A Masquerade in the Moonlight (51 page)

“Don’t shoot,
aingeal
. One extra hole in this body of mine is enough for me,” Thomas said coolly as he sagged slightly where he stood, pressing a hand against his left side. “He was standing too close to miss me. And would you happen to have anything handy about you to tie up my wound? Much as I hate to mention it, the thing’s bleeding fair to drain me dry.”

Marguerite laid down the pistol and ran around the desk, pausing only a moment to look down at the Earl of Laleham’s unmoving body—to see the knife hilt visible in the center of a dark, spreading stain on his chest—before throwing herself against Thomas, standing on tiptoe to kiss his face over and over. “You idiot! To throw yourself against his pistols! You sweet... adorable...
brave
idiot!”

Thomas winced, and she stepped back, realizing she was probably hurting him. Her hands shaking with nerves, she began pulling her shirt free from her breeches, planning to rip a strip off the bottom of it to use as a bandage. “Not really,
aingeal
. I just couldn’t be sure you were as good a shot as you said you were. But it was nice of you to distract him for a moment.”

“Oh,” Marguerite said quietly, cocking her head to look up at him. “I believe I’m insulted, but as you’re injured, I’ll forgive you. How did you know I’d make a move for the pistol?”

“I didn’t. I only hoped. Come to think of it, I should be glad you didn’t shoot me. How did
you
know that I was lying to Laleham?”

Marguerite smiled and batted her eyelashes at him teasingly as she helped him out of his jacket in order to tend to his wound. “Oh, well that was simple. You had to be lying to William. I’m a lot of things, Thomas Joseph Donovan, but I am
not
a miserable bed partner!”

“That you’re not, darlin’,” Thomas answered, grinning down at her. “That you’re not. Lord, how I love you! Here now—take a care pulling off my shirt. I’m an injured man, you know.”

“I heard a shot! Tommie? Where are you, boyo?” Dooley burst into the room, the tail of his nightshirt barely covering his spindly Irish calves, waving a pistol above his head so that Thomas stepped in front of Marguerite, probably to protect her if the thing went off. “Well, heyday!” he exclaimed as his bare foot collided with Laleham’s body. “You could have waited for me, boyo. Now what am I supposed to tell Bridget, I’m asking you—that I was snoring m’head off while you were playing the hero? You’re bleeding? Good. Serves you right for having all the fun without me.”

Marguerite covered her laugh with a cough as Sir Gilbert and Finch came into the room, then sobered as she remembered what William had said about Marco. “Donovan—Marco! We have to go to Laleham Hall.”

“Whatever for, sister of my heart? To watch it burn, as all evil things must? Ah, Donovan, I see you have not disappointed me. But I’ll take him now.”

At the sound of Marco’s voice coming from the doors to the garden everyone turned to see her childhood friend standing in the room. His red, full-sleeved shirt and the patterned head scarf tied around his head above that single, distinctive eyebrow made him look every inch the Lord of Egypt. A very
alive
Lord of Egypt.

Deserting Thomas where he stood—for no matter how he had complained, he had suffered only a flesh wound and didn’t need all her sympathy—Marguerite raced across the room and launched herself into the Gypsy’s arms. “William said he killed you.”

“Not me, my sister. It was Giorgio he shot. And one shot would never be enough to force the life from such a clever rascal as that infant, although I was kept busy tending to him, allowing the earl to slip past us.” He walked over to Laleham’s lifeless body and, after staring down dispassionately for a moment, spit on it. “That’s for Giorgio,” he said before giving the body a kick. “And that’s for Geoffrey.”

He then turned to Thomas, smiling, as if forgetting that the Earl of Laleham lay dead just behind him. “Giorgio says for you to think about a Gypsy wedding. He’d like three goats and a fat sow for our sister’s bride price, as he has decided he’s owed something for having taken a ball in his shoulder. It’s only a small hole, but Giorgio is insistent. Three goats and one fat sow. Me? I ask only to dance with my sister one last time.”

Marguerite felt tears stinging her eyes and looked to Thomas, wondering what he would say to such an idea.

“Sir Gilbert?” Thomas asked. “Arc you agreeable to Marco’s suggestion? This might not be the best time to apply to you for her hand, but I do very much want to marry your granddaughter.”

“Please, Grandfather,” Marguerite pleaded. “And you wouldn’t be left here alone. Donovan has already told me he would be delighted for you to visit him in Philadelphia for as long as you wish—and even see a red Indian while you’re there. Finch is welcome as well, if he would like.”

“Don’t let yourself get nudged into this, my son. She’s not an easy creature to live with, you know,” Sir Gilbert said, looking to Finch for confirmation. The butler grinned his agreement. “She’s headstrong, willful, stubborn, and has the temper of a hedgehog. A rare handful.”

“Why, you horrible old man,” Marguerite exclaimed as Thomas began to laugh. “I ought to cut off your gin for a fortnight!”

“See what I mean?” Sir Gilbert asked smugly. “Hey, there, Marco. Where are you going?”

The Gypsy had removed the blade, wiped it on his breeches, and returned it to Donovan before lifting the earl’s lifeless form up and over his shoulder. He and his burden were already heading in the direction of the gardens.

Marco turned to look at everyone in turn, his expression solemn. “This is a time of happiness, and it should not be hindered by the continued presence of this lump of offal. I’m taking him where he belongs.”

“A bit of fuel to feed your fire, Marco?” Thomas asked as Marguerite led him to her grandfather’s leather chair, wishing the stupid, brave man would sit down before he fell down. “The poor earl perished in a fire. Terrible pity. Such a sad loss. Yes, that would be easier than having to call in the local authorities and answer a lot of questions, wouldn’t it?”

