Daring Masquerade

by Mary Balogh

  Kate bit her lip and felt very foolish. That was certainly one point in his favor. In fact, she felt that if anyone had been keeping score since they left the house, he would be the winner by far. Tomorrow she would think of a way to give him such a thorough setdown that he would never recover. She almost looked forward to the challenge. She did not have to lock her door against him, indeed! Who did he think he was? The answer to a woman’s prayer? It was true that he was endowed with unusual good looks. But still and all! She had been admired in her time too.

  Lord Uppington and Lady Thelma were both in the drawing room taking tea with the rest of the company when the other four went inside. Kate was vastly relieved. For all Sir Harry’s assurances, she had been worried not to come across the pair either in the gardens or at the fountain.

  “Kate!” Lady Thelma came hurtling through Kate’s bedchamber and into her dressing room without knocking. “Why did you leave me alone with him? Oh. Audrey, please leave. Mrs. Mannering will ring for you again later.”

  Kate rose to her feet, noting with a sinking of the heart the paleness of the girl’s face and the agitation of her manner. She did not ask what was the matter when the answer was perfectly obvious to her.

  “Why did you leave me?” Thelma repeated after Audrey had left the room and shut the door of the bedchamber behind her. “Lord Uppington made me an offer and said that he had Papa’s permission to pay his addresses. I could not say no, but I did say I needed time to think of my answer. But when I went to talk to Papa just now, he gave me a thundering scold and told me that I must say yes. I thought perhaps Sidney had not talked to him yet. I have not had a chance to talk to him all evening. But Papa said that he had made an offer and Papa called him an impudent puppy and said I could certainly not marry him. I have to accept the marquess because he is of such superior rank and will be a duke one day.” She paused for breath. Tears welled into her eyes.

  “Perhaps when he knows that your heart is set against the match . . . ?” Kate said hesitantly.

  “He knows it now,” Thelma said, one tear spilling over and rolling down her cheek. “But he says that I am to say yes, anyway. I can’t marry the marquess, Kate. He is so cold and formal and . . . He frightens me. What am I to do?”

  Kate was at a loss. Her role seemed to call for reassurance. She should be persuading the girl that her father had her happiness in mind that the marquess’s formality and coldness would evaporate into kindness when they were better acquainted. But she could not do so. She could not counsel the girl to accept a man whom she knew to be evil.

  “I think you are to go to bed and sleep, Lady Thelma,” she said with a smile. “It is late and this has been a busy day. No one can force you to marry against your wishes, you know. And your father is not a monster.” Or is he? Kate’s thoughts asked her. “Tomorrow you will be able to think more clearly and plan more effectively. Just forget about your problems for tonight.”

  “But I will never be allowed to marry Sidney,” the girl said, her shoulders drooping with misery.

  “You don’t know that,” Kate said. “Never is a long time. Who knows what the future will bring?”

  Lady Thelma turned to go eventually. Kate, locking the door firmly behind her, felt very helpless. She had been unable to offer any real help to the girl, only empty platitudes. The same platitudes that she was using on herself.

  Nicholas! This time last night she had not even made love with him yet. She closed her eyes while remembered sensations washed over her.

  The fiend. The low-down, cowardly, criminal, selfish, unfeeling . . . Kate could not think of a satisfactory noun with which to complete the list. But it would not have helped anyway. She could feel him against her, on her, in her. The fiend.

  And never again. Oh, yes, never was a very long time indeed. Kate tugged ruthlessly at the pins that held her hair in its neat bun at the back of her neck.

  Chapter 14

  “Harry will not wish to come,” Charles Dalrymple said at the luncheon table the next day. “He had one of his sleepless nights and confided to me but an hour ago that he will lie down this afternoon. Is that not right, Harry?”

