A Lady’s Secret (32 page)

P
etra knew herself to be a complete coward, but she set out for Cheynings with the rest of the Mallorens without revealing her secret to anyone, even though by now there could be no doubt.

She clung to Robin’s comment about wanting to make a child legitimate. It had been convoluted. Something like
Have you considered that I might…
But he’d said it. Even if he did not particularly want to marry her, might that have been true?

She would have to find him and tell him, for the child’s sake as much as anything. She would not impose the shame of being a bastard on her child.

The invitations to the Marquess of Ashart’s Venetian masquerade had instructed everyone to arrive as darkness fell, wearing their costumes, and the costumes were to be the most traditional and concealing—the enveloping domino cloak and the Venetian half mask. To help conceal identities until midnight, there would be no preliminaries, no official welcomes, no introductions.

There could be some variations in the costume, and Petra had instructed the Mallorens in them. A hat was acceptable instead of the hood, especially if it hid most of the hair, and it was best if hair was powdered to hide its color. Ladies who wanted to be particularly mysterious could wear a dark veil hanging down from the edge of the mask to completely hide the face. As they said, at a Venetian masquerade, a man could find himself in the embarrassing situation of seducing his own wife.

Guests had also been instructed not to bear arms. Petra had questioned that.

“Men so often get carried away,” Diana had said, “and a mock duel becomes real. In any case, dress swords are inconvenient. They’re always getting in the way. Mistress Cornelys was wise to ban them at her events for that reason alone.”

Petra wondered if she might meet her mother’s friend tonight. If not tonight, some other time, for she longed to meet someone with whom to share memories.

She traveled to the event with her father and Diana. As they turned up the drive to the house, she fastened the deep blue cloak made of the same fabric as her dress, and put on her mask, which covered her entire face except for a narrow strip from nostrils to chin.

“I do admire that mask,” Diana said, fixing her own, which was feathered, with a tiny suggestion of a beak at the nose.

Petra’s mask was plainly shaped to her face, but she’d painted it half silver, half midnight blue along a swirling line that itself was marked with spangles.

“I remember that design,” said her father dryly.

Petra gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry! I should have realized….” She bit her lip, wondering how she could have been so foolish. “My mother treasured one like this, and I always loved it, but I should have guessed why.”

He smiled, perhaps a little sadly. “She will like to see you wearing a copy tonight, I think.”

Petra was grateful that the mask hid threatening tears. Her mother would be delighted to see her daughter safe and in the loving care of her father, but if she was witnessing this, she knew Petra’s sin and secret. She suppressed a sigh as she put on the traditional three-cornered hat.

Her father’s mask was also a bird, the commonest style for a Venetian festival, but in his case the mask had a predatory hooked beak, perhaps of an eagle. His hat was round brimmed and plain. Did it deliberately cast a sinister shadow over his masked eyes? After weeks in his company, she knew he wouldn’t disown her for her sin, but she dreaded having to tell him.

Enjoy the night,
Petra told herself.
The shadows descend tomorrow.

They were part of a stream of carriages and riders, all dawdling to take in the magic. The trees lining the drive were hung with colored lanterns, which also illuminated figures that looked like fairies sitting on branches, or dryads peeping out from behind trees. Then, causing laughter and applause, some moved and ran off into shadows. They’d been real people.

“Delightful,” Diana said, pulling a garnet cloak closed over her pink gown. “We will have a ball for you soon, Petra, and must think up something equally charming. A shame that Ashart’s stolen the Venetian idea. Is there anything distinctive from Milan?”

“Not in the same way,” Petra said. “Opera, perhaps.”

“You could commission one,” Diana said to her husband. “About Petra’s adventures, even.
The Fugitive Nun
.”

“Alarming,” Lord Rothgar said, “but I suppose we could hold it in the old Abbey crypt.”

Petra wondered if they were serious, but the event would never happen once she revealed her state. Their coach paused by the open front doors, and it was time to climb down.

