Midnight Masquerade (2 page)

And really she was closer to a chum than a mother in her dealings with him. It seemed a father’s job to chide a son for irregularities, and Dick hadn’t had a father since that portrait was taken. His eyes hadn’t changed much, she thought, looking at the portrait. They were still as dark as coffee, with lashes a yard long, which she knew Dickie hated. He had actually trimmed them once, which had the effect of making them grow even longer. He liked the haughty line of his eyebrows well enough, especially the one he had trained to lift an inch higher than the other when he wished to indicate displeasure, disagreement, a question, or even plain dislike. A very expressive set of eyebrows had Dickie.

And where was he? She had hoped he would have sneaked into her chamber by now, to explain with his laughing eyes why he had done it, how he had done it, what he had done with the curst necklace, and ultimately, of course, who he meant to blame it on and how he meant to return it. He was not a thief, certainly. That at least need not disturb her mind for an instant.

A perfectly rapscallion son, but not a thief. The only thing he ever stole was ladies’ hearts, and really that was not so much theft as involuntary acquisition. The present involuntary acquisition, Deirdre Gower, was to be turned off by the charade of stealing Charney’s necklace. That was what he was up to.

A sound at the door caused her to sit up, but it was only a maid asking if she would like some wine, or hartshorn, or laudanum.

“My son. I want Dickie,” she said in a weak voice.

“We haven’t found him yet, mum,” the witless maid answered, and received a pillow on the side of her head for the insolence of suggesting Dick had anything to do with the night’s imbroglio. It was one thing for a mother to know he had done it; she would not allow others to say so.

“Send him up the minute he arrives from London,” she ordered in her most cutting voice.

The maid left without realizing she had been put in her place. Even Bertie’s most cutting voice was not very sharp. Dick had gotten his mellifluous tone from her. His papa had barked like a dog.

Chapter 2

At eleven o’clock on the night of December the thirty-first, Baron Belami disentangled himself from the warm arms of a compliant widow friend and said, “I should be shoving off, Bess, before Bertie’s ball is over. I ought to put in an appearance, or the old girl will cut up stiff.”

“You’ll never make it,” Bess answered, lounging back on the pillow and running her fingers through a cloud of black hair that had recently been likened to a Stygian snare. “It’s eleven already.”

“It’s only ten miles. I’ll make it for the midnight revels, with time to spare,” he assured her, hopping out of bed. “Damme, it’s snowing!” he exclaimed, looking out the window.

“Stay; maybe we’ll be snowbound,” she tempted, stretching like a cat.

He considered this appetizing suggestion, but in the end shook his head and put on his clothes. “Pierre will get me through. He knows snow.

“Knows snow?” she asked in forgivable confusion.

“He is an expert on snow,” he told her. “Pierre is from Lower Canada. He tells me that in the winter there he has often had to burrow his way from his cottage. He also possesses a pair of snowshoes that allow him to walk on deep snow drifts. I’ve been praying for a good snowfall to try them.”

“It looks as if your prayer has been answered,” Bess said lazily.

“That’s a change. God usually ignores me.”

“And vice versa,” Bess answered with laughter in her voice.

“Saucy pedantic wretch,” he said in his sweet, mellifluous voice, which belied any displeasure with her pertness. He leaned down and placed a kiss on her cheek while shoving a wad of bills into her reaching fingers. “Maybe I’ll be able to drop in again on my way back to London. Are you free—say, a week Wednesday?”

“Try me,” she invited, reaching for the flint box to count her take. She waited till Belami closed the door before lighting the taper. She smiled in satisfaction at the denomination of the bills, shoved them beneath her pillow, and went to sleep, dreaming of the scarlet gown she would order from her earnings.

Pierre Réal, Belami’s French-Canadian groom, liked nothing better than to put his master firmly in the wrong. As soon as he saw the snow begin to fall, he had melord’s grays hitched to his curricle and the rig drawn from the stable. When Belami came out the door, over an hour late, horses, carriage, and driver were all covered in an inch of snow.

