Unmasked by her Lover, page 21
I have always loved Harry. I could never not love him.
Calvert said, “Most people can’t tell you apart, even without the masks. You will do. In fact, together, you dazzle the eyes. Shall we go down?”
Despite her absence at the beginning of the festivities, Martha had worked hard to decorate the ballroom as she wished in a kind of Renaissance Venetian style that spoke of opulence and intrigue and yet managed to stay just on the right side of tasteful. The room was large enough to carry it off and would not overwhelm the bright colors and glittering jewels of its occupants.
“It looks delightful,” Calvert said in impressed tones. “You have excelled yourself, Martha.”
Martha wrinkled her nose. “I only hope people remember it above whatever else happens this evening.”
“They will,” Calvert said warmly. “I will.”
Martha slid a sideways glance at him, as though she suspected him of flim-flam, but he was gazing at the silk coverings on the sofas which lined the walls and the elegantly curtained alcoves. The terrace, accessible through two sets of French doors, was lit with many lanterns so that guests could take the air in safety. The path to the formal garden was lit, too. The one leading to the woods was not.
Meg caught Martha’s hand and squeezed. Martha squeezed back, and then their fingers parted as the guests began to arrive.
Meg lurked in the vicinity of her hosts until her parents arrived, so magnificent and stately that even masked they were unmistakable. As she dutifully sat with them, she continued to watch the arrivals, using previously exchanged information to mark her friends and their husbands, Aline and Garrow, Johnny, Lord and Lady Staunton.
And Lord Barden in a purple domino and mask.
Harry, in uniform beneath a splendid scarlet domino and black mask, entered shortly after Barden. As she watched him bow over Martha’s hand and shake hands with Calvert, Meg’s heart filled with warmth and that special elation she associated only with him.
He moved further into the room, taking in everything, she thought, in one sweeping glance, much as he would have when marching through dangerous country in Spain or leading a charge in battle. Then his eyes found her, and they glinted through the slits in his mask as he swerved toward her. Her breath caught, for he looked splendid and handsome and somehow ruthless. Of course, he was in disguise, but she found herself speculating that like this, he was more the battle-hardened officer his men knew than the easy-going gentleman who lounged in the drawing rooms of duchesses and marchionesses. Either way, her heart fluttered as he bowed to her parents, who would have had no difficulty recognizing either his uniform or his voice.
“May I beg the honor of walking with your fair charge?”
“By all means,” Meg’s mother said graciously. And yet, if it hadn’t been for the scandal, she would still be dismissing this finest of men as a mere younger son, not good enough for her daughter.
Meg rose and placed her hand on Harry’s arm as they walked together around the rapidly filling ballroom. Houseguests and neighbors mingled, masked and, for the most part, unrecognizable. The orchestra, hired from London, played quietly in the gallery, making pleasant background music rather than dances.
“Is this how you feel before a battle?” Meg asked.
“A little. Though I don’t normally have ladies under my command. And I do welcome the lack of gunfire.” He picked up two glasses of champagne from the nearest footman’s tray and passed one to her before suddenly sweeping her behind the silken curtain of an alcove.
He stood very close, and her heart galloped.
“To us,” he whispered. He threaded his arm through hers before lifting his glass and sipping. She smiled at the novelty and drank, too, and then, as their glasses lowered, he bent his masked face and kissed her lips.
It was an instant of pure peace and happiness before her biggest worry swam to the surface once more.
“Harry, why does it have to be Aline who brings him?”
“It doesn’t,” he said. “But she is most capable of taking care of herself. And whoever brings him has to go again at once.”
“Why?” she asked quickly.
“You know,” he said gently. “So that everything goes on as normal at the ball.”
She feared he was still keeping something from her, but he only kissed her one more time and urged her back into the main crowded room and the game ahead.
“Look,” Meg breathed, distracted. “Martha has Barden in tow.”
“And the dance begins.”
