Roxanne recognized his voice. It amused her that she knew the man she was dancing with—although he did not know her. It was a young dandy with an unmistakable pale yellow mustache who often called at the house and took Clarissa driving. She was claimed next by a sturdy musketeer and then a pipestemlegged Robin Hood complete with bow and arrow. The musketeer she thought she recognized, although she could not be sure. After that she danced with strangers who merrily tried to guess her identity while, laughing, she supplied them with false clues.
Then, across the crowded ballroom, she saw Rhodes. Even in costume and masked, she recognized those broad shoulders, the poise of that leonine head, that swinging gait.
He was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Confederate Cavalry. His belted gray coat was double-breasted and trimmed with gold braid, which also ornamented his cuffs. His collar was gold, and a stripe of gold ran down his blue trouser legs. Roxanne noticed that the coat fit him too tightly and the sleeves were a shade short, and decided that the uniform probably had belonged to that Virginia gentleman, his rakehell grandfather.
If so, it would certainly have infuriated Joab Coulter to see Rhodes wear it.
As her current partner, a bandy-legged Henry VIII, danced her toward that corner of the room, Roxanne gave Rhodes an enticing smile. Tonight, she told herself wickedly, she would play the part of flirtatious Clarissa to the hilt—she would even ensnare Rhodes, and then leave him wondering who she was. Malicious laughter welled up inside her. Tonight the man with the roving eye would be led on, and then thrust callously aside, even as he thrust others aside!
Ah, he had seen her! She saw him peer through the dancers for a better look at her. Shortly, then, he made his way to her side and bowed and asked her for a dance, and she was well content. For she was sure he could not know she was wearing Clarissa’s costume—after all, Clarissa had so many, and this was a new one. And certainly he would never associate this lavish Marie Antoinette disguise with the servant girl in his household.
Returning the smile of the masked cavalry officer, Roxanne melted into his arms. She danced enticingly close—close enough to cause raised eyebrows about the room.
Rhodes gave her a narrow penetrating look, but soon smiled down at her. She was well aware of the view her low-cut dress afforded of the tops of her round pearly breasts.
“Might one be permitted to guess who you are?” he asked.
Roxanne shrugged carelessly, but realized that he would recognize her voice. “One might,” she whispered, and touched her throat. “Laryngitis.”
“Ah,” he said. “Laryngitis. Or perhaps you think I would know your voice?”
She shrugged again, swinging about to the music. “I have never been to Baltimore before. I am here visiting relatives,” she whispered.
“Then perhaps I had best claim you for all your dances before you take wing and depart,” he said humorously.
“My dances are all promised to others, but perhaps you can cut all my suitors down with your cavalry saber!”
He considered her, half smiling. “And for you, indeed I might.” There was a rich timbre to his voice as he said that, and Roxanne regarded him vengefully. Damn him for being so attractive, for making her heart beat faster, for making her remember what it was like to be held in his arms.
She felt shaken and irritated when he bowed and left her to be claimed by another. She saw him dancing next with Clarissa’s friend, Mary Stadler, who was not wearing a mask, and who seemed quite taken with him. Roxanne recalled unhappily that the Stadlers were very rich.
The evening wore gaily on. Roxanne danced, she drank champagne from a frail stemmed glass, she ate a late supper beside a man who had often paid court to Clarissa. Twice more she danced with Rhodes, who smiled down at her almost tenderly.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“I attend many balls,” she whispered airily.
“I am sure you do,” he said soberly, and waltzed her around again.
Suddenly it came to Roxanne that there would be an unmasking at midnight. A quick look at the ornate French clock on the white marble mantel told her it was five minutes to twelve. Horrified, she realized that although most of the guests might not recognize her, and she could easily give a false name and claim to be an out-of-town guest someone had brought along, Rhodes would certainly recognize her, and so might some of Clarissa’s friends who had conversed with her in their schoolgirl French.
She made a quick excuse to Rhodes about a broken heel, and, Cinderella-like, hurried away through the glittering crowd to claim her cloak and purse before she metamorphosed back from reigning queen to servant girl.
A servant helped her into her cloak, and as she went into the front hall, still masked, she saw Rhodes, who must have followed her. His mask discarded, he now stood at his ease with, his booted feet planted on the marble squares of the hall, smiling at her.
She tried to pass him.
“A last dance!” he protested. “You cannot leave before the unmasking—I must know your name.”
“My throat hurts,” she whispered coldly. “I must go home.”
“Without an escort?” He looked about him.
“I came without one. He was—detained by business.”
“Then perhaps I will serve?”
She glared at him. “You have great effrontery, sir,” she whispered. “A lady may dance with a gentleman at a ball, but she need not recognize him afterward.”
Though it was true enough, it was also an insult, but it did not faze Rhodes.
“Then perhaps we can strike a compromise,” he said thoughtfully. “A stroll through the garden, and then I will see you into a hack and you can go home without my ever knowing who you are!”
That suited her well enough.
