“Would you like a print?” the clerk asked Annalise. He was painfully smitten now.
“Why, yes, all of them.”
“Shall I—”
She tossed back her head with a musical chuckle. “I’m sorry. I was jesting. I’m supposed to be buying fabrics and bonnets and such annoying little things.” She sighed with a drop of her shoulders. “But this duck-billed platypus wants to live on my wall and so does this koala bear. Oh, I can’t decide. There’s nothing for me but to go to Australia and collect them all.”
The clerk’s mouth dropped open again. She gave that laugh that seemed to resonate in Exmore’s chest. “I’m still jesting. I guess I shall take the platypus—my father adored it. My other monies I shall waste on silly ball slippers and such.”
Exmore suppressed an appreciative smile. The poor young clerk’s hands were positively shaking when he lifted the desired illustration from the table and began to wrap it in paper. Meanwhile, Annalise returned to studying the pictures. She turned toward Exmore again, and her gaze was about to take him in. He couldn’t hide. Instead, he rose taller, bracing for the impact of eye contact. His heart hammered as if it were located behind his eardrums. What would she say? Would she still hate him? Did she love someone else? Did she know his wife had died? Did she know how low he had sunk?
Then the door flew open, the bell ringing violently. Annalise spun around as Sally Sommerville rushed in. Two young ladies were in her wake, one he had seen dangling about the woman at balls. He made himself as invisible as possible behind the statue and lowered his head. He could not see the ladies, but he listened to their conversation.
“Annalise, it was all for naught. The shipment from India is late,” one of the girls said.
“How thoughtless of the Indian and Atlantic oceans to delay us,” Annalise quipped. Again, his lips curled into a smile.
“Thank you, miss,” the clerk said.
“Did you buy an illustration?” Mrs. Sommerville asked.
“Oh yes.” Annalise’s voice was breathy with joy. Paper crinkled as she must have opened the package for the others to see.
“What is that?” one of the girls asked.
“It’s a duck-billed platypus.” Annalise enunciated each syllable. “Isn’t it delightful?”
“It’s rather homely.”
“I’m sure to other platypuses it’s quite ravishing,” Annalise declared. Exmore smirked.
“I’m thinking of dressing as one for the masquerade,” Annalise continued. “Then, should I see another duck-billed platypus, I shall know that we are destined to be together. Perhaps you should like to be a sea dragon, Phoebe? Imagine the costume.”
“I should love to be anything other than a boring shepherdess.”
“But then you may use your crook to herd your dance partner,” Annalise pointed out.
They must be referring to the Boxhaven masquerade tomorrow night.
“Oh, I’m vexed that the shipment hasn’t arrived,” Mrs. Sommerville complained, putting an end to the banter Exmore had enjoyed. “Now we must try that other shop in the arcade. Hardly my favorite. Come along, girls.”
The bell jingled as the door closed. He raised his head, assuming the ladies had left. But Annalise had remained behind, her hand resting on the door handle. She took one last sad glance around. Exmore could see her eyes fill with tears. He heard his uneven exhale and stepped forward… to do what? Comfort her? But she blinked away the tears, turned, and left. Never realizing he was there.
He continued to stare at the empty space she had occupied. Although the light continued to shine through the window, the room felt darker, as if someone had extinguished a glowing lamp.
“Did you find an illustration, sir?”
Exmore looked at the inquiring clerk, not seeing him for a moment.
“Yes,” Exmore said, making a reckless decision to try to chase away the oncoming despondency. “I would like that one.” He pointed to the illustration of Australian bears that Annalise had rejected for the platypus.
Minutes later, he held the paper-wrapped print under his arm as he navigated the crowded streets. A cynical thought bubbled up. How convenient that Annalise should return at the same time that Patrick was returning to England. As if planned. Had the two corresponded all these years? Patrick had made no mention of her in his letters to Exmore. In fact, after six months in India, Patrick had written of his appreciation to Exmore for helping extract him from Annalise’s influence. Away from London, Patrick had come to realize the folly of his affections and now could see the numerous faults of Miss Van Der Keer that everyone else had realized but him.
