The Black Mask

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  Niles pondered whether he should call on Rose as she asked or if it would be safer to send some excuse. Something about her made him want to do foolish things, an unneeded distraction at this time in his life when he was so close to completing his vengeance.

  When he’d come upon her in Lady Fitzmonroe’s unreal garden, sitting there with her eyes closed like a goddess awaiting her worshippers, it had been like a dream. And, as in a dream, he was free to do what he most wanted to do. Fortunately, they’d been interrupted before he could commit any foolish act.

  Niles found it difficult to analyze why Rose Spenser, of all women, had this effect on him. True, she was lovely. Her clear, porcelain skin, brightened by pink cheeks, was set off by rich curling hair, almost coffee-colored. Yet beauty alone had never interested him. As much as her appearance, her candor charmed him. Her sweetly serious eyes looked at him so straightforwardly. Too many girls simpered and were either naturally shy or told to be so by their mamas. But Rose looked right at him and did not approve, it seemed, of what she saw. That had pleased his taste.

  At the same time, however, he had to admit she seemed to lack fire. She disapproved, but coldly. Just as well, perhaps. If Rose possessed honesty, beauty, and passion, he would be doomed to love her. As matters stood, however, he flattered himself he was safe. She came nearer to being his ideal than any woman he’d ever met, but he would not settle for only part of his dreams.

  Niles fell to thinking of the raid on Beringer’s house and of his near apoplexy when the duchess walked in. By a lucky chance, what had seemed an unexpected complication turned out to be an asset. He had always intended to deprive Beringer of his foul livelihood, but had been reluctant to expose him publicly. To do so would cause all sorts of revelations. Nile had no wish to ruin people. That meant, of course, that Beringer would be free to collect again all his interesting facts. But if the duchess really would prosecute him ... Sir Niles, for one, would not desert her. Nor, if his influence had any value, would the ton. Old scandals didn’t, as a rule, interest people much, he knew. There were all too many fresh ones to be discussed.

  In the morning, Niles rode with Buzzy Harbottle, usually a reliable lightning rod for any gossip going. “I say,” Harbottle said in greeting, “I’ve had a very bright thought. Dashed if I wasn’t awake half the night thinking it over.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, old boy,” Niles said, mounting his restless horse. The gelding tried to fight him. Niles turned him in a tight circle, getting him under control.

  “That beast of yours will have you off in a minute.”

  “Not him,” Niles said, patting the proud bay neck. “He’s just eager for a canter.”

  “Don’t know why you keep a creature like that in London. He’s more suited to the High Toby than a respectable gentleman’s mount.”

  “Don’t you know? When the play goes against me, I take to highway robbery. A man needs a fleet horse under him when the bullets are flying past his ears.”

  Buzzy looked at him with some doubt. Then he grinned. “I never know your mood, Alardyce. Sometimes I would take my oath you are not joking.”

  Niles let that pass. “What’s your bright thought?”

  “Eh? Oh. It’s this. Occurred to me at midnight. Best hour of the day for thinking, that is, ‘specially if you’ve had a drink or two.”

  “And what jewel of thought did your binge bring forth?” Niles asked, amused, as the silence stretched. The wide streets were quiet except for a few early morning riders and a few late-to-bed revelers still in evening dress. It was actually possible to hear a bird sing in one of the pocket-sized parks they passed.

  “Well,” Buzzy said diffidently. “You know m’sister’s holding this masquerade next week. Don’t approve of ‘em as a rule; too likely to turn into orgies.”

  “Orgies? I must attend more of your sister’s parties.”

  “Don’t mean that,” Buzzy said with a blush. “But romping, kiss-in-a-corner, torn laces. That sort of thing.”

  “Buzzy, I never knew you were a poet.”

  The inarticulate peer blushed harder but persevered. “Not the thing, and so I told her. But she’s got a maggot in her head that she’s to outdo Lady Fitzmonroe. Frankly, all the ladies are half mad with jealousy after last night.”

  “It was a remarkable exhibition. I hate to think what it must have cost.”

