The Madcap Masquerade (10 page)

“Not now, daughter. Can’t ye see I’m not well. We’ll talk once I’ve got me health back,” the squire declared shortly after he’d swallowed a mammoth bite of the slab of fried ham Mrs. Pinkert put before him.

Maeve registered the “didn’t I tell you so” rise of Mrs. Pinkert’s eyebrow, but she could see that with the squire in his present frame of mind, she’d be wasting her time questioning him as to his intentions. She would, she’d decided, wait until he was in a more receptive mood to have their little talk.

Now, more than eight hours later, rolling along the rain-swept country road to Ravenswood, she wished she’d demanded the answers she wanted from the wicked old reprobate. But he’d smelled so ripe, she’d had all she could do to keep her breakfast down, much less have a serious discussion with him.

She glanced over at Lucy, whom she’d brought with her because, as Mrs. Pinkert had reminded her, “Miss Meg was a proper lady who’d never leave home without a maid by her side.”

Lucy seemed far more excited about the evening than her mistress. “I’ve an understanding of sorts with Ben Flynn, the earl’s fourth-in-line footman,” the young maid confessed with a blush, “but I’ve never seen him in his fine livery, for the dowager makes the Ravenswood servants wear their ordinary clothes when they take their free day once a month.” She sighed. “Ben’s almost as handsome as the earl. I can’t wait to see him, and won’t he be surprised to see me! He don’t even know I’ve a position of my own now.”

Moments later, Maeve stepped from the carriage and, with Lucy trailing her, ascended the shallow flight of stairs into Ravenswood. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a red-faced, red-haired footman standing with four others dressed in the same elegant blue and gold livery. Ben Flynn, she assumed, though considering Lucy’s glowing description, she found him something of a disappointment. He was nowhere near as handsome as Theo. She sighed. But then, who was. In spite of herself, she felt a shiver of excitement just thinking about seeing the arrogant man who at their last meeting had declared she belonged to him and always would.

A stiff-necked butler, who bore a strong resemblance to the one employed by Lady Hermione, met her at the door. Quickly dispatching Lucy to the servants’ hall, he escorted Maeve to where the guests had gathered in the drawing room awaiting their dinner.

“Miss Margaret Barrington,” he announced and stepped aside to let her enter the doorway. A quick look around told her there were thirty or more people gathered in small groups about the elegant room. One minute they were all talking at once; the next there was dead silence as all eyes turned to her.

Here and there Maeve recognized a face she’d seen at the ball, but no one to whom she’d actually spoken. She wondered how many of these strangers would expect Meg to address them by name; how many would expect her to inquire about their children or their elderly relatives. A sick kind of panic started at her toes and worked its way upward through her rigid body.

Her heart thudded against her rib cage with such force her bosom nearly popped out of her daring neckline, and glancing downward, she found, to her horror, that her trembling knees had started the narrow skirt of her gown rippling like the surface of a pond in a windstorm.

“Stop it!” she ordered herself. “This is exactly how the dowager was hoping you’d act.” With every last ounce of courage she possessed, she raised her head and found Richard Forsythe hurrying toward her from one corner of the room, Theo from another. Richard reached her first. “Margaret, my dear, why didn’t you tell me Theo had invited you to this dinner. I would have escorted you.”

“Hell and damnation, Richard, give me credit for
some
brains.” Sparks of anger glittered in Theo’s black eyes. “If I’d known she was coming, I’d have escorted her myself.”

Maeve felt her cheeks flame. “You didn’t expect me?”

Theo smiled. “No, dear lady, I didn’t. But how pleasant to see you again.” Clasping her hand in his, he raised it to his lips.

“Oh dear, I’m afraid this awkward moment is all my fault.” The dowager glided toward them, an elegant black bird of prey whose talons were barely sheathed. “With all I had to do to prepare for this evening, I completely forgot to tell Theo I’d invited you and your father.”

Her pale brows drew together in a frown. “But where is the squire? I’ve told the duke so much about him, his grace is most anxious to meet him.”

