Chapter Five
The loss of the pearl necklace was a disaster.
Uncle Piggott and Mrs. Barton were waiting when Rosamund got home from the ball, eager to hear all about it. She told them right off about losing the necklace, though without mentioning how or who was involved. No one needed to be told that there would be repercussions, and that if they did not fall on Rosamund, they would necessarily fall on the servants, especially the maids.
“And I won’t let that happen,” Rosamund said firmly. “I shall go to Melinda as soon as she returns and tell her I took them.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Uncle Piggott said. “We’ll figure something out, won’t we, Mrs. Barton?”
Mrs. Barton, who looked less convinced of the possibility of solving the problem of the missing necklace and therefore somewhat stricken, nonetheless said, “Perhaps we should send a footman to inquire about a necklace that was lost. Surely the marquess would wish to return such a thing to a guest.”
But Rosamund could easily imagine that the marquess would not surrender the necklace without first discovering from whose house the footman had come. Or, even if the Marquess of Boxhaven did give it back immediately, the footman would still be a clue, a very large clue, to her identity, and she knew the marquess was far too smart and persistent not to make use of it.
“No,” Uncle Piggott said, “it would be too great a risk.”
“Agreed,” Rosamund said. “Maybe I could sneak into Boxhaven House in a few hours, when the ball is over and everyone has finally gone to bed.”
“No,” Mrs. Barton and Uncle Piggott said in unison. Rosamund knew it was a preposterous idea, but what else could she do?
“I’ll speak to Bronwen,” Mrs. Barton said. Bronwen was Melinda’s personal maid. “When she undresses Melinda tonight and puts her jewels in the box, Bronwen will say nothing about the missing necklace. And she can do whatever is needed to make sure Melinda doesn’t notice.”
Uncle Piggott nodded. “And in the meantime, we’ll think about how to get that necklace back.”
Rosamund knew this was not a very good plan in terms of its likelihood for ultimate success, but it was the only sensible course any of them were likely to come up with.
She took their hands. “I haven’t yet had a chance to say that, aside from the loss of the necklace, I had a truly splendid time. I never dared dream that I might go to a ball—and such a fabulous ball—and I can’t thank you both enough.”
Uncle Piggott grinned. “You met a handsome fellow and danced with him, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Rosamund said, and her heart squeezed. Marcus was so much more than a handsome man, and all she now wanted in life was the chance to get to know him more. Which would never happen.
“But that’s wonderful!” said Mrs. Barton. “Surely you could ask the gentleman to help you. Perhaps you could send him a note, and he could procure the necklace on your behalf.”
“It’s impossible,” Rosamund said.
“But if you had a wonderful time together, which I can see from your face that you did, he’ll be wanting to see you again, Miss Rosamund.”
Uncle Piggott had been watching this exchange. “Unless he’s the sort of gentleman whose station in life would require him to be very... discerning.”
Rosamund nodded, forcing down a lump that wanted to form in her throat. “He doesn’t know who I am, but I figured out who he is. He’s someone who could never know me outside of a masquerade.”
“One of the high-and-mighty lords, is he?” Uncle Piggott asked.
“Yes,” whispered Rosamund.
“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Barton said. “There must be some way.”
“There’s no way,” Rosamund said. “But nothing can ever take away my memories of the ball, and for that, I’m very, very grateful. Now,” she said briskly, needing to stop talking about the ball whose like she’d never see again and the marquess she’d never get to know, “Mrs. Barton had better speak to Bronwen before the others come back.”
Bronwen did as she was asked and breathed not a word of the affair. The next day, everything in the Monroe household proceeded as usual. Rosamund was left to fix the tears that had been made in the ladies’ gowns from the evening before (Calliope in particular was a great one for stepping on the hems of her gowns), and no one made any accusations or suggested the ridiculous notion that Rosamund herself had gone to the ball.
But it couldn’t last, and Rosamund was torn between delirious memories of the ball and awareness that she had done something that could not go unnoticed forever. As she sewed, she tested scenarios in her mind of what she might do if, or rather, when Melinda found out about the pearls. But none of the scenarios was of any help, because if she had had anywhere else to go, she would long ago have gone there.
* * *
How hard could it be for a powerful marquess, with all the avenues that riches and connections could offer, to find one woman in London who did not wish to be found?
Very hard, apparently. This was what Marcus discovered in the days after the ball.
His masquerade lady had fled into the garden for whatever urgent reason had possessed her, taking a little piece of his heart with her and, he imagined, though he could not know, without a backward glance. This last part was somewhat pathetic on his part—for all he knew, she’d raced across the garden gazing regretfully over her shoulder the whole time, but he was in all honesty a little hurt.
How could she run off like that, after everything that had passed between them? What could possibly have been so pressing that she’d had to leave so suddenly? And who the devil was she?
He began trying to find out who she was as soon as possible on the day following the ball. He had one additional clue beyond the name Poppy, the few details she’d revealed, and the unremarkable gloves she’d left behind: the pearl necklace that had come loose as he’d tried to catch her. It wasn’t much to go on. Pearls being fairly indistinguishable, all the necklace had to offer was the clasp, which was engraved with SDW to HPW. He brought the necklace to his mother, who knew the most of any of the family about the members of the ton.
“SDW to HPW,” she mused. “I’m flattered that you think me so knowledgeable, but this is really very little to go on. And you say she gave her name as Poppy?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, thinking. “Very likely a nickname.”
