Midnight Masquerade (19 page)

“You won’t find her deficient in the wits department. She’s going up soon. Bessler has agreed to give her a session, at your aunt’s recommendation.”

Deirdre’s humor returned with celerity when Lenore and Bessler arose and went toward a small parlor where, presumably, he was to give her the treatment. “Are there enough of us to get up a small dancing party?” she asked, remembering they had spoken of it that morning.

“Later,” Belami answered in a distracted way, as though not listening closely. “Perhaps Lenore and Chamfreys will like to join in,” he added. “There are so few of us, we could hardly get up a set without them.”

“Are we to dance in Lenore’s bed? You said she was retiring.”

“If she feels well enough to return, I mean.”

They chatted for a few moments, at which time Pronto appeared at the doorway and beckoned to Dick, who excused himself and left with Pronto. There were other non-card players at the party. Deirdre fell into conversation with some of them but kept an eye on the hallway, to see when Dick and Pronto returned. Ten minutes passed, and the only person she saw going upstairs was Lenore, with a female servant. She held her hand to her head, indicating the headache persisted. A few moments later, Bessler followed her up.

She interpreted this to mean Lenore was going to bed, and when she was installed therein with propriety, Bessler would go to her and put her to sleep. This was entirely acceptable to Deirdre, even if it meant too few couples to dance. She was more interested to know what had become of Dick. Before long, she decided to go to Snippe’s room, to see if he and Pronto were having a meeting.

Only Pronto was there, paring his nails with a pocket knife while glancing frequently at his pocket watch, propped on the table before him. “Oh, there you are,” he said, as though he had been wondering where she was. “I was about to go after you, if you didn’t come here. Belami said you’d come. Deduced it.”

“Where is he?” she asked looking around.

“Gone deducing somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“He can do it anywhere. Does it right in church, or at the table, or walking along the street. No saying where he went to do it this time,” he said vaguely. “He’ll be back. He said to wait here, and if you didn’t come here, I was to go after you in fifteen minutes to make sure you wasn’t . . . lonesome,” he finished, with a satisfied smile that he had conned her. “And to keep you busy. Sit down, Deirdre. Care for a glass of wine?” He had taken several himself and was on the way to being foxed.

“No, thank you. You have no idea where he is?”

“Can’t say.

“Can’t, or won’t?” she asked, suspicion mounting higher by the moment.

Gentlemen did not lie to ladies, and he was a gentleman, Deirdre definitely a lady. “Do have a glass of wine, m’dear,” was his answer.

“I said I don’t want any, thank you.”

“A famous brew. One Belami decocts especially for his mama. He adds sugar to a perfectly good burgundy, you see. He says it destroys the bloom, but between you and me and the bedpost, it’s dandy. Actually, it’s—no offense, ma’am. I didn’t mean
ac
-tually, just actually. Anyway, it’s syrup he adds, not raw sugar. Two or three glasses of this and you won’t care a tinker’s curse
where
he is. Not to say he’s anywhere he shouldn’t be. And even if he is, it’s not what you think. Nothing of the sort, I promise you.”

She was not deceived by this jumble of clues. Dick was doing something he shouldn’t do, but Lenore was in bed having a session with Bessler, so the something was not of a sort to disgust her. He was following up a clue having to do with the diamond, that was all. Her face wore a slight frown of concentration as these thoughts flitted through her mind.

Pronto misread the frown, and continued dissuading her as to any wrongdoing on Dick’s part. What was a friend for, if not to help a chap? “They ain’t making plans for Paris, if that’s what you think,” he told her severely. “‘Pon my word, it seems to me if a girl can’t trust her fiancé to have a few private words with another lady, she should break the engagement. Either fish or cut bait is my own feelings on the matter.”

“What lady?” Deirdre asked sharply. Lenore was the choice of the ladies in the house, but she was by no means the only possibility. “Who is going to Paris?”

“I didn’t say Dick and Lennie was planning to go to Paris in a couple of weeks. Damme, Deirdre, I wish you will quit putting words in my mouth. Dick will kill me,” he said, mounting his high horse and glaring at her. To his amazement, she split in two. The left side of her weaved left, and the right half to the right. He shook his head till she reassembled herself, then took another sip of the wine to clear his head, which felt strangely muddled.

