For an instant, Caroline looked perfectly blank. “Is he?” she whispered weakly.
This was too much for Max. “You know perfectly well I am.” It appeared to him that his Caro had all but lost her wits with shock. He reined in his temper, sorely tried by the events of the entire night, and said, “Hugo and I are about to leave to get Arabella back—”
“No!” The syllable was uttered with considerable force by Caroline as she leapt to her feet It had the desired effect of stopping her guardian in his tracks. One black brow rose threateningly, but before he could voice his anger she was speaking again. “You don’t understand! I didn’t think you did, but you kept telling me you knew.”
Caroline’s eyes grew round as she watched Max move around the desk and advance upon her. She waved one hand as if to keep him back and enunciated clearly, “Arabella did not go with Sir Ralph.”
Max stopped. Then his eyes narrowed. “She was seen getting into a carriage with him in the Penbrights’ drive.”
Caroline shook her head as she tried to work mis out. Then she saw the light. “A rose-pink domino was seen getting into Sir Ralph’s carriage?”
At her questioning look, Max thought back to Lord McCubbin’s words. Slowly, he nodded his head. “And you’re sure it wasn’t Arabella?”
“When I left Twyford House, Arabella was at the breakfast table.”
“So who…?”
“Sarah?” came the strangled voice of Darcy Hamilton.
Caroline looked puzzled. “No. She’s at home, too.”
“Lizzie?”
Martin’s horrified exclamation startled Caroline. She regarded him in increasing bewilderment. “Of course not. She’s at Twyford House.”
By now, Max could see the glimmer of reason for what seemed like the first time in hours. “So who went with Sir Ralph?”
“Miss Harriet Jenkins,” said Caroline.
“Who?“ The sound of four male voices in puzzled unison was very nearly too much for Caroline. She sank back into her chair and waved them back to their seats. “Sit down and I’ll explain.”
With wary frowns, they did as she bid them.
After a pause to marshal her thoughts, Caroline began. “It’s really all Mrs. Crowbridge’s fault. She decided she wanted Sir Ralph for a son-in-law. Sir Ralph had come to town because he took fright at the thought of the marriage he had almost contracted with Miss Jenkins in Gloucestershire.” She glanced up, but none of her audience seemed to have difficulty understanding events thus far. “Mrs. Crowbridge kept throwing Amanda in Sir Ralph’s way. Amanda did not like Sir Ralph and so, to help out, and especially because Mr. Minchbury had almost come to the point with Amanda and she favoured his suit, Arabella started flirting with Sir Ralph, to draw him away from Amanda.” She paused, but no questions came. “Well, you, Max, made that a bit difficult when you told Arabella to behave herself with respect to Sir Ralph. But they got around that by sharing the work, as it were. It was still Arabella drawing Sir Ralph off, but the other two helped to cover her absences. Then, Miss Jenkins came to town, following Sir Ralph. She joined in the…the plot. I gather Arabella was to hold Sir Ralph off until Mr. Minchbury proposed and then turn him over to Miss Jenkins.”
Max groaned and Caroline watched as he put his head in his hand. “Sir Ralph has my heartfelt sympathy,” he said. He gestured to her. “Go on.”
“Well, then Mrs. Crowbridge tried to trap Sir Ralph by trying to put him in a compromising situation with Amanda. After that, they all decided something drastic needed to be done, to save both Sir Ralph and Amanda. At the afternoon concert, Sarah wheedled a declaration of sorts from Sir Ralph over Arabella and got him to promise to go along with their plan. He thought Arabella was about to go into a decline and had to be swept off her feet by an elopement.”
“My sympathy for Sir Ralph has just died,” said Max. “What a slow-top if he believed that twaddle!”
“So that’s what she was doing on the balcony with him,” said Darcy. “She
was there for at least half an hour.”
Caroline nodded. “She said she had had to work on him. But Harriet Jenkins has known Sir Ralph from the cradle and had told her how best to go about it”
When no further comment came, Caroline resumed her story. “At the Penbrights’s ball last night, Lizzie had the job of making sure Sir Ralph had brought his carriage and would be waiting for Sarah when she came to take him to the rendezvous later.”
“And that’s why she went to talk to Keighly as soon as you got in the ballroom,” said Martin, putting his piece of the puzzle into place.
“All Arabella had to do was flirt outrageously as usual, so that everyone, but particularly Sir Ralph,would be convinced it was her in the rose-pink domino. At twelve-twenty, Arabella swapped dominos with Harriet Jenkins and Harriet went down to a gazebo by the carriage gate.”
“Oh, God!” groaned Hugo Denbigh. The horror in his voice brought all eyes to him. He had paled. “What was the colour? Of the second domino?”
Caroline stared at him. “Brown.”
“Oh, no! I should have guessed. But her accent.” Hugo dropped his head into his large hands.