The Madcap Masquerade

by Nadine Miller

  “I … I acquired a taste for it while in London,” Maeve stammered.

  Mrs. Pinkert poured herself a cup of the tea Maeve had just set to steep and sat down at the table. “There’s something don’t smell right here—hasn’t since you and the squire come through the door yesterday evening.”

  She studied Maeve with a jaundiced eye. “I didn’t come down in the last rain, you know. It’s enough to expect me to believe Miss Meg could change her way of eating and take up cooking in the past fortnight. I ain’t such a gapeseed I’ll swallow some tomfoolery about how she managed to change the color of her eyes as well.”

  Maeve swallowed hard. “Her eyes?”

  “Miss Meg’s is a soft, grayish kind of color with but a hint of green—not green as grass like what’s staring at me out of your face, Miss Whoever-You-Are. Though that ain’t hard to guess, seeing as how my mam was housekeeper here when the squire’s wife birthed her twins and the squire and her divided them up between them like they was a litter of his prize pups.”

  Maeve slumped in her chair. “You know then that I’m Maeve, the other twin,” she said. She searched the housekeeper’s face, wary of what the woman would do with the damning knowledge, but relieved it was no longer necessary to maintain her masquerade for someone as sharp-eyed as Mrs. Pinkert.

  “I know you ain’t who you’re pretending to be. What I don’t know is what’s happened to Miss Meg since I saw her off in the squire’s travel coach two weeks ago Friday. I’ll not pretend we’re great friends. She’s too fine a lady to take up with the likes of me; her prim and proper governess seen to that, till the squire run the old witch off first year I was here. But Miss Meg’s always kind and polite, and if any harm’s come to her ‘cause of the squire’s conniving, I’ll pull that old buzzard’s tail feathers and stuff ‘em down his blooming throat.”

  Maeve couldn’t help but smile at the picture Mrs. Pinkert’s threat conjured up. Furthermore, it was comforting to see she had Meg’s welfare in mind; her twin was sorely in need of champions. “According to the squire and Lady Hermione, Meg is in Scotland visiting her aunt,” she explained.

  “Run away from the marriage the squire forced her into, did she? Good for her. Didn’t think she had it in her.”

  Maeve nodded. “That’s what it looked like to me. Though Lady Hermione tried to gloss it over by claiming Meg was so shy she couldn’t face the betrothal ball.”

  “Well she is that all right. But I’m guessing it’s mostly the Earl himself she’s scared of.”

  “I can’t say I blame her there.” Maeve said between bites of toast. “He is utterly despicable.”

  “If that means he’s as handsome a rogue as walks the face of God’s green earth—and that he’s too much man for a timid soul like Miss Meg, I say amen to that. Still, the lad has a good heart and he’s a fair landlord, as any as works his land will tell you.”

  Mrs. Pinkert raised her cup and took a noisy slurp of tea. “So, Missy, are you planning to stand in for Miss Meg at the altar? From what I’ve seen of you so far, you look to suit the bridegroom a mite better than she does.”

  For some reason she couldn’t begin to explain, Maeve felt a flush of heat stain her cheeks. “Good heavens, no!” she exclaimed, staring at the rotund housekeeper in horror. “I have no intention of marrying any man, and if I had, it most certainly would not be the Earl of Lynley.”

  “That taken with him, are you? Well no wonder. He’s a charmer all right.” Mrs. Pinkert poured herself another cup of tea. “But beware that she-devil mother of his. You’ll clash with her for sure if you show the least bit of spirit.”

  “I have already clashed with her,” Maeve said, ignoring the housekeeper’s ridiculous comment about her being ‘taken’ with the earl. “But I doubt I’ll have an occasion to see the Dowager again. I promised the squire I’d impersonate my twin at her engagement ball and possibly a fortnight after, at which time he assures me she will return from Scotland.”

  “He does, does he?” And how is he going to arrange that? He can’t go after her. Lady Tansy MacDougal, his mother’s sister, won’t let him get within a mile of that great pile of stone of hers in the Highlands. She hates the sight of him.”

  Maeve felt the first twinges of a headache creep into her left temple. “What are you saying?” she demanded.

