The Madcap Masquerade

by Nadine Miller

  Somehow Maeve found the energy to sit up and dangle her legs over the edge of the bed. “The dress is fine, the rouge is not necessary. If the earl should call, you’re to tell him I have a sick headache and cannot see him.”

  “Oh, Miss, I’m so sorry you’re unwell. I’ll ask Mrs. Pinkert for one of those tisanes she makes up for the squire when he’s suffering from his sick headaches, so you’ll be up to snuff when his lordship arrives.”

  Maeve glared at the nauseatingly cheerful maid. “Go away, Lucy,” she said more sharply than she intended. “I do not need a tisane and I do not want to see the earl . Furthermore, I am perfectly capable of dressing myself without your help.”

  “Yes, Miss.” The young maid’s face crumpled and her full, pink lips trembled noticeably. “I was just trying to be helpful, Miss.”

  Maeve sighed. “I know, Lucy, and I apologize for my rudeness. I’m in a foul mood this morning. I just need some time to myself to finish an important letter I’m writing.” She’d started the dreaded missive, as promised, the previous evening and gotten as far as Dear Theo.

  With Lucy pacified and on her way to the kitchen for her breakfast, Maeve washed her face and hands, dressed herself in the gown the maid had chosen and started in on her letter.

  For the balance of the morning, she sipped her chilling chocolate and labored over her letter to Theo—changing a word here, a sentence there—more often than not, scratching out more than she kept.

  Recounting her monstrous lies and deceit was difficult enough; explaining her reasons for doing what she did was close to impossible. But finally, after a dozen tear-soaked handkerchiefs, a like number of discarded sheets of paper and nearly as many broken nibs, she was satisfied with what she’d written.

  It was all there, every damning word of it, including the exact sum of money she’d persuaded the squire to pay her for her nefarious masquerade. Two things only were left out—her mother’s profession, which she couldn’t bring herself to mention, and her own profession, which she dare not make public.

  All that remained was a decision as to if and how she should tell him that in spite of everything, she did truly love him. For more than an hour, she pondered the question of whether or not he would take comfort in such knowledge, and finally decided to end the letter without mentioning her feelings. After three pages of foolscap on which she’d detailed all the ways in which she’d lied and cheated and deceived him, she could scarcely expect him to believe her capable of any honest emotion.

  Theo came to call on her, as she’d known he would, once the sun broke through the clouds—and Lucy turned him away, as directed. Heartsick, Maeve observed him from behind the drape as he cast a troubled glance toward her chamber balcony before riding off.

  She watched him until the final moment when he disappeared from sight down the tree-lined drive, knowing it might well be the last time she ever saw him. One more memory to add to her painful collection, she reminded herself, dabbing at her teary eyes with a fresh handkerchief. After all the wonderful “firsts” she’d shared with Theo, such an ignominious “last” seemed particularly sad.

  But if there was one thing of value she’d learned from Lily it was that grieving over what could never be was beyond futile.

  She folded her letter into a neat square and slipped it into the drawer of the dressing table. She’d drop it at the vicarage tomorrow morning with instructions to Richard that he should deliver it to Theo once she was safely on the coach that would take her to London.

  That accomplished, she marched down the stairs to settle her business with the squire while they shared the noonday meal. She fully expected the wily old fox to demand she stay until Meg returned, maybe even balk at paying her the money due her. She would have none of it; when push came to shove, she could be just as obstinate as he.

  He was not in the dining room. Nor was Mrs. Pinkert, who had given up eating with her employer now that the staff had been enlarged. Maeve ignored the covered dishes laid out for her on the sideboard and hurried to the kitchen.

  “Where is the squire?” she demanded.

  Mrs. Pinkert looked up from her plate of food. “Where else but out with the hounds.”

  “At this time of day? He never misses a meal unless…”

  Maeve stared at the rotund housekeeper in horror. “Oh no! Don’t tell me he’s off on one of his—”

  “The sickness is upon him,” Mrs. Pinkert interrupted her, waggling her eyebrows to remind Maeve the two maids sharing the meal with her were listening, wide-eyed, to everything they said.