The house was also hung with small lanterns, and most of the windows had been covered with color of some sort so that lights inside shone out as through stained glass. All around Petra masked and cloaked people flowed into the house, a river of cheerful anonymity. Some wore the shorter style of cloak, but others the full one that fastened all down the front, making it hard to tell if the wearer was male or female unless a wide skirt spread the cloak, or it parted to reveal legs.

Petra suspected some deliberate deception. Some ladies were wearing skirts without hoops, as she was, so as not to give too much away. Some gentlemen were wearing the older style of stiff-skirted coat to suggest width. Perhaps deception went further. From the back, she was sure one figure was male, but when he turned, she saw that his black cloak hung open over an elaborate ivory-colored gown. A sturdily built woman, or a man dressed in women’s clothing?

Her father and Diana were admiring the clever hall decorations designed to suggest Italian ruins, and making plans to outshine them at a grand ball in Petra’s honor. That would never happen now. She let the throng carry her up a staircase, through an arch, and into a grand space pretending to be an Italian piazza. There were even small balconies here and there on a higher level.

“Designed by Madame Cornelys,” she heard someone say. “She is Venetian, you know, so it must be quite exact.”

It was, in impression, at least. Petra slipped behind some plaster columns and found a dim, concealed walk around the perimeter of the room, ideal for whispered flirtations and even kisses. Walking along it, she eventually found a narrow staircase built against the wall. The simple construction and new wood told her it was part of the fantasy here.

She navigated it carefully to arrive at an equally narrow passageway that circled the room at the higher level. The floor was merely planks and she stepped onto it carefully, but it was solidly made. It was unlit, but light came in now and then through those cunningly constructed balconies. The chatter and music seemed so far away, almost in another world.

Petra walked carefully to the nearest balcony and looked down. She had to smile. The illusion of looking down at a small piazza thronged with a festive crowd was even stronger, and she could imagine herself back in the past, when she’d first attended a masquerade.

She’d been seventeen and thought herself very grown up. It had been the beginning of her flirtation with Ludo, the teasing and kissing she’d been so sure led toward marriage. She could almost imagine this man or that below was he, looking for her while she playfully hid, intending to be found.

“Petra d’Averio,” said an Italian voice. Petra turned sharply, but of course it wasn’t Ludo. It was a woman, gowned and masked like all the rest, but in her case with scarlet and purple feathers.

“Signora?” Petra asked.

“You don’t recognize me. Hardly surprising, but I am Teresa Cornelys, my dear. Teresa Imer once.”

“Oh. How did you recognize me, ma’am?”

“The mask. For a moment it was as if Amalia was back with us again. She, too, wore a blue cloak.”

Another mistake? No, Mistress Cornelys presented no danger and there was nothing eerie about the coincidence. Blue went with the mask.

“Of course,” Mistress Cornelys added, “I was helped by knowing you to be in England.”

Petra suddenly wished she weren’t in such an isolated spot. “How?”

“I wish you no harm,” the woman said with a strange three-pointed smile that made Petra think of a cat.

She pulled herself together. She had only to step onto the false balcony and call for help. “I was simply startled. I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am. My mother spoke warmly of you.”

“Dear Amalia. And now dead in a convent, I gather.”

“I’m surprised that news has reached England already.”

“As I said, questions have been asked about you.”

“By whom?” Petra asked, trying to sound only mildly interested, but tingling with excitement. It must have been Robin. This woman must know who he was.

“Signor Varzi. Now so fortunately dead. Dispatched to hell by Lord Grandiston, I understand.”

Lord Grandiston? Petra recognized the name of the officer mentioned in the newspapers, but there was a peculiar emphasis in the way it was said. In truth, this woman was a stranger for all she’d been her mother’s friend. And her mother had warned that Teresa Imer was not entirely trustworthy. Any impulse to share memories fled, at least for the moment.

“Do you require anything, ma’am? I must rejoin the company.”

The woman stepped aside. “Of course. I merely wanted to make myself known. Here, tonight, I will be busy, for this is all my design and I must make sure no problems occur, but perhaps we might have time for more leisurely conversation in London one day.”

Petra curtsied and squeezed by to make her escape without commitment.