“My father became ill at the last minute. He sends his sincere regrets,” Maeve said. So, the dowager’s houseguest was a duke, no less. How disappointing for her that one of the two clowns she’d counted on for entertainment had failed to appear. The countess shrugged her elegant black-clad shoulders.

“Ah well, I suppose such social infractions must be expected when one is dealing with the lower classes. A man of title would have risen from his death bed rather than throw his hostess’s seating arrangement into chaos.”

“Think of it this way, Mother,” Theo said grimly. “In two, possibly three, more months Meg will be mistress of Ravenswood and such problems as seating arrangements will be hers to solve. While you, my lady, can retire to the peace and solitude of the dower house for your remaining days.”

Turning his back on his mother, he clasped Maeve’s hand in his and placed it atop his arm. “Now, my dear, allow me to introduce you to our guest of honor.” So saying, he led her across the room to the group of men from which he’d detached himself but moments before.

Maeve felt the dowager’s angry blue eyes boring holes into her back. Theo’s cruel set-down had drained every last drop of color from the woman’s face, leaving Maeve with the impression that until that moment, she had believed she would remain the mistress of Ravenswood even after her son’s marriage. No wonder she had approved of a timid little mouse as her daughter-in-law.

Maeve glanced over her shoulder. The dowager still stood in the same spot, her chalk-white face twisted into an ugly mask of rage. Richard hovered beside her, looking utterly miserable and unprepared to handle the embarrassing situation in which he found himself.

Only a handful of the guests had actually witnessed the imbroglio between the Earl and his mother, but Maeve could hear the telltale whispers spreading from group to group all around her. All things considered, she wasn’t certain if she felt more grateful or guilty over Theo’s staunch defense of her.

She clutched at his arm and his taut muscles rippled beneath her fingers. “My lord…Theo, she is your mother,” she managed in a hoarse whisper.

“And you are the woman I have chosen as my wife. She will treat you with the respect due you or answer to me.” Theo’s black eyes still snapped with anger. “I promise you, you will never again be subjected to one of her clever maneuvers to embarrass you or your father.”

A powerful wave of guilt swept through Maeve. She didn’t want Theo to care about her bruised feelings; she didn’t want him to champion her against his mother. She was the worst kind of fraud and the last person in the world to deserve his loyalty.

“I don’t want to cause trouble between you and your mother,” she protested, gripping his arm with numb fingers.

“Don’t worry.” A note of sadness crept into Theo’s voice. “The trouble was there long before you entered the scene.”

He came to a sudden halt and instantly his somber demeanor changed to that of the genial, smiling host. “May I present my uncle, the Viscount Tinsdale,” he said, indicating the elegant dandy who had stepped directly in front of them. “My betrothed, Miss Margaret Barrington, my lord.”

“Charmed,” the viscount said and raised her fingers to his lips, but his cold blue eyes, so like his sister’s, swept her with a look of utter contempt.

She felt Theo stiffen beside her, but with obvious effort, he held his temper. “And this, my dear, is our guest of honor, the Duke of Kent,” he said moving on to the portly, balding man standing a few feet beyond the viscount.

Maeve’s heart skipped a beat. She had met this petty tyrant who was the fourth son of Mad King George on two different occasions. She prayed her change of hairdo and wardrobe would render her unrecognizable to him.

Lily and he had had a brief affair shortly after he’d been recalled from Gibraltar in disgrace when the troops under his command had threatened to mutiny over his harsh discipline and endless obsession with petty detail. But the liaison was doomed from the onset. Lily led too harum-scarum a life to suit a man as meticulous and precise as the duke, and he was too tight fisted for a spendthrift like her. He soon returned to the arms of his longtime mistress, Madame St. Laurent.

“I am honored, your grace,” Maeve said once Theo had completed his introductions. Smiling warmly, she dipped into the graceful court curtsy Lily had insisted she perfect.

