"Yes, he is. But mainly he's just insufferable." Looking at her friends, Alex continued with pleading in her voice, "I don't want to go back to the ball. I want to go to my bedchamber and drown myself in my pathetic sorrow."
"Well, considering the condition of this dress, I don't think you would be able to return to the ball even if you wanted to. What on earth did you do to yourself? You're covered in dirt. And your slippers are ruined," Ella pointed out.
Vivi chimed in, "You look like you've fallen in a flower bed."
Alex looked down at her skirts with sadness, pulling them up to inspect her slippers. With a sigh, she spoke, her voice tiny, "I did fall in a flower bed."
"This sounds like a fascinating story," Ella teased, "but let's wait until we're above stairs to tell it, shall we?"
"Indeed." Vivi whirled into motion, ever the problem solver. "Ella, you sneak Alex up and I shall take care of everything."
"How?" Alex asked. "My mother will be livid that I left the ball so early."
Vivi turned a regal look on Alex. "Never you mind. Have I not taught you yet that I never fail?" She kissed her sad friend on both cheeks and continued as she cracked the door to leave, "I shall see you soon."
And, with that, Vivi left the room, off to convince everyone in Alex's life that it was perfectly normal for her to have disappeared during a ball hosted in her own home.
Ella took her task very seriously and, within moments, the two girls were in Alex's bedchamber. Ella had helped Alex strip down to her chemise so that the offending gown could be hidden from view prior to the extreme cleaning it was going to require. As for the slippers, Ella shoved them deep into the recesses of Alex's wardrobe, hoping that no one would come looking for them. Turning back to her friend, who had already crawled under the coverlet looking sad, Ella kicked off her own slippers and threw herself across the end of the bed.
She landed just as the door to the bedroom opened and Vivi entered, a smug smile on her face, announcing, "Problem solved. No one will come looking for you, Lady Alexandra, until the morning."
"You're a miracle worker!" Alex said with a shocked look on her face. "How did you manage that?"
"Easily enough. I enlisted Freddie's help in telling everyone that you'd felt sick just before your scheduled dance, and that he'd passed you off to us.
That, combined with a quick chat with Kit, explaining that you hadn't wanted to upset or worry your mother, did the trick." Vivi's slippers joined Ella's in a pile on the floor just before she climbed onto the bed next to Alex. "Stanhope wants you to send him a note tomorrow to assure him that you are fine and, quote, 'that Blackmoor isn't a rogue who deserves to be called out.'"
Ella giggled and rolled her eyes. "Male bravado really is ridiculous."
Alex closed her eyes and said aloud, "I've had just about enough of the stuff tonight."
"Are you going to tell us what happened?"
"Which part? When Blackmoor told me that kissing me was a mistake? Or when he told me that he knew someone was trying to kill him? Or perhaps when I told him that the someone in question was his uncle Lucian and he didn't believe me?"
"What?!" The word came out on Ella's surprised exhale. Her wide eyes looked as though they would pop from their sockets.
Vivi sat up, eyeing Alex very closely. Slowly, she suggested, "Why don't we start from the beginning? You seem to have had quite a busy evening."
And so Alex started from the beginning, trying not to leave anything out — not that Ella would have all owed that. As she told her tale, Vivi and Ella listened intently, hanging on every word while she traced the events of the evening from Blackmoor's dance with Penelope to their argument and her ungraceful exit from his study.
As soon as she finished, they pounced, firing questions to obtain more details. "So you think the man who killed the earl was Lucian? Not the other?" Ella asked.
"I can't know for sure, as I couldn't make out the voices — but he certainly had a hand in it."
Vivi was next. "And Blackmoor knows someone is out to kill him?"
"Yes. Apparently he's known for a fortnight."
"And our fathers as well?"
"It seems that way," Alex said without emotion.
"But no one knows what information the former earl had?" Ella pressed.
"No." Alex shook her head before shrugging her shoulders. "At least, not that he told me. It seems they're waiting for the villain to lead them to whatever information the earl had."
"But couldn't Lucian have already found the information and all this be — a red herring?" Vivi spoke, searching for clarity.
"That wouldn't explain Montgrave's skulking about," Ella said to the room at large.
"Or the fact that the two men I overheard were clearly anxious about others beating them to the hiding place," Alex pointed out.
"You mean Lucian and Montgrave," Ella said firmly.
"I don't know it was Montgrave in the room. I didn't see him. And... if Gavin is to be believed —"
"Blackmoor is a dunderhead," Ella interrupted.
Vivi nodded in support. "Precisely."
Alex pushed on. "All the same — if he is to be believed —"
"He's not," Vivi pointed out.
"Quite," Ella agreed, adding, "Dunderhead."
Alex rolled her eyes. "Fine." Looking carefully at them, she continued, "You both believe me? You believe it was Lucian?"
"Absolutely!" Ella exclaimed.
"Without doubt," Vivi chimed in.
"Then why didn't he believe me?" Alex asked, falling back into the pillows on her bed.
Ella opened her mouth to speak from her spot at the end of the bed, but before she could get a word out, Alex raised a finger in the air and spoke in warning, "Ella... don't tell me he's a dunderhead."
Ella closed her mouth, then raised her head to look at Vivi for support.
"I rather think I understand," Vivi said carefully.
"I beg your pardon!" Ella sat up, leveling Vivi with a glare. "That's not exactly supportive, Vivian."
"Well, I do. After all, Gavin's uncle is almost all he has left of his father. Losing a parent is awful enough. I cannot imagine what it would be like to then, just as quickly, discover that a person you trust is behind all that pain."
"Even so... it doesn't excuse his complete stupidity in not believing Alex," Ella pointed out.
"No, of course not," Vivi all owed. "Although I imagine he’ll come around to realizing that she is right."
"Of course he will," Ella said imperiously, "because we're going to prove her right."
Alex lifted her head from her pillows. "We are?"
"Indeed." Ella was in one of her moods — she was not taking no for an answer.
"I considered going to our fathers immediately," Alex said, shaking her head. "I wanted to pull mine away from the ball and reveal everything that I had overheard. But Gavin didn't believe me — what if my father doesn't either?"
"That's silly. Of course, your father will believe you," Vivi declared with certainty.
"I suppose so." Alex didn't sound as if she really believed her own words.
And she didn't. Gavin's response had thrown her off — upsetting her more than she could have imagined it would. She was hurt and confused by his cold reaction, as though she were an errant child who had fabricated the tale to garner his attention. She was devastated by his lack of trust and faith even if Vivi was right and this was all a part of a larger issue that had little, if anything, to do with her. It didn't matter. She was desperate for someone to believe her; she had information that pointed to the murderer of the Earl of Blackmoor, for goodness sake! Wasn't that enough?
"There's only one way to be certain that everyone believes us," Ella said thoughtfully, reading Alex's mind. "We have to find the information before they do."