The Black Mask (10 page)

The colonel came in, talking quickly. “Please forgive this intrusion, Miss Spenser.”

“Pray don’t mention it,” Rose said, for what else could she say? With luck, this interruption would be brief so she could return to that state of comfortable agreement she’d established with Sir Niles. “What is it you have forgotten?”

A tinge of color crept into the colonel’s already bright cheeks. “My... my sword, ma’am. I can’t think how I walked halfway to Bond Street without noticing it wasn’t at my side. Ah!” Half the bulky colonel disappeared as he went down on one knee behind the sofa. Sir Niles twisted in his seat, groping for his quizzing glass in the pocket of his pale waistcoat.

Colonel Wapton rose, brandishing his enscabbarded sword. Sir Niles recoiled, saving his shoulder by inches.

“However did you come to lose it?” Rose asked after a sigh of relief.

“I removed it from the hanger when I sat down. I suppose I must have kicked it under the sofa when I stood up.”

“How energetic,” Sir Niles murmured.

Colonel Wapton’s heavy brows closed across his forehead. “I regret I haven’t the pleasure of this gentleman’s name.”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon. Sir Niles Alardyce, may I present Colonel Colin Wapton of the 13th Dragoons.”

Without standing, Niles extended two fingers in a limp handshake. “How d’you do?”

“An honor,” the colonel said curtly, a slight sneer distorting his regular features. Obviously dismissing Sir Niles as a negligible character, he turned to Rose.

“Will you save me a gavotte at Mrs. Ffolliot-Ransome’s rout this evening?”

“I shall be glad to, Colonel. The first one?”

“Excellent. When will we have the pleasure of seeing you waltz, Miss Spenser?”

“Not for some time, I’m afraid.”

“But you attend Almack’s? I’m sure I saw you there.”

‘Yes, I’ve been permitted to step over the portal.”

“Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t waltz. Save me a waltz, instead?”

“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t learned the steps as yet.”

“No? Whatever is your aunt thinking of? I beg your pardon, I don’t mean to criticize so good a lady, but for a young lady in her first Season not to waltz… well, it’s absurd. You should learn at once.”

Sir Niles coughed gently. “Is it the army you represent, sir, or a young ladies’ academy?”

The colonel glanced at Sir Niles. “It must be every gentleman’s interest to see Miss Spenser never sits out a dance.”

“Energetic, indeed. Quite exhausting, in fact.”

Rose hurried to speak, feeling disaster in the air. ‘Yes, I sometimes do enjoy sitting out a dance. It’s easy for you gentlemen in your pumps, but I assure you, a lady’s feet begin to ache dancing in tight satin slippers.”

“One should always have a care for one’s feet,” Colonel Wapton said. “We learn that on our first long march. Fashionable boots and shoes are worse than useless.”

Sir Niles peered down at his highly polished top boots and then glanced through his glass at the colonel’s. A slight spasm of distaste wrought his features. “British citizens should be made more aware of the privations suffered by their armed forces. Demmed if I shan’t write a letter to the
Times
about it.”

Rose could hardly believe this cynical and sneering Sir Niles was the same man to whom she’d been so close to confiding all her hopes. What had happened to change him? Nothing but Colonel Wapton’s entrance. She would have a sharp word with Hurst and remind him when she left orders not to be disturbed, she didn’t wish to be disturbed. It had been a kindness on Hurst’s part, since the colonel couldn’t appear on parade without his sword, but all the same!

But why had Sir Niles changed? He couldn’t be jealous of Colonel Wapton’s morning call; she had given him no cause to believe her heart was anything but independent. Nor could it be jealousy of Colonel Wapton’s uniform, since he’d served himself. And it couldn’t be that there was some antipathy between the two men, for she had only just this moment introduced them.

Yet from the instant Colonel Wapton had appeared, Sir Niles had changed from a kindly and amusing friend into this combination of dandy and high-nosed aristocrat.

Rose felt as if she could cry from sheer frustration. She’d come so close to asking Sir Niles to postpone demanding money from Rupert. She should have spoken up sooner instead of dallying away her time with light conversation. What wouldn’t she give to have that privacy back again? But she felt even if she were alone with Sir Niles, she’d find herself with the colder, supercilious version, and she couldn’t talk openly with
him
.