  “I’m saying Miss Meg just might decide to stay away now that she’s finally made the break—which leaves you, as his other daughter, to pull the squire’s fat out of the fire. Or didn’t he tell you why he’s so anxious for this wedding to come off?”

  “Only that it would unite the two estates and give his grandson a title.”

  Mrs. Pinkert nodded, sending wisps of stringy gray hair swirling Medusa-like around her plump white face. “There’s that too, but mostly he’s desperate for a grandchild—male or female—and he figures a lusty young fellow like the Earl is certain to give him one.”

  “I suppose every man wants a grandchild,” Maeve said absentmindedly, still grappling with the idea that her twin might not be planning to return to Barrington Hall.

  “But not every man has all he owns tied up in a land grant what his great grandfather snabbled from the king in exchange for letting his wife warm the monarch’s bed—a grant what says if any generation of Barringtons don’t produce legitimate offspring by the age of twenty-five, the land and all that’s on it goes back to the crown.”

  “Good heavens! Does Meg know this?”

  “Aye, she knows.” Mrs. Pinkert looked grim. “For haven’t I heard the squire tell her a hundred times and more it’s her duty to save Barrington Hall for all those what comes after her.” Mrs. Pinkert wrinkled her nose. “I’m that fond of the randy old goat, as you may have noticed, but there’s things he does where Miss Meg’s concerned that don’t sit well with me.”

  Rising from the table, Mrs. Pinkert proceeded to cut herself a thick slab of bread and spread it with the bacon grease Maeve had poured from the skillet before cooking her eggs. She plopped back down in her chair, took a healthy bite and regarded Maeve solemnly. “My point is, Missy, you’d be smart to pin the squire down and find out what kind of flim-flam he’s up to here—for your sake as well as Miss Meg’s.”

  Maeve studied the older woman’s face with anxious eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  “Think on it,” Mrs. Pinkert said between chews. “If knowing what she did about that land grant, Miss Meg still couldn’t bring herself to show up at her betrothal ball, it don’t seem too likely she’s planning on coming back for her wedding.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Maeve spent the balance of the morning in a state of nervous agitation, touring the house accompanied by Mrs. Pinkert and the two old hounds who’d met her at the door when she’d arrived at Barrington Hall. She had no real interest in her father’s manor house, but it helped pass the time until he put in an appearance. She fully intended to confront him with the new knowledge she’d acquired regarding the marriage he’d arranged between Meg and the earl; she simply had to determine how to do so without revealing Mrs. Pinkert’s role.

  Most of the rooms in the rambling manor house had been closed off and the furniture draped with Holland covers. The few rooms the squire used were furnished with massive chairs and couches, all upholstered in a faded brownish damask depicting one hunting scene or another.

  The same smell of stale tobacco smoke and dog that had assailed Maeve’s nostrils when she’d stepped into the entry way two days earlier still permeated every room in the lived-in portion of the house, with the exception of one room. Unlocking a door on the second floor, Mrs. Pinkert led Maeve into what she called “Miss Meg’s music room. The sparsely furnished salon was sparkling clean, free of odor and like Meg’s bedchamber, amazingly bright and cheerful, considering the dark ambience of the rest of the manor house.

  It was the first rewarding moment Maeve had experienced in an otherwise grimly frustrating morning. For sitting in the very center of the room was a pianoforte. “
Miss Meg locks herself in here by the hour,” Mrs. Pinkert confided. “Sometimes I stand out in the hall listening to the pretty tunes she plays.”

  Maeve beamed at the genial housekeeper. “At last I find something my sister and I have in common.” Seating herself on the bench, she ran her fingers over the keys, and grinned happily. “For I, too, love music and studied a number of years with a friend of my mother’s, who claimed he was once Louis XVI’s court musician. If you don’t mind, I’d just as soon end my tour here. I haven’t had a chance to play since I left London, and my fingers are itching to try out this pianoforte.”

  She glanced up at Mrs. Pinkert. “However, I do need to speak to the squire as soon as possible. Would you please be kind enough to send for me when he leaves his bedchamber?”

  “He ain’t sleeping in his bed. He’s curled up in the kennel with his pack of hounds, like he always does when he’s four sheets to the wind. I sometimes think there’s more hound blood than human in that man’s veins.”

