The Black Mask (14 page)

A moan of despair escaped her lips. She should return home at once to bear the disgrace as she might. Those three old women, birds of ill portent comparable to the three witches in
Macbeth,
must surely have recognized her. The tale would be all over London by tomorrow. Her only hope was Sir Niles would do the honorable thing and pretend he had been proposing.

She had no intention of holding him to such a promise but without it, she would be lost.

Blindly she returned to Aunt Paige, holding her veil to her temple. She didn’t seem to have noticed her niece’s lengthy absence. Rose had to twitch at her aunt’s voluminous skirt in order to capture her attention. “I’ve lost my pin,” she said, showing her that the veil fell if she took her hand down.

“So you have.” Paige took one from her bodice lace. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, yes,” Rose said, forcing lightness into her tone. “It’s far and above all the parties we have been to yet.”

“You looked a trifle flushed,” Paige said, peering at her more closely as she pinned the silk. “Perhaps you should take a turn on the terrace at the rear of the house. It must be cooler there.”

“Certainly.” Rose smiled, though she had to swallow hard to do it. “Won’t you come with me?”

“No, thank you. Augustus is certain to ask me. It’s a bit of a scandal, but if you go alone and stay on the terrace, no harm can attach to you.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll risk it. I’m truly not over-warm. This silk is wonderfully cool.”

“I’m sorry you were gone,” Paige said. “Sir Niles came to solicit us for supper.”

“He did?” She spoke too loudly. The chaperones and wallflower girls all looked at her. She gave them a little half wave, a mere twiddle of the fingers. “What was he wearing?”

“Wearing? I don’t know. The same as every other man here, I fancy. Though I must say, Sir Niles wears everything with such flair that one can forgive him for not taking a risk. He’s always the epitome of what is correct.”

Rose gazed off into the distance at a large basket of spring flowers. What did she believe? Had she been in the arms of the Black Mask? Or was the blow-hot, blow-cold Sir Niles once again favoring her with his attention? Trying to work it out, she lived again the wonder of her first kiss. It made her shiver with remembered delight.

“Now you are too cold?” Paige asked.

Rose hardly heard her. She supposed she should have been more missish, made some protest when he’d taken her outside, but she’d been rapt. All her romantic longings had seemed to coalesce around the dark figure leading her astray.

“Did Sir Niles say that he would return?”

“No, but he certainly gave me that impression. I believe,” Paige said, lowering her voice, “I believe he is much taken with you. He paid you quite the nicest compliment.”

Because she was so obviously waiting for her to ask, Rose made an inquiring noise.

“He said he could imagine no other company he’d prefer, that you were the liveliest girl in London and if he couldn’t have supper with you, he’d sit alone.”

“Highly flattering,” Rose said, wondering how the endlessly correct and proper Sir Niles ever brought himself to woo the Incomparables he’d so often squired. Perhaps women of pleasure didn’t require pretty speeches, only deep pockets.

Paige pondered something, lines between her brows. “I wonder if it’s quite proper to call you lively. It sounds a bit hurly-burly to me.”

“Only compared to Sir Niles himself,” Rose said. The more she spoke with Paige, the more she convinced herself it could not possibly have been Sir Niles who kissed her. He’d never demean himself by kissing a girl in a garden. The imagination boggled at the image of the impeccable gentleman risking a scratch on his gleaming boots.

Remembering the scuffed condition of her bewitcher’s boots, Rose found it impossible to reconcile that image with Sir Niles. The hair was similar, but the lines of the mouth were very different—or so she thought. She hadn’t been studying details at the time.

Perhaps the elderly woman had been wrong when she’d called Sir Niles’s name. There was an undoubted resemblance, but their little corner of the terrace had been quite dark. It couldn’t have been him.

“Aunt Paige, does Sir Niles have any close relations?”

“I believe his mother is still residing in Bath. She suffers from some disease of the lung, and the waters are supposed to be of benefit to her. She is a Scotswoman, or so I have heard.”

“No brothers? No twin, for example?”

“No. He has a sister, I think. Or is it two?” Paige slanted a glance at her. “Why this passion to know about Sir Niles’s family? Are you considering increasing it?”

“Of course not. He interests me; he’s such a strange combination of characteristics.”

