The Madcap Masquerade

by Nadine Miller

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow. He ignored it and favored her with a smile sincere enough to melt the heart of the most hardened cynic. “Tell me your wishes on the subject, dear lady, and perhaps we can agree on a compromise.”

  Maeve answered Theo smile for smile. But she didn’t trust his motives. He’d backed down much too easily to her way of thinking. Still, he had given her the opening she needed to postpone the wedding long enough to hear from Meg and to collect the money due her from the squire.

  “My wish is…” She stared into the distance, pretending to contemplate the weighty subject. “My wish is to have enough time to become thoroughly acquainted with you before we marry. Not just how you kiss”—she felt a flush creep into her cheeks—”but how you think about …about important things. I believe a happy marriage must be built on a foundation of trust and respect. Two weeks is not long enough to create such a relationship.”

  Theo clasped his hands behind his back and rocked onto his heels. “Ah, I see. In other words, you want to be properly courted. I should have known a woman who played the pianoforte with such passion was a romantic at heart.”

  “Romance is not what I had in mind,” Maeve protested. A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach warned her he was purposely twisting her words to suit himself.

  He silenced her with another devastating smile. “Very well, we will set our wedding date for the first week in July. I am in the midst of repairing the damage that years of neglect have wrought on my estate, but I shall arrange my work so I may spend an hour or two each day with you. Surely, with a routine such as that, we can become sufficiently acquainted in six week’s time to marry as friends, not strangers.”

  “That is too much to ask of you. I would feel guilty interrupting your work,” Maeve sputtered, aware she’d gotten much more than she’d bargained for. The last thing she needed was to spend part of each day in Theo’s company. The rake was too charming by half. She’d be lucky if her poor beleaguered bluestocking heart wasn’t smashed into a million pieces by the time she returned to London.

  “Not to worry. My reward will be the satisfaction of knowing I have put your mind at ease about our future life together.” Theo gently clasped her right hand and raised it to his lips. “And what better time to begin my campaign to win your approval than right now. I drove over in my curricle in the hope you would enjoy a ride on this fine spring day. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me on my tour of inspection of my estate, my dear? I’ll wait here while you fetch your bonnet.”

  Maeve opened her mouth to say No! but nothing came out. Her fingers tingled where Theo’s lips had touched them and her heart pounded so loudly against her ribs, she couldn’t hear herself think. In the end, she simply nodded and fled toward the manor house to do as he bid.

  Not until she reached her bedchamber and donned one of Meg’s prettiest chip straw bonnets did she remember she had left her sketch book lying in plain sight on the garden bench.

  When she returned, Theo was sitting with the sketchbook on his lap, staring at the drawing she’d done of him. He looked up, amazement stamped on his handsome features. “You are a woman of many talents, Meg,” he said gravely.

  Maeve gulped. “Only two, actually, and now you’ve seen them both.”

  Theo glanced down at the drawing in his lap. “I’m curious. How did you gain such expertise living in a provincial area like Kent all your life?”

  “I taught myself to draw as a means to…” She almost said make a living, but luckily stopped herself in time. “As a means to pass the time,” she finished quickly. “As you can see, I have much to learn before I could be called an expert.”

  “On the contrary, this likeness of myself is quite accurate and the drawings of the dandy on the other pages look amazingly like my friend, George Brummell. But how could a country recluse become acquainted with the infamous Beau?”

  Maeve managed a shaky laugh, but quickly sat down before her legs gave out beneath her. “I am not acquainted with him, of course,” she said, “except through cartoons I’ve seen drawn by that clever fellow, George Cruikshank.”

  “From the number of unfinished drawings of him in this book, you would appear to be obsessed with the fashionable fribble.” Theo’s eyes narrowed. “What, may I ask, is the attraction he holds for you?”

  “There is no attraction,” Maeve said stiffly. “Only frustration that I cannot seem to capture his wonderful arrogance, as Mr. Cruikshank did.”

