A Masquerade in the Moonlight (10 page)

“Then it is settled.” She pulled her arm free and took two steps toward the open doorway so that Thomas was left to look at her ramrod-straight back, her rigidly set shoulders. “I’ll expect both you and your sad story in Portman Square at eleven tomorrow morning.”

He moved past her and inclined his head in the direction of the supper room, offering to allow her to precede him into the room, which she did, her chin held high, her perfume tickling his senses as she swept by him. “Don’t rush so, Miss Balfour,” he told her, taking hold of her arm once more, this time gently tucking it through the crook of his elbow, as befitted an attentive companion. “He’ll wait for you, whoever he is. I, for one, would wait an eternity.”

“You, for one, Mr. Donovan,” she answered sweetly, “would have to. Now, please excuse me. I see Lord Chorley searching for me now. If you will simply deliver me to him, you can return to the ballroom unaccompanied, where I am convinced you will locate at least a half dozen giggling misses eager to hang on your every word, idiotic as each may be—meaning both your words and any female silly enough to give them any sort of credence. Good evening, sir.”

“Idiotic?” Thomas echoed, stepping in front of her so that she could not escape him without causing a scene. Lord, but she was lovely, especially when she was in a temper! Obviously she was not used to losing her verbal battles. “If you find my speech so idiotic, my manner so barbaric, and my presence so unpalatable, why have you agreed to ride out with me tomorrow? Unless you are playing coy, which I cannot believe.”

“Why, I in turn must wonder,” she countered, her voice low but intense, “would you persist in wishing for my company when I have made it so abundantly obvious that you and I are incompatible in the extreme?”

Thomas grinned, shaking his head. “Ah, my argumentative
aingeal
, isn’t it clear to you yet? Whether we like each other or not, whether we are compatible or not—or if we are as unalike as chalk and cheese—is totally beside the point. I’m mad for you. And you’re mad for me.”

Marguerite closed her eyes and raised a gloved hand to her mouth. A moment later Thomas saw that her shoulders were shaking, and when she opened her eyes they were alight with laughter, “Ah, Donovan,” she said intriguingly, just as Lord Chorley stopped beside her, obviously eager to claim his partner, his starched neck cloth so tight his face was an alarming shade of puce, “perhaps we’re both simply
mad
.”

“Mad?” Lord Chorley wrinkled his nose in thought. “Whatever are you two mad about, dear Marguerite? The supper not to your liking? I agree. The crepes were depressingly soggy. Hullo, again, Donovan. Leaving so soon? Best to do so quietly, as the better man is here now, for all your bragging. Ain’t I, Marguerite?”

Marguerite looked quickly to Lord Chorley, then to Thomas, and then back again to his lordship. “What are you talking about, Stinky? What sort of
bragging
?”

Thomas winced and lifted a hand to scratch at a spot behind his left ear. That would teach him to open his potato trap just to get a rise out of his audience. Who would have thought the man would be blockheaded enough to repeat such an insulting tale to the woman in question? He had meant to upset the gentlemen, not infuriate Marguerite.

A prudent retreat seemed a good idea. “Well, now, I believe I must be going,” he said, bowing. “Lord Chorley? Miss Balfour? Your devoted servant. Good evening.”

And then Thomas took himself off before “Stinky” Chorley could repeat the stupid boast he had made earlier, the one that would undoubtedly cost him dearly tomorrow, when he took Miss Marguerite Balfour out riding.

What lies, he wondered as he climbed the stairs to the ballroom, would they tell each other then?

We desire nothing so much as what we ought not to have.

— Publilus Syrus

H
e stood just beside the window overlooking the square, not in front of the window, but three paces back and slightly to the right, so that only he could see, and not be seen in return. He stood there often in the early morning hours before the majority of the world was awake, mentally constructing his empire and arranging it to suit him.

During those hours of contemplation he dealt with the worthless by means of France’s single grand invention, the guillotine, and gained a near sexual release by contemplating the terror he would one day see in the eyes of all those he deemed unworthy—the poor, the lazy, the flawed—as he ordered their elimination from his perfect world.

And the very intelligent. They too must go. “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” Shakespeare had written. A laudable sentiment, but it would be foolish to stop there. If Shakespeare were alive today, he too would have to die. Writers, thinkers, softhearted visionaries who believed man was best served by helping his fellowman. What emotional, wrongheaded rubbish!

It was survival of the fittest, of the strongest, of the ones who deserved to live, not those that were either a drain on a country’s coffers or a thorn pricking at sensibilities with avowals of equality and justice and all that softhearted drivel. These men, too, would be dealt with, destroyed—just as soon as he was done with them. The moment he had used them to his own benefit, drawing them to his side with his impassioned speeches in Parliament that unflaggingly appealed to what the fools believed they needed to hear.

Lastly, outsiders must go; the Irish, the Jews, the Gypsies, all the impure. England for the English!

It was perfect; it was all thought out; it was
preordained
.

The divine right of kings—that was the real order of the world, a truth for too long misplaced, so that now all that was left was a drooling, idiot, secondhand “king” of German ancestry wandering the balconies of the royal palace, his tangled gray beard dragging on the ground. A mad king, and his brood of scheming, weak-chinned children, led by the worst of the lot, George, Prince of Wales, who knew the cut of a fine coat but could not rule his own harlot of a wife!

The country was already on the edge of revolt. War with Napoleon Bonaparte, the growing threat of war with America, the royal treasury depleting at a furious rate while the Prince of Wales threw thousands of pounds at yet another ridiculous round of building in Brighton and consulted with his chefs rather than his Cabinet ministers—all these things threatened the possibility of the Prince ever becoming George IV.