Eyes snapping, she strolled beside him through the damp garden in the cool spring night. Around them, the tulips were already out; daffodils and hyacinths would soon be blooming. At the sundial he paused and peered down into her face. “I can’t see your eyes in the shadow of that mask,” he complained. “Take it off.”
She turned her head away from him. “No,” she whispered firmly.
“In that case,” he said, “I shall kiss you with it on.”
And before she could turn and flee, he had seized her and pressed his warm mouth down upon hers. As always, his touch was electric, shaking her to her toes. Unwillingly she relaxed against him, quivering at his touch, while he explored her lips, quested past them with his tongue. His fingers too were questing beneath her cloak. She felt their fiery trail move lightly down the back of her neck, move along her shoulders and trace designs across her bosom. Then he was stroking lightly the tops of her round white breasts, exposed by the low décolletage of her ball gown. She gasped as his probing fingers eased into the cleavage between them. Atingle with a medley of sweet sensations that almost overwhelmed her will, Roxanne wrenched herself away from him with a ragged sigh.
“I know who you are,” Rhodes murmured as he let her go.
She stood frozen.
“You are Clarissa Calvert,” he said, and his wicked smile flashed. “I saw your costume as it was brought downstairs to be pressed—and I would recognize your perfume anywhere. You were supposed to go to the ball with Phil Worthington, Clarissa. Why the devil didn’t you?”
“I am not Clarissa Calvert,” whispered Roxanne heatedly.
He laughed. “Then we’ll prove or disprove that right now,” he said, and reached for her mask.
Roxanne was quicker than he. Having anticipated what he would do, she had reached behind her and with her gloved hand pulled down a slender tree branch, which she released so that the thorny branch snapped whiplike across his face, drawing blood.
As Rhodes flinched back with an oath, she gave him a hard push and, turning, ran down the garden path to disappear into the boxwood maze. She could hear him pursuing her, feet pounding over the gravel, sometimes just on the other side of the dense tall shrubbery. Her breath rasped
in her throat as she twisted and turned, but she kept going and eventually found herself clear of the maze on the other side of the big garden.
She did not dare to try to find a cab now. Rhodes might come out of the maze at any time and catch her, but she had to go home! And somehow, to get rid of her gloves, for the thorns had pierced them and drawn blood from her hand as well as from Rhodes’s surprised face. She hoped darkly that she had marked him well! But this gown must be got home and somehow smuggled back into the sleeping Clarissa’s room, along with the rest of her finery. She herself must appear to be both surprised and sleepy if Rhodes came thundering in and woke up Clarissa.
It was not too far to the Mt. Vernon Place house, if she cut through the park. She guessed Rhodes would spend some time looking for her before he went home, expecting her to work her way around front to get a cab. She hoped only that her gold slippers would hold out as she pelted through the park.
In the dark, deserted park she thought she heard running footsteps behind her and stopped to hide in some bushes. The footsteps came no closer, but it was some time before she dared to emerge. Now she was frightened that Rhodes might have reached home before she did.
But if he had, she reasoned, even if he had burst in on Clarissa, he would have found her in bed and pooh-poohing any idea that she had been at the ball. Clarissa never knew where her things were. It would take her some time to get sufficiently organized to search for her costume. With good luck, Roxanne could still make it.
The street was empty on Mt. Vernon Place as Roxanne sprinted toward the servants’ entrance. Halfway there, her foot collided with a can with a string tied to it that some child must have been playing with in the street, and it bounded,down the steps with a loud clatter. Shuddering, Roxanne shrank back against the brownstone building to find the key she had tossed into Clarissa’s purse. The key fitted into the lock readily enough, but the door did not respond to her pressure.
In the excitement of her escapade, she had forgotten that at midnight, when he went to bed, Greaves threw the heavy bolt on the servants’ entrance. She was locked out!
In panic, she ran out into the street and stared desperately at the building. The tall downstairs windows were all locked from the inside. The basement windows were covered with iron bars. There was no chance of getting in from the back; the door to the laundry was barred right after dinner. Her short career as Cinderella was over; now the piper would have to be paid. If she pounded for Greaves, he would let her in, of course, but he would surely inquire as to her costume and undoubtedly feel it his duty to mention it to Mrs. Hollister tomorrow. Clarissa would hear about it and she would lose her job! Jobs were almost impossible to find, and there were always a dozen eager immigrant girls waiting for every position.
Standing in the glow of the streetlight she searched feverishly through the small satin purse that matched her gown. Clarissa had intended to go to the ball, so perhaps;—her search revealed not only a lace hankerchief and some throat lozenges, but also the front door key! In triumph she held it up and looked at it in the light cast by the streetlight. Deliverance! Scooping up her skirts, she hurried up the stone steps. As she reached the door, she heard an upstairs window close and prayed it was not Clarissa, wakeful and looking out the window to see her wig and her gown about to enter the house.
With great care Roxanne turned the key around in the lock, eased the door open and shut it behind her as quietly. The hall was dark; only the light from the street lamp outside filtered in through the fanlight above the door. Again lifting her skirts, she tiptoed past Joab Coulter’s closed door and up the dark staircase, feeling her way.
