A Masquerade in the Moonlight (7 page)

Sir Ralph.
Now he knew who was in charge. This was almost too easy, Thomas decided. Sir Peregrine peeled like a grape, dispensing information almost without prodding, eager to show his superior knowledge. “Ah, yes,” he said, nodding, “you must mean Sir Ralph Harewood, our mutual friend at the Admiralty. You’re correct—he’s been doing a splendid job of managing your attempted treason thus far. My president is most impressed. Very well, Totton. I’ll suspend my suspicions for the moment. And now,” he said, stubbing out his cheroot in a marble dish that he sincerely hoped was dear to the heart of Sir Peregrine, I suggest you begin to bluster and steam at the ears as you show my assistant and me the door. We wouldn’t want Grouse to return to see us chatting like bosom chums, now would we? A too-congenial scene might raise suspicions.”

“What? We’re going to leave without the bread and cheese?” Dooley pushed himself to his feet, shaking his head. “Doesn’t seem fair somehow, boyo.”

”Little ever is in this life, Paddy,” Thomas told him as he waved his arm, inviting Dooley to precede him back through the maze of statues.

They had almost reached the double doors leading to the antechamber when the carved wooden panels were flung open unceremoniously and Miss Marguerite Balfour swept into the room like brilliant sunshine appearing after a summer storm. “Perry, where are you hiding in this mass of marble? You simply
must
come with me at once! I know we promised to meet tonight at Lady Sefton’s, but I have just this afternoon discovered the most
delicious
little bookstall in Haymarket and need your discerning eye to tell me if I have unearthed a heretofore unknown original manuscript or if the owner is attempting to gull me with a brilliant copy.”

She turned to Thomas and blighted him with her smile—a smile that told him she had only been ignoring him thus far because it suited her to do so and she had been aware of his presence all along. “Oh—hello, Mr. Donovan, what a pleasant surprise to see you again. Am I barging in on some dreadfully important conference? Forgive me, please. I’ll just take myself off, and you may continue uninterrupted. There you are, Perry, dear friend  and mentor. I’ll just see myself out and then wait downstairs in my carriage with dearest Maisie.”

Marguerite had been beautiful last evening in her demure white gown. This afternoon she was glorious, dressed in a lemon yellow walking dress, a deeply green velvet Spencer flattering her narrow waist as well as her flushed cheeks. Her bonnet, a silly confection of straw and flowers and ribbons, a large bow tied fetchingly close below her left ear, was truly a crowning touch, perched as it was atop her glorious coppery curls.

Her bewitching green eyes were dancing with mischief, as if she had found amusement in some joke the rest of them had somehow failed to comprehend, and Thomas didn’t know if her obvious intelligence intrigued or infuriated him. He did know, either way, he was attracted to this fiery minx, and if it were to turn out she was his enemy, that knowledge would most certainly prove to quite ruin his day.

“No, no, Miss Balfour,” he said hastily, realizing he had been silent too long and quickly bowing over her offered hand. “Sir Peregrine and I have just now completed our meeting, and I was at the point of retiring to my rooms at the Pulteney Hotel to lick my wounds, as he is a most formidable adversary in this business of diplomatic fencing. You are right to seek his counsel on the manuscript you have unearthed, for I’m convinced Sir Peregrine’s opinion on any subject will be invaluable. God knows it certainly will be
offered
. Good day to you, Miss Balfour—Sir Peregrine. Come, Paddy. Introductions must wait for another day. We must be off and leave Sir Peregrine to his charming visitor.”

So saying, he bowed once more to Sir Peregrine and left the room, Dooley trailing in his wake. The door had barely closed behind them before the portly Irishman piped up, “So that’s the one with the Frenchie name, is it—the girl you were melting over last night? I take it all back, boyo, you were right to wonder about her. What’s she doing here, do you suppose?”

