by Jo Beverley
She was soon on her way with only Jane for company, if one didn’t count a coachman and two armed footmen. Soon the coach joined a stream, all approaching Carlisle House.
Georgia looked ahead at the brilliantly lit house. “Splendid decorations.”
“That they are, milady,” Jane said. “Illuminated pictures of peace and prosperity in a whole rank of windows.”
“And garlands of lamps in the form of crowns. Madame Cornelys has outdone herself. We must do the same. The head, Jane.”
“You’d be better to wait until we arrive, milady. There’ll be a dressing room.”
“No, I want to arrive in full disguise.”
“I don’t know why you’re so anxious not to be recognized, milady. Within the hour everyone will shed the more cumbersome parts of their costumes for the dancing.”
“I need to remain anonymous that long. I have a wager with a friend. Hurry.”
She shed the cloak. Jane took out the dove’s head and settled it carefully in place, then smoothed the feathers at the back into Georgia’s hair.
“Does it look well?” Georgia asked. “I wish I had a mirror.”
“There’ll be mirrors in the dressing room,” Jane pointed out.
“Dear Jane, humor my foibles as you always have.”
“And sometimes when you’ve gone too far, milady.”
“I plan no improper behavior at this masquerade, I promise you.” That was honest as far as it went.
She perched on her seat so as not to disturb anything, telling herself again that Dracy could never detect her.
“Here’s your mask for later, milady,” Jane said, sliding it into a pocket, “and your fan. And here we are. I hope all goes well.”
“It will, Jane. Enjoy yourself in the servants’ room.”
She stepped carefully out of the coach, leaving the cloak to Jane, and delighting in the reaction of the crowd of onlookers. So often she’d arrived at a grand event in a spectacular gown, sparkling with jewels, and the crowd had applauded and called out, “Lady May!”
“The dove of peace,” someone said, and she was applauded.
Georgia smiled and swept into the heart of the beau monde.
Lady May was back, and tonight would go perfectly.
The interior of Madame Cornelys’s house was often decorated to represent Venice, for the lady came from there, and the Venetian masquerade was her specialty. For this event, however, it remained a handsome English house, decorated only with banners hanging from the ceiling.
Clever, Georgia thought. They resembled banners of war but instead were banners of peace and prosperity. She saw joined hands, abundant countryside, a lion and a lamb, and a merchant ship.
“A dove of peace,” said a gentleman in a toga. “Clever.”
Georgia inclined her head to Lord Sandwich but moved on. She didn’t care to dally with members of the ministry. She behaved the same way with two other gentlemen, and the second said, “I suppose doves can only coo.”
“Coo,” Georgia said to him and went upstairs, delighted that Waveney hadn’t recognized her. No one was recognizing her, and that meant that for the moment she was free.
Free of the past.
Free of expectations.
Free of scandal and suspicion.
“O happy dove!” declared a crusader, seizing her hand to kiss it.
“Coo” was rather limiting, so as she pulled her hand free, Georgia adopted her high-pitched voice. “You are inappropriately dressed, sir. How can a knight partner peace?”
“I’m Richard the Lionheart, pretty dove, great warrior of England. I guard the peace.”
“Only with bloodshed, sir.” She spotted another armed warrior and challenged him.
“I’m Saint George,” he declared, thumping his spear. “Slayer of the dragon of France. Accompanied, of course, by beauteous Britannia.”
Lord Trelyn, she realized, and the voluptuous Britannia was his wife, whose narrow mask was no disguise at all. As portrayed on the coins, she wore a helmet and carried a spear and shield. Rather overencumbered in Georgia’s opinion, but then Nerissa Trelyn was overendowed as well.
“So many weapons,” Georgia sighed. “The dove of peace could weep.”
“Weapons keep the peace, silly dove,” Lady Trelyn said. “Flutter away.”
The Trelyns moved on, saving Georgia the effort of responding, but she wondered if she’d been recognized.
She and Nerissa Trelyn had been rivals in beauty at one point, but not in other ways. Lady Trelyn was a model of dignity and virtue, which Lady May had never claimed, but she lacked the noble virtue of kindness. When people had been stirring the scandal broth about her, Nerissa Trelyn would have wielded a very large spoon. If she’d been at Winnie’s ball, Georgia would have consided her as chief culprit of the letter.
That reminded her that the creator of the letter was still at large and could be here. Most likely was here. She put aside any fears in case they showed, and tried to spot Dracy. He’d had little time to get a costume and lacked her expertise. Surely he’d be wearing something simple. While dealing with light flirtations, she eliminated many men because they hadn’t his height and trim build. But then she wondered if he might attempt a deep disguise.
She assessed a tall, turbaned Arabian with a great belly.…
“Pretty dove, do you carry an olive leaf?”