“Right.” He’d already thought of that, and it wasn’t a comforting thought.
“And a last name that might begin with W, and we don’t know if the initials refer to the present generation, or an earlier one, though it’s probably safe to assume the pearls were a gift from either a husband to a wife, or a parent to a daughter. Ward, Wilcox, Warner, Wallingford,” she listed, squinting. “Wilson. I can think of dozens of people, and that’s not including Williams. So many people named Williams.” She paused. “And then there’s the fact that these initials could refer to people from a hundred years ago. A strand of pearls is the kind of thing that gets handed down in families for generations.”
“I get your point, Mother,” Marcus said tightly.
“I’m sorry, dearest.” She touched his cheek. “I’d love more than anything to help you. Your Poppy seemed like a very nice young lady.”
“She is.”
His mother tapped her chin. “I suppose the best thing would be to create a chart for different generations and match up names. We ought to be able to narrow the possibilities down that way.”
Having no other sensible course of action, Marcus sat with his mother, and together, they filled several pieces of paper with names. In the end, all they determined was that HPW must be the initials of a woman, since a man would not receive a gift of pearls, though Marcus had assumed that to begin with. Beyond that, he now had a lengthy list of people with initials that matched at least one set of the initials on the clasp, and a much smaller group of those who could be reliably matched in the sort of relationship that would occasion the gift of a costly necklace.
“And this is all supposing the two people were not unrelated people with last names that started with the same initial,” his mother pointed out. “Or someone whose family is not well known to us.”
“I know,” Marcus said, trying to keep his frustration in check.
But he did at least now have a place to start, so he compared their list with the ball’s guest list and arrived at eight families with possible family members that might have, or might at one time have had, at least one of the sets of initials.
Marcus made eight calls, one to each family, and drank many more than eight cups of tea while he tried obliquely to tease out whether any of the families might have a young lady previously unknown to him who’d attended the ball and lost a necklace. This was a tricky undertaking—he didn’t want to give too much away, because the consequences of the Marquess of Boxhaven going house to house looking for a woman whose last name started with W, but about whom he knew little else, did not bear thinking about. If nothing else, he would be besieged by everyone within a fifty-mile radius who had a marriageable daughter, cousin, or friend who had a last name starting with W.
None of the calls yielded anything helpful.
Meanwhile, every night, he dreamed of her.
In his dreams, they danced and laughed and kissed, and then she told him her full name. But in that maddening way of dreams, he could never quite hear it.
By the end of the week, his frustration was mounting. Surely it couldn’t be that he’d found the woman for whom he’d been waiting all his life, only to never see her again. Surely fate wouldn’t be that cruel.
But as the days continued to pass with no sign of her, he began to think that fate might be exactly that cruel.
* * *
The axe fell six days after the ball, when Melinda was picking through her jewelry box to make a selection for a dinner party that evening. Her scream of outrage could be heard all the way in the Outer Reaches, and Rosamund, putting the finishing touches on the new gown Vanessa was to wear that night, immediately knew that the jig was up.
Bronwen had been instructed that if Melinda discovered the pearls were missing, she must tell Melinda that Rosamund might know where they were. Rosamund was thus summoned immediately, and a livid Melinda demanded an explanation.
As there was nothing for it, Rosamund simply said, “They were mine and I took them.”
“Shocking creature!” Melinda cried. “Where are they? Bring them to me at once!”
“They’re gone.”
Melinda’s features hardened. “You sold them, didn’t you? You little thief! But what should I have expected, inviting someone like you into our home? I have been a fool, a fool who was far too generous for her own good.”
Melinda then demanded the money from the supposed sale, which Rosamund of course didn’t have. Amid Melinda’s resultant pronouncements that Rosamund was a thief and no longer welcome in her house and shouts for a Bow Street runner to be called, Rosamund threw her few belongings in a bag and said a hasty goodbye to Uncle Piggott.
“She’s the thief!” Uncle Piggott nearly spat. “The necklace was yours.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
His fury melted away as his dear old features sagged with concern. “But where will you go, Rosamund?”
“I have some money saved.” Only a very little bit, but Uncle Piggott, who had so little himself, didn’t need to know that. “And I’m sure I’ll find work somewhere.”
“This is an outrage! She has treated you abominably.”
“Shh,” Rosamund said gently. Uncle Piggott would never be thrown out on the street, but he needed to preserve the goodwill of Melinda lest he find himself neglected and mistreated. “It will be all right.”
She hugged him, blinking back tears, and asked him to relay her goodbyes to Mrs. Barton and the servants. And then, in case a Bow Street runner might really be coming for her, she left in haste.
Rosamund found a cheap room in a boarding house and began visiting employment agencies and shops, seeking work anywhere that looked likely. But work was not easy to find for a woman with no references, and as the days wore on and her meager funds dwindled, she had to ration what she spent on food. When she was finally offered work as a seamstress, at wages that would barely allow her to feed herself, she ignored the irony and accepted the position with alacrity.
As the weeks ground on, hunger settled in as a permanent guest and her own clothes grew threadbare while she sewed new gowns for fashionable ladies. She’d been right about one thing, though: the memories of Marcus and her night at the ball became the one bright spot in her days, bittersweet though the memories were because of the knowledge that she would never see him again.