The Maiden At Midnight (2 page)

‘I believe I can turn myself around and put
on a passable front,’ Joss managed a wry smile, ‘I might need to
take on something other than wine, however. I’m contemplating
downing some ratafia.’

‘My dear boy!’

‘Or some lemonade. I need a clear head if
I’m going to woo the girl.’

‘Excellent plan,’ Harry said heartily.
‘Sober up and woo the girl. You cannot fail.’

‘Go on home, Harry,’ Joss grinned, ‘and
sleep it off. You’ve had rather more than your quota tonight, old
boy. I’m the one who drinks himself under the table.’

‘I am a little foxed,’ Harry admitted, then
gave a jaw cracking yawn. ‘See you tomorrow?’

‘Sure to. Old Beazle has that card party
don’t he?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Well then.’

Harry hesitated for a moment longer, then
clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Good hunting.’

Joss watched Harry weave his way carefully
down the steps that led to the floor below. They had taken refuge
in the minstrel’s gallery on their arrival, the better to observe
the proceedings. Joss turned his attention back to the slender
figure below and gave a grim smile.

It seemed that he would have to proceed with
his plan alone.

How liberating it was to wear a mask,
Isabella Hathaway reflected from the edge of the dance floor as she
watched the twirling bodies dance to the strains of a minuet. How
terribly restful it was, not to be known by those around her.

It had not been a particularly restful
twelve months for Isabella or her family, what with her father’s
untimely – and scandalous – death, her broken engagement and,
perhaps the most dreadful of all, her brother Marcus missing in
Belgium during one of the endless skirmishes that were being fought
with the French. The loss of her brother had been the biggest blow
of all for at least Papa’s death and Willett’s defection had been
tangible. Quantifiable. But Marcus had simply… disappeared. They
had heard nothing and the months had passed by until it became
apparent that they probably never would. How many soldiers lay
unclaimed on the battlefields of the Continent? The strain on the
family, so soon after Papa’s dreadful demise, had been heavy
indeed. Mama still looked like a wraith, while her poor sisters,
Audrey and dearest Millie…

Isabella sighed and deliberately made
herself think about something else. Practice had made her quite
good at turning her wayward thoughts in another direction. With
months of misery behind her, it was time to look ahead.
Unfortunately, her ‘ahead’ was fraught with its own problems.

This masquerade ball was only the forth
event of the London Season she had attended since her family had
emerged from mourning. Her first, a dance at Lady Fennimore’s
townhouse in Berkley Square, had been the equivalent of her coming
out. Everybody had been most kind, of course but she knew that they
were whispering about the first appearance of the eldest Hathaway
girl. Unfortunately her history was well known – her engagement to
Lord Willett Proctor had been announced in the paper two months
before her father’s death – and the broken engagement had surely
caused a stir. Not that she had thought of that, not back in
Wiltshire where she had been inured as much by grief as geography.
London had been a long way away and she had not cared a whit what
others might be saying. But here… well, it was all different now,
of course.

One could not afford to ignore the opinions
of Society, be they good or otherwise.

At that first dance her mama had accompanied
her – her sister had cried off, claiming a headache – and Isabella
had known that she was under scrutiny. The daughter of Lord Gideon
Hathaway who had taken the gentleman’s way out when his finances
had run irreparably aground, swallowed by insurmountable gambling
debts. The townhouse had been sold, along with the estate in
Wiltshire. They had managed to retain a far smaller house that had
been occupied by an aged aunt who had died several years before and
it was to this that they had retreated. It was a far cry from what
they had all been used to but Isabella had assumed it would be
temporary. She and Willett would be married and they would live
with him at Passmore Hall when her period of mourning was over.

But Willett had found her change of
circumstances to be an unbearable impediment to marriage. He had
become engaged to Isabella Hathaway, the eldest daughter of a
well-respected lord. He had not married a penniless miss whose
parent had died in unfortunate circumstances, leaving the debtors
to nip at the family’s heels. Isabella had tried very hard not to
blame him but it had been a blow that had shaken her to her very
foundations.

So there they were, without recourse. Now
Isabella needed to make a successful match if her family was to
rise out of the genteel poverty they had slid into. For poverty,
she had rapidly discovered, had absolutely nothing to recommend it.
If Audrey and Millie were to make fortuitous marriages, she herself
had to pave the way.

But oh dear, she did
not
like
London.

At that first dance she had been dreadfully
conscious of the attention her appearance garnered, reflecting that
she might just as well have arrived with a troupe of mummers,
jugglers and a host of acrobats for she felt as conspicuous as a
travelling circus show. Heavens only knew what Society had made of
her that first meeting, for she had barely spoken all night,
concerned that she would say the wrong thing with dreadful
consequences, thus dooming her chances before they’d properly had
the chance to flourish. At home she had a reputation for being
forthright, something her parents had not thought to reprimand her
for, although various governesses had found her tendency towards
blunt honesty to be a serious character flaw. Since arriving in the
capital she had kept her responses to colorless pleasantries.
Rather ironically, her silence had apparently made a good
impression for Mama had told her afterwards that she had been
thought entirely charming. A quiet, demure debutante whose downcast
eyes had been taken as a most becoming shyness.

It was all nonsense, of
course for she was neither quiet
nor
demure (and most certainly not
shy) but apparently if people considered one reserved, they were
inclined to be gentle. And Isabella could not object to gentle at
this juncture of her life.

