A Masquerade in the Moonlight (8 page)

“That she does, Mrs. Billings,” Thomas said before Marguerite could overcome her amusement at the woman’s confusion and reply. “Mr. Quist, a dear friend, introduced us just last evening when he became indisposed and could not continue to partner Miss Balfour for the remainder of a country dance. We chanced upon each other again today, as you may have gleaned from our conversation, in the offices of Sir Peregrine Totton, another mutual friend.”

“Your interpretation of the requirements for friendship is most unique, Mr. Donovan,” Marguerite said, watching impotently as Mrs. Billings seemed to have come to a decision as to how to react and began to bloom under Thomas’s wide smile, his ingratiating manner—and his outlandish massaging of the truth. But how could she blame the woman, when she felt the same urge to melt beneath the glow of Donovan’s charm, the heat of his masculine attraction? “But I believe you have requested a dance? I am devastated to say I do not think I have a single one free. Being well dressed has served to have many potential ‘purchasers’ petitioning to further examine the merchandise.”

“As long as they don’t attempt to unwrap it,” Thomas returned, a hint of steel, of possession, in his voice, although he was still smiling genially, revealing his straight white teeth to advantage. “Now, Miss Balfour, why don’t you consult your card and see if there’s some way you can set aside a single dance for this humble petitioner? I harbor the hope I can use that time to convince you to drive out with me tomorrow, so that you might introduce me to some of the glorious sights of your fair city. I am, after all, a visitor on your shores.”

Marguerite didn’t have to consult her card, and she knew it. So, damn him, did Thomas Joseph Donovan. Just as they both knew she would most definitely drive out with him tomorrow. She couldn’t ignore such a direct challenge—didn’t want to ignore it. “I believe I’m still free for supper, Mr. Donovan, if that is all right with you?”

“I will count the minutes, at the same time toting up my blessings,” Thomas told her, bowing to Mrs. Billings and then to Marguerite, who knew she had to offer him her hand this time or else spend the next ten minutes listening to another lecture on deportment from Billie.

She felt Thomas squeeze her fingertips intimately as he lowered his head, then at the last minute he turned her hand over, to place his kiss on the inside of her wrist, just where her above-the-elbow glove was held by a pearl button and a scant inch-long oval of her skin lay revealed. His mustache tickled at the sensitive area, and the touch of his tongue sent a shiver racing up her arm. “Until midnight, Miss Balfour,” he said a moment later as she looked up at him, trying to control her breathing.

“Until midnight, Mr. Donovan,” Marguerite answered coldly, resenting his physical assault, which was an unlooked-for shifting of the rules in their game of verbal thrust and parry. “As you count the minutes, I shall measure the hours.”

“In anticipation, as a child waiting for Father Christmas, Miss Balfour, or will you deplore each tick of the clock, as would a prisoner about to mount the gallows?”

Ah, they were back to fencing, and Marguerite knew she could relax now—even enjoy herself. “La, Mr, Donovan, you must not tease me so,” she told him, opening her dance card and glancing down at the first name on the list. “Such impertinent questions smack of your growing infatuation for me, a circumstance I can only report to my grandfather, who would not, I believe, be best pleased to hear I’m being so determinedly wooed by a brash colonial who might wish to carry me off to his own country, to be set upon by red-skinned savages. Now shoo yourself off like a good little diplomat, for Lord Whittenham already approaches, eager to lead me into the first set.”

“Your most devoted and obedient servant, Miss Balfour,” Thomas said, inclining his head once more so that another woman, one not so observant as Marguerite, would still be able to believe she had come out the victor in this veiled exchange of hostilities.

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Billings exclaimed once Thomas—still smiling, Marguerite noticed—melted into the crowd milling at the edge of the dance floor.

“Yes, Billie, I’m convinced you haven’t,” Marguerite responded, trying not to giggle.

