Marquesses at the Masquerade

by Emily Greenwood

  “I’ll guard your hammer,” she replied. “I love fruit and cheese above all combinations.”

  Tyne rested the long handle of his hammer against the side of the bench. Because the sconce was unlit, he couldn’t see his companion in detail, but he could hear that she was smiling.

  So was he. “I’m to be on watch for a blue unicorn with a purple sparkly horn. No other breed will do. Guard my hammer well, Madam Valkyrie.”

  He strode off, wondering if the single cup of punch he’d sampled had addled his wits. He was about to set a new record for his appearance at one of Boxhaven’s masquerade balls. Sylvie would be proud of him, and Amanda would think him quite silly.

  Though, as to that, he hadn’t even confessed to Amanda where he’d be spending his evening. And poor Madam Valkyrie. The notion that anybody could meet with adventure at a venue as tedious as a masquerade ball was absurd. Tyne could locate strawberries, though, and oranges, and stewed apples.

  But what on earth could he find to discuss with the lady while they consumed their victuals?

  * * *

  “Fruit and cheese,” Thor said, passing Lucy a plate. “Also some ham, for I imagine all that flying you Valkyries do from battlefield to battlefield is hungry work.”

  He settled beside her on the bench, the furniture creaking under his weight. He was blond and Viking-sized, and the cape swirling about his shoulders and hint of golden beard on his cheeks gave him a dashing air.

  Lucy took the plate, which was heaped high with food. “I can’t possibly eat all of this.”

  “That’s the idea,” he replied, bumping her with his shoulder. “You eat as much as you like, and I’ll deal with the rest. English plates are too small for a man of my northern appetites.”

  “Melon,” Lucy said, picking up a silver fork. “I lose my wits in the presence of fresh melon.”

  “Your adventurous spirit has been rewarded. What else would make this evening enjoyable?”

  “Peace and quiet, though this cheese is scrumptious.” Blue veins, pungent flavor, creamy texture. The perfect complement to the melon.

  Thor used his fingers to pop a rolled-up slice of ham into his mouth. “You sound weary, Madam Valkyrie.”

  His earlier comment, about flying from battlefield to battlefield, was more apt than he knew. Lucy’s specialty was children who’d lost a parent. Even the aristocracy boasted a sad abundance of the half-orphaned. Wealthy parents might not take much notice of their offspring, but the children noticed when a parent died.

  The agencies that placed governesses knew Lucy dealt well with such families, and thus she’d landed in Lord Tyne’s household.

  “I don’t typically keep such late hours,” she said, spearing a strawberry. “I’ll pay for this tomorrow.”

  “Try sitting in Parliament. Why the wheels of government can only turn after dark has ever confounded me. I’ve a theory that most men have a quiet dread of the ballrooms and dinner parties, and Parliament schedules its debates and committee meetings the better to spare its members the social venues.”

  Lord Tyne seemed to thrive on his parliamentary obligations, though he also struck Lucy as a man in want of sleep most of the time.

  “What would you rather be doing?” she asked. Perhaps Thor was an MP, though at this gathering, a titled lord was more likely.

  He considered another rolled-up slice of ham. “I’m watching for stray unicorns. The work is hardly exciting, but you meet all the best people.”

  Was he flirting? “And you get to carry a very fine hammer about all evening.”

  “A consummation devoutly to be wished.”

  They ate the fruit and cheese—Lucy took a single slice of ham—in companionable quiet. “Take the last strawberry,” and “Should have found you a spoon for the apples,” the extent of the conversation. Marianne wouldn’t understand how this qualified as an adventure for Lucy—sharing a plate with a strange god—but Lucy was enjoying herself, mostly.

  “Do you read much Shakespeare?” she asked.

  Thor set the empty plate on the floor to the side of the bench. “I’m a literate Englishman, so I’m supposed to say yes. The truth is, I haven’t had time to read for pleasure in years. Now, I’m called upon to read to my children occasionally, and they seem to like that. If I have a choice between brushing up on Romeo and Juliet, or spending an hour in the nursery, I’ve lately chosen the nursery.”