Chapter Twenty-One
When his hostess approached him, Barden felt both flattered and triumphant. Either the duke or Meg must have asked her to pay special attention to him. So, he bowed and played the game of not knowing who lurked behind the mask, paying her so many compliments that she rapped his wrist with her fan.
“Enough of that, Sir Puce Domino! I wish to introduce you to a much more suitable young lady.”
Meg, he hoped. Was that not her to his right, separating from a man in a scarlet domino? But no, Lady Calvert led him elsewhere to a lady with shining chestnut curls and brilliant hazel eyes. She wore a pure white mask and domino and was certainly attractive enough to console him temporarily for the fact that she was not Meg Winter.
“Miss Snowy White, allow me to present to you this cavalier who craves your hand for the first dance.”
Well, he had no objection, though he would rather have asked for himself. “Would my lady be so good?” he asked, bowing.
“I would,” replied the lady in white, rising and accepting his arm.
It was a country dance, so there was not constant opportunity for speech, but he enjoyed watching her. She was slender and graceful, her smile pleasant yet with that hint of vulnerability that brought out the predator in him. Not that he would risk insulting Meg by the pursuit of this young woman tonight, but she was worth remembering. In fact, didn’t he remember her? Something about her…
“Tell me, madam, have we met before?” he asked when the dance brought them together.
“Perhaps,” she said and turned to dance with the next man in the line.
“Won’t you tell me?” he asked as they met once more.
“Then there would be no point in the masquerade.”
Definitely, they had met before. That voice… “But you know me?” he guessed.
She smiled. “Oh, yes.” She spun away again.
“But that is not fair,” he protested when she came back to him.
“What that I have a better memory than you?”
“Do you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Won’t you tell me your name?” he asked when they danced down the set together.
“I believe I would rather you remembered. I’m sure you will, at least before the unmasking.”
“That is a long wait. Tell me at the end of this dance. Just a Christian name.”
“I shall think about it.”
Was she flirting or merely teasing? Well, he would not overstep the mark, not tonight, but for some reason, he really wished to know her name.
And so, as the dance ended, he bowed to her. “Come, now, you must tell me.”
“Just my Christian name?” she said.
Had those beguiling eyes turned just a little cold through the slits of her mask? Almost…cruel.
She smiled. “My name, my lord, is Hazel.”
She left him staring after her like a yokel. Hastily, he closed his mouth and swung away, walking rapidly in search of somewhere to sit and think.
Hazel. How could it have taken him so long to see that? Hazel Curwen. Hazel Sayle, as she was now. Meg must have brought her here. He hoped to God Sir Joseph was not with her, for that was one man he never wished to see again.
*
As the first dance was about to begin, a gentleman in a grey domino stepped in front of Meg. “Dance with me, beautiful stranger?”
It took her a moment to recognize the voice, the over-confident poise, the smug eyes she could not like. And then they fell into place. Cedric Ives.
“Perhaps you would have more chance with a stranger,” Meg said tartly.
“You are cruel, Lady Meg, but I can’t deny I deserve it. Come, you cannot refuse to dance?”
“I can since the sets are complete.”
“Then walk with me instead. Please. I only wish to apologize.”
Meg hesitated. Everyone made mistakes, after all, and if he regretted his… “To my sister, also?”
“Of course.”
Meg did not altogether believe him. Somehow, there was little of the humble supplicant about him. Moreover, when he smiled, she smelled brandy on his breath—a lot of brandy—and she knew she neither liked nor trusted him.
A rather wicked idea entered her head. “Give me two minutes, and I will join you on the terrace.”
*
Garrow was not dancing but playing cards. Harry, who had every intention of making the traitor suffer for what he had done to his men, to Dewar, sauntered into the room in the wake of others. And drew the hood of his cloak up over his head.
Dan Stewart was already in position, his shoulder casually against the wall a few feet behind Garrow’s chair as he watched the play. His glance acknowledged Harry’s approach and his readiness to play along.
