A Masquerade in the Moonlight (41 page)

Marguerite closed the diary and sat staring out the window, gnawing on her knuckle. Victory was soon to be hers, but her triumph would mean Donovan’s defeat in whatever secret dealings he and his country had with the members of The Club.

Donovan loved her. He had said so. But would he still love her when this was over? She had lived in the past and the present for so long. Could she at last dare to think of the future?

He that will keep a monkey should pay for the glasses he breaks.

— John Belden

T
homas sidled up behind the magnificently gowned creature wearing the high powdered wig and whispered, “Would you care to share the dark with me, mademoiselle?”

“Donovan!” Marguerite whirled around to face him, showing him the black, heart-shaped beauty patch that sat just to the left of her full, pouting mouth. Her mischievous emerald eyes nearly outshone the Harlequin design decorating the golden eye mask that matched the shimmering liquid gold-on-gold of her striped silken gown. The scent of roses perfumed his nostrils. She snapped open her fan and began coquettishly fluttering it beneath her chin. “La, good sir, and how did you know me?”

“That was easy,
aingeal
,” he said, taking her hand and quickly leading her down the walkway he’d discovered earlier, a dark, narrow path that well suited his plans for Marguerite Balfour. “I merely searched for the most beautiful woman here. Besides,” he added, grinning down at her, “I am intimately acquainted with that small, delightful mole just at the base of your throat, remember?”

”We can’t disappear for long, Donovan,” Marguerite said, just as if he hadn’t made her blush behind her eye mask. “Billie has been marvelous to me, and I’m doing penance for past indiscretions by being on my most
excruciatingly
best behavior this evening. After all, it isn’t Billie’s fault she’s such a hopeless twit. However, I’m not heartless. You may kiss me, monsieur, if you so desire. Such things are allowed at masquerades, or so I’ve been told, especially as this is the Dark Walk and a favorite haunt of lovers.”

Thomas shook his head, enticed by her teasing air, but unfortunately aware of their surroundings. “I’d rather not begin anything I couldn’t finish, and, by the looks of that gown, we’d both only end up weeping in frustration. May I offer you my compliments?”

“On my
excruciatingly
lovely gown? Why, thank you, kind monsieur. I’ve had a fascination with these outlandish styles since my childhood. Once, when I was very young, I was sitting in church and—”

“Not on your costume, darlin’, although it is rather fetching, in a forbidding sort of way. I doubt the ladies who wore them ever dallied successfully in a garden.” He threw back the hood of his black domino and pushed the matching eye mask up onto the top of his head. “I was complimenting you on your Balbus. However did you manage it?”

She turned her head, avoiding his eyes. “I have a friend who ingeniously found employ for some days this spring as one of the Tower gardeners.”

“Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? He would be the same friend who played the Balbus hawker this afternoon and, I do believe, is also so handy with a fuzzed card. I finally got a good peek at the eyebrow, you understand. It’s a most betraying feature, and I can understand why he takes such pains to hide it. A
familiar
feature as well. Rather reminiscent of Miss Rollins’s most unique feature, as a matter of fact.”

Marguerite turned back to him, smiling widely. “Oh, you’re good, Donovan. Very good. And so busy! May I gather you saw him with Stinky?”

He lifted her gloved hand and began pressing kisses on the soft skin at the inside of her elbow. “Hmm, and you
taste
good,
aingeal
. Like fresh, sweet cream. Yes, I saw him. That’s two, isn’t it? Tell me—who topples tonight? Mappleton? Harewood? Not Laleham. Not yet, at least.”

“Allow me to correct my last statement, Donovan. You’re not just good. You’re
very
good. And tonight it’s Arthur who will fall. You will stay out of my way, won’t you? Not that it matters, for it’s too late now to stop my plan from coming to fruition.”

Thomas couldn’t help himself. He allowed her to lower her hand, holding it tightly in his, then asked the questions that had been burning in his brain. He had to, for he knew that somehow, some way, these men stood between him and complete happiness with the woman he loved. “What did they do to you, Marguerite? What hurt did they deal you that they should be punished? Do they even know? They couldn’t, and still be your friends.”

