Moonlight Masquerade (22 page)

Pressing his fingertips against his
forehead, Fletcher slowly shook his head, laughing softly. “Still
so passionate, Vincent? How can such an otherwise intelligent man
be so ignorant when it comes to women? And now it would appear you
have taken to hiding behind hedges, peeking at someone else’s
private moments.”

“I saw you together in the gardens, yes,”
Vincent admitted, just the mention of that scene nearly inciting
him to riot. “You were kissing her.”

“Wrong, Vincent. I was proposing to her. The
lady turned me down, old friend, turned me down flat. Imagine
that—me, the man who has prided himself on being irresistible since
he was out of short coats. It seems she’d rather wed a stubborn
recluse who keeps trying to send her away.”

Vincent took a few more steps, then
collapsed his tall frame into the closest chair, sighing audibly.
“My God, my God,” he said, nearly overcome. “I thought I’d lost
her!”

Fletcher crossed to the drinks table and
poured two generous portions of port, then held one out to Vincent.
“Rather boggles the mind, don’t it? Here, drink this. You’ve got
another shock coming, and after hearing what I’ve got to say you
might just reconsider and decide putting a period to my existence
is exactly what you do want. If I can get you drunk enough, your
aim might suffer.”

Vincent took the glass automatically, still
trying to recover his composure. He had been so sure, so very sure,
that he had lost Christine forever. He looked up at Fletcher. “She
allowed your kiss. Why would she have done that?”

“Ah, we’re still in the garden, are we?”
Fletcher reflected, draining the contents of his own glass. “So,
you were witness to only a small part of my shame, were you? You
shouldn’t have run off, but stayed, to watch while the lady cut my
legs out from under me. Not that Christine wasn’t kind, for she
was, which was why she kissed me. Rather like tossing a bone to a
toothless dog, but I’m sure she didn’t see it that way. But, to
tell the truth, I’m rather glad that I was allowed to fall on my
face without an audience. You’re a lucky man, Vincent. I hope you
know that.”

“I know that,” Vincent answered. “I also
know that I don’t deserve her.”

Fletcher pulled an armless chair over to
face Vincent, turning it about so that he could straddle it. “Yes,
we’re back to that. I thought we would be. Your face—how is it? I
can’t really see you with that damned hood covering you. And your
arm? You know, I thought I had killed you when you finally raised
your arm to shield your face and the whip cut into your underarm.
So much blood! Just like Arabella. I drank for three solid days,
trying to forget what you looked like when I was done with you.
Damn near five years—wasted. God, Vincent, how I’ve missed
you!”

Reaching up his left hand, Vincent pushed
the hood from his head. “The arm’s fine, at last, and I’m not
prettier than you anymore, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he
said, amazed at how very good he was feeling, just to be in the
same room with Fletcher. They had been so close, closer than most
brothers. It was almost like the old days, except—“You have
something to tell me, Fletcher?”

Fletcher began rhythmically hitting the heel
of his hand against the wooden back of the chair. “Yes, Vincent, I
do. If I drank for three days after beating you, I crawled into a
bottle for damn near a week when I found out what I am about to
tell you, then went off to Spain, doing my damndest to get myself
killed. I couldn’t face you, not then. When that didn’t work, I
came back here to throw myself on your mercy, even let you do the
job the Frenchies couldn’t.” He shrugged his shoulders
apologetically. “My intentions were good, but I’m afraid I got
sidetracked.”

“Christine,” Vincent said, oddly pleased to
see the quick flash of pain in the other man’s eyes.

“Christine,” Fletcher agreed solemnly, then
seemed to recover, flashing a grin. “I can’t be sure, poor student
that I was, but I believe it was Otway who said, ‘Who lost Mark
Antony the world?—A woman!’ I knew I should have gone to that
blasted masquerade as Robin Hood. Christine would have made a
fetching Maid Marion.”

There was silence in the room for some
minutes, as one man reflected on his good fortune and the other
rued his missed chance for happiness. As the clock struck the hour
of four, Vincent asked, “What made you lose yourself in drink for a
week? You haven’t said.”

Fletcher looked up, a tortured amusement
lighting his blond good looks. “Noticed that, did you? I guess I’m
still trying not to say it. But she was m’sister, you know, and
once I say the words, they’ll hang between us, where both of us can
see them. I thought I was ready to let that happen, but now I’m not
so sure. Yet you more than anyone deserve to know the truth.”

Vincent was confused, and voiced his
confusion. “You’re talking about Arabella? What more is there to
say? I tried to rush her into marriage and she wasn’t ready for it,
even if she had accepted my ring. The last night, when I kissed
her, when I let my love for her overtake my better judgment, I
frightened her more than I knew. It was all there, in the notes she
left behind.”

Fletcher shook his head. “No, it wasn’t.
Both of us thought so, but it wasn’t. The real truth was in her
diary. I found it about a month after her funeral. My sister,
Arabella, sweet, innocent Arabella, was pregnant.”

“
Pregnant!
” Vincent shot out of the
chair, running a hand distractedly through his hair. “But—but,
that’s impossible! Fletcher, I swear to you, I never—”

“I know that!” Fletcher interjected quickly,
rising to lay his hands on his friend’s shoulders. “It was someone
else. A French prisoner of war given the freedom of our village,
blast the man, for he’d been sent back to France before I could
search him out and kill him.”

“A Frenchman?” Vincent heard a roaring in
his ears. It was all so unbelievable. “But her notes—the ones she
wrote both of us before she cut her wrists—in those she said she
couldn’t face the physical side of marriage and was taking the only
way out she could think of that would save everyone pain. I had
thought it was because I had—but she had given me every indication
that she wanted me as much as I wanted her. It was just at the last
minute, when she began to cry, that I realized that I had
frightened her. I was going to let her break our betrothal, was
about to come to this house to tell her so, when you came to me to
say that she was dead. Oh my God! How did this happen?”

