by Edith Layton
Separate cities, he thought, might do better—if he wished to keep the lady safe from himself until he could present all the evidence London would offer to her so that she could make a fair, informed decision about him. Which, due to witchcraft, he began to believe, mightn’t be enough to hang him, after all. It might only be enough to transport him, to a different and unbelievably better future.
For he now began to imagine—oh, witchcraft certainly, he thought, good Cornishman that he was, remembering her black, black hair and the limitless depths to her golden-brown eyes—that all that evidence might still not be enough to end the new life he dared to imagine he might yet be able to begin with her. He admitted, to himself at least, at last, that he devoutly hoped so, for he began to doubt he could ever have one at all without her.
But then, the closer he came to London, and the more realistically he looked at the matter—and he was a realistic man—the more, of course, he knew that bright dream would fade as all fresh, country-bred things did in the sullen sooty city air. So he decided to ride on toward London as a man ought when facing his execution, as the best brave lads had done on the way to Tyburn hill—proudly and with head held high, full of jest and gallows humor, determined to give the crowd their money’s worth and at least leave all the tenderhearted ladies with a smile as well as a tear in their eye for the end of the bold, bad rogue, for all his sins.
17
She’d been to London twice before, but this was a different London than she’d ever seen. The Duke of Peterstow had sent word to have his town house opened to receive guests, and Francesca and Roxanne remained there, while Julian and Arden stayed on at Stephen’s Hotel for gentlemen nearby. But every day they’d meet to tour the town, and every night now, for a week, they’d been taken out on the town with the two gentlemen. And what a town! Francesca thought.
They’d gone to Drury Lane and Covent Garden to see the latest plays, and then to the Sadlers Wells Theater and the King’s Opera for ballets and concerts. And having expressed her disappointment at missing the exhibition of the marbles Lord Elgin had brought back from Greece when she’d been in London as a girl, Francesca had been delighted when Arden found a lecture on the subject that very night, and she’d been able to hear about all she hadn’t seen. Then the next day he’d taken them all to a private exhibition of the marbles at Lord Elgin’s home, where the statues remained until negotiations to remove them for permanent display could be completed.
But those were only the highlights she could immediately remember, for there’d been other art exhibitions and visits to galleries, and musicales at the most proper homes in the best districts as well. It seemed that between Julian’s connections by dint of his birth and title, and Arden’s by reason of all the unexpected people he knew, the entire city was open to them, as if they knew the secret password to some magic cave filled with unequaled fabled riches. Francesca was thrilled.
Roxanne was not.
That was why this night was to be different from the others. “She’s right, of course. There’s more to the city than its culture, far more city than culture, in fact,” Julian had jested when Roxanne’s plaints had grown too loud to ignore. And at that Arden had looked thoughtful, and curiously sad. It was time, and past it, he’d thought, watching Francesca’s rapt face from the shadows of their box at the theater that night, for he’d found he could follow all the play there in her expressive eyes and receptive expressions as well as or better than watching the strangers on the stage. This had been a week for himself, really, and never just for her, for he’d stored up each memory of their days together, knowing soon he’d have to show her the rest, and so soon he’d need those memories of her.
He was lost, he knew. There was little sense denying it now. And he’d soon lose her as well. Not a grain of sense in refusing to admit that. But he was a clever fellow, and had delayed the moment, passing the week in the pleasure of her pleasure the way he often enjoyed the jests in a play that he knew would end tragically, finding the mirth all the richer for what he knew came after. Best too, he realized, as he agreed with Julian and they decided to show the ladies some of the more thoughtless merriment to be had in the great city, to ease her into the pit. The shock of what he had to show her eventually would be bad enough; yes, best, he thought, to prepare her by degree for it. For it was a matter of degree, the same slow descent that even the most highly placed in the city took when in search of ever-new mindless pleasures. Such joys were always in demand, and always available to those who sought them. And the best of it, which was, of course, the worst of it, was all of it in his former domain.
Roxanne was delighted at the change in plans, for although she was sure the entertainment so far had been very uplifting, a girl liked a good laugh, to be sure, and a chance to kick up her heels. In fact, though she didn’t say it, she’d been bored to Hinders the past week, and she would have said it too—to any other gent than Julian. For he was the sort of gentleman who’d enjoy such pursuits from time to time, and she’d better get used to it, she’d thought, as she’d suffered through the lot of it. But it was a far cry from the gaiety of Brussels or Paris, or the gaming hells she’d frequented abroad, and that she let him know, for she knew very well that even the noblest gent likes a bit of sport now and again—or else, she asked coyly, making him laugh, why would he have taken up with her in the first place?
Today had been much more like it, for she’d adored shopping and then going to Madame Tussaud’s amazing wax-figure display. Tonight, still in high good spirits, she’d dressed to the nines in a bright new crimson gown Julian had got her, and she sparkled and posed and fairly danced into the waiting carriage, and then was surprised to find two large boxes, one with her name upon it, the other for Francesca, awaiting them on the seat.
