Max had done a lot of difficult things in his life, but attending the ball held in his own home in honor of his missing sister was one of the hardest. He was welcomed genially, if not a little formally, for he was not often in London, and when he was, it was not to attend parties and balls. His older twin brothers had been much better at this sort of thing, especially Frederick, who had been groomed from childhood to become a duke. Max had never been particularly intimate with either of his brothers. In fact, he’d barely had the opportunity to know them, but he would have given anything to have another soul on his side at the moment.
Miss Moore is on your side, a voice in his head reminded him.
Miss Moore was not on his side, Max thought uncharitably. Not really. Miss Moore was on the side of whoever was paying her. Whoever was following her orders.
He nodded and smiled an empty smile at a group of women fluttering fans and eyelashes, not breaking his stride.
At least none of those women had offered to shave him. Or had chosen his clothes for him. He’d watched her in the mirror, rifling through the wardrobe with the unhesitating authority and detached scrutiny of an experienced gentleman’s valet. What kind of woman did that?
The kind who is used to redressing male corpses, he thought.
Given that, dressing a live male didn’t seem like much of a stretch.
In the end Max had donned exactly what she’d laid out, because it was expedient, and headed downstairs exactly as she’d instructed. But the entire time, the knowledge that he should be out looking for Bea had gnawed at his conscience. He should not be loitering around uselessly like a helpless child or a puppet whose strings could be yanked at will. And yanked by the insufferable but tempting Miss Moore, of all people.
He was still fuming when a man Max recognized immediately as the Viscount Stafford stepped into Max’s path, headed for the offerings on the refreshment table. Max had to check his stride, and he groaned. The rotund man was a known windbag, and Max knew he was going to end up sucked into a gossip-fueled conversation he had no interest in having.
“I beg your pardon,” Max said, before the viscount could run right into him.
Startled, the viscount looked up and paled. “My apologies, Your Grace,” Stafford stuttered. “Lovely party tonight. Just lovely. My compliments to the Lady Helen. If you’ll excuse me?” The man made some sort of jerky movement with his head and departed abruptly.
Max stared after him, realizing he needed to better school his expression and his demeanor. No doubt his wrath was written across his face, and eventually someone would wonder aloud what could possibly be bothering the Duke of Alderidge amid the festivities.
As much as it aggrieved him to admit, Miss Moore had been right. His behavior was critical.
Max took a deep breath, forcing his jaw and the rest of the muscles in his face to relax. He curled his lips up into what he hoped was a benign smile and signaled to a waiting footman to fetch him a drink. Something stronger than the lemonade and champagne his aunt had supplied. And then he went to work.
He visited the cardroom as instructed and casually commented on Debarry’s absence the directed number of times. He had a drink with and answered questions for a number of peers who were heavily invested in the East India Company. He offered his opinion when queried about the conflict between the company and the Marathas in central India.
He did everything Miss Moore had asked him to do, with a smile pasted on his face and while trying not to check the face of his pocket watch too often. Time crawled. Every tick of the watch hands might be marking an increase in the distance that Bea was slipping away from him. Max had no idea what he had been thinking, agreeing to let Miss Moore take charge. He never let anyone take charge if he could help it—he despised not being in control. She had bewitched him, or at the very least bewitched all his good sense.
Perhaps it had been her steady calm and her sensible logic in the face of what anyone in their right mind would call a catastrophic debacle. He would admit that he’d been caught off guard when he’d first walked into that bedroom. But he still refused to believe that Bea could ever—
He squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to even consider it. The last time he’d seen his sister, she’d been sixteen. Her hair had been in pretty blond ringlets tied back with a blue ribbon, and her round cheeks had been flushed in girlish delight at the ornate seashell he’d found and saved for her.
“Your Grace, I didn’t realize you were back in London.” The address yanked him from his thoughts. The man standing before him was familiar, with dark hair that was greying slightly at the temples, and a pale complexion made more startling by the severe black of his impeccable evening coat. He was short, with a weak chin and light-brown eyes, and he was looking at Max with an expression of surprise.
Max’s memory stumbled before he seized upon a name. “Barlow.”
“Delighted to be here, Your Grace.”
Edwin Harper, Earl of Barlow, had been a friend of his eldest brother’s. Not overly clever, if Max’s memory served him well, but affable and well liked. Max hadn’t seen him in years.
He forced his mouth into what he hoped was another smile. “Yes, I just returned this very evening, in fact.”
“Ah. Welcome home then. Your sister must have been happy to see you.”
Max made a noise of agreement, unwilling to pursue any vein of conversation regarding his sister.
“Your timing couldn’t have been better,” Barlow continued on. “Lady Beatrice will certainly depend on you more than ever now.”
“I beg your pardon?” Suspicion flared. “What are you suggesting?”
