A Noble Masquerade

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “I didn’t dance with Lord Eversly this evening.” In fact, Miranda had never danced with Lord Eversly. Not even in London, where they saw each other at functions two or three times a week during the height of the Season. Lord Eversly never had much to do with marriage-minded young ladies. That he had danced with Georgina tonight placed a seal on her top-tier status.

  Miranda faced her sister, focusing all her tension into her white-knuckled grip on the banister. The smooth wood provided little to grip, so she curled her fingers until the nails bit into the underside of the wood. “I am glad you had such a wonderful time. I promise we can relive every detail tomorrow.”

  She prayed a good night’s sleep would help her push past this ridiculous resentment so that she wouldn’t ruin her sister’s good time. The stairs blurred as she viewed them through unshed tears and flickering candlelight.

  The family made a great deal of noise as they entered the front hall. But why wouldn’t they? It wasn’t as if they were sneaking about trying to find places someone could hide in order to obtain secret information.

  That was his job.

  The family’s return meant he had to cease his investigation for the evening. Like it or not, his current cover came with a job. It didn’t matter that his employer was aware of the entire scheme; someone had to care for the clothes and help Griffith out of that well-tailored coat.

  Marlow slipped out of Lady Blackstone’s room. Since she was departing tomorrow, he’d had only tonight to search her things, even though it was nearly impossible for her to have a part in the treachery he was investigating.

  He pressed into a curtained window alcove as Lady Miranda reached the top of the stairs. She looked lost in thought, almost to the point of sadness. Her deep, fortifying breaths echoed in the corridor.

  They didn’t matter. She couldn’t matter. Her door closed softly behind her, and he proceeded toward Griffith’s room, making special effort to maintain his even stride as he passed Lady Miranda’s door.

  She was a distraction.

  Distractions brought failure, and even death.

  This particular distraction had almost caused him to miss the opportunity to search Lady Blackstone’s room before she departed. He could not allow Lady Miranda to send this mission down the River Tick. The next chance he had, he was searching her bedchamber, no matter how much the idea unnerved him.

  He reached the master bedchamber moments before Griffith did.

  “How was your evening, Your Grace?” Marlow helped Griffith out of his jacket and began seeing to the remainder of the evening duties.

  “Exhausting.” Griffith paused in the process of shrugging into a deep-green dressing gown. “How was your evening?”

  “Would you care for anything else this evening, Your Grace?”

  Griffith grunted. “We’re actually doing this, then?”

  Marlow bit his tongue to keep from answering. He must be the servant. Anything else was unacceptable.

  “No.” Griffith tied the belt on the robe. “I’m going to bed to get a solid night’s sleep while I still can. Georgina will be the death of me once the Season starts.”

  Marlow bowed, glad that Griffith hadn’t chosen to take advantage of the situation and make his job difficult. If only Marlow’s other duties could be handled as efficiently, but there was a dance to be played with whoever was using the estate as a cover. Balancing that dance with Griffith’s needs was going to be difficult enough as it was.

  Marlow scooped up an armload of footwear as he left the dressing room. He could take care of these tonight and free up some time later in the week to do a bit of investigating.

  The opposing smells of high-quality leather and feet drifted from the bundle of boots and evening shoes. This job could not finish soon enough.

  After preparing for bed, Miranda couldn’t bring herself to crawl between the covers and close her eyes. If she didn’t deal with these turbulent emotions, they would follow her to bed. From experience she knew that would leave her tired and out of sorts in the morning, lashing out at everyone for most of the day. No, better to sit up a while more and make peace with herself.

  As her mother frequently told her, a lady never makes her family suffer because she is in a bad mood.

  Did Georgina get the same lessons? If so, she was much better at ignoring them than Miranda had ever been.

  Miranda sat at her dressing table, toying with the necklace Sally had neglected to put away. The gold chain spun around on the table, dragging the teardrop diamonds along the polished surface. They dinged against each other, like the couples crossing the floor at the assembly hall. Even the scraping sounds as the chain hit itself and the table sounded like music.

  The emotion roiling inside her could be termed nothing but jealousy, and that didn’t sit well with Miranda. She was a woman of twenty, soon to be twenty-one, not a girl of twelve. It wasn’t fair and it certainly wasn’t Georgina’s fault. Miranda had turned down more than one opportunity to get married, so she had no one to blame but herself for her lack of a husband and family of her own.

  Where was this jealousy coming from? It wasn’t Georgina’s herd of beaux that left her yearning. She’d had her chance and found most of them lacking in desirable husband qualities. Was it her sister’s innocence? The fresh start?

  Frustrated, Miranda tossed the necklace into the waiting jewelry box and closed the lid. She felt restless, as if her skin didn’t fit quite right or her heart was about to relocate to somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach.

  She folded her arms on the table in front of her and buried her head in her hands. “God,” she mumbled, “what is wrong with me? Is this really your plan for me? I don’t want to be alone.”

  The splash of a tear against the dressing table sent Miranda jerking upright. Pushing away from the table, she stood. She refused to cry over this. No more sitting and brooding. The thought of climbing into her bed made her shudder, though.