“I hope you had a good time,” Pierre said. He spoke with a heavy accent, but his actual words and syntax were taking on an English flavor, unless it had been decided between his lord and himself to speak French, which they frequently did. At times of excitement he might lapse into an admixture of the two languages, but he was not excited now. He was happy. It put him metaphorically as well as literally in the driver’s seat, to have been kept waiting an hour in the freezing snow while melord took his pleasure in a warm bed. Melord was missing his mother’s ball, he was fornicating with a woman of pleasure, and he had kept Pierre and, more important to them both, the grays, standing in the cold, to look entirely pathetic as they waited patiently. Oh, yes, Pierre was in a prime mood.

“Go to hell,” Belami growled, glaring at the exposed nags. Guilt and shame conspired to put him out of humor. “Don’t you know any better than to leave these bloods out in the middle of a howling storm? Damme, it’s cold. I wish I had brought my closed carriage.”

“I suggested the closed carriage, me,” Pierre reminded him, snapping the whip and urging the animals forward. “I know snow. I saw the snow forming in the clouds. ‘The curricle,’ you told me.”

“Yes, yes, you’re a bloody genius and I’m a fool. Spring ‘em,” Belami said, wrapping himself in the fur rug, which Pierre had had the foresight to include in the carriage. The groom shivered dramatically as Belami wrapped himself to the eyes in the rug. “Grab a corner if you like,” he offered.

“I couldn’t keep on the road with my arms wrapped up. She’s slippery,” Pierre said.

“I thought you were waiting for winter with great impatience,” Belami reminded him.

“You call this winter? Hah, late summer, I’d call her. I’ve seen colder Augusts at home. I said slippery, not cold.”

“Does slippery usually set you to shivering?” he asked, pulling a corner of the rug loose and throwing it over Pierre’s knees.

Any pose of not being cold had to be abandoned. The groom changed the subject to the lateness of the hour instead. “We’ll never make Beaulac in time for the ball,” was his next cheerful speech. “She must have been some frolic, the widow Barnes, to keep you three hours.”

“We played chess,” Belami said. “Wake me when we get to the home road.” Then he pulled his curled beaver over his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He had deep scheming to do, to figure a way out of marrying Deirdre Gower. He was frequently in hot water with women, but not customarily with innocent debs. It was still half a mystery to him how he had bungled the affair so badly that he had actually stammered out a sort of offer.

The trouble was, Deirdre was such a flat she had no idea how men acted with women. It was her very lack of knowing how to flirt that had done him in. Chaperones ought to teach their charges how to flirt, for God’s sake. He had mistaken her shyness for haughty indifference. Haughty indifference was irresistible to him. He had to prove to himself he could engage her interest. Well, he had. And it hadn’t taken much work, either. Stood up with her three or four times, walked out with her once, then followed her to the conservatory at her aunt’s ball. That was his undoing. She had looked damnably attractive in the shadowy moonlight, so he had kissed her. What else could one do when alone with a woman in the moonlight, surrounded by the exotic spice of flowers in bloom in December? She shouldn’t have gone there alone; she knew he would follow her. If she hadn’t been a flat she would have known he’d have to kiss her. And if he hadn’t been a complete idiot, he might have suspected old Charney would be lurking at the window, to see the kiss, and insinuate what course was now necessary for a gentleman.

But Deirdre could still have saved them both, if she’d had the decency to refuse his offer. He was obliged to offer; she wasn’t obliged to accept. It was a trick to nab him, and one trick deserved another, so he had stayed completely away from her while he was in London. Charney and Bertie between them had cooked up this curst ball and the announcement to be made at midnight. He trusted his late arrival would have convinced Deirdre of any lack of real affection on his part. If there was a gentlemanly bone in her ladylike body, she’d turn him off.

There were some few members of society one did not like to offend, and the Duchess of Charney was one of them. And really he didn’t want to hurt Deirdre either. It was naivety as much as anything that ailed the girl. If only she’d call off the engagement, he was perfectly ready to find her unexceptionable, for anyone except himself.

