Turnip sighed. “That’s that, then.” Standing, he rested a hand on her shoulder, the only part of her showing above the blanket. “Won’t leave your side for a minute. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
For just a moment, Arabella leaned her cheek against his hand, letting herself savor the prospect of comfort and tenderness it offered.
Turnip’s hand lingered on her arm, protectively covering the slit in her sleeve. Through the corner of her eye, she could see his face, perturbed, his brows drawn together over his nose. “Arabella, I — ”
She knew what he was thinking. “Don’t worry,” she said, allowing herself, very fleetingly, the luxury of touching his hand where it covered her arm. She could feel the muscles in his fingers contract at her touch. “I’m not in any danger. This is England, not The Castle of Otranto. It is silly. The whole thing. Messages being passed in puddings, paper swords — it’s something out of farce, not tragedy.”
“I hope you’re right.” Turnip’s hand tightened protectively on her arm. “But I’m sticking by your side until we know for sure. Anyone who wants you will have to get through me first.”
Chapter 24
It took only five minutes at the ball for Turnip to lose Arabella.
The event was a small affair by the dowager’s standards. “A little entertainment for the country folk,” she called it, if a little entertainment could be held to comprise more than two hundred people, all rigged out in their very best. Tomorrow night, the long gallery at Girdings would be mobbed with fashionable folk come up from London, with peers and peeresses glittering with diamonds, but tonight the ballroom was crowded with an ill-assorted mix of the dowager’s country neighbors, the rarefied denizens of the house party, and guests come early for the following evening’s elaborate Twelfth Night festivities. The country squires, in their old-fashioned wigs and buckled shoes, looked askance at the pinks of the ton, with their elaborate cravats and painfully high shirt points, while the London matrons made moues at the heavy, full-skirted brocades and long curls of the country set.
“So last-century!” Turnip heard one hiss to another behind her fan. “Do you think someone ought to tell them?”
And they both snickered.
Turnip craned to see over the towering headdress of one of the country ladies, who looked as though she was wearing her hair in memorial of the late lamented Queen of France — or simply had a few birds’ nests piled in there. He had seen Arabella settled in her customary place by her aunt’s side not five minutes ago, safely tucked away among the wallflowers and the dowagers.
But now she was gone.
The space beside Lady Osborne on the settee was conspicuously empty. Captain Musgrave was still there, leaning over his wife’s shoulder, ostensibly whispering something in her ear even as his eyes scanned the room. Lady Osborne herself seemed entirely unconcerned, fanning herself with a feather-edged fan as she gossiped to the lady on her other side.
The villain couldn’t have abstracted Arabella from among a ballroom full of people, could he? Not in the first five minutes of the ball?
Turnip shoved and elbowed his way through the crowd, trying not to panic. If only he hadn’t let himself be distracted by Lady Henrietta Selwick — er, Dorrington — who insisted on smothering him in an embrace and then mocking his waistcoat.
Ha! There Arabella was. Turnip’s breath escaped his lungs in an explosive gasp. For a moment, the relief was so intense that he felt lightheaded with it. There was no one next to her or behind her, no one holding a knife to her ribs or a pistol to her head. She was walking entirely alone and unescorted towards the doors of the gallery.
Alone and unescorted. Turnip’s bubble of well-being popped. What was she doing leaving the safety of the gallery?
Where in the bloody hell was Pinchingdale? Probably gone up to check on Letty, who would be having another bout of evening sickness. Which meant that there would be no one else watching for Arabella.
Except, of course, her assailant.
Turnip bolted for the doors to the gallery, skirting around a group of country squires discussing agricultural improvements, knocking over three old-fashioned periwigs and one wooden leg, dodging two lapdogs, and momentarily getting tangled with one ceremonial sword. Fortunately, it was sheathed.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said generally, and kept going, leaping over the dowager’s small yippy dog to arrive breathless but triumphant at the doors of the gallery only moments after Arabella.
An impassive footman, stiff as a toy soldier in his green and gold livery, opened the door before Turnip could go barreling through.
Turnip skidded to a halt just beyond the door. A series of rooms stretched out enfilade, each opening onto the other. The ducal architects had believed in decorating on a grand scale. Among the more conventional pieces of furniture, huge pieces of classical statuary leered down from pedestals; trompe l’oeil panels on the walls created the illusion of alcoves holding vast flowering urns, mirroring the actual urns set across from them.
In short, it was a villain’s playhouse. Turnip could feel the hairs on his neck begin to prickle. Even with the candles dripping wax from the great candelabra stationed along the route, there were far too many places for a man to hide, lying in wait. It was making him deuced twitchy just thinking about it.
The rooms ran along the garden front, each boasting a set of doors, some cleverly concealed, others grandly displayed, opening into the same shrubbery into which Arabella had been dragged, blind, just hours before. It would be far too easy for a chap to slip out from behind a statue, clap a hand over her mouth before she had a chance to scream, and back her out through those cleverly concealed doors into the garden. The gallery, with its many balconies, looked out onto the West Front. The chatter from the ballroom, the pounding of dancing feet, the exuberant playing of the musicians, all would mask any sounds from the acres of garden at the back of the house.
Back to the wall, Turnip slunk along behind, keeping one eye on Arabella’s back, the other on the lookout for potential villains. Deuced good thing he had two of them.
He would cling to her like a shadow, follow her like a bad dream, stalk her footsteps like a — well, something else shadowy and intangible. She would never know he was there.
“Turnip?”
Turnip ducked behind a statue of Neptune. Fortunately, Neptune had been a full-figured sort of chap. Tall, too. Especially since he was on a pedestal.
Arabella stopped and turned. “Turnip, I know you’re there.”
Turnip stepped out from behind Neptune. “Don’t mind me,” he said airily. “Never know I’m here. Just a shadow on the wall.” He thumped the wall for emphasis.
“For a shadow,” said Arabella, “you are surprisingly corporeal.”
“Shouldn’t do you much good if I weren’t,” he said, flexing one arm. If anyone attacked her, he would show them just how corporeal he could be. “What are you doing out of the ballroom? You weren’t supposed to leave the gallery.”
“My aunt wanted her vinaigrette. She forgot it in here.” Placing her hands on her hips, Arabella surveyed the room, a small drawing room decorated in yellow and rose.
“Ah. There it is.” Arabella dove for the ground, getting down on hands and knees to peer beneath a small settee upholstered in pale gold stripes. Candlelight shimmered distractingly off the peach silk lovingly covering the curves of her backside as she wiggled head and shoulders under the settee.
Turnip swallowed hard as the movement caused the rest of her to wiggle too. He inserted a finger beneath his collar.
“It rolled some way,” came Arabella’s voice, slightly muffled, from beneath the settee. “Ha! Got it.”
She backed out from beneath the settee, a small object clutched triumphantly in one gloved hand.