Beneath the Mask

by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  Aubrey said nothing more, only placed his hand on Jasper’s shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. The rest of the journey passed in silence, Jasper contemplating his barren future and Aubrey’s thoughts on whatever a single gentleman might ponder.

  DAPHNE TOOK A DEEP BREATH, the smell of hothouse flowers almost overwhelming from her spot on the stair. Below, she could hear the murmur of first guests, and the occasional sharp commands from the staff involved in the final preparations. Her mother had excitedly announced the ball to be a crush based on the number of acceptances. Rumors had even gone around that the Prince Regent would grace their halls.

  As much as she hoped to be able to lose herself in the press, Daphne wondered how they’d manage so many people. Both ballrooms were opened, as were the two parlors, the dining room and the music room. Even Father’s library had been turned upside down, his desk pushed to one side in favor of tables for cards. Daphne felt as if her home had been transformed until she didn’t even recognize it.

  Some of her fear eased for a moment as a smile quirked up one side of her face, the beaded mask scratching against her cheek where it swept down in butterfly wings to almost her ears. She’d also been transformed, her costume that of a 15th-century noblewoman. The weighted skirt fell in pleats to the floor. A thick fur hem brushed the tops of her feet and trailed behind her not long enough to be considered a train but long enough to hint at a bridal gown, or so the seamstress stated many times.

  Suddenly confident even Willem would not be able to recognize her, Daphne made her way down the staircase, stepping off just as the butler let in a new flood of guests. She joined them, making no attempt to reveal herself. Despite the tense occasion, she found herself enjoying the anonymity and her ability to listen to gossip without seeming an annoyance.

  She drifted from group to group, lingering when words turned to dance in the hopes of hearing a true assessment of her skills, but if the guests had been to see her, they chose not to mention her by description or place. Disappointed, she reminded herself that life was now behind her.

  A sharper reminder came when one of a group she passed leaned close and whispered in a carrying voice, “…the youngest only after the eldest ran away with a pauper. Can you imagine?”

  Another hushed the speaker, but Daphne could not hide the flush that heated her cheeks or the heaving of her breast. It was one thing to know others spoke poorly of her sister and family, but quite another to hear the words herself.

  Needing a refuge, she sought to escape by heading for one of the small, curtained enclosures to be found in the main ballroom. Though determined, her pace was slowed by the sheer mass of people and the need to be polite when asked a question. It seemed almost as if she’d never reach sanctuary.

  JASPER ACCEPTED A DRINK FROM the masked servant, turning to look for Aubrey. He had little interest in communing with his fellow masqueraders. The game would have been to find his fiancée, but what then would he have done with her? He couldn’t imagine anything less pleasant than spending the next few hours exchanging words with the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. Just the thought sent a wave of depression crashing over him.

  Along with despair, images of the dancer he’d once held in his arms, confident in his ability to make her his, rose from his memory. He knew well enough who he should be spending his lifetime with, and yet the demands of wealth and name denied him such a simple happiness.

  Suddenly, what little patience he’d managed to muster vanished. He pushed his way through the crowd, seeking out his host or hostess to demand they announce the engagement. Only then could he leave this place and find another seaside pub to drown his sorrows in tankard after tankard of vile ale.

  His efforts came to an abrupt halt as he ran into a woman also working her way through the crowd. He opened his mouth to offer an apology, but no words issued forth. Her warmth pressed against him and those eyes looking up at him were hauntingly familiar even with the black satin replaced by beaded wings. “You,” he whispered, seeing the impact of his words as her eyes widened and a rapid pulse showed at the base of her neck.

  He took hold of her arm, forgetting his vow to let her escape him. The fates offered her to him in this place and time. They’d even matched their costumes in both color and period. He needed no bigger sign from on high of his destiny no matter what consequences this brought.

  She seemed to feel much different as she jerked free, ducking between two broad-shouldered men whose thick waists made his own passage difficult. He craned his neck to follow her path and still almost missed when she ducked inside one of the curtained alcoves to hide.

  He smiled, expecting the flurry of movement as she disrupted a lovers’ cinch, but none came. Perhaps the party had not grown long enough, or the drinks plentiful enough, for the true value of a masquerade to make itself known. His smile twisted on one side as he recognized his mother’s hand in this planning. She’d hoped to engage his interest by adding the intensity of a hunt. Little did she know he’d already engaged in, and lost, the game of love.

  That his own love could find herself among this grand company garbed to match him seemed a gift from the Heavens until he thought through how she would come to be here. After all he’d given up for her, she’d offered her gifts to some other man, sharing that which he’d tried so hard to protect?

  Anger welled up, washing away both his curiosity and the delight he’d felt with his discovery. Paying little heed to proper behavior, he shouldered his way through the crowd, leaving behind a path ringing with sharp exclamations in his effort to reach the alcove. He kept his gaze pinned on the gently swaying curtain, determined to trap her within and have this out once and for all.

  DAPHNE PRESSED A HAND TO her chest, trying to still the pants that made her breasts rise and fall with their force. She had nothing more to hide and yet still she ran.

