The Madcap Masquerade (9 page)

“As I told you last evening, I think we need to become better acquainted.”

Her eyes widened perceptibly. “Are you saying you came here to kiss me again?”

Theo sucked in his breath. He had never met a woman as forthright in her manner of speaking as Miss Barrington. He hadn’t yet decided if he was more charmed or unnerved by the experience.”

“Not expressly,” he said, making a valiant effort to keep from laughing. “But now that I think on it, I must admit the idea has merit, and what could be a more appropriate setting than this darkened room?”

“As to that,” she rose quickly, “I find my headache much improved. I believe I shall open the drapes.”

“Not so fast.” Theo stood up, caught hold of her upper arms and turned her to face him. “My kiss first, if you please, Miss Barrington.” Drawing her slight form to him, he bent his head to claim her lips in what he was determined would be a kiss as gentle and tender as their first kiss had been fierce and punishing.

But as if mesmerized by that other kiss, her lips parted invitingly the instant his touched them and before he was fully aware of what he was doing, he found himself once again plundering her soft, vulnerable mouth with a passion that left him feeling as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning.

Dammit
, he raged inwardly as he ended the hot, lusty kiss,
that’s twice I’ve attacked my betrothed with all the finesse of a sailor home from a year at sea
. Releasing her abruptly, he stepped back before she realized the effect of her touch on his traitorous body.

“Now, with your permission, I shall open the drapes,” he said, quickly crossing to the window while he gathered his wits.

What was there about this particular woman that made him lose his legendary control when the reigning beauties of London and Paris had failed to do so? She could not by any stretch of imagination be called a beautiful woman—or even a handsome one. Nor did she have a figure that would make a man look twice if he passed her on a London street.

Yet somehow the look of wonder in her emerald eyes reminded him that a lifetime ago, before the hellish carnage of the Peninsula, he, too, had looked on the world with wonder. And somehow the innocent sensuality of her eager response to his kisses made him feel as if all the other women he had known had been but a gaggle of lifeless, unfeeling dolls.

A flick of his wrist and sunlight flooded the small room, illuminating the object of his momentary insanity. “My goodness,” she exclaimed, dropping back onto the sofa as if her legs had been knocked out from under her. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but this kiss was even more…affecting…than the first one.”

She stared up at him, her small, heart-shaped face a picture of amazement. “Do they grow progressively more intense, my lord? For if they do, I wonder how any woman can be expected to survive her engagement with her senses intact—and I shall not even let myself think about the marriage bed.”

Theo sat down beside her. To tell the truth, his own legs felt a bit shaky. He smiled. “I take it then, you are not averse to my kisses.”

“Good heavens no! Quite the opposite, my lord. They are the nicest thing about you—although you do waltz superbly as well.”

“Thank you, Meg. But be honest, I sense there is something about me you distrust—possibly even dislike. I would very much like to know what that something is.”

So now she was “Meg” not “Miss Barrington.” Without so much as a by-your-leave, the supercilious fellow had dropped the formal form of address. She felt a shiver crawl her spine; she very much wished he hadn’t. The diminutive of the name she’d temporarily assumed sounded frighteningly intimate when spoken by lips that had just moments before sent her senses reeling. Still, she doubted it would do her much good to quibble over such a minor impropriety. “Very well,
Theo
,” she said, following his lead, “if it’s the truth you want, then the truth you shall have. To begin with, I find your monstrous arrogance a bit disconcerting.”

“Do you indeed? How interesting.” He stretched his left arm along the back of the sofa behind her and sent an odd tingling sensation coursing through her neck and shoulders. “It is a trait I learned at my mother’s knee. She assured me it was as essential a part of being the Earl of Lynley as administering my estates and taking my seat in the House of Lords. I fear, little commoner, that you may have to learn to live with my ‘monstrous arrogance.’ Old habits die hard at the advanced age of two and thirty. Though if anyone can put me in my place, it will surely be the sharp-tongued lady who is about to become my wife.”

But that union will never come about.
Oddly enough, that thought failed to afford Maeve the comfort she’d expected. She felt tortured with guilt over her part in the deception perpetrated on her sister’s intended bridegroom. But more than that, she suspected she might have found taking the toplofty Earl down a peg to be the most exciting challenge she’d ever faced.