Patrick had described her as an ambitious, witless, unmanageable piece of fluff and had promised that he would choose more wisely in the future, citing Exmore’s late wife as a model of how a gentle, graceful wife should behave. Had he lied to Exmore? Exmore wouldn’t be surprised. He harbored little faith in humanity these days.
Once he was away from her arresting image, his senses returned. How could he assume from one chance meeting that she had changed? Maybe her wild character waited below the surface.
He left the print, still wrapped, on his desk and chided himself for the foolish purchase. Being at home did little to raise his spirits, so he headed out again, finding a welcoming tavern where a fire roared and actresses mingled about.
He never made it to Parliament that night, but stumbled home in the early hours, his world rocking like a boat on a sea—a sea of brandy. He studied himself in the mirror, as his valet undressed him, and loathed what he saw. What had he become? His eyes were reddened from drink, dark crescents carved beneath, an unhealthy pallor to his skin. His valet tried to extinguish his lamp, but Exmore waved him off. He resented that when he overindulged in spirits, his staff treated him like a child who might burn down the house. Left alone, Exmore unwrapped the illustration of the Australian bear and studied it. He had been thinking about Annalise since that encounter. She had called the bear a koala.
He stroked the edge of the image like it was that mythical jar that contained a genie. Maybe some mythical version of Annalise would emerge and calm his pain with the peace that had enveloped her in the gallery when the beautiful light fell on her smiling face.
Chapter Four
* * *
Annalise did not go to the masquerade as a platypus, but neither did Phoebe go as a shepherdess. Annalise had an inspired idea that Phoebe should be Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Annalise spent the day putting together Phoebe’s costume and helping her aunt transform into Queen Elizabeth. It seemed that her aunt knew only that Queen Elizabeth wore a large dress.
Annalise, Phoebe, and Mrs. Bailey spent the morning running about finding ingredients to redden her aunt’s hair and whiten her face, as well as locating sheer muslin for Phoebe’s wings. Annalise appreciated keeping busy, because it fended off her homesickness. Yet, she found that sometimes, out of nowhere, she would pass a certain tree or home, and a memory of Patrick would rush over her like a blast of wind, bombarding her afresh with recollections of textures, scents, and magic from another time.
Annalise waited for last-minute inspiration for her own costume as she dressed her cousin and aunt. To create Queen Elizabeth’s costume took two of Annalise’s old dresses and some stained brocade drapes that were stored in the attics. For Titania, Queen of the Fairies, Annalise cut leaves from green cotton and created vines from long lengths of brown cloth. She and Mrs. Bailey stiffened the wing fabric with the starch they used to create Aunt Sally’s ruff.
Phoebe danced with excitement when Annalise finally let her turn and look at herself in the parlor mirror. Her cousin gasped at the wings, headpiece, and mask that Annalise and Mrs. Bailey had fashioned.
“I could be on the stage!” she squealed. “You are simply brilliant, Cousin.”
Not a moment later, the house filled with her uncle’s booming steps. The door to the ladies’ parlor flew open.
“Annalise, you will not make
a mockery of this family,” he said when he saw Phoebe.
Annalise looked up innocently at him. “It’s Shakespeare, you know,” she said in the tone that indicated he was an idiot if he did not know.
Annalise had only half an hour to dress for the masquerade after completing the others’ elaborate costumes. She thought about saying she wouldn’t go, but then she would spend the evening thinking of her old home, or Patrick, with only her uncle to keep her company. Then, gazing down at the discarded string and thread from Phoebe’s wings, that annoyingly elusive inspiration finally struck.
“Perfect,” Annalise muttered to herself.
However, when she came downstairs all dressed up, her Aunt Sally said, “Good heavens, would you care for Phoebe’s unused shepherdess costume?”
“But I’m Ariadne,” Annalise said.