She had to turn to the togaed man. In answer to his question, she opened her fan, revealing that each spoke was painted to resemble an olive leaf. “And you, sir, do you argue for peace in the senate?”
He chuckled. “Only if the terms are right.”
She rapped him with the closed fan. “Then the dove will have nothing to do with you, sir.”
She moved on from Lord Holland, who would have been better costumed as a moneybag. He was said to have accumulated half a million when paymaster to the forces during the recent war.
The turbaned man had disappeared, but she didn’t think he’d been Dracy. She felt she’d know Lord Dracy, no matter what the disguise.
Dracy scanned the room for Georgia.
There were a dozen redheaded Queen Elizabeths. A Tudor gown made a concealing costume, but not concealing enough. In any case, none of them moved with the light grace of Lady May.
There were even more Britannias, some better suited to the costume than others, but most were showing too much flesh. Georgia wouldn’t come here scantily dressed. She was too aware of her situation for that.
That eliminated the many other women in classical robes, presumably portraying one goddess or another. Some wore wreaths of flowers or Grecian tiaras, while others carried cornucopias or sheaves of wheat. He gave careful study to one in a gown and headdress encrusted with fruit and flowers. Would Georgia be cunning enough to wear such an ungainly outfit? Not even to win a wager. Nor would she attempt to portray a cornfield, like another lady, who was leaving a trail of ears of wheat.
So where was she?
And would she recognize him?
He didn’t care if he won or lost, but pride demanded that he present a challenge, so he now regretted having chosen to portray Neptune, god of the sea. The hint was too broad. He hoped he was disguised by the overlarge robe, belted so that it bunched about him in a way that made him look fat, and by the simple fact that his headdress concealed much of his face.
He’d made sure it covered the damaged part, at least.
The seamstress who worked for the theater had cut green cloth into seaweed shapes and attached them to a hood as hair, with some hanging around his face. In addition, she’d made a green mask that came down on both cheeks, concealing his scar. With Nugent’s glue, he’d stuck on a gray beard and mustache, which itched. The trident was also a nuisance, but he’d be able to abandon it when the dancing began.
“I challenge you, sir,” said a husky foreign voice. “You come to a masquerade of peace, weapon in hand.”
He looked at the masked woman, who was magnificently dressed in a gre
en silk gown.
“You, ma’am, don’t seem to be in costume at all.”
Her painted lips smiled. “Green is the color of hope, sir, and fertility, and as hostess I have the right of challenge. Your weapon, if you please.”
He bowed. “Madame Cornelys, you and your talents are famous. And clearly well deserved.”
“Flattery is all very well, Lord Neptune, but in the spirit of this event, I am confiscating all arms.”
She held out an imperious arm, and he surrendered his trident.
“Delighted to oblige, ma’am. It’s a damnable nuisance. But how will you confiscate the ladies’ beauty?”
She passed his wooden trident to an attendant servant, who already had a sheaf of such. “There, you gentlemen will have to survive as best you can.”
She swept off on her mission, and Dracy realized how cleverly this was being managed. Even more than the ball at Hammersmith, this masquerade brought together the many fractious sides, but to talk, not fight, so anything close to a weapon was being confiscated.
A wooden battlefield and toy weapons. How long it seemed since he’d said that to Georgia, when she’d come to London to equip him for the ball. The weapons were real, she’d warned him, and she’d been correct. Real, and often concealed.
Which was she? He needed to be by her side.
Nearby, a woman said, “Shaldon! In virginal white. How droll.”
Dracy turned to see a man in Elizabethan dress, and as the Queen Bess confronting him had said, in pure white. The costume showed off magnificent legs, which the woman was frankly ogling.
But here was someone he’d been seeking—one of the men at the Maybury duel, and perhaps a crony of Vance. For some reason Shaldon didn’t encourage the queen, who flounced off.
Dracy moved in before some other lady tried her luck.
“Sir Harry Shaldon, I believe?”
“Hardly in the spirit of the masquerade, Poseidon.”
“Neptune, which amounts to the same thing. Can I breech protocol for a moment to speak with you?”
Shaldon wore only a narrow mask, so it was easy to see annoyance war with curiosity. “A moment and no more,” he said at last. “Shall we go apart?”
They went together to a quieter part of the house. Later it would be used for trysts, but at the moment the guests were all enjoying the charade.
“I beg your pardon for accosting you, Shaldon. I’m Lord Dracy, and if you’re to be in Town tomorrow we can simply make an appointment.”
“Dracy? Your horse beat Fancy Free.”
“It did, sir.”
“Alas, I plan to ride to Lambourne tomorrow as soon as I rise. Or without sleep if the night provides lengthy amusement. Is it a matter I can help you with now?”
There was no choice but to be blunt. “I’m attempting to help Lady Maybury by discovering more about the duel.”
