A Masked Deception (13 page)

Then she saw the carriage pull out of shadows farther along the street. Jem sprang down from the box, lowered the steps, and handed her silently inside. She settled against the seat back with a sigh of relief. Somehow, she was safe and on her way home, with memories to last a lifetime. She would not, of course, risk any further meetings with Richard in the guise of Marie Antoinette.

Brampton also saw the carriage pull out of the shadows and take his angel away. The carriage was unmarked, the horses unidentifiable in the dark, the coachman masked and well covered with a dark cloak. He had gained no answers, then, from thus spying on her. But she must be a member of the Quality, as he had suspected. The conveyance and horses had appeared expensive. The coachman had been prompt in meeting his lady. She had loyal followers, then. He hoped that she would not be caught and questioned by the old fool of a husband that he had her coupled with in his imagination.

Brampton lit the candles, dressed at a leisurely pace, and wandered into Devin’s library in search of a brandy decanter. He felt himself honor-bound to wait out the half-hour. That time limit was not going to seem half as tedious as the week he would have to live through before seeing her and holding her again, he thought ruefully.

I
n the following week it seemed to Margaret as if her hopes for an attachment between Charlotte and Captain Charles Adair were to be realized. He visited daily, always claiming that he came to see both ladies, but he usually ended up near Charlotte, talking to her almost exclusively, while Margaret entertained any other visitors who happened to be there, or sat quietly at her embroidery if there were none. On several afternoons Charlotte was invited to drive in the park with the captain. Margaret was asked to join them too, on each occasion, but each time she felt as if she had been invited as a polite afterthought. Each time she declined.

One evening they spent at Almack’s, the famous Marriage Mart, where guests danced and socialized by strict invitation only, in the form of vouchers granted by one of four patronesses. Charlotte’s pretty face and figure and her bubbly personality ensured her plenty of partners. But Margaret was especially pleased to see her dance twice with Charles. It would have been improper for her to dance more times with him than that, but she sat with him during a few more dances, talking and laughing and fanning herself.

Margaret was pleased. She herself danced absent-mindedly with several of her husband’s friends, and she chattered with her female acquaintances. But she was not bent on her own amusement. All her interest was pinned on her sister and her brother-in-law. And her heart was at the opposite side of the ballroom, where Brampton stood conversing with a small knot of men, looking resplendent in a tight-fitting mulberry-colored velvet coat and gray silk knee breeches, with his usual pure white linen and lace. He had escorted her in one country dance after their arrival, and then had moved on to a more congenial pastime, his duty done.

“Lady Brampton, may I have the honor?” The languid voice and the lace-covered hand belonged to Devin Northcott.

She smiled, laid her hand in his, and allowed him to lead her onto the floor. As the orchestra began to play, she realized with a feeling of disappointment that it was a waltz. She had hoped that Richard would waltz with her once. She smiled calmly up at Devin as she placed a small, gloved hand on his shoulder and followed him into the rhythm of the dance. A quick glance showed her that Brampton was still deep in conversation, his back to the dance floor. Charlotte and Charles, who was looking unexpectedly magnificent in blue satin civilian clothes, were seated together in an alcove of the large ballroom, seemingly with eyes only for each other. This was the second dance she had sat out with him. Margaret made a mental note to make sure that they were separated for the next set. It would not do to allow gossip to develop, at Almack’s of all places.

“You dance very daintily, ma’am. Feel as if I had a feather in m’ arms,” commented Devin.

“Thank you, sir,” Margaret replied, “but a woman can only be as good a dancer as her partner, you know.” She smiled again as he turned her in the dance, and caught Brampton’s eye as he faced around and lazily scanned the room.

“Is Captain Adair feeling better?” asked Devin conversationally. “Notice he don’t wear his arm in a sling anymore.”

“I believe he wore it that first night only to put his mama’s mind at rest,” Margaret said with a chuckle. "Maybe he also knew that it gave him a very romantical look.”

“Wouldn’t know about that, ma’am,” he said with a cough.

“Oh, ask any of the ladies,” she said airily.

“Very close family, the Adairs,” said Devin. “He spends a lot of time with Bram?”

“Not really,” said Margaret. “He visits our house every day, but Richard is usually away in the afternoons.”

There was silence for a while. Margaret felt a little uncomfortable. Devin knew that Charles spent most afternoons with her and her sister. He had been there himself on a few of those occasions. And he had excused himself early, without any of his usual invitations for Charlotte to drive out with him. Margaret felt a little sorry for him. She did not wish to see him hurt, but she could not really think him a suitable partner for her very young sister.

Devin coughed again. “Really not my business, Lady Bram,” he said, forgetting for the moment that he had never before called her by the shortened form of her name, “but should Miss Wells be so long with the same partner? All the same to me, but the old tabbies can be pretty vicious, y’know.”

Margaret raised her eyebrows. “Indeed, Mr. Northcott,” she said rather frostily, “I have been observing her carefully and had planned to have her partnered with someone else for the next set. Maybe you would like to rescue her from the scandal that seems to be brewing.”

Devin blushed rather painfully and opened his mouth to speak.

“May I claim a husband’s privilege and cut in on you, Dev?” asked a pleasant and dearly familiar voice from behind Margaret, and before she knew it, she had changed partners and was being twirled into the waltz by a much more confident and competent partner. Although the tempo of the dance had not changed, Margaret was having difficultly catching her breath. She fixed her eyes on the complicated folds of Brampton’s neckcloth. Only once did she look up into his face, but she immediately looked down again—and momentarily stumbled—when she found his eyes fixed steadily on her, their expression quite unreadable. His hand tightened reassuringly against the small of her back. She smiled fleetingly in the general direction of his chin.

