Moonlight Masquerade (10 page)

T
he winter-bright
sunlight, reflecting off the endless expanse of ice-coated snow,
was so brilliant it stung Christine’s eyes. She couldn’t remember
ever seeing so much snow, or ever being happier to see it. The
elements had trapped her inside the confines of Hawk’s Roost,
surrounded by a world turned white, and there was no place on the
entire earth she’d rather be, because Vincent Mayhew was locked up
here as well.

She looked up at the sky, hoping to see
banks of gray clouds rolling in from the west with the promise of
even more of the fluffy confection, but the sky was depressingly
clear. Refusing to be downcast, she wrinkled her nose, dismissing
the need for another storm for, after all, the snow of the high
drifts was already tumbling into her boots.

“Besides, it’s so cold none of it will begin
to melt for days and days,” she assured herself as she struggled to
make her way through a particularly high drift. “And then, once the
thaw does come, the roads will be far too muddy for a carriage.
Why, it could be four or five weeks before Aunt Nellis and I can
remove ourselves to London.”

Lazarus was standing up against the wall of
Hawk’s Roost, trying to hide his thin body from the wind, his arms
wrapped tightly about himself, three long woolen mufflers in danger
of cutting off his supply of frigid air. He pulled down the
mufflers reluctantly when he heard Christine speak. “You said
something, miss?”

Christine looked behind her, immediately
feeling sorry for the servant who was outside only because of her.
Aunt Nellis, once she had been badgered into allowing her niece a
short excursion into the garden, had adamantly demanded that
Christine have an escort.

“You never know what sort of terrible
hooligans could be hiding outside in the bushes, just waiting for
an innocent young girl like you to happen along,” her aunt had
declared earlier, causing Christine to wonder, not for the first
time, just how active—and possibly lurid—Aunt Nellis’s imagination
might be.

“It was nothing, Lazarus. I was just talking
to myself,” Christine assured him quickly, politely trying not to
notice that the poor man’s nose was running. “Please, Lazarus, go
back inside. My aunt has doubtless gone to her chamber for a nap,
so she will never be the wiser. I shall be just fine, I
promise.”

Lazarus fought a quick battle with his
conscience, which just as quickly lost the war against the demands
of his very cold, very wet feet. “If you really think so, miss,” he
agreed, already racing for the nearest door as fast as his thin
legs and the deep snow would allow. “Don’t you be too long now,
miss, please, if you will. Ten minutes more or less, or else you’ll
catch your death and your aunt will be terribly displeased with
me.”

Christine called her agreement, then waved
the servant on his way, happy to be alone. Her Aunt Nellis may have
denied her horses, or the freedom of the village, but she had
always encouraged her niece to enjoy the pleasures of the outdoors,
so that Christine had grown up hating the feeling of being enclosed
day in and day out by four walls.

Of course, Nellis Denham’s idea of the out
of doors did not include stumbling about knee-deep in snow in the
dead of winter, but Christine didn’t mind the cold weather. It was
exhilarating, feeling the sharp bite of the wind against her
cheeks, and listening to the silence of a countryside muffled in
snow.

Christine bent down beside a winter-barren
rose bush to admire the way last night’s short rainfall had
sheathed it all over in a thin layer of ice. Slipping her hand out
of her fur muff, she ran her fingertips up and down the length of
one slim branch, tracing an ice-dulled thorn with the tip of her
index finger.

“You enjoy flirting with danger, don’t
you?”

Christine, startled into sudden movement,
felt the thorn prick her skin and quickly brought her fingertip to
her lips, sucking a small drop of blood into her mouth as she
looked at him balefully.

“You are nothing if not consistent,
Vincent,” she said after a moment, trying not to let him know how
happy she was to see him. “You must enjoy sneaking up on people,
even out here.”

This afternoon Vincent was clad in a heavy
black woolen cloak that was molded to his broad shoulders and
descended in deep folds to end at the tops of his shiny Hessians, a
muffler covering the lower third of his face. He looked dark, and
mysterious, and Christine was, as always, thoroughly entranced.

He swept her an elegant leg—or at least it
might have been elegant if he had executed it in a drawing room.
Here, in the snow, it was almost comical, and Christine’s light,
musical peal of laughter mingled with the breeze that danced past
his bowed head.