Before leaving London, he had taken the precaution of worrying loud and long to a few friends, who were also intimates of the duchess, that some of his investments had gone sour. A diminution of fortune might discourage Charney, but on the other hand, he could hardly claim to have lost three rather large estates within the space of a few weeks. Setting up a high flyer as his mistress would not be sufficient to do the trick. He had had one under his protection at the time Charney put her niece forward. The risk of Bedlam discouraged him from claiming insanity in the family. Any pending major misalliance on Bertie’s part would be bound to help, but then, one’s own mother. . . . And Bertie was such a jingle brain she’d end up marrying whatever hedgebird he got for the part.

When they reached the home road, it was nearly midnight, and he still had no solution to his problem. “Wake up!” Pierre said, nudging him in the ribs with the butt of his whip.

Belami pulled out his watch and focused his eyes to read it in the moonless shadows. Ten minutes to twelve. He left it in his hand to watch for midnight, but looked around at the scene before him. Beaulac reared its handsome head and shoulders up into the whirling snow that swept through the black night on eddies of wind. Beaulac was too formal a building to entirely please this romantic young lord. He would have preferred a heap in the gothic style, with arched windows that were so much more feminine than the mullioned rectangles of Beaulac. He was fond of flying buttresses, and an occasional gargoyle would have pleased him; but on this night, with the darkness and snow concealing the severe geometry of Beaulac, he was satisfied with his home. The many lit windows lent a lively and haphazard air to the place. His gaze wandered off to the grounds, noticing the undisturbed snow. The last guest must have arrived several hours ago, he thought, but at least no one had left yet.

He happened to glance up to the roof, and thought he discerned a shadow moving there. He smiled, recalling the many times he had stood there himself, draped in a sheet, to scare the wits out of the gullible servants. What had he called that ghost he was supposed to be? Knag, that was it, with the k silent. Pity Beaulac didn’t have a real ghost like Longleat’s Green Lady, to rescue him from this unwanted entanglement. A bemused smile hovered about his lips as he sat, staring and thinking unholy thoughts.

The long hand was still several minutes away from twelve as they pulled into the stable, but Belami said,
“Bonne et Heureuse Année
, Pierre,” anyway.

Pierre sneezed violently.
“La même pour vous,
melord.”

“
Gezundheit
”

“
Comment
?”

“Let another groom tend the grays and you look after yourself. I suggest a warm bath and a hot drink,” Belami said.

“No hands but these take care of my grays,” Pierre declared, holding out his hands.

“Those hands won’t do any of us much good if they’re attached to a corpse,” Belami said, and hastened off.

He entered by the kitchen door, to slip up to his room by the back stairs and change his clothes. It was odd, but convenient, that there were no servants in the kitchen. They must have gone up to serve the midnight dinner. The stable was full of carriages, so the ball was obviously in progress.

Belami had left his valet in London, as the man was in the throes of a torrid triangular love affair with Lord Norris’s upstairs maid. Belami was a firm believer in true love, especially for people other than himself. He had given Uggams a handful of golden boys to help his suit along, and offered the woman a position in his own household as well, if she accepted his valet’s offer. His generosity had left him with only Pierre to help with his dressing, and for the present, he must help himself. Naturally his grays came first.

He struggled out of his topboots, fawn trousers, and jacket alone, and scrambled into his pantaloons and black jacket. He brushed his hair and tied up his cravat with a careless disregard for the Waterfall and Oriental and such fashionable arrangements as prevailed amidst the ton. While his fingers performed these automatic functions, his mind reverted to Knag, and other more plausible means of egress from an unwanted engagement.

Belowstairs, the hands of the clock rapidly approached midnight.

* * * *

It was some moments later when Belami hastened, head bent, along the upstairs hall. He took no notice of the female guest approaching till he had nearly capsized her.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said, steadying the girl by placing a hand on either arm. How cold she was!

She wrenched herself from him with an unusual degree of violence. He blinked, and recognized the form of Deirdre Gower. His anger was not less than hers. Naturally the curst woman had to be the first person he encountered, before he had his alibi properly rehearsed. Her back was stiff, her neck stiffer, and her eyes on fire.

“Good evening, Deirdre. Happy New Year,” he said with a cool civility that did not belong on a fiancé’s lips. “Not at the ball?”

“You have the temerity to ask me that!” she exclaimed, preparing her accusations. “Ac-tually I came up looking for you.”