“I beg your pardon? No, don’t explain. Just allow me to say what I feel I must. Although Mr. Donovan is a particularly well set up young man, Marguerite, and much more of an age I believe would suit you, as I do not countenance your continued insistence on allowing yourself to be courted by so many older gentlemen, I am convinced I should be neglecting my duty if I did not encourage you to avoid further conversation with Mr. Donovan—not that I understood above three words that passed between you. I don’t think I can quite like the way he looks at you, my dear. It is
entirely
too forward, even for an American.”

“I shall take your words to heart, Billie,” Marguerite lied. “But please don’t fear for my girlish inclinations, for I have only agreed to go down to supper with the gentleman to ascertain for myself if our opportunistic American eats his peas with a knife. After tomorrow you will not have to worry about the man.”

“After tomorrow? Then you
are
planning to drive out with Mr. Donovan tomorrow? Oh, Marguerite, do you really think you should?”

Marguerite stiffened. “That, dear Billie, is
entirely
beside the point. Now, excuse me, please, for I must not keep Lord Whittenham waiting. You know how cross he gets if he has to thread his way all across the room to us, bumping noses with everyone he meets until he is close enough to see me. I can only hope he doesn’t misplace me in the middle of the dance floor. Lady Whittenham told me he once lost her for an hour at the opera, and she was standing less than five feet from him.”

“If you didn’t persist in being partnered by shortsighted old men such as their lordships Whittenham and Mappleton you would not have to worry your head about such things,” Mrs. Billings pointed out as Marguerite rose, gaily waving to Lord Whittenham as that gentleman stood not ten feet away, peering inquiringly into the face of a purple turbaned dowager.

“Again you’re correct, Billie,” Marguerite told her before moving away, momentarily unnerved to see Thomas Donovan was standing not twenty feet away, looking at her intently, appraisingly. “You’re always correct. Does such unwavering surety in your own knowledge ever fatigue you? No, don’t answer, dear lady. It was an unfair question. Lord Whittenham and I will be sure to bring you some lemonade once the set is over. Ta-ta.”

“I tell you, I cannot like him.”

“We are not required to crawl into bed with the man, Perry,” Sir Ralph Harewood drawled, playing down a card as he, Sir Peregrine Totton, Lord Arthur Mappleton, and Lord James Chorley sat around a small table in a corner of the room Lady Sefton had set aside for her guests who preferred gaming for high stakes over dancing. “Stinky,” he prompted, addressing Lord Chorley, “I have played a card. As you are to my left, you are to play a card now. That is how it is done. Please pay attention.”

Lord Chorley, who had been busying himself inspecting a passerby and obviously judging the man’s rig-out totally unacceptable, turned to Sir Ralph, frowning. “Did you see that coxcomb? Green satin. And those red heels! I mean, now really, gentlemen! It is more than laughable. Beau will have something wonderfully witty to say about that when I ask him. I’m meeting him later, you know—he and His Royal Highness both. A private party. Sorry.”

“We may whimper, Stinky,” Sir Ralph replied, “but we will survive the slight. Tell us, please—however do you stand being so avidly courted by both the preening Brummell and our dearest Prince of
Whales
? That’s spelled with an
H
, Stinky.”

“What! What!” Lord Mappleton exclaimed. “Prince of
Whales
? Oh, Ralph, that was jolly good! Better if you scribbled it, o’course, for they both sound the same, don’t they? Wales.
Whales
. But never mind. It’s still a whacking good joke!”

“Thank you, Arthur, but it’s not mine. I borrowed it from Charles Lamb,” Sir Ralph said tersely, inclining his head to Lord Mappleton before looking to Lord Chorley once more. “Stinky, are you going to play a card or not?”

“What does it matter, Ralph?” Sir Peregrine piped up peevishly, throwing down his own cards. “I have naught but trumps remaining, so the rubber goes to me. You really should concentrate your minds, gentlemen, for to play without counting trumps is inviting disaster. I have devised a stratagem for card playing that has yet to fail me, not that I particularly care for gaming. And, James,” he said, leaning toward Lord Chorley, who was still frowning over his own cards, “
you
really should strive to overcome your penchant for hoarding kings. Fawn on them outwardly, yes, but never put your faith in them. It’s woefully unproductive. My aces best you every time.”