Thomas retrieved his hat and gloves from a small table in the antechamber and strode long-leggedly toward the staircase, his mind whirling as he attempted to make some sense of Marguerite’s unexpected appearance. “I don’t suppose to understand anything at all concerning Miss Balfour, save that she’s English to her toes—and the most delectable morsel I’ve ever seen,” he said, jamming the hat onto his head as he stepped out into the sunshine. “Tell me, Paddy—has my new suit of evening clothes arrived as yet? I believe I’ll be attending Lady Sefton’s ball this evening after all.”

“Feel a seduction coming over you, do you, m’fine boyo?” Dooley asked, hailing a passing hackney cab.

“Ah, Paddy, old friend, how well you know me.” Thomas’s teeth flashed white beneath his mustache as he bent his long frame and slid across the greasy leather seat in front of his friend. “Whoever said serving one’s country should be unremittingly serious work?”

Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no fibs.

—Oliver Goldsmith

M
arguerite knew she looked her best as she stood just outside the ballroom, yet wondered why she had felt the need to tend to her toilette with such care, as if she were arming herself for battle and not simply dressing for another exceedingly silly ball. The evening at Lady Sefton’s promised to be no different than any other since she had come to London—no more or less important.

No, that wasn’t true. It was one thing to lie to others, but it would be foolhardy—even dangerous—to lie to herself. Tonight would be very different. She knew perfectly well why she had lingered so long over her selection of the ivory silk gown she had finally chosen and why she had dared instruct the always competent Maisie over the styling of her coppery curls rather than to simply trust the woman’s judgment.

Her attire
was
her battle raiment, and she was about to face her adversary. His name wasn’t Lord Mappleton, or Sir Peregrine, or any of the rest. His name was Thomas Joseph Donovan, and he was, in his own way, as potentially ruinous to her peace of mind as William Renfrew, Earl of Laleham, her father’s “enigmatic” W.R.

Where Lord Laleham was seemingly without weakness, “without any visible failing” she might exploit, Thomas Joseph Donovan was without fear—a faintly mad, reckless sort who possessed a glib tongue, a quicksilver personality impossible to pigeonhole, and a wealth of intelligence and discernment hidden deep inside his open, laughing, seemingly guileless blue eyes.

His extremely appealing blue eyes
.

She had known he was in with Sir Peregrine that afternoon. She had known it because she had asked Grouse, whom she had seen hovering outside in the hallway, pacing and biting on his thumb, terrified to reenter the room and inform his employer there wasn’t so much as a sliver of cheese to be found to serve his guests.

Ordinarily, Marguerite would not have burst in on Sir Peregrine for she was, after all, a well brought up young lady, no matter how devious her motives. But the impulse to see Thomas Joseph Donovan again, to see him in his official capacity, had been too intense to overcome. That—and she detested admitting this to herself—and the opportunity to bait him with her plans for the evening, just to see if he took the hook in his mouth.

But now it appeared he had no intention of furthering their acquaintance.

Didn’t he feel the same excitement she did when they spoke, when they so much as looked at each other, the thrill of the hunt that skipped down her spine when she’d recognized a fellow conspirator, the physical attraction that she had assumed to be mutual?

A dangerous attraction.

Surely he would come.

He had to come!

“Marguerite, my dear, I hesitate to interrupt your thoughts, but I fear I should mention you’re wringing your hands. Such worrying of your gloves is potentially injurious to the kid, which is unconscionably dear, and the action is not quite as ladylike as I should hope.”

Mrs. Billings’s carefully couched censure, delivered with the older woman’s usual “the meek shall inherit the Earth” condescension, touched Marguerite on the raw, although she knew her chaperone meant well. She
always
meant well, more was the pity. But upbraiding Mrs. Billings would only prompt the woman to issue a lengthy apology liberally sprinkled with advice about even-tempered misses catching more beaux than do uncivilized Hottentots. Knowing this, Marguerite only smiled apologetically at the woman, then folded her hands neatly in her lap.

“Do forgive me, please, Billie,” she said sweetly, employing the chastened tone her late father could have told Mrs. Billings meant Marguerite was just inches from committing mayhem. “I do my best, but I still most obviously require your continued tutelage in order to acquire the correct measure of town bronze necessary to be a credit to my grandfather.”