  He was married. This revelation should not have disappointed Lucy—she’d be back in her own bed in little more than an hour—but his marital status reminded her that this was a masquerade. He wasn’t Thor, she wasn’t in search of an adventure, or a unicorn.

  “Romeo and Juliet isn’t exactly light reading,” Lucy said. “You’re better off enjoying the company of your own children rather than reading about somebody else’s doomed offspring.” She’d never liked the tragedies, particularly tragedies that left the stage littered with dead adolescents. “Your children will thank you one day for reading to them.”

  He relaxed back against the wall, stretching long legs before him. “Have you children, that you can offer me such an assurance?”

  “I had a papa. He read to us.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” Those quiet words, spoken not by a bantering deity, but by a very human man who was himself a father, nudged Lucy’s mood in a sad direction.

  “Papa was a god,” she said. “Jovial, wise, bigger than life, kinder than kind. He knew what to say, he knew when to say nothing. I miss him.”

  Which was why she grasped the world of a grieving child.

  “I miss my wife,” Thor said. “Trite words, and we had a trite marriage. We’d known each other since childhood, had always expected to marry one another. We suited wonderfully, and yet, we barely knew each other. There’s nothing trite about grief, particularly when bewilderment and guilt get into the mix.” He laid his hammer across his lap. “My apologies for burdening you with such conversation. Loneliness makes fools of us.”

  Why couldn’t Lord Tyne be this insightful? He was a good man, an honorable man, but sometimes, Lucy wanted to shake him. Perhaps his lordship needed some enchanted creature to kiss him, to waken him from his parliamentary bills and estate ledgers.

  The wiggly widows would allow Tyne to stay lost in his politics and accounting, and that would not be a happy ending for Lucy’s employer.

  “What would help?” Lucy asked. “What would ease your grief and rekindle your joie de vivre?”

  He lifted his hammer and considered the battered weight that made it an effective tool. “Joie de vivre is in short supply at Valhalla. As you doubtless know, we go in more for gory sagas, epic wrestling matches, and kidnapping maidens who don’t belong to us.”

  He had a very nice smile, though Lucy wished he wasn’t wearing a half-mask. She’d like to see his eyes more clearly. His voice was that of any well-educated Englishman, much like Lord Tyne’s voice, but Thor’s conversation included humor and honest emotion.

  “The wrestling matches sound interesting,” Lucy said as a satyr galloped past with a giggling nymph in tow.

  The gamboling couple apparently didn’t notice Lucy and Thor sitting in the shadows, for the nymph allowed herself to be caught, then pressed against the wall for a protracted kiss. The sight should have been ridiculous—the satyr’s horns sat askew on his head, the nymph’s golden wig was similarly disarranged—but the sheer glee of the undertaking made Lucy cross.

  The nymph wiggled free, gave the satyr a smack on the bum, then darted off down the gallery.

  “Ye gods and little fishes,” Thor said, rising and shouldering his hammer. “I do believe it’s time I kidnapped a maiden.”

  He took Lucy by the hand and led her off into the shadows.

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  What consenting adults got up to was no business of Tyne’s, but he’d be damned if he’d be made to watch an orgy.

  “I apologize for that… that… scene,” he said, ducking ou
t of the gallery and into the corridor that would take them to the front of the house. “I’ve overstayed my tolerance for the evening’s entertainments. I will find your escort and take my leave of you.”

  He didn’t want to. The lady was easy to talk to and sensible. Miss Fletcher, who answered to the same proportions as Madam Valkyrie, though with fewer curves, was also sensible. So why did Tyne feel as if he had to mentally prepare for every interaction with his children’s governess?

  “Are we in a hurry, sir?”

  “A tearing hurry. Outside the purview of the chaperones in the ballroom, first the wigs fall off, and then clothing starts flying in all directions. I should have known better, but one loses track of time. Why otherwise rational human beings, who will nod to one another cordially in the churchyard, must comport themselves like—”

  The Valkyrie planted her booted feet and brought Tyne to a halt. “You are not responsible for their folly, and I’m hardly an innocent maiden to be shocked by kisses and flirtation.”