  Even as she told herself that, she knew she lied. He’d known her. Somehow, even in a different dress, in a different mask, he’d known her. Just as she’d known him from the feel of his heat against her, from the sound of his voice whispered, from all that made him the man she could not forget though she’d tried to put him out of her mind in the days before this ball.

  An exasperated sigh forced its way past her lips, carrying with it all the desires and wishes she could not articulate or even understand. What if she hadn’t run? What if she’d stood her ground? What would he have done then?

  As if to answer her question, the curtain sheltering her parted. Daphne glanced up, planning to persuade whoever approached that her need for peace and quiet was greater than theirs. Instead, her gaze fell on the one man she’d tried so hard to avoid.

  She scrambled up, poised to run again, when he fell to his knees before her, burying his face in the pleats of her skirt and grasping the thick cloth with both hands.

  “I’ve tried everything. I no longer go to see you dance; I have left your fate to God and he offers you up to me. I cannot deny myself any longer.”

  This speech, delivered muffled through the fabric, froze Daphne in place, a flush heating her neck and face at the embarrassment waiting for both of them.

  He looked up, spearing her gaze with his own, giving her no opportunity to dissemble or look away. Rising to his feet, he clasped both her hands between his own, pressing their combined hold against his heart. “I love you, my dancer. I know not your name, or even your face, but your spirit calls to me like a siren on jagged rocks. I’ve tried to commit to this life I’m meant to live, to accept my fiancée though she means nothing. Still, you haunt me. I’m less of a man without you by my side.”

  The heat that surged even stronger through Daphne must have been rooted in embarrassment. Surely she could not feel a kindred spirit to the man who chose her own engagement party as the time and place to declare himself to one he must consider little more than a harlot.

  Try as she might, she could not bring up indignation to counter the emotions broiling up in her chest.

/>   Her fingers clutched the stiff brocade of his costume though when he’d freed them, she did not know. He held her tight against him, one side of her back pressing the wall while the cushioned bench met her knee. She couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, but neither did she want to.

  His hands tangled in her hair, destroying a style Betsy had taken hours to concoct. Daphne didn’t care, the feel of his warm fingers against her skin reducing her resistance to less than a moan. She wanted him to keep touching her from now until eternity. Then she realized his aim as his fingers snagged the ribbon holding her mask pressed to her face.

  She gasped, jerking back in horror as the bow gave way. Before she could grab for the mask, it fell away, revealing her face. Daphne ducked, desperate to hide, to run from this confrontation. Even now, he could do irreparable damage to her father’s reputation and her own. What hadn’t mattered just a heartbeat ago suddenly rushed forward with her face exposed.

  He captured her chin and raised it until the light shone bright across her face. A sharply indrawn breath revealed his reaction even as he stared down at her. “You,” he whispered once again, but this time shock and horror had replaced desire.

  She blushed, the heat burning against her cheeks with almost painful force. Daphne tried to duck her head, not wanting to see the condemnation and even hatred in his eyes, but he wouldn’t let her escape. His grip tightened against her arm until she knew bruises would show his intensity come morning.

  Almost against her will, Daphne raised her eyes to meet his as if she had to know his thoughts. What she saw caused her own tension to melt away, heat surging through her to replace it until she felt almost faint. Though she had been unaware of just how close he held her, suddenly, she felt every crease in his coat and every pleat of her skirt as the heavy clothes provided only a moderate barrier between them.

  Once again, the present blended with the past as they touched, their reactions an echo of the time on Drury Lane when she still had a mask to protect her name, if not her virtue.

  He released her chin, letting his fingers graze her features as if he were a blind man learning the shape of her face. Spirals of delight radiated through her flesh wherever his questing touched her and Daphne shivered, unable to contain her reaction.

  A smile pulled at his mouth, revealing a dimple sunk into one cheek. Without thinking, Daphne pressed a finger into the indent, his skin rough against her fingertip.

  He turned his head, brushing a kiss against her palm. The motion sent hot fire through her, and Daphne’s hand dropped, the muscles gone limp. Having lost their prey, his lips met hers instead, crushing down until their hot, wet heat forced her lips apart and his tongue caressed the entry of her mouth.

  Daphne shuddered, her body going limp with pleasure, held up only by the pressure of his body and the wall. Dizziness filled her and the world spun out of control until she thought she’d faint under the contact, but she never did, sensation after sensation flooding her body and pooling in spots she’d barely known her body had. She wanted the touch to go on forever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Any anger he might have felt, any betrayal at her unexpected presence and then the truth to her secret, melted as his body touched hers. Though he wanted to reject her, wanted to push her away, he could no more do that than cut out his own heart.

  Deepening the kiss, he twisted the fingers of one hand through her elaborately dressed hair, wanting to stake his claim for all to see. By some miracle, the woman promised to his hand and the woman who had stolen his heart were one and the same. The fates might be laughing, but they did not deny him.

  “He went this way?” a loud voice said from outside the curtain, breaking through his concentration on Daphne’s lips, on the heat of her mouth, the taste of her breath.

