Masked by Moonlight

by Allie Pleiter

  A man too noble, too perfect to be real. Oh, what she would give to meet such a man. He must be out there, somewhere.

  “Bless him, Father. Whoever he is, wherever he is, he is my hero. And, perhaps, Yours.”

  Hero. The Bandit lived. Georgia fell asleep imagining the mysterious details of the man who had stepped into the Bandit’s boots and changed her world.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Thank you. I should have been loath to miss this.” Georgia smiled at Matthew Covington as they wandered about the art exhibit.

  “You live too much at the mercy of Stuart’s schedule,” Mr. Covington offered. “Surely you could have your choice of escorts or husbands to free you from such a fate.”

  She wished he would move his focus from such a tender topic. “Mr. Covington,” she replied, lightening her tone intentionally, “are you trying to tell me you’ve rediscovered your restraint? For I must confess, I see no evidence of it yet.”

  He grinned, caught in the act. He seemed to enjoy trying to get her to address the one question she had clearly told him she would not answer. Not anytime soon, at least. “I’ve seen no evidence of your response, either.”

  “And you shall not.” She twirled the handle of her parasol. “As such, we are at an impasse. Shall we find a more pleasant topic?”

  He paused, as if searching for one, but Georgia was quite convinced he had a list of conversational gambits lined up in his head, each one designed to land up at the reason for her unmarried status.

  He took a more direct tack than she would have expected. “Your brother seems quite intent on fostering our friendship.” He chose his words carefully. They both knew it might have been more accurate to say, “Your brother throws us together at every opportunity, and I suspect invents his own.”

  Georgia opted for a sliver of truth. “Stuart believes you to be important.”

  “Stuart’s fascination with the English is no secret. Perhaps all he admires is my pedigree.”

  She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Would he be mistaken, Mr. Covington? Am I to discover that you are in fact a dishonorable Spanish spy? A notorious German, perhaps, gifted in deceptive accents?”

  Matthew bowed. “A son of British soil, Miss Waterhouse, loyal to crown and country. Although I was thought to be good with voices as a child. Used to play endless tricks on the house staff and my brother.” He tucked his hands in his pockets as they turned the corner. “But I’m afraid there’s not much use for such antics in the running of a proper British enterprise. Stuart is right in one respect, I suppose—I am important.” He did not say the word as if it were a compliment. Quite the opposite. “I’ve responsibilities bearing down upon me at every turn. Reputations to maintain. Honor to uphold. Profits to tend.” He gave a small sigh. “I am continually aware that should Covington Enterprises pull up stakes, many would lose their livelihood.” He stopped and gazed at her, as if it was something he hadn’t intended to reveal. “I believe we were in search of a pleasant subject. This hardly qualifies.”

  “You feel your obligations keenly, don’t you, Mr. Covington?”

  “Yes, Miss Waterhouse, I suppose I do.”

  “A very good thing. I believe God wisely places men of high conscience in charge of such sizable burdens.”

  They stepped out onto a small terrace warmed by the sun. “You still think God wise, Miss Waterhouse? With all that you see of man’s evil toward his fellow man?”

  “Of course I think God wise,” Georgia said, turning to gaze at a tall row of trees. The aging newspaper minion Stuart had sent along as a chaperone had disappeared into another exhibit hallway nearly a quarter of an hour before. “Man’s evils are not God’s doing, but only born of the wisdom of His gift of free will.” She allowed herself to turn and look at Matthew, straight into his eyes. “No, Mr. Covington, I do not think God is at all pleased with San Francisco these days.”

  “You hold the scriptures in high regard, don’t you?” He motioned for her to sit on a bench off to one side of the terrace.

  “Indeed I do.” She settled onto it, taking care to ensure space between them.

  Mr. Covington glanced back at the terrace gate, as if confirming the predictable absence of their “guardian.” “Very well, then. Last time, you asked me to read to you. I should like you to return the favor.” He removed the tattered volume from his coat pocket and handed it to her. “Surely you have favorite passages.”

  “I know you must have one, if not several,” Matthew continued when she hesitated.

  Her eyes darted back and forth, as if this was something too private to do on a terrace bench. Did the words in that book really mean that much to her?

  “I’m afraid it is on a subject most men find dull,” she stated, sounding as if she knew it was a useless defense.

  “I care not,” he said quietly, refusing to let his gaze drop from the inviting puzzle of hers.

  Finally, she let her eyes fall as she feathered through the pages. She cleared her throat and adjusted herself on the bench. “‘If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,’” she began, and then read through a poetic passage about what real love was and why it mattered above all else.

  He watched how her fingers held the page with affection. She did love these words.

  “‘Believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things…’” She paused just a moment before she finished, “‘Love never faileth.’” She shut the book with a tender gesture, running her finger along the slice as if to soothe it.

  Georgia Waterhouse was an extraordinary woman. She was beautiful, but it was her inner strength, her fierce devotion and hope, that pulled at him. Can I tell you how I admire you, or would it frighten you away?

  She held the book out to him and he took it, clasping her hands in his and holding them as long as he dared. She seemed small and fragile in that moment, and he wanted to draw a long silver sword and demand the world pay attention to her, to honor her for the wonder she was. “Thank you,” he said, meaning so much more.

