Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence)

by W. R. Gingell

  In the event, I was not forced to productivity. The horselords found me and I danced with each of them in turn, beginning with Emmett, who was not a good dancer but swept all before him, and ending with Curran, who was, and knew it. We made a laughing group at the refreshment table, where I found Delysia, who told me with great complacency that she had been constantly complimented on her dress.

  “Even Harroll likes it, my dear,” she said, with sparkling eyes. “And you know how he never notices one from the other.”

  “Yes, I thought your lip-rouge was a little smudged when you got out of the carriage,” I said wickedly.

  Delysia went pink, and giggled. “That was my fault: I was nibbling his ear and he got carried away. It’s a good thing I carry a handkerchief with me, or Harroll would have been as rouged as I. Oh, look, Isabella! It is Lord Topher!”

  I gave her a quelling look but turned to greet Lord Topher with a friendly smile. It is never of the least use to be snide to boys suffering from calf-love: they seem to take it as a challenge. The only thing to do is be polite and elder-sisterly, and hope that they recover quickly.

  “How do you do, Lord Topher? Are you enjoying the masquerade?”

  “Now that I’ve found you, I am!” he said ingenuously. “Will you dance with me?”

  I agreed pleasantly, leaving Delysia, much to her chagrin, alone at the refreshment table. Delysia has never been anything less than resourceful, however, and by the time the sets formed for the new dance, she was being led into it by a black-masked individual. She whirled past me a little later with a knowing smile at Lord Topher, and I frowned her down, but she only winked at me. Lord Topher, noticing this, enquired as to the cause.

  “Oh, Delysia thinks we make a very pretty pair,” I said cheerfully, but with only half my attention. If I were not very much mistaken, Lord Pecus had just joined the dance. Those massive shoulders could not belong to anyone else: and his partner was undoubtedly Lady Louisa.

  Lord Topher smiled shyly. “I think we do, too,” he said. “I would like to call on you tomorrow, Lady Farrah.”

  Oh, dear.

  “Now, Lord Topher, don’t make me dislike you,” I besought him laughingly. “I am an old maid, and a happy one. Don’t let’s talk about it.”

  “I didn’t really think I was exciting enough for you,” confessed Lord Topher, engagingly. “But I wanted to try.”

  “I’m sure you’re very exciting, Lord Topher.”

  I caught Lord Pecus’ eye over the heads of the dancers and smiled involuntarily. He smiled back, annoying Lady Louisa with his inattention, before the dance sent us in opposite directions.

  “I notice one young lady in particular seems to find you very exciting,” I remarked, allowing myself some amusement. “She rarely takes her eyes off you.”

  He followed my eyes to where the young blonde – Miss Emily Dewhurst, I was creditably informed – was dancing, and I fancied I saw a blush rise in his cheek.

  “She’s very beautiful,” I observed impartially, inching slightly to the right so that the beauteous Miss Dewhurst was in clear sight over my left shoulder. “She’s also quite well off, I’m told.”

  I let him digest this for some minutes, and by the end of the dance he was looking thoughtful.

  “You think I should marry Miss Dewhurst, then?” he asked, bowing over my hand.

  “I think you should do just as you choose,” I corrected, curtseying. “But certainly Miss Dewhurst is a very good catch.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could do so Lord Pecus had approached, and said without preamble: “Lady Farrah. A word, if you will.”

  “Of course.” I curtseyed again to Lord Topher, and took Lord Pecus’ arm. “What is it, my lord?”

  “Have you been shaking any cages today?”

  I found myself startled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “There are men in one of my card rooms,” he said, in a low voice. “My security spells picked them up as they entered the garden room. Once again, Lady Farrah, have you been stirring any pots that I should be made aware of? They are waiting for someone.”

  “Goodness me!” I said meditatively. I was quite often accused of causing trouble, but it was not often that I was falsely accused of causing trouble, and I was a little at a loss. I was unsure if I should appear flustered or indignant. “What an unusual circumstance! I appear not to be guilty. If there is trouble, it has nothing to do with me.”

  “That is unusual. You can understand how my thoughts immediately went to you.”

  I inclined my head. “Certainly, I can. In nine out of ten cases, you would be correct, but- oh, good heavens!”

