Moonlight Masquerade (5 page)

Just the thought of a bath had her hopping
down from the high bed to struggle into her dressing gown before
pacing up and down the carpet, a movement that was definitely
contrary to all her aunt’s warnings. Her activity also started up
the pain in her head, but she didn’t care. Unused to being ill or
injured, she was, now that she was conscious, a most uncooperative
patient.

According to Nellis, she should be lying
quietly in her bed of pain, the covers tucked up beneath her chin,
not speaking except to utter an occasional moan or two, and sipping
weak broth while listening to bracing sermons her aunt read to her
from the prayer book she always carried in her reticule.

But Christine couldn’t help herself. She
felt young, and healthy, and almost disgustingly fit. Besides, she
was unaccustomed to a sedentary life. She wanted to be on the move,
doing things—anything.

Walking over to the window, she pulled back
the heavy draperies her aunt had closed even as she had begged for
them to remain open, to see that the snow had finally stopped and
the moon had come out. It was nearly a full moon, so that the
garden below her, clothed in what looked like fluffy white cotton
and glistening crystal, was nearly as bright as day. She pressed
her forehead against the windowpane, the cold from the glass
soothing her lingering headache.

So this was Hawk’s Roost. It was pretty,
very pretty, even as her borrowed bedchamber, full of classic
furniture and fine antiques, was pretty. “Not pretty, you country
bumpkin,” she berated herself aloud. “It’s terribly, terribly
modish
. Goodness, Miss Denham, you will never take in
Society if you gurgle like a silly miss over anything with just a
touch of gilt on it.”

A slight frown creased her forehead as she
thought of the Season that was to come. Aunt Nellis had been
filling her head for years with glowing tales of the goings-on in
London in the spring of each new year. It wasn’t that she was
averse to parties, or gorgeous ball gowns, or handsome gentlemen
paying her court. On the contrary, it sounded to be a good deal of
fun. Manderley was fairly isolated, and she longed for company more
her own age.

It was the financing of the thing that
sprinkled her expectations with uncomfortable grains of guilt.
Christine’s father had left her well taken care of, if she was
careful, but her inheritance hadn’t stretched to cover the
tremendous cost of a London Season, at least not the sort of Season
her aunt desired for her.

“I’ve had a sudden unexpected windfall,”
Aunt Nellis had told Christine cheerily, but it had been a lie. It
had been Aunt Nellis’s portion that had paid the rental on the town
house in Half Moon Street.

Not only that, but Aunt Nellis’s treasured
pearl and ruby necklace and her generations-old diamond bracelet
that were traveling with them to the metropolis hidden among the
woman’s undergarments would pay for the many gowns Christine would
wear, the ribbons she would buy, the plays and operas she would
see, and even the food that would go into her mouth.

Her aunt believed her niece to be unaware of
the sacrifices she was making, and Christine hadn’t been so cruel
as to tell her that she knew the source of their sudden good
fortune. But that didn’t mean Christine did not think about it.

“I shall just have to marry the first rich
man who wants me,” she said into the quiet room, “so that I can pay
poor Aunt Nellis back for what she has done for me. What a
depressing thought!”

Christine stayed at the window for a long
time, lost in a brown study that had little to do with glittering
balls and very much to do with a portly old man with gray hair and
few teeth bowing over her hand, before a movement below her in the
garden caught her attention.

“It’s an animal, lost and searching for
food,” she said, pulling the draperies back a little farther in the
hope of improving her view. “No, it’s not an animal. No animal is
that big. It’s a man. A very tall man, all wrapped up in a hooded
cloak. It must be Aunt Nellis’s monster, the Earl of
Hawkhurst!”

Quickly dropping the drapery back into
place, she moved about the room, snuffing out all the candles, then
tiptoed back to the window and drew the heavy material out of her
way. “Now he won’t be able to see me seeing him,” she said in
satisfaction, her breath fogging the windowpane as she eagerly
pressed her nose against the glass.

She watched in fascination, holding her
breath, as the earl walked across the garden, his long strides made
only slightly awkward by the deeply mounded snow. A massive cloak,
black as the starlit night sky, molded over his broad shoulders and
swirled about his knees as the wind tugged at the material. His
legs were quite long beneath the hem of his cloak, his shiny
Hessians hugging calves that were neither too thin nor too
muscular.

A large hood hid his face from her view, a
fact that bothered her immensely, for she longed to see what her
host looked like that he felt the need to hide from his guests. He
walked on, moving away from her as the wind gusted, causing him to
use his right hand to keep the cloak from opening, exposing him to
the cold.

He mounted a small rise about fifty feet
away from the walls of the house, standing there for what seemed to
Christine to be a long time, his hand now holding the cloak tightly
closed at the throat, his face turned directly into the wind, as if
challenging the elements in some private game of endurance.

“How excessively odd,” she mused, shaking
her head, her headache forgotten. “It’s as if he’s daring the wind
to strike him down. Perhaps Aunt Nellis is right. He does seem
rather strange. Yet he’s standing so straight and tall, like a
strong oak. Oh, I wish he’d move closer so that I might see
him.”

As if in answer to her wish, Hawkhurst
turned and began walking back to the house, his right hand once
again clasping the front sides of the cloak closed around his
middle. When he was just below her window a strong gust of wind
whirled through the garden, lifting the loose snow so that it
danced around the earl’s body like the sea mist just before a
storm.

His heavy hood fell back against his
shoulders, but the earl didn’t seem to mind. He raised his face to
the descending moonlight and allowed the swirling snow to caress
his cheeks—while unknowingly exposing his profile to Christine’s
avid gaze.

