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Corbeau!
    She supposed she should be terrified, but she seemed to have moved beyond that to mild insanity.
    Since arriving in London, she’d written frequent letters to her best friends back in Matlock, entertaining them with her observations of the capital and the ton. What a shame she’d not be able to write about this.
    Witty phrases popped into her mind to do with Le Corbeau and the
haute volee
, which meant the high flyers of society—the dandies, dukes, and Patronesses of Almack’s, who had all failed to notice the arrival amongst them of ordinary Cressida Mandeville. They’d notice if this scandal ever became known!
    She wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, but she was furious at how those men had handled her. Her wrists were tied with her
garters
, and she suspected her ankles were bound with her very expensive silk stockings. Which some man had removed, the knave!
    Malmsey-nosed knave, she borrowed from Shakespeare, hoping that indeed her captor had the swollen red nose of the drunkard.
    Strange that a person could be frustrated, bored, frightened, and furious all at the same time.
    She turned her mind to planning. She must escape this captor, continue to Stokeley Manor, and complete her mission…
    It was very late, though, and she’d hardly slept recently for dread of this journey, so, wandering amid wilder and wilder plans, she drifted off to sleep.
    She woke with a start.
    Darkness?… No, blindfold! This wasn’t a nightmare, then.
    It was reality, and
he
was back.
    She’d been waked by sounds—things being moved some distance away. If only she could see! Faint light around the edge of the blindfold told her a candle was lit.
    He was back, presumably with time now to
do
things. Shivers ran through her, and her teeth threatened to chatter. She clenched them, but it didn’t work. He’d hear, and he’d… do what?
    Water. Splashing.
    The mundane picture was shockingly clear.
    He was pouring water from a ewer into a washing bowl. A slight splashing told her he was washing. It leached the terror out of her, leaving her limp and dazed. A vile rapist might well wash before attacking her, but it seemed so unlikely.
    The sound of water awakened thirst. Her throat turned tight and dry enough to choke her. “May I have a drink of water?” she managed.
    Abrupt silence. “I thought you were asleep. Wait a moment.”
    She worked her tongue around her mouth to moisten it, all the while following sounds. Water pouring. Footsteps again, coming closer. She only flinched a little when he touched her face.
    “Water,” he said, clearly to diffuse her fear. What a strange villain this was.
    She didn’t resist when his arm pushed under her and raised her. When cool glass pressed against her bottom lip, she opened her mouth. He tilted the glass, and blessed water filled her mouth. She swallowed; he poured. A strange union—his hands, her mouth, working together as if practiced by familiarity…
    But then the synchrony broke. He tilted too fast or she swallowed too slow. She jerked, almost choked.
    “Sorry.” The glass was removed. She felt him stroke the dribble from her chin, and she smelled sandalwood again, stronger now. He’d just used sandalwood soap on his hands.
    Soap, horse, leather, man. She had never noticed such things before, and she didn’t want to now. They created a weakening sense of intimacy. She needed to see! To see a malmsey-nosed villain.
    “Don’t. Please—”
    “Hush.” He laid her back down, settling her head last and carefully. A new foolish distress attacked. She could imagine what she looked like, lying here in her tilted turban and crushed, disordered finery.
    He walked back across the room, and she heard a strange sound. A soft tearing. A muttered curse.
    His false beard and mustache!
    What would he look like without them? More important, would she know him? She’d lived among the
haute volee
these past months. On the edges of the fashionable world, but still there. If she did