Her aunt and Phoebe stared at her.
Annalise tried to elaborate. “From the Greek myth, you know.”
More vacuous stares. Alas, it was too late to change, and the carriage had pulled up.
* * *
Annalise didn’t want to admit that London had lost its charm. She wished she could be as joyous as Phoebe, who flitted about, all smiles and laughter. To Annalise, the costumes had a scary grotesqueness about them. The perfumes hurt her nose, and the air felt like breathing in the famed thick London fog. Amid the loud laughter and music, she felt painfully alone. She loitered about the walls for the first hour. The only attention she received was curious glances at her costume, which was hemorrhaging string. Finally, a young gentleman dressed as an Arthurian knight approached.
“My friends and I are quite puzzled.” He gestured to a group of more knights clad in various forms of armor and crowded in the corner. “May I ask, what is your costume exactly?”
“I’m Ariadne.”
“Who?”
She stifled a groan. What had she been thinking when she made this costume? “The character from the Greek myth.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head. “Would you care to dance?”
She hesitated, but his smile was a pleasant one beneath his half-mask, so she consented.
The dance floor was a crush of people poking each other with protruding costume parts. Annalise sometimes danced alone in her room, but she hadn’t danced with a partner in a long while. As the music began and people started to turn, she realized she had forgotten the steps. She panicked and slid her mask up to glance at her feet.
Her partner stiffened. “Are you… are you Miss Annalise Van Der Heer?”
“Keer,” she corrected, pretending not to hear the alarm in his voice. “Van Der Keer.”
His eyes began to dart about behind his mask. “I didn’t realize—that is, I didn’t know you were in town.”
“I only just arrived.”
“Oh.”
Still holding her hand, her gallant knight took a step back from her, as if she were contagious. He didn’t say another word to her for the entire dance, even though she tromped on his toes and bumped into him several times. When the torture was mercifully over, he bowed and scurried back to his friends. She watched him animatedly speak to them as they took discreet glances in her direction.
It seemed London hadn’t forgotten her. Or forgiven her.
The clock on the chimney-piece chimed the eleventh hour. These parties lasted well past midnight. She just wanted to go home. Not her aunt’s house, but her true home, miles and miles away, where someone else now lived.
Through the windows, she spied the large, fat moon shining in the heavens. It was the same moon she’d watched shine through the trees by her window at her old home. Tonight, the cold, distant heavenly body felt like the last thing tying her to the past. She followed it, going through double doors that led to a terrace, where she came across lovers escaping the din. She passed them, heading to a spot of solitude at the back.
There, she rested her hands on the railing and drew in a deep breath of the cool night air. The moon was luminous in the silent sky. She studied its contours, remembering her father’s sketch explaining the different phases in relation to the sun. It had made sense when she’d stilled herself and finally listened to him.
“You have lost a part of your costume,” a man said.
A cold tickle raced down her spine at having her quiet refuge invaded. The voice was rich and slightly blurred, as if he were drunk. She turned to find a heavily bearded and masked musketeer peering out from the shadows. He sat on a stone bench under the eaves. Had he been there before? Perhaps she was the invader of his peaceful space and not the other way around.
“I fear this costume was not the best choice.” She picked up a length of string that had fallen from her gown. “It’s been shedding all evening.”
“May I hazard a guess at who you are?”
She chuckled at his phrasing. She almost wanted to say, Yes, do tell me who I am, for I don’t know anymore, and I’m feeling particularly lost tonight. Instead, she said, “No one else has been able to guess.”
“Ah, a challenge. I shall succeed where others have failed you.” He made a dramatic show of rubbing his faux beard as he thought. “Ah!” He raised a finger. “I have it. You are a shedding Egyptian mummy.”
She feigned disappointment. “Oh, had I only thought of that.”
“I see that you are cleverer than I thought upon first impression. But I will discover your mystery.” He leaned forward. The light from the burning sconces reflected in his dark eyes. “Yes, of course, I have it now. You are a very confused writing spider.”
