Behind the Mask (House of Lords)

by Brooke, Meg

  Crawley shook his head. “It’s not for me, My Lord. I’m not highly born enough to be accepted in the drawing rooms of the Continent, as you are. No, I think it’s the shadier side of the Foreign Service for me, My Lord, and that’s all right. I like the excitement.”

  “You’ll outgrow that,” Colin said, thinking of all the mistakes he had made. He only hoped Crawley did not have to learn the hard way, as he had.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Evening was falling when Eleanor finally managed to return to her room to dress for the ball. She knew Colin had returned—Leo had seen him riding down the drive—but there was no evidence that he had been up to dress yet. It was just as well. Eleanor would rather not say the things she had decided to say to him until after the party. She did not imagine that they would have a chance to talk during the evening—she could not remember the last time she had had a serious conversation with any man at a ball, and she did not suppose her husband would be any different.

  Georgina and Maris came in just as Lily was putting the final touches on Eleanor’s hair. She had chosen not to wear a helmet, but rather a clever corsage of hellebore flowers in her hair, since they were one of Athena’s symbols. The corsage was secured with a silver clasp that matched the little dagger she wore at her waist. It was an ornamental piece, which had been presented to her grandfather for his service to King George III, though Eleanor had discovered earlier when she had almost cut herself with it that it was very sharp for all that it was meant to be decorative. Still, she thought it adorned her long white Grecian gown perfectly. She took one last look in the mirror. She had decided not to wear a mask, and instead Lily had used white powder to trace a delicate design of flowers and vines around her eyes. The effect was quite stunning.

  “You look beautiful, Eleanor!” Maris cried, bouncing into the room. She was costumed as a lady pirate, with a leather waistcoat over a loose white blouse and a jaunty striped skirt. True to form, Georgina had chosen a less ostentatious costume. She was dressed as Juliet, in a dainty, high-waisted white gown with a red ribbon at the waist.

  “Thank you,” Eleanor said, rising. “So do you, Maris, and you, too, Georgina. Have either of you seen my—”

  But just as she was about to ask after him, the door flew open and Colin strode in, already in his evening attire, though he wore a black waistcoat and cravat over his white shirt.

  “There he is,” Maris said, giggling. She took Georgina’s hand and dragged her out of the room. Lily made a little curtsey and then disappeared as well.

  Eleanor crossed the room and went up on her toes to kiss Colin’s cheek. “You look quite handsome,” she said. “Whatever are you dressed as?”

  He reached inside his coat and withdrew a slim black mask. “A spy,” he said, grinning as he tied the mask behind his head. Then he dropped his lips to hers, one hand sliding along the bare skin of her arm. She felt a thrill course through her, though she reminded herself of her resolve. She had made her choice, and she would not allow the passion she felt now to sway her. Still, they could have this one night together. So she kissed him back, molding herself against him until she felt the heat of his body through the thin fabric of her gown.

  “We will be missed downstairs,” he said against her lips.

  She sighed. “Yes, I suppose we will.” Eleanor broke away from him and went to the looking glass to inspect her coiffure. When she turned back she looked him up and down. He did look ravishingly handsome, she thought as he held his arm out for her.

  “Viscount Palmerston agreed to send Udad to Brussels with us,” he said.

  With us. She could not do it. She could not lie to him another evening. “Colin, I’m so glad to hear that. But I have to tell you something.”

  “What is it?” he asked, frowning.

  “I’m not going to Brussels,” she said softly.

  Colin’s eyes were very wide. “What?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said, I just didn’t understand it. What on earth do you mean, not going?”

  “I’m not going. I want to stay in London.”

  For a moment Colin could do no more than stare at his wife. At last he managed to say, “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter,” he said. “My work is in Brussels.”

  “And mine is in London. I am needed there, to help with the school.”

  He went to her, taking her hand. “Eleanor, you are my wife.”

  “I know that,” she snapped. “But we both know that a wife will be an inconvenience for you in Brussels. It will be better for both of us if I stay in London.”

