll find that more reassuring than intimidating, though we can be an overbearing lot, I’m afraid.”
    Sarah tried not to let her growing alarm show in her face, for the green eyes seemed to miss nothing.
    â€œWe?” she asked lightly.
    â€œMy brother, Lord Jonathan. My cousin, Guy Devoran. And myself. Plus any of a select group of gentlemen whom we could call upon at any time, and whose discretion we trust absolutely. If you’re in trouble, Mrs. Callaway, you have powerful regiments of aid still held in reserve.”
    Her heart seemed to be skipping every other beat. “How many of those gentlemen know of my exact predicament, my lord?”
    â€œNone,” he replied, “including me. Guy said only that you’d be here tonight and need our support. So now that you’re reassured that you still retain absolute privacy, are you ready to dance, ma’am? Guy will find you later, but meanwhile these are the best musicians in London.”
    The lines had already formed for the next set. Further conversation was impossible. Sarah stood between Atalanta in her gauzy purple gown, and a swan in a mask and costume of white feathers. Lord Ryderbourne took his place next to Julius Caesar. The ladies curtsied as the men bowed, and the dance began.
    Sarah wove in and out, touching fingers with every gentleman as she passed up the line. Almost every partner took the brief chance to flirt. She did her best to respond graciously, though her thoughts raced like leaves in a millstream.
    How much had Guy Devoran really told his cousins? And where was he? He must have had some purpose in inviting her here tonight. Whenever the movements of the dance allowed, she glanced about the room, hoping somehow to recognize him among all the centurions and knights and monks.
    There was no sign of him.
    When the set was over, Lady Ryderbourne introduced her to several more partners. As Sarah was led onto the floor for the second time, a footman approached. Nell Gwyn listened to the man for a moment, then whispered in her husband’s ear—obviously the baby wanted his mother. Lord Ryderbourne glanced at Sarah and signed an apology.
    Sarah nodded her understanding. The new parents linked arms and walked away.
    King Charles’s plumed hat briefly touched his wife’s shoulder as he bent his head down to listen to something she said—such a simple gesture of intimacy that made all the glitter of the ballroom irrelevant.
    Sarah spun back to face the dance floor as some deep place in her heart filled with poignancy. She would never again know the warmth of her marriage, the comfort of touching and being touched with respect and caring, the moments of shared humor and gentleness. And children! She and Captain Callaway had never seized their chance to have a baby, and then his final illness had robbed them both of his life.
    She shook herself and smiled as a masked gentleman in monk’s robes bowed for the next dance. No one except Lord and Lady Ryderbourne—and Guy Devoran himself, of course—could possibly know who she was. Perhaps somewhere in this sophisticated crowd was the very man who was responsible for Rachel’s disappearance.
    That was one among many compelling reasons for enlisting Guy Devoran’s help. How else could a schoolteacher from Bath mingle so freely with the nobility of England?
    Meanwhile, the sense of frivolity was infectious. Not only the dizziness of the dancing itself, but the idea that the St. Georges of Wyldshay had taken her under their protection, for at least this one night.
    By the time supper was announced, Sarah had danced almost every measure. She escaped her last partner—a rather dull Alfred the Great—and dodged beneath some palm fronds at the side of the room to catch her breath. Her blood ran hot in her veins.
    Laughing and talking, the crowd moved past her toward the supper tables.