Midnight Masquerade (3 page)

Ac-tually! Deirdre Gower was the only woman in England who thought actually was two separate words, and that the t was not only pronounced, but given an awful stress. Many times he had winced under the word, as it usually preceded some pedantic lecture of which he did not stand in need. And to think, when he first heard it, he had found it a beguiling affectation.

“You’re no doubt upset that I’m a trifle late,” he said, knowing some apology must be uttered.

“No, I’m not upset that you’re late. I wouldn’t have cared a brass farthing if you hadn’t come at all. In fact, I wish you hadn’t come!” she told him, eyes flashing.

He stood bemused. Ac-tually, Deirdre was mildly attractive when shaken out of her customary lethargy. Was that why he had once found her worth investigating, because she had been angry about something? What could it have been? he wondered. His glance roamed from her great gray eyes, illuminated by unspeakable anger; to her nose, short, straight, well shaped; to the upper lip, short, and giving a kissable quality to her full lips. The hair, alas, was archaic. She wore it in a scraped-back style not noticeably different from her aunt’s. The gown too, while passable, lacked any flare of distinction. It was a white gown, crepe, somewhat limp, its only embellishment a string of pearls, unless you could call that gray band around the bottom embellishment. What was it, anyway—wet, dirty? Her speech soon diverted his attention upwards again.

“Why didn’t you stay away?” she asked.

“Sorry to disappoint you. I had a spot of trouble. We lost a wheel in the snow. Miserable traveling weather,” he added blandly.

“If you had come three days ago when you were supposed to, you would have missed the vile weather. But then I suppose the story is to be that you arrived after midnight tonight,” she said, lifting her brow and looking at him with all the scorn of his banker when the account was overdrawn. She noticed his somewhat impetuous toilette, and thought he had taken enough time to make a tidier one.

Belami was noticing something else. There seemed to be some meaningful weight on the words after midnight. Was it a reference to the hour the announcement was to have been made? “I believe I arrived around twelve,” he answered.

“Not around twelve, Belami. Ac-tually it was twelve on the dot. Very dramatic, very effective, but totally unnecessary, I assure you. You didn’t have to add melodrama to the affair. I had already decided to jilt you. Yes, you are released from the burden of marrying me. And in case you’re wondering why, let me enlighten you. It has nothing to do with tonight. Twombley is engaged to Lady Cecilia Carruthers. I only ever agreed to have you to escape him. Bad as you are, at least you’re not as bad as Twombley. He was my aunt’s first choice for me.”

A blessed cloak of relief descended on his shoulders, like a mantle of peace. He felt like the Ancient Mariner when the albatross finally fell into the sea. For a fleeting instant, he loved Deirdre Gower, stiff neck, actually, and all. “I have always heard comparisons are odious,” he said, smiling broadly.

“Not as odious as you are!”

“Another comparison! Where does that leave me? Stranded above Twombley and below comparisons.” He crossed his legs and leaned against the wall, smiling down at Deirdre.

“At least Twombley is not a thief!” she charged with an angry toss of her head.

“That, at least, is beneath him,” he agreed. “Er, do I descry some intimation in your conversation that I am a thief?” he asked playfully. “What have I stolen? Let me guess.”

“What did you do with it?” she asked, ignoring his playful attitude.

“Tell me first what I have purloined, and I can give you a better answer,” he parried.

“It is not a joking matter, Belami. I know you take nothing seriously but your dissipations, but the duchess is speaking of calling in Bow Street. I know you only took it to break our engagement, but it wasn’t necessary. You can sneak it back, and my aunt and I shall leave quietly.”

A frown settled on his handsome face. His mobile brow was lifted to its full height, and though he did not give up leaning on the wall, there was a new air of alertness about him. His eyes looked black and dangerous. “But you still haven’t told me what I took,” he pointed out in a patient voice at odds with his eyes.

“The diamond necklace, of course. How could you, Belami?” she asked, her voice husky with emotion. Logic told him it was the missing necklace that upset her, and his sensitivities told him that she was much prettier when so agitated. Instinctively he stood up straight and put out an arm to comfort her.