“What? What? You’ve got all the trumps, Perry?” Lord Mappleton asked, frowning. “Well, stap me if that don’t smack of nastiness on your part. Weren’t none of the rest of us paying attention, save you—and James, of course, when he isn’t vetting everyone who passes by, looking for red heels. But he always loses anyway—don’t you, Stinky?”

“Quiet, Arthur, before James realizes he’s been insulted and calls the both of you out,” Sir Ralph warned, then leaned back in his chair, applauding softly. “And thank you so much, Perry, for your modest homily concerning your own brilliance, although I will agree James should restrict himself to playing for straws. That’s three hundred you owe me, Stinky. I’ll expect your vowels before we adjourn. But to get back to the matter at hand before Perry here has an apoplexy—who is next to meet with Donovan, now that Arthur here has abdicated? William believes it’s Stinky.”

“If Willie says so, then I guess that’s right,” Lord Chorley said at the mention of William Renfrew, Earl of Laleham, “not that I know what I’d say to him. Do you think the Irishman gambles?”

“Willie, is it?” Lord Mappleton asked, wiping at his perspiration-sheened forehead with a large handkerchief. “Best not let William hear you call him by that childhood nickname, Stinky. He don’t like it above half, you know.”

“And that’s another thing that discommodes me!” Sir Peregrine exclaimed, leaning forward to place his elbows on the tabletop. “Why are we dancing around like this, with
Willie
standing back, his hands lily white? Why isn’t he meeting with this upstart Irishman?”

Sir Ralph speared Sir Peregrine with a steely stare so that Totton abruptly coughed into his hand and sat back, his gaze suddenly intent on inspecting his manicured fingertips, and the small group lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

When, Sir Ralph wondered, had his three friends crumbled into such decrepit piles of faded splendor?

He continued to look at the trim, diminutive Perry, seeing little of the brilliant youth who had once dazzled them all with his store of knowledge on most any subject. His understanding of government, his affinity for numbers, his ability to astonish gullible investors with his seemingly endless store of information on most any subject from ancient architecture to zoology, had grown stultifyingly boring over the years, until he had developed a supercilious attitude of superiority that barely hid his disdain for any he believed to be his intellectual inferiors.

Condescending, arrogant, chicken-hearted, dried-up little twit! If it weren’t for his position in the War Ministry Sir Peregrine Totton would not only be insufferable, he would be expendable.

Sir Ralph looked next to the graying, portly, yet elegantly clad Lord Chorley, whom they all had called Stinky since their days at school. Once his bluff friendliness and universal popularity—and his well-known, limited brainpower—had been useful, even amusing, but now these same traits were becoming oppressive. He had come to believe himself a true bosom crony of the ever-fickle Prinny. Stinky now used that friendship to lord it over his fellows at this table, as if he were not James, but another wily Jack Horner, who had stuck his thumb in the kingly pie and picked himself out a royal plum. Poor, superficial Stinky. Did he really think Prinny would bail him out of the River Tick if his constant gaming finally outstripped his once considerable fortune?

But Stinky did have connections in the royal clique. And as William had pointed out, it was far better to work from the inside than from the outside.

And then there was Arthur. God’s teeth, had there ever been such a fall as Mappleton’s? Once quite the man about town, the dream of every foolish young girl, the nearly bald Arthur had aged with less grace than any of them. He’d become little more than a laughably inept, fortune-hunting roué, harmless if embarrassing to behold whilst he chased after each year’s new crop of wealthy debutantes as if unaware that he had ballooned to twice his size, becoming pudding-faced and ungainly. While his sad intellect—never his most shining light—could no longer be overlooked because of his handsome face or his well-turned leg.

But Arthur held a post with the Lord of the Treasury, a result of birth and political connections and not a reward for any hint of brilliance. Sir Ralph didn’t need William Renfrew to tell him how important the aging, biddable, money-mad Lothario was to their plans.