  “Oh, Fitzmonroe’s pockets are deep enough to stand the nonsense. Wish I had half his income.”

  “Hard up?”

  “Damnably. That’s the other benefit of my idea. Won’t cost a thing ‘cept for the loo mask. I imagine one’s man can dye a pair of old inexpressibles black.”

  Miles caught a hint of Buzzy’s bright idea and started to grin. ‘You aren’t planning to attend dressed as the Black Mask, Buzzy?”

  “Why not?” Buzzy said defensively. “Ain’t all the girls mad about him? More than ever after the other day. I think I’d make quite a hit.”

  “Yes, you would. You and the twelve other geniuses who are likely to think of the same disguise.”

  ‘You don’t think there’d be that many, do you?”

  “Cheer up. The more of you who dress alike, the more fun you’ll have. No girl will know which man kissed her.”

  That reminded him of Rose and a kiss not taken. He stared forward, between his horse’s ears. “What day is your sister’s party?”

  “Wednesday next. Do you want an invitation?”

  “Would she have me?”

  “My dear fellow, she’ll jump at the chance. Ain’t your usual thing, though. Company won’t be what you like.”

  “I hope I don’t hold myself above whatever company I find myself in.”

  “No, ‘course not. You’re not high in the instep, and so I’ll tell m’sister.”

  Niles rode on, controlling his horse automatically with knees and hands. A half smile played about his mouth as he thought about the risk he would take and the possible rewards. Of all the things the Black Mask had stolen, nothing would ever be as sweet as one kiss.

  Chapter Seven

  Rose paused on the threshold as she entered her aunt’s bright and cheerful morning room. Amidst the daffodil-yellow walls and delicately spindled furniture covered with straw-colored satin, her admirers did indeed look overwhelming, as though she’d wandered into a convention of giants. She took a deep breath and smiled a welcome. There were only four of them, after all.

  Colonel Wapton, rising to his feet with alacrity, only just managed to save a Sevres vase from toppling over. Mr. March looked like an overlarge puppy in a small kennel, hoping to be taken for a walk. Mr. Allen, newly elected member of Parliament, was a very earnest young man with large hands and feet. As he’d been elected on an agricultural ticket, he seemed to think it would be a betrayal of his principles to have new clothes tailored. Therefore his hands looked even larger because his sleeves were slightly too short.

  Young Lord Duchan was extremely well turned out. Regrettably, the extremes of fashion did not flatter his square torso and heavy thighs. His shirt points reached to his ears, and his mouth was half muffled by a snow-white cravat.

  Rose liked them all very much. She encouraged Mr. Allen to overcome his shyness and discuss his principles. She enjoyed hearing the latest news of young Lord Duchan’s abundant brothers and sisters. Mr. March liked best to sit and gaze at her in awestruck admiration, which was always pleasing. And Colonel Wapton could make her laugh, causing the other three to look daggers. She liked them all and couldn’t imagine being married to any of them. So far, she’d managed by exercising a great deal of tact to keep them from proposing.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here yesterday when you called,” Rose said, to a chorus of deprecation. She waved them all to their seats and held court on the sofa. Though she laughed and chatted in what she fancied was her usual style, she’d arranged herself so she could keep an eye on the gilt clock ticking merrily on the mantel. She’d instructed her aunt’s cook to send up
the tea tray fifteen minutes early. They’d drink one cup and be on their way in a little less than half an hour. Rose wanted the room to be clear by eleven. If Sir Niles should deign to drop in, she wanted no distractions.

  Aunt Paige had promised to come down to help, but she was distracted, busy attiring herself against the arrival of her own admirer, General O’Banyon. So far, she’d rejected two gowns and was nearly in tears over the choice. Rose, too, had known unusual indecision over the choice of her clothes this morning. She didn’t dare speculate on what that meant.

  Finally, at ten minutes to eleven, the large men exited in a straggling line. Colonel Wapton and Lord Duchan tried to outlast each other, but when Rose stood up and thanked them for entertaining her, they had no choice but to leave in tandem.