As she worked her way back down the staircase, she went over the conversation, seeking the traps. Then she paused. Ah. Did Teresa Imer think she had grounds for extortion? If she intended to demand money not to reveal the truth of Petra’s birth, she’d soon find that plan exploded.

Robin arrived at Cheynings with Thorn, Christian, and another friend, Lord Duncourt. They’d gathered the previous night at Duncourt’s place near Leatherhead and enjoyed a merry party there. Robin just wished he could be as merry as he’d used to be. His friends ascribed his mood to his attempts to take over his earldom. It wasn’t entirely true. His failure to find Petra lingered like infection in a wound.

A gathering of friends had been a relief, but he’d forgotten how close Cheynings was to the area where Petra had disappeared. He couldn’t stop scanning every street and room, just in case she was there, and as he entered Cheynings he found himself doing the same thing. He wouldn’t even recognize her in this noisy mass of cloaks and masks, for heaven’s sake, yet still, he couldn’t stop. That hand, that back, that laugh, that light step…

That perfume?

Petra hadn’t worn perfume during their adventures, but he turned, wondering which passing lady he’d detected. The pink, the red, the white, the blue? He grabbed a glass of wine from a tray and let his friends drag him onward in exploration of the transformed house.

Teresa Imer completed a circuit of the house and was satisfied that all was as it should be. She’d had no doubt. She’d become skilled at arranging such events at her own house, and in this case, she hadn’t been spending her own money.

Money, money, money. Always such a problem. She had achieved what no one else had—created entertainments so lavish, so exciting, that all the fashionable world begged for tickets. She, a foreigner of no particular birth, who’d arrived in England with nothing, now dictated to the aristocracy. But one must provide the best to attract the best people, and lenders demanded repayment, while tradesmen presented ridiculous bills. And now this Almack was attempting to imitate her assemblies and steal her clientele.

She considered the opportunity she’d discovered, shrugged, and set off in search of a gentleman in purple with only a narrow eye mask. When she found him, she said, “Five hundred guineas, you mentioned?”

The young man turned to her. “She’s here?”

“I told you there was a possibility. Dark blue, with a blue-and-silver swirled mask.”

Finely carved lips smiled. “How kind of her to be so distinctive,” said il conte di Purieri. “You have my gratitude, signora.”

“I would rather have payment. That ring would do.”

He looked at the gold ring on his right hand, smiled cynically, and slid it off. “True, I will be leaving the country very soon.” He gave it to her and moved off into the crowd.

Robin was playing for shillings at the EO table, which provided no excitement but offered escape from other activities. Even with doors and windows open, the place was growing hot, however, and he was thinking of moving outside when a hand touched his arm. He turned to find a woman in a scarlet and purple feathered mask.

He rose. “Ma’am?”

“Would you step aside with me a moment, sir?”

An Italian accent. After one sharp heartbeat, he realized it wasn’t Petra. “Madame Cornelys. I congratulate you on your design.”

She inclined her head. “Thank you, Lord Huntersdown.”

He moved into a quieter corner with her. “You have some means to see through masks, ma’am?”

“No, my lord, but I have long experience of watching masked crowds in search of interlopers and troublemakers.”

“Which am I?”

She laughed that away. “When three tall young men enter together and one calls out to Robin, and is later addressed as Christian, I know they must be the Duke of Ithorne, the Earl of Huntersdown, and the dashing Major Lord Grandiston.”

“How disappointing to be predictable. But what do you want with me, ma’am?”

“You visited me, did you not?”

Robin came sharply alert. “You have news of Petra d’Averio?”

“I might.”

He curbed surging excitement. “What do you want?”

Cunning eyes shone through the slits in her mask. “A promise of gratitude if I am of use to you.”

He wanted to say he’d pay anything, but he knew the sort of woman he dealt with. “Too vague, I’m afraid.”

She made a moue of distaste. “If you insist on a marketplace, I will give you useful information, my lord, for the promise of five hundred guineas.”

“Five hundred guineas if I speak to her,” he amended.

“Such a hard bargainer. She is here, my lord, wearing a sapphire blue domino. In fact, her cloak is a very similar color to your own. Her mask is a distinctive blue-and-silver swirl.”