“Surely my arrogance is not the only thing you hold against me, Meg. I can think of any number of my sins that might give you pause for thought.”

Maeve heard the note of derisive laughter in Theo’s voice. Apparently the conceited fellow had such a good opinion of himself he found it impossible to take her criticism seriously.

“You’re right.” She smiled sweetly. “Enumerating the sins of a known rake would be like counting the fleas on a dog—an endless task. But since you are so insistent, I shall mention the one with which I’m most familiar—namely your deplorable treatment of poor Mrs. Whitcomb.”

“Ah yes, Sophie.” Theo sobered instantly. “I have given serious thought to our rather bizarre conversation last evening and I fear there may be some truth in what you said about her suffering the censure of the so-called
proper ladies
of the village because of her close friendship with me.”

He paused and drew a deep breath. He had never understood why papists derived such comfort from confessing their sins. He found the experience damned embarrassing. He was not accustomed to airing his feelings out loud to his closest male friends, much less a woman he scarcely knew.

But sometime in the middle of a sleepless night, he had come to the realization that there had been more truth than fiction in the extravagant prose with which he’d announced his engagement. It was beginning to look as if fate may indeed have provided him with the kind of woman he had unknowingly waited for all his life.

He had always had an uncanny instinct where women were concerned, and both that instinct and his equally astute common sense told him he could trust Meg Barrington implicitly. For how could a woman so openly honest and outspoken have a deceitful bone in her body?

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that the two of them had every chance of creating one of those rare marriages built on respect…and passion such as his friend, the Duke of Montford enjoyed with his commoner wife, Emily. Furthermore, the feisty little cat had already proved she was more than a match for his impossible mother—which boded well for his future peace of mind.

If renouncing his mistress and indulging in a little verbal soul-searching was the price he must pay to convince her that he was prime husband material, then so be it. Gritting his teeth, he prepared to make the speech he’d carefully rehearsed on the ride from Ravenswood.

“I have not yet determined how, but I must find a way to give Sophie back her respectability now that the nature of our friendship is altered by my pending marriage,” he said and was gratified to see a look of approval on his future bride’s face.

“Sophie is not terribly bright,” he continued, “but she is a generous, warm-hearted woman who has seen me through a difficult period. She should not be made to suffer for my lack of discretion.”

A generous, warm-hearted woman.
The earl’s description of Sophie Whitcomb was a far cry from the vicar’s harsh condemnation of what he considered a “fallen woman.” Maeve studied the handsome features of the man who had just made such an amazingly humane observation, and found nothing in them to suggest he was being the least bit facetious. This was a new, compassionate side of the earl—one she found even more disquieting than his undisputed charm. The last thing she needed was to start liking the man.

He turned his head and surveyed her expectantly, apparently waiting for her to applaud his surprising turnabout face. She couldn’t bring herself to utter a word, though she was aware it could not have been easy for such a proud man to humble himself as he had. The very idea that her condemnation of him had caused him to go to such lengths to insure the success of a marriage she knew would never take place left her feeling sick with guilt. She, of all people, should have been the last one to hurl stones at another sinner.

“I shall take your silence as agreement then, Miss Barrington,” he said in a chilling tone of voice that told her how deeply she had offended him with her apparent indifference to what he must have considered an earthshaking decision.

Agreement to what, she wondered, but was afraid to ask. For gone was the kindly man of but a moment ago and in his place the arrogant aristocrat who had first greeted her when she’d arrived at Meg’s engagement ball.

“Very well then, since that is settled, I shall take my leave of you,” he said, rising to his feet and heading for the door.

“What is settled?”

He turned back with obvious impatience. “Have you listened to nothing I’ve said? I have agreed to sever any connections which might endanger the success of our upcoming marriage and I shall expect you to do the same.”

Startled, Maeve heard herself protest, “You cannot be serious. I have no such connections.”