Colonel Wapton, having secured his sword on his person and her promise of a dance, made noises about leaving. Rose saw him to the drawing room door. “I’m frightfully sorry to leave you with such a dreary companion,” he whispered. “Shall I stay and protect you?”

“You’re very kind, but no,” she said brightly, avoiding the intimacy of a whisper.

“Brave girl.” He gave her a casual salute, two fingers waved in the direction of his forehead.

Rose closed the door behind him. She refused to give up without at least one more attempt, though she had a cold certainty at heart that she would fail. “What a foolish man,” she said, returning to the sofa, her skirts rustling. “Imagine leaving his sword.”

“Is he one of your admirers?”

“Oh, I doubt he’s serious. I’m just someone he calls on in the morning.”

As though he found it too uncomfortable to sit any longer, Sir Niles rose and walked to the window. He held back the sheer silk undercurtain with one graceful hand. “But he calls often?”

“Fairly often. Aunt Paige calls him one of my giants. I don’t know why it is, but I seem to collect the most enormous men. They take up a great deal of space and nearly all the available air.”

“You don’t care for very large men?”

The sunlight on his dark brown hair brought out a shimmer of red highlights. It also showed with heartbreaking clarity the thinness of the skin at his temples, a pulse beating there, and the circles under his eyes. “You don’t look well,” she said impulsively.

“I assure you I am entirely well.”

“Perhaps you aren’t sleeping enough.”

“You were kind enough in your note to mention my evening activities. Is this more of the same?” His voice was harsh.

“No doubt you think me very impertinent, and perhaps I am. Yet I cannot apologize for my concern for your health.”

“My health is not your concern, Miss Spenser. Despite what half the females in town seem to believe, I am not perishing for want of a woman’s touch in my life. I resent such meddling deeply.”

Rose told herself there was no use in growing annoyed. Yet her hopes had been high since this interview had begun and now they were dashed. She couldn’t help feeling disappointed. It was that feeling alone which brought the tears into her eyes.

“I beg your indulgence, Sir Niles. My concern shall not trouble you again.” She stood up. “My goodness,” she said with patent falseness, “is that the time? Well, I have enjoyed our chat, sir. What a pity it cannot be extended, but I know how many calls you have on your time. Half the females in London, didn’t you say?”

“Half of them minus one, Miss Spenser. I should ask you to save me a dance this evening in order to give you the pleasure of refusing. But I am not so unselfish as all that.”

“I can well believe it.” Instead of offering him her hand, as she would to any other departing guest, she dropped a deep and ironical curtsy as he left. His bow answered hers with studied exactness.

She went to the morning room window to look out into the street. She did not pull back the curtains, as he had done, but watched through their softening veils as Sir Niles came out. He gave a flick to the brim of his tall, sloping-sided hat, setting it to a perfect angle over his eye, and held his stick under his arm at precisely the most insouciant angle. His whole bearing breathed relief. No doubt it was a relief to escape from her. No doubt the attitude of a kind friend was a difficult one to support for any length of time, so unnatural a posture. She could only wonder why he’d troubled.

“Pardon me, Miss Spenser. Lady Marlton requests you come upstairs,” the butler said from behind her. “Thank you, Hurst. I’ll go up at once.”

“I hope you weren’t too put out by my letting the colonel come in, miss.”

“No, it all turned out for the best. Don’t be troubled, Hurst.”

“Thank you, miss. May I take the tray away?” “Yes, by all means.” Idly, feeling rather numb, Rose watched him sweep up the crumbs, smooth out the cushion, remove all traces of Sir Niles’s visit. If only it were as easy to remove the questions from her mind. Would she ever understand men?

When Rose entered Paige’s bedchamber, she found her aunt sitting on the floor before the long pier glass. The mirror was tilted forward to show her aunt’s face in the bottom quarter. Aunt Paige looked like an elfin child peering over the edge of a rill. There was something hesitant about her expression, as though she didn’t know whether to trust what she saw.

“Aunt Paige, are you all right?” Rose said, hurrying to her side. She sank down on her knees, not knowing if her aunt had fallen or fainted.

“Oh, I don’t know. I feel all topsy-turvy.”

“Let me help you to your bed. Shall I ring for your maid?”

“No, no, I’m ...” She chuckled a little and then heaved such a heavy sigh Rose thought it would never end. “I’m in love again. Isn’t it dreadful?”

