Daring Masquerade

by Mary Balogh

  After dinner, a few tables of cards had been set up in the drawing room, while some of the young people wandered into the adjoining music room. Kate had felt her presence to be superfluous. She was embarrassed, feeling that she belonged to neither group. When she could do so without being conspicuous, she slipped from the drawing room and went to the library to resume her task there. But the library proved to be a disastrous place for her that day. She had not been there half an hour when she looked down from the top of the stairs to find the marquess staring up at her from inside the closed door, his arms folded.

  “Oh,” Kate said, “you startled me, my lord. I did not hear the door open.” Or close, her mind added with a little flicker of alarm.

  “Whatever you are pretending to do,” he said, “you may abandon now.” A smile curved one side of his mouth. “Come down from there, Kate. I saw you leave and followed as soon as I decently could.”

  Kate understood his meaning perfectly. She felt indignation, but with it some alarm. She had not felt that way earlier in the afternoon with Sir Harry Tate. That man was conceited, annoying, and impudent, but she had not felt in any great danger from him. This man was dangerous. She could sense the fact even as she weighed the volume she held in her hand and wondered if it would be the right tactical move to hurl it at his head.

  “I am helping Lord Barton reorganize his library, my lord,” she said. “It is a huge task and I plan to get some of it done this evening.” She spoke briskly and turned back to the shelves.

  “It is always well to have a good story on hand in the event that one is caught,” he said. “But we are alone and everyone else occupied. Come down from there, Kate, or I shall be obliged to come and get you.”

  He meant it. Kate did not think she was quite up to the ignominy of a struggle on top of a movable staircase. She came down. After all, she thought, as a last resort she could scream. Giles had told her she had a good pair of lungs on the only occasion she had been indiscreet enough to lose her temper with him. Someone would hear her and rescue her from a fate worse than death. Besides, she had feet and fingernails, and teeth too if worse came to worst.

  The Marquess of Uppington was a tall, thin man with a long, aristocratic face and thin lips. He would be attractive to some women, Kate thought, to the type who liked to be dominated and treated with less than courteous respect. But not to her. She looked boldly up into his face, her eyebrows raised in inquiry, her brain calculating whether her first attack should be made with fists or feet.

  “It is easy to see why Lady Thelma Seyton keeps you clad thus,” he said, his eyes roaming over her gray dress. “What puzzles me is why she keeps you at all, Kate. You must draw off all her admirers. Perhaps, though, she is clever enough to realize that as long as she has you by her side those admirers will keep coming back.”

  “I find your words insulting, my lord,” Kate said, not changing her expression.

  “She will probably keep you even after her marriage to ensure that her husband comes home regularly,” he continued, reaching out to touch her face. Kate leaned backward and evaded his touch.

  “I do not allow anyone to talk to me this way,” she said. “I would ask you to leave, my lord.”

  “Oh, come now,” he said, “you need not practice your coy ways with me, Kate. We understand each other, do we not? Why waste precious days avoiding what we both know is inevitable and utterly desirable?”

  “I know perfectly well what you mean,” Kate said, standing her ground despite the strong urge she felt to take a step backward. “You mean to take me as your whore because I am a servant and appear to have very little choice. I do have a choice, my lord. I choose to decline your kind offer.”

  “You think because I am likely to offer for your employer that I will expect your favors free of charge?” he said. “I would find it distasteful, my dear, to have my intended or my wife pay for my pleasures. You may name your price. I am sure we can come to an amicable agreement. Come, Kate. I have, no intention of haggling with you for several days. I want you now. Tonight. Does she ever call on you at night? You must make sure that it will be safe for me to come to your room.”

  “You can rest easy,” Kate said. “The room has a lock. The door will be locked tonight—with you on the outside, my lord.”

  “You are a tease, I perceive,” he said. “I do not like that, Kate, as you will learn. All my women do, you know. I like my mistresses docile and obedient.”