Instinctively, her eyes sought her mother
and her sister through the crowd but it was impossible to see them.
Too many people, milling about. While generally she preferred
quiet, for once she did not mind the crowd. She felt safe behind
the red domino that concealed all but the bottom half of her face.
She had already decided, earlier in the night, that English society
would be so much nicer if one could not identify who it was one was
dealing with. No endless worry about saying the wrong thing to some
prickly lord or lady. No expectations at all, apart from the common
courtesies. With a mask concealing her identity, she was liberated.
Yes indeed, she thought wistfully, if every social event were a
masquerade, it would make the Season so much more bearable.

Isabella was in London for
the same reason that every other young miss of marriageable age was
there. She was out to make a Suitable Match. Unfortunately, failure
was not an option, nor was retreat, no matter how much she might
wish to. It was time to
do
something. Unwilling to face the strain of
returning to the public eye – or making Isabella face it – her
mother had remained in Wiltshire for as long as possible. They had
the perfectly valid excuse as they had been observing a year of
mourning, of course but in the end, straightened circumstances had
overcome their reluctance. Food did not materialize from nowhere,
nor clothing or the basic necessities of life. With this in mind,
Eliza Hathaway had imposed upon her sister to provide a home for
them in London. Fortunately Aunt Geraldine had married very well
and even more fortunately, she was a widow with time on her hands
for her son was fully grown and had his own establishment. She had
agreed to help her sister’s daughters make eligible matches
although she had warned Isabella privately that she could not hope
for
too
much even
with her undoubted good looks, for most men did not fancy taking on
a scandal.

‘It’s the sad truth of it,’ she’d sighed,
‘which is a very great pity. If Hathaway hadn’t been a fool, I
daresay you could have had a duke.’

‘Are there many dukes for the taking?’
Isabella had asked wryly.

‘Of course not. That is why it would have
been a triumph. Although,’ Aunt Geraldine had frowned, ‘there are a
number of fair beauties around this Season. The Ferris girl –
although you easily outshine her – and the Piedmont heiress. But
she’s so frightfully rich that I daresay she will be off the market
in no time.’

‘Does it matter if there is more than one
blonde?’

‘But of course! If one is an Original it
quite crushes the competition.’

It was conversations like that that made
Isabella dread social interaction. Although she was fairly sure
that, with her history she was sure to be considered an
original!

So there it was. With a stellar match out of
the question due to her circumstances, she was hoping for at least
a respectable one. The previous evening had seen a flock of likely
men crowd around her, full of admiration. For some reason, Isabella
was reminded of a wolf pack scenting blood. It hadn’t been a
particularly comforting image but then, she was inclined to be
gloomy just at the present.

Safe behind the insulating properties of her
mask, Isabella felt herself relax a little. ‘One must never appear
to be conceited or standoffish, dearest.’ Her mother had said.
‘People do take against others so and with your looks, you’re sure
to generate some spite.’

But, as nobody knew who she was she could be
as standoffish as she fancied.

Comfortably backed up
against a wall, her eyes drifted up to gaze at the solitary figure
sitting in the minstrel’s gallery. The house was very old, built in
Tudor times and it had many quite fascinating touches, including
the great columns, fashioned in the Grecian style that graced the
enormous ballroom. Earlier, she had spied the two figures sitting
up there, surveying the crowd. Two gentlemen without masks or
dominos, she’d noted. Now there was only one, the fair-haired man
and it appeared he was looking right back at her. She was mistaken,
of course. Isabella knew that it was highly unlikely that he would
actually be
looking
at her, what with the crush of people about. For a moment, she
found herself wishing that she were up there with him, away from
the crush. She wished some personable, pleasant young man was
sitting beside her, making amusing conversation. She wished that it
would not matter that she was a Hathaway. And that he would not
walk away when he discovered she was…

She sighed, suddenly homesick for the
comfortable obscurity of the shabby house they had lived in for the
past year. It had become something of a sanctuary, a place to hide
away from the gossip and the stares, even as she fretted about
Marcus. If her brother had not been lost, then she knew that things
would have been very different. Somehow, they would have found a
means to come about. But his commander had written a sympathetic
letter to Mama which had finally convinced them that there was no
longer any point in hoping and she knew she was a fool to still
dwell on it.

For a moment Isabella stood
teetering on the thin line of misery that had dogged her every
waking moment ever since she had heard about her brother, one toe
hovering on the edge of internal darkness. His disappearance was
the one thing that always threatened to topple her over the edge
but she was learning to push it away. She was nineteen years of age
and, apparently, had her whole future ahead of her. Before the
trials that had beset the Hathaways she had been happy enough. It
had been a different kind of happiness, of course, the kind that
made assumptions of what the future would bring. But there was no
reason to believe she would not discover another kind of happiness.
Or, if not
happiness
, then at least content with what she might make of her life.
If only she could find a rich, pleasant, easy-going husband who did
not ask too much of her. She did not require love, merely
amiability.

It was early days yet, but
she wondered how many of the men who had flittered around, sniffing
on the outskirts would really come up to scratch when the time
came. She fervently hoped that it would not be Lord Halfpenny who
had deigned to take an avid – one could almost say, a lascivious –
interest in her the night before. Surely the widower could not be
serious about making her a
second
Lady Halfpenny? He must be five and sixty if he
was a day and he was
hideous
, even if he were as rich as
Croesus. Surely Mama must say no, if he did decide that Isabella
would make a suitable adornment on his arm?

They weren’t
that
desperate. Were
they?

Isabella twisted her head
to glance at the elegant carriage clock that had been set upon a
small ledge just above her left shoulder. It wanted but fifteen
minutes to midnight. When one attended a masquerade it was usual to
wait until midnight for the unmasking but she wondered if she could
persuade Mama and Audrey to leave a little sooner. She did not want
to be unmasked. Rather ridiculously under the circumstances, as
this
was
the
actual point of a masquerade.