  “But how can that be when the hounds are lying here at my feet,” Maeve asked.

  “These two old duffers?” Mrs. Pinkert gave the largest of the dogs a nudge with the toe of her house slipper. “They’re too old to run with the pack, and if you’re wondering why they’re living in the house, it’s ‘cause squire thought t’would be too hard on their old bones to spend the winter in an unheated kennel. Of course, that was two years ago and he’s gotten so used to having them sleep on his bed every night, I doubt he’ll ever send them back to their proper quarters.”

  “Very well,” Maeve said patiently. “Please let me know when he comes in from the kennel.”

  “I’ll do that, Miss Maeve. But since there’s three bottles of brandy missing from the liquor cabinet, I wouldn’t count on seeing him much before Tuesday if I was you—and he’ll be mean as a snake for a couple of days after that. Best you wait till next Friday to speak your piece.”

  “Damn and blast,” Maeve muttered under her breath, but in the next moment she realized it might not be a bad idea to put off her talk with the squire for a few days. By then he might have forgotten how angry he was when she left the ball early.

  Furthermore, now that she’d discovered Meg’s pianoforte, she’d be content to bide her time until her father emerged from his drunken stupor. Between that and the work she must accomplish on her cartoons to have them ready to submit to The Times when she returned to London, she would have plenty to keep her busy until Friday.

  Half an hour later, lost in the joy of being reunited with the instrument she loved, she finished playing the last few bars of one of Mr. Bach’s beautifully precise fugues. Then without a moment’s break, she let her fingers drift into a lilting fragment from one of Mr. Beethoven’s symphonies, only to look up and find Mrs. Pinkert standing in the doorway.

  “You’ve a visitor, Miss Maeve—or rather Miss Meg has.”

  “A visitor?” Maeve’s heart skipped a beat. Surely the Earl wouldn’t be calling on her. They hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms.

  “It’s the vicar, which ain’t surprising. He’s always here once or twice a week. Him and Miss Meg is thick as inkle weavers. I put him in the small salon off the entry.”

  Maeve’s fingers crashed onto the keys. “Oh dear, what shall I do? If he’s spent that much time with Meg, he’s bound to notice my eyes. In fact, he looked at them rather oddly last night, but he apparently thought they reflected the green of my gown.”

  Mrs. Pinkert threw up her hands. “Lord luv us, you’re right. If there’s anyone besides me what knows the true color of Miss Meg’s eyes, it’s her friend, the vicar.” She shrugged her plump shoulders. “Well you can’t turn him away; Miss Meg would never do that. Just don’t look at him straight on.”

  Mrs. Pinkert’s advice seemed sound enough but as Maeve soon discovered, it was not all that easy to implement. She’d barely stepped through the doorway of the salon when Richard Forsythe rushed forward and clasped both her hands in his. “My dear, Theo told me why you left the ball so early, and then when you weren’t in church this morning, I knew you must be seriously ill.”

  Maeve cursed her own stupidity. She should have known that, unlike herself, Meg attended church faithfully.

  “These dreadful headaches of yours seem to be happening more frequently of late,” Richard continued. “Have you thought to discuss them with Dr. Mabley?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Maeve murmured, suddenly struck by what seemed a perfect way to keep the vicar from noticing the color of her eyes. “The light,” she moaned, collapsing onto a well-worn sofa. “Would you please close the drapes?” She could never remember having had a headache herself, but Lilly had suffered from them, and the first thing she’d done when she felt one coming on was lie down in a darkened room with cold compresses on her forehead.

  The vicar instantly rushed to do her bidding. Drawing the heavy velvet drapes across the window, he immersed the room in gloomy twilight. “I cannot bear to see you suffer like this,” he said, seating himself beside her. “Is there anything I can do to help alleviate your agony?”

  Maeve raised her head. “Talk to me,” she said weakly. “It will help take my mind off the pain.” With the only light in the room that which shone through the unlined drapes and the open door, she felt safe from his scrutiny.

  “What would you like to talk about, my dear?”

  Maeve thought for a moment. “Tell me what you know about Sophie Whitcomb.”