She laughed. A deep, true laugh that reached to her belly, breaking up some of the tension she held. “Again, another brilliant costume I didn’t think of. Perhaps I should have consulted you before the ball.”
He tossed up his hands. “You defeat me, kind lady. Give me the answer.”
She shook her head, chuckling. “Yet, I adore your guesses.”
“I endeavor to always please the ladies, of course.” He rubbed his beard again. She could see an amused smile peeking below its whiskers. “But of course. You are a butterfly trying to break from a poorly constructed cocoon.”
“An awkward metamorphosis of sorts? Sadly, not in this case. Here, I shall relieve your misery. I’m Ariadne.”
“From the Greek myth, of course.”
“You know it!”
He stared at her for a moment and then blinked. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
She smiled, warmth flooding her body. “That’s what I thought. Yet, everyone else has looked at me when I told them as if… well, as if I should have dressed as an inmate of Bedlam.”
He tilted his head. “I quite enjoy the charming inhabitants of Bedlam. One of the very few places you can hold an intelligent conversation in London. Do you ever feel the sane are locked up and the insane are roaming the streets and known as the general population of London?”
What an odd thing for a stranger to say. But she laughed. She hadn’t truly laughed, it seemed, in months, maybe years.
“Very clever, indeed, Ariadne.” He reached out and touched a string on her skirt. The touch wasn’t intimidating, but friendly. Another string fell away at his light touch.
“Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be rescuing Theseus with my poor thread. The Minotaur will surely eat him.”
The man dismissively waved his hand. “He deserved it for how he treated you, leaving you heartbroken after you saved his sad hide.”
“Ah, but I get Dionysus in the end.”
“And Dionysus is Bacchus to the Romans. I think all stories that end with Bacchus are good endings.”
“I agree.” She felt herself smile and then became self-conscious. While she was wildly delighted to discuss something other than balls and gowns, she shouldn’t have been alone on a terrace with a male stranger. She glanced toward the door, where light and noise from the party spilled out. She couldn’t help but think that this party was a modern version of the Minotaur’s maze.
“Aren’t you going t
o venture a guess at who I am?” the man asked. He affected a hurt tone. “How rude not to ask.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said dramatically. “I didn’t mean to offend. Hmmm, let me see…” She narrowed her eyes, pretending to concentrate. He was costumed from head to toe, his intense eyes the only part of him unconcealed.
“I’ll give you some hints. I’m exotic, loyal, and very dangerous.” He raised his sword. “And I possess most excellent props.” He set his sword between his teeth.
She made a clucking sound. “A poor adventure-seeking musketeer such as yourself must find English ballrooms a bore.”
He removed the sword from his mouth. “I admit there isn’t enough intrigue, mystery, threats of revenge, hidden treasure, or swordplay to pique my interest, so I had to come out in the moonlight to pine for my Spanish home.”
“I find this ball full of intrigue and mystery. For instance, it’s been so long since I’ve attended a ball that every dance has become a mystery, and as for intrigue, I feel like I’m in some miniature version of the court of Louis XIV.”
“Tell me, where have you been? Say it was Spain.”
“You make me laugh,” she said. “I love to laugh.” Then she shook her head and turned serious. “I’ve been at home in the country caring for my parents. They recently passed.”
She could feel his penetrating gaze on her face, as if he knew her throat was burning and that her heart hurt.
“I’m truly sorry,” he whispered, all hints of drunkenness gone from his voice.
“Thank you.” It was the first true acknowledgment of her parents’ deaths since she’d come to London. Her aunt and her family had flitted briefly on the matter and then changed the subject as if death were some vile, embarrassing secret, and by speaking of it, they hastened their own demises.
“I’ve recently had a death in my family,” he said quietly. “Well, it’s been a few years now. But it never leaves my mind for long. Memories lie in wait for me at almost every turn.”
Marquesses at the Masquerade Page 16