Daring Masquerade

by Mary Balogh

  “Kate,” he said suddenly as she made to hurry past him, “I assume you will not be attending the ball tonight?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Neither will I,” he said. “I have already been loudly complaining of the insomnia that plagued me last night. And you still intend to leave tomorrow?”

  She nodded, looking earnestly into his face. For perhaps the last time, she was thinking.

  “Meet me tonight,” he said, noting how beautiful the widening of her eyes and the returned blush made her. “Over there in the shelter of the trees.” He pointed in the direction of the small copse where he had hidden with his horse one night not so long ago, watching her run across to a side door to let herself in without being seen. “When the dancing is well under way.”

  She stared at him. He did not know whether she was going to slap him or merely run past him. “I have to go,” she said at last. And she hurried to the bottom of the steps. But she turned again. “Yes,” she said breathlessly before running lightly up them and disappearing, into the great hall.

  And now what had he done? Nicholas was left thinking. He had spoken quite on the spur of the moment, out of a sort of panic that he might never see her again. But to say that such a meeting was unwise was severely to understate the case. It seemed quite obvious what might happen if he kept that appointment—and how could he not? And how would he be able to let her go then? He would be begging her to marry him, dooming her perhaps to share his less-than-respectable life. Always assuming that she would accept him, of course. Katherine Mannering was not likely to take kindly to the kind of trick he had been playing on her.

  Fool! he thought, following Kate more slowly up the steps and looking around him for Bruce. And what on earth had been happening in the garden in the last little while? Katherine had appeared do be quite undistressed. Quite the contrary. She had looked rather pleased with life when he had asked about Uppington.

  He wished he could recall that rash invitation he had just made. Or did he? He found a new purpose in his stride merely thinking about that the evening held in store for him.

  What on earth had she done now? Kate thought as she ran lightly up the stairs, dodging servants. She must be quite mad. She had just made an assignation to meet Sir Harry in a secluded part of the garden at some ungodly hour of the night. It was obvious what the purpose of such a meeting was. It was unlikely that they would occupy themselves discussing the weather. They would probably end up kissing each other at the very least. And she was leaving tomorrow—no, later this same night. She would never see Sir Harry again. She was going to end up feeling the same way tomorrow as she had felt the morning after making love with Nicholas. She must have windmills in her head to invite such misery deliberately.

  But what was the alternative? If she failed to keep the appointment, then she had already seen her last of Sir Harry. And she would hate that, wouldn’t she? The temptation was just too great. And what red-blooded female would even try to resist it? she thought. It was strange, though. She had thought Sir Harry did not admire her. Oh, he liked her spirit, maybe. But he did not find her attractive. He had said so. Perhaps she was reading too much into his invitation. But that was ridiculous. Gentlemen just did not invite ladies to clandestine meetings in the garden at night unless they found them just a little bit attractive.

  Kate reached Lady Thelma’s room, knocked lightly, and went inside. The bedchamber was in darkness, the heavy velvet curtains having been pulled across the windows. Kate could see as she tiptoed toward the bed that her employer was curled up on it fast asleep. She frowned. Strange! That young footman had made the summons sound quite urgent. Had he been mistaken? She did briefly consider waking Lady Thelma, but after some hesitation she merely shrugged and let herself quietly out of the room again.

  And then Kate grinned as she let herself into her own room. She felt very proud of that scene with the Marquess of Uppington. In fact, she quite considered that her revenge was almost adequate. And it had all been unplanned too. Her performance had been quite impromptu. She had taken the scissors with her, it was true. But she had picked them up merely as a means of self-defense if she should need them.

  What she had done was thoroughly reckless, of course. It really would not have been difficult for such a large man to wrestle the scissors from her. And if that had happened, she might have found herself in a nasty predicament. But the result had been well worth the risk. Seeing a bully like Lord Uppington paralyzed by fear of a woman holding a pair of embroidery scissors was great sport. He had looked so very foolish.

  She had been almost ready to curse that footman for coming into the garden and threatening to destroy her plan to humiliate the marquess. But as it had turned out, his presence could not have been more perfect. He would undoubtedly spread an account of the incident. Soon there would not be a servant on the estate or on any other for a radius of many miles who would not know that the Marquess of Uppington had been held at bay by a mere slip of a woman holding a pair of scissors. And wagging his finger and threatening her. It was priceless. She could leave Barton with a lighter heart knowing that Lord Uppington would perhaps never recover fully from his humiliation. Such stories had a habit of dogging a man’s footsteps for the rest of his life.

  Kate put the scissors back into her work bag and put the bag away in a cupboard. She opened the doors of her wardrobe. Now, which of the splendid array of gray and brown dresses should she wear tonight? Not that the color would matter, of course. Color would not show in the darkness. Perhaps she would wear the pale gray silk. It was conservative in style, as all her garments were, being only slightly scooped at the neck and gathered beneath her bosom with a plain silk sash of the same fabric as the dress. But she liked it. It felt light and cool when worn, and shimmered around her as she moved.

