by Anne Mallory
The maid’s eyes narrowed further, and her lips pursed. She reached forward and tugged the glove from her hand, then pulled it over Miranda’s fingers. Not roughly, but not gently either. As if she were fighting her natural inclination one way or the other.
Miranda didn’t get a chance to contemplate Galina’s behavior further as the other two maids were lifting the gown and urging her into it. Fitting it around her, fastening, and smoothing it.
She could see the middle of the dress in the table looking glass. She wondered what it would look like in a full-length mirror. This dress that she had never tried on. That had somehow been put together in under an hour. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
And it fit. Amazingly well. As if made just for her. Only two pins were needed, and even those she would have done without if there hadn’t been three maids intent on making the dress into a glove.
And the gloves themselves…sumptuous. So fine against her skin. Superficially covering up her inadequacies. Making her almost seem like she belonged in the strange other world the viscount inhabited.
The older maid nodded decisively. “Very good. You look beautiful, Miss Chase.”
The younger maid enthusiastically agreed. Galina concurred in a less effusive manner with a tilt of her head, but there was still something in her eyes.
The older maid picked up a navy domino, which looked new as well. They tied the wrap in place, the hood hanging down her back, framing her hair and face. Making her into someone completely foreign and new. The last piece was a mask, which they didn’t secure, simply handing it to her. Feathered and blue—a royal blue deeper than the shade in her gown and lighter than the domino, a shade that accented both and transformed her into something exotic.
The domino wasn’t a piece that had been waiting in the viscount’s clutches then. These pieces were a deliberate set. And created uniquely for her, if the fit was anything to go by.
That he had prevaricated was minute compared to the question of why he had done any of these things in the first place. Boredom? The chase? But what chase was there when she folded immediately? Starry-eyed and excited. One hand on the gossip sheet that he always graced.
“Come, Miss Chase, we are to escort you to the Red Room.”
She followed, servants in the corridors stopping and staring. Her anxiety increased.
The Red Room was just as she remembered it. Cold and dark. Just that one hint of something more. There were only two lamps lit. A large one by the entrance, standing no more than two feet from her, highlighted the doorway and anyone standing there in white gold. A much smaller, more intimate one perched on the desk. The golden candlelight cast dark and golden shades onto the viscount’s stunning face. A sea of black separated the two of them.
He was seated at the desk, leaning back, his left fingers playing with a quill pen, twirling it absently, then switching to his right. He looked up, and the pen whirled off its axis.
She pinched a fold of her gown, the decorum that had been drilled into her doing nothing to prevent the nervous action. His fingers gave a small flick, and a whisper of sound behind her said she was now alone, framed in the door.
“Miss Chase, is that you?” He smiled faintly, but his eyes sharpened and darkened in the shifting shadows as he pulled upright.
“Lord Downing.” Something strange rose in her. “I daresay I don’t know.”
He slid up from his seat and around the desk. “Mmmm…then who am I taking to the gardens in her place?”
A mask dangled from his fingers as he approached, and a thrilling boldness rose in her, strange, out of place, heady. Like opening a rare new book and discovering unknown wonders. Or entering a dream and becoming whomever she wished.
She opened her mouth to answer as he came closer, but no words formed.
“Even better. I’ll discover it for myself.” One hand moved around her elbow, up her forearm, and lifted the gloved hand containing her own mask. The play of his leather pads against her satin ones created an audible friction, a rich, deep sound. Not like the coarse sound to which she was accustomed. “Shall I?”
When she didn’t respond—couldn’t respond—he smiled faintly, his fingers slowly pulling away from hers.
“Perhaps I will call you Estella. The star of the night.” The silken cords of her mask sifted through his fingers along with his own. He lifted hers and placed the soft backing cloth against her eyes. She could feel the strong velveteen of his mask as it gently kissed the edge of her ear. Leaning toward her, he stretched the binding around, the material whispering against her cheeks and over the tips of her ears, settling in the soft sensitive area behind the curve.
She could feel his fingers slowly tying the threads, the edges of his stark cuffs making a gentle swoosh on the hair above her ears. He leaned into her a bit more, the spicy masculine scent of him reaching out and wrapping around her as surely as the binding he had just secured.
The smile on his face as he took her in was slow and sure, confident and mysterious. She expected him to make a quip, but his hand traced a path down her arm, wrapping around her hand. Everything stilled in the room. Anything not directly connected to the viscount became hazy and unfocused. The only sound she could hear was the steady thump of her heart in her ears.
“Or Artemis, innocent goddess of the hunt, bathing on the mount. And I poor Actaeon, unable to help myself.”
He led her like the hunter he claimed to be from the house to the darkened carriage outside.
The walls of the carriage were still close, a little too close, but the viscount maintained a steady stream of chatter, picking arguments precisely when tendrils of fear lifted from her deep well.
She touched the mask on her face. She could be anyone. Someone unafraid of, well, anything. A magical girl upon a quest.
The carriage pulled to a stop, the butterflies rising and swirling within her.
