Castle of Secrets (21 page)

She attempted
to side step past him, but he stepped to the side as well.

‘Why so hasty?
I have a proposition to put to you, one that would be worth you listening to.
You don’t have to go around in old rags, you could have something new and
pretty to wear.’ He plucked at the sleeve of her thick woollen gown. ‘Not
something coarse like this, but something made of silk, or satin. Something
bright, like a butterfly. You could have jewels at your throat and a bracelet
on your wrist.’

He stroked her
arm as he said it. She shuddered, and pulled it away.

‘I am
satisfied with what I have,’ she said quellingly.

‘Oh, no, not
satisfied
.
You don’t know what it is to be
satisfied
,’ he said suggestively. ‘But I
can teach you. You’d be a good student, I’ll be bound.’

‘I must go,’
said
Helena
. ‘I am needed to give
instructions to the maids. I will be missed.’

‘Not for a few
minutes you won’t, and a few minutes is all it takes for you to earn a golden
guinea.’

He took one
out of his pocket and held it up in front of her.

She was
enraged. It was bad enough that he should think the sight of gold would dazzle
her and it was a hundred times worse that he should think one guinea should
suffice to buy her. The final insult was that he would think she would earn
money in that way in the first place.

‘Get out of my
way,’ she said, all politeness gone.

‘So you’re a
woman of passion,’ he said, bending forward to whisper in her ear. His breath
was hot and wet and made her shudder. ‘I like that. But I can teach you how to
channel that passion in other, more exciting ways, and I can teach you how to
earn money from it as well. There’s a guinea for you now, and another one when
you come to my room tonight. Or would you rather have a lesson here?’

She pushed
past him and ran into the hall, losing herself quickly in the crowd of guests.
She glanced in the mirror hanging on the wall and saw no sign of him having
followed her, so she put the incident behind her and went upstairs. She made
her way to the empty bedchamber and then closed and locked the door behind her.
She was suddenly nervous. If she went through with her plan - if she dressed up
and went to the ball - then she would probably lose her position if she was
discovered. But if she did not, then she might never find out what had happened
to her aunt.

She slipped
off her dress, feeling the cold bite of the air as her limbs were exposed. She
almost wished she had ordered a fire lit in the room. But no, it was better
this way, for with its abandoned air, the room had not attracted any unwelcome
guests: young ladies retreating from the noise, or couples keeping secret
assignations.

Quickly she
took off her petticoats and donned the red velvet dress. As it whispered down
over her skin, she felt herself taking on a new persona, and as she put on the
wig and fastened the mask over her eyes she thought to herself that it was a
disguise within a disguise: the medieval lady was a disguise for Mrs Reynolds,
and Elizabeth Reynolds was a disguise for Helena Carlisle. She put on a pair of
shoes with red high heels that had been in the tea chest with the dress, and
then put on the hat.

Even Aunt
Hester would not know me now
, she thought.

She opened the
door and the sound of music became louder. Voices rose up from below,
chattering and laughing. She went along the corridor and down the stairs,
keeping to the shadows so as not to draw attention to herself. As she
descended, she cast her eyes over all the people. Kings and queens, monks and
fairies, knights and ladies all mingled together, filling the sombre castle
with their brilliance. Masks covered their faces, some no larger than was
necessary to cover their eyes, some obscuring their entire heads.

Everywhere she
looked she saw illusion, as people pretended to be something they were not. And
then she saw Lord Torkrow, black against the dazzling background. He disdained
pretence, and proclaimed to the world who he was. His face was unmasked. He was
something real and solid in the sea of disguise. His strong features were shown
off by the candlelight, and it created light and shade in patterns across his
face. It was like his character, she thought, a perplexing mix of light and
shade.

‘
Champagne
?’ came a respectful voice
at her side.

It was
Dawkins. She stiffened, afraid he might recognise her, but his face was
impassive. She took a glass and he moved on. She felt her confidence grow. She
moved through the room with ease, as though it was her right to be there,
sipping her champagne. But her new-found security vanished when, going into the
ballroom some five minutes later, she saw Lord Torkrow walking towards her. He
was not looking at her, though, and after briefly faltering she continued, but
as she drew level with him, his eyes flicked to hers, and she knew a moment of
panic. Her pulse escalated still further when he stopped and looked at her
curiously, as if trying to remember where he had seen her before. Then he said:
‘May I have the pleasure of this dance?’

She searched
her mind for an excuse, but before she could think of one he had taken her hand
and led her on to the floor.

There was a
stir of interest around them. The opening chords of the dance sounded, and
Helena
swept a curtsey. The
dress made the action extravagant, and she was beginning to find the evening
stimulating. She had never been to a ball before, and the sounds and scents
were intoxicating.

Opposite her,
Lord Torkrow bowed. She seemed to be seeing him more clearly than usual, as
though the stimulation of her other senses had stimulated her sight as well.
The deep-set eyes, the high cheekbones, the pointed chin all drew her eye. He
was not handsome, and yet she found his features strangely compelling, and her
gaze roved over his face, taking it in.

They began to
dance. As they walked towards each other,
Helena
felt a shiver of anticipation as
their hands touched each other in a star. They separated, and she found herself
looking forward to the next contact. They repeated the measure and came
together again.

‘I don’t
believe I know you,’ said Lord Torkrow, looking at her curiously.

Helena
did not reply.

‘Are you a
friend of Miss Cartwright’s?’

She smiled and
shook her head.

‘Then a cousin
of Mr Kerson?’

Again she
shook her head.