“So
that’s
what it was all about!” she exclaimed, remembering those choked, laughing voices when the great headache scene was being enacted. He was with Lenore now, this very minute, while Pronto bungled his orders to keep her busy. Bessler, the scoundrel, was in on the ruse as well.

“Pull yourself together,” Pronto ordered as she began splitting apart again.

“I’m not upset, and I have figured out what is going on, so don’t bother with any more lies.”

“I never told one! Well, not what you’d call a real lie. It’s not my fault if you’ve deduced it. Dick should never have taught you the trick. You’ve gotten hold of it now. There’ll be no stopping you.”

She bolted from the room, to see Bessler sitting at his ease in the saloon, having a glass of brandy. As he was the first encountered, he received her first angry outburst.

“Did you manage to get rid of Lady Lenore’s headache, Herr Bessler?” she asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

“She is resting comfortably,” he replied.

“I hope you didn’t put her to sleep. Lord Belami would be very much disappointed if you did.”

“I expect she will doze off soon. What has it to do with Belami? It was your aunt who suggested it,” he told her.

“Did Belami not go along to observe the session? He has become so very interested in your cure, I was sure he would be there,” she replied.

“No, there was a servant with us, but the silly female kept interrupting, so that we had to ask her to leave in the end. There were just the two of us.”

“I see.” There was some hasty revising to do on her thoughts. She chatted to Bessler for a minute, then went upstairs.

Her admitted excuse was to inquire how Lenore felt, though she was also highly curious to ascertain that Dick wasn’t with her. She tapped softly at the door, waited a moment, and received no reply. She would just peek in and see if Lenore was sleeping. There would be nothing wrong in that. If she was asleep, she wouldn’t awaken her. She opened the door, saw a low light gleaming, and stepped in. She noticed immediately that Lenore was not in bed; the covers were disturbed, but she had gotten up. She must be in her dressing room next door. Deidre took a step toward the adjoining door and stopped dead in her tracks. There, cowering in the shadows of the dresser, stood Lenore, in Dick’s arms, both of them looking as guilty as a pair of foxes caught in the chicken coop.

Lenore wore a salacious night dress that hovered beguilingly at half-mast over her bosoms. There was a wisp of some diaphanous material over it that nominally suggested a dressing gown, but of a sort never seen in a house of good repute. Although Dick was dressed, there was enough disruption of his usually precise toilette to indicate unwonted activity. His hair was tousled, his tie askew, and, most damning of all, he was without shoes. Why did a man take off his shoes, but to get into bed?

All these convicting details were observed in a second, while a half of Deirdre’s mind struggled with some cutting remark to make. It must be of a sort that made them perfectly aware that she knew what was going on, that they were trying to hide it from her, and most importantly of all, that she didn’t care a groat. Dick’s arms fell from Lenore’s and went out toward Deirdre, while his jaw dropped in astonishment.

No clever words occurred to Deirdre. She was too overcome to be satirical. “Is your headache all better, Lady Lenore?” she asked in a tight voice.

Both Dick and Lenore began gabbing at once, in a contradictory way that only further condemned them. “Much better, thank you” collided head-on with “No, it’s worse. That’s why . . .” And Deirdre continued looking from one to the other. They tried again, still at odds. “Why don’t you join us?” from Lenore was only half out when Dick suggested meeting her belowstairs in a moment.

“Don’t hurry on my account,” she said, glaring at Dick. “I can see I have come at an inopportune moment.
Ac
-tually I just dropped in to see if you are feeling more comfortable, Lady Lenore. I can see you’re fine. Right in your usual spirits. I shan’t disturb you further. I’m sure you have a great deal to discuss. Paris—in two weeks, isn’t it?”

“That demned Pronto!” Belami said, and walked forward, grabbing Deirdre’s arm to hasten her out of the room. He slammed Lenore’s door and glared at Deirdre.

“Was this embarrassment really necessary?” he asked in a rather loud voice.

“Not only unnecessary but extremely ill-advised,” she answered coolly. “I’ll find my own way to my room. You can go back to her.”

“I’ve finished what I had to do with her.”

“Already? You
are
fast! Here I thought it was just beginning.”

“We were
talking.”

