A Masquerade in the Moonlight (25 page)

Most recently—and most telling of all—Maxwell had held up the card of The Hanged Man as he had spoken of a shared shame, a dark secret that he, with all his knowledge of the ages, could not yet pierce—an old crime for which blame was equally yet unfairly shared.

The Hanged Man
. It had been that session, that damning card, that had served both to prove Maxwell’s talent and unearth Sir Ralph’s deepest resentment. It was William’s fault. It had always been William’s fault!

Sir Ralph blinked rapidly, took a deep breath, and extended his hands—and his trust.

Maxwell took Sir Ralph’s left hand and held it between both of his, massaging the palm, lightly manipulating each finger. “Relax, my friend. I am put off by tension and cannot concentrate.” He turned Sir Ralph’s hand palm up, and smiled. “Ah—just as I supposed. You were destined for great things, my friend. These mounds—here, and here—symbolize success, wealth, and, yes, even power. Most especially power. You were born to lead, my friend.”

My friend. My friend. My friend. How soothing. How comforting. I feel so peaceful now. I always feel so very relaxed when Maxwell is with me. I could listen to him say it forever. My friend. Oh, yes—yes, I hear you.
Sir Ralph leaned forward, staring at his own hand, trying to see what Maxwell saw. “Go on.
Please
.”

Maxwell smiled. “I will, my friend. But you must now give me your right hand. What I have told you thus far is what you were born to accomplish. Now, with your right hand, I will see what you have done with your life.”

Sir Ralph hesitated, his muzzy senses once more alerted by old yet ever-present fears. “I know my past, Maxwell. It’s my future that interests me.”

“Your past is your future, my friend,” Maxwell said in a soothing voice, beginning to massage Sir Ralph’s right hand, his bony fingers gently pulling on each digit as he turned the hand palm down, then palm up once more. He ran a finger over the contours of Sir Ralph’s palm, then looked at him inquiringly. “I’m confused, my friend. Such greed. Such avarice. I see money, so much money coming into your hands and never leaving them. You live simply. You keep only one plain carriage and live in these few rooms—a Spartan life without luxuries. Why, my friend, when you have so much?”

Maxwell was getting too close. Sir Ralph pulled his hand away and balled it into a fist in his lap. “That is none of your concern. What I do with my money is my business.” He shoved his hand onto the table once more, surprising himself at his own daring. “Here—look again. Look at my line of life. Tell me what you see.”

Maxwell shook his head. “No, my friend. You don’t want to know what I see.”

“Why?” Sir Ralph had to force the question past his lips. It was as if he was back in Italy, and the old woman was cackling, laughing at his terrible fate. Hadn’t anything changed? With everything he had done, all the precautions he had taken, couldn’t his future have been altered, at least a little? Was he living plainly, austerely, soberly, saving his money for an old age he would never see? Was he about to die? Oh, God! He didn’t want to die! Not yet. Not ever.

“Because without your total cooperation, my friend, the reading would be incomplete. I might miss something of the highest importance.” He leaned forward, his black-as-pitch eyes nearly burning red, so that Sir Ralph found it impossible to look away. “I want to help you, my friend. I
need
to help you. Trust me, my friend. And tell me, tell me now—why do you need so much money?”

My friend. My friend
. Sir Ralph’s mouth was dry, and his heart pounded in his chest like a blacksmith’s hammer against an anvil. He couldn’t look away from Maxwell, from those black, burning eyes. He felt otherworldly, as if he were floating above his chair, caught in the invisible rays of power emanating from the fortune-teller.

The final wall of his resistance lay in ruins at his feet. He could no longer deny the man anything. He no longer wanted to deny him. “It—it sounds silly to say it, Maxwell, but I—I’ve been saving as much as I can, living as evenly as I can, so that I will live longer,” he heard himself admitting against all he had promised himself. “I want to have a comfortable old age. I want to live—for a long time. A very long time.”

“So do we all, my friend. But if it is not written in your stars, in your palm—” Maxwell sat back, sighing. “Unless...”

