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said, wondering how much good she would be in the search as she refused to raise her gaze above the shoe tops of the other guests. “Just please don’t leave me.”
    He took her hand once more. “I won’t,” he said, and she believed him.
    A half hour later, following a sometimes embarrassing, if oddly educational, search of the gardens, they returned to the anteroom carrying an emerald-green silk domino and the remains of a half mask missing some of its green glass stones.
    Regina could barely put one foot in front of the other. They’d found the—dear Lord, Robin Goodfellow had called what they’d found evidence —at the very back of the gardens, near a gate that led to an alleyway, and he’d noted that there looked to be signs of a small struggle.
    In any event, in any case, Miranda was gone.
    Regina plunked herself down in the chair beside a terrified Doris Ann, put her masked face in her hands and at last gave in to despair.
    Her cousin was gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Abducted.
    “Stay here,” Robin Goodfellow told her and then placed his hand on her shoulder and waited until she managed to nod that she’d heard him. “I’ll take this domino and mask with me and show them around to the servants. There has to be someone who remembers seeing your cousin earlier in the evening. Maybe that someone remembers who she was with at that time.”
    “Miss Regina?”
    Regina raised her head and carefully eased the mask away from her face enough to wipe at her wet cheeks. “We’ll find her, Doris Ann.”
    “Yes, Miss. But if we don’t?”
    Regina’s entire body sagged at the question.
    She would have to tell Mama, who would cry and bring up Grandmother Hackett again. Papa would belivid that she might have destroyed his dream to marry her to a nobleman. They’d have to tell Aunt Claire and Uncle Seth. They’d be aghast, terrified.
    And everyone would blame her.
    Not that such a minor thing mattered. What mattered was that Miranda was gone, God only knew where and to what purpose.
    Regina picked up a green glass stone that had fallen into her lap.
    And she hadn’t gone voluntarily.
    She squeezed her hand around the stone and closed her eyes, began to pray.
    “Regina?”
    She looked up at the sound of her name, frowning before she remembered that Robin Goodfellow must have heard Doris Ann refer to her as such. She quickly got to her feet. “You’ve learned something?”
    “A little. We need to go now.”
    “Go? But I can’t leave. What if Miranda comes back? She’d need me to be here.”
    “She won’t be coming back.” He signaled for Doris Ann to come with them and led them outside to the street, where a strange coach awaited, a footman holding open the door, the steps down and waiting. “On my honor, such as it is, after a very brief stop at my residence for a change of shirt and cravat, I am taking you directly home, wherever that is. I will accompany you inside and speak with your mother and whomever else you wish me to speak with, telling them whatever story the two of us manage to conjure up on the way. I’ve already worked out the broad strokes, but I will leave it to you to fill in the details.”
    “But…but we have to tell them the truth.”
    “Only as a last resort and only if you make a botch of the lie. Remember, your father was in attendance tonight. I doubt he’d be best pleased to know his daughter had been here, as well,” he said, handing her up into the coach. “How trustworthy is the maid?”
    “Doris Ann?” Regina’s mind was whirling. He had just said he was driving her to his residence? So that he might change out of his shirt? Was she being abducted now? “Doris Ann will not be questioned. She’s only the maid.”
    “And lucky for her that she is. Aren’t you, Doris Ann?”
    The maid bobbed her head in agreement.
    “And she won’t say a word to anyone, or else she will be escorted out onto the street without a reference, if not tossed into gaol. Will you, Doris