  Late that night—so late, in fact, that it was actually the next morning—Matthew sat at his hotel bay window. Sleepless, he stared at the full, creamy moon and the shadows it cast over the city. He thought of her. He fingered the jagged hole in the Bible just as she had done, feeling for evidence of her touch. Her hands had felt so small in his.

  He was taken with her.

  He’d been taken with women before. Struck by some stunning beauty or a clever wit. But those were quick flashes of fireworks compared to the slow burn he now felt in his chest.

  “Oh, you fancy her,” his brother would often say of the latest object of Matthew’s affections. He would not use that word now—fancy seemed nowhere near what he was feeling.

  Of course, nothing could be less sensible. Even if Georgia—and he enjoyed thinking of her as “Georgia,” not “Miss Waterhouse,” even though he’d never take such liberties out loud—was the perfect woman for him, it could never be. He was an Englishman who must someday, sooner or later, return home. And even if Stuart Waterhouse might view it as the coup of the century, Matthew couldn’t see himself taking Georgia away from either her brother or her beloved San Francisco. He wouldn’t uproot her like that. Even if he managed to persuade her to move with him to England—which he suspected he could—eventually she would feel uprooted and displaced.

  But he was taken with her. So much that he could scarcely picture himself leaving California under his own free will.

  And that’s what duty was about, wasn’t it? Handling responsibilities even when doing so clashed with one’s own free will.

  Matthew stared about the room, looking at the trappings of his lifetime of obligation. Files upon files. Dignified coats and hats, letters of introduction, documents piling up beside books and ledgers. Only the whip and sword felt like his own possessions.

  The whip and the sword.

  Put that thought away right this moment, Matthew scolded himself. You’ve no
right to deceive her like that. Still, he had already done so, hadn’t he? He’d made the Bandit step into the real world. And it had nearly made her glow when she talked about it.

  He bolted upright, the truth of it shocking him. Matthew Covington could never woo Georgia Waterhouse.

  But he knew someone who could.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dexter Oakman tucked his fingers in his vest pockets and smirked. “Genius.”

  “The last three issues alone have sent our second-quarter figures well above projections.” Stuart laced his own fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “A profit is a thing of beauty, Dex.”

  “You’ll have more profits than you know what to do with after this new venture takes off, Mr. Waterhouse.”

  Stuart narrowed his eyes at Oakman. “Are we on track?”

  “A few snags, but you’ll have the cooperation you need by the end of the year.”

  That was good. Stuart needed the cooperation of certain well-placed individuals. Lots of well-placed individuals, if his final plan was to be realized. Labor and commerce were simply a means to an end, tools to exert or release pressure. A port’s true value was in how it could be manipulated. And if Oakman could be believed, Stuart would be able to manipulate certain valuable markets to his whim by the year’s end.

  Oakman picked up a copy of the Herald. “So what of your real-life Bandit? Tossing money to the poor and making you look as if you called it down on the city’s behalf. You want him to show up again?” Oakman turned and glanced at Stuart. “Or was it you who made him appear in the first place?”

  It was, of course, the question everyone was asking. Had the Herald awakened a new hero, or simply installed one? Half the city—the optimists—believed the episodes had either driven a virtuous man to impersonate the Bandit, or had reported the Bandit’s noble adventures under the guise of fiction to protect his secret identity. The other half of the city—the skeptics and cynics—believed the whole thing to be a clever stunt designed to sell papers.

  Everyone had an opinion. It was the topic of endless discussions. Stuart, for the first time in a long time, waffled on which theory to encourage. Should he take credit for this new sensation, bolstering his reputation for sales genius? Or was the wiser move to play the noble card, humbly accepting his role in bringing out the city’s inherent goodness?

  It mattered not that he was, in truth, neither. Stuart had long discarded truth whenever there was profit to be made. And if profit came in the guise of a dashing swordsman invented by his sister, then who was he to turn it away?

  Matthew heard the thick wooden doors shut behind him, blocking out the light as they closed. What sun still entered Grace House’s tiny chapel was washed in a warm amber by the room’s few small stained glass windows. The ornate churches in this city or in London never affected him. They were large and gracious and easy to dismiss as feats of architecture. This humble little chapel, however, seemed determined to seep into his bones. He’d walked through this chamber a dozen times during his visits to Grace House, but hadn’t realized until this morning that he avoided lingering inside. It wasn’t that he’d never had cause to be in here alone, but more that he unconsciously avoided it.

  He had thought he was here to gain Reverend Bauers’s partnership in a most unusual endeavor. That was why he’d come. But the sanctuary seemed to have an agenda all its own, as if it had been silently waiting for him to show up and walk into its grasp. Matthew felt ambushed by the extraordinary quiet. The room felt full and empty at the same time. He had the unsettling sensation of someone taking his insides and shaking them gently.