  She turned to look in the glass. How dull she felt. Her hair was scraped back into its usual severe bun at her neck. Tonight she was going to do something different with it. After all, she was no longer bound by the demands of Lord Barton. She would get Audrey to curl it and dress it in soft waves around her face. Tonight she wanted to look her best, even in the darkness of the garden.

  Kate smiled. Tonight. For an hour perhaps she would block all else from her mind but the presence of Sir Harry Tate. She would not even think about the journey ahead of her and then the return to London and the search for other employment. Those things would not matter. Just the hour with the man she had grown to love.

  And then her smile faded abruptly. Good heavens, she had not seen Mr. Dalrymple after all. And how could she possibly see him now? Soon everyone would be dressing for dinner and the ball. Before morning she would be gone. There would be no way she could communicate her findings to Nicholas Seyton.

  Yes, there was one other way, she supposed. It would be embarrassing. He was not likely to give her such information without a great deal of interrogation. And doubtless he would guess immediately that she had indeed known Nicholas. He would guess that they had been lovers too. It would be just like him to guess that. And he would pour scorn and contempt on her. It would ruin their evening. Unless she left it until the end, of course, just before they parted. It would still make a sour ending and spoil the evening to a certain extent. But then, saying good-bye to him was not going to be a pleasant moment anyway.

  Yes, that was what she would do. She would get Sir Harry to give her Nicholas Seyton’s address.

  Chapter 22

  The house was filled with the sounds of music and voices and laughter. The dinner had seemed to last forever. Kate had eaten hers, alone in her room, long before the sounds beyond her door indicated that the guests were ready for new entertainment. And again a frustratingly long time seemed to pass before she heard the orchestra begin to play and could assume that the dancing had begun. She supposed that she would be feeling somewhat depressed and envious if she had not ventured downstairs that afternoon. But how could she feel either under the circumstances? Who would want to dance and
to converse when the alternative was all she could ever want?

  Of course, Sir Harry had spoken in haste, she tried to persuade herself as she picked up a woolen shawl from the chair over which she had placed it earlier. She did not think he had planned to ask her to meet him. How could he? He had had no way of knowing that he would see her that afternoon. Perhaps he had thought better of going outside to meet her. Perhaps he would not be there. She must not be too disappointed if he were not. In one way it would be better so. She would be saved from that dreadful moment of parting. She would also be forced to leave Barton Abbey without knowing how to reach Nicholas.

  Kate glanced nervously in the pier glass. She looked like a girl on the way to her first ball, she thought in some disgust. Except that a girl would be wearing a fashionable white gown. Her gray silk did not look wholly unbecoming, though, she thought. It caught the light well and looked almost silver when it did so. And the night was bright with moonlight and starlight, she had seen in an anxious glance through her window a short while ago. Audrey had made a good job of her hair. It did not curl. It was too long for that. But the girl had coaxed it into soft waves about her face. And long tendrils curled along her neck. She felt very feminine.

  And her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining. How ridiculous. She was merely to meet a male acquaintance for a walk in the garden. He would laugh at her for dressing and looking so. Of course, in the darkness he would not be able to see the color in her cheeks.

  Kate opened the door of her room cautiously. There was no one in the corridor outside. She could not go down the grand stairway, of course. She must just hope that she could reach the back stairs without being seen. Not that there was anything criminal in her coming from her room, she told herself. But she did not want anyone to know that she was going into the garden. She began to move swiftly along the corridor.

  Nicholas had taken the precaution of leaving the house while dinner was still in progress. He had even been bold enough to walk down the main staircase, through the grand hall, and out through the main doors. He winked at the few servants he passed. But it was important not to be seen by anyone but the servants. He had excused himself from the evening’s festivities on the grounds of indisposition. It would not do for him to be seen walking out into the park. Besides, he could not run the risk of coming face-to-face with any member of the coast guard. And the soldiers of higher rank had indeed been invited, he had discovered.

  The wait was a long one, of course. State dinners always seemed to last longer than any two other meals put together. He could remember the few his grandfather had hosted, and his own frustration and boredom at being excluded. Tonight’s would be lengthened even further by the betrothal announcement that was to be made. It was supposed to come as a surprise during the banquet, but somehow all the guests knew of it. Nicholas could not say he was sorry to miss that. He felt desperately sorry for his timid little cousin. Perhaps the discoveries he hoped to make in France would come soon enough to save her from such a fate.

  Nicholas wandered around the park, enjoying the cool evening air and the gradual darkening of sky and landscape. It was going to be a beautiful night, perfect for a lovers’ tryst. And was that what his meeting with Katherine was to be? Was he going to be that selfish? He was not sure that he would be able to do anything else. The best thing for her would be to change her mind and not keep their appointment. And the best for him too, probably.

  But despite such noble thoughts, long before the music began in the ballroom,. Nicholas found himself hovering in the vicinity of the trees where he had agreed to meet Kate. And when he could hear the orchestra, he set his back against a tree and found that he could not prevent his eyes from roving back and forth between the main doors and the side entrance through which she had entered the house on that other occasion. She was not coming, he convinced himself at last. He would return to his room in just a few more minutes. He would wait for this particular set to come to an end. As soon as the music stopped, he would go in.