“I passed by poor Lazarus, illicitly
toasting his skinny feet at my fire in the study, and he told me
you had escaped the house for some fresh air,” he said, as if he
needed to explain his presence, stepping forward to walk at her
left side as they made their way down what, in warmer weather,
would be one of the bricked garden paths. “He was mumbling
something about hooligans, I believe, so I thought it best to lend
you my protection.”

“And who, I must ask, is to protect me from
you, my lord?” she dared to venture, peering impishly up at him
from under the brim of her hat. “That scarf makes you look much the
hooligan yourself.”

Christine had spent most of the past night
reliving their time together in his study. She had succeeded in
banishing any lingering fear of this strange man, as well as her
embarrassment over her own actions. All that was left was her
overwhelming need to be near him, to hear him, to see him.

Vincent looked down at her and she could see
faint creases appear around his eyes, surely a hint that he was
smiling at her. “I believe I should be asking that same question of
you, Christine,” he countered easily, his deep voice made even more
appealing by the soft barrier of wool that kept part of his
expression hidden from her. “I have never felt so much danger in my
life as I do when I find myself in your presence.”

“Thank you, Vincent,” Christine replied
cheekily, slipping a hand around his arm as they climbed the slope
that led to what she assumed was a small rise overlooking the east
end of the grounds. It had been just at the crest of this small
knoll that she had first seen him standing alone, facing down the
elements. “I don’t believe I have ever been called dangerous
before. I think I rather like it.” She looked about as they walked
on and said, “Oh, it’s so beautiful here, isn’t it? So peaceful and
serene.”

His look was considering. “Yes, you would
think that, wouldn’t you?” he said softly, slipping his arm free so
that he could take her hand in his. “Come with me, dangerous lady,
and I’ll show you real danger.” Tugging on her hand, he led her to
the top of the gentle slope, stopping just as they reached the edge
of a sheer cliff that fell away fifty feet or more to the flatter
land below.

It had been so sudden. One moment they had
been safe, secure, strolling through a winter wonderland, and the
next moment they were poised on the edge of a precipice, in
imminent danger of falling to their deaths.

Christine’s smile faded and she turned to
him, holding onto his arm with both hands as she buried her face
against his shoulder. “That’s not funny!” she declared, hating the
way her voice shook. He had looked so serene that night in the
garden, yet he had been deliberately flirting with death, even
courting it! Why? “I didn’t know this cliff was here.”

“There are times life doesn’t afford us the
luxury, or the curse, of knowing what lies ahead.” Vincent stood
very still, feeling her tremble against him, hating himself for his
impulsive action.

He knew how she felt. He hadn’t known his
own particular cliff had been there either, waiting for him to
stumble, not until he had been tumbling down it, turning over and
over until his life lay smashed and broken at the bottom. His life,
and Arabella’s life, and Fletcher’s life.

“I’m sorry, Christine,” he said, meaning it.
“I think I was trying to teach you something in my own obscure,
twisted way. Come along now, we should return to the house before
we are missed.”

“No, not yet, please. I want to stay here a
minute longer, and look.” Something inside Christine told her that
this was an important moment, important for Vincent as well as
herself.

She stood firm, willing herself to peer
downward, past the edge of the cliff and at the land below. “I
don’t think I was as much frightened as I was surprised, Vincent.
And yes, I know that we are not privileged to know our fates in
time to avoid some heartache. But we wouldn’t really be living our
lives to the full if we knew everything, would we? We’d merely be
acting out a part where we knew all the lines, could anticipate all
the moves. I should think that would be very boring.”

“Yet infinitely safer,” Vincent added,
slowly drawing her back, away from the edge. She was making him
decidedly nervous. “You are very young, Christine. An infant. You
really haven’t lived yet, you haven’t had time. Life is perfect for
you, perfect and beautiful. But nothing is so beautiful that it
cannot be destroyed, snatched away when you least suspect it. When
you get to London and are surrounded by handsome young men begging
for your hand, you will remember that, won’t you?”