“Maybe not in the true sense of the word, but you are dangling Richard Forsythe like a puppet on a string.” The earl’s eyes glittered dangerously and a certain inflection in his voice told her he was indeed deadly serious. “Cut him loose. He is a good man and deserves better than to waste his time pining for a woman he can never have—and he can never have you.”

He reached for his gloves and high crown beaver which he’d earlier deposited on a small table just inside the door of the salon. “The idea might not appeal to you, but the fact remains you are mine, Meg Barrington.”

His beautifully defined lips curved in a smile, but his eyes remained cold, hard chips of gleaming onyx. “And you would do well to remember that I never share what is mine.”

M
aeve watched out the window as Theo mounted his horse and rode off down the long, tree-lined driveway. She found herself wishing desperately she could have told the high and mighty Earl of Lynley that the woman about whom he had suddenly become so possessive was an imposter. Even worse, that both she and his bride-to-be, whom she impersonated, were the daughters of a high-priced London whore and a drunken country squire who slept in the kennel with his hounds.

She smiled, imagining the look of horror on his handsome face when he realized that to get his hands on the Barrington money, he must foul the blue blood flowing through his aristocratic veins. She felt certain the squire had never touched on that interesting fact when he negotiated the marriage settlement.

In truth, if there hadn’t been so much at stake for everyone concerned in this bizarre betrothal, it might almost be considered comical. Certainly, it had all the elements of a Drury Lane farce.

With a heartfelt sigh, she resigned herself to two more weeks of participating in the madness and retired to the music room to soothe her frustration at the pianoforte. By rights, she should be working on her drawings; they were, after all, where her future lay. But her nerves were much too jangled from Theo’s visit to allow her to concentrate.

She didn’t have to concentrate when she played her music. She had worked so long and so diligently on mastering the intricate compositions she loved, her fingers simply glided over the keys—effortlessly recreating what she had previously stored in the depths of her mind and soul.

“There’s a note come for you from Ravenswood, Miss.” The maid, Lucy, hovered in the doorway, her eyes bright with excitement. “It must be from the earl, and after he’s already called on you and brought such pretty flowers too.” She sighed. “It’s so romantical.”

“If the note is indeed from him, he must have ridden
ventre à terre
all the way to Ravenswood and scribbled it before he took time to remove his hat and gloves,” Maeve said drily, perusing the square of rich vellum embossed with the earl’s crest.

Her head snapped up as she suddenly realized what Lucy had said. “Flowers? What flowers are you talking about?”

“Why the red roses he asked Mrs. Pinkert to put in a vase. Must be more’n a dozen of them. Prettiest things you’ve ever seen, with stems so long Mrs. Pinkert near tore her hair out trying to find a vase as fit them.”

A look of puzzlement crossed Lucy’s bright young face. “It’s too early in the year for roses to be blooming. I can’t imagine how he come by them.” She snapped her fingers. “Faith, I do so know. They must be from the Ravenswood sol…sol…you know, that glass house the old Earl had built out behind the kitchen wing.”

“The solarium,” Maeve said, her pulse quickening. Theo’s roses were the first flowers she had ever received and in spite of her antipathy toward him, she couldn’t help but be touched by the gesture. She wished she’d known in time to thank him. Whatever their differences, she owed him that much.

With misgivings, she returned her attention to the note and instantly determined the spidery handwriting could not be Theo’s. She noted the cramped signature and her misgivings increased tenfold. Why would the dowager countess be sending her a note? The woman had gone out of her way the previous evening to show her disapproval of her son’s choice of a wife.

The minuscule script was not easy to read, but Maeve finally deduced it was an invitation to dinner at Ravenswood on Tuesday evening, and was directed to both Meg and the squire. A barely decipherable postscript added the information that the countess’s brother, Viscount Tinsdale, and his distinguished traveling companion were arriving from London on Monday and would be anxious to meet the earl’s betrothed.

A rather odd way of wording it, Maeve decided. She knew very well who Viscount Tinsdale was. He’d figured prominently in her first two cartoons lambasting the crowd of shallow dandies who clung to the Regent’s coattails. She’d submitted them to the Times just before leaving London and they should be published within the next few days. She shuddered to think what her reception at Ravenswood would be if he or his sister suspected she was the notorious Marcus Browne, whose inflammatory cartoons had London holding its breath to see who would be ridiculed next.

