Beneath the Mask

by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  “You kin pay?” the coachman asked, his scraggily hat hanging off to one side.

  Daphne stared into the unwashed face with distrust before remembering just what she escaped from. Keeping her features in shadow to hide her mask, she nodded, reaching into her purse and finding a small coin by touch. Pulling it out, she raised the coin up to his lantern, ignoring the smell of lard, a poor man’s lamp oil. She dropped the coin into his hand, careful not to touch the sweat-stained palm. “And another when we get there,” she told him, keeping her tone firm.

  The man tipped his hat to her, revealing strands of greasy hair that shone under the light. “Good ’nouf for me,” he said, waving her to the door.

  Suppressing a shudder, Daphne hoped the seats within held nothing more than straw cushioning. With her luck, she’d come from this night with fleabites decorating her body. She called up the address and ignored his grunt of surprise, trying to find a position where she touched as little as possible.

  The coach started forward with a sharp jerk, sending Daphne tumbling full length onto the rough cushion. She dragged herself upright using the length of rope bound to the door and prayed the squeak she’d heard came from poorly oiled wheels, not some four-footed creature sharing her transport. With a sigh, she pulled her mask free and tucked it into the satchel before giving in to the need to massage her sore leg. No one would recognize Daphne in her current state even if they could see her face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A glance out the window revealed familiar houses. Daphne tried to brush the straw from her skirt and calm down. Despite the long trip from Drury Lane, her pulse still raced and every other thought brought back not the stiff gentleman who’d introduced himself as her fiancé but the warm chest and deep laugh of the man who accosted her on the street.

  “Miss, you sure this is the address?”

  Daphne jerked out of her contemplation of the face that she alternately wanted to kiss or slap to discover they’d pulled to a halt in front of her home. “Yes. Yes, this is it,” she said to the driver who peered through an opening behind his seat. She dug out the promised coin and handed it up.

  He flipped the metal piece between his fingers, looking her over in the light shed by the lanterns at her door. “You want me to wait, missy? In case they don’t be needing the likes of you?”

  She felt the heat of a blush rise to color her neck and face. Just how did she look to this man? “No. You needn’t wait. Thank you for offering,” Daphne choked out, pushing the door wide and scrambling down to the street, her bag clutched in one hand.

  The familiar hallway comforted her as she pushed open the door to let herself in. Heading down the corridor, she intended to let Willem know he wouldn’t have to pick her up when the door to the front parlor opened.

  “Daphne? I wasn’t expecting you back—” Her mother’s speech cut off as Lady Scarborough stopped to stare.

  Glancing down to see what dress she had on, Daphne was grateful to see the nice one rather than the one she normally wore to catch a hire coach. She hadn’t been able to change on her way back, but luck or fate had her too distracted when she changed at the theater.

  “Oh, my poor dear. Just look at you. You’re flushed,” her mother said, grabbing one of Daphne’s hands, “and your hands are trembling. This is not good. Not good at all. Come. Come.”

  Daphne let her mother pull her into the parlor and settle her into a chair with a knit blanket tucked around her. Lady Scarborough rang the bell for tea so at least Willem would get warning.

  “No trips for you tomorrow, Daphne. No wonder Penelope sent you home earlier, looking as you do.”

  Daphne’s flush deepened at the reminder of her deceit but she said nothing. Monsieur Henre would probably be happy not to see her, not to have her embarrass him once again. She’d just send word with Willem. Relief at avoiding that confrontation made her sigh out loud.

  “Now, now, don’t let it worry you. I can send word to your dear friend. Though I know how much she’ll miss your presence, she can’t want you becoming ill.”

  Rousing herself enough to sit straighter, Daphne caught her mother’s hand before the older woman could rise to call another servant. “No Mother. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll send her a note.”

  Lady Scarborough gave her a shaky smile. “Yes, you’re probably right. A personal note would be better. We can’t have rumors starting about your health now.”