“I didn’t hear that, my friend, because you didn’t ask it,” Marco said, smiling. “For many years the Rom have been welcomed here, when we are welcome very few places. A dank gray mist that has lain too long on the land is now being burnt away, never to be seen again, and the sun will soon shine down on all of us once more. That’s enough for me. It should be enough for you.”

“It is, Marco, it is,” Marguerite said earnestly, pushing Thomas into the soft chair. It would take her years to explain the logic of the Gypsies to him, and now was not the time to begin. “He—none of us—will be asking anything else. Go with God, Marco. And thank you.”

The Gypsy nodded, then slipped off the way he had come, leaving Dooley to murmur quietly, “I’d give my eyes to tell Bridget’s ma about this. But then she’d never believe me anyway, now would she?”

Later, much later, once Thomas’s wound had been properly cleaned and bandaged and Sir Gilbert, Finch, and Dooley had retired once more to their chambers, Marguerite sat on the edge of his bed and watched him try to find a comfortable position in which his side did not pain him.

“This will never work! This bed might as well be made of rocks for all the rest I’m getting, and I haven’t slept in so long I think I’ve forgotten how,” he exclaimed testily, pushing himself up against the pillows. “Come here,
aingeal
. If I can’t sleep, we might as well talk.”

She did as he asked, lying down beside him beneath the coverlet, her head on his chest. “What would you like to talk about, Donovan? Or do you merely wish to apologize once more for saying all those terrible things to Laleham?”

“You’re going to make me pay for that for a long, long time, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

She smiled. “Years, and years, and years, Donovan. You can count on it.”

His chest moved beneath her as he chuckled softly. “What was it your grandfather said, darlin’? Willful? Stubborn? Yes. But there was another one. Now what was it? Ah, I remember now! You have the temper of a hedgehog! That was it, wasn’t it, my love? Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should be putting a little more thought into this business of marriage. After all, I’m only a young man—little more than a lad, actually—with places to go, things to do—”

“There’s still two loaded pistols lying on the desk in Grandfather’s study, Donovan,” she reminded him, lifting her head to look up into his laughing blue eyes.

He traced her smile with the tip of his finger. “Neither one of us will ever get in the last word, will we,
aingeal
? We’ll still be spitting and clawing while our grandchildren toddle around at our knees.”

“And still loving, Thomas,” she pointed out, snuggling against him. “Never forget the loving.” She waited a moment, believing he’d say something, then realized his breathing had become deep and even.

He was sound asleep, the poor lamb. As she should be. In her own chamber. In her own bed. Mrs. Billings would certainly say so. Heaven only knew Maisie would say so. Convention dictated it. The whole, entire world demanded it. Yes. She should get up, get out, and behave like a good English miss. That was exactly what she should do.

Marguerite sighed, shrugged one shoulder in dismissal of all that Billie and Maisie and the world might say, then cuddled more closely against her beloved—her most wonderful Thomas Joseph Donovan—and closed her eyes.

AN ETERNAL

FLAME

It matters not what you are thought to be, but what you are.

— Publicus Syrus

Love is not in our choice, but in our fate.

— John Dryden

PHILADELPHIA

1811

“O
h, Thomas—isn’t the night beautiful?”

Marguerite twirled round and round on the gently rolling hillside of the estate they had rechristened Little Chertsey, holding out her colorful Gypsy skirts, her bare feet skimming over the dew-wet grass as she danced in the moonlight, just as she had on her wedding day a full year earlier, feeling free and unfettered, and very, very loved.

She collapsed, laughing, onto her knees on the blanket as Thomas applauded her efforts, then lay on her back, her breasts heaving as she tried to catch her breath.

“Hoyden,” Thomas scolded teasingly, leaning over her, his hand resting lightly on her still flat belly, the sleeve of his snowy white Gypsy shirt visible in the moonlight. “You’ll have to put an end to this sort of romping once our baby is born.”

She shook her head, loving the feeling of her unbound hair as it pressed against her cheeks. She was soon to be a mother! The thought was exhilarating, and humbling at the same time. There was so much to teach a child, so much to learn from that child. “No, I won’t. We’ll just bring him up here with us, to dance and sing and lie on our backs while we watch the stars.”

“And look for the body of the man in the moon?” Thomas asked, beginning to nuzzle her throat, his warm breath tickling her so that she giggled again.

“Possibly, Thomas,” she answered, slipping her arms up and around his shoulders. “Grandfather and Finch will tell him about England and our home in Chertsey, Paddy will stuff him full of tales about Ireland and leprechauns, but we two will be the ones to bring him up here and tell him all about the man who lives in the moon.”

“What will we say,
aingeal
?”

Marguerite sighed, pulling his head down so that it rested against her breast. “Ah, Donovan,” she said, using his name as an endearment, “we’ll tell him to look for the obvious, yes, but also for that which is concealed. We’ll teach him to look carefully, look deeply, to see the goodness, and the flaws as well. And then—”

“Ah, indeed, sweetheart,” Thomas interrupted, raising his head once more, and gazing deeply, lovingly, into her eyes. “And then?”

“And
then
, my darling husband,” she answered solemnly, “we will teach him how to look again, through the eyes of love. As you were so intelligent to do when we first met. As we
both
do now. Isn’t that right?”

Thomas smiled, gently stroking her cheek so that she shivered deliciously, savoring his closeness, faintly shocked that, after all this time, he could still arouse her so easily. And then he kissed her, and she gave herself up to the night, and the moon, and the man who would hold her heart into eternity.