The Madcap Masquerade

by Nadine Miller

  “This time we’ll try a different approach,” he said in the patient tone of voice she suspected he used when teaching the tenant farmers’ children their letters. “I’ll grasp you around the waist and lift you into the saddle. All you have to do is—”

  Maeve grimaced. “I know, hook my right knee over the pommel and put my left toe into the stirrup iron.”

  “Correct.” Richard’s hands circled her waist, he gave a mighty heave and Maeve found herself sitting in the saddle. Instinctively she hooked her right knee over the pommel, stuck her left toe in the stirrup and smiled triumphantly down at her teacher, who appeared a bit breathless from his exertion.

  The mare shifted restlessly beneath her, nearly unseating her. Maeve flailed her arms helplessly, suddenly remembering there had been a third thing she was supposed to do when mounting.

  “The reins,” Richard shouted. “For God’s sake catch hold of the reins.”

  Ah yes, that was it. Maeve did as he instructed, then wriggled into a slightly more comfortable position in the saddle and asked, “What do I do next? I’m ready to begin riding.”

  The expression on Richard’s face said he had his doubts about that, but he promptly mounted his horse, took the leading rein and handed her a whip like the one he carried in his right hand. “Just in case you need it,” he explained, though the mare you’re riding is trained to voice command, as is Meg’s mare.”

  He smiled reassuringly. “Put your tongue behind your teeth and give a clucking sound to start her off. After that, she’ll respond to the words walk, trot, or canter. A gentle whoa or even a strong exhalation through your mouth will bring her to a stop.”

  So saying, he did something with his knees that set his own horse in motion and started off across the open meadow that lay before them. Maeve made the clucking sound he’d suggested and the little mare immediately began a slow walk, leaving her with the strange, but not unpleasant, sensation that the very earth itself was moving beneath her.

  She smiled to herself. Riding a horse was obviously much easier than she’d thought it would be, once one managed to mount the beast. Theo had said he’d be gone four days or more; by the time he returned, she should have sufficient expertise to carry off her role of a country squire’s daughter most convincingly.

  “Hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw,” the little donkey brayed again. Maeve tossed her head defiantly. What did a donkey know?

  “Now let’s try trotting,” Richard said half an hour later. You can either give a voice command or brush the mare’s right shoulder with your whip while you nudge her with your left foot.”

  Maeve did both, just to be sure, and the mare instantly changed her gait. But what had previously been a gentle, swaying motion now turned into a tortuous collection of uneven bumps and jolts that had Maeve hanging onto the reins for dear life. For some reason she could not begin to explain, her body had assumed a rhythm diametrically opposed to that of the horse. With every hitch in the mare’s gait, she felt herself rise in the air, only to plop back down with a force that set her ears ringing and her teeth rattling.

  “The trot is the most difficult gait for a new rider,” Richard declared cheerfully as he fell back to ride beside her. “Once you’re adept enough to try a canter, you’ll find it much smoother—more like the action of a rocking chair. But I think we should leave that for another day. Walking and trotting are enough to master your first time out.”

  He cast her a surreptitious look. “You’re turning red as a beet. Don’t, under any circumstances, forget to breathe. The mare can feel your agitation. You don’t want to frighten her.”

  “God forbid. The last thing we want to do is cause the blasted horse any discomfort,” Maeve said, clamping her teeth together to keep them from chattering.

  Richard chuckled. “Tomorrow will be easier, although you may find yourself a bit stiff when you first get out of bed. But with persistence and determination, we’ll make a horsewoman out of you yet, Maeve Barrington.” With a nudge of his knee and a gentle tap of his whip on his horse’s shoulder, he again moved ahead of her.

  Maeve’s backside was beginning to feel the effects of the merciless pounding and her right leg had definitely fallen asleep, as had the left toe she’d jammed so forcibly into the stirrup iron. Tears of frustration blurred her vision, but she had no trouble seeing the ease and grace with which her nauseatingly competent companion was riding—a grace that made him and the horse beneath him appear as one fluid being.