“No, no, hands off, for later,” Julian warned mysteriously, giving Roxanne’s eager fingers on the string a light tap so that she’d let the bindings be, before he directed their coachman to take them to the Sans Pareil Theater in the Strand.
“Now, this,” Roxanne said an hour later on a great satisfied sniff as the lights came up at intermission to find her carefully wiping off the streaks of kohl running down her cheeks from her tear-drenched eyelashes, “is theater done to a turn. Not that the chap in black face last night didn’t have his troubles, to be sure, but this was lovely. The part where her father threw her out into the storm with the baby was much more affecting, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely, it didn’t snow in Venice, or else I’m sure Shakespeare would have loved to use that bit of business,” Arden replied enthusiastically. “I know I’d have found Desdemona sniveling out into the storm very gratifying as well. Othello would have quite liked it too, come to think of it.”
They all laughed then, Roxanne as well, for she was never sure when Arden was mocking her, but always wanted him to think she knew what he was about, even if she didn’t. Still, the next act, a riotous knockabout farce, was even better than the melodrama they’d just watched, and so by the time the lights came up again, she was in charity with the entire world, even the clever, subversively amusing Arden Lyons. And then, after the spectacular closing display of artificial fireworks and a stageful of singers and dancers, Roxanne felt as though her evening was complete. Francesca was sure it was, and so was surprised when the gentleman told them to open their parcels when they got to the coach, for they’d other stops to make.
“The night’s just begun,” Julian said, smiling at Roxanne’s cry of delight when she flung apart the papers to find a great red-feathered flower of a domino mask within.
And Arden looked down at Francesca’s confusion as she lifted her enormous gilded sun-faced mask, its rays all streaming golden feathers.
“It’s for a masquerade,” he said softly, “and it’s so a lady can’t be recognized, because the high and the low go in costume there—that’s the fun of it, you see.”
“Oh, champion,” Roxanne gurgled, putting the giant flower over her face, spinnin
g round and holding her hair back, and commanding Julian to tie her strings at once. “I’ve heard that they’re delicious—why, a duchess might go off with a sweep, and a clerk can catch himself a countess there.”
“Or his own wife, by mistake,” Julian laughed as he took out his own mask as well. It was a long black silk one, not unlike a hangman’s, covering over all his face, to leave only that portion beneath his bottom lip exposed.
“Jack Ketch come to the party?” Arden grinned.
“Of course, and you?” Julian asked loftily, noting his friend’s abbreviated black eye mask.
“His finest catch—the haughtiest highwayman of them all—Gentleman Jones,” Arden answered on a smile.
“But don’t you have to be completely in costume?” Francesca asked, and Arden sighed, for the sun mask was magnificent, and yet he longed to see the face beneath. Still, it was enchanting to hear that foggy broken voice issuing from the grand mask, and so he told her, adding, “I’m afraid you’d never be able to speak, lest you give away your identity. But no, although some come in amazingly good costume, some, like us, just come to see the sport and so don’t need more than these.”
“Just to see the sport?” the huge red flower mourned.
“That’s tiring enough, but then we’re off to see more, don’t fret,” Julian promised. “We intend to exhaust you completely before we let morning come.”
He was as good as his word. The masquerade, a great public subscription spectacle, was crammed with partygoers. Francesca saw a half-dozen prancing Harlequins and a clutch of dairymaids and a dozen devils and even more queens and kings of ancient lands, all crowded together in the huge assembly hall. They’d done with eating, obviously, for the tickets included a meal to be served earlier on. Now they drank, and sang and danced and cavorted together, and from where she stood at Arden’s side, Francesca was enchanted. This was, she told him, very like being part of the theater they’d just come from.
And so she would have enjoyed it, taking it just in that spirit, as Roxie and Julian obviously were, as they danced into the throng. But Arden grew still, and then, taking her hand, he walked her round the room, showing her things she’d not have seen, telling her more she’d never have known. It was, she thought, when she could, as though he’d picked up all the glorious theatrical masks to show her all the common, naked, sadly human flesh beneath.
For the three giggling medieval wenches standing in a row, chatting with a royalist soldier, a monk, and a Harlequin, were Covent Garden-ware, he whispered, standing in costumes they’d rented for the night from their bawd, and discussing their price for other delights of the night. And as they watched, one by one the girls went off with their gentlemen, two to leave the festivities altogether, the third, on a shrug, to leave her Harlequin in order to engage a jolly sweep in more flirtatious chatter. And the frolicsome knight in shining armor, who spoke only in rhyme, had drunk so much that if one listened closely one could tell he only prated nonsense, and the beautiful fairy queen grew stiff as a stone when she seemed to recognize the bawdy miller across the room as he romanced a Cleopatra, and so she fled with her own Antony, and all the while in the shadowed corners, couples embraced in ways that showed they’d forgot they were in public, in ways Francesca, averting her eyes, had never even seen in private.
“Time to go on,” Arden said at once, seeing her reaction, for though he meant to open her eyes, he never meant to hurt them.