  Though neither mentioned Grace, the specter of Daphne’s sister hung between them for a moment, bringing tears to their eyes. Daphne vowed to find her sister as soon as she left her father’s household, gossip or no. If her husband didn’t like it, well, she’d learned deceit enough to manage around his wishes in this if not in something far more scandalous.

  Lady Scarborough turned away abruptly, her hand rising to her cheek before she looked back. “Your health is of utmost concern now, dear. I’ve been working with Lady Pendleton—”

  The door opened and one of the kitchen helpers backed in, pulling a cart with a pot of tea and small sandwiches. “Cook sent these right up, my lady,” the young girl said. “Said you wanted something sustaining before you went out tonight.” She stopped the cart in front of Daphne then glanced up and released her breath on an “Oh.”

  Lady Scarborough stared at the girl, clearly annoyed.

  “Sorry, my lady,” the girl muttered. “I’ll be back with another cup quick as I can.”

  “You do that,” Daphne’s mother said, no sign of grief remaining on her face.

  Daphne stood up and poured her mother a cup of tea, hoping to distract from whatever Lady Scarborough had been about to announce. Instinct warned her the news would not be welcome.

  Lady Scarborough pushed Daphne’s hands away. “You need to rest. I can serve myself well enough.” She put a couple of sandwiches onto a plate and handed it to her daughter.

  “Thank you.” Daphne accepted the food and raised one sandwich to her mouth.

  “At least you show better manners now from what I’ve heard.”

  Daphne choked on her bite, spraying crumbs down her front as she tried to imagine how her mother could have heard about the indecent proposal much less figured out Daphne’s unsettling reactions.

  Lady Scarborough shook her head. “I’d think you some urchin off the street from the way you act. Did you think I wouldn’t learn with you raising your voice loud enough passing coaches could hear?” She approached Daphne, putting a hard hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

  “He’s taken a lot already from this family. We need him so much more than he needs us.” She continued, urgency audible in her tone, “If you spoil this marriage, don’t think we’ll still have the ability to fund your coming out. That will be the least of our necessities.”

  Daphne almost blurted that missing her coming out would be a blessing before she processed the rest of Lady Scarborough’s words. Contrition filled her as she realized her mother spoke not of Lord Pendleton’s proposition but of their meeting in this very room. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said, keeping her tone soft and her eyes down. “It just happened. I didn’t mean to be so short.”

  Lady Scarborough shook her head again. “Really, I don’t know what to do with you. I wish I could blame your obvious exhaustion, but to give Lord Pendleton that excuse would raise as many questions as it answers, especially since part of the problem seemed to be your urgency to be elsewhere. Is your friend as important as all that? Don’t you know this man will soon be your husband? All others must pale before him.”

  Daphne flinched from her mother’s assessment, struck harder by the harsh truth when it came from someone else’s lips. Soon, she’d lose the passion of dance for a loveless marriage, and a sarcastic, unfaithful husband. What a waste to have squandered her few remaining hours because of his behavior. Even worse, she’d given up tomorrow as well. Her dream faded before her eyes, and she lacked the strength to catch hold and keep it with her.

  “…unseemly haste but at the
same time all the arrangements were already made.” Lady Scarborough paused to stare at her intently.

  Daphne tried to remember the import of what her mother had said. Only the last few words came back to her, distracted as she had been. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m so tired…” She hated using the excuse but neither could she reveal how her mother’s comment had cut her like a knife.

  “You poor dear. You leave the comfort of your bosom friend because you can barely hold your head up and I’m running on, keeping you from your rest. I just want you ready for your engagement ball. It’s only one week hence and there’s still so much planning to do. I managed to pull in many favors to get you a moment with the Prince Regent in three days, enough to count as a formal introduction. You need only to look pretty and not offend.”

  Daphne stared at her mother, disbelief battling with horror. “One week? And the audience?” she managed, her words ending much higher than she’d begun. “Why such a rush? Won’t it look wrong?”