“Pardon me, Richard,” she said. She was feeling a growing ball of tension building inside her. Only a few evenings before he had danced with her at Vauxhall. Surely he would recognize at any moment that he was holding the same woman.

“You will be making me jealous, my dear,” he said very quietly, “if you smile so sweetly at all your dancing partners.”

Margaret’s eyes shot up to his. His eyes were gleaming, but she was not sure if it was with amusement or not. Before she could respond, he spoke again.

“I see that Dev is performing our duty,” he said, and Margaret looked to the alcove where she had last seen Charlotte and Charles
tête-à-tête.
Now they were standing, and Devin was talking to them in his languid manner.

“We must watch the proprieties more carefully where Charlotte is concerned,” Brampton said, looking back to his wife, the gleam now gone from his eyes. She had the feeling that she was being scolded, that he had really meant “
You
must watch ...”

Brampton was not sure himself whether his words to his wife had been meant teasingly or not. He had felt unaccountably irritated a few minutes before to see her looking so happy in Northcott’s arms. His hand splayed on her back had looked too intimate; her hand on his shoulder had seemed too close to his neck. Yet he had caught himself up in the thoughts with a grimace of self-mockery. Was he jealous of his little mouse of a wife?

He could not at all understand his feelings. A few nights before, when he had made such passionate love to the other woman, he had been convinced that only she meant anything in his life. He was almost prepared to cast everything he owned and everything he was over the moon in order to be with her for the rest of his life. And he still longed with all his being for the rest of the week to pass in order to see her again.

He had not visited his wife’s room since that other night because, he had told himself, it would be tedious and distasteful to be with her after the other passionate encounter. But as he watched her dance and talk with Northcott, he admitted that his reason was perhaps that he felt unworthy of her. She was always so sweet, so composed, so unassuming. He realized, with something like shock, that he was missing her. He drew peace and sanity from contact with her quiet little body.

His feet carried him, without conscious will, across the ballroom to perform the not quite socially acceptable action of cutting in on another man’s dance.

Brampton felt an almost disturbing surge of relief as he held his wife in a gentle hold and felt her respond to his lead in the dance. His reactions annoyed himself. He covered them by criticizing her for allowing her sister to spend a little too much of the evening with his brother. He watched a faint blush of color mount her cheeks, the only sign of emotion, as she replied calmly to his words.

“I shall make sure that Charlotte has another partner for the next set, Richard,” she said.

* * *

Charlotte was up unusually early the next morning. In fact, she was dressed, had breakfasted, and was ready to leave when Captain Charles Adair called for her before noon. He had discovered the night before that she could ride, and they had arranged to ride together in the park the next morning. Jem had had a quiet mare from the stables saddled for her; the horse was waiting outside, beside Charles’ black stallion.

“You look very dashing this morning, Charlotte,” Charles said with a grin, holding out his hands to form a step for her foot and tossing her up into the sidesaddle.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she replied jauntily, and grinned back down at him. She knew she looked well. The jonquil riding dress and daring little hat that tilted over one eye, with a curled brown feather that circled an ear, had been carefully chosen to accentuate her youthful high spirits and auburn hair. She had had the outfit made with someone else’s admiration in mind, but that did not matter now. She was not going to spoil such a morning.

“You suit the morning,” Charles continued gallantly, “bright and gay. And especially bright to me. I had a letter from Juana this morning.”

“Did you indeed!” Charlotte flashed him a bright smile before turning back to watch her horse’s step on the street. “And does she still love you, Charles?”

“But of course,” he answered, eyebrows raised. “How could she resist?”

“How, indeed,” she responded. “I have observed nothing but swooning females in your wake wherever you go.”

He laughed aloud. “Wretch! And how is it that you have been able to resist my fatal charm?”

“Perhaps because I have an instinct for self-preservation, sir,” she replied. “When a gentleman confides in me his undying love for ‘the most lovely lady in the world,’ during our first conversation together, I have the common sense to know it would be unwise to develop a
tendre
for that gentleman.”

He laughed again. “Charlotte, my love,” he said, “I wish you were my younger sister.”

“Goodness!” she responded. “Is that meant to be a compliment?”

They turned into the park and were able to relax their vigilance over the horses, which broke simultaneously into a trot.

“And what does your Juana have to say?” Charlotte asked after a few minutes of easy silence.

“She has hopes of her brother soon agreeing to her coming here to England,” he said.

“Charles, that’s wonderful! And you will marry her?”

“Of course!”

“Yet you have still said nothing about her to your mother or any other member of your family?”

“Juana is nobly born,” Charles explained, “but her family has lost most of their possessions in the wars. 
When I met her, she was living in near-poverty with her brother and his family in a five-room apartment in Madrid. Mama and Dick are very high in the instep, not to mention Rosalind and the other girls. I fear they would throw all kinds of objections in the way if I were to announce my secret betrothal. No, I still feel it better to wait until she arrives in England. I know they will not be able to resist her when they see her. Oh, Charlotte, you should see her dark hair and flashing black eyes. She flies up into the boughs at the slightest provocation.” He chuckled at some private memories.

“Yes, it will be most exciting to meet her,” agreed Charlotte.

“In the meantime,” he continued, “Mama is pushing in my direction all the insipid and simpering misses the Season has to offer.”

“Of which number I am one,” Charlotte said tartly.

“You? Insipid and simpering? Never!” he said. "You have perhaps too much spirit for your own good. But I am grateful to you for agreeing to spend so much time with me. It gives me breathing space. I hope I am not keeping you away from any particular admirer. Am I, Charlotte?”