Caprice: The Masqueraders Series - Book One (30 page)

He blew a cloud of smoke out before him and leaned once more upon his elbows. Still he did not speak. He was silent so long that she thought he would not answer her. When he did, his voice was so low she could not be certain she heard him right. “It is yours for the taking.”

A mixture of shame and excitement washed over her.
Hers for the taking!
Was this as close as this proud man was likely to come to a second proposal?

“There are things you should know,” she said softly.

The tip of his tobacco glowed a fiery orange-red in the indigo night. “Tell me.” Flat. Unequivocal. A demand.

She said nothing. Where to begin? What to tell first that would allow him to listen to the rest without feeling revulsion for the betrayal she had perpetrated against him? Until this moment she had not really thought about how she would tell him the truth, only that it would be told, perhaps in anger, certainly with the force of right and self-preservation on her side. But now, in this place, at this moment, she could feel only the deepest shame for the trick she had played on this man who had never done anything to her but make her fall in love.

She was concentrating so hard on her thoughts that she did not sense his movement until one of his hands captured one of her tightly curled fists. His warm palm was like a fire on her chill skin as he folded his fingers over hers, trapping her smaller fist within his.

When he spoke his voice was as deep and dark as the night about them. “I know a great deal about webs and lies and secrecy. Sometimes they have blended so well together with reality in my life that I have not always been certain what was truth and what was convenience. Shall I tell you what kept me sane?”

She shuddered in every part of her being. “Yes, please,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Hope. A small word, perhaps, but with the full power of the future in it.”

He tossed his cigar away, and she watched it tumble lazily through the air, a glowing cinder trailing golden sparks until it dropped onto the surface of the river and was extinguished.

He turned to her then and a with slow tender motion of his hand reached up to touch her cheek. As his fingers trailed down the curve of her jaw, she shuddered again, wanting his touch yet dismayed by the sudden thickening in her throat. She felt tears gather in her eyes as his hand slid, warm and comforting, to the back of her neck.

She stared wide-eyed at him as he untied her bonnet and then lifted it away to set it atop the balustrade. His gaze was strangely light and full of moonlight. And then his mouth was once more on hers.

She felt as if a star had fallen on her.

The brilliant, bursting, shattering, sweetness of love.

After a few seconds, she turned away from his kiss to hide her face in his coat. The tears came quickly, her sobs muffled by the fabric as he cradled her head to his chest. There was nothing to say and so he was silent. Yet he stroked her back and she felt protected even from herself in his embrace. How right she had been to wonder—was it only this morning?—if she would prove to be the viper in Wolfscote’s bosom. She had come to play a naughty game on a man she thought deserved to be taught a lesson in love. Now the skein of her motives was hopelessly tangled by her own cross-purpose emotions.

When her sobs subsided, he lifted her face by the chin and kissed away the tears from her eyes and cheeks, and then he took her shuddering breaths into his mouth until her lips stopped trembling. Only then did he lift his head.

“You should be in bed, madam,” he said, his voice strangely lighthearted. “Dawn comes very early in the country, and you have promised to ride with me.

She stepped a little away from him, too shy now to even look at him. “Then we must go back.”

“Yes.”

He picked up her bonnet and her discarded glove from the wall, and then he took her hand and led her back the way they had come in silence.

In those moments, though he was beside her, she felt so solitary that she might as well have been the only being in the whole wide world.

“That’s impossible, of course,” Hadrian concluded as his mount crested a hill. “She must have simply dropped it in the salon.”

“That is what Mr. Temple suggested,” Clarissa replied as she worked to keep her filly a respectful distance from the earl’s stallion. “Lady Norman cannot recall missing it until she was preparing for bed.”

“My servants have been given orders to comb every room, seek under every piece of furniture,” Hadrian said grimly. “That damned sliver of glass will not be allowed to ruin my week.”

Clarissa did not think it prudent to remind him that the “damned sliver of glass” was a four-carat diamond. “It is strange that Lady Norman should become so agitated over the loss of the piece when she had earlier confided to Lady Arbuthnott her distaste for the bauble.”

