Mask of Nobility

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Lilly had hemmed Bronwen’s calico gown and her petticoats so she could wear them without hoops and not trail the hems along the ground. That made the wearing of them considerably more comfortable.

  She didn’t bother looking in the mirror. The same plain, unremarkable face would stare back at her as usual. Instead, she went downstairs to the drawing room. Even though this was backwater Northallerton, Jasper and Lilly still insisted upon a civilized apéritif and conversation before dinner was announced.

  It had taken more weeks for Bronwen to understand that they insisted upon the formality because they liked to hear about her days and how she filled them. Nothing shocked either of them and Bronwen had stopped trying. That was when she learned the one thing that terrified them was unnecessary risks that threatened her well-being. Outside that single limit, Bronwen was free to do as she pleased.

  As Bronwen was not interested in risking body and soul, either, it was an arrangement everyone had grown used to.

  When she reached the drawing room, Bronwen saw Lilly was sitting on the end of the sofa, as usual. Jasper was beside her. He had hovered close to her since the loss of George.

  Bronwen let out a soft sigh at the reminder.

  There was a third person in the drawing room. The man remained seated in the wing chair by the fire, holding a sherry glass in his big hand and staring at the flames. He turned his head as she entered and Bronwen came to a confused halt by the pianoforte.

  It was the passenger she had tended on Bullamoor Road that morning. His eyes widened just as Bronwen could feel her own eyes doing.

  Jasper got to his feet, as polite and formal as always, even though Bronwen didn’t care about such matters. He glanced at the man in the wing chair and gave a tiny gesture with his hand.

  The man rose to his feet and cleared his throat. He looked at Jasper expectantly.

  Bronwen did, too.

  “Bronwen, may I present to you Master Tor Besogende, from Denmark. He is a distant cousin of mine. Tor, this is Miss Bronwen Natasha Davies, daughter of Princess Annalies of the royal house Saxe-Coburg-Weiden and the Honorable Rhys Davies, of London.”

  Tor Besogende hesitated, then bent in a bow. “Miss Davies.”

  Startled, she nearly curtsied back. His bow was stiff and regal and unexpected in a commoner. “Mr. Besogende,” she acknowledged, struggling to pronounce his name correctly. “Are you staying at Northallerton?”

  “I am,” Besogende confirmed. “I hope that does not inconvenience you…or anyone here.”

  “Jasper and Lilly cope with my comings and goings. I’m sure you’ll be a simple guest in comparison,” Bronwen told him.

  His brow lifted. “No one ever finds my company simple.”

  Bronwen almost laughed. The arrogance of the man!

  Lilly got to her feet. “Perhaps you should introduce Tor properly,” she told Jasper. “It would allow Tor to relax, if he doesn’t have to remember who knows what.”

  “Tor?” Jasper said.

  Bronwen looked from one man to the other. There was a resemblance there, about the mouth and chin, enough to tell her they were related in some fashion.

  Why was Jasper deferring to his cousin, though? He was the head of the family.

  Tor sighed and nodded. “Your lady-wife is correct. It would be easier to not have to guard my every word.”

  Bronwen frowned. “Guard against what, precisely?”

  Lilly’s smile had a measure of wickedness in it.

  Bronwen looked at Jasper once more.

  Jasper held out his hand toward Besogende, frowning. “I can’t introduce you formally.”

  Lilly sighed and stepped forward. “Let me do it. Then there is no formal recognition. Bronwen, Tor is Jasper’s brother. His half brother, to be precise.”

  Bronwen frowned. “Only, your brother is…the Archeduke Edvard Christoffer…”

  Besogende’s brow lifted. “At your service,” he murmured and bent in another low bow.

  “Oh…” Bronwen breathed, stunned.

  “While he is staying here, Bronwen, Tor will be just Tor Besogende to everyone.”

  “Why on earth would you want to do that?” Bronwen asked him.

  Tor looked startled. He glanced at Jasper. For help or guidance, or perhaps both.

  Jasper just smiled.