  Sir Harry raised his quizzing glass but did not quite put it to his eye. “But that was before anyone suggested a ride along the beach, Charles,” he protested. “How could I miss that pleasure merely to catch up on such an unimportant matter as sleep?” He raised one eyebrow as his friend seemed about to protest, and Charles Dalrymple shrugged and closed his mouth.

  “It seems an age since I have ridden,” Christine Barr-Smythe said with something like a squeal, “though I suppose it was little more than a week ago in Hyde Park. I wonder what it is like to ride on sand.”

  “I hope, ma’am,” Sir Harry said with a shudder, “that only the horses will discover the answer to that. I would not relish the thought of getting sand on my boots.”

  The conversation moved into different topics and it was almost an hour later before those who planned to join the ride retired to their rooms in order to get ready.

  “Are you quite mad, Nick?” Charles Dalrymple asked, following his friend into his bedchamber. “Yesterday you took a great risk riding into the village and boarding the stage. Are you going to tempt fate again by leaving the relative safety of Barton Park in order to ride on the beach?”

  Nicholas grinned. “The cliff paths are quite steep,” he said, “but if the others can negotiate them safely down to the beach, then I daresay I can too.”

  “That is not what I meant, and you know it,” Dalrymple said with a cluck of annoyance. “The coast guard, man. I have heard that there are a dozen soldiers stationed in these parts. Your luck cannot hold forever, you know. One of these days you are going to come face-to-face with them if you persist in wandering abroad.”

  “I’ll take my chance,” Nicholas said with a shrug. “The beach and the cliffs are wide open. I shall see them coming from a distance.”

  “Yes, and they will see you from a distance as well,” his friend said dryly. But he had learned over the years that there was no point in arguing with Nicholas once his mind was made up on an issue. He left the room in order to pursue the more profitable task of donning his riding clothes.

  Nicholas did likewise. In truth he was not quite as foolhardy as Dalrymple thought. Although he had been accustomed for more than a year to the running of risks, he never faced danger unnecessarily. His smuggling excursions, his lone experience as a highwayman, his visit to the village the day before, his masquerade here at the Abbey as Sir Harry Tate—all were done for a purpose. And this afternoon’s ride on the beach was being undertaken for no less a reason.

  Uppington had suggested the ride to Lady Thelma. That young lady had immediately turned to her companion, of course, to act as a chaperone. Nicholas would wager that she had played perfectly into Uppington’s hands. It was true that the beach was wide open, but it was not a very long beach for an extended ride. There were all sorts of crags, caves, and negotiable rocks to explore on foot. It would not be at all difficult to lose oneself for several minutes at a time in such a setting—long enough, for example, to enjoy a prolonged kiss or even more, if one or both of the partners were eager and daring. It was small comfort to Nicholas that all the young people had decided to join in the ride. The numbers would make it all the easier for Uppington to maneuver Katherine into a confrontation.

  The coast guard notwithstanding, then, Nicholas had to ride with the group. He might be unable to show open kindness to Katherine. He might be forced into driving her into active dislike of him. But at least he knew she was safe with Sir Harry Tate. He pulled on his gleaming black Hessians and grinned at the thought of how surprised Parkin would be if he could see just how clean he was forced to keep them so that they would fit with his image as Sir Harry. Parkin’s expression always became pained whenever he was faced with a pair of Nicholas’ boots.

  Kate was going to enjoy the afternoon, she decided. Riding had always been one of her chief pleasure
s, but she had not had a great deal of opportunity to indulge her preference since beginning to work for Lady Thelma. The prospect of riding on a beach, breathing in the salt smell of the ocean, and perhaps having the fresh sea breeze whip against her cheeks was inviting enough to send her into the stableyard almost first among the afternoon’s riders. She did not feel particularly dashing in the black velvet riding habit she had had made while she was in mourning, but she liked the little hat, which tipped jauntily over one eye while its gray and white feathers curled saucily around her ear.

