A Masquerade in the Moonlight (40 page)

“No! Wait!” Sir Ralph was out of his own chair, catching at Maxwell’s arm as he reached the door. “I didn’t mean it, Maxwell, I swear it. Please, come back. I’ll do anything you say. Anything! I only know real peace when you’re near. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

Maxwell stared deeply into Harewood’s eyes, drawing out all the worry and fear and replacing those emotions with a deep contentment, so that Sir Ralph knew if he so much as blinked his lids would close heavily and he would fall into a deep sleep. “
Please
, Maxwell.”

“Very well.” Maxwell returned to the table and picked up the packet. “Listen carefully, my friend, for I will only say this once. You are to write your confession, making your break with the past, and then seal it in this envelope.” He reached into his waistcoat once more, withdrew and unfolded a large brown envelope, tossing it onto the table. “Tomorrow, at midnight, you will meet me in Green Park, just at the Chelsea Waterworks, There, my friend, we will burn the envelope, transferring your guilt and sins to another host, allowing your rebirth.”

Sir Ralph spread his hands. “A host? What sort of host? I don’t understand.”

Maxwell smiled. “Understanding is not necessary to the exercise, my friend. I will provide the host, which you will kill, then inter there in the park with the ashes.”

“I’ll kill no man, Maxwell!” Sir Ralph declared coldly, daring to say what he had never dared with William.

“Such misplaced vehemence! You’ll kill a rooster, my friend,” Maxwell told him, heading for the door once more. “Until tomorrow at midnight?”

“A rooster?” Sir Ralph rose from the chair to look at Maxwell’s departing back. “Why didn’t I guess it before? You’re a Gypsy, aren’t you?”

Maxwell turned, smiling. “I am one of the Lords of Egypt, as we prefer to be called. Good day to you, my friend. Sleep well this night—for your trials are nearly over. Good-bye.”

Dooley liked Thomas, he really did, but there were times when he wished he had stayed home in Philadelphia, smoking his pipe while sitting in his favorite chair after dinner, listening to his beloved Bridget and his mother-in-law bully the children the way the two women usually bullied him.

But he had come to London, had volunteered to aid his country’s cause, exchanging petticoat tyranny for dubious intrigue. The pity of it was that dubious intrigue could sometimes be plaguey boring, propping up walls and lampposts while waiting for something to happen, and then when it did happen he still had to rely upon Thomas to explain it to him.

He had spent the majority of the afternoon outside Sir Ralph Harewood’s domicile, stepping out of the way of passersby and explaining to an endless parade of hawkers that, no, he did not wish to buy their cherries or have any brooms mended or have the dents knocked out of any of his pots. He had seen fewer people and suffered less noise on his weary ears the month he and Bridget had all six of the kiddies down with spots and been run off their feet caring for them.

But Thomas had been right. Again. The man of the frayed cuffs appeared at Harewood’s domicile more than two hours after Dooley had taken up his post, and stayed for some minutes before taking himself off again, a spring in his step that boded no good for Sir Ralph, Dooley wagered himself silently.

Dooley brushed the crumbs of the seedcake he had purchased and eaten—just to pass the time, he’d told himself—from his neck cloth and pushed himself away from the brick wall he had been leaning against, jammed his curly-brimmed beaver down farther on his head, and began to follow the man with the odd, single eyebrow.

He kept his distance, doing his best to blend in with the other people crowding the flagway, stopping now and again to look up at one of the buildings, as if only out for a stroll, before swinging his gold-knobbed cane and continuing on, always careful to keep the man in sight.

The man moved quickly, being at least a score younger and three stone lighter than the Irishman, so that Dooley arrived, breathless, at the Covent Garden market only after the fellow already had a live rooster in hand, the bird in a cage he carried with him as he passed by Dooley, once more on the move.

Fifteen minutes later, Dooley was standing outside a rundown-looking inn near the Thames, watching man and bird disappear inside. “I can hardly wait to tell Tommie this one,” he said out loud, swinging the cane one last time before heading for the corner and, hopefully, a hackney cab that would take him back to the Pulteney. “And if he can make sense of it, I’ll kiss Bridget’s ma square on the lips when next I see her!”

Marguerite approached the drawing room cautiously, for Finch had only told her one of her “old twits” had come to see her and had then withdrawn, his nose in the air as if he wished nothing to do with such odious matters.

Her father’s diary was safely in the pocket of her gown, for she had been sitting at the desk in the morning room, reading over it yet again before carefully drawing her pen through two lines he had written
:  T.—Vain, and believes he knows everything. Just ask him, and he’ll tell you,
and, farther down,
Stinky—never saw a penny he couldn’t gamble away.

There were still three lines remaining to be dealt with, but soon—tonight—yet another would fall victim to her pen, and to her resolve.
Lord A,
the line read
, Loves money more than anything. A skirt-chasing buffoon with the wits of a flea.

“Perry!” she exclaimed upon entering the drawing room, espying the man standing in a near crouch beside the windows, looking down on Portman Square as if half afraid someone out in the street might forcibly breach the walls of the mansion and slay him. “My dear friend—I’ve been so worried about you.”

He turned red-rimmed eyes to her and opened his mouth as if to speak, then shook his head.

“I longed to stay and support you in your trouble, but Ralph insisted we leave. He muttered something about avoiding the taint, but that’s simply ridiculous. I would never desert you!” she told him fiercely, taking hold of his arm and leading him to one of the couches. She could feel him trembling and suppressed the urge to smile by wondering why he had come to her. Did he suspect something? “What is it? What can I do for you, Perry?”

