“Are you alone?” he asked in a rapid whisper.
“No, Rupert is with me. What are you doing here? What is the meaning of this?” She wanted to ask Why do you look like this? but didn’t dare. He looked hagridden, hunted, and dangerous.
“I had to see you.”
“You could have called at any time.”
“No, I couldn’t.” He glanced down the road again. Rose was glad to hear the echo of hoofbeats. “I have no right to ask any favors of you,” Colonel Wapton said. “I had hoped ... one day... but never mind that now. Can you meet me here tomorrow? The same time?”
Something in his haunted eyes made her agree. It was the same impulse that led her to give a hungry child a penny for a bun. “I don’t know. Not the same time. I shall be later than this. There’s a masquerade tonight.”
“I’ll wait.” He seemed to melt into the bushes beside the bridle path as Rupert called the “view-halloo” from behind Rose.
“Whatever are you dawdling about for?” he asked. “Let’s have a real run!”
“I should like it above all things,” Rose said, aware Colonel Wapton must be watching her. In the instant before she clapped her heels to the mare’s side to follow Rupert, already well away, she saw the colonel’s desperate eyes staring at her from the depths of the bushes.
Chapter Nine
Rose faced a stranger in the mirror. Her long, gently waving hair had been parted in the center and allowed to fall unimpeded over the robe of stiffened red silk. The high collar made her neck look longer than ever, while the intricate black and gold embroidery along every edge of the costume added a sumptuous gleam to her gestures. But the scandalous touch that set Aunt Paige to laughing with delight and Rupert to scowling in brotherly disgust were the trousers.
“Oh, come, Rupert,” Aunt Paige said while Rose stood by feeling like an overdressed doll. “They’re hardly as wicked as you make out. Men wear far more revealing clothing every day of their lives.”
“It’s hardly the same thing. Inexpressibles are de rigueur and always will be. But those ... those ...” He stuttered a little and then stood upon his dignity. “As her brother, I think it’s outrageous.”
“Rupert, you’re acting like an old maid,” Rose said. “You can’t even see my ankles, and girls have been wearing their skirts higher than that for the entire Season. I hardly think my underpinnings are going to cause much of an uproar.” Only a very few inches of the tightly wrapped satin trousers were visible under the long robe, and they were the same soft red silk.
So, indeed, were the slippers, complete with curled toes.
“Actually,” Rose said upon further consideration of her reflection, “I show much less of myself in this than I do in my usual ball dresses. At least one can’t see so much of my bosom.”
Rupert rubbed his temples. “I suppose it’s useless for me to forbid you to leave the house.”
“Don’t be so Gothic,” Aunt Paige said. “You sound as if you should be a grandfather, born sometime in the sixties and more censorious than a church full of Puritans. I know. Our father was just like that.”
“Of course, I defer to your judgment, Aunt,” Rupert said. “You are the only judge of what is suitable for Rose. But I’m dashed if I like it. My friends are going to be there tonight. What are they going to think when they see m’sister swanning about in that frightful rig-out? You don’t even have a mask.”
“Show him your veil, Rose.”
Rose lifted a sheer length of red silk from the end of the bed and laid it over her hair. Then she swathed the extra length over her nose and pinned it at the side with a tiny golden pin headed with a small ruby.
“There,” Paige said. “No one will recognize her.”
Rupert appealed to his sister. “Come on, old girl. Put on a decent dress. You’ve bought half a dozen pretty ball dresses since we’ve come up to town.”
“It’s a masquerade,” Rose reminded him. “What role would I be playing? The bumbling country cousin?”
‘You can wear a loo mask and a domino and look charming. Most of the other girls will be wearing the same thing. You won’t stand out a particle. Won’t that be more comfortable than having everybody staring and whispering?”
She just gazed at him, the same obstinate firmness to her mouth she’d used whenever he’d cajole her in the nursery.
“I can’t wear a loo mask because you borrowed mine,” Rose pointed out sensibly.