  Tor cleared his throat. “I…suppose…because I grew weary of the unceasing predictability of my life.”

  “You’re an Archeduke. Can’t you just wave your hand and demand it change and it is done?”

  Jasper’s smile grew. Even Lilly was amused.

  Bronwen realized she was yet again too forward, her speech too blunt. Only, it was too late. She had spoken. So she lifted her chin and waited for Tor to answer.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think you misunderstand the intricacies of royal life.”

  “I’m half royal,” Bronwen shot back. “I have arranged my life to suit me. Why can you not?”

  “It isn’t that simple…”

  “Why not?”

  “I cannot just abandon my responsibilities and duties. A whole country of people would come to grief.”

  “You’re in Northallerton, hiding behind a commoner’s name. Does that not define abandoning your people?”

  Tor’s eyes narrowed. “You are direct, aren’t you?”

  “And you are avoiding answering my question.”

  “Bronwen…” Lilly breathed.

  “No, Lilly,” Jasper said. “If Tor wishes to be just Tor Besogende while he is here, he must get used to questions both blunt and direct and deal with everyone equally.”

  Tor held up his hand. “I will answer, although I suspect Miss Bronwen is far more blunt than the average Yorkshireman.” He looked at her. “As I have no need to cling to royal graciousness, I will ask you a rude question of my own. You are the daughter of Princess Annalies. That station in life comes with expectations of its own. By your appearance and from your actions this morning, I can attest you are failing to meet those expectations at every turn. In fact, you appear to delight in not meeting them. Tell me why you shirk your duties, Miss Bronwen and I will tell you why I have put mine aside.”

  Bronwen’s heart thudded. She stared at him, unable to pull together a reasonable answer. His attack had been swift and stunning.

  His gaze was as steady as it had been that morning.

  Bronwen licked her lips. “I find myself without appetite. Jasper, please excuse me from dinner.”

  She turned and left, moving as fast as her uncooperative limbs would allow.

  “What happened this morning?” Lilly asked, behind her. She was not talking to Bronwen.

  “You’ve met Bronwen before just now, Tor?” Jasper added.

  “Briefly, on my way here…” Tor began.

  Flouncing from the room had not stirred a single one of them, not even him.

  Their indifference inflamed her. Bronwen stomped across the hall, until her bare foot came down upon a sharp pebble that had not yet been swept up. The sting was minor, yet her eyes filled with tears.

  She hated crying. It was such a weak, womanly thing to do. That made her even angrier. With a soft cry of rage, she pulled up her skirt and petticoat and looped them over her arm, then ran up the steps two at a time and locked herself in her room.

  Damn him.

  Who did he think he was?

  The Archeduke Edvard Christoffer of Silkeborg, her treacherous memory reminded her. Answerable to no one but himself.

  “Not while he’s here, he’s not,” she whispered to herself, rubbing her foot where the pebble had bit.

  She would make him rue his masquerade. Oh, yes and she would like doing it.

  Chapter Five

  “Why on earth they must start these things in the middle of the night is beyond me,” Jack muttered, fussing with his cloak. His hood fell back again.

  Cian yanked the fronts of the cloak back into place for him. “They’ve been doing it this way time out of mind. No
one will change it now. Anyway, it’s only nine in the evening. You make it sound as though midnight has come and gone.”

  “Palmerston isn’t a royal. It’s the Queen who decided he should get a state funeral. While she was deciding that, you’d think she’d decide to hold it at a convenient time.”

  Cian might have made a jest about Jack’s sour mood, except that Jack had been in a sour mood for well over a year. Everyone in the family knew why, so no one teased him about it.

  “We’re so far back in the line,” Jack added, glancing across the length of the Horse Guards Parade. “You’re an earl for heaven’s sake.” He pulled his hood back up over his face. “We’re in an alley at the back end of the procession. It’s dark as pitch here. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

  It was true they were at the tail end of the funeral procession, which was ready to move forward. The casket would emerge through the tunnel at any moment, although they were so far away from the head of the procession they would not see it. However, they were not the only ranking peers standing about the alley in their cloaks and hoods, waiting to begin. There were dukes and petty princes among them, too.