  Tyne peered at her, but the damned masks made interpreting an expression futile. “I was shocked. Some kisses are meant to be private.”

  “I was affronted, but mostly I was amused.” She linked her arm with Tyne’s. “If we’re to find my escort, he’s the only monk in the crowd.”

  The monk was Jeremy Benton, Lord Luddington, heir to an earldom. The Valkyrie moved in good company, though Luddington was a flirting fool.

  “I expect Brother Monk will be among the last to leave. Shall I escort you home?” The offer was out in all its well-meant, bold impropriety before Tyne could call it back. Down the corridor, glass shattered and a roar went up from the crowd in the cardroom.

  “I’ll need my cloak,” Madam Valkyrie said. “I can’t parade across London looking like this.”

  “Not without your spear, you can’t,” Tyne said. “Take my cloak. What it lacks in fashion, it makes up for in warmth.”

  He draped the fur cape about the Valkyrie’s shoulders and fastened the frogs. The cloak reached nearly to the floor on her, which would afford her both warmth and modesty.

  A laughing footman ran past—full tilt—with two shepherdesses in pursuit.

  “Time to leave,” Tyne said, offering his arm. “I believe that was Lord Malmsey impersonating a footman.”

  “Interesting strategy. I should at least tell Brother Monk that I’ve found another escort.”

  Tyne tripped the next escapee from the ballroom—a man dressed as a jockey—by the simple expedient of tangling the man’s boots in the handle of the sledgehammer.

  “Find the monk and tell him the Valkyrie is being escorted home by a trustworthy friend.”

  “I say, is that—?”

  Tyne hefted his sledgehammer across his shoulders, like a pugilist stretching with an oaken staff. “Find him now, please.”

  The jockey saluted with his riding crop. “Will do, guv.”

  Tyne took the lady’s hand, lest some marauding pirate carry her off, and led her through the front door. The night air was brisk, the drive lined with waiting coaches and lounging linkboys.

  “We’ll wait half an hour for my coachman to get through this tangle,” Tyne said. “Do you live far from here?”

  Her hand was warm in his—apparently, Valkyries were no more inclined to wear gloves than Norse gods were. The familiarity of clasped hands inspired in Tyne a mixture of awkwardness and pleasure. He hadn’t held hands with a lady since he and Josephine had courted. He had forgotten the comfortable friendliness of joining hands. He stood beneath the wavering torches, telling himself to turn loose of his companion and trying to summon his coach forward with a wish.

  He wasn’t a leering centurion or a frisky monk, and yet, dropping the lady’s hand would seem more gauche than pretending he was at ease with the presumption.

  “I live not far from here,” Madam Valkyrie said. “We could walk the distance by the time your coach arrives.”

  “Fine notion. Lead on, if you please.”

  “You’re sure it’s no bother?”

  How he wished she’d take off that dratted mask, but then he’d have to remove his own mask and reveal himself to be not a god, but rather, a shy marquess toting a sledgehammer through Mayfair.

  “No bother at all, though I need a name for you. In my mind, you’re Madam Valkyrie, which conjures images of strapping shield-maidens and longboats with bedsheets flapping from their rigging.”

  “You have a vivid imagination, Thor.”

  “If I am Thor, perhaps you could be Freya?”

  “A goddess. That will serve.”

  They reached the foot of the drive, and Freya turned left, in the direction of Tyne’s neighborhood. This was coincidence, of course, not good luck, fate, or divine providence. Certainly not a sign from on high, or Valhalla, or anywhere else of any import. Nonetheless, in the lowly region of Tyne’s breeding organs, notice had been taken that he was in proximity to a female of marriageable age and interesting temperament.

  “What made you decide to be a Valkyrie tonight?”

  “I didn’t. I’m impersonating a friend, and she chose to be a Valkyrie. Why are you Thor?”

  “The costume was simple. The cloak you’re wearing was sent to me by a cousin in Saint Petersburg. Crossed garters are a matter of some purloined harness, and the sledgehammer is borrowed. Add an old shirt and some worn chamois breeches and riding boots, and you have a god.”

