Wicked in the Regency Ballroom. Margaret McPhee
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to ten—slowly.
Mrs Langley raved about Angelina’s growing posse of admirers. Was the young man with blond hair merely a baronet? Angelina could do so much better. Let them move here to better see Angelina’s progress around the floor. And they simply must gain an introduction to a patroness of Almack’s. Mrs Langley could not survive without securing tickets for one of the assembly room’s famous balls. It would be quite the best place to catch a husband for Angelina. And so the time passed. Madeline did not mind. She preferred her place in the background, quietly observing what was going on around her. Nodding her head and smiling politely, but never really engaging. At least there was no Lord Farquharson forcing his attention upon her. Even so, he managed to catch her eye across the room on several occasions as if to remind her of what lay ahead: the waltz. Madeline’s throat grew dry and tight at the very thought. She could see him watching her through the crowd, licking his lips, smiling that smile that made her blood run cold.
Quite suddenly Madeline knew that she could not do it; she could not let him rest his hands upon her and draw her close, pretending to be the perfect gentleman when all along he was just biding his time, waiting for an opportunity to strike. And strike he would, like the snake in the grass that he was. She shuddered. No matter what Mama thought, Lord Farquharson was not honourable. He would ruin her and there would be no offer of marriage. He did not want her as a wife any more than Madeline wanted him as a husband. What his lordship wanted was something quite different. Madeline drew a deep breath and determined that, come hell or high water, she would keep herself safe from Lord Farquharson’s attentions. Mrs Langley scarcely noticed when Madeline whispered that she was going to find her papa.
Mr Langley was not anywhere in the grand ballroom. Nor could he be found in the magnificence of Lady Gilmour’s entrance hall. Madeline followed the stairs up, searching through the crowd for a sight of her father. It seemed he was not there either. She spent a little time within the ladies’ retiring room, just because she was passing that way, and enquired of several ladies within if they had seen a gentleman by the name of Mr Langley. But the ladies looked at her as if she had just come up from the country and said that they knew no Mr Langley. So that was that.
She left and was about to make her way back downstairs when a hand closed tight around her wrist and pulled her to the side.
‘Miss Langley, what a pleasant surprise to find you up here.’ Lord Farquharson pressed his mouth to the back of her hand. ‘But then perhaps you were looking for me.’ He stepped closer and did not release his grip on her wrist.
Madeline knew that the people surrounding them afforded her protection from the worst of Lord Farquharson’s intent. But she also knew that she could not risk drawing attention to herself or her situation lest they think the worst. ‘No,’ she said, and tried surreptitiously to disengage herself.
But Lord Farquharson had a grip like an iron vice, and tightened it accordingly. ‘Tut, tut, why don’t I believe you?’ he laughed.
‘I’m looking for my papa. Have you seen him?’ Madeline hoped that Lord Farquharson did not know just how much he frightened her.
The sly grey eyes watched her. ‘I do believe that I saw him not two minutes since, Miss Langley. But it was in the strangest of places.’ Lord Farquharson’s face frowned with perplexity.
In the strangest of places. Yes, that sounded most like where Madeline’s papa would be found. Papa hated large social occasions and would frequently wander off to hide in the most obscure of locations. ‘Where did you see him, my lord?’
Lord Farquharson’s grip loosened a little. ‘On the servants’ stairwell at the other side of that door.’ He gestured to an unobtrusive doorway at the other end of the landing. ‘He seemed to be wandering upstairs, although I cannot imagine why he should be heading in such a direction.’
Madeline could. Anywhere away from the hubbub of activity. Papa would not notice more than that. ‘Thank you, Lord Farquharson.’ She looked pointedly at where he still held her.
‘You’ve not forgotten my waltz?’
How could she? ‘No, my lord, I’ve not forgotten.’
‘Good,’ he said, and released her.
Lord Farquharson fluttered a few fingers in her direction, then turned and walked briskly down the main staircase.
Madeline waited until she could see that he had gone before heading towards the servants’ stairwell.
‘Papa?’ she called softly as she wound her way up the narrow staircase. The stone stairs felt cold through her slippers. ‘Papa?’ she said again, but only silence sounded. The walls on either side had not been whitewashed in some time and, as there was no banister, bore the marks of numerous hands throughout the years. A draught wafted around her ankles and the band’s music dimmed to a faint lilt in the background.
The stairwell delivered her to the rear of the upper floor. She stepped out, scanning the empty landing. Several portraits of Lord Gilmour’s horses peered down at her from the walls. Where could Papa be? A number of doors opened off the landing, to bedchambers, or so Madeline supposed. She stopped outside the first, listening for any noise that might indicate her father’s presence. Nothing. Her knuckles raised and knocked softly against the oaken structure.
‘Papa,’ she whispered, ‘are you in there?’
Madeline waited. No reply came. The handle turned easily beneath her fingers. Slowly she pushed the door open and peeked inside. It was a bedchamber, decorated almost exclusively in blue and white. A large four-poster bed stood immediately opposite the door. Mr Langley was clearly not there. Madeline silently retreated, pulling the door to close behind her. Quite suddenly the door was wrenched from her grasp, and Madeline found herself pulled unceremoniously back into the bedchamber. The door clicked shut behind her. Madeline looked up into the eyes of Lord Farquharson.
‘My dear Madeline, we meet again,’ he said.
Madeline kicked out at him and grabbed for the door handle. But Lord Farquharson was too quick. He embraced her in a bear hug, lifting her clear of the door.
‘Now, now, Madeline, why are you always in such a hurry to get away?’
‘You tricked me!’ she exclaimed. ‘You never even saw my father, did you?’ How could she have been so stupid?
Lord Farquharson’s shoulders shrugged beneath the chocolate brown superfine of his coat. ‘You’ve found me out,’ he said and pulled her closer.
She could feel the hardness of his stomach, and something else, too, pressing against her. ‘Release me!’
‘The Earl won’t save you this time, my dear. He’s not even here. I checked.’
Madeline refused to be bated. Speaking to him, pleading with him, would be useless. Cyril Farquharson would not listen to reason. She willed herself to stay calm, forced herself to look up into his eyes, to relax into his arms.
Lord Farquharson’s eyes widened momentarily, and then he stretched a grin across his face. ‘I think we begin to understand one another at last.’
Madeline sincerely doubted that.
Lord Farquharson’s grip lessened. ‘Madeline,’ he breathed, ‘you are such a fearful little thing.’ The intent in his gaze was so transparent that even Madeline, innocent as she was, could not mistake it. ‘I will not hurt you.’ His fingers scraped hard down the length of her arm.
Apprehension tightened in her belly. ‘But you are doing so already, my lord,’ she said, drawing back her leg and delivering her knee to Lord Farquharson’s groin with as much force as she could muster. She did not wait to see the effect upon Lord Farquharson, just spun on her foot and ran as fast as she could, banging the door shut behind her. Across the landing, down the stairwell, running and running like she had never run before. The breath tore at her throat and rasped in her ears. Her feet touched only briefly against each stair. And still she ran on, pulling her skirts higher to prevent them catching around her legs. Anything to flee that monster.