Moonlight Masquerade (8 page)

“Nonsense, Christine,” her aunt said
dismissingly. “As if a little pepper should send me scurrying to my
bed like some missish old woman. No, I think I shall sit up a bit
longer, and perhaps work on that embroidery square I brought with
me from Manderley. It’s the loveliest thing—a scene from the
Creation, I believe.”

Christine loved her aunt, truly she did, but
at the moment she was wishing the dear lady on the other side of
the moon.

Narrowing her eyelids, she leaned forward on
the settee to peer searchingly into her aunt’s face. “How brave you
are, Aunt,” she marveled, shaking her head. “How staunchly you have
stood through these last trying days here at Hawk’s Roost, and
without a whimper of protest at the heavy physical and mental toll
your vigil at my bedside has so obviously wrought.”

Aunt Nellis quickly lifted one trembling
hand to her face, as if checking for outward signs of damage. “Why
do you say that? What do you see, Christine? Am I looking pale?
Drat the lack of mirrors in this place! Do I have circles under my
eyes?”

Tilting her head to one side, her niece
appeared to be concentrating on forming an answer. “No-o-o,” she
began consideringly, “not actually circles, I don’t think. At
least, not so much that they cover the puffiness. It was more the
rather drawn look that had me concerned.”

“I look drawn?” Aunt Nellis’s expression
took on a look of panic.

Christine sat back against the cushions and
waved a hand in dismissal. “But if you say you are feeling fine,
then I shouldn’t bother about it anymore. I am most probably only
imagining things anyway.”

Now Aunt Nellis had both hands raised to her
face, her fingertips gently probing the skin beneath her eyes.
“Puffiness? Really? Perhaps I should consider cucumber slices. And
drawn, you said?”

“Just a trifle.”

Aunt Nellis traced her rouged cheeks, then
tentatively patted at the second chin that was her private woe.
“Actually,” she said, “I have been feeling just slightly out of
coil, not that I wanted to burden you with my troubles, you
understand.”

“You’re too good to me,” Christine gushed,
willing a tear to her eye. “You cannot imagine how difficult it is
for me to stand by silently and watch my dearest companion fade
into a dry shell of her former self.”

The fingers moved again. “Dry?” Aunt Nellis
questioned, pouncing on the damning word. “Why, do you know what,
Christine? With all my worries about you, I do believe I have
neglected my nightly rituals of late. Yes, you’re right, my skin is
dry, dry as a leaf in the desert. And I am tired. Bone weary.
Perhaps I should make an early evening of it. Perhaps we both
should retire to our chambers. Lazarus,” she called to the
servant’s retreating back, “has my small leather bag been brought
up to my room?”

The servant quickly assured her that the
small leather bag, the one Christine knew to contain at least two
dozen assorted creams, lotions, and formulas sworn by their makers
to contain magical restoratives guaranteed to return the blush of
youth to aging, desperate women, had indeed been delivered to Miss
Denham’s chamber.

Aunt Nellis rose from her seat, one hand
still to her face. “Come along, Christine,” she urged, heading for
the hallway, “I don’t have a moment to waste.”

“Yes, Aunt Nellis,” Christine answered
brightly, skipping a bit as she brought up the rear.

Christine turned her body this way and that,
desperately attempting to achieve an angle that would give her a
clear view of herself in the small hand mirror. She was wearing her
new blue gown, the one the local seamstress had vowed matched her
eyes perfectly, but she hadn’t yet convinced herself that she quite
liked the style. The high waist, as well as the wide, silken ribbon
that banded her front to back and hung in streamers behind her,
made her feel overly young and rather vulnerable.

“Just what the designer had in mind when
creating it, I’m sure,” she had told her aunt when first she had
seen it. “I believe we are supposed to look endearingly helpless
and just slightly vacant in our upper stories in order to be
appealing to the gentlemen. No wonder men believe themselves to be
our superiors, if we agree to wear dresses that make us appear to
be mindless ninnies.”

To compensate for this lack of confidence in
her appearance, Christine had earlier crept into Nellis’s chamber
to avail herself of a small pot of rouge. By the light of a single
candle she now smoothed a bit of color onto her lips and then
rubbed some into her cheeks, telling herself that the action was
justified. After all, if the earl could hide behind the cloak of
darkness surely she was entitled to some armor of her own
choosing.

It had been over a half hour since she had
at last been able to bid her aunt good night in the hallway, and
Christine wondered if she could dare quit her chamber without the
woman overhearing her. Taking a deep breath and then wiping her
suddenly damp palms on a handkerchief, she decided she could. Her
heart was pounding. It was either go now, she knew, to beard the
dragon in his own den, or she would lose her courage entirely.

A slight scratching at the door nearly had
her jumping out of her satin slippers in fright. “Who—who is it?”
she quavered in a hoarse whisper, desperately reaching for her
dressing gown while wondering if Aunt Nellis would be able to see
the effects of the rouge in the dimness. Oh, how could she have
been so stupid as to think she, Christine Denham, who had never
gotten away with a single naughty thing in her life, would succeed
now, as she was about to attempt her most daring indiscretion?

“It’s me, miss. Lazarus,” she heard the
servant answer, and she rushed to open the door before his voice
roused her aunt. “His lordship sent me to say he’s waiting on your
pleasure.” Lazarus had actually amended his master’s words
slightly, not believing it would be helpful to relate Hawkhurst’s
message word for word, for the man had said, “Fetch her, man. I
grow impatient waiting on her pleasure.”