  Rose heaved a sigh of thankfulness as the door closed. Going to the mantel, she rang for the maid to take out the tray. “Please bring a fresh pot in fifteen minutes, but only two cups.”

  Looking up into the mirror hanging at an angle on the chimney breast, Rose wondered if the blue foulard had been the right choice. It had looked all right upstairs, but against all this yellow, didn’t it look a little insipid? Well, it was past praying for. If he came at all, it would be soon. She didn’t want to keep Sir Niles waiting. She wanted him in the best possible and most malleable mood.

  The knock at the front door seemed to reverberate in her heart. Trying to achieve an easy pose, Rose leaned an elbow on the mantel, crossed to sit on the sofa, retired to an armchair with an improving book on her knee, all in the time it took Sir Niles to enter, doff his hat, and be escorted to the door.

  The butler bowed him in and himself away. Niles saw Rose, sitting bolt upright on the edge of an armchair, her color high and her eyes round with expectation. She had apparently been reading.

  “I trust I don’t disturb you.”

  “On the contrary. I’m so happy you could come.” She rose and came to meet him halfway, her hand prettily extended.

  Another knock at the front door made him drop her hand a little more quickly than Niles had wanted to. He actually hadn’t wanted to let go at all.

  Rose gave a little laugh. ‘You’ll be flattered to know you are more punctual than the military, Sir Niles.”

  “One of your admirers, Miss Spenser?”

  “No. My aunt’s, if you please.”

  With a graceful gesture, she invited him to sit on the sofa. She joined him there. He breathed in her scent of carnations and wondered at her restraint in not using rose water. Any other girl with her name, he felt, would have been unable to resist.

  He wondered why he’d come after all but vowing to send regrets. Riding with Buzzy, he’d told himself he could see Rose that evening and discuss whatever it was amidst a crowd of people. Surely that was more sensible than seeing her alone. During his bath, he’d mentally sketched the note he’d send her with his regrets. At breakfast, he’d called for pen and paper, only to tear up the thing between tying his cravat and putting on his waistcoat. Then, though he’d told Baxter he was going to his club, he found himself at her door. It was like being under a spell which sapped one of all self-control.

  “Sir Niles,” she began breathlessly. Then the door opened and she smiled apologetically. “Tea?”

  Her little fuss with the tea table, with cups and sugar, and urging him to try one of the cook’s special cakes, gave him the chance to study her more closely. A little blush came and went on her cheeks as she noticed his glance. “It’s always too warm in this room on a sunny day. I think it must be the color of the paint. Shall I open a window?”

  “Pray don’t trouble. Unless you wish me to open it for you?”

  She shook her head, a lock of silky dark hair falling from her upswept arrangement. It looked as if it would curl around his hand like a friendly kitten. Niles willed himself not to reach out. He liked her in blue, with the matching ribbon threaded through her hair.

  “More tea? A little more sugar?”

  If she had brought him here so boldly in order to continue their flirtation, why was she treating him like a crotchety Dutch uncle? Next she’d be fetching a pillow for his aching back or a footstool for his gouty foot.

  “Miss Spenser, in your note you mentioned some serious matter you wished to discuss. May I know what it is?”

  “I hope you don’t think me too forward, Sir Niles, asking to see you alone this way. I thought for a long time before taking this step, considering your past reputation and my future.”

  “Yes, I wondered if you had considered that. I thought about it too, but the tone of your note to me seemed to compel my compliance.”

  She smiled directly into his eyes, and Niles caught his breath. Then a tiny frown of puzzlement nestled between her charmingly arched brows. “Why is your reputation so bad?” she asked unexpectedly. “You don’t seem to me so much worse than other men. I have been about this world a little now, and I am aware that many men foster irregular relationships.”

  Could she read the shock in his eyes? Niles hoped not, yet Rose faltered a little and then hurried on. “I mean ... one can hardly fail to be aware of such things. The royal dukes certainly take no pains to conceal their liaisons or their baseborn children. There are many such. There are even those who flaunt their ... their mistresses on their arm in public. I don’t see why you should be singled out as a particularly wicked man. On the contrary, you seem ...” She closed her lips tightly.

