Daring Masquerade

by Mary Balogh

  She was almost ready to turn back until she remembered the words exchanged between Lord Barton and the captain of the coast guard. She must warn Mr. Seyton. Indeed, perhaps she was already too late. If the coast guard knew where he was staying-and they might, despite what he had said the evening before-they might have arrested him hours before. Perhaps she really would see him swing after all. The thought sent her scurrying through the gate into the little cobbled courtyard she remembered from the night before. She knocked loudly on the door before she could lose her courage.

  She had to knock again before a faint light appeared in the window of the room above the door and a head wearing a tasseled nightcap peered down at her.

  “Who be it?” asked a gruff masculine voice.

  Kate craned her neck and looked up. “Please,” she said, “I wish to speak to Mr. Seyton.”

  There was a short silence. “Ain’t no one by the name of Seyton here, wench,” the voice said.

  “I was here last evening, do you not remember?” Kate asked. “It is imperative for his own safety that I see him. Please tell him that Mrs. Mannering must speak to him.” Kate was thoroughly thankful for the darkness, which hid her blush of mortification.

  “Wait there, missus,” the man in the room above said, and the head was withdrawn and the light disappeared.

  Kate stood there for what seemed like interminable minutes. How very foolish she was to have come. He would think her a trollop, no doubt, when she could have just as easily written a letter, and entrusted it to one of the more likely servants or to Josh Pickering. A lone nocturnal visit after midnight! She would die of mortification. She turned to leave before she could be dragged inside into the light.

  But it was too late. She could hear a bolt drawn back behind the door, and the next moment the light from a lamp was shining out on her. The man before her was not wearing a nightcap, though his thin hair was very unruly. He wore breeches and an imperfectly buttoned shirt. The voice was the same as had come from above her several minutes before, though.

  "Come inside, missus,” he said. “Master Nick’ll be down in a minute.”

  Kate followed him along the passageway and to the room where she had been taken the night before. She tried to look dignified and unconcerned, as if paying calls on single gentlemen after midnight were a quite unexceptionable activity for a lady.

  “Thank you,” she said, bowing her head graciously to the servant—no, he was not a servant, was he? He was the owner of this cottage. Kate blushed and was thankful that the man set the lamp down on the small table and left the room without looking at her.

  Fortunately she did not have long to wait. Her stomach was too full of butterflies to enable her to sit and wait in patience. The door opened abruptly not more than two minutes after she had been left alone, and Nicholas Seyton came into the room.

  “Oh,” she said, “you are wearing that ridiculous mask again. Do you sleep in it?”

  “Perhaps you would like to discover the answer for yourself, Mrs. Mannering,” he said in tones that she found far from encouraging. “What in the name of all that is wonderful are you doing here, ma’am? And at this hour?”

  Kate drew herself up to her full unimpressive height. “I am an employee, if you will remember, sir,” she said. “I may not pay calls at my leisure during the daytime. Only the nights I can call my own.”

  He grinned suddenly. “There is no possible use in trying to imitate a dowager duchess, Katherine,” he said. “Your air of superior dignity is totally inappropriate in every way. Are you in the habit of paying calls on gentlemen at this hour of the night? And in such clothes? They are dreadfully unbecoming, are they not?”

  Kate shrugged. “The uniform of my employment, I am afraid,” she said, untying the ribbons of her gray bonnet and tossing it onto the chair by the fireplace before sending her cloak to join it.

  “Good God!” he said. “Your hair. Is that part of the uniform too? It is my cousin that insists on this? No doubt he fears that you will outshine Thelma. But do not despair, my dear. Your charms are shockingly obvious despite the heavy disguise. To what do I owe this visit, Katherine? I take it is not merely a social call?”

  “By no means,” she said dramatically. “I came to warn you that your life is in danger.”

  Unexpectedly he grinned. “I suppose half the country is in search of the highwayman,” he said.

