A Masquerade in the Moonlight (44 page)

After about fifteen minutes, time during which Maxwell’s voice rose and fell—still with none of his words intelligible —and he alternately stood and sat and waved his arms about like a windmill in a summer storm, he took out a tinderbox and struck it, setting afire one corner of the packet.

In the light of the small blaze, Thomas was able to see the sack sitting on the ground beside Maxwell. The man opened the sack and pulled out a white rooster, holding it by the feet and extending his arm hard Harewood, who pulled out a knife, its blade glinting dully in the moonlight.

Dooley quickly blessed himself. “We shouldn’t be seeing this, Tommie. I’ve heard tell about such doings. Black arts, that’s what they are. We’ll be going to hell, seeing this, sure as check.”

Thomas motioned for Dooley to be quiet and watched, fascinated, as Harewood dispatched the rooster, then stuffed it back in the bag. Maxwell scooped the ashes from the tin plate they had been on and poured them into the bag, tying it shut with a leather thong before lofting the entire bundle into the air. A moment later Thomas heard a splash and knew Maxwell’s aim had found the ornamental water behind them.

Harewood lifted his chin proudly. Even from this distance Thomas could feel the man’s pride—his relief?—and motioned for Dooley to fade toward their left as Harewood shook hands with Maxwell and headed toward them.

Once Harewood passed, his form melting into the darkness, Thomas waved his arm at Dooley once more, silently instructing him to circle to his left, to come up behind Maxwell, while he himself began moving forward and to his right.

“Hello there, Maxwell,” he said a moment later as the mysterious man with the single eyebrow cut through the trees and ended up directly in front of him. “I’ll take the packet, if you please.”

Dooley came up behind Maxwell, cutting off any notion of escape, although that fact didn’t appear to depress the man. “Packet? Surely you are mistaken. I burned it, which you must have seen, if you’ve been watching for any length of time.”

Thomas smiled. “I’ve watched you play cards as well, Maxwell,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ve seen your handiwork in the Tower garden. You are, in fact, a truly remarkable man, and Marguerite is lucky to have you. Oh, yes,
my friend
. You have many, many talents. However, Marguerite also has me, and I’m not a hired assistant, but the man who loves her beyond life and would cheerfully kill anyone who stands between me and my intention of protecting her from her folly. Do we understand each other, Maxwell? I devoutly hope so.”

“He means it, boyo,” Dooley piped up. “He smiles a lot, our Tommie does, and goes a mite too far sometimes trying to prove he’s none too smart, but he’s got a mean streak in him a mile wide. All in all, I’d say Thomas Joseph Donovan is as great a rogue as ever stood in shoe leather. And I’d do what he says.”

“Donovan, heh? All right. I’ve heard of you. She must have trusted you more than she let on, though, to tell you about that ‘my friend’ business.” He shrugged. “But I promised Marguerite I’d bring Harewood’s confession to her,” Maxwell said, reaching beneath his jacket and pulling out the packet. “She thinks there should be enough evidence inside it to tuck up Harewood and Laleham in prison forever. Something about a long-ago try at treason, to hear her tell it. He played right into our hands, Harewood did, with his superstitions, his love of fortune-tellers, and his convenient horror of death. The Shield of Invincibility—as if it really exists! The man now believes he cannot die. The others were almost for fun, but Harewood is a bad man. Almost as bad as Laleham—though he’s worse. She loves you, you know. Do you love her? I mean, do you
really
love her?”

“Well enough to turn her over my knee and spank her darling sweet bottom once this is over, for scaring me out of seven years’ growth,” Thomas said absently, taking hold of the packet and raising his eyebrows appreciatively when he felt its thickness. Harewood seemed to have been a busy sinner. Then he looked directly into Maxwell’s eyes. “Tell me, do you love her?”

Maxwell smiled and shook his head. “Only as I would love a sister, which she is—if only in my heart. Giorgio and me, we’ve known her all our lives. I’m Marco, by the way, and not Maxwell. We weren’t sure Harewood would trust a Marco so easily, you understand. Marguerite came to our camp last spring with a world of hurt in her heart and an idea or two festering in that pretty little head. We’ve been with her ever since. It’s the least we could do for our sister. For our sister’s father. Although Giorgio says he hasn’t had so much fun, playing the lady.”