“Do for me?” he repeated questioningly, almost condescendingly, as he’d had long practice at arrogance and precious little at humility. “What could you do for me? What could anyone possibly do for me? I’m ruined, Marguerite. Don’t you comprehend that fact? Ralph certainly did!”

Oh, yes, Perry. Yes, I do comprehend that you are ruined. Completely and utterly ruined. Would you like to know why?
Marguerite thought, but she answered only, “Surely something can be done. I know it looks dark now, but His Royal Highness might yet see the humor in the affair—”

“Humor!” Sir Peregrine brushed her hands away and collapsed onto the couch, not seeming to notice that she, his hostess, had not yet taken her seat. “You ignorant child. The
entire city
has seen the humor in the affair. I am become a laughingstock! My majordomo has resigned, not wishing to be sullied by the stain of being in the employ of such a thorough disaster as myself. I passed a man on the street—someone I don’t even know—and he pointed at me and called me Balbus. Then he held up one of those infernal gold-painted pieces!”

“Have you spoken with William? He’s wonderfully influential. Perhaps he—”

But Sir Peregrine cut her off yet again, which was a good thing, for she was having difficulty speaking without breaking into laughter. “William will have my guts for garters,” he said bitterly. “I have only come here this afternoon to say good-bye, Marguerite. I have no choice but to leave the country.”

This was better than she had hoped! “The entire country, Perry? Couldn’t you simply withdraw to one of your estates for a few months, until the furor dies down?”

“Ain’t enough months for that, my dear, not in ten thousand years,” Lord Chorley said from the doorway, his entrance followed closely by Finch’s amused announcement from the doorway that “Lord Chorley and a Mister Simon Wattle, debt chaser, are here to see you, Miss Balfour.”

Marguerite turned to see Lord Chorley bounding into the room, followed closely by a man of indeterminate years and dressed in a very bad suit of clothes. “Stinky! What are you saying? And who in the world is this man?”

“Wattle? He’s my dun. Well, one of them, and the most persistent. Sheridan used to have so many of them running tame in his household he enlisted them to serve his guests at dinner, but only Wattle here is camped in my drawing room, and I don’t have enough of the ready to pay for a dinner party. I’m ruined, my dear, all rolled up. Wattle’s sticking as close as plaster, so I can’t bolt and save myself that way, much as I want to. Prinny has deserted me, and the rest of my set has gone with him. I thought they were my friends, but they were the fair-weather sort, sure as check. Ralph is still loyal, but not by much, and only because he wants something from me. So does William, come to think of it. Well, he won’t be best pleased, now will he? Not that it matters, for I couldn’t have pleased both of them. Arthur? He’s too besotted to care if I live or die, and Perry here has enough on his own plate without my problems. Made a real cake of yourself today, Perry, stap me if you didn’t. I hear Cruikshank’s already penning a cartoon for the broadsheets. Calling it “The Balbus Bauble-leer” or some such nonsense. At a ha’penny apiece, they’ll be tacked up all over London. I dare say, Perry, you ain’t looking so good. Do you feel all right?”

Marguerite frowned. Lord Chorley was taking his ruin exceedingly well. “What will you do, Stinky?” she asked, motioning for him to sit down on the facing couch.

“Do?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t the foggiest, my dear. I cried like a babe at first, but that didn’t help a jot. I suppose I’ll simply have to kill myself, put a period to my existence, stick my spoon in the wall—you know.”

“I see,” Marguerite said quietly, then bit her bottom lip. She had wanted revenge, but she hadn’t planned on anyone dying, committing suicide as her father had done. If she had wanted them dead, she would have shot them, one by one, and never blinked. She wanted them to suffer.

Sir Peregrine jumped to his feet, glaring at Lord Chorley. “Don’t frighten the child, Stinky,” he demanded angrily. “You’re entirely too selfish to ever kill yourself.”

Lord Chorley scratched at a spot just above his left ear. “I know, but I want
somebody
to feel sorry for me. That’s why I came here, but you beat me to it, parading your woebegone look, begging for sympathy.” He slapped his hands against his knees and stood. “Well, Wattle, shall we be off? I believe I have enough in my pockets to feed the two of us one more time before they cart me off to debtor’s prison. You will visit me, Marguerite, won’t you? Perhaps even bring me a basket of warm scones and a fresh pack of cards?”

“You can depend upon me, Stinky,” Marguerite answered, much relieved. With any luck, Lord Chorley would be a resident of the Fleet for many years to come.

“I, too, shall be going, my dear,” Lord Peregrine said, sighing. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a line of duns outside my own door when I return home—not that I owe the half of what Stinky here does, but nervous creditors are one of the prices men pay for being in disfavor. Good-bye, Marguerite. You’ve been a loyal friend, and I can only hope none of Stinky’s or my taint rubs off on you.”

“Good-bye, dear gentlemen,” Marguerite said solemnly, then ushered them out before returning to the morning room, her step light as she knew she had succeeded even beyond her wildest hopes. They had been destroyed, and they had no idea she had been the instrument of that destruction.

Now the other three had to be dealt with, and quickly, before they had time to realize they were targets, that someone was out to get them.

Tonight, Mappleton.

Tomorrow, the other two. The last two. The ones she felt sure were the worst of the lot. The most intelligent and therefore the most guilty.

She sat at the desk once more and opened her father’s diary to read:
R.H.—Greedy. Ambitious and unnaturally superstitious. Poor fellow, so afraid to die that he has yet to live! W.R.—Enigma, damn him. Beware the man without weaknesses.