  Jasper pushed the distraction aside, knowing somehow that he had to capture her as completely as she’d taken over him. This time, there would be no denial, no accusations. When they stood before the massed ton, she would happily put her life, her future, and her heart in his hands.

  “Lord Pendleton,” a different voice called, sparking a growl of annoyance from him and a moan of regret from her.

  He glanced down at the woman before him, drinking in her dark, swollen lips and the once glacial eyes that now swirled with confusion and hunger. He smiled, tracing her bruised lip with one finger, sorry for the discoloration but not for his kiss.

  Her eyes slipped closed, and she shivered with pleasure, her body jerking tight against his until he could feel the heat pounding through her. His own emotions caused discomfort even in the relative freedom of his tights and a sudden desire to bury himself inside her coerced a growl from his throat.

  The curtain pulled aside, revealing them to a crowd that first showed shock then tittered with delight.

  Jasper grimaced, but turned to face them with the lopsided smile that had charmed many a reluctant mother to relinquish her daughter for a dance or stroll down the park. Now he used it to protect the only woman he’d be charming into one more kiss beneath vine-covered paths from this moment on.

  He turned back to look at her, a startled laugh bursting free at her expression. Had he not been behind the curtain, he’d have thought her thoroughly loved rather than just introduced to the delights of passion.

  Jasper’s pleasure faded as he realized only his form masked her face from the crowd of interested onlookers. He shifted to block their full view, absorbing the moan of disappointment, and tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear in a feeble attempt to restore order to what he’d deliberately sought to disarray.

  “Love, there will be time for us later,” he whispered, leaning close. “Now we have to announce our engagement, and before then, you need to regain your composure.”

  He leaned back to watch her face as she blinked, disoriented at first then with a growing embarrassment flooding her face. She peered around his shoulder only to duck back when she saw the expectant onlookers.

  “Come,” he murmured, offering his arm, “surely the woman who braved an audience can’t find such things as these intimidating?”

  His effort showed its success in her straightened shoulders. That chip of glacier in her eye returned, making him regret the loss of her more passionate face. He consoled himself with thoughts of many more chances as he turned her fully to face the crowd.

  Though clearly rumpled, she wore her confidence like a royal robe and the watchers parted to make a path as if by instinct. Pride filled him as he stepped free of the alcove, the woman of his dreams at his side.

  DAPHNE TIGHTENED HER GRIP ON his arm and stiffened her spine to hide the trembling that had overtaken her. A wisp of hair slipped down to bounce against her neck, reminding her that for all she tried to adopt her mother’s arrogance, she still looked like she’d just tumbled out of a shared bed.

  Her lips ached with the memory of his touch. She flicked her tongue out to stroke the bruised flesh, and his hand tensed into a fist. A delicious shudder ran over her, a movement she managed to cover by nodding a greeting to Penelope, who stood in the wall of people on one side.

  Stop this, she told herself sternly. If she had any chance to repair her reputation, she had to stop acting like a light skirt no matter how she looked.

  Another smiling nod and they’d made it half way down the impromptu corridor that ended in her parents and his mother, their stiff expressions boding poorly for kind conversations once they achieved the dais. Only the crowd surrounding the raised platform would protect them from the worst of the lecture.

  Something about their expressions made Daphne want to rebel. She hadn’t planned for Jasper to find her there. She hadn’t planned for him to touch her.

  Against her will, a new blush rose to heat her cheeks and neck. A wave of titters passed through the watching crowd and Daphne tensed against an even stronger blush.

  Jasper glanced down at her, meeting her eyes with laughter dancing in his.

  Daphne turned away, staring
resolutely at the curtains hanging down from the ceiling in rose-colored washes. She might not have planned their meeting, but he’d known just who he expected to find behind that curtain, and it hadn’t been her.

  Anger boiled up, washing away the last of her tender feelings as she realized she’d been played the fool. First he’d planned to fix an assignation with a light skirt at her very own engagement party and then he’d behaved inappropriately, making her look the part of the one he’d lost.

  Suddenly, the passionate tangling of his fingers through her elegant hairdo took a new meaning. He’d meant to pay her back for following her dreams, pay her back for his chasing after one who should have been beneath his interest but wasn’t.

  A wave of laughter passed through the guests as Daphne sped up, jerking against his arm to get free of him.

  She overheard comments about how eager she was to wed then bed the handsome baron. Rather than making her blush again, this time the heat in her cheeks came from the flush of anger. She only wanted to get this over with so she could plan her own revenge.

  THE IDEA CAME TO HER in the night and by the next morning had taken root. Guilt twinged her conscience but she pushed her promise to her parents back, knowing she had no other leverage over the man who had played such a cruel trick on her.

  Unwilling to use Penelope as a cover anymore now that they had started to become friends in truth, she waited until her mother had left on one of her many visits. Daphne pleaded a headache as an excuse to stay home and spent the morning wrapped in her blankets, listening for the sound of the family coach.

  When it returned, she leapt from her bed, already fully dressed, and grabbed the satchel she hadn’t bothered to unpack though she’d thought never to use it again. Daphne caught Willem in the hall, giving him a significant look.