Christine was still holding tightly to his
arm. “London,” she muttered, her head down as she minded her steps.
“I had almost forgotten my debut. It’s Aunt Nellis’s idea, you
know. She has such high hopes for my future. I think she is living
her life over again through me, poor dear. She never married, you
know.”

“Yes, I had gathered that,” Vincent said, so
that Christine couldn’t be sure just what he had understood about
her aunt, although she was fairly certain he could see through the
older woman as if she were a freshly scrubbed pane of glass.

“We really can’t afford a Season,” Christine
blurted out, feeling she could tell him anything and he would
understand. “As it is, Aunt Nellis had to wait until now, when I am
about to turn eighteen, to have her dream for me come true. She
means to sell her jewelry.”

“The pearl necklace and the diamond
bracelet, I imagine,” Vincent said, nodding his head.

Stopping in her tracks so that he had to
halt as well, Christine exclaimed, suddenly feeling violated,
“Well, is there anything you don’t know? Tell me, how many gowns
are packed in my trunks? How many gloves? How many ribbons for my
hair? How dare you!”

Vincent turned to take her hand, dragging
her along behind him. “You are overreacting, Christine,” he warned
coldly. “I live a solitary life here, and discourage visitors.
Having two unchaperoned ladies tumbling onto my doorstep was
unexpected, to say the least. I had Lazarus check your luggage that
first night as a matter of course, just to confirm your aunt’s
story.”

Christine sniffed derisively, nearly
stumbling as she tried her best to keep up with the furious pace he
was setting. “I don’t believe you. What possible danger could two
ladies pose the great Earl of Hawkhurst? And I was unconscious, for
heaven’s sake! Really, Vincent, I know I am young, but I’m not
entirely stupid. And stop running—I’m not a giant either, like
you!”

Vincent stopped abruptly, behind a tall
evergreen that blocked any view of them from the house, so that
Christine roughly cannoned into his chest.

He did not apologize, but only stepped back
a pace, putting a small space between them. “I have been, in past
years, the object of some curiosity, Christine, although the
tongues should have stopped wagging by now. I admit it. I
overreacted. You hadn’t misrepresented yourselves to gain entry to
my home.”

“Thank you for that kind admission,”
Christine said nastily, still slightly breathless and not convinced
she shouldn’t be angry.

“But that does not mean your presence here
isn’t the greatest danger to my solitude, my hard-won peace, that I
have ever faced,” he went on, his voice hard. “God, Christine,
don’t you know yet? Haven’t you guessed why I hide myself away here
like some wounded animal? The other night, when I told you my name,
I thought you might have made the connection, but you didn’t. You
must be the only person in the whole of the British Empire not to
have heard the story.”

Christine’s heart was beating so fast, so
hard, it hurt. She was too close to him, her face upturned so that
she could see the naked pain in his eyes, feel the warmth of his
breath as it formed vapor clouds in the cold air. “Manderley...
Manderley is very isolated,” she explained nervously, longing to
wrap her arms around him, to lend him her comfort. “Scandals grow
very cold before they reach us.”

“Scandal?” Vincent’s tone was scathing.
“What unlovely names the world puts on heartbreak. How the world
sniggers behind its hands at despair, at the needless waste, the
horror of it all.”

“Tell me, Vincent,” Christine begged,
placing her hands on his chest, her muff tumbling to the ground,
forgotten. “Nothing is so bad that it cannot be shared.”

“Nothing, Christine?” he repeated bitterly,
staring at some empty space a few inches above her head. “This
scandal, as you call it, was considerably more than a nine days’
wonder.” He looked down at her for a long moment, then raised his
hand to lightly cradle the back of her neck beneath her collar. “Do
you know what the worst sin of all is, infant? The very worst sin
man can commit, his worst, most damning failing? It’s love,
Christine. Not theft, not murder, not even treason. Love.”

Christine was frightened, more frightened
than she had ever been in her young life. Vincent was on the brink
of telling her something, something that would force her to change
her opinion of him, something that might destroy their tenuous
peace. “Stop this! You’re speaking nonsense. I don’t want to hear
any more! We were strolling in the snow, nothing more. Please let
me enjoy your company,” she begged fiercely, pressing her face
against his chest.