Again she wrenched away from him, with a good semblance of revulsion. Alas, it was only a semblance. Blackguard that he was, she still felt a strong attraction to his physical presence. His soul and his character she despised heartily, but these invisible entities fell from her mind when she was with the physical specimen. It wasn’t fair that a blackguard should be so attractive. He was often described by society as an Adonis, but the name didn’t do him justice. It was too old and lifeless. Belami was more than a hero from antiquity. He was Romeo magically grown to a more mature manhood, and he was Byron’s Corsair, for there was a beguiling hint of wickedness in those dark eyes that studied her.

As she watched, his first show of concern deepened to consternation. “Are you telling me someone stole the Duchess of Charney’s diamond necklace?” he asked, his voice high with disbelief, like a stage actor.

“As if you didn’t know it!” she said, with a scathing eye. But still he looked on, nonplussed, causing her to run in her mind from stable to house, don the disguise, and descend to the ballroom in ten minutes. Then to get back upstairs and hide it and change again into pantaloons. It hardly seemed possible, but such was her opinion of Belami that for him, it seemed not only possible but very likely.

“Deirdre, how can you accuse me of common theft?” he demanded, offense writ large on his features. She watched as the offense turned to haughty disdain.

“There was nothing common about it. It was extremely bizarre, and everyone thinks it was you,” she added righteously.

He looked up and down the hall, then turned around and opened a bedroom door and pulled her inside. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said with a mocking smile. “I have no designs on your virtue. I never cared for scaling mountains. I would just prefer to have this conversation without interruption. Now, suppose you tell me the whole story, from start to finish.”

She told him in a simple, methodical way that required very few questions.

“That solves one of our problems at least,” was his comment when she had finished. “Your aunt won’t be likely to push this match forward now.”

“No, and neither shall I,” she answered sharply. “I hope I am too discreet to ask where you spent the hours preceding midnight, but I hope for your sake they were in company that can be brought forward without blushing. You might quite possibly require an alibi.”

“Well, now, I promise you I shan’t blush, and as for you ladies, you may do as you wish. You always do. Shall we go down now?”

“You should go to see your mother. She was taken to her room when she fainted.”

“Ah, poor Bertie!” he said with the first show of genuine sorrow since his arrival.

Deirdre returned belowstairs to mingle and listen for what was being said, and Belami went to see his mother. She sat up when he entered, and directed a wild-eyed look at him, before bursting into tears. The wrinkles in her cherubic little face were concealed in shadows, giving her the look of a baby.

“We are ruined, Dickie! Utterly disgraced. The Duchess, of all people. How could you?”

“How could you?” Twice he had heard it within ten minutes. He had the sickening apprehension he would hear it many more times before this holiday was over. In three long strides, he was at her bedside, where she threw herself into his arms, all thoughts of hot knives and carving forgotten. He hugged her close against his chest, trying to soothe and comfort her.

“You know I didn’t do it, Mama. What a thing to say to your own son,” he replied in soft, injured tones that touched a responsive chord deep within her, but did not quite convince her.

“I know you got your freakish nature from me. There is no need to rub salt in the wound. Your papa would never do such things. Oh, why couldn’t you have been like him?”

“Because I preferred to be like you. Tell me all about it, everything you remember,” he urged, patting her shoulders gently.

“I didn’t see much. Fortunately, I fainted. It is all that saved my life. Someone—one of us, I mean, ought to go below and hear what is being said. Or maybe it would be best if you ran away somewhere and hid for a few weeks. If you turn up now, Dick, they are bound to know it was you.”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Who all knows you are here?”

“No one but Deirdre,” he answered.

“She will keep quiet. Very proud, all the Gowers. She won’t want it said her fiancé is a felon. Do you think— France, Dickie? You could be quite comfortable in Paris till it blows over.”

“I can’t run away.”

“But if you stay, you know, you’ll end up investigating into it yourself, as you love to do. Why don’t you go to France instead?”

“Flight would be taken as a sign of guilt. I must stay and see if I can find out who did it, catch him, and get the necklace back to Charney.”

“You had great luck in finding the little Everton girl who was kidnapped,” Bertie said reluctantly.

“It was not luck!” he said, offended. “It was ingenuity, and hard work. Of course I can and shall do it. I must go now. Don’t worry, Mama. I’m not a thief.”

“I know that, love.” She smiled a watery, sad smile that caused an ache in his heart. He kissed the top of her head, and left.