The duke raised his quizzing glass and surveyed her with obvious curiosity. “Why do I have the feeling we’ve met before, Miss Barrington?”

“I have a very ordinary face, your grace.”

“Nonsense. No woman with such eyes could be called ordinary.” He raised an eyebrow. “Ah yes, that’s it. Your eyes. They remind me of those of someone I once knew. Oddly enough, I just recently learned of her death.” He returned his quizzing glass to the waistcoat pocket from which he’d drawn it. “Extraordinary. Most extraordinary.”

Maeve breathed a sigh of relief for her unremarkable face and for the duke’s snobbery, which could never equate the daughter of one of the demimonde with an earl’s betrothed.

Dinner at Ravenswood was a lengthy affair beginning with a delicate turtle soup, progressing through a fish course of turbot and lobster, a fowl course consisting of both goose and turkey, sweetbreads, eggs in aspic, roasted lamb, pork and beef, five different vegetables each with its own rich sauce, two ices, three custards and a
macédoine
of fruit—with sherry, Madeira and champagne served throughout.

Maeve nibbled at the plethora of food the footmen served her, took a sip of champagne and did her best to pretend she was enjoying herself. She was seated too far from the head of the table to hear the conversation between the Earl and his guest of honor and too far from the foot to hear the angry confidence she could see the dowager was sharing with her brother.

In short, she was in that nebulous area reserved for the guests of least consequence known as “below the salt.” Another public insult to the future Countess of Lynley at the hands of the dowager. Maeve found herself momentarily wishing she truly was the future countess. She would dearly love to pay the spiteful old woman back with some of her own.

At the moment, however, she felt sadly out of place. Neither the gentleman on her left nor the one on her right appeared the least bit interested in conversation. She felt certain the dowager had chosen her future daughter-in-law’s dinner companions with infinite care. Which left Maeve to sit in silence, bored to flinders and straining to hear what was said around her.

Most of it was simply idle chitchat, but to her surprise, she heard the name “Marcus Browne” arise in a conversation directly across the table from her. The speaker was a rather haughty fellow who had earlier been introduced as “the Duke of Kent’s amanuensis.” Maeve instantly perked up her ears. It was always fascinating to hear what the
ton
thought of her work.

“The fellow goes too far,” the duke’s secretary declared. “If the publishers of the Times were the responsible citizens they purport to be, they would ban his licentious cartoons. Why he has actually dared to attack the very foundation of our society—the Royal Family. If one were to take his series of drawings depicting the royal dukes seriously, one might come to the conclusion they were naught but a collection of mindless buffoons.”

His dinner companion gave a grunt of agreement. “Shocking business that. Though I must admit I was at a loss to understand the drawing of the Duke of Kent. That word the cartoonist wrote above it was most puzzling.”

“That ‘word’ had everyone in London rushing to the library to hunt it up in Dr. Johnson’s dictionary—myself included,” the secretary said. “It and the blasted cartoon it captioned was all anyone in London could talk about for months on end.”

“But what did it mean?” his companion asked.

“It was listed as one of the longest words in the English language, but the meaning was simply ‘the estimation of something as valueless’.”

“Aha! Now I understand. Egad, the fellow really is clever.”

“Clever?” The secretary stared down his long, narrow nose at the fool uttering such blasphemy. “The cartoon was clearly a vicious attempt to exacerbate the minor misunderstanding between his grace and the Prince Regent.”

Maeve chuckled to herself. It was a well known fact that Prinny and his brother, the Duke of Kent, cordially hated each other and constantly disagreed both privately and publicly.

She had drawn the fussy duke bent over a model of Prinny’s incredibly expensive and controversial Brighton Pavilion, examining it through a magnifying glass. Across the top of the cartoon she had printed the word
Floccinaucinihilipilification
.

The cartoon had launched her career. She’d had letters of congratulation from such luminaries of the world of political cartooning as James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and the young genius George Cruikshank whose cartoons appeared in both
The Satirist
and
Town Talk
—all of whom had assumed, of course, that she was a man.