  “S-Sophie Whitcomb?” The vicar sounded as if there were something caught in his throat he could not quite swallow. “Perhaps you should first tell me what you know about Mrs. Whitcomb.”

  “I know she’s the widow of the local alderman and that she grew up with the earl—probably with you too, since I remember your mentioning that you and he had been close friends since childhood. Oh, and of course, that she’s currently the earl’s mistress.”

  The vicar made another strangled sound. “How…how could you know so much of the local gossip? You never venture into the village or anywhere else outside Barrington Hall except to attend church on Sundays, and I’ve never seen you speak to a soul then.”

  “My new maid told me a little about Mrs. Whitcomb; the Earl supplied the rest shortly after he introduced her to me.”

  “Theo introduced you? Surely you cannot mean it.” The vicar pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. “I knew, of course, that Sophie was at the ball. Which was surprising enough. But I never dreamed Theo would…” His voice rose to a strangled squeak. “That is to say, the Earl is usually such a gentleman.”

  Maeve shrugged. “To give the devil his due, I don’t think he had any intention of introducing us until his hand was forced. Furthermore, he claimed Mrs. Whitcomb’s invitation was mistakenly issued by his man-of-affairs. At least that’s what he said when I told him what I thought of his inviting his mistress to his betrothal ball.”

  “Margaret! You didn’t! Whatever has come over you lately? I scarcely recognize my shy little friend.” The vicar covered her hand with his. “My dear, that was simply not the thing to do. I know you have had little opportunity to learn how one should go on in proper society, so you can be forgiven small mistakes. But this was not a small mistake. No true lady would ever acknowledge the existence of a man’s mistress, much less discuss such a vulgar creature with him.”

  “Vulgar creature?”

  “Exactly. Such women are all unspeakably vulgar, my dear, and Sophie more so than most. No one could understand why Alderman Whitcomb would consider marrying the trollop when it was common knowledge she had consorted with virtually every young lad in the district by the time she was eighteen.”

  Including you, no doubt. Maeve’s jaw tightened, but before she could tell the vicar what she thought of his local gossip, she was interrupted by voices in the entryway. One, she knew was Mrs. Pinkert’s; the other was a deep rumble, too low to recognize.

  A moment later, a tall, masculine figure filled the
doorway. “What the devil! Are you sure this is the right salon, madam? The drapes are drawn.”

  “Theo!” The vicar dropped Maeve’s hand and shot to his feet.

  “Richard? Is that you?” The Earl blinked. “What’s going on here? Why, may I ask, are you sitting here in the dark?”

  “Margaret—Miss Barrington has a headache.” The vicar cleared his throat; the sound ricocheted around the darkened room like a stray bullet. “I pulled the drapes because the light was hurting her eyes.”

  “The devil you say!” The Earl stepped through the doorway and peered about him, his eyes apparently adjusting to the darkened room. A moment later Maeve felt the heat of his scorching gaze light on her.

  “Good morning, my lord,” she said in a voice that quivered slightly. She had somehow faced him squarely the previous evening despite the monstrous deception she was carrying out; now, when she’d done nothing wrong, she hung her head like a naughty child caught in the midst of a shameful bit of mischief.

  “Good morning Miss Barrington.” Icicles dripped from every word.

  “Please come in and take a chair, my lord. There’s one directly to the right of you, in case you’ve failed to notice it.” Maeve took a deep breath. Lord he was handsome—magnificent in his rage. And rage it most surely was. Did he think he was being betrayed by his longtime friend as well as his bride-to-be?

  The Earl seated himself in the chair she indicated. “Are you troubled with these severe headaches often, Miss Barrington?” he asked in the same chilling tone of voice.

  “No,” Maeve said.

  “Yes,” the vicar said simultaneously. “I wish you would persuade her to speak to Dr. Mabley about them, Theo. I’ve tried but to no avail.”

  The Earl nodded gravely. “I shall insist upon it once we are married.” His tone of voice left no doubt that he intended to exercise the same control over his wife as he did his tenant farmers and the sheep that grazed his pastures. Maeve clenched her fists, but managed to remain silent. Only two more weeks she reminded herself; then she could put the autocratic Earl out of her mind as she might a bad dream once the night was over.