“Criminal conversation I believe is the term for that particular sort of talk with a married lady. But then you’re an expert at it; you made sure her husband was nowhere around.”

“You’re quick to judge.”

“I’m not blind. I can see you have your shoes off, and your hair all mussed.”

“The reason I look like this is because I was hiding in her closet.”

“Oh, stop it, Dick! Stop your stupid lies. I’m not a child. I know what you were doing, and I doubt that even you, with all your imagination, found the clothes closet the place to do it.”

On this stiff speech she pulled free of his hands and ran to her room, where she slammed the door and leaned against it, breathing hard. Before she had drawn three breaths, the door was forced open, without any warning knock, or even footsteps, due to the lack of shoes on the invader’s feet. Dick plunged in and faced her, arms akimbo, with a black scowl on his face.

“I was watching Bessler,” he said loudly, angrily.

“With a telescope, perhaps? Bessler is in your saloon, having a glass of brandy,” she retaliated.

“He was with Lennie. She let on to have a headache, to give me a chance to watch his performance. I hid in her clothespress, with the door open a crack. She told him she habitually drinks too much wine, had become worried about it, and he said he could cure her of it. He put her off into a kind of trance, and told her she would not drink wine again. She would develop a strong aversion to it, and the damndest thing is, she
has.
After he left, I poured her a glass, and she pushed it away as though it were vinegar. And Deirdre, she doesn’t remember anything about it! About what he did or said when she was in the trance. She just remembers looking at the light play on his monocle. Isn’t that amazing?”

“A lucky thing you were there in the closet, collecting evidence, as Lenore will be no help in explaining it,” she said, still angry.

“It wasn’t luck; I arranged it.”

“What has all this got to do with anything?” she asked. “You had your arms around her, and she had practically nothing on.”

“She was properly dressed for bed, in my opinion. Don’t try to bear-lead me, Deirdre. I’m not a child either,” he warned in an implacable tone. “I don’t plan to be petticoated by a wife or anyone else. I needed evidence, and did what I had to do to get it.”

“You could have asked
me
to help you!”

“Could I? You wouldn’t even sneak me into your aunt’s room to watch Bessler work on her. It didn’t seem likely you’d participate more actively in it. I haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m not going to apologize.”

“I’m not asking you to. Nature can’t be changed; I know that. Birds will fly and fish will swim; pigs will wallow in mire, and Belami will carry on with any indiscriminating woman who will have him. But he won’t drag me into the mire with him, thank you very much,” she said, turning her back on him and marching to the other side of the room.

He paced quickly after her. “Oh, it must be nice to be above reproach,” he said scornfully.

“It is. You should try it sometime,” she returned with an airy toss of her head.

“Are you jealous? Is that why you came pelting up to Lennie’s room?”

“Jealous of
you?”
A silver laugh tinkled on the air. “I’d as soon be jealous of Bessler.”

“Then why did you come spying on us?”

“I wasn’t spying. I went to see if Lenore was comfortable. A pity I bothered. She was a good deal more comfortable before my untimely intrusion.”

“You quizzed Pronto and came checking up on me,” he charged. “I call that spying. I was about to leave when you arrived.”

“Yes, I know. You had already finished what you went to do, but then it’s understandable. You had such a fast partner.”

“When I am innocent, I follow the motto ‘Never explain; never apologize.’ I have already bent it by explaining. I shan’t apologize. You may believe me or not. That is entirely up to you.”

“You’ve chosen your motto poorly, for a man whose behavior requires an unending series of apologies.”

“It’s not necessary to apologize for being human. Only one who fancies herself a saint would think so. My only regret is that you chose to interfere at that precise moment.”

“Two minutes earlier would have shown me a more interesting scene. I’m sorry I chose the wrong moment too.”

“Are you now?” he asked with a dangerous lift of his infamous brow, and a flashing smile. “That’s a telling statement. You wished to see Lennie in action, did you? Why settle for watching the great debauch when you could be a part of it?” he asked suggestively, coming closer, leaning his head toward hers and gazing into her eyes. “That’s what you’ve just blurted out without thinking, you know, that you would like to have seen me making love to Lennie. More observation to learn the lady’s tricks, I expect.” Deirdre backed away from the twin onyx eyes that held her mesmerized.