  Another bump, another plop and she found herself seriously wondering if under circumstances such as these, throttling a country vicar would still be considered a hanging offense.

  The Lake District was every bit as beautiful as Theo remembered. Despite his tumultuous state of mind, he was keenly aware of the majestic hump-backed hills, or fells as the locals called them, and the picturesque lakes and valleys nestled beneath them.

  He vowed that come what may, he would not let the bitterness he held toward the woman who dwelt here destroy his love of the richly varied region. One day when the anger and betrayal he felt at this moment were only dim memories, he would bring his bride here.

  Together they would explore the ancient and mysterious stones of Castlerigg and the remains of the Roman fort atop Hardknott Pass. Together they would stand in the courtyard of the Castle of Carlisle where a hundred pipers once heralded the arrival of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and walk in the footprints of the warrior-craftsmen who’d erected the Emperor Hadrian’s wall. Together they would experience firsthand all the breathtaking beauty of the region Wordsworth and Coleridge had made immortal.

  With her keen wit and sharp eyes, Meg would be the ideal companion with whom to explore this fascinating corner of England. More importantly, her compassionate heart would make her the ideal friend and wife and lover once he’d convinced her he no longer wanted her for her money—but for herself.

  When he returned to Ravenswood, he would court her as she deserved to be courted. He would ply her with flowers and poetry and all the other things that touched a woman’s heart. He would demand the dowager relinquish the magnificent emerald ring that for the past three centuries every Earl of Lynley had presented his bride-to-be, and place it on Meg’s finger—something he should have done the day he offered for her.

  Somehow, some way, he would make her see that in the short time he’d known her, he had come to treasure her as he had never treasured any other woman. He was firmly convinced Meg and he were ideally suited to each other in all ways—mentally, physically, emotionally—and he was determined to convince her of that happy truth as well.

  And one day, years from now, when he felt very sure of her, he would divulge the truth about his parentage. Surely a woman who had agonized over the injured feelings of his discarded mistress would be broadminded enough to overlook the fact that the father of her children was an earl’s legalized bastard.

  He was still thinking of her—longing to feel her slender body pressed to his, daydreaming of her warm, eager lips opening to his hungry exploration—when late in the afternoon, he entered the outskirts of the town of Hawkshead.

  The first person he came upon was the village blacksmith hard at work at his anvil. “Tell me if you please, my good man,” he said, “Do you happen to know the whereabouts of a woman named Rosa Natoli?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The giant smithy paused in the act of hammering into shape what looked to be part of a carriage frame. “Miss Rosa? Now where would the sweet lady be at this time of day but at the Rose and Thistle serving a meal to the travelers who’re biding the night in Hawkshead? And as fine a meal as you’d be finding in any inn in England it is, too.”

  Stunned, Theo gripped the reins so tightly, the weary stallion beneath him gave his sleek, black head an angry toss. With a few gentle strokes, he quieted the testy animal while he gathered his wits. “Do you mean to tell me the woman I seek is a common serving wench at an inn?”

  The blacksmith gave a roar of laughter that echoe
d in Theo’s ears like a clap of thunder. “There’s nothing common about Miss Rosa, as anyone in Hawkshead will tell you. And she’s not the serving wench, but the owner of the Rose and Thistle.”

  So, the heartless jade had set herself up in business with the “pieces of silver” she’d collected over the years. He might have known a woman callous enough to exchange her newborn son for a lifetime sinecure would put the money to practical use.

  “Where may I find this inn?” he asked, squinting against the heat rising from the blacksmith’s forge and the stench of his sweat-soaked body.

  “At the other end of the village. You cannot miss it, sir, for ‘tis the only inn inside the village proper. Just follow this street you’re on. ‘Twill lead you to the very spot.” Like all true natives of the county of Cumbria, the smithy’s words were thick with the guttural sounds his Viking ancestors had added to the already colorful dialect of Northern England. Theo had to listen carefully to determine what exactly he was saying.