  “As I told you,” Lady Scarborough replied, giving her a stern look, “the arrangements were already in place and too many would be inconvenienced by a delay. Both Lady Pendleton and myself feel the best way to get past the damaging gossip is to give people something else to talk about. Though I’d prefer it not be an argument between you and your soon-to-be husband. I would have thought we raised you better than that. See you get your attitude in order by then, or he’ll lock you in a tower like some harridan and sell tickets to boys in knickers.”

  Neither tone nor words left any doubt as to her meaning. Daphne nodded meekly. “Yes, Mother. I promise to behave myself before the Prince Regent and at your party.” Inside, she fumed both at having to perform in front of a critical audience like some puppet on a stick and the unseemly haste to wed her. In their efforts to placate the gossips, they stole from her the only thing that gave her life meaning.

  The feel of Lord Pendleton’s heat rose in her memory, mocking her total focus on the dance but she pushed it aside. He only wanted a frivolous affair with a woman he didn’t know.

  FOR THE SECOND TIME IN as many days, Jasper shoved to his feet during the first intermission and grabbed his coat. She wasn’t going to show…again.

  “From what you told me, she left you literally in the dirt, my friend. With a bruised elbow, even. Don’t you think it’s time to give up this obsession?”

  Aubrey’s soft voice did little to soothe and the hand on his arm sought to prevent his departure. Jasper shrugged his friend off and kept moving. “You can find me at White’s when you’re done here,” he said, already at the door of their box. “My mind has had enough refining.”

  He growled in frustration as he heard Aubrey follow him out, increasing his pace in the hopes of losing his friend in the crush. The last thing Jasper needed was a lecture on giving up and letting go. His dancer plagued his every waking thought, the distraction greater now than when he first saw her dance.

  If he closed his eyes, her soft form pressed against him while her ringing tones filled his ears. She had a strong bark, but her body had betrayed her. She felt the same draw he did, whether she’d admit to it or not.

  Leaping down the last few steps, Jasper bullied his way through the crowd of those stretching their legs and buying refreshment. Frustration filled him as he thought of her. His dancer, unnamed, without even a face to remember her by and yet she lived in him as tenuous as a disease.

  He grimaced. Jasper did not need his friend’s worried looks or pointed lectures to know he was out of balance. Both hounded him as much as her memory. His eyes sank closed and he stood, one hand on the handle of the outside door, letting the memory of her lips fill his body with longing, his heart with…even in his mind, Jasper shied away from such thoughts. His heart belonged to no one and he did not believe that could ever change.

  “Come on, old man. You’re blocking the path.” Aubrey closed his hand over Jasper’s, pushing so the door opened onto the chilly night.

  The cold breeze broke through as not even Aubrey’s joking tone had. Jasper sighed, following his friend into the street. “You don’t have to come,” he said, still hoping to reclaim the private time to live in his memories since the present denied him such pleasures. Her injury must have been worse than it appeared and being thrown into the street couldn’t have helped it.

  “No, I don’t have to come, but you’re my friend. I can’t very well see you wilt away, hiding off in the gentlemen’s club simply because you can’t see some light skirt you’ve set your heart on.”

  Jerking away from his friend, Jasper growled, “She’s no light skirt, and my heart has nothing to do with this.”

  Aubrey laughed. “That you can say such in the same sentence only shows how far gone you are. Come.” He clapped Jasper on the shoulder. “Let’s take a coach ride down to some of your old haunts. Seeing Lady Mary will take your mind off even imminent disaster.”

  Jasper let his friend guide him into one of the hire coaches roaming Drury Lane, but called up to the driver to take them to White’s before Aubrey could name a less respectable destination. “I don’t need the attentions of a false lady when I just freed myself of Melissa and have another just waiting to bind me to her boudoir with marriage vows. I’ll need as much time at the tables as I can get before the wedding.”