Lazarus did not like the role he had been
forced to play. He was a moral man, after all, and this late-night
meeting screamed rather than merely smacked of impropriety. But he
was also a weak man, who enjoyed his position as well as the luxury
of three good meals a day. If Miss Denham was to end up with her
skirts tossed over her head it was—as opposed to an abrupt
cessation of his own continuing comfort—of no great matter to
him.

Christine followed the servant down the
hallway, holding tightly to his bony elbow as he held a candelabrum
to light the way in the darkened house, tiptoeing down the wide
staircase and across the tiled foyer, each step taking her farther
from her aunt and closer to adventure. She scrubbed roughly at her
face with the back of her free hand, knowing she no longer needed
any artificial color to bring a glow to her cheeks.

“Here you go, miss,” the servant said at
last, opening the door to the study and then drawing back a pace.
“His lordship said for me to come back in an hour—no more, no
less—to guide you back to your chamber. I’ll knock on this door
when it’s time.”

Christine tried to thank the man, but found
that no words could push themselves past the sudden constriction of
her throat, so she merely smiled and nodded her understanding
before stepping inside the earl’s study, her body stiffening as she
heard the door click closed behind her, effectively locking her
inside with a stranger. This was it; there was no turning back now.
She had committed herself to whatever was to come.

I
t was extremely
dark in the room after the brightness of the hallway, a fact that
did not surprise her, as she had expected nothing else. The Earl of
Hawkhurst seemed to be positively fascinated with the darker
hours.

A few candles had been placed about the
perimeter of the room and they threw flickering halos of light
against the darkly paneled walls, but the main source of light was
that created by the fire burning in the hearth. Instinctively, she
drew closer to it, and the two wingbacked chairs that faced the
fireplace.

“My lord Hawkhurst?” she asked in a thin,
choked voice that barely dented the silence.

“My name is Vincent. Vincent Mayhew. I have
only been the Earl of Hawkhurst for four years, thanks to a
woefully unproductive uncle who carelessly left his title and
inheritance to fall to me. The title, quite frankly, is a source of
disinterest to me, although I have found his enormous wealth
tolerable. I would rather you call me Vincent, Christine.”

The earl’s voice had come from the depths of
one of the chairs, and Christine prudently lowered herself into its
mate, sinking deeply into the soft leather, her legs swinging
freely several inches above the floor.

She deliberately averted her gaze from the
other chair, staring into the fire so long that her eyes began to
sting. “I don’t play chess, Vincent,” she announced baldly at last,
feeling the need to answer truth with truth. “I only wanted to see
you again.”

“
See
me, Christine?” Vincent echoed,
ignoring her confession, which only succeeded in making her feel
more guilty. “Am I then reflected in the flames?”

Christine’s eyes narrowed as her feelings of
guilt disappeared. She lifted her chin, refusing to be baited. “You
have made it abundantly clear that you guard your privacy with a
vengeance. I am merely being polite, sir. Besides, it is so dark
and gloomy in here, I can barely see my own hand in front of my
face.”

His amused chuckle made her blood boil. “The
so proper Miss Denham is reluctant to injure my undoubtedly tender
sensibilities, although she cannot hold back her censure. How very
kind. How very condescending. And it’s killing you, Christine, this
not looking at me, isn’t it?”

Her hands gripped the arms of the chair
until her knuckles showed white, but she did not turn her head. He
was so smug. How she longed to do him an injury. “Yes!” she
admitted in a tight voice.

“Poor infant. How frustrated you must be,
torn between your curiosity and your good manners, doubtless taught
to you by your dragon aunt, Miss Denham, whom you have left
dreaming girlish dreams in her chamber while you tiptoe down the
stairs to seek delicious danger like some penny-press heroine. But
what must be will be, my dear, for this particular Curiosity does
not display himself merely to titillate inquisitive young
ladies.”

Christine had been slowly gaining the upper
hand on her temper. Clearly a cool head, not unbridled anger, was
needed here. “Really, my lord? And then why, a poor infant can only
ask, does this Curiosity skulk in the shadows, if not for purposes
of titillation?”

She could hear the resignation in
Hawkhurst’s sigh, the acceptance of an adversary whose attack he
could not deflect with his sarcastic tongue. “You’re not a stupid
child, are you, to deliberately bait me this way? Almost you force
me to frighten you away.”

For all her fears, her misgivings, her guilt
at having deliberately deceived her aunt, banishment was the last
thing Christine wanted. Impulsively, she turned in her chair to
look directly at her tormentor. “No! Don’t do that. Please don’t
send me away!
Oh!
”

Vincent’s face was once more before her, his
physical perfection a profound shock to her entire system. True,
his face was partly in shadow, thanks to that confounded hood he
seemed determined to wear, but the glow from the fireplace caught
and held his features.

Up close, his face was even more intriguing,
more compelling. It was a face crafted by a gifted artist with an
eye for detail. Every plane, every curve, was cleanly sculpted, his
flesh leanly molded around an extraordinary bone structure. His
eyebrows were rather low, and slashing, riding the ridge of bone
above his eyelids and slightly shadowing his elongated green eyes.
They were the eyes of a sensitive man, a caring man, a uniquely
appealing man.