  “Worse than that,” said Kate. “They know it is you.”

  “Indeed?” he said. “Did you tell them, Katherine?”

  “Of course not,” she said indignantly. “Do you think I would betray you and then walk almost four miles across country in the darkness to warn you? Do you think I have windmills in my head?”

  “Did you walk here?” he asked. “And all alone? That was very brave but very foolhardy, my dear. Why did you not ask Josh to accompany you? Or send him with a message? Josh can memorize a simple message, you know, and nothing will worm it out of him until he can deliver it to the right person.”

  Kate blushed, recalling at this inopportune moment her reason for deciding not to bring Josh. “I was afraid to trust anyone,” she said. “I heard the earl this afternoon telling the captain of the coast guard that he suspects the highwayman was you or someone associated with you. They will be after you now. They will arrest you.”

  “Then perhaps you will have your wish after all,” he said cheerfully. “Perhaps you will see me hang, Katherine.”

  “Don’t,” she said indignantly. “You know I said that only before I knew the truth about you.”

  “Well,” he said, moving for the first time and motioning her to a chair at the table, “don’t alarm yourself. The law of England requires proof before a man can be convicted of any crime.”

  “Are you mad?” said Kate, ignoring the offer of a chair and pacing across to the window and back to stand a short distance away from him. “There is every proof in the world. Lord Stoughton and Lady Thelma saw you, not to mention the coachman and the footman.”

  “Masked, though,” he pointed out.

  “The mask is about as much disguise as a patch would be next to your mouth,” Kate said scornfully. “That hair! Have you never considered disguising it? There cannot be another man for twenty miles who has hair quite as blond as yours and who wears it as unfashionably long. At least have it cut short, sir. Oh, do stop grinning at me in that thoroughly imbecilic manner. This is serious. Your life is at stake!”

  He continued to grin. “How very delightful you are, Katherine,” he said. “Does my safety matter so much to you?”

  “Well, of course it does,” she said. “You have been treated unjustly all your life.”

  “Being hanged or transported for kidnapping would not be unjust, though, would it?” he said. “I did kidnap you, Katherine. And I believe I am more and more glad that I did. I should not feel that way, of course. Do I owe you an apology for that kiss, by the way? I do hope not. I do not feel sorry at all.”

  He waited for an answer. Kate blushed. “Oh, that,” she said carelessly. “I had quite forgotten it, sir.”

  He threw back his head and laughed loudly. “Katherine,” he said, “do you not know that that is the surest way to wound a man’s pride? I kissed you last night, and you have forgotten it by tonight! I shall have to try to do better so that you will not forget again. Come here.”

  “Like a puppy?” she said indignantly. “Absolutely not, sir.”

  “It is interesting to notice that is my peremptory summons to which you object,” Nicholas Seyton said, “not the idea of being kissed. You are quite right, of course. That was the arrogant male in me talking. I shall come to you. There, is that more to your liking?”

  Kate, looking up into the blue eyes behind the mask, would have liked to tell him with great dignity that she objected to both his command and his intention. But she could not. He might believe her, and she wished very much to be kissed again. She satisfied herself with looking him in the eye and saying with great dig
nity, “Yes, thank you. It is.”

  He laughed again before taking her by the shoulders and drawing her against him. Oh, he felt good, she thought, feeling him along the length of her body, all solid muscle and masculinity. One of his hands clasped her throat, the thumb and forefinger raising her chin. It was a quite unnecessary gesture; her face was already raised for his kiss. She drew a deep and not-quite-steady breath. She would die if his kiss was unpleasant this time.

  But it was not. Oh, it was very definitely not. Soon she was clinging to his shoulders as if only by doing so could she save herself from drowning. At first, his mouth covered hers as lightly as it had the night before, his tongue teasing her lips until she sizzled with sensation and reached up her arms to twine them around his neck. She opened her mouth.

