Daring Masquerade

by Mary Balogh

  Kate made a brief curtsy and left the taproom without further delay. But she did not even look around her for Mr. Moreton and the damaged carriage, though both were within clear view. She turned to the opposite side of the inn, where the innkeeper’s wife kept an immaculate, though small flower garden.

  She was going to kill. That was what she was going to do. She was going to find him. But not to marry him. To kill him. Nicholas Seyton, alias Sir Harry Tate, had better enjoy the acquaintance of his French half-brother while he could. He would not live to enjoy it for long. A dagger through the heart would be very effective. Or a bullet through the brain. Better still, between the eyes. Or a slow, agonizing poison. Or drowning with a firm feminine fist holding his head underwater. Or . . . There had to be a more satisfactory method, one that would have him groveling for mercy and her ruthlessly and adamantly refusing it. She would kill him. Death was too good for Nicholas Seyton. Or Sir Harry Tate. Or the two of them all rolled into one.

  Make a fool of her, would he? She would tell him a thing or two-before she killed him, that was. If she just had him there right now before her purpose cooled. Not that it would ever cool. Not this one. This insult would be remembered in all its raw indignity until her dying day.

  Kate swung back to face the stableyard. She would go inside right this minute and beg a ride with that Frenchman, no matter how improper the request. She would reach that impostor by tonight. And she would give him just long enough to shake his brother’s hand. Then she would kill him.

  “Kate! What the devil do you mean running away without a word like this?”

  Kate could hardly believe her good fortune. A curricle stood before the door of the inn. Lord Barton was being assisted to the ground. But hurrying toward her, hands outstretched, face filled with eager concern, was the doomed monster. Nicholas. Harry. Harry. Nicholas. She stood where she was, her jaw tightening, her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared, her hands in fists at her side.

  “Don’t you come one step closer, you viper!” she hissed when he reached the edge of the tiny lawn.

  Nicholas’ expression became instantly wary. He stopped moving. “Why do I have the impression that you are furiously angry, Kate?” he asked. “Is it something I have said? My language perhaps? Did you not approve of my mention of the devil?”

  “That was most appropriate,” Kate said through her teeth. “He is a close associate of yours, I believe?”

  He became Sir Harry Tate before her eyes. “Goodness me,” he said with a sigh. “You really are angry, Kate. Do you plan to tell me why, or am I to start guessing?”

  “I am going to kill you,” Kate announced.

  “Pleasant lady,” he said, one eyebrow raised. “Most refined, Kate. Have you decided on a method?”

  “With my bare hands,” she declared rashly.

  “I have heard it said that anger gives one superhuman strength,” he said, fingering the ribbon of his quizzing glass and raising it to his eye, to Kate’s extreme wrath. “You must be very, very angry, Kate. But even a condemned criminal is entitled to know on what charge he has been convicted, you know. Might I know why I am to die at your hands?”

  “You are a liar and a cheat and . . . and . . . I hate you,” she said.

  He dropped his glass and looked hard at her for several seconds. “You know, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

  “How you must despise me and hate me,” she cried. “How you must have laughed all this time. I believe it is a matter of some triumph to a man to successfully seduce a woman. A conquest about which to boast to all his male companions. Well, you are doubly triumphant, Nicholas Seyton. Get away from me and begin your boasting. Make me a laughingstock. I don’t care. I will not hear any of it anyway. I shall be teaching someone’s children in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands, if I am fortunate. Go away. I hate you. And I am going to kill you.”

  “Katherine!” he said tenderly. “You malign me. You know you do.”

  “Get out of my sight!” she hissed. “Or I shall kill you before you have had a chance to meet your brother.”

  “My brother?” he said. “You are talking in riddles, love.”

  Kate took one step closer to him. “Call me your love once more,” she said very quietly, her voice trembling with fury, “and I shall . . . I shall start using my fists. And you are right that I am very, very angry. You would not escape without a black eye at the very least. And then who would be the laughingstock?”

  “Me, doubtless, and deservedly,” he said, infuriating her further by grinning. “When did I acquire a brother, Katherine?”

  “I would estimate about twenty years ago,” she said with great deliberateness, and watched the grin fade and a questioning frown take its place. “How do you think I discovered the truth? There is a young man inside who could almost be a twin of both Sir Harry Tate and Nicholas Seyton. He has a French accent that could almost be cut with a knife.”

  His eyes had widened but had not left hers. His face had turned very pale. “What are you saying?” he whispered.

  The fight went out of Kate. She looked at him with dull, hostile eyes and drooping shoulders. “He is your half-brother,” she said. “You had better go inside to meet him without further delay. I believe your mother is in London.”

  “Katherine!” He whispered her name and held out a hand to her that was not quite steady. “Come with me.”

  She shook her head, her expression unchanged. “Go,” she said.

  He held her eyes and kept his hand extended to her for a few moments longer. But there was no yielding in her attitude, no forgiveness in her eyes. He turned and hurried across the cobblestones toward the door. Kate watched him disappear inside.