Marguerite looked at him for long moments, and he could see she was balancing her need for secrecy with her love for him. At last, when he was about to beg her forgiveness for having broken his promise not to question her, she said quietly, “I believe that guilt, like Shakespeare’s
misery
, ‘acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.’ I can only assume they are—at least four of them—trying to make amends in their own twisted fashion, and ease this orphan’s entry into society. You see, Donovan, those men, those five pathetic men, forced my father to commit suicide. My mother was never the same after that, hardly a mother at all, and she died last year—of a broken heart.”

The night, and the mood, suddenly turned cold, and perhaps dangerous.

“Your father,” Thomas repeated, remembering Marguerite’s vehemence when he had dared to call her by her father’s pet name for her. He racked his brain for an explanation. Clearly, she had adored the man. Also clearly, she’d woven a fantasy to remove blame from her father for his self-destruction and placed it on the heads of others. A reasonable if misguided conception. “Marguerite, sweetheart—no man can
force
another to commit suicide.” He held up his hands to stop her from interrupting him. “All right, all right, I know. Socrates. Hemlock. But he was an ancient Greek—those people went in for all kinds of melodrama. That sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore, not in this enlightened age.”

“You don’t understand,” Marguerite bit out angrily. “For years I didn’t understand, didn’t know. Maisie still doesn’t understand.
Nobody
understands. Those five men, those terrible, greedy, godless men, lured my father into an unwise business investment—a bubble—and convinced him to bring several of our neighbors in with him. They lost their money, Donovan.
All
of it. Papa was so ashamed, and wretchedly despondent to have failed once more—for he’d always chafed at the fact he and Mama and I had to live off my grandfather’s largess, the knowledge that so many people believed my mother had married beneath her. He didn’t know how he could face Mama or me with what he’d done. That was bad enough, but then The Club, teasing him with the chance to make a fortune and repay his friends, attempted to involve him in treason—”

She broke off, looking up at him apprehensively, as if she had said too much.

“All right,
aingeal
,” Thomas said quietly, suddenly understanding why she had been so quick to pick up on his own association with the members of The Club. And no wonder, although she loved him, he still felt sure she didn’t quite trust him. “I’ll admit I can believe they’re devious sorts, more than capable of plotting treason.

“But, Marguerite,” he continued earnestly, taking hold of her upper arms and looking down at her intently, “they are also dangerous men. So far, you’ve been playing with them, taking out the weakest ones with what I’d have to call remarkable ease. But Harewood? Laleham?” He shook his head. “Oh, no. Not them. You’re in over your head with those two.”

“Am I, Donovan?” she shot back angrily, her eyes glittering like green ice behind her mask. “Or is it just that you don’t wish for me to cause any more havoc with your plans? They’re out to do it again, aren’t they? They’re out to betray their country again, this time with American assistance. Poor Donovan. I’ve been making things difficult for you, haven’t I? You even went so far as to plan to seduce me, to keep me occupied and out of mischief—and don’t bother to deny it, for Stinky told me all about how you bragged about seducing me the night of Lady Sefton’s ball. Oh, the terrible sacrifices you’ve made for your country! You deserve a medal for your diligence and dedication.”

Thomas felt his Irish blood beginning to boil, matching Marguerite in her own anger. “I think,
aingeal
, I’m hearing the pot call the kettle black. Do you by chance recall our charming interlude in the mews behind Sir Gilbert’s mansion? Talk about seduction! ‘What would it take, Donovan, for you to stumble out again?’ That’s what you asked while you were rubbing that glorious body of yours against mine. Why were you so cooperative, if it wasn’t to make sure that I would look the other way while you went about your childish schemes?”

Marguerite shrugged, giving without really giving in. “All right. We’ll declare that part of the argument a draw, even though you’re a beast to turn my own words against me. But I won’t give up on my vengeance. These men deserve everything I’m doing to them!”