  “Tea,” she said, banging her hands flat on the table. “Tea is just the thing.”

  The only problem was the staff had all gone to bed, and Miranda didn’t want to wake anyone.

  “All right, Miranda. How hard can it be to make your own tea? You’ve steeped it hundreds of times. Does it matter if you have never actually heated the water? There’s no time like the present to get started. Oh, goodness, I don’t know what’s more pathetic—that I don’t know how to make tea or that I’m talking to myself.”

  Miranda grabbed the candle from her dressing table before starting down the stairs. The house was eerily quiet and completely black. The moon had hung full and bright in the night sky when they left the assembly rooms, but a dense covering of clouds moved in before they reached home. What little light remained was hidden by the heavy curtains drawn over all the windows.

  With the family and servants all tucked into bed, the sprawling country house felt cold and lonely, a sharp contrast to the cheerfully homey atmosphere she was used to.

  Two steps from the bottom of the staircase, Miranda’s foot caught the lace edge of her dressing gown. A desperate clutch at the banister and a bit of quick footwork brought her to the foot of the stairs. She sent a silent thank-you to her dance instructor for teaching her all the fancy steps, allowing her to come through her stumble with no adverse effects whatsoever.

  The same could not be said of her candle.

  Chapter 3

  Miranda found herself standing in the front hall in complete darkness. She supposed it was her due punishment for not taking the time to light her small lantern. Only a fool walked around with an unprotected candle. She stuck her hand in front of her face and wiggled her fingers. Nothing. Not even the slightest shadow was visible.

  “Well, that will certainly make things more difficult.”

  Her choices now consisted of finding a flint box downstairs to relight her candle or to feel her way back up the stairs to her room. Retreat didn’t sound appealing, so she slowly slid her feet across the marble floor. Leavin
g the safety of the staircase, she felt adrift in the sea of darkness.

  She dropped her now-cold candle stub in the pocket of her dressing gown. Extending her hands out in front of her, she inched her way to the wall.

  Who knew darkness could feel so heavy? It pressed against her, pushing her to take larger, faster steps or maybe sink to her knees and crawl. Anything to have something solid against her hands, anchoring her placement in the room.

  With a determined sigh, Miranda set out once more, heading to the breakfast room at the back of the house. There was probably flint in other rooms, but she had no idea where the servants kept it.

  The curse of an efficient household.

  It was slow going, to be sure. One hand followed the bumps and ridges of the embossed wallpaper. The other waved in circles in front of her, seeking out any obstacle.

  She pursed her lips and began to whistle. One of the stable boys had taught her as a child, but she never got the chance to practice, since her mother declared the practice decidedly uncouth. Her tune sounded more like a repeated collection of three notes, but it was better than the gloomy silence.

  As she eased around the corner she saw a blessed flicker of light spilling from the library door and dancing through the darkness in the side hall. Giddy relief gave way to curiosity. Who else in the household was up? Surely Georgina had retired to her room where she could blather on about her evening to her maid and her pillows. Georgina had never cared much for the library, anyway.

  Even though the door was only slightly ajar, causing the light to point away from her, it allowed Miranda enough vision to move down the corridor with confidence. She pushed the door the rest of the way open, expecting to find Griffith looking for some reference book to help him with one of his projects around the estate.

  Instead she found Griffith’s boots—a whole pile of them on the floor by the settee. Griffith’s new valet was perched on the settee, one of her brother’s boots balanced across his lap. A book lay open on the table in front of him.

  “Marlow?”

  He jerked his attention from his book, sprang to his feet, and executed a smart bow in one fluid motion. “My lady, may I be of service?”

  “What are you doing?” She seemed to be asking that a lot lately. It was not a question she normally felt the need to ask her servants.

  “Polishing the duke’s boots, my lady.”

  “Of course you are.” Miranda thought about rolling her eyes, but refrained.

  “A lady always maintains perfect composure in front of the servants.”

  Eye rolling was not ladylike.

  Marlow stood completely still, continuing to stare. It was a bit unnerving.

  “I am having trouble sleeping.” Why did she feel the need to explain her presence? She’d never needed to before, but oddly she felt as if she had intruded on Marlow’s private time.

  “Would you like me to get you some warm milk? Or perhaps some tea?”

  “I was on my way to the kitchen for tea when my candle blew out.” She withdrew the stub from her pocket and held it up.

  Marlow opened his mouth to say something and then quickly shut it again. After a moment he opened his mouth again. “I beg your pardon, my lady, but do you . . . know how to make tea?”

  “Of course.” She lifted her chin in an outward display of confidence. “Every lady has steeped tea.”

  “My apologies, my lady.”

  They stood for several heartbeats, he silently watching her while her eyes skittered all about the room. Griffith should really think about rearranging the bookshelves. Their current order was not at all attractive.

  Marlow cleared his throat. “I believe the kitchen fires have been banked for the night.”

  “Yes, I am sure they have.” Her fingernails were looking a bit rough. Had she been chewing them again without realizing it?

  He cleared his throat once more. Did he always do that before speaking? “Do you know how to stoke the fire?”