  She was going to enjoy herself. She must, of course, keep an eye on her employer, though she did not feel that the task of chaperoning her would be arduous when so many others would be riding with them. She had considered all the dangers that Nicholas himself had thought of, but she had decided, to ignore them. She had never been frightened of any man, not for any long stretch of time anyway, and she was not gong to begin with the Marquess of Uppington. Let him try to separate her from the group this afternoon. And then let him try to take advantage of his superior strength. She would show him a thing or two.

  She looked back appalled on her fright of the previous afternoon and on the tears she had shed afterward. Of course, her emotions had been in a weakened state as a result of the total surrender of herself she had made the night before and then the discovery that the man to whom she had surrendered was without heart or conscience. She would not have needed the support of Sir Harry otherwise, and she would certainly not have begun to bawl as soon as he spoke with his characteristic lack of sensitivity.

  She was going to enjoy herself, despite her subservient state, despite the danger posed by that toad of a marquess, and despite the sneering scorn of that fop Sir Harry. She was not too pleased when she saw the quiet mare that had been saddled for her, but she supposed an uninhibited gallop would be out of the question anyway when the party was to be quite large. She accepted Lord Poole’s assistance into the saddle and made no objection to riding alongside him when he made it obvious that he had singled her out for his gallantries that afternoon.

  She wondered in some amusement how he could move his head within the extremely high and pointed collars of his shirt. His hair was combed forward and piled in high curls above his forehead in a style that the Prince Regent himself favored. The effect on Lord Poole was to make him look very much as if he were about to float straight up, like one of those hot air balloons she had been to see with her Aunt Priscilla. Kate talked with him and allowed him to flirt with her in a manner that had annoyed her a few weeks before in London. Now she was merely amused. She felt years older than the young dandy, though she supposed that they must be almost of an age.

  All conversation ceased as the members of the party made their way in single file down the narrow, winding path from the clifftop to the beach. Kate was interested to notice that it was not the path down which she had been carried two nights before. But then, that path led to just a small cove, which would not have been at all suitable for riding. This one led to a wide, curving beach that must have stretched for two miles or more before rocks, jutting out from the cliffs, cut it off from a series of small coves beyond.

  But even though it was not the same spot, the ride down the path to the beach, the growing smell of the ocean, and the sound of waves breaking far out at this time of low water brought back aching memories of that night. Less than two days ago. In fact, tonight, she seemed to remember, the smuggled goods were to be distributed among the customers in the neighborhood. And Nicholas had left before that job was even complete.

  She had tried to convince herself all the previous day and even that morning that she was not expecting any word from him. But she had hoped, despite herself. He could have left a note. It would not have taken away the emptiness she was feeling, but it would have softened the blow somehow. He could have left a short note with one of the servants.

  Of course, he might still write to her. He might send her a letter from Shropshire. He would not; if he did, everyone would know that Nicholas Seyton was sending letters to Mrs. Mannering at Barton Abbey. It was absurd to even think of such a thing. But enclosed in a letter to the Evanses or the Pickerings, perhaps? Absurd. Kate shook off the thought and spurred her horse forward onto the sand. It was not a satisfactory mount at all. She supposed that a slow canter was all she could expect from it, especially on sand.

  It was Lord Stoughton who suggested that they dismount when they had cantered along the length of the beach to the rocks. Lady Emma was the only one who disdained to stain her boots and threaten the hem of her habit with sand. She persuaded Lord Poole to begin the ride back with her. Mr. Dalrymple helped Angela Lacey to dismount and found a rock to which to tether both their horses. He offered her his arm so that they might stroll to the water’s edge some distance away across hard, damp sand. Lord Stoughton and Julie Carstairs were soon following in their wake.

  “If we climb these rocks just a little way,” Mr. Moreton said, “we will be able to see those pools we spotted farther back along the beach. Shall we try, Lady Thelma? I shall help you, though I do not believe the climb is difficult.”