  I stopped in dismay. I seemed to remember Delysia sweeping out of the dance, pink with anger over a torn hem that her clumsy partner had trod on. She had gone to one of the empty side rooms to pin the material.

  “Delysia! It must be Delysia!”

  Lord Pecus must have been using one of his Look-Away spells, because nobody looked askance when I picked up my skirts and ran for the door at which I last saw Delysia. I don’t know quite how it happened, but he reached the door before I did, and thrust it open with a single movement, restraining me with his free arm. It took a moment to make sense of the scene, but when I had done so, I could see Delysia sitting on one of the sofas, looking pale and considerably rumpled in the midst of a chaos of broken furniture and glass. I pushed Lord Pecus’ arm aside impatiently and ran to embrace her in relief, because I had really thought the worst for a moment.

  She gave a sob of relief and clung to me. “Oh, Isabella! A horrible man trod on my skirt, and when I tried to fix it in here those nasty men just grabbed me and tried to make off with me, and oh, Isabella, they’ve ruined my beautiful dress!”

  I gave a watery chuckle at Lord Pecus’ bemused face, and patted Delysia’s cheek. “The dress is not ruined, Delysia; I can pin it in a trice. Now be calm and tell Lord Pecus exactly what happened.”

  Her lip trembled, but she gave a defiant sniff and said: “I came in to pin my dress, because of that stupid man! When I opened the door someone said: ‘That’s her, grab her!’ and they pulled me into the room. They took my mask, then one of them held up a candle to my face and swore, and said I wasn’t the right one after all, so they threw me down and ran out.”

  “My poor Delysia!” I said soothingly. The furniture was in a deplorable state, suggesting a struggle of some magnitude. “You must have given them a little trouble, my dear.”

  Delysia looked vindictive, and declared darkly: “One of them will have a black eye, or I’m no judge! How dare they ruin my dress!”

  Lord Pecus almost disgraced himself with a smothered laugh that he turned hastily into a cough.

  “The intruders are gone now, Lady Quorn. You are quite safe. Can I fetch Lord Quorn for you?”

  She nodded and Lord Pecus left us alone. I began to tidy Delysia’s hair, beginning with the rose that was now nestling at a drunken angle in her curls, and then her crimson hair ribbon. By the time I finished pinning the torn hemline she was calm again, and tied the strings of her mask with fingers that shook only a little.

  At last I sat back beside her, and clasped cold fingers in my lap. “Delysia, how long has Lord Pecus been gone?”

  She looked startled. “Perhaps a half hour. He has been gone rather a long time, hasn’t he?”

  “Perhaps Harroll was difficult to find?” I suggested, halfheartedly. There was a wrongness in the air, and Lord Pecus’ ball was beginning to feel very perilous to me.

  “Harroll is never difficult to find.” Delysia pursed her lips, and stood with resolution. “I shall go and find him. If masked intruders have tried to make off with Harroll as well, they will be very, very sorry.”

  I accompanied her back to the ballroom in a little relief. I didn’t like leaving her alone so soon after such a shock, but there was a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach and I didn’t think I would be comfortable until I saw that Lord Pecus was safe. Raoul’s murd
er had begun to spiral into a messy, confusing vortex with neither sense nor direction, and there was no telling what could happen next.

  I couldn’t see Lord Pecus among the dancers or in any of the cardrooms that were lit and in use, so I expanded my search further and ventured into Pecus Manor’s great hall. There was no one in sight along the hall, but candlelight was flickering from one of the doors further down, and an urgent babble of voices told me that there was something afoot, so I hurried toward the light with my heart pulsing breathlessly in my ears.

  The first person I saw was Harroll, standing by the door with his hand white around the knob, but that was surely Melchior kneeling on the ground beside a huge, prone form that could only be Lord Pecus. I pushed past Harroll, who was too glaze-eyed to stop me, and sank to my knees beside Melchior. Lord Pecus’ mask had been wiped of all expression, and through the slits of his mask I could see that his eyes had flooded red.

  Father said sharply: “Isabella, no!” but I already had Keenan’s protection spell in my hand, and I pressed the thing into Lord Pecus’ palm, closing his fingers around it and cupping his huge hand in both of mine.