  “I see. How interesting that you find Beau Brummell’s arrogance wonderful when I distinctly remember your declaring the same trait in me monstrous and disconcerting.”

  Maeve smiled in spite of herself. “I do not have to deal with Mr. Brummell.”

  “Touché, little termagant.” Theo chuckled. Setting the sketchbook beside him on the bench, he rose to his feet. “Which reminds me, it’s time we began our program of learning to deal with each other.”

  With a graceful bow, he captured her hand and drew her up beside him. “You may begin by telling me how you learned to play the pianoforte with such skill—and don’t try to tell me you taught yourself, for I know that’s impossible.”

  “My teacher was a French émigré who lived with us for four years,” Maeve said, deciding the closer she could stay to the truth, the safer she would be.

  “Was he really?” Theo offered her his arm, and they strolled along the garden path to the waiting curricle, where he handed her into the passenger’s seat. “I find it strange that I’ve never heard mention of him in the village. I should think such a fellow would be prime fodder for the local gossip mill.”

  “Henri never went into the village. He was an even greater recluse than I,” Maeve said, frantically trying to think of a way to change the subject. It came to her with her first glimpse of Theo’s curricle and pair. Lily had often claimed that men of title were notoriously horse mad and prone to bore one to death expounding on the virtues of their prime cattle.

  “What a gorgeous pair of bays,” she exclaimed. “You must be prodigiously proud of them.”

  “I can take no credit for them. They were my father’s.” Theo’s narrowed eyes told her he knew exactly what she was doing, but to her relief, he obligingly dropped the subject of her musical training and handed her into the carriage.

  “So, Meg, I take it you are an enthusiastic horsewoman—as all true country women are,” he said as he guided his pair of bays through the gateway and onto the road beyond.

  Maeve swallowed hard. “I’m not certain enthusiastic is the proper word to describe how I feel about horses,” she ventured. In truth, she had never ridden one of the beasts and found the very idea utterly terrifying.

  “I ride every morning at sunrise,” Theo said. “I shall look forward to your joining me…perhaps tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps,” Maeve agreed weakly, wondering what excuse she could come up with short of dying in bed to avoid beginning her morning in such a hellish way. She shivered, despite the warm sun beaming down on her. How much longer, she wondered, before her luck ran out and the house of lies she’d constructed came tumbling down around her ears?

  They drove on in companionable silence through the lush, spring-green, countryside, first on Barrington land, then on Ravenswood until, as he’d planned, Theo saw the first of the cottages belonging to his tenant farmers come into sight. He had an ulterior motive in bringing Meg to this particular cottage. Annie Jennings had given birth to her fourth child two days earlier and he wanted to see how Meg reacted to the newborn.

  So far, everything he’d learned about her had convinced him she was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Except, of course, for her tendency to stretch the truth about such odd things as her mysterious music teacher. A French émigré indeed! Didn’t she realize servants carried tales? Everyone in the village would have known within the hour if such a fellow had arrived at Barrington Hall.

  Ah well, that one shortcoming was of little consequence compared to
her many virtues. He felt certain that once they were married, he could convince her she no longer needed to make up ridiculous stories to gain his attention.

  This test today would be the most important of all. If she displayed the kind of maternal instincts he suspected she had, she would indeed be the perfect wife for him and the perfect mother for the children he longed to sire.

  “I thought we’d begin our inspection by stopping to congratulate John and Annie Jennings on the birth of their new daughter,” he said.

  His betrothed’s eyes instantly lighted up, just as he’d hoped they would. “A new baby? How exciting,” she exclaimed. “Oh, I am glad you thought to share this with me, Theo.”

  A few moments later, he drew up in front of a neat little cottage surrounded by a garden in which the tops of early spring vegetables were just poking their heads above the carefully tilled soil. The young father answered their knock—the sleeping baby in his arms, a worried look on his face and three small children clinging to his trousers.