Then she took a deep breath and confessed to them both, “I don’t care to look like everyone else. I want to be unique, special, and fascinating. I want every man there to swarm about me like bees to a hive. I want to come home with four proposals of marriage and at least one of an indecent nature.”
“Brava!” Paige said, clapping her hands. “Excellent. You’ll be engaged before the evening is out!”
Rupert paled. “What would Mother say if she could hear you two now?”
“Heaven knows, Rupert. But I know we’re going to be terribly late if you don’t hurry into your costume.”
“I can’t wait to see it,” Rose said gently, throwing him a crumb of comfort. She would have had to be insensible not to have heard him and his valet discussing ways and means to outfit him for tonight. His main secret was yet to be revealed, but Rose’s maid had been constantly appealed to for various small things that appeared on a ladies’ vanity.
Even when he finally emerged from the hands of his man, there was nothing to be seen of Rupert’s costume except a dashing smile. For the rest, he was swathed, neck to ankles, in a black domino cloak.
“That’s not fair,” Rose said. “I can’t criticize you as you did me.”
‘You’ll just have to wait and see.” He came farther into the drawing room where Rose was waiting. “Where’s Aunt Paige gone?”
“Her hair needed another pin.” Rose heard her aunt’s step and stood up. She didn’t tell Rupert she had found her trousers just as shocking as he had the first time she’d put them on. But neither did she mention she found them extremely comfortable.
Stepping into the carriage, for instance, though her long robe was very like a dress, she felt less in need of the footman’s hand to balance her as she put her foot on the carriage step. Dancing would be interesting, she thought.
“I didn’t compliment you enough on your costume, Aunt,” Rose said as Paige slipped in beside her. “You look wonderful.”
“You don’t think it’s too much?” she asked anxiously. “I’m not a young girl anymore.”
“But you’re not a dowager either.”
“No, thank heaven.” Aunt Paige smiled and gave a discreet tug to her neckline. “A shepherdess wouldn’t have been my first choice, but when Miss Abrahms said she couldn’t do Queen Elizabeth in time, I had few options. Besides, you are exotic enough for two. I shall reconcile myself to shepherding you.”
Considering Aunt Paige’s costume made the most of her creamy rounded breasts and trim waist, attractions this year’s fashions largely ignored, Rose wondered if she wouldn’t be shepherding ravening wolves away from her chaperon.
When they arrived, however, Rose realized she’d been foolish. General Sir Augustus O’Banyon was more than capable of protecting his prize. He had chosen to wear his uniform, glittering with every order he’d won in a long career, with a mask. His red hair and accent were very much in evidence.
“Here’s a damnable thing,” he growled. “I knew the young men of Britain weren’t capable of much imagination. Who wants ‘em to be? Following orders has brought us to where we are today. But one would hope they’d show a trifle of initiative.”
“Why, Sir Augustus, you’re in a pother,” said Aunt Paige, perhaps a little put out he’d not noticed her costume. “What’s amiss?”
Just then, Rupert came up, throwing back his domino.
“Good gad, it’s another of ‘em!”
At the top of the staircase that lead down into Mrs. Yarborough’s ballroom, Rose felt as though she could make a
similar exclamation.
Out of the hundred or so men present this evening, at least half of them had chosen to come as The Black Mask. The floor looked as if ink had been poured on it. Some men were in full formal attire, only with black shirts added to their black coats and breeches. Others had chosen a more adventurous, even piratical look, wide black shirtsleeves and sashes adding a Spanish note. Some wore capes, others many-caped coats like highwaymen. A few wore broad-brimmed hats, but everywhere she looked she saw black masks and Black Masks.
“Oh, dash,” Rupert said from beside her. With his tall, lean physique, he could carry off his extremely debonair version of shirtsleeves and black inexpressibles. His sash was red, which made his waist look very tapered beneath his wide shoulders.
“Never mind, dear.” Rose said. ‘You’re the best of them all.”
“So I should hope.” His despair that his costume had been copied on such a wide scale faded after a moment. “Oh, good gad, there’s Sir Percy Gore-Harbridge. He’s as fat as a flawn. Can you imagine him swooping through a lady’s bedroom window? She wouldn’t know if he were there to raid her jewel case or her larder.”