“Squawked like a parrot whose tail feathers were being plucked!” Hadrian chuckled. “I now believe the rumor that her father married a fishwife.”

“No, really?”

“Too true.” Hadrian turned to his companion with a conspirator’s smile. The morning ride had brought the color of wild roses to her cheeks, and her dark gaze was as rich as ripe sloe plums. Her riding habit of mulberry merino, cut on the severe lines of a military uniform from its double row of brass buttons to the tight-fitting waist, accented her feminine form. Her top hat, tilted at a rakish angle over her dark curls, made him want to lean across his saddle and thoroughly kiss her. But he did not, for they were out in the open and in sight of Wolfscote’s many windows.

“Do you think it wise to neglect your other guests for the third morning in a row?” Clarissa asked when he seemed content to merely gaze at her.

“What the devil do I care? Not that they aren’t welcome to ride the nags in my stables.”

“As long as they do not accompany us,” Clarissa finished with a smile.

“Exactly!” He urged his horse forward down the gentle slope of the hill back toward the house, knowing that she would follow him.

Clarissa smothered another yawn in her gloved hand as she followed him. Her early mornings and late nights were beginning to catch up with her. No one else seemed to notice that Princess Soltana and Mrs. Willoughby never appeared at exactly the same time. Mrs. Willoughby preferred to retire early while Princess Soltana never appeared before midafternoon, and often did not join the full company until after dinner, when she played cards or danced until three or four.

Thankfully, there were too many guests about for all of them to keep up with her comings and goings. With the help of her aunt and maid Sarah, who sat in the room and ate the meals brought up for Soltana, she had been able to successfully fool the household into thinking that both ladies existed. But that might change today. Lord Ramsbury had planned an alfresco afternoon for the entire company. Somehow she would have to make certain that both women were seen.

When she reached the stable, Hadrian had already dismounted. He reached up for her, taking her full weight in his hands as he slowly lowered her to the ground. His hands remained on her waist though two young grooms had come forth to take their horses. As he looked down at her, a frown contracted his black brows. “You look a little drawn, Mrs. Willoughby. Does Wolfscote’s fresh air not agree with you?”

“To the contrary.” On the pretext of looking around the yard, she broke contact with his gaze. “The beauty of Wolfscote draws me from my bed so early that I can scarcely keep my eyes open at supper.”

“I have noticed that you are seldom about when your—Princess Soltana appears. It would seem almost that you are avoiding each other.”

“What an odd thing to say. Why, just yesterday she borrowed my lace fan, while I have promised to share a carriage with her for our outing today.”

“Indeed?” Hadrian’s brows separated as they took flight up his forehead. “I had hoped you would ride with me.”

Clarissa stepped out of his light grasp and away from him. “Now that would cause talk. You promised Lady Ryne that honor.”

Hadrian looked as if he were about to say something short and ugly, but he did not. “Very well, Mrs. Willoughby. I will see you this afternoon.”

“Most likely,” Clarissa agreed and turned with quick steps toward the house. “We are partnered for lawn tennis.”

Hadrian, watching her move away, cursed under his breath. The sight of her fetching behind swaying beneath her skirts was enough to make him randy as a goat. For three days he had behaved as well as any knight templar in the presence of his courtly love. But his patience was a sometime thing, and the price of it was being vented on his servants. How much longer would she keep up the masquerade? And why?

From the moment he had stared into “Princess Soltana’s” eyes here at Wolfscote, he had known what he had begun to suspect the night he and James had shared too many bottles of claret: Mrs. Willoughby and Princess Soltana were one and the same person.

He had considered approaching her aunt on the matter, certain she would confess her part in the charade if he pressed her. Yet some need for caution held him back. If he wanted to force the matter, he could do so with either “lady” herself. And that was the trouble. Which impersonation was real?

He had assumed that Mrs. Willoughby was the genuine article until he overheard Lady Arbuthnott say that until recently she had not seen her niece in more than six years, and that the girl had become a surprisingly beautiful lady. Heloise’s powers of perception seemed limited at best. A clever adventuress might have fooled the viscountess into believing that she was her niece. But to what purpose? That was the question he had not yet been able to answer. Until he could, he would not act. Sooner or later Clarissa/Soltana would show her hand. Perhaps the day’s outing would push matters to a head.