  “What will people say?”

  She shrugged. “There are many husbands who leave their wives at home when they go abroad.”

  “I did not think you wanted to be one of those wives,” he said.

  She looked away. “Neither did I,” she said. “But here we are.”

  “What do you expect me to do? I won’t give up my work.”

  She shook her head and pulled her hand from his. “I don’t expect you to,” she said, dropping into a chair. “I would never ask you to do that. I know how much it means to you. But the school means just as much to me. For days I’ve been trying to think of another way, but there is none.”

  “But Eleanor, you must—”

  “Don’t lecture me about my duty,” she said, spitting the word out as she leaped from the chair and began to pace. “All my life I’ve done my duty. I’ve spent the last five years atoning for my sins by being the very image of a dutiful daughter and sister. Just this once, I want to do what I want, not what someone else expects of me.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he insisted. “I need you in Brussels. I need you by my side.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Do you love me, Colin? Is that it?” When he said nothing, she turned away. He longed to go to her, to wrap his arms around her and comfort her, but he stayed where he was. At last, she turned back, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Say that you love me, and I will follow you to the ends of the earth. I can’t help myself. I’m a fool for love,” she said bitterly, and he knew that it was true. Every wrong step she had ever made in her life she had made for love. He could not lead her away from all her hopes and dreams for a false promise, and he could not tell her that he loved her, not when he was not certain. As the silence grew between them, his heart ached with the longing to say the words she wanted to hear. But he could not be sure they were true, and he could not lie to her. “You can’t do it, can you?”

  He shook his head sadly.

  Feeling like a prize idiot, Eleanor took another step away from her husband, feeling the distance between them as though it were an ocean.

  A pained expression came over his face. “Eleanor, I—”

  “No,” she said. “Don’t say anything else. You’ll only regret it later.”

  “I’m just surprised, that’s all,” he said, and he appeared genuinely shocked. Eleanor had fooled him, then, just as she had the rest of them.

  “I suppose behind the masks we wear we are all quite different from what we seem,” she said, thinking of Mr. Udad and Mr. Strathmore, but also of herself. How long had she worn the mask of the dutiful daughter? And now she would take that disguise off, never to wear it again.

  “So,” he said, leaning against the bedpost, “what happens next?”

  She shrugged. “We go downstairs. We dance, we smile. Tomorrow morning we will go to London, and then you will go to Brussels with Mr. Udad. I daresay we will both acclimate quickly to our separate ways. We have barely had time to become acquainted, after all.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Well, then.” And he held out his arm for her again, and she took it, though it felt like it was made of stone. Eleanor felt like weeping, though she could not explain why. She had taken what she wanted. She had triumphed.

  But for tonight, at least, she would continue to hide behind her disguise. Colin led her down the stairs, his posture rigid and correct, the handso
me new husband showing off his lovely bride. She smiled happily at their guests and held Colin’s hand tightly as he led her into the first set. She waltzed with him twice. Even though he refused to meet her eyes she still felt the thrill down to her toes when his fingers grazed her bare skin. She would forget, she told herself. In time, the pleasure she had felt in his arms would be nothing but a distant memory, superseded by the joy she would find in her work, in her true purpose. And that, she told herself finally, would have to be enough.

  Though Colin had been much in demand throughout the evening, he somehow managed to avoid being wrangled into asking any of the young ladies for their hand for the set after supper. Instead, feeling rather outnumbered by strangers, he sought out his parents. His father had disappeared into the drawing room with Pennethorne and some of the older gentlemen, but his mother was seated at the side of the dance floor.

  “Darling,” she said as he drew near. She held out her hand elegantly, and he took it. She was not wearing a costume, of course, but she looked just as handsome as usual in her deep purple evening gown. “I feel as though I’ve hardly seen you the last two days.”

  “I am sorry, mother,” he said, taking a seat beside her. “It has been a busy week.”