  He blinked as if the sunlight hurt his eyes. “How kind of you to come, my lord, and with your lady too.” He stepped aside to let them enter. “Annie will be that proud.”

  Maeve watched Theo’s black brows draw together in a frown. “Is everything all right, John?” he asked. “You look a bit pulled.”

  John Jennings gave a heartfelt sigh. “We’ve a colicky one this time. I was up all night walking the floor with the wee mite.” He hesitated, a furtive look on his thin, young face. “And I’m that worried about my Annie. She’s not getting her strength back as fast as she did with the other babes. It’s not that she’s sick with the childbed fever or anything like that, but she just…she just cries all the time and I don’t know what to say to make her stop.”

  Maeve studied the three tow-headed stair-steps clustered around him, the oldest of whom couldn’t yet be five years, and decided the poor woman was probably crying from sheer exhaustion. “May I hold the baby?” she asked, and a moment later cuddled the blanket-wrapped babe to her breast while the young farmer left to inform his wife of the arrival of their distinguished visitors.

  It was the first newborn infant Maeve had ever held and she found the sensation so overwhelming she felt as if her heart would burst from her breast. The tiny girl-child smelled indescribably sweet and milky, and her little rosebud mouth worked as if she were dreaming of suckling at her mother’s breast. Maeve buried her nose in the silky curls atop the baby’s head and gave herself up to the pure joy of the moment.

  “You look very natural with a babe in your arms, Meg. You will make a wonderful mother for our children,” Theo said, and there was no mistaking the emotion in his deep voice. Startled, Maeve raised her head and stared into a pair of dark, fathomless eyes whose tender expression warmed her to the very depths of her soul—until she remembered that if he knew the truth about her, she would be the last woman on earth he would want as the mother of his children.

  “Annie can see you now, my lord.” John Jennings’ voice snapped her out of her painful reverie and, with the babe still in her arms, she followed the two men into the one other room of the tiny cottage. Theo drew a gold sovereign from his pocket and laid it on the crude table beside the bed. “Congratulations on your lovely daughter, Annie.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” the young mother said, but tears spilled from her eyes and she turned her head and stared at the wall. John Jennings exchanged a puzzled look with Theo, and as if on cue, the two men tiptoed from the room.

  Gently, Maeve laid the sleeping baby in her cradle and prepared to follow them until she glanced toward the bed and saw that Annie Jennings’ tear-filled blue eyes were following her every move. The forlorn look in those eyes told her the young mother desperately needed to talk to another woman.

  She closed the door behind the men, then stepped to the side of the bed and took Annie’s hand in hers. “You have a beautiful baby,” she said because she could think of nothing else to say.

  Annie nodded, spreading a wealth of golden hair across the coarsely woven pillow cover. “Aye, and three more, and barely a full year between any of them.”

  “Four children in less than five years. You must be worn out.”

  Annie nodded again. “I am that, my lady,” she whispered and Maeve saw a look of abject terror in her eyes.

  “But that’s not why you’re crying. What is it that’s troubling you? Tell me, Annie. I promise nothing you say will go beyond this room, and perhaps I can even help.”

  The girl’s fingers tightened on Maeve’s and she closed her eyes as if attempting to shut out the specter that haunted her. “I don’t want to die and leave my brood for another woman to raise. I want to see my children grown. I want to live to hold a grandchild in my arms.”

  “Of course you do,” Maeve soothed. “But why should you think you won’t?”

  “Because next year there’ll be another babe and the year after that another—and another and another without ever a chance to gain back my strength in between—until a few years from now I’ll be so worn out I’ll just give up and die. I’ve seen it happen time and again with women I’ve known.”

  Annie choked back a sob. “It’s not that I don’t love my babes, for I do with all my heart and I’d not take all the gold in England for a hair off one of their dear little heads. But we’ve scarce enough food to fill the bellies of the ones we have now. God only knows how we’ll feed the ones to come.”