But who could this “distinguished traveling companion” of the viscount’s be and why had the dowager chosen to be so secretive about his identity? Surely it couldn’t be the Regent himself. It was a well-known fact that Prinny never traveled without his entire entourage. Still the fellow must be a very prominent member of the
ton
. Maeve had a feeling in her bones the dowager was counting on his providing such a glaring contrast to the boorish commoners with whom Theo had allied himself, that he would instantly realize he should look to a more suitable heiress to repair his dwindled fortune.

She felt her hackles rise at the implied insult to her twin. Furthermore, if the countess was planning on persuading her precious son to break his engagement, she had a shock in store for her. That was a privilege Maeve had already determined belonged exclusively to her sister, Meg.

She looked up to find Lucy still eyeing her with obvious curiosity. “It appears my father and I are invited to take dinner at Ravenswood on Tuesday evening,” Maeve explained. “I shall want to make a good impression and I’ll need your help in choosing the proper gown—one with which I can wear my pearls.”

Lucy’s eyes sparkled. “La, Miss, not to worry. It’s the sort of thing I’m best at. Choosing a gown will be no problem. You’ve ever so many pretty ones in your bride clothes.

She cocked her head and studied Maeve thoughtfully. “And I’ll do something grand with your hair. Another snip or two, maybe a few curl papers, and I’ll have you looking as bang up-to-the-mark as the most fashionable lady in London. Didn’t I turn you out fine as sixpence for the ball last night?”

“That you did.” Maeve smiled, thinking of the sensation she’d created in her daring green gown. “Now, where did you put my roses? I’d like to see them.”

“Why in the little salon where you and the Earl was just sitting, Miss. It seemed the proper place to show them off, what with you having so many callers and all.”

“Good thinking,” Maeve agreed and sweeping past the giggling maid, proceeded down the stairs to the small salon. She stopped just inside the door and felt her breath catch in her throat. The roses were everything Lucy had claimed, and more. A mass of perfect ruby buds, their spicy sweet fragrance filled every corner of the room and drifted into the entryway beyond. She touched a velvet petal with her fingertip, so moved by their beauty, she felt tears spring to her eyes.

A picture of Theo’s handsome, saturnine face swam in her tear-blurred vision. Her first kiss. Her first waltz. Now her first flowers. Like it or not, the Earl of Lynley had already carved himself a special place in her memory—and her requisite fortnight posing as her twin had just barely begun.

Theo was in a foul mood.

The business of terminating his affair with Sophie had not gone at all as he’d planned. She’d wept all over him. She’d ranted and raved and pleaded with him to continue seeing her after he was married. When he’d flatly refused, she’d shrieked like a banshee and torn her hair and threatened to kill herself. She’d even threatened to go to his betrothed and describe in detail the interesting ways he’d entertained her on the cold winter nights when he’d warmed himself in her bed.

In short, she had acted in an alarmingly emotional and shockingly un-British manner, which had given him a complete disgust of her. He’d spent the better part of the night trying to reason with her. To no avail. She was as hysterical when he left her as she’d been nearly twelve hours earlier when he’d first announced his intention to be faithful to his marriage vows.

Hell and damnation! How had a rational, well-intentioned fellow like him managed to land in such a bumblebroth? And how could an innocent country recluse like Meg Barrington have so accurately predicted the way a trollop like Sophie Whitcomb would react when she received her
congé
?

He was still pondering these baffling questions when he turned his horse over to a waiting groom and strode into the entryway of Ravenswood to find his mother waiting for him.

She raised her lorgnette and perused him as she might a particularly offensive piece of refuse found floating in the Thames. “Really, Theo, must you insult me by returning from one of your nights of debauchery looking and smelling as if you had been lolling about in a brothel? Remove yourself to your chambers this instant and I shall order the footmen to prepare you a bath.”

Theo took a deep breath and reminded himself that the woman was his mother, and, as such, deserved his respect no matter how annoying she might be. “I am perfectly capable of ordering my own bath, Madam,” he declared somewhat more curtly than he intended.