  He didn’t mention that even as he contemplated his dancer’s melodic voice, he remembered too her condemnation of his plans to pack away his new wife after securing the continuance of his line. He’d never thought of himself in such terms, but she’d made him feel the cad. Though he couldn’t control the desire that drove him to find his dancer, at least he could make the appearance of respecting his new wife.

  “And how go the preparations for that grand day? If she binds you at all, I’d hazard a guess it won’t last past the honeymoon. Has she slapped you yet over how your eyes glaze over and your lips part with clear thoughts of another?”

  Aubrey’s words pulled Jasper from his contemplations with a jerk. Jasper shook his head, thinking of their only meeting. It was the one time he hadn’t spared a thought for the dancer in many days. “She has a way about her that pushes all others from your mind,” he murmured, not considering how his utterance might be taken.

  The coach swayed as Aubrey jerked around to stare at his friend. “Have you changed your mind then? You think this marriage might provide for more than just a stronger title?”

  Jasper stared at Aubrey, uncomprehending, until he heard his own words echoing back to him from his memory. He groaned, putting up a hand to stop Aubrey from any further speculations. “Not in the way you suppose, my dear friend. She frustrates and angers until you can’t put any thought together besides the need to curl your fingers around her neck.”

  Aubrey settled back onto his seat, a faint look of disappointment visible on his features in the flickers from the coachman’s lantern. “Now that’s an idea I don’t think you should spread around too much. If ever a footpad captures your bride, Heaven’s forbid, you’d be the top of the suspect list. Maybe setting her down in the countryside would be best for all concerned.”

  “I’ve been rethinking that plan, actually,” Jasper said, keeping his tone casual. “There’s no reason we can’t both go our own ways. London should be big enough.” A glance out the window revealed the familiar buildings lining St James’s Street, giving him hope the conversation would end shortly with their arrival at White’s.

  “You take your words and jumble them into conclusions that make no sense. You really think, with your mother and wife arrayed against you, you’ll have a moment to yourself? Talk on this much further and I’ll be the first to suspect you should harm come to the young girl.”

  A short laugh seemed all Aubrey’s comment deserved, but as the coach rolled to a halt before their door, Jasper added, “Don’t worry. With the engagement party coming up so soon, I’m sure to have my fill of her and any female company. Mayhap I’ll choose myself a country estate in which to relive my bachelo
r life and let London have the run of them.”

  Aubrey laughed in turn as he swung down the short drop, not waiting to lower the steps. “After the engagement party your mother plans, probably all of London will be sick of the female voice.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Daphne groaned as her mother launched into another description of the flowers, having made changes for the fifth time. She stared down at the parlor’s Persian carpet, trying to find patience in tracing the pattern with her gaze. Even her moment in the royal presence had offered little relief as it came after hours of primping and was followed by minute examination of every breath she took despite the whole event passing between one inhale and the next.

  “Daphne,” Lady Scarborough exclaimed, “this is all for you. You’d do well to take an interest in it.”

  Suddenly overwhelmed by several days filled with planning for a party she didn’t want to attend and keeping her from the one thing she wanted to do, Daphne couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh. “If I did, would you listen? You’ve got florists pulling their hair out and Cook threatens to quit with every change you call down. This isn’t for me. It isn’t even for the man you’ve sold me to. The party is for you and his mother, a blind attempt to quash whispers as if the world cares one whit about what my sister may or may not have done.”

  Lady Scarborough stared at Daphne, her face white with shock.

  Daphne felt a twinge of guilt, but wouldn’t withdraw her comment. She’d said nothing but the truth. The public’s fickle nature preyed on her. Monsieur Henre had agreed to the time away, not that he’d had any choice especially with her injury, but maybe now she thought he’d seemed a little too eager. Did he plan to wean them of her then tell Daphne not to bother returning?

  “You think we sold you?”

  Her mother’s tired question pulled Daphne out of her thoughts. Lady Scarborough’s face showed lines her mother rarely allowed to crease her perfect skin.