  When royalty from across Europe, heads of state and peers had come to pay their last respects to England’s Prime Minister, mere earls of the realm must come last.

  The light was a different matter. Cian glanced at the flickering gas lamps that lined the narrow alley. They were flaring and dimming with irritating irregularity, sending shadows leaping and making the horses skittish. A line of private family carriages waited along the alley, for no one could leave their conveyances directly in front of the Parade. There simply wasn’t room.

  “There must be something in the gas, making them jump in that way,” Jack said.

  “An impurity. It happens,” Cian said.

  The line of the carriage closest to the nearest lamp was familiar to him. Cian’s heart squeezed as he studied the shield on the door. Gainford’s coach.

  Once before he’d examined the coach and raised his gaze to find Eleanore looking at him. She would not be in the empty, darkened coach tonight, yet he still lifted his gaze to the glass in the door.

  Eleanore was there, watching him.

  Cian’s breath evaporated. His heart rocked.

  She was here, the last place he would expect her to be. She had not said she would be, in her last letters, although the funeral had been arranged quickly.

  As his gaze met hers, Eleanore pressed her fingers to the glass.

  Cian knew she had come out tonight not to keep her father company, but on the chance she might see Cian. That daring was in her blood, a part of her.

  There were too many people around them who knew both Cian and her for him to risk approaching the carriage openly. She would know that, too.

  Eleanore gave him one of her heated smiles, the one that made his belly crimp and his innards to tangle. His pulse, already unsteady, spiraled upward.

  Jack said something.

  Cian fought to calm his breath, to reveal nothing.

  “I said, it’s started,” Jack growled. He tugged on Cian’s cloak, coaxing him to turn away, to face in the direction the procession was moving.

  The line of gas lamps along the alley flared once more, the brightness chasing away the shadows. Farther down the alley, a lamp exploded with a bang and a woofing sound as the gas escaped into the night air and ignited. Glass tinkled on the cobbles below, as people gasped and reared backward.

  Horses whinnied and shuffled. Coach wheels squealed as the horses’ movements twisted and scraped them over the cobbles.

  Then the lamp closest to the Gainford coach exploded.

  Jack winced and ducked, as did most of the cloaked figures around them.

  The gray mare reared, her eyes rolling. Her hooves pawed the air, then landed, sending up sparks. That further alarmed the creature and she bolted.

  Cian glimpsed Eleanor’s wide eyes, her hand clutching at the grab rail, as she tumbled backward in the carriage.

  There was no thought in it. No decision. Cian ran after the carriage as it rattled down the alley, causing the cloaked men to scatter in alarm. Their cries and shouts added to the horse’s terror. The coach picked up speed.

  Cian had been rather good at track and field at college. He had the long legs that gave him a competitive edge and he was fast. He gave it his all, now. It was still early enough in the evening that the night mist had not set in. The cobbles were not slippery yet, which gave him the extra power he needed for a burst of speed that put him within reaching distance of the rocking carriage. He leapt and caught at the top of the luggage shelf railing and hung on.

  The carriage picked up speed as the horse took the sharp corner at the end of Horse Guards Road, careening down Great George street. There were no other carriages, no cloaked figures here. The echo of the rattling carriage bounced off the buildings, which would not reassure the mare or give it reason to slow.

  Cian tugged at the ties at his throat and let the wind of their passage tear the cloak from his shoulders. Then he climbed up onto the rack. The Gainsford coach was a hard-topped model, which allowed him to climb over it and onto the driver’s bench. It was difficult, for the carriage was rocking and swaying wildly. He stayed down low, easing his way forward until he could drop onto the cushion on the driver’s bench with a gusty sigh of relief. His lungs were bellowing and his heart slamming in his chest.