“Do they? They may be bastards, the lot of them, but they weren’t the ones who put a pistol to your father’s head. He did that on his own! He’s the one who took the coward’s way out instead of standing up to face the piper—to face you and your disillusionment in your most wonderful, perfect father. Hell—even I am paying for your father’s suicide, Marguerite, because now you refuse to really trust any man.”

She slapped him, hard, across his cheek, so that his head snapped to the right, then stood back, her trembling hands pressed to her own cheeks. “Oh, Donovan, you stupid fool—look what you made me do. What you made us both say.”

He pulled her against him, his anger dissipated, holding her tightly, afraid he was losing her, knowing he couldn’t live without her. “You’re right. It’s my fault,
aingeal
, all my fault. I admit it. I was a cloddish fool, and I did set out to seduce you, to discover what sort of mischief you were up to with the men I’d been sent to contact. But that was only in the beginning—the
very
beginning. I love you, Marguerite. I love you so much—with all my heart and soul. I’d die if I lost you. Please, forgive me. I had no right to say anything about your father. I never knew him.”

“I wish you had,” she whispered against his chest a few moments later, her tone wistful and, thankfully, devoid of anger. “He was a wonderful man, Donovan. Wonderful. He taught me so much. I still can’t understand how he could have left me that way, without saying good-bye.” She pushed herself back against his arms and looked up at him searchingly. “You’ll say good-bye, Donovan, won’t you?”

“Never,” Thomas told her, swallowing down hard on the rarely felt need to cry. He hadn’t cried since he buried his mother before striking out for a new life in America, kneeling in the cold winter rain and scratching out a hollow in the soft ground with his own two hands. So many years, and he could still remember the pain as if it was yesterday. He knew how Marguerite felt. He, too, had been left behind to fend for himself. “For I’ll never leave you,
aingeal
.”

She placed her hands on his shoulders, blinking back tears and smiling wanly as she wiped at the residue of hair powder that clung to his black domino. “We’re a fine pair of idiots, aren’t we, Donovan? Did I hurt you?” she asked, stroking his cheek. “I almost used my fist, the way Papa taught me, but at the last moment I realized that I’m a woman grown now. A woman in love, even if there are times I could cheerfully choke you.”

“If that’s an, apology, Marguerite, I accept. And I’m grateful to my Maker that I’m not your enemy. However, my cheek does sting a bit. You refused me once, but perhaps if you were to kiss it now—”

“It would be my pleasure, Mr. Donovan,” she responded, standing up on tiptoe and pressing her cool lips on his still-smarting skin. “There,” she said, stepping back once more, “is that better?”

Donovan grinned. “My cheek is, darlin’, but now there are
other
parts of me throbbing almost painfully with envy. You don’t suppose we could retire farther down this conveniently dark walk and investigate whatever fastenings there are that are holding that gown so cleverly low on your delightful breasts?”

Marguerite’s eyes were smiling now, all the shadows of hurt and, hopefully, any lingering distrust lost behind their dazzling green fire. “No, Donovan, I don’t suppose we can. But you may partner me as we stroll the grounds, waiting for midnight. I wish to be very nearby dear Miss Rollins when the time comes to unmask.”

Marguerite’s words reminded Thomas of his mission at Vauxhall, and he sighed in real regret. They’d have to get this business of revenges and treasonable maneuverings out of the way, and quickly, or he was soon going to explode from frustration, both physical and mental. “Come on, I’ll take you back to Mrs. Billings before your good intentions about not upsetting her fly to the four winds.”

“Sir Ralph is here, along with Arthur,” Marguerite said conversationally as they made their way back to the Grand Cross Walk, at the very heart of the gardens. “As neither of them usually frequent masquerades, I can only think you’ve just remembered an appointment with Sir Ralph. Arthur is here at the request of his dearest Georgianna, you see—which is the same as to say he’s in attendance at my request.” She sighed, squeezing his hand. “We’re still working at cross-purposes, Donovan.”