The Madcap Masquerade (5 page)

Grimly, she placed her hand on her father’s arm, entered the massive carved doors of the imposing Elizabethan mansion and climbed the broad staircase to the ballroom.

“Remember to keep yere eyes looking at the floor and yere mouth shut like Meg would’ve done,” the squire whispered in between boisterous greetings to his fellow squires who, with their wives, had turned out
en masse
for the Earl’s ball.

At long last he stopped before what appeared, from Maeve’s limited view, to be a greeting line. At least all the toes were side-by-side and pointing in her direction. “Well now, yere lordship, ain’t this a grand party ye’re having and ain’t I happy to be invited,” the squire bellowed, clasping an elegantly gloved hand which extended from a black satin sleeve edged with a frill of exquisite silver lace. Maeve raised her eyes a fraction and blinked, awed by the magnificent diamond gleaming from the snowy folds of an intricately tied cravat. For a man reported to be in dun territory, the earl certainly managed to project an appearance of great wealth.

“The pleasure is mine, sir,” a rich melodic voice answered. “Doubly so since your lovely daughter has accompanied you.”

“Yes, well she don’t often look as good as she does tonight in that green thing me friend, Hermione, bought her, but she’ll do, if ye like ‘em kind of skinny and shy like.”

“Which I believe, by my recent offer, I have already demonstrated I do,” the melodic voice declared.

“Hear that, Meg? Didn’t I tell ye things would be right as rain?” The squire gave Maeve a hearty slap on the back, which nearly sent her sprawling at their host’s feet. “Enjoy yerself, daughter. I think I’ll join me hunting cronies in the card room. We’ve next month’s hunt to plan and now’s as good a time as any.”

“But you can’t just leave me on my own,” Maeve cried snatching at his sleeve. But to no avail. He was already beyond her reach.

The elegant gloved hand reached out to clasp Maeve’s and raise it to what she could see through her lashes was a wide, expressive mouth. “Don’t be alarmed, Miss Barrington, the voice purred. “I shall see you are provided with an escort.”

She could stand it no longer. She had to see for herself the face of this velvet-tongued rake who struck terror in the heart of her twin sister. Lifting her head, she found herself staring into a pair of all too familiar bold, black eyes. “You!” she gasped without thinking.

“I’m delighted to see you too, Miss Barrington, and so soon after our last, somewhat unusual meeting,” the Earl of Lynley said in a pleasant, conversational tone of voice. But to Maeve’s way of thinking, he looked very much like a great black panther viewing the victim he’d just selected as his next kill.

M
aeve snatched her hand from the earl’s. Even through her gloves, and his, she felt the heat of his fingers. The same knowing smile that had infuriated her that morning crossed his arrogant face, and the realization that he understood exactly what effect his touch had on her caused an embarrassing flush to creep up her neck and across her cheeks.

She felt gripped by a strange combination of loathing and fascination for this elegant, perfumed dandy in whose black eyes she glimpsed a spark of laughter. Nothing about him hinted at a man who liked to work his fields as a common laborer. Yet he obviously did, and the combination of the two personas presented a tantalizing puzzle to someone who was a student of human nature. She found herself wondering how she would draw him if she ever decided to include him in one of her cartoons.

“I look forward to dancing with you later, Miss Barrington.” The sound of the earl’s voice snapped Maeve back into reality, making her realize she must stop her wool-gathering about the enigmatic fellow. She was supposed to be playing the part of her twin—and Meg had run from him in terror.

Lowering her gaze as she imagined Meg would have done, she stammered something to the effect that she, too, looked forward to dancing with him. Then, with a sigh of relief, she moved on to the tall woman standing beside him in the receiving line, whom she felt certain must be his mother.

The Dowager Countess was apparently still in mourning for her late husband. Austere, but elegant, in a high-necked, long-sleeved, black silk gown, she had the same look of supreme arrogance as her son. Maeve decided it must be a family trait. But where the earl was as dark as one of Satan’s fallen angels, the dowager was a perfect fair-skinned, golden haired English aristocrat, whose beauty had dimmed but little with the advent of middle age.

Raising a jewel-encrusted lorgnette to her cold blue eyes, the dowager perused Maeve with the look of intense disapproval Lucy had predicted. “What an amazingly colorful gown, Miss Barrington,” she said in a voice as chilly as the Thames during a winter freeze. “I cannot remember ever having seen an unmarried woman wear that particular shade of green.”

Maeve’s hackles instantly rose, but she managed to reply demurely, “Thank you, my lady. I like it too.” To her surprise, she heard the earl give a snort of what sounded very much like laughter.

Two spots of angry color flared in the dowager’s pale cheeks, but she dismissed Maeve without further comment and turned her attention to the next guest in line.