  An hour passed before Nicholas reappeared in the stableyard. And what a momentous hour, he reflected. Sometimes it seemed as if whole days passed with activities of so little importance that one week later they were as a blank in the mind. Yet sometimes so much could happen in a single hour that it seemed a whole week must have passed.

  He had met his brother and talked a great deal with him. Yet at the end of the hour he still could not quite believe that he did not dream. How could he have a twenty-year-old brother, so like him in looks, so similar in personality, it seemed, and have been unaware of his existence all this time?

  Anatole had repeated to him the story he had told Kate. It seemed that his mother had never made a secret of the fact that she had had a son by her first husband and had given him up that he might be groomed by his grandfather for the role of an English earl. But she had steadfastly refused to break the promise she had made to stay away from the boy so that he would not become confused about his identity. This despite the fact that both her husband and her son had assured her that the promise exacted from her had been a wholly unreasonable one.

  But when they had heard quite by chance that the Earl of Barton was dead, then she had given in to their persuasions. She would come to England, she had agreed, and try to see her son, though she would not promise to make herself known to him. The new Earl of Barton might not be pleased to discover that he had a French mother still living. There had been great consternation in London when they had discovered that the new earl was not a young man, but a man of middle years, a nephew of the late earl. The comtesse had been inconsolable, lamenting her stubbornness over the years, wishing now that she had come sooner and perhaps seen her boy before his death.

  Her living son had offered the only comfort he could think of. He had decided to travel to Barton Abbey, talk to the earl, and discover what had happened to Nicholas, and where his grave could be found. Imagine his surprise, he said, when the English mamselle had told him that his brother was alive and at Barton Abbey.

  Nicholas in his turn told briefly about the deception that had been played on him all his life and of how he had tracked down every clue in the months since the death of his grandfather in an effort to find his mother. He told of his discovery of the truth only the night before, thanks to that same Engl
ish madame—not mamselle—whom he wished to present formally to his brother in a short while. In the meantime he had urgent business in the private parlor.

  The earl had still been outside when Nicholas entered the inn. He had been in close conversation with the luckless Sidney Moreton. But he had come inside and demanded to know where the parlor was while the brothers talked. He had been too intent on his business with his daughter to take any notice of the two men. But Nicholas decided eventually that it was time to have a talk with his relative. He tapped on the parlor door, went inside without waiting for an answer, and discovered, not surprisingly, a tearful Thelma and a thunderous father.

  “Forgive the interruption,” Nicholas said in his most indolent manner, “but I must have a word with you.”

  “Not now, Tate,” the earl said. “This is a private matter.”

  “So is mine,” Nicholas said. “Perhaps Lady Thelma could join Mrs. Mannering outside for a few minutes?”

  “And have her run off again?” the earl said scornfully. “Do you take me for a complete nincompoop, Tate?”

  “By no means,” that gentleman answered mildly. “But I do not believe that either Moreton or Lady Thelma would be that foolish. Besides, I wish to discuss with you some papers that I believe you have been searching for for some time.”

  The earl went very still. He looked at Nicholas with narrowed eyes. “Thelma,” he said, “go outside, girl. But remember that if you try to fly again, you will not get very far.”

  The girl darted frightened looks at both gentlemen and fled from the room.

  “Now, what is this about, Tate?” the earl asked.

  “May I introduce myself?” Nicholas said. “You seem to be under some misapprehension about my name. Nicholas Seyton at your service.”

  The earl stared at him, the color draining from his face. “I shall have you arrested for this, Seyton,” he said at last. “Trespassing. Impersonating someone else. Imposing your company on respectable people. You will be sorry that you did not take yourself off before I discovered your identity.”

  “I think not,” Nicholas said, strolling farther into the room. “Not unless you wish to have the whole sordid story dragged out into the open.”

  “What story?” the earl asked scornfully.

  “How you persuaded my mother to give me up and promise never to see me again. How you brought me back to England with the story that my mother had lied about being married to my father. Do I need to go on?”

  “You still have not given up those wild notions?” the earl asked. He was regaining some of his color and composure. “Charges like that have to be proved, Seyton.”

  “It is strange, is it not,” Nicholas said conversationally, “that neither you nor I ever thought of Josh Pickering when we were searching for those papers? Yet when one thinks of it, it seems rather obvious, does it not? Josh is surely quite unsurpassable when it comes to loyalty to those he loves. And we both knew that he loved my father.”

  The earl’s hands were opening and closing at his sides. “Those papers are safely in my keeping now,” Nicholas said with a smile. “They are marriage papers, by the way. It is also strange perhaps that neither of us gave any thought to my father’s traveling companion. I did not know of his existence, of course, but you must have. That was a loose end, Clive. Careless of you not to look to it. And fortunate for me that I kidnapped Mrs. Mannering instead of your daughter when they came into Dorset. She has been tireless in unraveling the mystery.”

  The earl sat down suddenly in the closest chair. “The funny thing is,” he said, “that it is almost a relief to have it all over with. What next?”

  “There is a young man outside in the taproom,” Nicholas said, “who you will see resembles me closely. He is my half-brother. My mother is in London, assuming I must be dead because I am not Earl of Barton. My first concern must be to become acquainted with my family, from whom you have kept me all these years. My next concern, of equal importance, is a private matter. When I have time to look beyond these concerns, I shall consult a lawyer. I really have no idea how I am to go about recovering what is my birthright.”