  He shuddered and gasped, and Melchior said in a low voice: “Carrots, I’d murder you myself if that hadn’t worked! Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

  “I knew it would work,” I tossed at him, my eyes on Lord Pecus. I hadn’t known anything of the sort, of course. I had simply hoped that Keenan’s spell would be strong enough, and trusted to my instincts that the murderer would not kill Lord Pecus if I were physically linked to him. He had shown a strange reluctance for killing me.

  “Who did this? Did anyone see?”

  “Pecus must have,” Melchior pointed out. Like Father, he was very pale, and I knew I hadn’t heard the last of touching a cursed person. “He seems to be coming back quite quickly. What was that you gave him?”

  “A protection spell,” I said shortly. Lord Pecus’ eyes were beginning to flow back into their native green, and I slid one hand under his head, levering it up. “Wake up, my lord! I refuse to kneel on dusty floorboards a moment longer than necessary. Like Delysia, I object to my best things being ruined.”

  A spasm of amusement rumbled through Lord Pecus’ chest.

  “Lady Farrah. I wonder why I’m surprised.” His eyes, showing a heartening movement, flicked toward Melchior. His voice was rough and exhausted. “It’s over.”

  Melchior and Harroll helped him to his feet, and then to a huge leather armchair where he stretched out with a sigh of relief; and I moved over to comfort Father, who wrapped his arms around me with suspiciously shiny eyes and kissed my brow.

  “No scraped knees, Papa,” I said softly.

  “I’m getting too old for your tricks, Kitten.”

  “Did you see who it was, Pecus?” Melchior had drawn up a chair to face Lord Pecus, and was eyeing him narrowly.

  Lord Pecus was silent for a moment, and then said carefully: “I saw him. I didn’t trust my eyes, so I marked him: he won’t get rid of it in a hurry.”

  “Someone you knew, then?”

  “I saw Ambassador Farrah’s face.”

  I looked at him incredulously, but he was frowning down at his clasped hands.

  “It seemed ridiculous; and as I said, I marked him.”

  “You’d better run a scan, then,” my father said quietly. “The sooner this muddle is cleaned up, the better.”

  Melchior made an impatient hissing sound. “Oh, no one really suspects you, Dominic; but someone seems to have made a significant effort to cause trouble. You’d better do the scan, I think, Alexander.”

  Lord Pecus nodded, and a gentle humming pervaded the air. I tucked my hand into Father’s and squeezed it, cold inside. The evidence I had gathered didn’t support the idea that Raoul had been killed in the pursuit of treason, but the implication of my father in the attempted murder of Lord Pecus would drive a wedge between Civet and Glause nevertheless.

  It was ridiculous to think that my dear little Papa could be guilty of such a murder: therefore, someone was still playing games with us. The question was, had the murderer been lying to me when he claimed he had not murdered Raoul for the papers? I didn’t think so. Yet treason was beginning to look more and more likely.

  The humming stopped short, interrupting my musing, and I felt Father’s fingers twitch convulsively in mine. There was a blotchy red rash rapidly populating his left cheek when I looked at him, forming a pawprint or perhaps a rough rose shape, and I gazed at it stupidly, blinking, because it didn’t make sense. Father had gone quiet and a little pale.

  “What does this mean for me?”

  There was silence. Then Lord Pecus, without looking up, said gruffly: “I have to take you into custody.”

  “This is nonsense!” I snapped. I was feeling very close to tears, and that would never do, so I glared around at them all. “Melchior, Harroll- you both know my father! You know he would never do this!”

  Melchior rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Can the mark be passed on, Alexander? Duplicated in any way?”

  Lord Pecus shook his head. “If the attacker wore a glamour, the mark would have settled on his real face. As I said, I mistrusted my eyes. That is the skin I put the mark on. It can’t be erased, and it can’t be duplicated- if the attacker somehow managed to duplicate it and mark the Ambassador, he would still be marked himself. The scan would have picked him up.”