  “I can understand your dilemma,” Maeve said. “Maybe you should talk to your husband about it. He seems a kindhearted fellow.”

  “John’s a good man and that’s the trouble. I can’t turn him away when he comes to me for comfort after working so hard all day in the fields. But every time he touches me—you know, that way—there’s another babe on the way.” Maeve gave Annie’s hand a comforting pat. “Perhaps there’s another way around your problem.” She hesitated, wondering if she dare pursue this line of conversation with a young woman who but a few moments ago had been a complete stranger to her. The utter despair she read in Annie’s face decided her.

  “I understand,” she began hesitantly, cleared her throat and started again. “I’ve heard tell there are ways to prevent having babies.”

  “I’ve heard so too,” Annie said, her eyes wide and solemn. “And ‘twould be the answer to my prayers, but I daren’t ask any of the village women if they know how ‘tis done, for my mam said ‘tis a thing only a whore would know about.” Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “I wish some whore had told my mam the secret. She died in childbirth with her tenth babe the year I married John.”

  Two bright spots of color flamed in Annie’s cheeks, but her steadfast gaze never wavered from Maeve’s face. “I got to tell you, my lady, there’s gossip in the village that the titled and the gentry look at such things different from us ordinary folk.”

  “I suppose that’s true in some cases,” Maeve agreed.

  Annie searched Maeve’s face hopefully. “Then I got to ask, do you know how to keep from having a babe every time a man and wife does…that?”

  Maeve was sorely tempted to tell her no. Regardless of what Annie had heard, it was not the sort of information a proper lady should have at her disposal. But the girl was obviously desperate, and understandably so.

  She cleared her throat again. “Mind you, I’ve no first hand knowledge of such things, but I once knew a lady who was a very forward thinker. She believed every woman should have such knowledge in case she found herself in a situation such as you’re in now.”

  Annie took a death grip on Maeve’s fingers. “And did she tell you, my lady?”

  Maeve nodded. “As a matter of fact she did, and if you promise to never divulge where you heard it, I’ll tell you what she said.”

  Annie gave her solemn promise and for the next few minutes, Maeve related everything she could remember that Lily had told her about how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. It was information that, at the time, she’d protested she neither ne
eded nor wanted. She was glad now that Lily had insisted on educating her about such matters. For Annie was right. At the rate she was producing offspring, she’d be lucky to live long enough to see her oldest child reach the age of ten.

  When at long last Maeve opened the door and stepped into the other room, she couldn’t bring herself to meet Theo’s questioning gaze. Her frank discussion with the troubled young mother had left her feeling unusually shy and embarrassed around him—not to mention considerably more guilty than she’d already felt about deceiving him. She had, after all, shared information with one of his tenant’s that only a hardened Cyprian would normally know. She doubted even an inveterate rake like Lynley would countenance such unconventional behavior.

  It was all too apparent their frank discussion had neither embarrassed Annie nor turned her up shy. Glancing over her shoulder, Maeve saw her sitting up in bed, grinning from ear to ear. “Thank you again for the gold sovereign, my lord,” she called out. “I shall add it to the three others you gave me when you returned from the wars.”

  John Jennings stared first at his wife, then at Maeve, a look of wonder on his face. “Will you look at what your lovely lady’s done, my lord,” he marveled. “A few words of kindness from her sweet, innocent mouth and here’s my Annie, her old happy self again.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Theo returned in high spirits to the Ravenswood manor house some two hours later. His tenants had all responded to Meg’s quiet charm with the same enthusiasm as the Jennings family. She’d held their babies and admired their gardens, shook hands with the men and chatted with the women, and generally deported herself in a restrained but friendly manner which had obviously won the respect of one and all.

  She’d even ducked her head, in that demure way she had, and admitted she’d often longed to speak to the women after Sunday service in the village church, but she’d always been too shy to do so. This, of course, had only endeared her more to the plainspoken people whose families had worked the land for as long as his family had owned it.