  He untied the reins and hauled on them. “Whoa!” he cried, as the horse bucked the command. He stamped on the brake lever and heard the brake scrape against the wheels. The wheels were the new and expensive iron-rimmed type. The grinding of metal against metal didn’t reassure the horse.

  As they clattered over Westminster Bridge, the fog sitting on the river swirled over them. The horse fought Cian’s commands, too unnerved to obey.

  It took a long ninety seconds for the horse to calm and the carriage to slow to a stop. Cian threw himself to the ground and hurried around to the mare’s nose and patted and crooned until its eyes stopped rolling.

  By then, Eleanore had the carriage door open and eased herself to the ground.

  Cian gave the horse a last pat and hurried to where she clung to the door. “Are you hurt?”

  She brushed her satin evening gown back into place with trembling hands. “I am shaking, that is all. Oh, Cian!”

  He couldn’t help it. He had to hold her. He pulled her against him and kissed her.

  It was only the second kiss he’d dare to take, yet her lips felt like the touch of a familiar lover. She was familiar to him, as dear as a longtime companion and friend. They had never lingered in the same room together, even at the innumerable public functions they both attended, although they were the closest of friends.

  For two years they had been writing to each other at least twice a day. Via paper and ink, Cian had learned more about Eleanore’s thoughts and feelings, her hopes and her fears about the future, than he could have ever hoped to have learned through formal conversations.

  Her lips tasted just as he remembered, just as he thought they should. Eleanore flowed against him, pliant and willing, heated and eager.

  His body tightened, leaping to the ready with an eagerness he’d never experienced before.

  Cian groaned and tore his lips from hers. “Enough. Enough, for now.”

  Eleanore rested her hand on his chest. Through the fabric of his shirt and waistcoat and jacket, he could feel the heat of that light touch. It was a brand, leaving a permanent mark upon his soul. She looked up at him with her warm, brown eyes. There was knowledge there. Understanding.

  “Can we go somewhere? There’s no one here to see us. Oh, Cian, even just a few minutes alone…how wonderful that would be!”

  He swallowed and glanced around. They were on the other side of the Thames, close to Waterloo Station. There were numerous hotels and inns about the station, catering to travelers.

  It was a risk, but then, they had known all along that their associ
ation was dangerous. They had discussed it in their letters. Because neither of them could bear to give up even that small contact, they had ignored it.

  “Get back in the carriage,” he told her, reaching behind her to hold open the door. “There’s an inn, just up the road.”

  Her smile was a simmering reward.

  * * * * *

  Tor sat upon the tufted coverlet on the bed. He would not sleep beneath a silk quilt tonight. It was not even a quilt that lay over the sheets. It was a blanket made of wool yarn that had been knitted or worked in some English way so the patterns twisted about each other, forming braids and leaves and flowers.

  There was no light in the room, except for the flood of moonlight coming in the window. If he wanted light, he must light the lantern on the table beside the bed himself. If he wanted the window open, he must open it himself, despite not being sure how to open it.

  What was he doing here? The hellion tonight had been right to challenge him. He’d been selfish, escaping here. He had forgotten that decisions he made affected more people than himself.

  Only he had thought it through. He had spent a sleepless night beneath a silk quilt, debating the consequences of stealing this brief, unanticipated pocket of time for himself.

  Silkeborg was in good hands. Baumgärtner, with his assistants in Denmark, managed affairs via the efficient postage system available in Europe now, along with the marvelous wire telegraph for lightning fast communications.

  The hellion had not asked him that, nor clarified the details of his departure from Scotland. She had simply accused him of recklessness.

  In all his life, Tor had never struck back the way he had done with her. It had taken Jasper’s reminder that he could disregard the restrictions of his station for him to shrug aside the habitual repression of his impulses and fire a personal challenge at her.

  It had felt good to indulge himself in that petty freedom. At least, it had for perhaps three heart beats.

  He’d seen hurt in her eyes. Surprise. He’d struck deep, exactly as he had hoped. Only, it no longer felt like a victory.

  Tor sighed and looked at the ghostly shine of light pouring through the window once more.