“Unless what? Maxwell, do you know something? Can you help me? You must help me!” he fairly shouted, perspiration pouring out all over his body even as he shivered with cold. “Maxwell—I’m so afraid. You say you’re my friend. Can’t you help me? I need help, some way, some answer to life—to the alternative to death! I don’t want to die,” he said passionately, beginning to weep, his nondescript, emotionless features twisted into a grimace of real, physical pain.

He could still hear the old crone speaking of his death. And he could still see Geoffrey Balfour, dying. Geoffrey hadn’t wanted to die.
He
didn’t want to die. No sane man wants to die. “Death is so
obscene
, so
wasteful
. I saw it, Maxwell! I’ve seen death, felt it.”

Maxwell’s voice turned hard, demanding. “This is all very enlightening, my friend, but you are not being totally honest with me. You mustn’t fight me, my friend, but answer truthfully every question that I ask. We are, the two of us, on the verge of a miraculous breakthrough, a union of spirits and minds that can bring you your greatest wish. Talk to me, my friend. You are not telling me everything about the money. There’s more to it than a wish for a comfortable old age, isn’t there? You expect the money to keep you alive, don’t you?” he heard Maxwell asking, as if from a distance, his once more singsong tones calling Sir Ralph back from the edge of panic he had learned to hide so well. “Tell me, my friend, how will money keep you alive?”

Maxwell was so smart, so deep! He was all knowing, all seeing. And he wished to help him! Sir Ralph’s eyes widened as he wet his lips, suddenly eager to explain. “You will think me stupid, superstitious—but I have heard there are ways to prolong life, ancient secrets. I’ve spent thousands. Tens of thousands. For potions. For machines. I’ve nearly beggared myself time and again, but it will all be worth it if I can live another day, another decade more than that old woman said I—” He broke off, feeling slightly ashamed of himself. “Just tell me, Maxwell. Tell me what you see.”

Maxwell shook his head, releasing Sir Ralph’s hand. “You already know the answer, my friend. You have been seeking to purchase a long life, but have not succeeded, for you have been pouring your money away in all the wrong places.” He smiled. “Until now. Today, my friend, I know why I was sent to you. Today, my friend, we shall begin your journey to the Shield of Invincibility that will guarantee you more than longevity. I can offer you a return to innocence that in turn leads to the path of
eternal life
.”

“Immortality?” Sir Ralph whispered the word, then pressed both hands over his mouth, to stifle the tide of hysterical giggles rising in his throat. He knew it! He just knew it! Maxwell, who had come to him unbidden, this man of the dark eyes that burned like coals, was to be his salvation. “How much?” he asked... he begged... he bleated... not caring how desperate, how revealing his tone. “Christ, man, don’t leave me hanging—
how much
?”

“Twenty thousand pounds,” Maxwell answered, his tone suddenly very businesslike as he rose from the chair and headed for the door. “But the money is not for me. Half must be given to charity, and given freely, in order to cleanse your soul. The rest will be used in another way, one which you shall soon understand.”

“Charity? Good works? Yes, yes, that seems sensible.” Sir Ralph nodded furiously. “Yes, yes, I can do that. It will take some time to raise such a substantial amount—a few weeks, no more than a month—but I can do it.”

“Friday, my friend. Not a day later. I shall go away now, to prepare, but I will return on Friday. Remember, my friend. I have seen your palm. You haven’t much time. Good-bye.”

Sir Ralph turned his hands palm up, looking quickly from his left to his right, nervously comparing the lines, seeing that, indeed, they were different. It wasn’t fair! He had been destined for greatness—his left hand told the story. But life had not dealt him the cards he deserved.
William
had stolen his thunder, his will, even his courage. William, by drawing him into nefarious schemes, into murder, had even tried to steal his life!

But all that was soon to change. As the door closed behind Maxwell, Sir Ralph allowed the first giggle to escape his lips. He no longer felt in the least tired, but was reeling in exultation. Let William do the work. It was he, Sir Ralph Harewood, who would wear the crown. And he would wear it
into eternity!