  Admitting defeat, Miranda threw herself into the chair at her little corner desk, relaxing her tight grip on correct ladylike posture and allowing herself to slump into the soft upholstery with a sigh. “No. I don’t.”

  “Allow me, my lady. I shall fetch you some tea.” He executed a perfect bow and turned toward the door.

  “Thank you, Marlow,” Miranda said to his back.

  With nothing to do but wait, Miranda fiddled with the quills and papers on the desk before her. The small desk was one of her favorite places to write. A stack of letters marked for friends from London and for a collection of distant relatives sat on the corner of the table, waiting to be franked and sent to the post in the morning.

  She reached for a piece of blue paper from the stash she kept on the corner of the desk, the all-too-familiar feeling of emotional upheaval crawling beneath her skin.

  Dipping a quill in ink she began to write.

  Dear Marshington,

  Georgina has had her little debut here in Hertfordshire. She has made quite a few conquests. I have no doubt the admirers will swarm when she reaches London in a few months.

  Is it possible to be happy and disquieted at the same moment? I believe I’m truly happy for her success, but all of those gentlemen now fawning over her did not do the same when I came out a few years ago.

  Miranda continued pouring out her feelings in a hasty scribble. A smudge here and a blurred word there didn’t much matter. No one would ever read the words but her, and she rarely went back to review them.

  She should probably burn them but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead she kept the piles of letters locked away in a trunk underneath her bed.

  The letters kept her sane. She’d long ago passed the age where imaginary friends were acceptable. The fact that her friend wasn’t actually imaginary, but simply unaware of her existence, was of little consolation.

  There was still the idea in the back of her mind, planted there during those impressionable childhood years, that Griffith’s old friend would understand.

  I know that I am fairly intelligent, passably pretty, and skilled at running a household, although I discovered tonight that I find fire rather elusive, so why doesn’t anyone of any worth seem to want to court me?

  Just once I would like to meet someone who wasn’t intimidated by Griffith. Unfortunately there are no other dukes around. They would not be intimidated by another duke. There is you, of course, but we have never actually met, so a courtship between us is a bit unlikely at the moment.

  Ah well, I think I hear Marlow returning with my tea.

  Yrs,

  Miranda

  Hastily she folded the paper and shoved it underneath the stack of letters as Marlow entered the library with a loaded tea service.

  “Your tea, my lady,” he said with a bow.

  Miranda looked from the valet to the tea service. The comforting aroma of tea spread through her, making her more relaxed with every breath.

  She should offer him a cup. It was the middle of the night, with no one around to see them, and if ever the rules of propriety could be bent it was now.

  Then again, “A lady is always a lady.”

  Bother that. She shoved her mother out of her mind, fighting a grin at the mental image. It would be a few hours yet before anyone else stirred in the house. Besides, there was something addicting about his grey gaze. Almost refreshing in its honest directness.

  She moved from the desk to the settee, trying to subtly wipe her hands against her dressing gown. Had they been sweating while she wrote her letter? “Would you care to join me?”

  His gaze snapped to hers.

  Miranda’s heart gave a strange twist in her chest. They were alone. As alone as she’d ever been with a man, servant or otherwise.

  She should recant her offer. The memory of those grey eyes had not accounted for how uneasy they made her feel. They seemed to see more than what was actually before him, as if he could look into her soul and pick apart her inner ponderings and motivati
ons. What a ridiculous thought. Something about this man clearly brought out her fanciful side.

  “I would be honored, my lady.” Even after answering in the affirmative, he hesitated before taking a seat across the low table from her.

  Miranda began to pour the tea. She fixed his cup according to his stated preferences and then sat back with her own cup. She’d already thrown propriety to the wind; rigid posture might as well join it.

  “How did you come to be in Griffith’s employ, Marlow? I wasn’t aware he had set about looking for a new valet, although it was high past time. Herbert must be sixty years old.”

  “We happened upon each other in the village. I had, ah, been relieved of my employment. Your brother took a liking to me, however, and here I am.”

  “Truly? That sounds so very unlike Griffith,” she murmured. Griffith never did anything without thinking it through and coming up with a good reason or twenty.

  “Then I am even more grateful for the position.” Marlow quietly sipped at his tea, apparently waiting for her to guide the conversation, if there was to be any.

  Did she want there to be any? Yes. Yes, she did. If for no other reason than to pretend she had control over something. “Did you work as a valet before?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Miranda took a large gulp of tea and tried desperately to think of something, anything, to ask that did not involve work. She really didn’t want to know what it was like dressing a gentleman for a living, and especially not in relation to her brother. Having decided that they were going to have a conversation mere moments before, she wasn’t quite ready to abandon the effort.

  Her gaze drifted back to him, as if just looking at him would inspire an appropriate topic. All it did was make her realize that she’d been wrong when she thought no man could fill out a coat like her brothers did. Marlow was either padding his shoulders or his muscles were straining the seams of his tailored jacket. She cleared her throat and looked back to her teacup. Tiny blue flowers on white porcelain were considerably safer to look at. “Have you any family near here?”