On the second floor landing she paused to listen. No one was about. No sound broke the thick dark silence, for the gaslights in the hall had long since been turned off.
With a deep sigh of relief, feeling her way in what was now total darkness, she climbed slowly up the stairs to the third floor landing. Once there, she would only have to steal down the three steps into the servants’ wing where she would be safe! She would remove her costume in her own room. Clarissa slept like a stone; she could slip in there and replace everything and tiptoe out again unnoticed.
With these thoughts on her mind, Roxanne felt her way up the dark staircase. Around her the big house was very quiet, waiting, listening.
She had reached the third-floor landing when she thought she heard something just ahead and paused, her eyes dilating suddenly as she stared into a pool of darkness that seemed to waver.
Something . . . someone was there!
Tensing, she opened her mouth to scream. A hand was clapped over it, the mask was snatched from her face, and she was gripped in a vise-like embrace and borne to the floor of the stair landing. The back of her head struck the wainscoting as she fell. Although part of the force of the blow was absorbed by her powdered wig, which was knocked askew, she was still stunned by the impact so that for a moment her head swam and blackness engulfed her. When consciousness returned, she was gasping. Hot lips were clamped over her own. Fighting for breath against that demanding mouth, she heard the rip of fabric as her dress left her shoulders and eager possessive hands roamed her soft flesh, roughly tearing the fabric away.
As she flinched and tried to pull away, the grip—she now realized her body was being held to the floor by a pair of strong masculine legs—tightened, and a voice that was hardly more than a growl commanded: “Quiet!” And with it a wrenching pressure on her arm that made her gasp in pain.
Crushed, half suffocated, in utter terror, she fell silent, struggling for breath as her attacker, whose hands had been massaging her bared breasts with almost painful violence, now became more gentle, his touch more caressing as he deliberately probed her sensitive nipples. Her senses came alive at his new gentleness, and tiny needles of feeling darted in all directions from the touch of his fingers. In shame and horror she felt her body respond, heard what she thought was a triumphant chuckle in his throat as he pulled up her skirts with a sudden savage jerk, tearing her petticoat, and ripping the fabric of the silky panty-legs savagely, his hot fingers thrusting through the gap between her thrashing thighs, while with a terrible desperation she fought to free herself.
But there was no escaping him. His hands, his strong body, were everywhere, pressing down on the hard floor, holding her powerless. And now she felt his male hardness press against her thighs as almost viciously he drove in deep, deep. She felt his body react in surprise at the ease of his entrance, and even in the storm of her emotions she thought: He is surprised that I am not a virgin.
As if angered by that, he seized her even more violently, and she felt within her a punishing, leaping hardness that almost drove her breath from her. A silent scream tore from her tortured suffocated throat, as with a kind of controlled violence he thrust deep and rhythmically. Moving with more authority now, he became more gentle as his own passion mounted. With each sharp thrust she fought within her a leaping flame that threatened to engulf her, a tingling surge of feeling that mounted, finally sweeping all before it as, pressed in a close heaving embrace, her own wild nature burst forth and she responded to him fiercely. Again she could feel his surprise and a new almost triumphant gentleness as he caressed her.
Finally, it was over and, hot with shame, she knew a new horror: his fingers caressing the pulsing column of her throat tightened studdenly, cutting off her breath altogether. She fought with desperation then, fought for her very life, kicking and clawing, trying her best to strike at him, even though he kept her arms painfully pinioned. Desperately, she tried to mark him. If he was going to kill her, at least let him bear her marks! But she was unable to, and as her breast heaved with effort, the fingers around her throat constricted still further. A dizzy blackness settled down over her and the world drifted away into the dark.
Chapter 16
Fighting her way up from the pit, from a stifling blackness, Roxanne regained consciousness. Her throat ached. As she touched it with her fingers, she winced at
the pain. She opened her mouth but could not speak. She tried to rise and fell back, a violent pain shooting through her head as she moved. She felt along the floor with one trembling hand, trying to get a purchase again in order to rise, and her hand touched something soft. She recoiled at first. Then recognizing the feel of soft linen, a handkerchief, her fingers closed around it almost gratefully—a known object in a dark world. Finally, she remembered where she was. On the third-floor stair landing.
Only she wasn’t.
Still clutching the handkerchief, she tried to get up, but her head bumped into a wooden protuberance overhead and she fell back with a groan. She reached up and her fingers sought the obstacle, felt along it—a shelf. Holding tightly to the edge, she managed to rise and pull herself forward, only to fall up some steps and bump into a door. She turned with a gasp, slamming her face into a pile of folded linen sheets.
She knew where she was at last. She was in the big linen closet that opened off the third-floor landing. After she had passed out, her attacker must have dragged her in here and closed the door!
Clutching the handkerchief, Roxanne turned and struggled painfully up the steps and through the door, still stunned by the violence she had suffered. She tripped over her torn skirts and almost fell as she staggered down the dark stairs into the front hall.
These Golden Pleasures Page 19