Fletcher left his friend standing, stunned,
in the middle of the room and went to refill their glasses. “It’s
not a pretty story, but it’s only fair that you hear it all. Here,
drink this,” he said, returning to press the glass into Vincent’s
hand. “Before this night is through we’re both going to rue the
fact that spirits were ever invented. Do you remember, Vincent—I
hardly ever drink.”

As dawn broke over London, Fletcher told
Vincent the whole story. His younger sister had been the light of
his life, and he had kept her safely secluded in the country after
their parents died, until he thought she was ready to take London
by storm. She had come to town with him most willingly, a quiet,
biddable child, too angelic, too beautiful to be mere flesh and
blood, and Vincent had taken one look at her and fallen deeply in
love.

Fletcher had been overjoyed. His best friend
and his only sister; it was a perfect match! Arabella had readily
agreed to the engagement, and begged Fletcher to allow an immediate
wedding.

“She knew she was pregnant, of course, old
friend,” Fletcher said, shaking his head, “and planned to let you
believe you were the father. She was distraught, knowing I’d be
devastated if I found out what she had done. I think it must have
unhinged her.

“Looking back on it, and believe me, in the
years since I found that diary I’ve had ample time for thinking
back on everything that happened, I’ve decided she purposely set
out to seduce you that last night, just to make sure there would be
no question that you were the father. She just couldn’t go through
with it.”

“She never loved me,” Vincent said, as if to
himself. “All this time, and she never really loved me.”

“She loved that bastard frog,” Fletcher
spat, hurling his empty glass into the dying fire, “and he left her
to deal with her shame alone. But I think she did love you, at
least a little. Loved you enough that she could not go on deceiving
you. I only wish she could have told the truth in her notes, but
she protected that bastard to the end, not realizing that you and
I—the whole world—would think the worst.”

“Nobody can ever know of this,” Vincent
declared vehemently, at last coming out of his reverie. “I’ll go
on, taking the blame for her death. I loved Arabella. I will never
allow her name to be dragged through the mire, Fletcher. I promise
you that!”

There were tears in Fletcher’s expressive
gray eyes. “I don’t deserve that, old friend, although I must admit
I half expected it. As I said, you always were the noble one. But
think of it, Vincent; between us, Arabella and I damn near ruined
your life. I can’t let you carry my burden any longer. It wouldn’t
be fair.”

“As long as I know the truth, it doesn’t
matter what anyone else thinks of me,” Vincent told him, idly
fingering the scars he knew so well. He had finally gotten up the
courage to face them in the mirror, and knew that they were no
longer the horror he remembered, but that didn’t mean he was ready
to show them to the world. “I’ve quite lost my taste for London
anyway.”

“And Christine?” Fletcher prodded. “You
would condemn her to hide with you in the country forever? She
blossoms in London, old friend. And she loves you—‘quite
desperately.’ If she were on my arm, I could face the devil
himself, let alone the dragons of Society.”

“Memories fade, Fletcher, but not these
scars. They’d be a constant reminder, everywhere I went. I can’t
subject Christine to that.”

Fletcher spoke quietly, his eyes intent on
Vincent’s altered but still handsome face. “Not even if
I
were there too, standing beside my best friend?”

Vincent felt his throat growing tight. He
had his life back, if he chose to take it. He had Christine, if he
could dare to claim her. Maybe it was time to bury the past, and
get on with the business of living.

T
here was mist
everywhere, ghostly pale, and swirling, moving around her knees as,
dressed in an unearthly gown of trailing white gossamer, Christine
moved across a wide expanse of nothingness. She could see her legs
moving, but could not feel the earth beneath her feet. Her hair,
unbound, was blowing softly about her in a gentle breeze that was
neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a part of the scene.

Brushing a stray wisp of hair from her eyes,
she looked about her, trying to understand where she was, what was
happening to her. But there was nothing to see. She was alone in
the middle of a vast, empty world. Yet she felt no fear—only
expectation.

Christine was dreaming. Of course she was
dreaming, she told herself, but she had no desire to shake her mind
back into wakefulness, back to awareness, back to reality. She was
here for a reason, to work out some great puzzle she hadn’t known
had been set out for her.

It was so strange how in dreams a person
could see themselves, watch themselves, and still be themselves;
remaining somewhere else, off in the floating distance, a very
partial observer of their own fate.

Christine watched as she tipped her head to
one side, as if listening to something, perhaps music. She watched
herself turn, holding her skirts wide gracefully as she began to
run, floating through the clinging mist, obviously eager to go
someplace, be someplace, see some one.

Yes, that was it. Someone was waiting for
her, watching for her, calling her to him.
Him
. Of course,
it had to be a man. Christine could feel her heart pounding in
expectation. He was here! He was waiting for her.

She watched the dream Christine running, her
ebony hair streaming behind her, a smile lighting her face, happy
tears wetting her cheeks.

At last, in the distance, a man appeared. He
was wearing a flowing black silk cloak that molded itself to his
tall body as the breeze became a whirlwind. His arms were flung
wide in welcome, and Christine, her eyes squeezed tightly shut,
urged her dream self to run faster, ever faster, so that she could
hurl herself into his arms.

Vincent!
she called loudly, silently,
wordlessly, her voice resounding inside her head, his name a
symphony of silent wonder, as she watched herself being enveloped
inside the folds of that black cloak and felt his strong arms close
around her, never to let her go.