  Also a surprisingly comfortable ensemble. No cravat half-choking a fellow, no sleeve buttons at his wrists, no waistcoat that must lie just so under his exquisitely tailored evening coat. Perhaps wardrobe alone explained why the Vikings were such a cheerful lot.

  “This thing on my head,” Freya said. “I feel as if I’m wearing a copper pot on my hair. It’s beastly uncomfortable.”

  That Tyne should enjoy rare liberty from the tyranny of his tailor while Freya suffered seemed unfair.

  “Let’s have it off, shall we? Whatever stewpot gave up its life to become your helm won’t be missed if it should end up in yonder bushes.”

  “Please,” she said, dropping Tyne’s hand. “The dratted thing pinches behind my ears.” She tried to lift the helmet off, but some bolt or other caught in the collar of her cloak.

  “Let me,” Tyne said, moving behind her. He explored along the edge of the cape’s collar with his fingers—gently and thoroughly—finding warm skin and soft tresses in addition to fur snagged on a joint in the metal. He ripped the fur and lifted the helmet. Calling upon long-dormant cricket skills, he tossed the helmet up and used his trusty sledgehammer to bat it off into the darkened square beside the walkway.

  The helmet landed with a clonk many yards away.

  “Better,” Freya said. “My thanks.”

  She’d wrapped a scarf about her hair, like a turban, so Tyne was deprived of even hair color as a hint to her identity. She made no move to take his hand, but rather, twined her arm through his in proper escort fashion.

  Well, drat. What was a god to do? Tyne had not the first clue how to comport himself with a goddess, but a gentleman made pleasant conversation with a lady.

  “You mentioned that your papa read to you. Have you any favorite tales?”

  “I loved the myths and legends, the stories with fantastical beasts and clever maidens. Improving sermons put me to sleep, and fables, with their thinly disguised moralizing, bored me.”

  “A woman of particular tastes.” Miss Fletcher was such a female. Tyne had the odd thought that she’d be pleased with him for this night’s version of socializing. “Do you still love the fantastical stories?”

  She was silent until they reached a corner. “No, I do not. The heroic feats and strange lands are fine entertainment, but one grows up. The amazing accomplishments become dealing with disappointment, finding meaningful employment, and learning the uncharted terrain of adult responsibility.”

  She sounded so sad, so resolute.

  “I had a tutor once,” Tyne said, “who claimed th
at no great problem was ever solved without creativity and courage. The fables and legends can help us be courageous and creative. Perhaps you should resume their study.”

  He’d like to give her a book of fables or a compendium of the world’s mythologies.

  Or a kiss. Perhaps he should whack himself on the noggin with his borrowed sledgehammer.

  “An interesting notion,” she said. “What of you? Do you love to reread certain books? Know classical tales you can recite almost by heart?”

  “Wordsworth’s poetry is still wafting about in the dungeons of my memory, and I was quite fond—”

  Freya stumbled on an uneven brick and pitched against Tyne. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Steady on,” Tyne said, slipping an arm about her waist. She had a lovely figure, and he didn’t turn loose of her until she had clearly regained her balance. “How much farther? I can summon a hackney if you’re growing fatigued.”

  “I’m managing.” She sounded as if she was uncertain where she’d left her abode. They were only two streets up from Tyne’s town house, a delightful coincidence, in his estimation.

  He resumed walking, his pace slower. “Will you think me unbearably forward if I ask whether a particular swain has caught your fancy?”

  Now, he was grateful for his mask, though he wished he could read Freya’s expression. This late in the evening, the neighborhood was only half conscientious about keeping terrace lamps lit.

  “My affections are not engaged,” Freya said. “I admire… a man, but he’s much taken up with affairs of state, and my esteem is that of a distant acquaintance only. I suspect I would like him, given a chance to know him better, though I don’t see that chance befalling me.”

  Her affections were not engaged. That was good. As for the rest of it…

  “I’m sure he’s a decent sort,” Tyne said, “but he sounds as if he’d bore you silly before the conclusion of the first set. Best look elsewhere for a man worth your attention.”

  She turned at the corner, onto a street where not even half the porch lamps were lit. Tyne didn’t know his neighbors well, and he certainly wasn’t acquainted with the families on this street—not yet.