Three hours later, Clarissa’s mind was very much on the same matter as she stared at “Princess Soltana’s” reflection in the mirror. She wore a riding dress of jaconet muslin with a deep ruff about the neck and matching pelisse. Her bonnet, with its broad brim and attached traveling veil, shielded her face completely. With gloves and boots, there was not an inch of Soltana visible. “That will do nicely.”

“I’ll not fool a soul.” Sarah’s north-country accent came clearly from behind the heavy veiling. “Some’un will address me and that’ll be that!”

“Aunt Heloise will make certain that they don’t. She looks perfect, isn’t that right, Auntie?”

Heloise gazed at her maid and niece with equal misgivings. “I suppose it’s something that you and Sarah are of a height though Sarah is too thin to wear your things fashionably. The moment she walks across the floor she will betray herself.”

“Your ladyship knows the truth o’ it,” Sarah agreed. “ ’Tis no’ to be done, Miss Clarie. We’ll be found out.”

“We will not be found out,” Clarissa maintained evenly. “I’ve thought of everything. Princess Soltana is allergic to bee stings. She said so at dinner last evening. The very thought of being exposed to insects frightens her to death. That is why she will not uncover her face or remove her pelisse while in the meadow. All you need do is nod and wave whenever you are spoken to. Aunt Heloise will do the rest.”

“What exactly does ‘the rest’ entail, dear?” Heloise inquired. “I should not like to come between Lord Ramsbury and Princess Soltana. What if he should wish to talk with her?”

Clarissa’s eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Willoughby will keep him so occupied that he will not even think of Soltana. I merely need the fiction of her presence. You may slip away at any time after everyone has gathered in the meadow.”

Sarah threw back her veiling, revealing her forty-year-old eyes rimmed in kohl. “Miss Clarie, I own as I’ll faint dead away, am I found out.”

“You will be in good company,” Heloise murmured. “I intend to swoon with you.” She gave her niece a significant look from beneath her fair brows. “What will
you
do?”

“Why, nothing,” Clarissa answered. “What is Soltana to me but the barest acquaintance, for all Lord Ramsbury suspects we are kin? Yet I do see that it places you in an awkward position. Ah, I have it!” She turned to Sarah with a gleeful smile. “You will say that Princess Soltana had an assignation with a gentleman, and that she pressed you to take her place so that her absence would not be noted.”

“Assignation?” Heloise responded. “With whom?”

“What does it matter?” Clarissa’s smile grew cunning. “I’ve been wanting to get rid of her. It would almost be worth the scandal for Lord Ramsbury to find Sarah out. If he thought Soltana was seeing another man, he would be pleased to be rid of her.”

“Clarissa! Think what you’re saying?” Heloise shook her head. “I absolutely forbid it. You grow too reckless.”

“I suppose you are right,” Clarissa answered, but the thought of disgracing Soltana in Hadrian’s regard was a tantalizing one. The fact that he had not come again to Soltana’s room, as he had threatened to do, had heartened her hopes that his affections were being won by Mrs. Willoughby. But perhaps he was playing some deeper game in the hope of keeping both women off guard until he had made up his mind. She imagined that he would know all about stratagems, delaying tactics, and other subtle forms of manipulation. After all, he had admitted to being a spy!

She took that impression of him with her into the meadow where an elegant alfresco luncheon had been set up near the river’s edge. As dozens of guests fanned out across the grass where ground cloths had been laid, several gentlemen went directly to the open tents where table after table was laden with refreshments. Liveried footmen hastened to see to the wants of the ladies, who arranged themselves on the grassy banks. Within minutes the meadow seemed to bloom with gigantic flowers as gowns of pink, yellow, blue, and white billowed on the breeze and colorful, beribboned parasols were raised to provide shade for tender complexions.

A string quartet played Mozart and Beethoven beneath a perfect cerulean sky while the party dined on servings of chilled watercress soup, broiled partridges, cold breasts of squab, poached salmon, assorted meat pies, jellies and aspics, and strawberries and peaches from Wolfscote’s gardens and orchards.