“Gypsies,” Dooley piped up, blessing himself yet again. “Wait till Bridget hears I’m trucking with Gypsies. She’ll never let me out of her sight again, even to go to the corner pub for a pint. And she won’t let me within ten feet of you, Tommie, for leading me into occasions of sin.”

Thomas ignored Dooley, who was probably enjoying himself more than he’d ever admit, and slung an arm around Marco’s shoulders as they headed back toward the rented coach. “We have to talk, Marco, wouldn’t you agree? Talk and do a bit of reading. Then we’ll decide just what you’re to show Marguerite and just what you won’t.”

It was William’s fault—all William’s fault. I didn’t know how much he wanted her, how he had always coveted her. This wasn’t just another profitable bubble, this was out-and-out destruction. William wanted Geoffrey destroyed. He reeled him in with the bubble, then offered him a way out of his dilemma by inviting him to join our scheme to deal with the French. Our scheme? No. William’s scheme. Always William’s schemes.

It was a mad plan from the outset, with little hope of success. Murder Pitt? The man was close to cocking up his toes anyway. Although, in the end, he lived long enough to keep the empire afloat. But that is of no moment. William wanted Geoffrey out of the way so he could have Victoria. Victoria was to be his queen, his consort. A ridiculous obsession, but well hidden! It took me years to figure it out.

William never meant for Geoffrey to become one of us. He may have never seriously meant to do treason—not then. He only wanted Geoffrey to become a danger to us when he refused to join us. He needed us to fear Geoffrey, fear his knowledge of our plans. He wanted him dead. That way we would all have no choice but to help him, and keep our silence afterward. I see it now. I see it all now—so clearly!

But I was the only one there when Geoffrey came to confront William. Not Stinky, not Perry, not that fool, Arthur. They weren’t there, curse them. Not until it was over.

William let Geoffrey rant and rave, declare he would go to the Crown, turn us in for our intent to do treason, and be damned to his own reputation, the devil with his lost funds, his neighbor’s lost funds. He had been the outcast before, he would suffer their censure again. It didn’t matter. Not as long as he could look his Marguerite in the eye. Not as long as he could keep her love. Keep Victoria’s love.

That’s when William pounced. He hated the thought that Victoria had ever belonged to another man. I’m convinced that explains why he’s so consumed with Marguerite now. Not only is she a part of Victoria, but he believes she is unsullied. Pure. He plans to make her his wife, perhaps his consort. God only knows his reasoning.

I always wanted the money, only the money. William has always wanted more. If he was spinning a lie to Geoffrey all those years ago, he has come to believe his own lies now. King?  It’s madness, at least for William.

But this is not William’s story. It is my confession, all the sins I have listed on these pages. I conclude with this, the sin that is the worst, the one that haunts me night and day without ceasing. The sin of watching Geoffrey Balfour die
.

William—always so strong, so fit—struck at Geoffrey that night, throwing him to the floor, half stunned, and straddled him, sitting heavily on his chest. He lifted Geoffrey’s cravat and began stuffing the ends into his mouth, shoving the cloth down his gullet, instantly robbing him of any remaining breath, of strength. But Geoffrey’s legs! Oh, how they still bucked, and quivered, and jerked. I could do nothing.

No! I could have done something. Anything. But I didn’t. I stood to one side, terrified, and watched. I could see his eyes growing more frightened by the moment as he looked death in the face and knew it would soon be over for him
.

But not soon enough. An eternity of horror came before, at last, it was over. Geoffrey’s legs stopped twitching, and I saw his eyes go flat and lifeless. I don’t want to look like that. I never, ever want to look like that, or feel the fear Geoffrey felt.

It didn’t begin then, my fear of death. It began with that old crone in Italy, that miserable fortune-teller who laughed and prophesized that I would come to an early end. A messy end.