He lifted her hand and helped her descend the steps of the carriage, his mouth curving as she uttered a soft thanks. She concentrated on the last step, the merriment she had heard from the interior of the carriage turning into a dull roar in her ears. She took a moment to gather herself before looking up. She withheld a soft gasp. The entrance to the gardens gleamed as if sprinkled by fairy dust. Thousands of lamps were lit as if millions of stars had been plucked just for the purpose of lighting their way.
She had never entered from this avenue where the Quality entered in their pomp and circumstance. Where the gorgeous chandeliers began, framing the main walk, giving way to the fountains, the pavilions, the arches and temples. Where thousands of people stood, watched, and promenaded, eyeing each new visitor and gathering gossip for the pages and tomorrow’s rounds.
Georgette enjoyed watching the ton and connecting faces to the names, but Miranda had always been uncomfortable overtly doing so. Carrying the guilt from her mother’s early teachings.
She had always kept her eyes from drifting too often. It wasn’t the thing a lady did. And though she could snort at being called a lady when she was far beneath the social structure of one, it was how she had been reared.
But she should have disregarded her training earlier and let Georgette drag her off the side paths. The carriage entrance to the gardens at night was breathtaking.
Vauxhall itself was a bright, shining gem. And as she automatically touched the viscount’s sleeve, she felt for a moment that she was shining herself. They walked through an arch and into the merriment. People twirled and chased, danced wildly and softly courted.
Here the noble and common alike graced the same space, though on a night when the Quality were out in full force, there was a distinct separation between them, personal servants keeping a fine line between the masses and their masters. A distinctly hazy line that one didn’t cross if one didn’t want a swift kick in the shins or a mysteriously called watchman asking questions.
But tonight was filled with the more notorious of the set. The debutantes, matrons, and marriage-minded gentlemen we
re away at Almack’s or some other hallowed haunt. So the crowd was intermixed and raucous. Gentlemen accompanied by mistresses, women of questionable virtue holding court, the young and wild sowing their oats and daring each other into increasingly crazy stunts.
A number of women—the ones who desperately wanted to be part of the inner sanctum of the scene—paraded the edges, showing off a bit of ankle here or a fallen shoulder of a gown there. Occasionally one would be called over to a box filled with rowdy men fresh from school, urging one another on, slapping each other’s shoulders, exchanging money and bets. The women jockeyed for key positions in their eyesight.
The viscount steered her past the crowds, some of the people called out greetings in the exuberant air, others restrained themselves to simple nods. Miranda caught more than one curious look tossed her way, but the viscount whisked her into a dining box before she could grow more nervous or feel increasingly out of place.
A lavish table was set. Baskets of fresh fruits and thinly sliced ham, biscuits, and cheese cakes, were placed on top with a quart of the heady punch the gardens were known for. The servers disappeared into the shadows as soon as each was placed.
Miranda watched one of the men take his position in a dark hollow, leaning slightly forward on the balls of his feet, ready to move in an instant. His eyes caught hers for a second before he looked away, examining the area for anything amiss. When she continued to stare, he looked her way again and stepped in her direction before she remembered herself and shook her head quickly, indicating that she didn’t require anything. He stepped back, at the ready again.
Miranda swallowed. What was she doing here? She should be out in the fray with the riffraff or at home holed up in her cold room snuggled in the seven layered blankets she kept upon her bed, more than one with frayed edges and tattered or patched holes.
She looked at her gloves. Her perfect, new gloves.
“I’ll think you like your gloves more than the gown or the setting.”
She tried not to shiver as his husky tone washed over her in a pleasant wave. Her new gloves represented far more than new finery in the scene around them. She hadn’t had new gloves in so long. And never anything like these.
“I can appreciate the beauty of them as I can see them in their entirety at the moment.”
“Well, then take it from me, the gown you wear is even more exquisite. On you or discarded to the floor.”
His eyelids were heavy as he leaned back in his chair, examining her, a slow smile stretching across his cheeks, raising the skin above his cheekbones and making him even more appealing.
Good Lord.
Her eyelashes brushed the bottom edge of the mask holes, and something lit inside her. A decided spark that shifted the uneasy thoughts to a back corner of her mind, hidden but not forgotten. “It seems a shame to discard a gown so fine to the floor.”
The challenge was pulling to a close. She could feel it. She knew the viscount could feel it too. It was pulling at them like a marionette on strings.
“It seems a shame not to.”
What was it about this man, so far above her socially that he wasn’t even in the realm of dreams, that spoke to her? Was it simply timing? Loneliness or the beginnings of apathy that she was trying to shake? A desire to stop being an observer and to become a participant?
Lord knew that Georgette was constantly after her about taking more chances. Always encouraging her to spread her wings and develop some gumption. And Mr. Pitts too. Though he tended to phrase it a bit more bluntly and in less flattering terms.
The viscount reached forward and ran a finger along the soft fuzz of a ripe peach. “It would crumple so charmingly beneath your arched bare back.”
And there had been something growing in her, ready to fan that spark into a full flame. It had been two long, sad years since the deaths of her parents and brother. And she hadn’t taken one step toward the things she’d always talked about doing.