  The burly fellow pulled a grimy rag from his belt, wiped away the sweat dripping into his eyes and peered closely at Theo.

  “I take it you be kin to Miss Rosa. I can plainly see you’ve the look of her about you.”

  Theo stiffened. “The kinship is a distant one.” Once he’d learned of Rosa Natoli’s existence, he’d had to assume he’d inherited his dark coloring from her. But the knowledge that his resemblance to her was so strong a complete stranger could instantly see it came as a shock.

  He thanked the smithy for his help and rode on into the village, glad to be out from under the fellow’s scrutiny. But it was soon obvious, from the curious looks on the faces of the villagers he passed, that the blacksmith wasn’t the only one who recognized his similarity to the woman who’d borne him.

  His plan had been to take a room at one of the inns in the district and remain incognito while he made discreet inquiries about the woman he sought. He could see now that was impossible. In a town the size of Hawkshead, the news that her look-alike had arrived on the scene would probably reach her before he had time to travel the length of the street. There was nothing for it but to walk boldly into the inn she owned, take a room under his own name and let her make the next move.

  The ostler who relieved him of his horse in the courtyard of the neat brick and timber inn was a stocky, gray-haired fellow of middle years. Like the blacksmith, he studied Theo with narrowed eyes. “So you’ve come at last, my lord,” he said in a voice heavy with disapproval. “What took you so long? Rosa has looked for you every day since word came of the old earl’s death. ‘Twas almost more than I could bear to see her rush to the window every time a horse and rider approached.”

  The ostler jerked a thumb toward the wide oak plank door that stood beneath a wooden sign embellished with carvings of the rose and thistle for which the inn was named. “Hurry now, my lord. She’ll be in there waiting for you, her great, foolish heart pounding in her breast. A lad from the village came running with the news a good five minutes ago that a young gentleman as looked to be her kin was asking after her.”

  Silently, Theo collected his saddlebag and tossed it over his shoulder. He felt bewildered by the obvious affection in which Rosa Natoli was held by the blacksmith, and now this man—and at the same time consumed with rage at the thought that a common servant was aware of his relationship to her. Had the woman no sense of decency that she should so freely discuss the fact that she’d borne and then abandoned an illegitimate son.

  Grimly, he opened the heavy door and stepped into the inviting, low-beamed entryway of the inn. He blinked, momentarily blinded by the light of a dozen candles shining down at him from wrought iron sconces lining the pristine white walls.

  Once his eyes adjusted, he became aware of the tall, regal-looking woman standing in the center of the well-scrubbed flagstone floor. Her hair was jet black with a single streak of silver at her right temple and pulled back into a severe chignon at her nape. Her eyes were as dark and unreadable as he knew his own to be, the tilt of her head as proud. A subtle scent of lavender clung to her fashionable black gown. He had expected a coarse Italian peasant; he found, instead, a beautiful woman with the bearing of a duchess.

  He took a step closer and saw, to his surprise, that her eyes glistened with tears and her lips trembled like those of a child awaiting punishment for a bit of naughtiness. Against his will, he felt a subtle shift in the knot of hatred he’d carried deep inside him since the moment he’d discovered the truth of his birth. Rosa Natoli was not at all as he’d pictured her.

  “I am Theodore Hampton, Earl of Lynley. I seek shelter for the night,” he said in his haughtiest tone of voice to hide his confusion.

  “Your chamber is ready, my lord, and a private room where you may take your evening meal as well.” Her voice was low and throaty, her accent a mixture of the Cumbrian dialect and the musical tones of her Latin heritage. She brushed away the single tear that spilled down her cheek. “We will talk after you’ve bathed and supped. The matter between us is too weighty to be discussed on an empty stomach.”

  She raised a hand and an apple-cheeked elderly woman in a snowy mobcap appeared out of nowhere. “Lydia will show you to your chamber. Your meal will be ready whenever you are.”