“He’s a man, my dear. Trying to understand them is like trying to understand God. You’re defeated before you start. One can only have faith that all will be made clear at some future time.” She looked up and smiled brilliantly. “Here comes Augustus.”

Rose was glad to see the general had brought Rupert with him. Perhaps it wasn’t precisely done to go into supper with a brother but at least she knew who he was.

Aunt Paige said they should give Sir Niles a moment more to join them. Sir Augustus seemed to live on air when Aunt Paige was near but hinted that, having spent the last hour arguing tactics with another general, he could use a glass of champagne.

“Rupert,” Rose said in an urgent undertone, “what is Sir Niles wearing tonight?”

“I haven’t seen him since we arrived. Why?”

“I’m afraid I won’t recognize him.”

‘Just don’t embarrass me,” he said, his earlier charity with her seemingly evaporated. “You do tend to be awfully rude to him, considering he’s shown nothing but the greatest tolerance for us, a couple of nobodies from the country.”

“We are not nobodies,” Rose said. “Our father ...”

“Is a banker, not a nobleman. It’s dashed nice of people to show us any consideration.”

“What are you talking about, Rupert? Who?”

“Sir Niles playing cards with me. Benjy Quayle lending me, and you, his horses. Mrs. Yarborough inviting us tonight.”

“She is Aunt Paige’s friend. Besides, I don’t call fleecing you out of IOUs being particularly kind.”

“Susan Yarborough ...” Rupert muttered, apparently not attending.

“Who? Our hostess’s name is Catherine.”

Rupert blinked and returned to earth. “Yes, I believe you’re right.”

‘Then why did you say Susan?”

“Did I? Slip of the tongue, that’s all.”

“Sir Niles!” Aunt Paige called, waving her fan. The ballroom had begun to empty as people went in search of refreshment. Rose had all the opportunity she could wish to watch him cross the floor.

As usual, his clothing could only be called faultless, a word not usually applied to costumes. He wore a proper coat, molded to his frame, a pair of proper black knee breeches, black stockings, and proper evening shoes with embroidered toes. Only in the wearing of a black shirt did he vary the attire of a perfect, proper gentleman. At every point, from perfection of fit to excellence of condition, he differed from the man who had kissed her on the terrace.

As he bowed over Rose’s hand, she saw a sapphire pin glinting in the depths of his black cravat, the merest flicker of blue giving the stone away. It was the same dancing blue light she sometimes saw in the depths of his eyes. Had she seen that scintillation in the eyes of her unknown hero? Thinking back, she knew it had been too dark to see the color of his eyes.

“A pleasure to see you, Miss Spenser, as always,” he said.

“You don’t choose to wear a mask, Sir Niles.”

“I have nothing to hide,” he said, as if it were the merest commonplace. She couldn’t be certain if he were giving her a hint or not. “Also, it is time for unmasking.”

“Is it?” She glanced around. Masks were indeed being removed. She saw the tall man with the red sash, whom she’d mistaken for Rupert. Without the mask, he was just another attractive young man, though Ariadne, still at his side, looked up at him with newfound stars in her eyes.

“Permit me?” Sir Niles whisked away the pin that held her veil. Rose looked at him with startled eyes. So similar an action, yet so different a feeling.

Surely if he had been the man who’d kissed her, he’d show some sign. An extra squeeze of her hand, a certain possessiveness in his attitude, something! But so far as she could tell, and she was on the watch for the slightest deviation from normal, he treated her exactly as punctiliously as ever.

As they ate the delectable lobster patties and creamy asparagus soup laid out for their midnight feast, Rose watched Sir Niles carefully. Try as she might she could never be certain whether what she’d seen of the man who had kissed her matched Sir Niles’s mouth and chin.

Aunt Paige gave her a nudge with her elbow. “Stop staring at Sir Niles, Rose. You’ll make him self-conscious.”

“Not him,” she muttered. “He couldn’t be more at ease.”

It was the not knowing that drove her quite mad. The unknown one’s voice had been low and husky, but no different than Sir Niles’s should he choose to disguise it. Perhaps the other man had been a trifle younger, but how to tell by moonlight? Rose began to feel the only way to solve her conundrum would be to kiss Sir Niles.

