Elisabeth Fairchild (25 page)

Beauford was left with the feeling that she took all light, hope and happiness with her. Unable to bring himself to pick up the waiting shovel, heart aching, chin set, he strode out of the stall, Bandit trailing at his heels.

Lord Brampton Beauford burst into his rented rooms calling for Gates. “I require a bath,” he ordered, when Gates showed himself, and added, “I also require a replacement coachman be found, and sent to Ursula Dunn’s residence.”

Gates calmly responded to his summons, as if not in the least surprised to see him. “Yes sir, how soon, sir?”

“Immediately.”

A tiny furrow troubled Gates’s brow. “A coachman might prove a trifle challenging to locate today, sir. Tonight, if you will recall, is the masquerade.”

“I am a-a-aware of that f-f-fact,” Beau snapped. “Is my costume ready?”

“But of course, sir. The difficulty lies in obtaining a replacement, sir, when all reliable coachmen have been engaged for many weeks in advance in preparation for this evening’s festivities.”

“Hmm,” Beauford stripped himself of his offal-stained attire.

Gates took up the clothes as they were removed, and held them at arm’s length. “Shall I burn them, sir?”

“As you wish,” Beau replied impatiently. He knew he could not leave Mrs. Dunn and the Misses Quinbys stranded. Not when it was so important to everyone concerned that they attend the masquerade. But, neither could he go on pretending to be the coachman he was not.

“Shall I ride to Lewes, sir, in search of a driver, as soon as your bath is prepared?”

“Excellent idea, Gates, but perhaps we may persuade Charley to play escort to the ladies tonight, and save you the trip. I do not think I should know how to go about donning my costume without your assistance.”

“You would seem to have done well enough these past two weeks, your Grace.” Gates sounded ever so slightly miffed.

Beau considered the morning’s confrontation with Nell. “Not as well as I would have liked,” he said softly. “I have been a fish out of water in many ways.”

Gates knew best when to hold his tongue. He prepared the bath, while Beauford, with no more than a towel wrapped about his torso, sorted through some of the mail on his desk. He was standing thus, half clad, and still stinking to high heaven, when Beatrix and her maid came into the apartments.

“Beau!” Beatrix shrieked, her hand fluttering over her eyes. “Whatever do you mean, standing there so nonchalantly, without a stitch on?” Crossing the room to greet him, she would have offered him a peck on the cheek, had not the stench turned her away, hand to nose. “My stars, but you do smell as if you should be drawing flies. Where in the world have you been, and why do you reek so?”

“Your bath, your grace,” Gates announced, as if on cue.

“I should a-a-ask what you are doing, camped out in my apartments, were my bath not cooling even as we speak,” Beau turned away from her questions.

Beatrix was not so easily put off. She trailed after him, stopping in tdoorway to the room where the tub was housed. “But, Brampton, you must tell me, or I shall die of curiosity. Where have you been? Do you know how very angry I am that you went off without so much as a word, when you knew I was bringing Aurora Quinby especially to meet you?”

Beauford took the towels Gates handed him. “You’re off to Charley’s then?”

“Right away, sir.”

“Excellent.”

Beatrix stamped her foot. “Brampton, I will not be put off. Tell me.”

“I knew you would be a-angry, Bea. I am sorry to have raised your fur. I a-am sorry too, for any inconvenience caused Miss Quinby. You will be p-pleased to hear that I have only just come from a flower stall, where I have ordered a large bouquet of roses to be sent ’round to the Miss Quinbys, along with a note of a-apology.”

“But, you still have not told me where you disappeared to, Brampton.”

Beau frowned at her. “I have been hunting, Bea. Now go a-away and let me bathe in peace.” He closed the door in her face and turned the key.

She did not go away, or allow him any peace. She banged on the door. “But, what were you hunting, Beau, at his time of year?” Her voice came muffled through stout oak.

Beau stripped off the towel and stepped into the bath with a sigh of pure pleasure. He had forgotten just how lovely hot water could be.