  “So it has,” she said. “But I have a feeling you will be glad of it in the future. She is a delight, Colin.” He did not have to ask whom she meant. He could not see his wife out on the dance floor, but he was sure she was somewhere nearby, laughing with her neighbors and pretending that she had not just driven a stake through their marriage. “We had a lovely chat yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  His mother nodded. “She told me about that sweet little school in London. What a delightful cause. It’s a shame she must leave her work there. I admire a woman with purpose.”

  Colin’s heart sank. “Did you tell her so?” he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.

  “Of course. Perhaps someday she will persuade you to return to London. Your father and I would so love to see more of you,” she said, and there was no mistaking her meaning. Lady Townsley believed she had expertly laid the groundwork for her new daughter-in-law to draw her son back to what his mother felt was his duty. She sounded quite proud of herself, Colin thought. But his feelings about his mother had never been more conflicted. He was able to recognize that she loved him, that she wanted him to come home, to be close to his family again, but the underhanded way in which she had set this trap for Eleanor disgusted him.

  “Whatever is the matter, dear?” his mother asked, her voice dripping with innocence. “You look quite peaked.”

  He stood. “If you’ll excuse me, mother, I believe I’ll go and claim my bride for a dance.”

  “Of course, dear,” she said, smiling charmingly. Colin stalked off without another word.

  After sitting through a tense supper, she managed to escape for a few moments onto the terrace. The air had become unbearably close in the ballroom, and she went down the stairs into the garden, allowing the cool night breeze to wash over her, reveling in the relief of being free from the throng and from his wounded stare.

  She went a little deeper into the garden, away from the light spilling from the ballroom windows, into the quiet darkness where everything glowed beneath the hazy summer moon. Eleanor took a few deep breaths and tried to remind herself that she had made the right choice. He would have tired of her in Brussels, after all. He was used to being free, and she would have proved an encumbrance. She was doing them both a favor. If only she did not love him quite so much, perhaps it would hurt a little less.

  This is what you wanted, she told herself as she neared the grove between the stables and the garden. You wanted to be free, to fling off the snares of your duty and fly. Perhaps it would be painful, but she had made her choice. Now she just needed a few moments of solitude and peace to come to terms with it.

  But it was not to be. Amongst the trees behind her a branch cracked beneath a boot. Eleanor whirled just in time to see a black shape emerge out of the darkness into the moonlit garden. She cast a desperate glance back at the brightly lit ballroom windows as a man appeared, shrouded in black with a dark blue headscarf covering the lower part of his face. For a moment she considered crying out, but then the moonlight glinted off the wickedly curved saber in his hand as he brought the blade up, pointing its tip at her and stepping closer, until she could feel the cold radiating off the metal against her skin.

  “The princess,” the man said, his accent thicker than Udad’s. “Where?”

  Eleanor shook her head, too frightened to speak. Her eyes flicked around the empty gardens, but she saw only the faces of her mother and sisters and brother, and, most of all, Colin. Would she die here and never see any of them again? Terror gripped her, and she felt her hands begin to tremble.

  “You bring the princess,” the man insisted.

  “I cannot,” Eleanor said. “Please—”

  “You bring,” the man repeated, “or you die.”

  Suddenly, a voice cried out in a tongue Eleanor did not recognize. At the edge of the stableyard she saw another dark figure. Udad. The assassin turned, and as he did Eleanor reached down and drew her grandfather’s silver dagger, which he had not seen hidden in the folds of her gown. Just as Udad started limping across the lawn towards them and the assassin began to turn back, Eleanor brought the dagger up, feeling the give as the blade sank into his flesh and passed between his ribs.

  The assassin made a small sound of surprise, and his saber sliced the skin of her forearm as it fell, still in his hand. He crumpled to the ground, her dagger still buried in his chest, a thin line of blood trickling from his lips. Just as she felt the first twinge of pain in her wounded arm, Udad reached them, his hands coming up to support her as her knees weakened beneath her. As she swayed she looked down into the man’s empty eyes, and she bit back a scream.