Looking at him, Rose couldn’t imagine herself responding in such an unrestrained fashion to him. True, sometimes she liked him very much. She’d even asked herself what she would do if his partiality for her continued to the point of a proposal. Certainly she could imagine less congenial people to be married to. But then again, sometimes she could imagine no one worse. All too often his frigid demeanor had repelled her. She had only to think of his behavior toward poor Colonel Wapton to remember him at his worst.

Strange how she had only to believe she could never imagine kissing him to find herself imagining just that. Now, as she looked at him at the precise moment he turned his face toward her, she felt a blush start, as brilliant a red as her attire.

He smiled at her. “I begin to fear I have a smut on my face.”

“No. You are just as always. Perfect.”

“You say that as though you disapprove. Should I spend less thought on my clothing?”

“You will think and do exactly as you wish without reference to me. I will save my breath to cool my porridge.”

“I knew you to be an inestimable woman as soon as we met. Tell me, do you talk a great deal at the breakfast table?”

“I generally take breakfast in my room.”

“With every word, you lead me to believe your husband will be the most fortunate of men. Is there a great deal of hunting in your part of the country?”

“Some. Rupert will know. I don’t hunt myself.”

“No, but others hunt you, I’m certain of it. As I learned the other day from your aunt, you have the political, the nobility, and the military calling upon you.”

Rose sent a less than warm glance toward her aunt. “I don’t take a count of those who find me pleasing, Sir Niles. Pray spare me your enumeration.”

“Oh, but I must count myself among your admirers, Miss Spenser. You continue to please my sense of proportion and dignity.”

“I do?” She wished she could decide whether she liked him or not. When he was kind, or teasing as now, she did like him. Something in her responded to the warmth of his smile and the laughter in his eyes. She liked his expressive eyebrows and the way he tucked the corners of his mouth back when he waited for her answers.

“You weren’t very kind to one of my admirers the other day, Sir Niles. Colonel Wapton meant no harm.”

The laughter faded out of his eyes. He looked past her. “Oh, look. Do you see the girl in the sky-blue dress?”

The one with the feathers?” She was certain he’d looked away in search of something to distract her only after she’d raised the specter of the colonel, but it had been done so quickly, she couldn’t be sure.

‘That’s Mrs. Yarborough’s daughter.”

“Is her name Susan?”

“Why, yes. Have you met her?”

“No. But I’d like to.”

Half an hour later, when dancing resumed, Rose realized she’d been very skillfully steered away from any possible topic through which she could introduce Colonel Wapton. Could this be jealousy? She’d dismissed the notion before, but now it came back, bearing evidence. She would discuss the notion with Aunt Paige when, as was their habit, they stayed up after a party, analyzing what had happened, who wore what, and how many partners Rose and other girls had danced with.

Sir Niles was on the point of asking her to dance but Sir Augustus broke into his carefully considered and beautifully worded request. “And here I am, hoping for the favor myself. You don’t mind, Alardyce? Privilege of rank and all that.”

“Not at all, sir. Miss Spenser should always avail herself of the opportunity to dance with one of Wellington’s officers. Dancing is an important part of tactics, for both sides.” He bowed and withdrew, but only to a certain distance. Rose could see him standing in the midst of other men dressed as the Black Mask. He stood out like a black rose among ashes.

“Peculiar fellow, Alardyce,” the general said. “Good officer, but with a deuced romantic streak. Undoubtedly gets it from his relations. Scots, some of them.”

“I always thought the Irish were the great romantics, sir.”

The general preened, tugging his collar and shooting his cuffs. “We manage, m’dear. We manage.”

Now that she’d dismissed the idea of Sir Niles being the man who had kissed her, Rose knew she had another problem. On the one hand, as she believed, the man had been the one true Black Mask. In which case, she’d given the first kiss of her life to a criminal, and he hadn’t even needed to steal it. She was also prey to the frightening suspicion she’d given her heart away as well.

If, however, the man on the terrace was not the real Black Mask, then she’d kissed a stranger, one who might still be in the ballroom. He’d known who she was, for he’d called her by name. He hadn’t been tall enough or wide enough to be any of her giants. So who had she kissed? Was he, now that the unmasking had taken place, boasting of his achievement?