“Will you be able to find your particular friends?” she asked, knowing once he’d done his duty dances, he’d be off with his cronies.
‘Yes. We’ve all agreed to wear a touch of red about our persons. We knew, of course, that others would have the idea besides us, but obviously not on this absurd scale.” He gestured at the crowd below. “Well, at least my sister will be unique. Come along, love. You’ve promised me a gavotte or something, haven’t you?”
After they danced together, Aunt Paige joined Rose, looking rather flushed and very happy.
“I thought you’d be dancing with Sir Augustus,” Rose said, finding a seat along the wall with the other young ladies and their chaperones. She saw the envious glances cast at her costume by the pierrettes, medieval maidens, and milkmaids. No single costume had struck the feminine imagination the way the Black Mask had obsessed the males.
“I may occasionally be remiss in my duties at a party where everyone is known to me, but not at a masquerade. The company can be so very mixed and not everyone behaves themselves. Especially once the champagne starts flowing.”
“It reminds me of a child’s birthday I once attended. I went as Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat. Everything went very well until the tea was served. Then the boys became all but uncontrollable.”
Paige hushed her. “Never say this is like a child’s party. Mrs. Yarborough thinks she’s been so daring.” She tapped Rose’s knee with her fan. “Don’t look now, but a Black Mask is coming over to ask you to dance.”
“It’s pointless to tell me not to look, Aunt. I wouldn’t know which one you meant anyway.”
Rose felt a little flutter of excitement in her breast as the gentleman in black approached. She willingly laid her ruby-laden hand in his after he received permission from Paige.
“A magnificent ring, ma’am,” he said with a rather snuffy voice. Rose thanked him and chattered away about the ring, inflating its value in a very vulgar way, but she had a reason.
Rose’s excitement died, only to be revived with the next applicant for her hand. She wanted to be certain every Black Mask she danced with noticed her ring. Though she doubted the one true Black Mask was present tonight, he obviously had methods to discover what went on in the houses and, more interestingly, the heads of the ton. Let even a few gossips find her ring interesting, and perhaps the Black Mask would try to steal it. If he did, she had him just where she wanted him.
Every one of the young ladies waiting for partners knew her, just as she knew them. She liked several of them and drifted into a little knot with them after a few dances. It was constantly changing members as men asked this one and that one to dance and then returned them. The girls admired her costume, fingering the silk, but wondered how she’d come to think of such a thing. That was her chance to talk naturally about her ring. They admired it, too, more for the tales she wove about it than for its beauty.
“Have you ever seen such a crush?” Ariadne Belmont asked, returning from a dance with a Mephistopheles for a change.
“Never in my life,” Rose answered with a chorus of agreement from the other girls.
“When do we go to supper, do you suppose? My feet hurt in these shoes.” Usually brunette, she wore a yellow wig whose braids hung to her waist and a circlet of oak leaves around her waist. Otherwise, she was attired as any young lady in her first Season at a ball, yet claimed to be a Saxon maiden. She was a very pleasant and fun-loving girl who, unfortunately, was the second of six daughters. There was literally not an extra shilling to be had at her house.
“I don’t know, but it must not be far off. By the time we came up to the house, it was not much later than half past ten. I can’t think how the grooms and drivers are managing tonight. So many carriages in the streets.”
“Well, I’m not going in to supper with that devil,” Ariadne declared. “He stepped on my feet worse than anyone yet.”
“It must be Aubrey Dennison,” Rose deduced. “No one dances worse than he does, and he’s about that tall.”
“Oh, then I’m certainly not going in with him. All he wants to talk about is Jessica Howe. They’re going to be engaged as soon as she conies back from the seaside. Poor thing. When she had the green sickness, she lost all her color.”
“I wish there were more color here,” Rose said, looking again at all the black costumes. “At least Mephistopheles is all in red.”
“And the pierrots are all in white. The harlequins are colorful, though.”