  And then he saw her come out of the side door and look around her carefully before moving swiftly and lightly across the grass toward him. She looked like a girl, her figure slight, her dress catching the moonlight, her light blond hair soft about her face in the type of style he had not seen on her since that first night, when she had been impersonating Thelma. She did not see him. Her footsteps slowed as she neared the trees, and she peered anxiously around her.

  “Well, Mrs. Mannering,” he said at last with a drawl, “you look as if you are dressed for a ball. Did you take the wrong turning perhaps?”

  She turned sharply in his direction. Her face was lit fully by the moonlight. She looked eager and bright-eyed. “Are you there?” she asked. “I did not see you.”

  He pushed his back away from the tree and came to take her by the arm. “Let us walk a little way,” he said. “I should quite hate to be seen, since I am supposed to be in my bed trying to compensate for two completely sleepless nights. And I should hate even more to be thought of as a womanizer, you know.”

  “My reputation does not matter to you, I suppose?” Kate said, but she spoke in some amusement. He was not going to provoke her to anger this evening.

  “Why should it?” he asked. “You seem quite well able to destroy your own reputation, my dear Mrs. Mannering. What the devil did you think you were about, luring Uppington into the garden this afternoon?”

  She giggled. “I could not resist,” she said. “I have come to the conclusion that the man is a bully, and bullies are invariably cowards. It is just too, too delicious to know that I frightened him off with embroidery scissors. If you could have seen him wagging a finger at me, warning that I had not heard the end of the matter.”

  “I had a good enough caricature from Bruce,” he said. “You are an impossible madcap, Kate. Do you have the imagination to picture what might have happened if Uppington had just decided to take that deadly weapon from you?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but we were close enough to the house. I do not believe I was in any great danger.”

  “You were close to the willow tree when I spotted you,” he said. “A few more steps and you would have been completely out of sight of the house. And cowardly though Uppington may be, I do not believe he is stupid, Kate. I begin to have doubts about your intelligence, but not about his. This time he would have made very sure that you would not scream.”

  “Well, thank you,” Kate said indignantly, forgetting completely her resolution of a few minutes before. “If you consider me so stupid, sir, why do you condescend even to speak to me or express concern for my welfare?”

  “I really have no notion,” he said, sounding utterly bored.

  Kate swallowed. “Is this why you wished to meet me this evening?” she asked. “So that you could give me a setdown? You might have saved your time, sir. I really do not care that much”—she snapped her fingers in the air—“for your opinion. What I choose to do is entirely my own concern. I have not allowed any man to control or criticize my actions since my husband died. And I have no intention of ever again allowing any man such control.”

  “You like theatrics, don’t you, Kate?” Sir Harry said on a sigh. “You should have been an actress, my dear. You would have had all the mindless young bucks of London sighing at your feet. I am not so easily convinced. You are probably just longing for some firm-minded gentleman to take you over his knee and teach you how to behave. Unfortunately, my dear, you are talking to the wrong man. I like my women naturally quiet and dignified. I have no interest in exerting myself to wallop a female who has never been taught how to go on.”

  “Well!” Kate pulled her hand from his arm and stood still. She drew in a deep and loud breath. “The idea! The conceit! You are all alike after all. You men are all alike. You think you are perfection itself. You know all there is to know about life and manners and morals. And you think that women are mindless, rebellious little pets to be teased and patted and cuffed into good behavior. We are
to be like performing dogs, doing our master’s will and sitting adoring at his feet when he has no use for us, tongue hanging out, panting in ecstasy. Well, poppycock to that, sir. Here is a woman who is also a person, and I don’t care what you think I should be. I am very happy with me, thank you kindly, and that is all that matters.”

  His hand was playing with the ribbon of his quizzing glass. He looked bored, Kate noticed with growing fury.

  “Control yourself, ma’am,” he said with annoying calm. “I have already said I have no interest in changing you. Tell me, what do you plan to do when you leave here tomorrow?”

  “Why?” Kate asked rudely. “What concern is it of yours, sir, what I plan to do? I plan to stay well away from you for the rest of my life. That should please both of us.”

  He inclined his head. “It sounds like an admirable scheme,” he agreed. “It is not like to pay the bills, though.”

  “Since I have no intention of calling upon you to pay any of my bills,” she said, “how I pay them is none of your problem, sir.”'

  He sighed. “And how thankful I am to hear it,” he said. “I imagine that you must be an expensive creature, Kate, with all these dresses you possess—and in two different colors too.”

  The anger went out of Kate like a whoosh of air. She stared at him, hurt beyond bearing. She had so few dresses, and none very becoming or fashionable. She had chosen the prettiest. She had gone to great pains to look her best for him, and she had been pleased when she looked at herself in the mirror. And now he was looking at her scathingly, making fun of her clothes with that hateful tone of sarcasm she had always despised. How could she so have lowered herself as to seek to please this man? It said terrible things for the emptiness and loneliness of her life that she had fancied herself in love with him.

  “My appearance too is my concern alone, sir,” she said with cold dignity. “If you do not like the way I look, I am sure I do not care. But I cannot think why you sought out my company. I will bid you good night.”