They went to gather up Julian and Roxanne, but Roxanne was having such a merry time, dancing and watching the other celebrants, trying to guess which of them were noble and famous and which were “nothing at all,” that Arden, teasing her for her lack of enthusiasm for the new adventures she’d been craving, relented, and told her she ought to stay, and told Julian they’d meet later, at the town house.
“They’re likely off to better sport,” Julian said almost wistfully as he watched Arden shepherd the spectacular sun mask out the door.
But Roxanne had him to herself now and was delighted, whatever finer spectacles they might miss. She felt more secure when alone with him, and although she knew his friendship with Arden was something she couldn’t yet sunder, she could at least make the best of whatever time they had alone together. It was time, and past it, to further secure her position.
“We can make our own sport,” she said breathlessly, fluttering her lashes as she gazed up at him, remembering only when she felt them brush against the buckram that she still wore her enormous mask. “Dancing,” she continued, taking his arm, “or just chatting or…however you wish. We haven’t been alone,” she said pointedly when she saw him paying little mind to her as he looked to the door, “for the longest time, Julian. And I begin to wonder,” she said, with a bit more annoyance as he sipped his drink, “for see—over there—that Spanishy-looking fellow?”
“The failed bullfighter?” Julian said with amusement, looking at the thin young man who’d been staring after them since they arrived, the same one that he and Arden had noticed at the theater these past nights when he hadn’t worn a hastily rented, badly fitting costume. “The spindly one who looks as if he’d have a difficult time in a bullring if faced with a ravening rabbit?”
“He looks rather nice,” she snapped, “and he is no less than a Graf, which is very like a viscount where he comes from. And he also came all the way from France because of me, because he followed me, he says,” she said haughtily, “and will to the ends of the earth, he vows,” she added triumphantly. She hadn’t wanted to produce her ardent young German to tease Julian into attentiveness until she had to, but it seemed, she thought grumpily, eyeing Julian’s amusement, that now she had to. A bit of jealousy worked wonders on most men, but Julian, she thought, watching her golden gentleman, his expression unreadable beneath his mask, was not most men. That, of course, was why she wanted him.
Julian knew of the smitten young man—he and Arden would scarcely have permitted themselves to be followed more than an hour in a park without knowing that much—and it spurred him to more pity than jealousy, for he remembered what it felt like to be a lovesick young boy with more fantasies than facts to base love upon. But it did inspire another emotion in him, far more basic than love, although it often went by that name. He looked down at Roxie with all the attention she could have wished then, and if it wasn’t precisely the sort of interest she had angled for, at least he was old enough now to know what its true name was, wise enough not to make excuses, even to himself, for it, and bored enough to be enchanted by it.
“It has been a very long time, has it not?” he breathed, bending to her ear. “And as I recall, there are satisfactory rooms to let, abovestairs, right here, my dear.”
“But there are so many empty chambers at your friend the duke’s town house, I vow the place echoes at night,” she protested.
“But never to the sounds of our pleasure,” he said lightly, “for it’s a friend’s home, and so I cannot use it to that purpose.”
“But your hotel—” she began, as he cut in a bit more harshly, “—is for gentlemen, and if you were one, Roxie, I’d never bother, would I? Do you care to come with me now?” he asked with deceptive casualness, for he was tensed and waiting. “I think it’s a fine way to end our evening,” he added, looking down to her.
She’d have preferred for him to take her to the Duke of Peterstow’s town house for their lovemaking, for she knew as well as he did that pleasuring her there would be a statement of an intent other than mere pleasure. Even a respectable hotel would have signified a different sort of admission. But he was waiting for her answer, and so she shrugged to herself. Some things took time, and a milksop or a bore wouldn’t find herself with that time to use to her benefit.
“Of course,” she laughed up at him, “but, now?”
“Can you think of a better time?” he asked as he looked for the proprietors of the masquerade to make arrangements for the use of their more private facilities. He deliberately didn’t look in his mistress’ yo
ung swain’s direction as he left with her, for although another man’s desire had fed his, he knew he wasn’t so callous yet that the sight of the deluded lad’s grieving wouldn’t take the edge from his excitation, robbing him of his fun before he had it.
She began to take off her mask as he closed the door to their room behind them, but he said “Don’t” at once, and as he then immediately began to help her out of her other garments, she didn’t protest. He hurried, and so she soon stood before him clad in nothing but the mask. And when he stepped back a pace to look at her and saw the white form of a naked, ruddy-nippled, round-bottomed woman, her only other coloring the fair hair curling over the slight slitted mound of her sex and the bright hair framing the great plumed red flower that was all of her face, save for those other inviting lips, he was amazed to discover himself enormously stirred at the sight, for it had begun as a mere fancy. He didn’t stop to consider the phenomenon, or wait to allow her to do so, because he began to divest himself of his own clothing even more quickly.
“You want me to leave it on even now?” she asked when they reached their rented bed, amused and more than a little thrilled with the way she obviously thrilled him as she’d not for weeks. Moments later she laughed the louder. “But don’t the feathers tickle?” she asked merrily.
