Moonlight Masquerade
Read Moonlight Masquerade Online
Authors: Kasey Michaels
Tags: #romantic comedy, #regency romance, #alphabet regency romance
Moonlight Masquerade
writing as Michelle Kasey
To my son, Eddie, who can see the good inside, and
always takes the time to look
Electronic Edition Copyright 2012: Kathryn A.
Seidick
Published by Kathryn A. Seidick at Smashwords,
2012
Cover art by Tammy Seidick
Design,
www.tammyseidickdesign.com
E-Book design by
A Thirsty
Mind
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording or any
information storage and retrieval system without written permission
of the author.
Originally published 1989
Table of Contents
“Alphabet Regency” Classics
Now Available:
The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane
The Playful Lady Penelope
The Haunted Miss Hampshire
The Belligerent Miss Boynton
The Lurid Lady Lockport
The Rambunctious Lady Royston
The Mischievous Miss Murphy
Moonlight Masquerade
A Difficult Disguise
The Savage Miss Saxon
The Somerville Farce
The Ninth Miss Noddenly, a novella
The Wagered Miss Winslow
The Rambunctious Lady
Royston
...
“Once again Kasey Michaels presents us with
all of what is best in regency romance and a wonderful example of
why its fans are legion.”
~ Affaire de Coeur
“Michaels... maintains her crown as mistress of the
intelligent and sophisticated Regency romance.”
~ The Belles and Beaus of Romance Newsletter
The English Countryside, 1814
“O
h, we’re going to
die, we’re going to die. I just know we’re going to die!”
Christine Denham hung tightly onto the coach
strap—and her temper—as she listened to her beloved but
exasperating aunt recite this singsong litany of doom and disaster.
Wasn’t it enough that the constant jolting of the coach was rapidly
making her rue her choice of rabbit stew for luncheon? As a matter
of fact, considering the way she felt now, she just might not ever
eat again.
“We’re not going to die, Aunt Nellis,” she
assured the older woman through gritted teeth.
“A fine lot you know, Christine,” Aunt
Nellis retorted, reaching up to clamp her feathered hat more firmly
to her head. “I’ve traveled before—to Bath, when I was your age. It
was a most pleasant excursion, both coming and going. This is quite
different, I assure you. I know disaster when I look it in the
eye.”
Christine had heard about Aunt Nellis’s trip
to Bath numberless times and knew that it had taken place in June,
when snow was as scarce as hen’s teeth, but she didn’t feel it
necessary to point this out. “You were the one who wanted to get to
town early in order to have everything ready for the Season,” she
could not resist saying. “Besides, I’m sure the coachman wouldn’t
have said we could continue the journey after luncheon if there was
any great danger. He travels this route all the time.”
Aunt Nellis widened her slightly protuberant
hazel eyes and shakily pointed to the scene outside the off-window.
“No danger? No danger? It has been snowing like this for the past
three hours, Christine. Snowing so heavily that I cannot even see
the trees as we pass by them. And you say there is no danger? What
would constitute danger to you, Christine? An avalanche?”
Shrugging, Christine smiled, trying to put a
brave face on things. “At least now you won’t have to worry about
all those highwaymen you told me were waiting for us to come along,
giving them two nice white throats to slit. I’m sure they’re all
sitting quite happily in their little thieves’ warrens, their bare
toes pointed toward the fire, telling each other whopping great
lies about the money and jewels they have taken from honest folk
like us.”
Aunt Nellis sniffed her disdain and lifted
her head a fraction, forgetting that the movement would accentuate
the beaklike appearance of her thin nose and give her niece an
unimpeded look at the double chin she usually tried so hard to
conceal. “Don’t be impertinent, Christine,” she said haughtily,
pulling up the canvas shade to block the distressing vision of
falling snow. “Gentleman don’t like impertinent young ladies.”
“Then, dear aunt, I suggest you immediately
tug on that rope and order the coachman to turn this equipage about
for our return to Manderley, for my debut is bound to be a dismal
disappointment to you. You see, I find I have a definite attachment
to impertinence.”
Nellis Denham shook her graying head. “Hush,
child. If your poor departed father heard you he would simply
perish from the pain of your ingratitude,” she declared feelingly,
her garbled statement causing her niece to bite her bottom lip to
keep from laughing aloud. “He so wanted you to go to London and be
a success.”
“Papa
perished
when I was two years
old, Aunt Nellis,” Christine stated, “chasing after Mama because
she ran away with Mrs. Warburton’s wastrel brother. I doubt he took
the time to relate the many detailed instructions and hopes for my
future you have quoted all these years before he mounted his horse
and rode off into the night.”