  “Eleanor!” Leo’s voice called from the terrace. She looked up to see her brother rushing down the stairs toward her. He reached out as he neared them, bending down to scoop her up in his arms. “We must get her inside,” he said to Udad.

  “I can walk, Leo,” Eleanor said, struggling a little in his arms.

  “Try it, then,” he said, setting her down for a moment. When her legs wobbled and she clung to his evening coat, smearing blood across his white shirt and waistcoat, he said, “May I carry you now?”

  She nodded feebly, and he swept her up again, carrying her towards the steps.

  “Not through the ballroom!” she cried. He turned and went around the back of the house, up the servants’ stairs and along the corridor to her room. Lily was waiting there, and she leaped up when they burst through the door.

  “Hot water, Lily,” Eleanor said, “and some linen.”

  Leo set her down in a chair and held out her arm, which was still bleeding. He reached down and tore a strip from the bottom of her ruined gown, pressing the fabric to the wound. “Tie it around the arm,” she said, “above the wound.”

  When he cinched the fabric she whimpered in pain. The door burst open and Colin rushed in, coming over to kneel beside her. “What the devil happened?” he demanded.

  “There was a man, in the garden,” she said. “The last one, I presume. He...he’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked, looking at Leo.

  “Yes, sweetheart, he is,” her brother confirmed. He looked over at Colin. “We had better get the body off the lawn, before anyone sees it.”

  Colin nodded. “Crawley is taking care of it. I saw you carrying Eleanor around the side of the house. What happened?”

  “I...I killed him,” Eleanor said as Lily came in with a basin and a pile of cloths. Colin leaned over and looked at her arm.

  “It needs stitching,” he said. “Bring me some thread, and a large needle.” Lily blanched, but she nodded and went out. Colin took Eleanor’s other hand in his. “You will have to be brave now, Eleanor. You have been already, of course. God, when I think of what he could have done to you...” He broke
off, pressing his lips to her palm. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. Her vision was beginning to blur. Perhaps she was in shock, Eleanor thought absently.

  Leo appeared at her side again, a glass of brandy in his hand. “Perhaps she should drink this,” he offered.

  “No,” Colin said. “I’ve done this before, Leo. Brandy dulls the pain, but it makes the blood flow more freely, too.” The door opened again and Lily came in once more, a small silver tray in her hands. Her face was very white.

  “Don’t worry, Lily,” Eleanor said, though she seemed to be having trouble speaking clearly. “I feel dizzy,” she muttered.

  “It’s the shock,” Colin said, leaning over to look into her eyes. “This is going to be very painful, Eleanor. Would you like a cloth to bite down on?”

  She nodded feebly. Lily rolled up a strip of linen and placed it between her teeth. She could not scream, Eleanor reminded herself. There were a hundred people downstairs, hopefully still blissfully unaware that their young hostess had killed a man on the lawn during the allemande. But when Colin took the brandy from Leo’s hand and poured it over the wound, she could barely contain a cry of pain. It came out as a whimper, and her whole body shook. Colin cleaned the wound carefully as Lily threaded the needle. When it pierced her flesh, Eleanor saw stars, and then blackness as blessed oblivion took her.

  When he had tied the last stitch, Colin cleaned Eleanor’s arm again and then wrapped the wound in the rest of the linen her maid had brought up. It was a blessing that Eleanor had fainted before the maid had begun to cry—the poor girl looked close to fainting herself when they finished.

  Now Colin tightened the bandage and carried Eleanor to the bed. Her maid pulled back the covers and he laid her down, not bothering to worry about getting blood on the sheets. There had been a great deal of it—he would have to speak to Crawley about some sort of remedy for blood loss.

  When he was certain Eleanor was comfortable, he turned back to her brother. “God, Leo,” he said, “I’m sorry. I should have insisted that Sir John take the princess home. I should have made you all stay in London and refuse to receive her. Then none of this would ever—”