  Just like that, she dismissed him, as if she were indeed his mother and he a green lad to be ordered about. He opened his mouth to protest, but she’d already turned away. A moment later she disappeared through a door at the far end of the room, leaving him no choice but to follow Lydia’s stout, black-clad figure. Up the winding stairway he traipsed behind the silent maid, who led him to the neat, little chamber assigned him by the woman he couldn’t bring himself to think of as his mother.

  An hour later, after a much-needed bath, a shave and a change of clothing, he descended once again to the main floor of the inn, ready to face his betrayer. But the tantalizing smell of spices and roasting meat wafted his way and his stomach rumbled with hunger. Grudgingly, he conceded she’d been right on one point; their discussion would be better conducted after a good meal.

  Again, the silent maid appeared to lead him to a private parlor off the taproom where, as promised, a crusty loaf of bread and a plate of something closely resembling the highly seasoned ragouts he’d enjoyed in France awaited him. With the fervor of a man too long on the road, he tucked into the hot, savory repast. He’d just wiped up the last drop of wine-laced gravy with the last crust of bread when Rosa Natoli walked through the door carrying a tray bearing a bottle of brandy and two glasses.

  Theo automatically stood up and remained standing until she seated herself in the chair on the opposite side of the table. Too late, he realized she might construe his simple act of proper manners as a show of respect, and fervently wished he’d had the sense to remain in his chair.

  She poured two stout glasses of brandy, placed one in front of him and raised the other to her lips. After a swallow healthy enough to have laid out most men he knew, she lowered the glass to the table and regarded him with her unfathomable dark eyes. “I see, from the scowl that knits your brow, you come armed with anger and resentment. Perhaps if you tell me why, we may get this long overdue discussion underway.”

  “Why?” Theo choked on his brandy. “You dare ask why I feel anger and resentment toward a mother who, until a few days ago, I never knew existed? A mother who willfully abandoned me within a se’enight of my birth in exchange for a quarterly stipend?”

  Rosa Natoli’s pale cheeks blanched to a chalky white, but the gaze she’d leveled on Theo never wavered. “I accepted my stipend and ‘abandoned you’, as you choose to put it, to a life of luxury and respectability, an education at Eton and Oxford and a claim to one of the oldest titles in all of England. Would you rather I’d kept you as my bastard and took to whoring to keep the wolf from the door? For those were the only two choices I had—and the one only because it suited the countess’s purposes.”

  “Are you saying this incredible deception was the countess’s ide
a?” Theo shook his head in disbelief. Once he’d realized the truth of his birth, he’d reasoned that the woman’s unremitting coldness toward him had stemmed from the humiliation of a barren wife who’d been forced to recognize another woman’s son as the legal heir to her husband’s title.

  Rosa Natoli nodded. “She is a beautiful woman with ice in her veins. Phillip fell in love with her exquisite face—she with his title. But she hated the physical side of marriage. The deception was a means of securing an heir without having to submit to the intimacies necessary to produce a child of her own.

  “I was her personal maid. Thinking back on it, I realize she took every opportunity to throw the earl and me together. Phillip being the rake he was, and I a hot-blooded young innocent of sixteen years, whom she’d hired in Florence when they were on their wedding trip, the result was inevitable.”

  Theo cringed. Knowing the frigid dowager as he did, he could well believe she would go to such extremes to avoid the necessity of having to share a bed with his father. She had made it very clear that she abhorred any form of physical contact. In all the years he had thought her his mother, she had never once hugged him or even patted him on the head as he’d seen the mothers of his friends do.

  “Of course, she planned to send me back to Italy once the babe was born,” Rosa Natoli continued. “The pension and the Lake District were both Phillip’s ideas for, oddly enough, he did love me in his fashion.”

  A hint of some emotion Theo couldn’t identify flashed in her dark eyes. “The countess was furious, of course. She didn’t want him herself, but she didn’t want any other woman to have him either. In the end, she forced him to give her his solemn promise he would never see me again if she agreed to raise you as her own—and the heir to the title.”