  “What of the merger?” Harroll asked. His fingers were digging agonisedly through his hair, creating a disorder that would have pleased Delysia immensely, could she have seen it. “If the Watch takes Ambassador Farrah into custody, the merger is as good as lost. Public outrage, protests- it doesn’t bear thinking of! I demand that the king be informed!”

  “Might it be kept quiet?”

  I opened my mouth to expostulate, but Father patted my hand chidingly.

  “No, Kitten; let me finish. Keep me in custody until this is cleared up: let Isabella handle the merger. She’s capable.”

  Melchior shook his head. “Harroll is right, the merger would never go through. No offence, Carrots, but once it leaked out – and it would leak out, one way or another – the merger would be off. Can he be released on his own recognisances?”

  Lord Quorn raked his fingers through his hair once more, biting his lips. “No. Glausian law doesn’t allow for the release of murder suspects on bail.”

  “Then the matter seems to be simple,” I said briskly. There was an angry ache in my throat that meant I was only minutes away from tears, and I was not sure who I wanted most to beat for stupidity; Harroll, Melchior, or Lord Pecus.

  “Glausian law doesn’t allow for recognisance with relation to a monetary value: it does, however, allow for a hostage to be taken against the risk of flight.”

  “Absolutely not!” Father said, with a very good assumption of authority. “I will not have my daughter held in gaol!”

  “She would be given a suite of rooms here and every polite attention would be paid her,” said Lord Pecus, speaking for the first time in many minutes. “I’ll carefully let leak the information that an attempt has been made on her life, and the merger can continue. In the meantime, I’ll continue my investigation. When you are cleared of all charges, Lady Farrah will be released.”

  “You see, Papa?” I said softly to him. “I’m to be an honoured guest of Lord Pecus.”

  For the first time in many years, I saw his gentle eyes angry. “You’re to be a guest of the Watch, Isabella. I can’t allow it!”

  “You can and you must, Papa.” I smiled a little ruefully at him. “Our first service is to Civet: I’ve heard you say it a thousand times, and you wouldn’t want to disturb my views on the uprightness of your character, would you? Lord Pecus will investigate thoroughly, I’m certain; and Annabel won’t let the matter be, you can be sure.”

  Father said absently: “She was always a good girl. I don’t like it, Isabella.”

  “No more do I, but there’s not
hing else to be done. You’ll send Vadim and Keenan over to me, won’t you?”

  “Anything you need, Kitten. May I visit her, Lord Pecus?”

  Lord Pecus nodded. “One visitor, once a day; and none after dinnertime. Will that suit?”

  “It will have to, won’t it?” I said briefly, my eyes resting steadily on him. His mask was bland, but his green gaze flickered away, and I felt obscurely pleased. “Perhaps you had better have someone show me to my rooms.”

  “There’s no need for you to leave the masquerade early,” Lord Pecus said, startled. “My housekeeper will make up the rooms for your convenience.”

  “If my attempted murder is supposed to have occurred now, my presence will be remarked,” I told him crisply. “Kindly have someone show me to my rooms. Papa, come along and see me settled in.”

  In the end, they all came along. Melchior linked his fingers through mine and swung my hand as if we were on a jaunt, and Father shuffled along silently on my other side with Lord Pecus striding ahead. The housekeeper had been dispatched to find fresh sheets by that time, so I sent them away again once I had explored the suite. Father was the last to leave, and after he did I sat myself down in the windowseat and gazed through the glass at the lighted garden below. The housekeeper came and went with sheets, and I let her do so without speaking: no tears had fallen yet, and I fully intended to keep it that way.

  Vadim and Keenan arrived some time later with a small trunk packed with my night things and a few changes of clothes. All my other clothes, or so Vadim informed me, would be sent over tomorrow afternoon. They both looked wide-eyed and anxious, so I shared my cocoa with them when we were nightgowned, and tucked them into bed with me.

  “Are you alright, lady?” Vadim asked timidly, at last.

  I looked down at her big eyes, and felt a laugh welling up. “Cheer up, child! It’s not the end of the world.”

  I gave Keenan an absentminded kiss, which made him scowl to hide his pleased smile, and said: “Your spell saved my life tonight, Keenan. Well done.”

  Vadim nestled into my arm and sighed sleepily. “What will you do now, lady? About your investigation, I mean.”