  “Yes, I know,” Kate said. Giles all over again. Thank providence that she was not married to this man and had a choice about both the docility and the obedience. “Would you kindly leave now, my lord? I am not interested in being one of your women.”

  “Come here,” he said, taking her upper arm in a hand whose strength instantly alarmed her. She was pulled hard against his body before she could draw breath, and those thin lips were pressed hard against her own. One of his hands twined itself painfully in her drawn-back hair so that she could not twist away from him. Kate felt nausea, quickly replaced by panic. She could not even beat against his chest; her hands were trapped between them.

  He lifted his head after what seemed like many minutes, though Kate supposed it was really only a few seconds. “If I am to be married to Lady Thelma,” he said, “I believe it would be to your advantage, Kate, to cultivate my goodwill. I have needs, and I cannot in all honesty imagine that that poor dab of a female will satisfy them. I shall expect her companion to be mine also.”

  He smiled that knowing, one-sided smile again one moment before Kate’s foot kicked out at his shin. She could not have hurt him. There are limits to the wounds one small female can inflict with the toe of a soft slipper. However, she took him enough by surprise that he released his hold on her and she had time to whisk herself behind the heavy wood-and-leather desk chair.

  “Come on step closer, my lord,” she said breathlessly, “and I shall scream. I am well aware that I shall probably end up being dismissed, while you will be admired as a fine figure of a man. But so be it. I would rather be a beggar in the streets than endure one more of your touches. And if you think I am teasing or being coy, just take one step closer. One step!”

  He laughed suddenly, the first time she had seen any sign of emotion in the man. “If you really mean what you say, Kate,” he said, “you are going about things in quite the wrong way. You are making yourself quite irresistible by this behavior. One cannot but imagine what passion you might be induced to display in bed, my dear.”

  “One step!” Kate warned.

  “I am going to take that step in just a moment,” he said. “I do not believe you will scream, Kate. Think just how embarrassing the scene would be: servants, guests, your employer all rushing in here. Besides, I believe I shall be able to stop your mouth before you have had a chance to make yourself heard.”

  Kate opened her mouth and drew in a lungful of air. She was going to screech so loudly that the most distant scullery maid would blanch with terror. However, she was saved from the necessity of doing anything so drastic when the library door suddenly opened again—she heard it quite distinctly this time—and the languid figure of Sir Harry Tate wandered in. Kate had never thought that she would be glad to see that particular gentleman.

  “Ah, I do beg your pardon,” he said on a sigh, raising his quizzing glass to his eye and surveying first Kate and then Lord Uppington through it. “Am I interrupting clandestine business?”

  Kate seethed with indignation. But this was more healthy, she realized immediately. Her fear had evaporated.

  “Three is rather a crowd,” Uppington said, apparently not even embarrassed that his intentions were obvious to the new arrival.

  “Quite, quite,” Sir Harry agreed. “It is just that I remembered, you see, that this afternoon I became so engrossed in a delightful conversation with Mrs. Mannering that I completely forgot my purpose in coming here. It was to choose a book, of course. I find myself quite unable to sleep at night unless I first bore myself with so
me sermon or moralizing treatise or such. An affectation of mine. I regret to say that it usually takes me an interminable time to find something quite boring enough. You will not object to my browsing? Do not mind me. Carry on as if I were not here, please.”

  “I believe I have done enough work for tonight,” Kate said. “I shall say good night. My lord? Sir Harry?” She curtsied to each and left the room unhurriedly and with what she considered to be admirable dignity.

  And this was the nobleman designed as a marriage partner for Thelma, Kate thought now, rising from the chaise longue on which she had been seated and leaving for her own room. Poor Thelma! She did wonder whether she should say something to Lord Barton. But Kate had not lived three-and–twenty years without knowing something of the world. She guessed that the prospect of netting a live marquess and heir to a dukedom for his daughter would outweigh all considerations of character with the Earl of Barton. She might as well keep her knowledge to herself. There was, after all, nothing so very unusual about the Marquess of Uppington’s behavior.