One might be forgiven for thinking his tread was slow, his shoulders sagging, his face set in gloom. It was no such a thing. The expression that took possession of his features was not quite delight, but it veered in that direction. The young baron’s occasional brushes with mysteries provided variety in an otherwise self-indulgent and unchallenging life. He could not think, offhand, when he had been happier than the week he undertook to find Lord Everton’s kidnapped daughter. The excitement of the chase, the challenge of outwitting a mind nearly as quick as his own, the satisfaction of bringing a lawless wretch to justice and restoring an innocent family to peace—why, it was more amusing than making love, or money, when you came down to it. There was an added spice in the dish this time, as it was himself he had to extricate.

By the time he bounced off the bottom step and met a distracted Snippe, he was not far from smiling. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Happy New Year, Snippe,” he said. “It got off to a bang here, I understand.”

Snippe compressed his lips and glared. “Some people might think it amusing to go dressing up like ghosts and stealing diamonds and throwing their mothers into pelters. I think they ought to be horsewhipped.”

“I think their butlers ought to be turned off without a reference. Get me some champagne. Where’s the Duchess now?”

“Gone to her room to gloat, and her niece with her. You’ll be wanting the whole bottle of wine, then?” he added in an accusing way.

“We’ll start with one. What’s going on in there?” Belami asked, tossing his head towards the ballroom.

“Gossip and a deal of drinking.”

“Serve ‘em dinner, if it’s ready.”

“It’s ready. Who is to sit at the head of the table? Her ladyship isn’t up to it. I shouldn’t think you will wish to show your face.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” he asked, lifting one of his mobile brows.

Snippe pinched his eyes into slits and left, to return in a moment with the bottle of champagne and a glass. “Here you go, then,” he said, chucking them towards his master.

“Is Uncle Cottrell here?” Belami asked.

“Aye, His Lordship is here.”

“Good, he’ll be the host for dinner. Kindly tell him so. I have a spot of looking around to do. I’ll duck into your lair while you herd the guests into the dining room. Send Pronto to me.”

“I’ve only got two feet,” Snippe pointed out.

“Use them. Go!” He shook his head at the bad habits Bertie had allowed his servants to slide into. But then it wouldn’t be home if it were well run.

He poured a glass of champagne and sipped carefully as he walked along to the butler’s private room, close to the door. The mask, gloves, sheet, and pistol the thief used indicated that some preparation had gone into the job. As it was only Charney’s necklace that had been stolen, this was apparently the thief s aim, to steal that one particular piece. The thief therefore knew she would be wearing it. This was helpful, as it eliminated the country neighbors. It had to be one of the guests from the city, then, and one close enough to Charney to know she had brought the diamond pendant with her. The next job would be to learn who had been in the ballroom when the thief entered. It was beginning to look like a case of eliminating suspects, and not finding one.

He heard the babble of voices and shuffle of footsteps as the guests went to dinner. Soon there was a tap at the door and Pronto Pilgrim entered.

“If you say ‘How could you,’ Pronto, I’ll land you a facer,” was Belami’s greeting.

Pronto sniffed. “No such a thing. I know how you did it. Got it all figured out. Know why you did it too. Dashed havey-cavey business, Dick. Ought to give it back to her. Knag won’t work.”

“
Et tu
, Pronto?”

Pronto sniffed again and looked about for a wine glass. Finding none, he called Snippe and sent him off for one. “We’re missing dinner,” he warned Dick. “Don’t know about you, but I’m ready for fork work.”

“Have Snippe bring you a plate, if you dare incur his wrath.”

“Don’t know why you keep that ghoul in your service. No, I’d sooner go hungry than have to look at his eyes disappear into slits.”

As he spoke, he sauntered to the murky mirror on the wall and ran a hand over his brown hair. It was luxuriant and waved. He was proud of it. It was the one good feature on an otherwise undistinguished body. Pronto was blessed with no impressive physique. He was shorter than the average, with narrow shoulders, eked out with much wadding. There was no tailor clever enough to conceal the protruding stomach and bowed legs. His face was not actually ugly, but the bewildered expression he generally wore did not enhance it. He had gray eyes, a nose crooked from having been broken in a brawl with a chairman, and a scar on his left cheek. He found this assortment dashing, and hoped the scar would not sink into insignificance with the passing of time. He spoke vaguely of a duel when quizzed as to its origin, but in fact he had tripped over his own feet and scraped it on a sharp dresser edge.