Page 30 of The Heiress in Disguise
Antoine let go of any hope he’d been holding onto that she might be of help to him in solving the mystery of what had happened to Angelique and how it had been allowed to happen—clearly, she wasn’t going to be a source of truth or information in this affair.
And that was fine. He could find the information he was looking for some other way. There were still the servants in the house who must surely know who Angelique really was, and there was still Angelique herself—she seemed reluctant to give any information, but he was sure that, with time, he would be able to get it out of her.
The only trouble was, he knew that Lord and Lady Leicester weren’t going to be in London for long. They’d made no secret of the fact that they intended to leave the city shortly after the masquerade ball. And that meant only one thing—Antoine’s time was running out. If he wished to help Angelique, he wasgoing to have to do it quickly. Otherwise, one day he would wake up and find that they were gone, and he had missed his chance.
Even if he could find the family again, even if he followed them to their country home—how would he get near Angelique when everyone believed him to be nothing more than the servant of Lord Cambridge in London? How would he justify any request to see her when as far as they knew he had no reason to want that?
And if they discovered his true reason—well, then he would have no chance at all. They would never accept someone who meant kindness toward Angelique. It seemed to him that they simply hated her too much for that.
Chapter 13
Dinner was to be served promptly at ten o’clock, and the meal was ready at a quarter before the hour. Angelique had tasted everything. Indeed, most of the members of the kitchen staff had indulged, under the pretense of wishing to make sure that the food was fit for the guests, although everyone knew the real reason for partaking was simply to have the chance to sample the excellent food.
Angelique was especially partial to the soup and wished she could sit and enjoy a whole bowl of it, but she would never get away with that much indulgence. Someone would notice that it was missing, or another member of the staff would tell Aunt Wilhelmina what she’d done in hopes of winning favor. She would be able to have some of the servants’ meal after all the party guests had eaten.
To her own surprise, though, she wasn’t very hungry. Ordinarily she would have been famished by this point in the evening, but her mind was so full of everything that had been happening lately that she couldn’t focus on food at all. Who was her Fairy Godmother? And who was the gentleman in the mask and cape who had known her name? They couldn’t be one and the same. That gentleman was no fairy, and no godmother either. And yet, how could it be that her true identity, so long kept a secret, was now known by two different people—and in the same week? It seemed impossible.
“You’re a million miles away,” Jane observed. “We’re going to need to begin serving dinner very soon. You’d better wake up.”
Angelique shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Have I failed to do my part of the work?”
“No, of course you haven’t,” Jane said. “You should know that isn’t it, Angelique. I’ve never seen you shirk your duties, no matter what Lady Leicester might tell you about that. She doesn’t seem to realize that you’re one of the hardest working people in this house.”
“Oh, I’m sure she realizes,” Angelique said. “That’s why she keeps me here. That’s why she’s never sent me off to my mother’s family, and why she’ll never allow me to go off on my own.”
“And you still say that you wouldn’t want to go off on your own?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to leave my parents’ home to these people. You know that.”
Jane nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t feel the same way in your shoes,” she said. “A house is just a house, after all. And they’ve long since made it their own and done their best to erase any trace of your parents from it.
The only thing that still seems to belong to your mother and father in any way isyou. I’m sure that’s part of the reason they’ve changed your name. They can’t bear to think that anything of your parents’ still remains in the house. They want it to be all theirs. Lady Angelique does not belong to them, butElladoes.”
“Or so they would like to believe,” Angelique said. “The truth is that I belong to no one, and I never will. But whatever I need to do to live in peace with them, I will do.”
“And is that why you’re so distracted right now?” Jane asked. “Thinking about ways to keep the peace?”
“No, it isn’t that,” Angelique said. “Did you see the gentleman who came in when we were watching from the balcony earlier?”
“You mean the one you nearly got yourself caught leaning over to look at? I did notice him, yes.”
“Have you any idea who he is?”
Jane shook her head. “How could I possibly know who he is?” she asked. “A Londoner, no doubt.”
“There’s something odd about him.”
“I’d say the way he makes you forget people can see you is fairly odd,” Jane said dryly.
“I’ve never known you to be so careless—to risk getting into such trouble. You know that Lord and Lady Leicester won’t be lenient if they catch you breaking the rules they’ve set out for you. I understood when you told me that you wanted to linger on the balcony and look at the guests as they arrived. There was a part of me that wanted the same thing, I won’t deny it. But you took it much too far, you must realize that. You have to forget about that gentleman.”
“Something else happened,” Angelique said. “I saw him again.”
“You did? Where?”
Angelique hesitated. The gentleman might get in trouble if anyone realized he had been in the servants’ quarters. She didn’t think Jane would report her for doing something out of line, but she couldn’t be as sure that Jane wouldn’t report a stranger.
“In the garden,” she said.