Mrs. Billings patted Marguerite’s cheek. “Such a sweet child, to think of Sir Gilbert. As I tell all the other chaperones while you are whirling so gracefully around the dance floor, this charge of mine is sure to be the crowning achievement in my career of introducing young ladies to society. If you behave, that is. Now sit up straight, do, or else your shoulders will become permanently stooped.”

“I exist only to please you, Billie,” Marguerite said, straightening her already erect posture, then covertly searching the crowded area around the top of the staircase from beneath her eyelids.

Damn you, Donovan! Where are you? My dance card is nearly full. Or am I wrong, and the hint I dropped so heavily in Perry’s office this afternoon should have been tied to a red brick and aimed at your grinning head? Oh, what’s the matter with me, that I should abandon my quest even for one evening, and indulge myself in this mad attraction
?

“Good evening, Miss Balfour. Have you misplaced someone, that you’re peering so intently at the knot of people doing their best to monopolize our host and hostess?”

“
Donovan
,” Marguerite whispered under her breath, turning her head swiftly, just in time to see him smiling down at her, his blue eyes twinkling with mischief. Wasn’t it just like him to sneak up on her, to discover her searching for him? And he knew she had been looking for him. Oh, yes. He knew, damn him, and dared to tease her with his knowledge. “I’m not looking for anyone.”

“Now, now. Don’t be shy. Of course you’re looking for someone. Perhaps I can be of service. I have just now shamelessly deserted a most insistent dowager bent on having me squire her prune-faced daughter in the first set in order to throw myself on the mercy of the most beautiful woman in this room and beg her for the honor of a dance. In order to save me from her clutches, you understand. If I must first perform a boon, I shall do so gladly, if only to see your smile. Tell me the scoundrel’s name, and I’ll seek him out for you.”

“You have put me to the blush, Mr. Donovan,” she replied quietly, deliberately looking past him, to wave at Lady Hertford, who was passing by on the arm of a uniformed hussar. “And you force me to admit to my curiosity. I was searching the guests for a sight of you, worried for your welfare. But now I see I was silly to concern myself. You don’t look the least bit, um, singed.”

“Singed? Now you have piqued
my
curiosity, Miss Balfour.”

She gave up the pretense of feminine modesty and looked straight into his eyes. “Yes, Mr. Donovan.
Singed
. I was certain Sir Peregrine’s assessment of your character, delivered to me as we spent an enjoyable hour perusing the bookstalls, would have served to burn your ears to cinders. Tell me, however did you manage to upset him so?”

He bowed to Marguerite. “Not I, Miss Balfour, I assure you. I am the most congenial of men,” Thomas answered, straightening once it had to be obvious to him she was not about to offer him her gloved hand to kiss. “It must have been my assistant, Patrick Dooley, who set the man’s back up. A good man, Paddy, but a little rough about his edges, you understand.”

“Ah, Mr. Dooley. That would be the sweet-faced gentleman you neglected to introduce to me this afternoon, as you were so involved in maintaining your own
smooth
edges? Another Irishman who has adopted America as his home, I suppose. Tell me, are there any of you left in Dublin?”

“More than enough for you English to browbeat, Miss Balfour, I’m sure,” Thomas said, turning to look at Mrs. Billings, whose confused expression advertised the fact she had no notion of what was going on beneath her nose. “And you must be Mrs. Billings, the fortunate lady who has charge of the Season’s most sought after debutante? May I compliment you on your dressing of her? A prettily wrapped package goes a long way toward assuring its possible buyer he will be purchasing something worth the price.”

Marguerite dug her fingertips into her palms. Poor Billie. Donovan had cleverly delivered both a compliment to the chaperone and an insult directed at her charge, and Mrs. Billings was clearly at a loss as to how to react. “Marguerite?” she asked, beginning to fan herself with her lace-edged handkerchief, for her usually pale cheeks had become quite flushed. “Do you know this gentleman?”