  Kate was faced with another free afternoon, but she did not believe she would spend this one in the library. Too many unpleasant events had happened there the day before. Besides, during the hours she had worked there, she had realized that her task would be a formidable one and that there was very little likelihood anyway that she would discover any very significant documents.

  On the other hand, something else had happened the day before to alarm her considerably. The earl was convinced, it seemed, that Nicholas Seyton was indeed in the area. And he seemed intent on finding him. Kate could no longer be in any doubt about his motives. The man had quite brazenly lied, pretending a concern for his cousin’s son, denying in so many words that he himself had ordered Nicholas to leave Barton Abbey.

  And it seemed that what she feared really had happened. Someone who knew Nicholas was among the house guests. Mr. Dalrymple was his friend, and even Sir Harry Tate claimed that he would recognize the man he had met once. Those facts were bad enough. Worse was the fact that Lord Barton had cleverly enlisted their help in looking for Mr. Seyton. Kate liked Mr. Dalrymple. He seemed a kindly and sensible gentleman. But he did not realize that he would be leading his friend into a trap if he found him. Sir Harry, of course, would probably delight in exposing Nicholas’ whereabouts even if he knew the truth.

  Kate had been very tempted the night before to slip out of the house again and run to the cottage where Nicholas lived, to warn him of the impending danger. Pride had held her back, in addition perhaps to a little leftover fear after her encounter with the Marquess of Uppington. The safety of her room seemed too precious to abandon for that night. How did she know that the marquess was not lurking outside her room hoping that she would for some reason unlock the door?

  What she must do was to send a message to Nicholas. She should have done so during the morning, in fact, but she had procrastinated. What if the servants were not as loyal as he thought them to be? What if they went straight to the earl and revealed the message she had entrusted to them? She would be dismissed immediately and probably interrogated about her knowledge of Nicholas’ whereabouts. She would end up doing him far more harm than good.

  Finally, however, she persuaded herself that she must trust the servants. After all, Nicholas had said that they all knew where he was, and yet obviously none of them had breathed a word to Lord Barton. She took a shawl from her room and set out for the stables and Barret, the head groom. She found him directing the work of a stableboy, who was forking out the stalls of the horses which had been taken out for the afternoon. He withdrew to the cobbled stableyard when Kate indicated that she wished to speak with him.

  “I have been told by Mr. Nicholas Seyton that I may trust you with any message for him,” she began, her eyes watching the groom carefully.

  “Mr. Seyton has been gone for some time, ma’am,” he said after a short silence.

  “But I know that he is still in the neighborhood,” Kate said. “I have been to his cottage and talked to him on two occasions. I wish to help him. He told me that I might contact him through you if the matter was of sufficient importance.”

  The groom was looking at her with narrowed eyes. “I don’t think you need worry about Master Nick, ma’am,” he said. “He is quite well able to take care of himself, wherever he may be.”

  “But what if there is some danger that he does not know of?” Kate asked. This man was not believing her. Had Nicholas not been in touch with him about her?

  “What is this danger, ma’am?” he asked. “If I did happen to hear where he has gone, what message would you like passed on to him?”

  Kate hesitated. The groom’s manner was far from encouraging. But she had to trust someone. She had to let Nicholas know. And he had said specifically that this taciturn, burly man was his friend. “There are two guests here who know him,” she said, “and they know he is in the area. They are going to be looking for him. He is a wanted man. Did you know that? It would be dangerous for him to be recognized.”

  “I shall let him know what you have said if I happen to hear of him, ma’am,” the man said, turning away as if to return to work.

  “Wait a minute,” Kate said, frowning. “Do you not wish to know which two guests?”

  “I reckon you could give me their names, ma’am,” he said.

  Kate was feeling very indignant. She was not believed. This man was not taking her seriously at all. It was doubtful that her message would ever find its way to Nicholas. “Mr. Charles Dalrymple and Sir Harry Tate,” she said, and watched, incredulous, as the man merely touched his hat and strode away from her back into the stables.