  “Sickness my eye!” Maeve was too angry to care who heard her. The squire knew very well tomorrow was her last day at Barrington Hall. He was hiding out in the kennels to avoid facing her. She clenched her fists in frustration. “If that old reprobate thinks he can bamboozle me, he has a surprise in store for him. I’m going out there.”

  Mrs. Pinkert paused in the act of slicing her mutton, her eyes wide with shock. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you, Missy. He’s meaner’n a snake when he’s taken with the sickness.”

  “I’m going after him,” Maeve repeated, heading for the door that opened on the kitchen garden and beyond it, the kennels.

  “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. And mind you watch your head. He’s been known to throw things at times like this.”

  Maeve circled the rows of Mrs. Pinkert’s carefully tended early vegetables, which were obviously thriving in rich, black soil damp from the morning rain, and opened the garden gate. Two kennel boys were sunning themselves side by side on a bench outside the half-timber building in which the squire kept his prize hounds. One of them had a bandage wrapped around his forehead. The door to the kennel stood open and two cinnamon colored hounds lay sprawled across the entrance, sound asleep.

  “Is the squire in there?” Maeve asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boys answered in unison.

  Maeve strode forward, determined to have it out with her father before he got too far into his cups.

  The older of the two kennel boys jumped up and barred the door with his thin body. “Ye’d best not go in there, ma’am. He’s liable to wing ye wi’ a bottle or such. His temper be somethin’ fierce when the sickness is on ‘im. Why young Timmy here got a knock on the head not an hour ago as near laid ‘im out, just for tiptoeing in to see iffen the yellow bitch had whelped ‘er pups yet.”

  “Well he’d better not try such a thing with me or I’ll raise a knot on his head he won’t soon forget.”

  The kennel boy, who was a half a head taller than Maeve, smiled tentatively. “No disrespect, ma’am, but you’re kinda puny to be tacklin’ a fella the size of the squire.”

  “Size isn’t everything.” Maeve pushed the boy aside and entered the kennel. Instantly, a powerful smell of dog assailed her nostrils, as well as another more pleasant smell of fresh straw emanating from the bales stacked just inside the door.

  She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dim light in the large windowless enclosure. From somewhere deep in the murky interior came the undeniable sound of snoring, but even when her vision cleared, she could see no sign of the squire.

  What she could see was a pile of brownish colored fur in the middle of a large straw pallet. On closer inspection, it turned out to be six or eight sleeping hounds sprawled atop each other like a litter of newborn pups she’d once observed in the window of a used bookstore in London’s East End.

  The loud, rhythmic snoring continued unabated. Led by the sound, she ventured farther into the kennel and promptly stumbled over a bucket of water sitting in the middle of the plank floor. The horrendous racket woke the hounds, and the three on the top of the pile lazily detached themselves and wandered over to sniff at Maeve’s skirt. She patted their sleek heads somewhat gingerly, but they seemed friendly enough.

  As she watched, the remaining hounds shifted positions, revealing the source of the rhythmic snoring. At the bottom of the pile, flat on his back, with an empty brandy bottle clutched
to his chest, lay the squire. Mrs. Pinkert hadn’t exaggerated; the disgusting man actually did sleep with his dogs.

  Maeve stepped closer and kicked the sole of his boot. “Wake up, blast you, we have business to transact.”

  The squire snored on, his eyes closed, his mouth slack, his bulbous nose red as a new-picked cherry.

  Maeve kicked the other boot. Once, twice, three times. Not so much as an eyelid flickered, but now, after each snore, he emitted a sound reminiscent of a brisk wind whistling through a broken shutter.

  Maeve was in no mood to wait patiently while her annoying parent slept off his waltz with John Barleycorn. She had just survived one of the most miserable mornings of her life. She’d painstakingly put every sin she’d committed to paper, wept until she had no tears left and watched the only man she would ever love ride away from her. Her nerves were as raw as open wounds, her temper as short as a burning fuse.