Maeve immediately regretted her cheekiness. Even the countess’s acid comments were preferable to being cut adrift in a sea of strangers who expected her to know them on sight. Her father had obviously forgotten his promise to stay close beside her and whisper the name of anyone Meg should recognize. She should have known better than to rely on the wily old dodger.

Her only hope was to find the card room he’d mentioned and latch onto him for the balance of the evening. She cursed her small stature. Even on tiptoe, she couldn’t see over the heads of the many guests ringing the open dance floor.

“May I be of service, Margaret?” The voice belonged to a slender man of average height with kind gray eyes and an unruly thatch of light brown hair. Maeve vaguely remembered that her father had acknowledged him rather curtly when they’d passed him on the staircase leading to the ballroom.

“The crowd,” she murmured. “I can’t find my father.”

“Will I do as a substitute? Theo seemed to think I would.” He offered her his arm. “Why don’t we seek a quiet spot where we can sit out the first set? You know what a sorry dancer I am, and Theo won’t come looking to partner you until the second set because the countess will expect him to lead her out in the opening country dance.”

“Of course she will,” Maeve said, deducing the mysterious Theo must be the earl. But who was her kind rescuer?

She fanned herself briskly. “In answer to your suggestion, sir, I can think of nothing I’d rather do than find a quiet spot, preferably out on the terrace, where I can get a breath of fresh air.”

“Would that be wise, my dear? The terrace, I mean. I may be your vicar, but I am also a man. You could start tongues wagging if you are seen leaving the ballroom on the arm of one man shortly before your engagement to another is announced.”

“Let them wag,” Maeve said. Now that she knew who her escort was she felt amazingly secure.

She linked her arm with that of the vicar and smiled up at him. “My father once remarked that you were my only true friend. He was right, you know. The earl be hanged. I prefer your company to that of any other person in Kent—and I prefer seeking a breath of fresh air on the terrace to sweltering in this crowded ballroom.”

“Margaret!” The name sounded halfway between a reprimand and a prayer on the lips of the young vicar. “I shall escort you to the terrace for the fresh air you desire, but I shall do my best to forget I heard you say what you just said about preferring my company. I must. Theo has been like a brother to me since we were both in leading strings, and I owe him too much to ever betray him by the slightest hint of impropriety where his intended wife is concerned.” His earnest face twisted in pain, and it occurred to Maeve that he showed every sign of being hopelessly in love with her shy sister.

She wondered if Meg knew it; she wondered if she returned his love. She wondered if Meg’s feelings for the vicar had played a part in her decision to flee to Scotland. “Well, well! So the plot thickens,” she said to herself as she and the vicar wound their way around the perimeter of the crowd and stepped through the French doors onto the broad stone terrace.

Together, they strolled back and forth across the long, torch-lighted terrace in companionable silence. The vicar was the first to speak. “You seem different tonight, Margaret, as if your two weeks in London changed you somehow.”

“It’s this green gown,” Maeve said, instantly alert to the puzzled look in the eyes of this man who was Meg’s close friend. He, of all people, would be the most apt to recognize she was not who she pretended to be.

As if drawn by a magnet, the vicar’s gaze dropped to her revealing neckline. “No, it is not the gown. Though I confess it is not what I would have expected you to wear.” A thoughtful frown furrowed his brow. “It is more a matter of personality. You seem less timid, less withdrawn—less of everything I have come to expect of my shy little friend.”

Maeve laughed softly. “And something tells me you prefer the old Meg.”

“I was not implying criticism, Margaret. You will need a bit more spirit to survive—I mean to enjoy—marriage with Theo. He is a very exuberant fellow.” He stared straight ahead into the shadows beyond the low stone wall bordering the terrace. “It is just that I … that is …” He turned his head to regard her with agonized eyes. “Dear little friend, I cannot believe the key to your happiness lies in trying to be someone you are not. What you have always been is more than any man on earth deserves.”

Maeve ached for the earnest young vicar. She could see he had found his ideal woman in her shy sister, only to lose her to his noble benefactor—a man whose “exuberance” he feared would crush her gentle spirit. She longed to confide in him, but dared not, for Meg’s sake as well as her own. She felt tears of pity spring to her eyes and instinctively tightened her hold on his arm.

“Thank you for standing in for me with Miss Barrington, Richard.” The earl stepped out from behind a large potted plant as they approached the entrance to the ballroom.

Maeve and the vicar stopped dead in their tracks, startled by the sudden appearance of the man who had been uppermost in both their minds. “My pleasure, Theo,” the vicar said gravely.

The earl’s cold, obsidian eyes studied first Maeve’s face, then the vicar’s. “I hate to interrupt what is obviously a very serious and very personal discussion, but the usual collection of local antidotes is waiting breathlessly for you to make your choice of partners for the second country dance, Richard. It is to be the Roger de Coverly, if I am not mistaken.”