Beatrix rattled the doorknob. “Brampton!”

Beauford scowled at the door. She would never go away until her curiosity was sated. “I have been hunting peace and happiness, Bea. Do go a-a-away, or I shall be sorry I returned.”

A moment of silence fell. “Did you find any?” Her voice sounded strained.

“Any what?”

“Peace. Happiness, Brampton. Did you catch any on this silly hunt of yours?” Her voice sounded cross and quavery, on the verge of breaking down. “I have been worried sick about you.”

Beauford stopped lathering himself with the sandlewood soap he favored. She did not ask the question lightly.

“I miss him too, you know.” The voice on the far side of the door had taken on a childlike quality.

Guilt flooded Beau. Bea thought he sought peace and happiness solely because of their father’s passing. The soap slipped through his fingers. Funny, but that was exactly how this adventure had begun. He had almost forgotten. He fished about in the water for the soap.

“Terribly sorry to have troubled you by leaving no word as to my whereabouts. ’Twas unconscionably r-r-rude of me. I will not be so foolish again. I promise you.”

“I should think not.” The starch had returned to her voice.

“I will ring a peel over your head should you try.”

He heard her step away from the door, and then come back again. “Peace and happiness, Beau? Did you find any?”

Beau smiled wistfully. “I think I did, Bea. The trick will be to hold onto it. Tell me, do you mean to go to tonight’s masquerade?"

She sounded surprised he should ask. “Of course I do, and you must go too, for Miss Quinby will be there, and you can apologize to her, in person.”

Beau scrubbed at his face and hair with great determination. “My idea as well,” he said, before submerging himself. He meant to come clean in more ways than one, to both of the Miss Quinbys.

Chapter Eighteen

Fanella masqueraded her mood as much as her person that evening. She dressed as a butterfly, fragile, inconsequential, and blown, nay battered, by the wind of change, and yet, she seemed to possess none of the light-hearted joy with which a butterfly should be embodied. Her masquerade as Psyche felt dreadfully inappropriate. Heart heavy in refusing Mr. Ferd’s offer, Nell felt not at all inclined to float and flutter. She had not suffered such misery since her father’s passing.

Her heavy spirit was in no way lightened by the arrival of an enormous bouquet of roses and pinks, addressed to the Misses Quinby from none other than the Duke of Heste. Aurora squealed with delight on their delivery. Well she might, for in the included note, the duke apologized profusely for leaving London with such haste he had not the honor of meeting her.

Nell was not so easily impressed. The duke’s snub of Aurora was part and parcel of her reason for denying her own pursuit of happiness. Glaring at the flowers, Nell wondered if the blooms had come but a day earlier might she not make a happier butterfly tonight. She sighed, as if in sighing she might expel the sadness that bound her breast. She could not catch a glimpse of her outfit, without wincing. The cast off blue ball dress of her aunt’s, artfully transformed into the garb of a butterfly creature, was of the exact same shade of blue as Mr. Ferd’s eyes. The last thing she wanted to contemplate was the memory of those eyes. A shame not to enjoy her creation, but it could not but in every way remind her of what was now lost to her.

The bodice, in plush gray velvet, seemed as soft to her fingertips as Mr. Ferd’s lips on hers. She could not keep her hands from it. The costume had, from the very start, been her coachman’s suggestion. He had recommended she choose Psyche as her model for the masquerade ball on a day that seemed long ago now. Now, he would never see the pinch-pleated kingkob guaze shawl that draped her shoulders and tied at the wrist to look remarkably like wings, just as he had suggested. Mr. Ferd was gone, had taken himself off with what her aunt termed
mysterious haste
. Nell was not so mystified.

His leaving left her dreadfully unhappy, but no one would know it in looking at her. She masked her sorrow behind a smile, and stepped into her costume and then into the coach, and at last into the crowd along the Promenade, with convincing enthusiasm. Her aunt was fooled, her sister was fooled, even Mr. Tyrrwhit, who served as escort now that Mr. Ferd had vanished, would seem to be fooled.