Rose dropped her voice. “Here comes my brother to dance with you, Ariadne.”
“Oh? Where?” She looked where Rose nodded at the tall young man with the scarlet sash around his waist. “I like your brother. He’s cheerful. Tell him to ask me to supper, won’t you?”
Rose waved subtly to Rupert, who hurried over after bidding his friends farewell. “Monsieur Black Mask, may I introduce a Saxon maiden? Unfortunately, a wandering vagabond burned her cakes and she has none to eat. Can you aid her once the gong sounds?”
The tall man bowed and offered Ariadne his arm. Only after they’d gone off together did Rose realize that she’d seen a tiny scar at the edge of the man’s well-formed mouth. He couldn’t have been Rupert. She would have to find Ariadne later to find out whom she’d eaten with.
Alone for a moment, Rose glanced back toward the row of gilt chairs against the wall. Aunt Paige was deep in conversation with some other older women. So much for her attention to duty. Rose smiled tenderly and turned toward her other friends.
She never knew what instinct made her look off in the distance, across the quadruple line of the dancers. Perhaps she had felt his eyes upon her, their intent focus like a touch. They seemed to blaze as he realized she was gazing back.
Like so many others, he wore all black. But where their clothes were obviously new or adapted for the purpose of the evening, his looked ... right. He wore a long vest over his black skirt, what appeared to be dyed riding officer’s breeches, and tall boots with a dull gloss. That alone marked him as different from the other men, worldly creatures who would sooner wear bonnets than unpolished leather.
Rose felt no need to move as he started to circle around the dancers. He was coming to find her and he would find her, even if she ran away. The Black Mask could find anyone, it seemed, even those who only dreamed of him. She closed her eyes, feeling a trifle dizzy. Yet she knew the instant he appeared before her.
The mask seemed to be part of his face, almost able to move like his skin. “Will you dance?” he asked huskily.
“No. I want to talk to you. I want...” Some sense of self-preservation remained to her so she didn’t speak all she thought, not here. “It’s terribly hot in here.”
“The terrace is that way.”
“Yes, I know.” She took his hand, gloved in worn leather, and it came to her even more strongly than wh
en she’d first seen him that he was the one real and true Black Mask. She should have been very frightened. Inside, she felt a trembling, but it wasn’t fear—unless it was fear for him. Imitate him they might, talk about him, make him a hero, but if anyone guessed as she had guessed, they’d hang him.
“You were mad to come here.” She felt compelled to say it, though it was not what she wanted most to say.
“I had to come,” he said.
“But why?”
He chuckled soundlessly. “I didn’t know. Until...”
“Until?”
With a swift glance around, he led her out into the garden at the rear of the house.
* * * *
Well-camouflaged among the general conglomeration of Black Masks, Sir Niles had watched as Rupert escorted Rose downstairs as soon as they’d arrived. He’d been waiting for her, all the while denying to himself that was what he was doing. But the happiness he felt when he’d identified her in her exotic Indian costume was a clue he couldn’t ignore.
Besides, she looked adorable. He hadn’t realized her hair was so long or so lush. The bright red color of the silk flattered her far more than the more insipid colors then a la mode. The veil over her delightful little nose lent her an air of mystery at odds with her straightforward personality. He wondered if her clothes affected her thinking the way his Black Mask costume seemed to affect his. When he put on those clothes, he wasn’t staid Sir Niles Alardyce, whose days of adventure lay behind him. No, he was the avenging Black Mask, daring, dangerous, determined.
As the evening continued, as he watched her dancing with other men, laughing into their eyes, he found it harder and harder to stay the civilized Sir Niles. He wanted to take her out of the increasingly stuffy ballroom, out into the night. He would show her his London, the rooftops, the shadows, the hidden corners that gave access to secret worlds.
Sir Niles told himself that little Rose Spenser, sheltered innocent, would be appalled and frightened should he ever reveal any part of what he had done. She could never understand his need for justice, stronger even than his desire for vengeance. Outside the law, he’d collected his evidence, which had sent two men deservedly to ruin.
The Black Mask Page 10