My fear doubled and redoubled that night, in the moment Geoffrey Balfour died. My dread of dying. Don’t we, all of us, think of death, of our death? Yes. We don’t believe it. Not really. No, we cannot imagine it. But we fear it. I fear it now, but soon, blessedly soon, I will fear it no more.

But I am ahead of myself. The three bunglers showed up then, late, always late, and William bullied them into becoming a part of it. He told us all Geoffrey had been sacrificed to save our group. We believed him. It was, after all, too late for anything else.

We took Geoffrey back to Chertsey, all five of us, and slid a noose around his neck, hanging his lifeless body from the trellis in the gardens. William wouldn’t even allow Stinky to close Geoffrey’s eyes.

Victoria found him the next morning and collapsed. William gave up his plans of treason—did he ever really plan to throw in with the French, or was it all, all of it, just to gain him Victoria?—and we went our own ways. But there is some justice. Victoria was lost to William, for she never fully recovered her strength, although I believe he attempted one last time to propose marriage last year, just days before she died. Now his obsession is Marguerite, and once more he has called us to do treason.

But he won’t win this time either. He won’t have Marguerite. He won’t have anything. I’ll see to that. Once Maxwell has worked his magic, I will have my revenge on William. I confess that sin now, to lump it with the others. Geoffrey deserves at least that—that his Marguerite will be saved from William. For if he ever learned about the American, about the way he tumbled her, he’d kill her, that’s what William would do. I will be doing a good deed, won’t I, saving Balfour’s daughter?  I’m not a bad man.

And so I vow, on my most sacred oath, that this is my full confession, given freely, as Maxwell says it must be. I am now released from my old life and ready to enter into the world of the reborn, the world of eternal life, and I will accomplish what William could only dream and scheme of, for nothing will be impossible for me. I will rule fairly
—

“The rest is drivel,” Thomas said, throwing the pages on the table and looking at Dooley, who was shaking his head in mingled horror and disbelief.

“Marguerite can’t be allowed to read all of this, read these horrible details of dear Geoffrey’s final agonies,” Marco said, flicking at the pages with the back of his hand. “She’d never be content to turn it over to the authorities and let them punish Laleham and Harewood. Not the Marguerite I know. No, she’ll take up her pistols and go after them herself. She can do it, you understand. I’ve seen her shoot, and she can do it. And then, because her heart is good, she will fall into very little pieces not even you, my new friend, will be able to put together again.”

Thomas picked up the pages and began reading through them again rapidly, trying to think. According to the dates mentioned in Harewood’s confession, Geoffrey Balfour had been murdered when Marguerite had been no more than eleven or twelve. She’d admitted to Thomas she hadn’t known immediately that her father’s death had been a suicide. And no wonder. Who would tell a child her beloved father had hanged himself?

“Oh, sweet Jesus, I ought to be horsewhipped,” he breathed quietly, remembering how harshly he had judged Geoffrey Balfour, and then opened his big mouth and said as much to Marguerite. It was a wonder she hadn’t skewered him on the spot! She had to know some of what Harewood had confessed, some inkling of The Club’s involvement with her father’s death, or she never would have acted. How had she learned any of it? And did it matter? No. It didn’t. It was enough that she knew. But Marco was right—she didn’t know it all. If she did, those five men would already be dead. She didn’t know it all—and she could never know it all!

“What are you going to do, boyo?” Dooley asked, returning to the table after getting them all fresh drinks. “You have to let her know her father died a hero. She deserves to know that.”

Thomas took a long drink, then came to a decision. “Paddy—get yourself pen and ink and some paper. Marguerite won’t know Harewood’s handwriting, I hope, and if she does, the words she’ll be reading will keep her from questioning it. Copy down the confession, all that information about bubbles and business ventures. That and the very end. Marco—help him rework the middle pages, where Harewood talks about the details of Balfour’s death, and that business about her mother as well. Say that Geoffrey fought like a man possessed, but William threw him down and he—he hit his head on an andiron or something, killing him instantly. They strung up the body so no one would know it was murder. Marguerite can read that. She can handle that. She has to know her father never planned to leave her without saying good-bye. But that’s all she has to know. Understand?”