  Well, she thought, so much for Barret. Nicholas Seyton was obviously an incredibly careless man. He was living on the brink of disaster and did not even know who his friends were. If the servants had not told Lord Barton of his whereabouts, the reason seemed to be more apathy than deliberate conspiracy. He almost deserved to end up at the gallows. But that thought immediately sent her scurrying in the direction of the driveway that led to the main gates. Perhaps Josh Pickering would be more helpful. Surely he would agree to take a message for her. She might have to write it down, of course. She was not sure she trusted him to remember a verbal message, though Nicholas had assured her that Josh was capable of doing so. Unfortunately, she was fast losing faith in Mr. Seyton’s judgment.

  Nicholas Seyton was almost enjoying himself. Not entirely, of course. He was still at a loss to know how he was to get the information he wanted. Clearly his father’s cousin was not going to reveal anything in the ordinary course of events. A search of the library was going to be a very slow business and was very unlikely to turn up anything useful anyway. Katherine Mannering, of course, seemed to have thrown her energies into the hunt. He might have expected that she would do so despite his express command to her not to become further involved in his affairs.

  But despite the frustrating situation in which his affairs seemed to be at present, Nicholas was almost enjoying himself. He found the danger of his situation exhilarating. Finding himself free to wander around his former home, deferred to as a guest by the earl, treated as a stranger by all the servants, who knew him so well, was quite stimulating. Each time Cousin Clive looked full at him and talked to him, he felt a wicked glow of triumph. He was used to operating behind a mask, though almost disappointingly no one except Katherine Mannering had ever put it to the test. To be able to walk around without a literal mask but to remain unknown nevertheless was an exciting irony.

  The knowledge he had gained the day before had stimulated him even more. So the earl knew that he had not gone away from Dorset, did he? Katherine had been quite right about that. And he was attempting to ferret him out of his hiding place. What a marvelous scene that had been: Barton enlisting the help of Dalrymple and himself to find himself!

  One fact of that scene had particularly satisfied Nicholas. He now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that all his conclusions about the n
ew earl were not wild conjecture. The man had lied quite brazenly. Clearly he really did have something to hide. And he had shown a weakness. Once one begins to lie, Nicholas believed, even in a small and seemingly insignificant way, one is vulnerable. Barton’s best self-defense would have been to convince himself utterly of the truth of his own story concerning Nicholas’ past and to act forever after as if that story were true. If he had told Nicholas two months before that he must leave Barton Abbey because his presence there was an offense to decency, then he should have kept to that attitude even if it showed him in an unsympathetic light to his sister and his guests. But he had shifted ground. He was vulnerable. The thought was some small encouragement.

  Nicholas had not been totally idle in his three days at the Abbey. His thoughts on the way back from Wiltshire had convinced him that at one time at least some important papers had been lost at Barton Abbey: his mother’s letter to his father and probably some papers his father had brought back from France to prove the legality of his marriage. He did not really expect to find those papers, but it did strike him that his new knowledge could be tested on the servants, several of whom had been in service at the Abbey for a longer period than five-and-twenty years.

  Speaking to the servants at length was, of course, a tricky business. It was unlikely that a man of Sir Harry Tate’s character would spend a great deal of his time conversing with servants. Such behavior might arouse suspicion even if he had decided to make Sir Harry a pleasant character. So the questioning had to be done gradually, as opportunity arose. So far he had talked with the butler, whom he had engaged that morning to show him the salon again and explain whom the various portraits represented. The Earl of Barton had appeared quite touched by his interest.

  Beneath the occasional bored and inane comments intended for any casual observer, Nicholas had questioned the butler about those events that had happened so long ago. Unfortunately, the man could remember little. Yes, the present Lord Barton had journeyed to France after the death of the viscount and come home with him, Master Nick, and a wet nurse. No, the wet nurse had not stayed beyond a few days. She was French and had presumably returned to her own country. No, he did not recall where the woman came from. She could not speak English, anyway.