“Not playing tonight, old fellow?” Harry said to Stewart, who, masked and inscrutable, showed no surprise at all to be addressed in a voice slightly higher than Harry’s own, with a faint hint of a Scottish accent.
Stewart murmured something, more for the benefit of others close by who would think it odd if he didn’t reply. Harry talked on in the same voice, in his best impersonation of his friend, who had often thrown boots at him for the same trick. His hope was to gradually infiltrate Garrow’s ear to make him aware of the voice.
And when the hum of cheerful conversation died to an appropriate level, he said more clearly, “I played in Spain, but I could not enjoy it now.”
Harry felt the sudden movement behind him, as though Garrow had jerked his head around. Stewart nodded infinitesimally, and Harry drifted away, carefully making his gait even, letting his domino billow to allow a glimpse of his uniform to Garrow if he was still watching. He didn’t glance back to see, but he hoped the first twinge of unease was sewn.
*
A fair young lady in a gold domino cloak and black mask slipped past the dancers and through the French door, out onto the well-lit terrace. She and Cedric Ives, in his grey domino cloak, were the only occupants, for the ballroom was not yet warm enough to attract people into the cool night air.
Ives stood at the end of the terrace, where he could not be seen through the doors or the curtained windows and smiled in greeting as she approached him.
“Well?” she asked brightly. “What is it you wish to say?”
“That I humbly apologize for my behavior last week, but that I spoke only through passion. Since the day your sister banished me, I have had much time to repent and to think deeply about my own feelings. And do you know, what attracted me to your sister, was merely a pale echo of what I feel for you?”
“Nonsense,” came the cool response.
“Lady Meg,” he exclaimed, falling on one knee before her and seizing her hand. “Only give me permission to court you, to try to win you.”
His cloak billowed in the breeze, and she had to allow that it made a very romantic picture. A foolish young girl might well have been swayed by the moment.
But he did not kneel at the feet of a foolish young girl. This lady said, “Get up, sir, you look ridiculous.”
Ives was not the man to ignore such a challenge. He sprang to his feet and tried to take her in his arms, whereupon, a powerful hand suddenly grasped his shoulder and wrenched him away.
Lord Calvert, without his mask.
Appalled, Ives tumbled into speech to explain himself. “Sir, you misunderstand. I address Lady Meg with all respect…”
“Sir, you address my wife,” Calvert snarled, and the smiling lady let her cloak fall back to reveal not Meg’s purple gown but Martha’s white one. “And no, neither my wife nor my sister will receive your addresses.”
Ives’s eyes widened with the clear knowledge that he had been fooled just before Calvert’s fist took him in the jaw.
Two footmen had materialized on the terrace.
“Mr. Ives is unwell,” Calvert declared. “Have his carriage summoned, and see he is taken home to Ninfield Hall immediately.”
Martha regarded him with considerable respect as she turned her back on Ives. “That was very nicely done, Selwyn.”
“Thank you.” Calvert took her hand and placed it on his arm. “But I think we have all been your sister’s puppets.”
“One can rely on Meg,” Martha observed. She paused, holding him back for an instant as she sought his gaze. “I’m glad I could also rely on you.”
He swallowed. “I have been selfish, foolish, self-destructive. I have no idea what madness kept me behaving as I did. Fear, perhaps, of losing my youth, of losing myself in you. But there is no excuse, no reason for hurting you, for hurting us. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but I can promise utter loyalty, for you are everything to me. You and the child. And if I have lost your love, as I fully deserve, I promise I shall spend the rest of my life trying to win it back.”
He touched her cheek. “Is there a chance for me, Martha?”
Meg’s had been a clever ploy, Martha reflected. A chastened, sorry, guilty husband had been satisfying in a way, but without strength, his new contrition had done little to inspire her respect. Manipulated or not, he had sent the despicable Ives about his business with ease, contempt, and a certain style that reminded her of those early days of love.
It fluttered within her still, weak but willing to be fed.