Her erstwhile correspondent would be quite cutting about the finality of that revelation.
“Is that why you purchased it?” she asked as lightly as she could, staring down the shadowed path that the flirtation spread wide open. One toe rose in anticipation. Two froze in the same.
His lips curved at her direct question. “Whatever the state of your gown at the end of the night, the style is quite flattering on you.”
“And here I thought you uninterested in the vagaries of fashion.” She sought to follow his direction back to the lightness of their library conversations. Just when he might send her skittering off, he always said or did something to keep her firmly planted next to him, continuously on edge.
Thoughts of sirens emerged once again.
She switched her gaze to the boxes across from them, where a number of women held court in separate spaces, vying with each other. One was clearly winning. Her green gown was at the height of fashion. Everything about it accented her features and carriage.
And yet she wasn’t beautiful. Not conventionally, at least. There was something about her though as she surveyed her court. A quickness to her eyes, a clever turn of her mouth. She laughed and said something in a saucy manner to a man at her right, who laughed in delight. There was definitely something about the woman.
And her identity was clear. The rose pinned to her lapel proclaiming her to all. The notorious Mrs. Q. Georgette would be in heaven with the clear window through which to watch.
“Intrigued by our dear Mrs. Quembley?” the viscount said, lounging in his seat, languidly rolling a grape between his thumb and forefinger.
“Yes,” she admitted. He had caught her hunched over the gossip columns, it would be silly to deny any knowledge of the woman. She had never followed her exploits in the papers as Georgette had, but she did read the papers daily.
“She is on the hunt, I see. She will find someone quickly enough. She always does.”
“Yes,” she said absently, still watching the woman; the freedom of her disguise seemed to have switched off her normal inhibition to do so. “I remember she was connected to you.”
Her mortification was instantaneous. She tried vainly to hope that she had only thought the thought and not actually said it.
“I think Mrs. Q. has been connected to nearly everyone.”
Well, that took care of the hope.
She touched her expensive glove to her forehead, hoping that she would somehow come up with the perfect rejoinder to minimize her embarrassment.
His statement was only partially true—Mrs. Q had indeed been connected to a number of men, but only to the more coveted members of the ton, of which the viscount was a decided part.
“Are you jealous?”
She looked at him strangely, the vain search for a response rendering her dumb. “Of being connected to everyone?”
He smiled, and the usual mysterious nature of it stretched into something far more genuine, and even more appealing for it. “I think I should feel deeply wounded, but instead just find myself highly amused.” He rolled the grape down all of his fingers and back up again, then tossed the fruit into the air and caught it on the back of his hand in the valley between two fingers.
Her brain caught back up to a somewhat normal flow. Jealous? The possibility of some sort of unique relationship with the man next to her was so far from her realm of reality that with her mind in pure social survival mode she hadn’t even realized what he was referencing at first.
Jealousy? Perhaps a bit of longing.
Longing?
She swallowed quickly and tried to tamp down the nervousness at the thought, mingled with the strands of adventure and want that crept forth on mischievous tendrils. That reached across the space from the magnetic man across from her.
She concentrated on Mrs. Q. “It’s interesting really. She isn’t as beautiful as the woman on her right.”
The other woman, perfectly blond and haughty, didn’t command half of her court, and if anyone was envious, her cheeks were veritably gree
n whenever her eyes connected left.
“Beauty is something that is hard to debate. Every man thinks his ideal the best.” His eyes raked her hotly, and she felt her internal temperature increase like a kitchen stove overly stocked before being lit. “But the wittiest women rise to the top of this structure, conventional beauty often taking a backseat to a woman possessed of a clever tongue.”
“Why?” she asked, truly curious.
“Iced beauty can be had in marriage, in the pressed palm of a switched partner in a dance. Heat though…passion and earth, stimulating all of the senses…that is what is desired in a companion.”
“And a wife isn’t a companion.”
He raised his brows, visible above his mask. “Are you asking me or verifying the sentiment?”
“Asking you.”
“I’ve only seen it happen in a handful of cases, and those too unique to replicate.” He looked away, too casually. “Most love matches are actually untamed desire not allowed to run its course.”
“That is cynical of you.” And yet, with parents such as his…
“Realistic.”
She watched him. The too-casual set of his shoulders. The way he moved the grape between his fingers in a decidedly idle motion. “You say it as if it irritates you that it is so.”
“Irritates me?” He raised his infernal brow again. “I hardly think you aware of the normal sway of my thoughts, Miranda.” He echoed her previous words to him.
She colored. “Perhaps not. But for all of your apparent cynicism, you at times have a most gilded tongue. Even Lady Banning remarked upon it.”
She tried to back away from the edge of the knife that was the topic of his parentage.
“A gilded tongue can be had on the most crafty of serpents.”
“I meant it in the lyrical sense.”
A number of emotions crossed his face in quick succession. Such a change from his normally sultry or indecipherable features that she nearly missed them in her surprise.
Irritation, amusement, desire. Desire? But then he always had that in his arsenal.
His lips tightened, then parted, and she tensed. Would he agree or draw sword?