She inhaled sharply, unable to believe what
she was seeing. He had hair as black as hers, as black as night,
thick hair that waved only slightly as the wind brushed it back
from a forehead that was smooth and clear save for the slashing
black brow that sheltered one long, deep-set eye whose color she
could not discern.

His nose was perfection itself, straight and
narrow, save for a small bump just below the bridge, a forgivable
imperfection doubtlessly acquired by an unfortunate collision with
someone’s hard fist. His mouth was generous, his upper lip nearly
as full as the lower, with what looked to be laugh lines vertically
scoring the skin below his thin, high cheekbone.

Even his chin was outstandingly perfect, no
matter that it was covered with a slight shadow of beard, as if
Lord Hawkhurst only allowed himself to be shaved when the spirit
struck him.

Christine had seen all this in only a few
moments—taken it in as a flower takes in rainwater—letting the
reality of it sink into the very root of her, nourishing her body,
her soul, before the earl moved directly beneath her and into the
house. Her head was reeling with questions, her body reeling with
sensations alien to her.

Why was the Earl of Hawkhurst hiding? There
was nothing wrong with him, as her aunt had supposed, nothing that
would offend or frighten onlookers. On the contrary, he was
handsome. He was the most handsome man Christine had ever seen or
hoped to see.

She let her forehead press against the
windowpane, her eyes closed, her heart still pounding unevenly in
her breast. “He’s beautiful,” she breathed on a sigh.

O
h, Aunt Nellis,”
Christine exclaimed, whirling about, eager to look everywhere at
once, “isn’t this just the most wonderful room you have ever seen?
Look—look over there, at that dresser. It must have a half-hundred
golden cherubs carved into its face. This is like a great
exhibition. I feel we should have paid a pennypiece each at the
door in order to enter. And that tub—it’s enormous. No wonder
Lazarus didn’t want to move it into my chamber.”

Aunt Nellis obediently looked around the
earl’s massive private bedchamber, grudgingly admiring the man’s
good taste. The entire room was a shrine to classic beauty and
expert craftsmanship, she agreed, but somehow the chamber seemed
cold to her, and lonely. The softening touches—a woman’s touch—were
missing. But then, this was a bachelor establishment.

“There are no mirrors, Christine,” she said
at last, able to voice at least one possible reason for her
disconcertment. “Not a single one. Isn’t that just the oddest
thing? Everyone has mirrors. How else is one to know whether or not
one is going about with a piece of meat stuck between one’s front
teeth, or with one’s buttons undone?”

Christine looked up in the midst of admiring
an elaborately carved clock that boasted not one, but three faces.
“Really? No mirrors? That is a bit odd. Are you quite sure,
Aunt?”

Her aunt was standing perfectly still in the
center of the room, her face unbecomingly pale. “I’ve heard it said
that the devil can’t see himself in mirrors,” she murmured,
shivering.

Remembering the face she had seen the
previous evening in the moonlight, Christine only laughed, running
across the room to hug her imaginative aunt. “The devil is it, Aunt
Nellis? Now you’re sounding as silly and superstitious as
Alice.”

Aunt Nellis stiffened. Obviously, she
disliked being compared to their housemaid at Manderley, a woman
who had been known to walk backward through a prickle hedge to
avoid coming face to face with Farmer Williamson’s gray wagon horse
before noon, a woman who wore so many good luck charms and amulets
that she rattled when she walked. “I am no such thing!” Nellis
protested hotly. “I was merely making a reasonable
observation.”

“Then observe this,” Christine said,
pointing toward a door in the corner of the large room. “Obviously
we have not seen all of the earl’s quarters. I’ll wager that door
leads to a dressing room, complete with mirrors of every shape and
size. Shall I go investigate, both to soothe your jangled nerves
and to see if I am right?”

“You shall not,” Nellis commanded tersely.
“We all know what happened to Pandora. Besides, I believe I hear
the earl’s man, Lazarus, coming down the hallway with the first of
your bathwater. I wouldn’t want him to think you’re nothing but a
common snoop. My goodness,” she continued as the clock struck a
single chime, “it’s more than time he arrived isn’t it? The earl
said ten o’clock, and it’s nearly half past the hour already.”

Christine was instantly diverted. “Dear
Lazarus,” she said on a sigh. “How sweet he is to have begged the
earl for this favor. But he’s aptly named, isn’t he, the poor soul?
I mean, he does look rather moldy, doesn’t he, almost as if he has
just recently been resurrected.”

“Now you’re being blasphemous!” Aunt Nellis
exclaimed, wringing her hands while giving a silent prayer that
heavenly lightning was not about to strike them down where they
stood. “I believe that bump on your head has served to sadly
rearrange your senses. Drat this terrible weather! Oh, why did it
have to begin snowing all over again this morning? Clearly you need
the services of a doctor as soon as possible. You may even need to
be bled.”

“If you think to have some silly old man lay
leeches on my body, Aunt, I pray it may snow forever,” Christine
countered belligerently.

Lazarus entered, carrying two pails of
steaming water that he ceremoniously poured into the large enameled
tub that stood in front of the fireplace. Four extremely curious
male servants, all carrying a brace of buckets across their
shoulders, followed him in, and soon the tub was full nearly to the
brim. The men lingered once their job was completed, to stand
staring at Christine with slackened jaws—at which point Aunt Nellis
pointed a finger toward the door and ordered succinctly:
“
Out
!”

Christine was already loosening the sash of
her dressing gown. “Weren’t they cute? You told me this was an
entirely male household, but until now I didn’t believe you. They
acted as if they have never seen a female in her dressing gown
before this. You may lock the door after you, Aunt, if it makes you
feel better,” she said, looking about her for the jar of
violet-scented bath salts that Lazarus had delivered to the room
earlier.