  She looked about her for something suitable to crown the sleeping squire. There was nothing in sight…except the bucket on which she’d barked her shins. Without another thought, she picked it up and dumped the contents on his head.

  He exploded from the tangle of hounds like an erupting volcano—sputtering, spitting, and turning the air around him blue with his cursing. With a violent push, he dislodged the dog draped across his stomach, wiped the water from his eyes and stared up at Maeve. “I might’ve known ‘twas ye,” he fumed. “Misbegotten spawn of yer hell-born mother.” He winged the brandy bottle at her. Maeve ducked and it shattered against the wall behind her.

  “That was smart,” she said scathingly. “Now you can spend your spare time picking chips of glass out of bleeding paws.”

  The squire ignored her comment. “What the devil are ye doing in me kennel? No female’s ever set foot in here before ye dared foul it with yer fishwife’s tongue.”

  Maeve tossed her head. “I came to settle up my account with you. Tomorrow is the end of my promised fortnight. I’m leaving for London on the mail coach that stops at the village inn at noon, and I want the money due me.”

  “The agreement was ye stay till yer sister returns.”

  “The agreement was I attend the betrothal ball and stay one fortnight beyond, and I’ve a written contract to prove it.”

  “And what am I supposed to tell folks—like say, the earl —when they asks where ye be?” The squire settled back on the straw pallet, a bulldog look on his face. “It won’t do, ye scrawny scarecrow, and I ain’t paying up, so best ye play the cards as was dealt ye. Don’t ask me why, but Lynley, poor fool, is besotted with ye, and it don’t matter a whit to me which of me daughters he marries.”

  “As long as he gets one with child before she’s five and twenty so you don’t lose everything you own to the crown.”

  “So ye knows about that, do ye. Thanks to that blabber-mouth, Emma Pinkert, no doubt. Well, don’t make no matter down the road. I’ll not pay ye so much as a brass farthing and that’s me final word so ye’d best feather yer nest where ye can, Missy.”

  “What makes you think the earl would marry me once he knew how I’d deceived him?”

  “What the cloth-head don’t know won’t hurt him.”

  “But he will know. I’ve already written him a letter telling him the whole sordid story.”

  “Ye done what?” The squire bolted upright, clutched his head, which was obviously paining him sorely, and stared at Maeve through narrowed, bloodshot eyes. “Why’d ye do a bird-witted thing like that, ye silly goose?”

  “Because…” Maeve felt a traitorous sob rise in her throat. “Because Theo’s not the rake I thought him to be. He’s a kind, decent man who deserves to know the truth. Because…” She swallowed hard. “I love him with all my heart.” What did it matter if she admitted the truth to this evil old scoundrel. She would never see him again after today.

  “Ye love him?” The squire’s tone of voice made a mockery of the word. “Then why, when ye had him practically slavering at your feet, would ye write him a letter bound to turn him against ye?”

  Maeve felt the tears well behind her eyes. She willed herself to remain dry eyed. She would not—simply would not—let her heartless father see her cry. “I told you why. I love him. I couldn’t bear to live with him as his wife if I’d won him by trickery.”

  “Ye’re a fool, Maeve Barrington, and ye’re no true daughter of Lily’s after all. She would have seen her main chance and taken it, no matter what.”

  Maeve pulled herself together and stared him in the eye, hating him for what he was—hating herself for letting desperation force her to sink to his level. “I may be a fool,” she said coldly, “but I’m a fool who holds a signed and witnessed contract and if you think I won’t take you to court to collect my money, just try me, old man. When it comes to collecting what’s due me, I am very much like my mother.”

  For a change, Maeve instructed Mrs. Pinkert to open a bottle of the squire’s best wine to serve with dinner that evening. It was her last night at Barrington Hall and though she dined alone, she intended to do so in style.

  The squire was still in the throes of his current “sickness” but she felt certain she’d put the fear of God in him with her threat to face him in the London courts with his signed agreement. Luckily he had no way of knowing she was bluffing, or that she would never dare risk such notoriety for fear of revealing the true identity of Marcus Browne in the process.