  “I would prefer to walk outward on the rocks,” Christine Barr-Smythe said decisively. “Look, they jut out into the sea. If we go far enough, we will have the water on three sides of us. How thrilling that would be. Do join me, everyone.” She set out on her way without looking back to see who followed.

  Since “everyone” consisted of Lord Uppington, Sir Harry Tate, and Kate, the two men turned to look at each other. Uppington raised his eyebrows. Sir Harry yawned delicately behind a hand.

  “The very thought of such exertion makes me long for that sleep I had planned for this afternoon,” he said. “I shall make no interference with your playing the gallant on this occasion, Uppington.”

  The marquess inclined his head. “My pleasure, Tate,” he said. “Mrs. Mannering? Allow me to help you.”

  Caught in my own trap, Nicholas thought philosophically, seating himself languidly on a convenient rock. However, they would be in full sight. And Uppington would be stuck with two females. Not much harm could be done.

  Kate had other ideas, however. “Thank you, my lord,” she said coolly, “but I am going to cross the rocks for a short distance to see what lies beyond.” She suited action to words and began scrambling away from the two men with whom she had no wish to consort for that afternoon. And she really did want to see what was beyond the jutting rock a few yards ahead. She thought it very likely that it was the little cove where the smugglers carried on their trade.

  It was, though it was not as close as she had expected. There were more rocks to traverse. But the cove was quite recognizable, its steep cliff path snaking down from the west, the mouth of the cave obvious to someone who knew it was there. She had to see it again in the light of day. And it would not take her very long to cross the remaining distance. She did not even look back, but continued on her way.

  What would she think when she got there? Nicholas wondered. She would recognize it, of course, though it had been night when she was there before. Would she look in curiosity only? Or would she feel some pain, remembering what had happened there in the cave and knowing that he had abandoned her the following day without a word of farewell? Perversely, he hoped she would feel some emotion. It seemed a long time ago, that lovemaking of two nights before. He ached for her as she disappeared from sight. If only he could follow her there and let her know who he really was. Nicholas shook off the temptation and glanced back to the figures of Uppington and Miss Barr-Smythe, already far out on the rocks. As least Katherine was safe from that lecherous character for the time being.

  Nicholas looked idly back along the beach to note that Lady Emma and Lord Poole were making their way back again. He could not imagine why. He had thought that young lady had had enough of sand and salty air for one day. But it was not they, he thought, shading his eyes and looking more closely at the two mounted figures approaching from a long way off. Susp
icion grew to certainty after one more minute. They were about to entertain two soldiers from the coast guard. Or at least he was, since he seemed to be directly in their path.

  Sir Harry Tate got nonchalantly to his feet and climbed onto the rock on which he had been sitting. He supposed he might play the gallant and follow the only unaccompanied lady in the group. By the time the soldiers were close enough to recognize any of the members of the riding party dispersed across the beach and on the rocks, that indolent baronet had disappeared unhurriedly around the outgrowth of rock that led him to the smugglers’ cove.

  Nicholas felt that his safest course of action was to continue on his way. Since the soldiers were on horseback, it was very unlikely that they would follow him over the rocks, but he would feel more at ease if the distance between him and them was somewhat greater. To proceed was the safest course for him in one way. In another way he was walking into another danger. He had no wish to be alone with Katherine, and especially not in these particular surroundings. He felt rather proud of his acting skills in her presence so far. But still, a man was only human, he thought ruefully.

  She came out of the cave as he was jumping down from the rocks onto the sand. She glared at him, not even pretending politeness.

  “You quite put me to shame, Mrs. Mannering,” he called, managing to inject some sort of a sigh into his voice even though he had to raise its volume. “You and all the others. Such energy! Scrambling over sand and rocks just like children. I thought it incumbent upon me to come and offer my assistance on your return journey.”

  “There was really no need whatsoever for you to come, sir,” she said as he wandered toward her across the beach. “Sometimes one appreciates a few minutes of solitude. I find my own company quite congenial enough, thank you very much.”