The dance
parted them, and she was relieved to be away from him. So far, she had answered
all his questions with a nod or a shake of the head, but there would be other
questions, more difficult to answer.

When they came
together again, he asked: ‘Will you be staying in the neighbourhood long?’

She shook her
head.

‘Do you never
speak?’ he asked, his voice intrigued.

She shook her
head again.

‘
Can
you speak?’

She felt a
vibration in the air, as though the very effort to hold him away from her was
setting up a resonance in the atmosphere. He seemed to feel it too. The music
faded into the background and the chatter died away. She forgot the other
dancers existed. She was aware of only the two of them, and everything else was
a blur. She saw that his eyes were not brown as she had thought, but were
flecked with different colours, gold and green, and his lashes were long and
thick. She was aware of his scent, deep and masculine, and she shivered every
time he took her hand, for there were no gloves with her costume, nor did he
wear them, and the feel of his skin on hers was intoxicating. The music came to
an end, but she was scarcely aware of it, and remained standing opposite him,
connected to him by an invisible thread.

It was only
when a dowager bumped into her that she was recalled to her surroundings, and
felt as though she had awakened from a dream. The chatter returned, and the people,
and she was once more in the ballroom with all the guests.

She remembered
why she had entered into the masquerade, reminding herself that, once she had
found out what had happened to her aunt, she would have to leave the castle,
and she was conscious of a strange reluctance to discover the truth.

‘This is a
wonderful ball,’ came a voice she recognised, and she found that Miss Fairdean
had joined them. Miss Fairdean had placed herself between Helena and Lord
Torkrow. Recalled to her senses,
Helena
took the opportunity to slip away. She went into the supper
room, feeling disquieted, and still feeling the after effects of the dance as,
in the early mornings, she remembered the lingering traces of her dreams.

She shook her
head, in an effort to shake it away.

She found
herself standing next to a gentleman dressed in a brightly-coloured harlequin’s
costume. It was  made from diamonds of red, yellow and blue cloth, and it had a
matching mask, with a red diamond over his left eye and a yellow diamond over
his right.

‘Good evening,
Harlequin,’ said a woman dressed in a gown of white feathers.

‘Evening,
Mistress Swan,’ he said. ‘Or should I say Mrs Cranfield?’

She fluttered
her fan and giggled.

Then his eyes
drifted to
Helena
. ‘And who are you, m’
beauty?’ he asked, as he turned to look at her.

Despite his
juicy relish in calling her “m’beauty”,
Helena
sensed no harm in him and replied
laughingly: ‘I am not allowed to tell.’

‘Ah! I’ve
caught you out, Miss Garson,’ he said, as he took a bite of a chicken leg.

‘Not Miss
Garson,’ said another gentleman close by. ‘Miss Garson’s dressed as the Queen
of Sheba. I saw her earlier.’

‘Not Miss
Garson?’ said the Harlequin.

‘No, sir, and
please, don’t guess any further,’ said
Helena
.

‘All will be
revealed at
midnight
, eh?’ he said.

‘It will,’ she
agreed. ‘Until then, we must enjoy ourselves. The castle is looking splendid.
When his lordship’s housekeeper disappeared, I feared his lordship would not go
ahead with the ball.’

‘That’d have
been a pity. I wouldn’t be here, talking to you, now, would I?’

‘Do you know
what happened to her?’ asked
Helena
.

‘Who? Miss
Garson?’ he asked, with another chicken leg half way to his mouth.

‘No. His
lordship’s housekeeper.’

‘His
lordship’s housekeeper?’ he said with a roar of laughter. ‘How should I know? I
don’t keep a watch on his servants, m’pretty!’

‘I was hoping
to employ her,’ said a woman standing next to him, who was dressed as a
milkmaid. Her hat was askew and her dress was bunched up at one side. ‘If she
can keep a castle clean, she can manage my manor. You cannot imagine how hard
it is to find good servants. My last housekeeper left after a week, saying the
moors preyed on her nerves. I said to her: “They prey on all our nerves, but we
don’t give in to it. We stiffen our backbones.” But it was no good. She didn’t
listen. Said she wanted to go back to
Nottingham
and left the following morning. No staying power,
that’s what’s wrong with servants these days.’

‘Do you know
where his lordship’s housekeeper went?’ asked
Helena
.

‘I wish I did.
I can’t ask his lordship, I don’t want him to think I’m the sort of woman who
goes about taking other people’s servants. But if I find out, I will offer her
double her present wage to come to me.’

‘That’s the
spirit!’ said Harlequin.

‘Sir Hugh
Greer? Is that you?’ asked the milkmaid, peering at him.

‘Give us a
kiss and I’ll tell you!’ he said.

‘It is you!’
she said. ‘I thought I recognised the voice. Such behaviour from a justice of
the peace.’

‘Not a justice
tonight,’ he said jovially. ‘I’m Harlequin, and Harlequin doesn’t deal with
trouble, he makes it!’

He lunged
good-naturedly at the milkmaid, who picked up her skirts and, with a whoop of
laughter, ran off into the crowd, pursued by Sir Hugh.

Helena
was about to move on when
she heard a voice at her shoulder and froze as she realised Lord Torkrow had
found her.

‘If I didn’t
know better, I would think you were running away from me,’ he said.

She could not
avoid speaking to him for ever, but she hoped that the noise of the room would
disguise her voice. Even so, she deliberately pitched it lower than usual.

‘Perhaps I
was,’ she said.

‘Are you
afraid of me?’ he asked, his eyes looking into her face as though he could see
through the mask and discover her identity.

‘No,’ she
replied.

‘Then you are
unusual,’ he said. ‘Everyone else here is.’