“Got you in her web too, has she? If you’re poking into the reason for the duel, I don’t believe Georgia Maybury had a liaison with Vance, but you’ll never prove it.”
“Were you at the duel as a second?” Dracy asked.
“No.” After a moment, Shaldon said, “It bothered me, so I went along to see fair play. We were all rolling drunk the night before, but I sober up quickly. I thought to talk them both out of it, but Vance said he’d been challenged, and Maybury was sticking to it. You know the way some weak men get when pushed to it?”
“Yes.”
“Vance was making light of it, anyway. Implying—though later I couldn’t pin down the words—that it would all be for the form of it. Kellew, Maybury’s second, was little use, as I expected. Green from the drink and trembling with nerves. I went along to keep an eye on things, but everything was done correctly. It was a fair fight.”
“If it’s fair when a skilled swordsman fights an unskilled one.”
Shaldon shrugged.
“It wasn’t for the form of it in the end, was it?” Dracy asked. “I read the inquest. Your testimony didn’t reveal much, but from Kellew’s words, Vance struck to kill. Was that nerves speaking?”
He thought Shaldon wouldn’t answer, but in the end he said, “No, I think Kellew was right. Poor man’s been a wreck over it ever since.”
“Why did Vance kill Maybury?”
“Devil if I know,” Shaldon said. “He had to flee the country over it.”
“You know that to be true?” Dracy asked.
Shaldon frowned at him. “You think he might still be in England? No one’s seen him since, and he’d not be able to stay away from his haunts this long. Anyway, he sent a letter from Cologne, didn’t he? Even turned up at Lady Thretford’s ball.”
“In fact, it did not. That was all rumor. Do you know his handwriting?”
Shaldon snorted. “What? You think we exchanged letters? A scrawled IOU and that’s about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“You have no desire to rescue Lady Maybury from unjust scandal?”
“I don’t tilt at windmills, Dracy, and I recommend you cut free before she traps you too into fatal folly. Adieu.”
Dracy had to let him go. He’d learned nothing new but had one detail confirmed. Charnley Vance had deliberately killed Lord Maybury.
“A dove, Georgie?”
Georgia turned to the broad-shouldered man in white Tudor dress. “How did you know me, Shaldon?”
“Your hands.”
Georgia frowned over that. She’d left off her wedding ring but not thought that her hands were themselves recognizable.
“I should have worn gloves. What does your costume have to do with peace?”
“It’s white like a flag of truce, and shows off my legs remarkably well.”
“Do you think Queen Bess dictated trunk hose for her own enjoyment?”
He chuckled. “If I were monarch I’d dictate trunk hose for ladies,” he said. “You’re remarkably well covered. I remember that goddess costume.…”
She rapped him with her fan. “Don’t play games like that. I need to ask you something. Did Charnley Vance ever write to you?”
“What?”
“Do you know if he had family? Family he might write to.”
“Dammit, Georgie, there wasn’t anything between you two, was there?”
“No!” She was hard put not to shriek it. “No, Shaldon, no. It’s to do with trying to find him, to make him tell the truth about me.”
“Like that Neptune over there. Leave it be. It’ll blow over.”
“That Neptune?” Georgia smiled at the baggy-robed god with seaweed hair. Not a bad attempt. “Thank you, Shaldon!”
“Thank me with a kiss?”
She chuckled. “It can only be a peck,” she said and tapped his chin with her beak. Then she headed toward Dracy, victorious. Fifteen minutes of power…
“The dove of purity. A perfect choice.”
Sellerby.
She considered ignoring him, but he was odd enough these days that he might call after her. She turned to exchange a few polite words.
But heaven help her, he was dressed as an angel, complete with robes, halo, and rather awkward wings. At the thought of the Annunciation, she had to fight a giggle. She didn’t quite succeed.
“I amuse you?” he asked coldly.
“I do apologize, Sellerby! Only a remembered joke.” She glanced behind. Dracy had gone.
“At my expense?”
She turned back quickly to him. She was being appallingly impolite.
“Of course not,” she said kindly. She knew Dracy now and would easily find him once she was rid of Sellerby. “I can’t explain. You know such jokes don’t survive a second outing. It’s a splendid costume. I compliment you.”
He inclined his head. “Yours too is well-done, but your perfect lips need no enhancement.”
“All part of the game of disguise. Now I must go—”
“And yet I knew you.”
She paused to ask, “How?”
“I have my ways.” He smirked, and she
had a sudden suspicion.
“Bribing servants? Sellerby, I’m shocked.”
“The rules of fair play do not apply in love or war.”
“But as this is neither, adieu, Angelicus.”
He grabbed her arm. “You’ve neglected to provide the dove with wings, Georgie. Won’t it be hard to fly away?”