Paddy Dooley collapsed his rounded body into what was fast becoming his favorite chair and shook his head in disgust as he looked at his friend, who had been stretched out full length on the couch, in Dooley’s mind, long enough to have begun putting down roots. “Is it fixing to crawl into that bottle you’d be, Tommie, my boy? I’m not nosy, you know. I’m only wondering if I should be fetching the chamber pot in from the other room for when you drink enough to start casting up your accounts all over the carpet, for you’ve been pouring that stuff down your gullet since you got home last night. I like that little girl who comes in to tidy up after us, and I wouldn’t want to upset her.”

Thomas, who had been balancing a bottle on his chest, opened one eye to glare balefully at the Irishman. “You don’t understand. I’ve met my match, Paddy,” he said, not without sorrow. “All these years of playing about, setting my wits against men twice my age and winning time and time again—and a female brings me low. It’s embarrassing.”

Paddy nodded his agreement, “How the mighty have fallen,” he said, then grinned. “And what a thrill it is to watch as you go tumbling down into love.”

“Love?” Thomas jackknifed to a sitting position, holding on to his bottle so not a drop of the liquid spilled. “Love is one thing, Paddy. I’ve fallen in love twice in the same week.”

“But this time it’s different, isn’t it, boyo? Ah, but it’s my Bridget who’d be delighted to see you now. She’s been wishing this comedown on you for years.”

“Don’t gloat, Paddy, it doesn’t become you. Yet I suppose it had to happen. All right, I’m truly in love. All men fall sooner or later—although in my case I thought it would be later. Much later. I never even bought her that bauble I was planning to use to dazzle her soft heart.”

He ran a hand through his hair, which, Dooley observed silently, already looked as if it had been combed with a rake. “And to fall so hard, Paddy? So quickly? I hadn’t counted on that. But to have her running rings around me with her keen eyes and quick mind? To love a woman who is capable of setting up rigs like a prime flimflam man, and who dares to tease me with hints that she knows that I’m up to no good? That little girl could teach the devil himself a trick or three! Ah, Paddy, it’s a terrible blow to my consequence, I tell you.” He fell back against the cushions once more. “I don’t know if I’ll survive the shock of the thing.”

“Glory be to God—what a miserable caterwauling.” Dooley pushed himself up from the chair and crossed the room, to take the bottle out of Thomas’s hand. “It’s eight of the clock in the morning. Mark the time, boyo, for you’re back on the water wagon as of now. And, speaking of water, I’ve ordered up a tub. I don’t think I want to look at you again until you’ve had a bath and a long nap. You’re as great a rogue as ever stood in shoe leather, or so you’ve always told me. I’ll ask you to remember that. Are you really going to let one little colleen bring you so low? And what about Madison? What about our mission? Or do rogues in love have no time for anything more important than weeping into their liquor?”

Thomas arched one eyebrow as he glared up at Dooley. “Feeling pretty full of yourself, aren’t you, Paddy?”

The Irishman smiled so widely the gap on the top left side of his mouth—where he had long ago lost a tooth to an angry Scotsman with fists like hams—was visible. “Fair to brimming, boyo,” he admitted. “It clean takes the cockles off this old heart of mine to see the cock of the walk fitting himself out for hen stubbles.” His grin faded. “But, happy as I am, I have to remind you that if this Marguerite of yours is fixing to do terrible things to our group of traitors it could put paid to all
our
plans.”

Thomas stood and began stripping off the rumpled shirt that had been a marvel of pristine perfection when he had donned it to meet with Harewood and the others the night before in Richmond. “That’s what I like most about you, Paddy—your unflagging determination in pointing out the obvious. However, if Marguerite
fails
in whatever it is she’s about, she could be in danger. These men are desperate, and desperate men are unpredictable. Remember, President Madison left it up to me to decide whether or not to go along with their plans. I’m not so sure we’d be serving our country to deal with them.”

Dooley shrugged, accepting the discarded shirt rather than see it hit the floor. “So what are we doin’ cooling our heels here then, boyo? We can settle the whole business easily enough. Just toss the girl over your shoulder and we can all three of us escape to Philadelphia on the next tide. We could take Sir Gilbert up with us while we’re at it. He’s a friendly enough fellow, for an Englisher, and he wants to meet a wild Indian or two before he cocks up his toes. Told me so the other night at the theater. Just go—that’s all we have to do—and let the bloody earl and the others discover us gone.”