  The earl drew in a deep breath. “I see,” he said. “I shall be brought to trial. Might I beg your mercy for my son and daughter? They are quite innocent. They know nothing of these matters.”

  “I will not countenance any scandal,” Nicholas said quietly. “I would rather stay as I am now than see my grandfather’s family become the sensation of the country. I suppose that is inevitable in one way, but not in any negative way. The whole thing has been a mistake. Those marriage papers were lost and it has always been thought that my birth was illegitimate. Only now have the papers come to light. We will have to think of something to cover the only weak point in that argument, which is why my mother would have said nothing about being married to my father. We will have time to think of something.

  “You will win the admiration of the ton. You will receive the news with graciousness. You will be delighted on my behalf even though the discovery takes from you your title and much of your fortune and property. You will be thankful that the man whom your uncle always treated with great affection and whom you have been entertaining at Barton Abbey under an assumed name in deference to the sensibilities of your other guests is finally able to take his proper place in the family and in society.”

  He stopped speaking and looked steadily at the bowed head of Clive Seyton.

  “Why are you doing this?” the earl asked finally. “Why the generosity? I have not shown you any such mercy during your life.”

  “Perhaps for my father’s sake,” Nicholas said. “He was fond of you, was he not? The servants at the Abbey often regaled me with stories of the scrapes you two used to get into. You must tell me more. I find myself hungry for stories about my father now that I know he behaved honorably by my mother after all.”

  The earl gave a humorless laugh. “Jonathan,” he said. “I used to worship him, you know. Since your birth I have tried not to think of him. You are not like him at all.”

  “When you meet my brother in a few minutes’ time,” Nicholas said, “you will see that I must favor my mother’s family to a marked degree.”

  And so finally they were all ready to leave the inn. And scarcely more than an hour had passed since he entered it, Nicholas thought incredulously. Despite his eagerness to go to London, he had decided that it would be wiser for them all to return to Barton Abbey. He would take Moreton up with him, and his cousin could travel with Thelma and Katherine. Anatole could follow in his hired carriage.

  It seemed a sensible plan. Unfortunately it all had to be rearranged when it was discovered that Dalrymple’s curricle had disappeared, and along with it Katherine Mannering. Two frightened ostlers, who realized too late that the gentleman with the curricle had not given the lady permission to take it as she had claimed, assured the same very angry young man that she had driven in the direction of the coast. She had certainly not been headed toward London.

  He would definitely wring her neck, Nicholas decided as he and Sidney Moreton clambered into the hired carriage with Anatole.

  Kate had stood watching the door of the inn for several minutes after Nicholas disappeared inside. Her shoulders were still drooped with dejection. She had not even been able to keep her fury alive. How very weak she was. And she knew what would happen next. He would meet his brother, and they would both be over the moon with happiness, and they would come out of that door again in the best of charity with the world. Then, if he remembered her existence—if!—Nicholas would come over to her again and ask her to come and meet his brother properly, and he would expect her to be as happy as he was.

  And the trouble was, Kate thought, her anger beginning to boil to the surface again, she probably would be happy for him too. Who would not be, at seeing two brothers meeting for the first time in their lives? And she would forgive him on the spot. And she would probably marry him and despise both him and herself for the rest of thei
r lives. And she would forget all about the necessity of killing him.

  Oh, she would just not do it, Kate decided. She had been ill-used in the extreme. And she deserved vengeance. She deserved the pleasure of killing Nicholas Seyton. She would not stand here and meekly wait for him to come out and smile that bright, tender smile that he knew she would rage against and finally surrender to. She would not!

  Kate’s hands formed into fists at her sides again as she noticed Lord Barton leave Mr. Moreton at the far side of the stableyard and stride in her direction. He would be very unwise to approach her now, she thought grimly. He would not find the meek employee resigned to her fate this time. He was likely to get a punch in the teeth for his pains. But the earl unknowingly saved himself from a fat lip by totally ignoring Kate and storming through the inn door instead.

  That left Mr. Moreton, Kate thought, eyeing that gentleman across the yard. Was that wheel mended yet? Could she persuade him to take her to London without waiting for anyone else to emerge from the inn? After all, it seemed reasonable to suppose that Lord Barton was unwilling to allow the elopement to proceed according to plan. But no. That young man appeared to her to have no backbone whatsoever. He was thoroughly devoted to Thelma. He would insist on staying to ensure that her father did not beat her into insensibility.

  And there were no carriages or horses for hire at the inn, even if she had had the money to take them. She would have to go on foot. How many days would it take her to walk to London? she wondered. Or to her father’s house? The trouble with that idea was that she would not know which direction to take. She might still be wandering the countryside when winter came on.

  Bother! thought Kate, looking down at her very inadequate slippers. And the only other conveyances in sight were the curricle Nicholas and Lord Barton had arrived in and the hired carriage of Anatole Duplessis. She could not possibly take the latter. The coachman looked to be a burly man and quite beyond her strength to force into compliance.