  And then his tongue was teasing its way past the barrier of her teeth to explore and caress the warm cavity beyond. His one hand held the back of her head. The other reached up to take hers when see was about to twine her fingers in his hair. She clung to his hand. The room and the world around her were receding. She was becoming only warm and pleasurable sensation. Aching sensation.

  “Katherine ...” His voice was murmuring warmly into her ear. He took her earlobe between his teeth and bit it gently. Kate shivered and slipped both arms around his waist. She tipped her head back farther so that she could feel his mouth against her throat, against the pulse there. And she could feel his hands unbuttoning the back of her high-necked dress. She pressed her breasts against his chest and drew her shoulders back to make the task easier.

  “Katherine ...” Her dress was off her shoulders and halfway down her arms. The straps of her shift followed it. And she drew her breasts away from him so that both garments could fall to her waist and his hands could cover her instead.

  Beautiful. Oh, beautiful. A man’s hands worshiping her breasts, caressing them, massaging them with his palms, covering the hardening nipples with his thumbs and moving them in rhythmic circles. A man’s head moving down to them, kissing them, taking the nipple of first one and then the other into his mouth and sucking, his tongue moving over their tips, driving her mad with pleasure that felt almost like pain. He took her gently by the wrists when her hands moved to his hair, drew her arms behind her, and held them there. And she stood captive, her eyes closed, her head thrown back, wanting and wanting and wanting.

  “Katherine ...” Her naked breasts were against his shirt. His mouth was over hers again, tantalizingly close, not quite touching. “Oh, my beautiful Katherine. Do you realize what very great danger you are in?”

  “Kiss me,” she pleaded. “Kiss me.” And was aware of the extent of her danger as she pressed herself along the length of him.

  He lowered his mouth to hers again, and his tongue danced against hers, drawing it out and into his own mouth. His hands still held her wrists loosely behind her back. And then his very blue eyes were looking down into hers. He laid his forehead against her own. She was very aware of the mask.

  “We must stop,” he said. “I cannot control my desire beyond even one more kiss. I want you, Katherine. I want you right now in bed. But we must not. We mustn’t. Tell me we mustn’t.”

  Kate pulled her hands free of his clasp and pushed firmly against his shoulders. “You want me in bed so that you can have your pleasure and spoil mine,” she said. She could hear the hurt in her own voice and tried to control it. “You are as selfish as any other man. Oh, I thought perhaps you were different.”

  “Take my pleasure and spoil yours?” he asked. She could feel rather than see his frown. The mask hid his expression. “Have I been imagining things? Have you not been enjoying this as I have? Have you not been feeling the same desire as I?”

  “Of course I have,” she said. “And you want to spoil it all by taking me to bed?”

  There was a short silence. “Has bed never been pleasurable for you, Katherine?” he asked softly.

  “Of course not,” she said. “It is only for men, though I cannot imagine why. It is disgusting.”

  “Did your husband never pleasure you?” he asked. “Did he never touch you and caress you until you were as ready as he? Did he never take you slowly so that you could have pleasure too?”

  “Heaven forbid!” Kate said with a shudder. He could not do it fast enough for me.”

  “Poor Katherine,” he said, bending his head and kissing her gently on the cheek. He took one lock of her hair in his hand. When had she lost the neat bun at her neck? she wondered. “I wish I had the freedom and the leisure to teach you the depths of your own passion. You were halfway there a minute ago and did not know it; But enough.” He straightened up and released the lock of hair. His manner became noticeably more brisk. “We must get you home and to bed—alone—as soon as possible if you are to be good for anything tomorrow. I shall go and saddle my horse. You may wait here.”

  “I can walk,” Kate said. Why was she feeling so dreadfully empty and depressed?

  “Katherine Mannering,” he said firmly, “this time I shall play the heavy-handed male and brook no argument. Turn around and let me help you with those buttons. They seem to be causing you a great deal of trouble.”