  He had grudgingly promised to travel to London sometime in the month of June to arrange transfer of the stipulated funds to her account. She could only pray he kept his word. After her last encounter with him, she felt no compunction whatsoever about forcing him to pay Lily’s debts. It seemed an ironic justice, considering what the two of them had done to Meg and her.

  Despite her flagging appetite, she ate heartily of Mrs. Pinkert’s perennial mutton and potatoes. This might well be her last good meal until she managed to sell another cartoon or the squire made good his promise, whichever came first.

  After dinner, she wandered out to the kitchen to spend a few moments chatting with Mrs. Pinkert and Lucy, surprised at how fond she’d grown of them both in but two week’s time. There would be no one to chat with in London; Bridget had left for Yorkshire to live with her married sister the same day Maeve had departed for Kent.

  The snug little house in which she’d once felt so contented would seem terribly empty and lonely without Lily and Bridget—almost as lonely as her life would be without the excitement and passion Theo had brought to it. The very thought triggered a pain so intense, she said a hasty goodnight to the two servants and fled from the kitchen before she turned into a watering pot yet again.

  She stopped at Meg’s music room on her way to the bedchamber and let her fingers wander idly over the keys of the pianoforte, playing bits and fragments of compositions she loved. Her music had always seen her through difficult times before; tonight it failed her miserably. Every note she played reminded her of Theo’s voice, Theo’s laugh…Theo’s kiss.

  There was nothing left to do but retire, though the thought of enduring yet another interminable sleepless night was almost more than she could bear. Wearily she trudged up the stairs to the pretty bedchamber she’d briefly shared with her identical twin—a woman who was her exact image, yet as much a stranger to her as any she might pass on a London street.

  The truth was there was no one in the whole wide world who cared if she lived or died—except Theo—and by tomorrow at this time, he would despise her. She had lived with loneliness and isolation all her life. She’d thought she knew them well. She realized now she’d only just begun to comprehend the meaning of the words.

  The French windows were standing open when she reached the bedchamber and a pale spring moon cast a silver glow over the small balcony beyond them. Maeve placed the lighted candle she’d carried with her on the bedside table, stepped out of her slippers and onto the balcony.

  The wood beneath her stockinged feet was still warm from the sun and
the night breeze fragrant with the scent of spring flowers. A thousand stars shimmered in the heavens. Somewhere a cricket chirped; a nightingale trilled its lonely, exquisite song.

  Tomorrow she would return to the smell of fresh pasties warmed over charcoal braziers and soot from thousands of smoking chimneys—to the sound of carriage wheels on cobblestones and the cries of street whores selling their bodies to the dandies exiting a performance at the Drury Lane theater. But tonight, she would give herself over to the sights and sounds and fragrances of the Kent countryside.

  Removing the pins from her hair, she invited the friendly breeze to play through the heavy tresses as Theo’s fingers had done the day he’d carried her from the lake.

  Closing her eyes, she let the memories of the moments she’d spent with him during the past two weeks parade through her mind, one by one. She could almost feel his presence, almost sense the magic that sparked between them whenever he was near.

  So real was her lovely dream, she even imagined she heard music in the background. Strange, hedonistic music like nothing she’d ever heard before—music that made her woman’s body ache for a fulfillment she could only begin to imagine.

  A moth, drawn to the candle flame, brushed by her cheek and she opened her eyes, expecting the pain of reality to erase the last remnants of her brief, beautiful phantasm. Oddly enough, the music played on, the lilting melody seeming to rise from beneath the very balcony on which she stood.

  She held her breath, waiting for the music to slip away on the night breeze like the rest of her fantasy. It grew louder, more poignant and someone began putting words to the music—strange, foreign words sung in a rich, throaty baritone.

  Puzzled, she leaned over the balcony railing and spied a familiar, tall figure lounging against the trunk of a white birch in the garden below her. His song finished, he stepped forward into the moonlight.