While Aunt Eunice and the other ladies attended to the companion, Ashley turned her attention to Amber. “A demon?”
“Yes! No. Well, probably not.” Amber straightened, took a step toward the fireplace, and inhaled several calming breaths. “He said he was… the Bogeyman.”
Ashley fought hard to keep her expression and voice neutral. “The Bogeyman.”
Amber shrugged. “It sounds fantastical, but that’s who he claimed to be.” She went on to describe the apparition that had confronted them a few steps from Lady Waldon’s home. He was shrouded head to toe in black except for the blood-red lining of his black cape that hissed when he moved, like snakes. Walking stick with a silver skull for a handle. Pale blur where a face should be. “And black holes where his eyes should have been. It seemed like you could see all the way to hell.” She shuddered.
“And fangs!” Mrs. Driscoll added. She visibly shivered. " As long as I live I shall never forget the sight of his fangs, or the sound of his evil laugh!”
Ashley glanced from the sofa back to Amber. “Did he say anything else? Give any reason for his, ah, visit?”
Amber stared down at her fingers, where she was fidgeting with her handkerchief. “He called me by name and said…”
“Yes? What did he say?”
Her voice was barely audible. “He said I had made a poor choice.”
Lady Waldon ushered people out of the room. As soon as she was gone, Miss Kenyon and Georgia entered, Sir Peyton at their heels.
Amber took a deep breath. “You!” she shouted, stretching out one arm and pointing her finger at Sir Peyton.
He jumped, and glanced behind himself to see if she was angry with the person behind him. No one else was there.
Amber advanced on him, speaking one sharp syllable with each step. “Who. Is. Janet?”
Sir Peyton’s mouth moved but no sound came out.
Ashley gestured for Georgia and Miss Kenyon to exit the room with her. Given that Amber and Sir Peyton were still chaperoned, Ashley shut the door. They heard Amber’s muffled voice, throbbing with anger, interspersed with Sir Peyton’s placating tone.
Ashley ushered the two girls down the hall until they caught up with Georgia’s mother, who told them she’d heard about the commotion from Aunt Constance, who’d arrived just before them.
“Mother, who is Janet to Sir Peyton?”
Lady Mansfield beckoned them to a quiet alcove. “A cautionary tale.” She draped one arm around Georgia and the other around Miss Kenyon, and made sure Ashley was also listening. “Last year, Sir Peyton courted Janet. You don’t need to know her family name. Suffice to say, the situation was much the same as with Miss Barrow-Smith. The young lovers were determined despite her parents rejecting his suit. He told her they were eloping and they left in the dead of night. But he is a scoundrel. Instead of taking her to Scotland and marrying her, rumor has it he took her to some out of the way inn and demanded a large sum of money from her parents for her safe return.”
Miss Kenyon gasped.
“Some say she joined a convent. Others say she married a vicar in a small village somewhere. And she has not been seen in Town since.”
Ashley digested the information. “She has not been seen, yet Sir Peyton is still received in society.”
Lady Mansfield slowly nodded. “I’m afraid that’s the way it is.”
“But he is a cad!” Miss Kenyon said.
“And he planned to do the same thing with Amber!” Georgia stomped one foot. “Ooh, he should be horsewhipped!”
“I tried to persuade her against following through with their plans when we spoke last night,” Ashley said. “Given her anger I saw just now, it would seem the … ah, Bogeyman … succeeded where I could not.” It felt strange to feel gratitude toward a, well, demon. Whatever he or it was, the Bogeyman had definitely not been a figment of Amber’s imagination. And she was grateful Amber had been spared Janet’s fate.
They joined the crowd in the ballroom just as the musicians struck up a waltz. Miss Kenyon accepted an invitation from a jester, and Georgia danced away on the arm of a pirate. Ashley planned to chat with Lady Mansfield, but a gentleman in a blue and gold domino and matching half-mask bowed over her hand and silently led her out to dance. By the copper-red hair flecked with strands of silver, she felt fairly confident it was Lord Mansfield.
Before Ashley could think about feeling left out or awkward and going in search of her aunt, a man dressed all in black save for his white cravat, scarlet cape, and matching scarlet half-mask approached and bowed. He held out his ungloved hand, palm-up, in a silent invitation to dance.
She hesitated. Would she be opening herself up to another potential predator like Sir Rupert? Then she recognized Lord Ravencroft by the streak of white in his chestnut hair. Butterflies rioting in her stomach, she placed her hand in his and they joined the other dancers.
He danced divinely. Of course someone skilled as a musician and singer would understand the rhythms of dance and move gracefully. She sighed with pleasure. Not once did he tread on her toes.
She was acutely aware of the warmth of his large right hand in the small of her back, applying just enough pressure to guide her, avoiding collisions with other couples on the crowded dance floor. Good thing he was leading because she was oblivious to anyone else in the room. No silk or kid leather separated the skin of her right hand securely tucked in his left, his fingers curled around hers so that she felt the calluses on his fingertips. She’d lived at a school for girls too long. Holding hands with a man this way felt scandalous. Naughty.