  It was only as they were riding toward Barton Abbey later, Kate’s bonneted head resting on Nicholas’ shoulder, that she remembered her other reason for wishing to talk to him that night.

  “The earl is searching for something,” she said abruptly.

  “What?” he asked. “And where?”

  “In the library,” she said. “He is searching through all the books, shaking them as if he expected something to fall out.”

  “What makes you think this has anything to do with me?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she admitted. “But it does seem peculiar. I thought perhaps I would offer to help him. I can pretend I think he wishes to clean or organize the books.”

  “Katherine, listen to me,” he said after a short pause. “You are not to involve yourself further in my affairs. I am grateful for your warning of this evening. I do not believe the danger is as acute as you believe, but it is as well to be warned. But no more. You must make no effort to find out more. If by pure chance you do find something that seems of life-or-death importance, you must tell Barret, the head groom—do you know him? Or write a note and send it with Josh, though I always think it wiser to commit as little as possible to writing. But you must not come to me yourself ever again.”

  “You did not enjoy kissing me?” Kate asked.

  He squeezed her shoulder and laughed softly. “Katherine Mannering, you know very well how much I enjoyed kissing you,” he said. “That is not the point at all. The point is that this thing might possibly get ugly, and I do not wish you to be involved in any way. Besides, there are all sorts of things you do not know about me. I am not at all an eligible suitor for you.”

  “Suitor?” she said. “I am not looking for a suitor. I am never going to marry again. If I did, I would have to allow . . .”

  “. . . that humiliating physical exercise that brings pleasure only to the husband,” he completed for her when she did not do so for herself. “You must stay away from me, Katherine. Promise me. You must promise.”

  “No,” she said into his shirt front. “I cannot promise because then I should be bound. But I will not come again, for all that. I will not come where I am not wanted.”

  He made an impatient clucking noise. He looked down at her as if he were about to say something, but he maintained his silence and they rode on without another word. This time he took her through a side gate and across the park until they were close to the house.

  “That is the door you came out of?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the west side of the house. “Go, then. I shall stay here until I am sure you are safely inside. If by chance the door has been bolted, do not panic. I know ways of getting inside this house. I was a boy here, remember.” He grinned at her in the darkness before dismounting and lifting her to the ground. He did not immediately relinquish
his hold of her waist. “Thank you for coming tonight, Katherine. You are an incredibly brave lady. And very kind. This must be good-bye. It must be. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with my liking or not liking to kiss you. You are very beautiful and very desirable.” He kissed her briefly and hard on the lips.

  Kate said nothing. She turned and sped across the grass that lay between the small copse of trees where he hid with his horse, whisked herself inside the door without taking the precaution of looking around it first, and ran a little more cautiously up to her room.

  She stood for a long time, her back against the door, her hands behind her still clasping the knob, her eyes tight shut. She would not cry. She never cried. Ever. Not even that time when Giles had turned her facedown on the bed and beaten her until she bit the inside of her mouth raw, because she had tried to ease her way out from beneath him while he was snoring heavily on top of her. She would not cry. No man could ever treat her badly enough that she would cry. She would never give any man that satisfaction, even if he were not present to witness the tears. She would not cry for a man who had wanted to ruin her pleasure by taking her to bed and doing “that” to her. Or for a man who did not want to see her again because she had had the temerity to tell him how selfish his desire was.

  The wind had got at her eyes. She had noticed how windy it was. And they had been riding into it. It was the wind. Kate brushed fiercely at the tears the wind had caused, which were now spilling over and down her cheeks.

  Chapter 6

  Nicholas did not immediately ride away after the side door closed behind Kate. He continued to gaze with dull pain at the home he could no longer enter. He could see along the southern front with its long windows and massive stone pilasters, the stone balustrade and statues on the roof, the twin curved marble stairways like a horseshoe connecting the terrace and the double front doors and the large hall beyond. He could both see and hear the fountain opposite the entryway at the head of the formal gardens.