“Perhaps there is,” she whispered, touching his hand for the barest instant. “Perhaps there is.”
But now it was time to return Meg’s domino, don her own, and introduce Juliet Stewart to Captain Garrow.
*
Barden had little money with which to gamble—only a few coins he had managed to hide from his valet. But after the shock of finding the new Lady Sayle here, he needed something familiar to occupy his mind and calm him.
He was welcomed in a friendly enough fashion to the whist table. The stakes, he was glad to see, were nominal, so he smiled around the other masked gentlemen and settled down to play.
The game did indeed calm him, even though he lost consistently. Either he was too distracted, or the luck was just not with him. It didn’t matter, for the only luck he really needed was with Meg Winter and the Duke of Dearham.
But gradually, he did become very slightly irritated that the same man seemed to keep winning. A dark, lounging young man in a black domino.
“The cards are with me,” he observed, smiling in a way that suddenly caused Barden unease. “I haven’t been so lucky in years.”
Was that voice not familiar also?
“Perhaps you should move to higher stakes while your luck’s in,” someone else suggested.
“Lord, no, that’s a fool’s game,” the young man said cheerfully. “I’ve been there.” He smiled at Barden. “I expect you have, too.”
Dark eyes, a careless tongue, and lack of respect. The image of a very large, fearsome dog swam before Barden’s eyes, and he stared at the game’s winner. Surely not the nobody who had stolen Lady Juliet Lilbourne from him and ruined everything?
The nobody smiled, and Barden instinctively surged to his feet.
Someone clapped a comforting hand on his shoulder. “There, don’t panic,” murmured another hateful voice. “You have a long night ahead of you.”
In disbelief, Barden swung around to face the newcomer, and this time there could be no doubt, for Sir Joseph Sayle dangled his mask from one careless finger. The man smiled although his eyes were cold.
“Excuse me, gentleman,” Barden managed with dignity and walked unhurriedly away.
It was not, after all, so surprising to see Sayle when his wife was here. But if the nobody was here, too, then so was Lady Juliet, and that made for too many enemies at this delicate moment in his negotiations. At least he had not yet encountered the Hallands, for that was a tale he did not want coming to the ears of either the duke or Meg until his betrothal was secured.
He was prowling the ballroom when he came upon Lady Calvert with another lady in a rose-pink domino. His hostess smiled graciously and introduced them by the color of their dominoes, as was the way at such ridiculous affairs. As if they could not see perfectly clearly the color of each other’s cloaks!
As Lady Calvert moved away, the lady in the rose domino looked into his eyes, and her expression grew intrigued.
“I confess, I love masked balls,” she said. “I love the mystery engendered by such a simple covering. You, for example, appear as a perfect stranger, and yet I’m sure I must have met all Lady Calvert’s guests and neighbors.”
“If we have met, we cannot have been introduced. I would remember a voice as charming as yours. Is that a trace of French I can hear?”
“Perhaps,” smiled the lady in the rose domino. “I hope you do not dislike the French.”
“Not in the slightest. And since the peace, who could expect me to? Would you care to dance, Madame la Rose?”
“I would, monsieur. But for this dance, you may call me Aline.”
*
Lady Juliet Stewart, enjoying a comfortable chat with old friends, still noticed exactly when her husband emerged from the card room. Across the room, their eyes met, and she knew he had done his part. Now it was hers.
With that moment’s warning, she was able to express only round-eyed pleasure when Martha Calvert presented Captain Garrow to her for the waltz. She stood up with him happily, although as soon as the dance began, she knew the man was a lecher. Taking advantage of the anonymity supplied by the mask, he tried to hold her too close, and his fingers constantly caressed hers.
“How fortunate I am to be presented to such a beautiful partner,” he gushed.
Well, your beautiful partner is about to stand on your toes. “How kind you are,” she said aloud, highly relieved to see the scarlet domino of Captain de Vere among the dancers.