  “Comparatively inoffensive,” Niles finished for her.

  She nodded, a twinkle appearing in the depths of her eyes.

  “I do try to live it down,” he said wistfully. “But the ton has a long memory for folly. When I first came to London a dozen years ago—has it been as long as that? Let me see. I’m thirty now, almost thirty-one. Yes, quite a dozen years. How old I suddenly feel.”

  “No one would assume you were as old as that,” Rose said.

  Thank you. At any rate, when I first came to London, I fell into some devilish scrapes—I beg your pardon.”

  “Don’t. You should hear how Rupert speaks when he forgets I’m a girl.”

  “That confirms a great deal I have suspected about your brother. How could anyone forget you are a girl?” Niles read her rejection of the light compliment in the way she shrank back almost imperceptibly.

  He sipped his tea to give her time to recover her poise. “I was telling you of my early indiscretions. I don’t know that they were so much worse than the average young hothead finds in town. Perhaps, if anything, London is a touch milder now. The great hells have closed or been converted to gentleman’s clubs. The great houses ...”

  He suddenly found it necessary to clear his throat. If it was impossible to forget that Rose was a girl, it was yet so easy to talk to her that he was tempted into saying too much. She didn’t need to hear of the great whorehouses that had flourished in his youth.

  ‘The great houses? Do you mean Carlton House?”

  “Yes,” Niles said, grasping at this way out of his difficulty. “Prinny’s first great monstrosity. I think it could stand as the symbol of license that flourished then.”

  The Pavilion at Brighton is not so very staid.”

  “But it’s all show. Carlton House was more genuine, less of a hothouse bloom. He never should have torn it down.”

  “You enjoyed your first Season in town?”

  “We did, ma’am. I had a cousin, you see. Almost a brother. Certainly the best boon companion anyone could ask for, with one slight exception. He had a genius for getting into scrapes and for pulling me in after him. I would start out trying to save him from his folly and wind up, more often than not, with the blame—the fame and the infamy as well.”

  Rose laughed. “Poor Sir Niles. Who is this engaging fellow?”

  “His name was Christian. Whether that name was given to him in pious hope or as a joke of the devil remains a question in the family to this day.”

  “Was Christian? You mean he is ...”

  “W
e both went into the army when the Peace of Amiens fell to bits. I came out a man devoted to peace and the leisure arts. Christian perished.”

  Rose turned her face away. “My condolences, Sir Niles.”

  He slid his hand over hers. ‘You would have liked him. All the ladies liked him.”

  For a moment, she let her hand stay motionless beneath his. “Was there no special girl in his life?”

  “No one for either of us. But I often thought the right girl could have gentled him. Made him less wild, less desperate. You see, he had no money at all, and it troubled him. He saw worse men rise to the top of their profession just because they had fortunes and he had none. He wouldn’t take help from anyone.”

  And so he was tempted, and so he fell, but Niles didn’t want Rose to know that. Let her think of Christian as Niles remembered him. Mad, heedless, full of fun, and a respecter of no person.

  Niles took his hand away, but the pressure-memory of his touch stayed with Rose. He had spoken with such tenderness and understanding of his friend.

  Surely he’d react the same way when she spoke about Rupert.

  “Anyway,” he said, “that is half the story of my evil reputation.”

  “Only half?” she asked, blinking hard, hoping he didn’t notice the tears in her eyes.

  “Only half. When I returned to London as an officer, well, I had little reason to practice restraint.”

  “Because you were afraid of being killed?”

  “No. We never gave it a thought. But we were heroes, and everybody treated us well. Ladies were mad for scarlet coats, and whether we were barracked in town or the country, lasses came for miles to flirt and to dance. I remember a family of five sisters— well, the older two were interested in some wealthy neighbors, but the three youngest were the most arrant flirts in the county. Any officer was fair game.”

  “And you didn’t flee in horror?” she said in mock surprise.

  “Not at that time. There were, however, other girls who took things more seriously than I anticipated. Though no fathers came after me with shotguns, it was a near run thing a few times.”