“Then please do so immediately. Our houseguests should be arriving momentarily.”

“Guests?” Theo scowled. “I do not recall inviting anyone to Ravenswood.”

“At my request, my brother, the viscount, is honoring us with a short visit and bringing with him his friend, the Duke of Kent.”

Theo swore softly under his breath. He thoroughly disliked his uncle. There was something about the overdressed dandy that made his skin crawl. He had never met the Duke of Kent, but if the rumors about him were true, he stood second only to the evil Duke of Cumberland as the most hated of the Regent’s brothers.

What had possessed his mother to invite two such unpleasant fellows as houseguests? And without consulting him. The woman was taking entirely too much upon herself. All the more reason he should install his bride as mistress of Ravenswood as soon as possible. Then he could move his mother to the dower house where, like it or not, she belonged.

Wearily he mounted the stairs to his bedchamber. Perhaps because of all that had happened in the past few days—perhaps because he was simply too tired to delude himself any longer, he faced a truth he had never before allowed himself to acknowledge. He disliked his mother even more than he disliked his uncle.

It was not an easy truth to face. For what kind of man would despise the woman who had given him life—even if that woman had given him none of the warmth or tenderness he’d craved so desperately as a child?

Not for the first time, he found himself wondering if the driving need he often felt as an adult to lose himself in a woman’s arms stemmed from his loveless childhood. Not for the first time, he vowed that no child of his would ever suffer the loneliness of knowing he was nothing more to his parents than the means of perpetuating their noble name.

Perhaps, as much as her fortune, what drew him to Meg Barrington was his sense that she would take great pleasure in motherhood. He could see she thought him anything but the ideal man to father her children. He felt certain he could change her opinion on that. But if, God forbid, he could not, he would learn to live with it.

Far more important was the knowledge that with her as their mother, he was insuring his children the kind of maternal love and tenderness he had never known. He had never been more serious in his life than when he’d told her she belonged to him and to him alone.

The gown Lucy selected for the dinner party at Ravenswood was as daring in its own way as the green ball gown, despite the fact that, in color, it was more acceptable for an unmarried woman. A white Belgian lace overdress covered the deep rose silk chemise, but the off-the-shoulder neckline was, to Maeve’s way of thinking, shockingly low, and the lace point hemline allowed a glimpse of ankle she was not quite sure was proper.

“La, Miss, you’re much too modest,” Lucy declared when Maeve voiced her doubts. “Just let me finish weaving a few of the earl’s rosebuds into your hair, and you’ll look so pretty he’ll change his mind about waiting till fall for your wedding.”

Luckily for her peace of mind, Maeve could recognize a butter boat when it was dumped on her, so she ignored Lucy’s blithe prophecy. The worst thing that could possibly happen would be to move the tentative wedding date up a month or two.

The squire had declined the dowager’s dinner invitation shortly after he’d staggered into Mrs. Pinkert’s kitchen late Tuesday morning, covered with bits of straw and smelling like something extricated from a dung heap.

“Make me excuses to the old besom,” he’d said when Maeve told him of the dowager’s invitation. “Just ‘cause I agreed to give the Earl me daughter to breed his sons and a fortune to bail him out of the River Tick don’t mean I’m willing to spend me evenings doing the pretty with his mother. Demmed woman’s got a disposition sour enough to curdle milk twixt the udder and the bucket.”

He took a hearty swallow of the black coffee Mrs. Pinkert poured him. “Mark my word, daughter, ye’d best make certain that one’s moved to the dower house afore ye say yer vows. Give her a chance to get her toes dug in and ye’ll have her breathing down yer neck till the day she sticks her spoon in the wall.”

“Sage advice, sir, but you’re giving it to the wrong daughter. I am Maeve, not Meg.”

“What? Eh, so ye are. Can’t keep ye two straight in me mind.”

“Nonsense, sir. You may be many things, but a fool is not one of them. You have us completely straight in your mind. It’s this scheme of yours that’s beginning to look like a corkscrew.” Maeve stared into her father’s bloodshot eyes. “I’ve been waiting three days to talk to you about that very thing.”