Barlow swallowed and took an involuntary step back. “Er, I meant nothing by it, Your Grace. Only that Lady Beatrice is a lovely young lady. Her company is very much in demand this evening, as it is at every social gathering she attends. No doubt she will have multiple offers of marriage by the end of the season, and I expect that you, as her guardian, will be instrumental in helping her choose a worthy suitor.”
Max forced himself to breathe. Of course. Barlow was only stating the obvious. Bea was beautiful, poised, and charming, and of course she would marry well.
Provided he could find her. Provided he could explain away a dead earl. Provided he could—
“If I may be so bold, I was wondering if perhaps you might consider my suit?”
“I beg your pardon?” This was the last conversation that Max wanted to be having right now.
“I would very much like your permission to call on Lady Beatrice. I think the two of us would get on wonderfully. I would very much enjoy taking her to the theater—in your company too, of course.”
Max wasn’t at all certain that, when he found his sister, he wouldn’t lock her up in a very tall tower with iron doors, a moat, and a fire-breathing dragon to eat the damn key. He certainly wouldn’t let her do anything that involved her removal from his sight.
“I secured a spot on her dance card, yet she seems to have disappeared,” Barlow was blathering on, seemingly unaware Max had yet to respond.
This was ridiculous. He was wasting precious time. He should never have—
A flash of green silk caught his eye, and he watched as his aunt made her way with single-minded determination through the crowd toward the tall doors. His heart skipped. Had she heard something? Had Bea returned?
His aunt stopped at the bottom of the curving staircase, staring up, unmoving. His eyes followed her gaze, heedless of the people who brushed by him as they came and went.
Bea!
“I see my sister now,” he said to Barlow.
“You do?” The earl blinked.
“If you’ll excuse me?” Max left the man staring after him and was already lurching through the guests toward her when he realized something wasn’t quite right. Bea was turned away from the crowd milling about below her, only her unique rose-embroidered dress and blond hair recognizable. There was a maid standing at her elbow, chestnut hair pinned neatly under a cap, and she was watching him.
Miss Moore, he realized, with a hollow feeling, belatedly remembering the instructions she had given to his aunt. And the blonde at her side was her associate, Miss DeVries, pretending to be Beatrice. Whatever this was, it was all part of her charade. His aunt was laboring up the stairs toward them, suddenly looking every year of her advancing age. With some surprise he felt a pang of pity and regret. Aunt Helen had stepped in to take care of Bea when he and his sister had become orphans. At the time of his parents’ deaths, Max had already been far across a distant ocean, the die of his life already cast.
He caught up to his aunt, placing a hand on her arm. “Please, Aunt Helen, wait here. Let me attend to this.”
She hesitated, suspicion touching her face, before both physical and emotional exhaustion won, and she nodded, leaning on the rail.
Max made his way up the rest of the stairs, in plain sight of the guests below, which, he suddenly realized, was the idea. He took his time climbing the last three stairs.
“Lady Beatrice regrets to inform you that she is suffering from a feminine ailment and would like to retire to her room,” Miss Moore said from beneath her cap as he drew even with her.
The woman playing Bea put a hand to her forehead as though a headache nagged and held the other hand to her abdomen.
Max moved closer to Miss DeVries and her borrowed dress and blond wig, as though he were in deep conversation with the woman everyone must later believe had been his sister. “Then she should retire immediately.”
Miss Moore was grim. “Indeed she should. Please identify the biggest gossips in the room and convey her regrets directly to them.” She cast an eye at the people milling below. “When your butler makes his unfortunate discovery, it will, I’m afraid, be the end of your ball.”
“Thank God.”
“Your sister, along with her maid, will be gone from your home before dawn, should anyone ask. Death is always a distressing business, one that any responsible brother or caring aunt would wish a reasonable distance from their tender charge. I trust you and your aunt to make the appropriate explanations.”
“Of course.”
“Mary, however, must be eliminated. She is far too volatile and nervous to leave in residence here amongst the staff and trust that she will remain silent.”
Max stared at her. What was she suggesting?
“Oh, for God’s sake, I’m not going to throw her in the Thames and let her sink, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Miss Moore said, looking annoyed.
“I wasn’t thinking that,” Max lied.
“I never leave bodies where they might be found. I always bury them.”
Max felt the blood drain from his face.
“I’m jesting.”
“You. Are. Not. Funny.” He could barely get the words out.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“True.” Miss Moore tipped her head. “You looked like a bowstring about to snap, Your Grace. I was trying to use humor to help you work back towards normalcy. You have guests to return to.”
Max forced himself to take a deep breath. “I’ll chalk any deviations in my expression up to an unwholesome conversation of feminine ailments,” he managed through clenched teeth.
Miss Moore tipped her head. “That sounds reasonable.”
No it didn’t, Max wanted to shout. None of this was reasonable.
“Your aunt has my direction,” she said. “Until this matter is resolved, I am available anytime you require.” She was already moving away from the top of the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
She paused, turning back to him. “To do my job.”