Nell could not fool herself. The idea that she might never see Mr. Ferd again left her miserable. She did not blame him for leaving. She had refused him. What else could he do, but leave? And yet, her heart refused to be reasonable. The sadness she hid behind her butterfly mask intensified.

Nell wished nothing more than to withdraw from the push and shove frivolity of the masquerade. The crush of the crowd separated her from her aunt, and the crush of Aurora’s admirers parted her from her sister’s side. Charley abandoned her too, that he might see to the fetching of refreshments.

Left alone, Nell gravitated toward a spot along the Promenade beneath two crossed strings of twinkling Japanese lanterns, near the area designated as outdoor ballroom. There, above the whirl of paired dancers, light had drawn a great cloud of moths. Nell found something compelling in the parallel dip and sway.

She stood lost among the fluttering wings, wondering if she might ever again feel so light-hearted as the glittering revelers who cavorted about he

She looked beautiful as Psyche, if a little forlorn. She stood quite still, no flutter in her wings save that raised by the breeze that played with the transparent blue layers that made up her skirt. As they floated weightlessly about her, she felt in an odd way, as if she were become part of the dancing moth cloud. She lifted her right arm, to catch up one of the passing insects. Her pleated shawl floated in the wind. The moths danced just out of reach. She dropped her arm, dismayed to realize that as she stood watching the moths with complete fascination, she was herself become the object of intense scrutiny. A young man in costume had stopped, an island in the stream of humanity that flowed around him, as he turned masked visage her way. It was difficult to say for certain, so all encompassing was his mask, but she got the feeling he stared at her, to the exclusion of all else.

In his left hand the gentleman held a stick. Suspended from this stick, partially hiding his face, was a fearsome beast’s head, all fur and fangs. When this stick-mask was lowered however, the gentleman s face was further disguised by a second, half-mask tied to his face. In contrast to the beast mask, this half-mask was pale and smooth and youthful, the face of a perfect and symmetrical being with shadowed eyes

A wig further obscured the stranger’s identity. Full and long and brown, it hung in shining curls about his shoulders. Atop the wig perched an old fashioned green felt hunter’s cap, with a dashing red and black feather curling off the brim onto the wig. The gentleman swept the hat from its perch upon the wig, and executed a courtly bow.

He struck a handsome pose in his dashing masquerade. A quiver of arrows hung from a leather thong across one shoulder, alongside a lean, ash bow, unstrung. Nell had no idea who the gentleman might be. She wondered if such a thorough disguise hid one of the many fellows that she and her aunt had taken on excursion. The gentleman seemed to be waiting for some sign of recognition.

It began to make sense to Nell why this man should stare at her so discourteously, with carefully leashed expectancy. He played Eros, or Cupid, mythological counterpart to her Psyche.

Undecided as to her direction, the masked man closed the distance between them, right hand darting out as he approached, quick as a frog’s tongue, into the cloud of moths that wheeled in the light above her head.

Nell, who felt very forward in having been caught with her attention so unwaveringly fixed in his direction, no matter that she was Psyche and he, Eros, could not help but wonder if a moth had in fact been snared.

He extended his balled fist. She could not turn away and pretend to ignore him, with the mystery of the moth’s fate yet to be revealed.

Turning his hand with the flair of a magician, he slowly opened his fingers. A dazed but whole moth sat for an instant in the gloved palm, before flitting up to join its brothers.

“However did you do that?” Nell breathed.

“Psyche.” Beau Ferd’s voice was altered by his mask, but not so much that Nell could not recognize him. “Do you so soon forget the magic of E-E-Eros?”

Nell’s eyes widened. “Mr. Ferd!”

The smooth, boyish mask regarded her. Nell was used to being able to read this man’s expression. Here, her searching gaze was met by nothing more than a perfect pale absence of all emotion.

“Ah, but I am not Mr. Ferd, at all.”