Rose sat back on her heels in surprise. “In love? Dreadful?”

“Oh, yes. Perfectly horrid, in fact. You’ve no idea what a mess it makes of things. What a mess it makes of me.” She put out a trembling hand to touch the reflection of her face. “Look at her. What is left to her? Bloom gone, sweetness gone, a few miserable remains of a once considerable charm, but nothing like it was.

I could wind a man around my little finger when I was a girl. They all came flocking, you know. Half a dozen men wanted to marry me, but I had to have Richard Lethbridge.”

“I don’t remember him.” He was only a name, a scrap of gossip overheard before someone noticed the child.

“No, he died some years before you were born. Oh, I was mad for him, absolutely out of my mind. Would you like to see his portrait?”

Rose wanted anything that would get her aunt off the floor. She looked so odd huddled there, like a savage who didn’t know there was such a thing as a chair in the world. “By all means. He must have been very handsome.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say so. Fascinating, though. The miniature is in the little drawer under my dressing table mirror.”

“I don’t like to pry. Why don’t you find it?”

“It’s folly to keep secrets from relations; they find them out anyway. Go on.” Aunt Paige fell again to studying her face, though with no sign of greater pleasure. As though sounding for depth, she tapped along the ridge of her cheekbone, pulling back the slightly fallen skin at the edge of her eye.

Rose turned the pink tasseled key in the shining brass lock. The little drawer popped open as if spring-loaded. It was filled by several pieces of paper and two small portrait heads on ivory.

“Which one?”

“The older one.”

Rose looked at the men’s faces. One was graced with gray hair and the other was as fair and young as Apollo. Carrying them gingerly, she brought them to her aunt.

“There he is,” Paige said, tears in her eyes. “Not handsome, no. But so kind. He married me out of kindness, though I vowed I would make him love me one day. I think he did come to it, before the end.”

“Mother said once you had been devoted to your husband, but I never knew which ...” There was no diplomatic end to that sentence.

“Oh, yes, I was devoted to Richard. He must have been all but forty when we were married. I hounded him into it; yes, I did,” Paige said in response to Rose’s instinctive denial.

“Everywhere he went, there I was, making sheep’s eyes at him like the lovesick schoolgirl I was.” Paige looked in the mirror and wore the expression of a mooncalf, eyes round, mouth hanging open, hands quivering as if with greed.

“He didn’t have to marry you.”

“I made myself and him so conspicuous that he was compelled to do something. And he could never bring himself to hurt such a foolish child, so he proposed. How delighted I was. How certain I could never deserve such a paragon! I started out under a crushing load of obligation and gratitude. It’s a wonder we were ever happy.”

“No man would marry for such a reason as that,” Rose said, scoffing.

“Why not? It’s more or less why I married Japhet. Once you start tripping over a man every time you turn around, you might as well marry him. Besides which, he had a title without any funds to support it and I had inherited Richard’s fortune. We were destined for each other.”

“I remember Uncle Japhet. He seemed very pleasant.”

“Oh, he was. Always smiling, always cheerful. One could never indulge in a fit of the sulks with him around or even a gentle melancholy. He couldn’t bear to see unhappy faces, not even a maid with the toothache. I sometimes wish we could have had children together; I’m sure they would have been delightfully happy babies.”

She turned again to the mirror and heaved another endless sigh. “I’m too old now, and he’s bound to want children.”

“Are you talking about ... about the general?”

“Yes. Augustus O’Banyon.” She rolled his name on her tongue like a candied violet from the top of a particularly delectable pastry. “He’ll probably want to live in Ireland once he retires from the service. Well, it’s a pretty country. They say Dublin is quite civilized now.”

“But you only met him last night,” Rose pointed out.

“I know. But he swears he took one look at me and knew I was his. I’d laugh at that if it weren’t for feeling precisely the same way. Whatever shall I do?”

Rose had never heard of anything so romantic or more ridiculous. Surely middle-aged people like her aunt and the general should have more control over their feelings, rather than letting themselves be ridden by them like a pair of star-crossed children. She neither believed nor disbelieved in love at first sight, for surely no one had ever seen it except in plays. Perhaps it happened once in a great while, otherwise how could playwrights imagine it and audiences accept it? All the same, it sounded uncomfortable at best.