  He breathed in the cool, distinct scent, a mix of candle wax, wood, and the smells of ritual he remembered from his infrequent visits to the cathedral in London. He’d shared his father’s dislike of churches since he was young, being loath to suffer anything requiring quiet and stillness. Once, as a young lad, he’d slithered four pews away before his mother noticed his absence. Only Lady Hawthorne’s shriek of surprise when young Master Covington’s dusty, smiling face had peered up at her from below had given him away. His father had paddled him soundly—not for being disrespectful in church, but for sullying the family name.

  Matthew figured out that day that the virtue extolled most in the Covington household was not piety, but propriety. In truth, his father cared little about the integrity of his conduct as long as its public appearance brought the family honor. If Matthew found a respectable way to enslave small children, he doubted his father would have raised an eyebrow. It all seemed so hollow.

  Until Reverend Bauers and Georgia. Until here.

  Matthew pulled the small Bible from his pocket. Such a tiny book with so much history and so much consequence. He’d grown uncomfortable with the thing. Like the chapel, it refused to remain a simple object. Instead, it seemed to become a force of nature. He found himself fingering the missing chunk, as Georgia had. He was constantly aware of the Bible’s presence—the weight of it in his pocket, the texture of it in his hands, the space it occupied on his desk.

  You’re daft, Matthew told himself as he stared at the simple gold cross he had saved from theft. It disturbed him to have so personal a connection to so holy an object.

  Something was here. Something he imagined others felt while gazing at the vaulted ceilings of cathedrals or the gilded intricacy of altars. It was something he heard in Georgia’s voice. Something familiar, yet just beyond his recognition.

  Something that was seeking him as fast as he was running from it.

  He took another deep breath and closed his eyes, then found himself wishing Reverend Bauers had given him something else—anything else. Something that would remain a simple token. Which made no sense, for it was a tiny old book and he was a powerful British businessman.

  Matthew groaned and leaned his forearms on the pew in front of him.

  “So you do feel it,” said a warm voice over his right shoulder. Matthew nearly leaped off the pew. Clergymen should not be able to sneak up on a man like that.

  “I thought so,” Reverend Bauers continued. He must have seen the alarm in Matthew’s eyes, for he placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t be alarmed. God’s pursuit is nothing to be afraid of. Startling, perhaps, but not frightening.”

  Matthew didn’t know what to say. He found he couldn’t even be sure what Reverend Bauers was talking about. At least, that’s what he told himself.

  “Have you opened it, or have you just stared at it?”

  “At what?” Matthew retorted, almost defensively.

  Bauers smiled. “Come now, my son, what kind of man do you take me for? Do you think I give such gifts lightly?”

  He knew. Somehow that made it far worse. Matthew made no reply.

  Bauers sat down next to him and stared up at the cross. “What do you see up there?”

  “I know what that is, but I tell you, Bauers, I’m no man of God.”

  The reverend laughed softly. “All men are of God, Covington. Some just refuse to recognize it. Some are born knowing it, others come to see it slowly and late in life. And then,” he said, turning to look straight at him in a way that made Matthew’s chest constrict, “there are the few whom God goes after with both barrels blazing.”

  He was certain there was no safe response to that.

  “If you came to return the Bible because it disturbs you, I’ll not take it back. Have you opened it at all?”

  He could say yes. But truly, only Georgia had opened it. He’d held it, touched it, kept it near, but somehow had no desire to open it again, even to find the passage she had read. He felt as if he didn’t know what would happen if he did.

  “It won’t bite you. Not, at least, in the way you think. I’d begin with Exodus, if I were you. I think you’ll find Moses a man to your liking in many ways. And”—Bauers pointed to the missing chunk—“I think most of it’s still there.” The reverend’s thick hand clasped Matthew’s shoulder again and squeezed. “If you still
find the need to rid yourself of it after that, we’ll talk. But not a moment before. You’re welcome at Grace House any day, at any time. Remember that.”

  He started to leave, but Matthew put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Actually, I came for another reason. One you might scarcely believe.”

  Bauers raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Well then, come into my study and let’s have a talk.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Stuart ate his dinner with an air of deliberate calculation. This, Georgia recognized, was a sure sign of impending doom. He normally either relished his food or ignored it. Food was something he enjoyed when he felt good, or simply another task to accomplish when he felt overworked. It had become one of the easiest ways for Georgia to gauge her brother’s volatile disposition. On the days when he ate carefully, she knew it could only mean he was plotting.

  “Peach,” he began as he pushed back his chair after the main course, injecting what Georgia imagined he thought was a casual tone into his voice. Did he have any idea how transparent he was? He tinkered with the heavy silver napkin ring at his left. “Are you happy?”

  The question surprised her. It was an unusual opening for one of Stuart’s controlling conversations. She had best tread very carefully with her answer.

  “I’m delighted you ponder the issue,” she said, avoiding the question. Years of debate with this king of secrets had built her skills in that department.

  One hand went to his heart. “Of course I care about your happiness. We’re all we have in the world.”

  If there ever was a classic Stuartism, “we’re all we have in the world” would be it. It was his favorite saying when he wanted something from Georgia. Usually something large and questionable. “You, me, enormous material resources, a few dozen servants, and a host of admirers?” she countered. “We’re hardly in seclusion, my dear brother.”