There was fear mad King George might die, and equal fear he would live forever. There was talk circulating again about elevating the vain, vacuous,
expensive
Prince of Wales to the position of Prince Regent, and handing the reins of the government into those patently incompetent hands.

The time wasn’t coming for a new order based on the sanity of raising the chosen few to the rank they deserved and weeding out the best of the worst to serve those few, aid them to build the British Empire into the most envied power in the world. The time was
now
!

And he would be the one to rule that empire. He would be king one day. No, more than king. He would be All. Everything. The supreme power. Men would one day soon tremble at his feet. And Marguerite, the fair, fiery Marguerite, would be his. All his. The way Victoria had always been meant to be his.

Damn fate! Fate had taken him from home long enough for Geoffrey Balfour to turn Victoria’s pretty head with his poetry and foolishness. Who would have thought her father would be silly enough to allow her to wed at sixteen, before she had even been presented at court? It had mattered at the time, losing Victoria, but it hadn’t mattered as much as losing her to Geoffrey Balfour, his inferior in every way.

He had lost again last year when his calculations had proved wrong and Victoria had shown she was not the woman he had always believed her to be. But he should not have lost his temper. It had been a silly thing to do—foolish, actually, and potentially dangerous. She had been already almost too old, and most certainly too feeble—and had turned stupid into the bargain in the years since that dangerous debacle with Geoffrey. She had been a part of his dream for so long that he hadn’t stopped to consider the consequences of taking on a possibly barren, most probably mentally unbalanced consort.

But he wasn’t hidebound. He could adapt to some small changes in his plan. He had even, in this last year,
improved
upon it.

For he wouldn’t lose a third time. What had been lacking in the mother was present in abundance in the daughter. Where Victoria had been weak, Marguerite was strong. Where Victoria had let her youth, her promise, slip away, Marguerite fairly brimmed with life and energy and passion.

Soon he would come out into the open, let her know of his growing admiration and affection for her, and begin to gently, subtly ease her toward the thought of a marriage between them. What a dynasty they would found together as he slipped between her silken thighs... to plunge his manhood past her veil of virginity... and home... to spill his seed deep inside her as she arched her back in ecstasy and called out his name....

“
William
? Ah, William—there you are, standing in that dark corner! Your man said I’d find you in here. Hatching vain empires again, are you?”

William Renfrew, Earl of Laleham, turned away from the window to nod a perfunctory greeting to Sir Ralph Harewood. “Possibly, Ralph,” he answered blandly, taking up a seat on the curved back couch in the middle of the room, his spine straight, his two feet firmly on the floor, “but with two exceptions. I, unlike Milton, am not blind to reality, and our
empire
, as you term it, will be the product of planning and determination, and not the result of application to either Heaven or Hell.”

He smiled invitingly, indicating that Sir Ralph should seat himself on the facing couch. “And now, how are you this fine morning, Ralph? Filled to the brim with good news of our impending success, I trust.”

“Not particularly, William,” Sir Ralph said. “And I’ve not yet found my bed, unlike you, who rise at the black backside of dawn. I’ve come to tell you, the American is useless.” He crossed one booted leg over the other as he slumped against the cushions, his even, nondescript facial features composed in what a close observer might believe to be a frown. It was difficult to tell with Sir Ralph, who rarely displayed any recognizable expression, whether it be one of fear, or amusement, or even intelligence.

Sir Ralph, William had long ago decided, was like a blank slate, and you could write on him what you wished, drawing your own conclusions as to what lay hidden behind his eyes. If you cared to delve that far, of course, which most men didn’t. It was enough, in this age of selfishness, to assume a man like he was simply an agreeable sort, a man who believed what you believed, felt what you felt, and wanted what you wanted. No one, save William, would ever be moved to declare Sir Ralph had an ounce of ambition.

Like and yet unlike himself, William concluded, patiently waiting for his friend to expand on his statement. William knew the face he himself presented to the world, the image projected by his dark good looks, the distinguished smattering of silver that had appeared at his temples these last few years, his aristocratic features, his exemplary carriage and air of impeccable breeding. Only the world could look as long and as hard as it wished and still not discover the real William Renfrew. Not even Ralph Harewood, his friend since childhood, could do that.

Sir Ralph was the optimal second-in-command, the ideal agent and, if necessary, the perfect dupe. He was an able conspirator, capable of issuing orders and outwardly playing the part of the leader of their little coterie, but he was as expendable as any of the others. He didn’t know that, but William did. Everyone was expendable. Everyone was replaceable.

Everyone, that is, save for his consort. Except for Marguerite, who would give him fine, strong sons who would insure the new monarchy.

William steepled his long fingers in front of his face and looked over his fingertips at Sir Ralph. Apparently the man had said all he was going to say on the subject of Thomas Donovan. “That’s it, Ralph? You’re into making pronouncements this morning and no more? Perhaps you are fatigued and feel unable to expound on your words without some sort of impetus from me. All right then. I shall put it to you directly. Why is the American useless?”

“Because he’s an ignorant ass, I suppose,” Sir Ralph returned, shrugging. “I can’t imagine why Madison sent him, unless the American president is only toying with us and doesn’t truly mean to involve himself in what could be viewed in some quarters as questionable covert operations. I mean, diverting arms and money from our own war effort to America, purposely weakening our own troops when we are at war with France—why, even Bonaparte might not consider that sporting. Only remember what happened to Benedict Arnold, William. He was universally despised, even here, once he’d attempted to turn West Point over to Clinton. Stinky bragged to me just last week how he and some of his cronies had been drinking heavily one night a few years ago, gotten themselves fairly well into their cups, and then ridden out to piss on Arnold’s grave.”