“Luckily one I can manage without too much difficulty,” the vicar said, quickly withdrawing his arm from Maeve’s grasp. He executed a rather stiff bow. “Adieu then, Margaret. I have enjoyed our quiet interlude.”

“As have I, Richard,” Maeve replied, inexplicably angered by the earl’s intense scrutiny. “It may well be the highlight of my evening.”

Head held high, she stepped forward to enter the ballroom, but the earl restrained her with a hand on her arm. “I, too, would like a quiet interlude with you, Miss Barrington.” His proprietary tone of voice made Maeve wonder if he was aware of the special friendship that existed between her sister and the kindly vicar. If she didn’t know the nature of his relationship with Meg, she’d swear the disagreeable fellow was jealous.

“It is time we became better acquainted,” he continued. “We can dance the next set, which I understand is a waltz.” He raised an eyebrow. “You do waltz?”

“I have never waltzed in public, my lord—only with my dance instructor.” Actually, it had been Lily’s dance instructor who had passed his time teaching Maeve the waltz, as well as a number of country dances, while he waited for the proverbially late Lily to appear for her lessons. Maeve smiled to herself. Wouldn’t the high and mighty earl be shocked if he knew her dance instructor’s clientele had consisted of London’s highest priced Cyprians.

“Tears for your vicar; smiles for your dance instructor. I had feared I would be bored with a country squire’s daughter, but I find your emotional mood swings quite fascinating, Miss Barrington,” the earl declared with the same insufferable arrogance with which he’d dismissed Richard. Maeve clenched her teeth as he caught her hand, tucked it into the crook of his arm and proceeded to lead her across the terrace and down the shallow stone steps into the moonlit garden.

“Where are you taking me, my lord?” she protested.

“Somewhere where we can be alone, away from prying eyes.”

“But why?”

“As I told you, I think we should become better acquainted, and what better way to do so than to share a kiss?”

“A kiss?” Maeve sputtered, unable to believe her ears.

“Exactly. And since I find an audience distracting, I think the Greek temple in the center of the garden will do nicely as the setting for our first taste of future intimacies.”

“How dare you assume you can take such liberties with me without my permission, you arrogant boor,” Maeve declared, struggling to withdraw her hand from his arm.

To no avail. The earl only tightened his hold. “I was under the impression you had given your permission, Miss Barrington, or so I was informed by your father. We are engaged, are we not?”

“Oh, that!” Maeve was an expert on the rules governing the “arrangements” between a courtesan and her protectors, but she knew nothing about engagements. None of Lily’s friends were the marrying kind. For all she knew, the earl was within his rights to expect a kiss from his betrothed. In the interest of maintaining her masquerade, she would simply have to grit her teeth and survive the ordeal.

“Very well, if you feel you must, I suppose one kiss will be all right,” she agreed in a solemn tone of voice.

Theo noted the look on Miss Barrington’s face. It was the same one he’d seen on the faces of raw recruits before their first taste of battle—part terror, part impatience to get it over and done with. Had he been wrong to suppose she’d had more experience with men than her father had led him to believe?

He drew her into the shadowy temple. “Have you ever been kissed, Miss Barrington?” he asked, turning her to face him.

“No,” she answered, and for some reason he couldn’t begin to explain, he believed her.

A glint of something akin to fear lingered in the depths of her eyes, but she raised her little pointed chin in a surprising show of defiance that he couldn’t help but admire. Her nerves might be taut as a wound-up top, but she didn’t resort to tears as most gently-reared women he knew would have done when faced with submitting to the demands of a man they distrusted as much as she obviously distrusted him. He had half a mind to call off the blasted experiment. He was not accustomed to having to work so hard to convince a woman to share a simple kiss; he was not certain the reward would justify the effort.

Don’t be a fool he chided himself. Start as you mean to go on. If she’s this squeamish about a kiss, imagine the trouble you could have consummating the marriage. Best you learn where you stand now, rather than after the vows are spoken.

Cupping her face with his two hands, he stared deep into her belligerent emerald eyes and felt a shock of awareness ripple through him. Foolishly, he’d let their unfortunate beginning convince him she was an insignificant, mousy kind of woman. He could see now she was anything but. In truth, she was a small green-eyed cat who would either purr with contentment or scratch a man’s eyes out if he rubbed her wrong.

Then why, he wondered, had she cringed from his touch the one and only time he’d called at Barrington Hall? And why had she turned into a hysterical watering pot when he’d offered for her?

A sudden thought struck him that just might explain the bewildering situation. It had to have been her time of the month. He’d known perfectly sane women to turn into certified Bedlamites when the flux was upon them.

That settled, he returned to the problem at hand. “It is only a kiss, Miss Barrington,” he said, treating her to the smile that had unlocked half the bedroom doors in Mayfair the last time he’d been on the prowl in London. Her grave expression didn’t change one iota.