The Madcap Masquerade (3 page)

Slowly and precisely she removed her worn gloves, finger by finger. She intended to write that contract herself, just as she intended to orchestrate every turn her life took from this minute forward. Painful and disillusioning as this past hour had been, it had taught her one very valuable lesson. She could trust no one except herself—and maybe, just maybe, the twin sister who was the other half of that self.

Theodore Hampton, the eighth Earl of Lynley, rose from the bed of his mistress shortly before dawn and gathered up the shirt and breeches he’d so hurriedly tossed to the floor some six hours earlier. He dressed quickly, placed a farewell kiss on the forehead of the woman with whom he’d spent a vigorous and satisfying night and silently slipped from Sophie Whitcomb’s small, neat house before her neighbors wakened to the new day.

He doubted there was a soul in the village who was not aware of his relationship with the voluptuous widow. Still, it would be the height of bad taste to be caught exiting his mistress’s domicile the day before the ball at which he was scheduled to announce his betrothal to his neighbor’s daughter.

Mounting his horse, which he’d tethered behind the house, he set off for his nearby estate just as the first flush of rosy light painted the eastern sky. A picture of the mousy little creature his precarious financial position had forced him to agree to marry flashed through his mind, and something akin to panic gripped him.

In all the years Meg Barrington had been his neighbor, he had exchanged less than a dozen words with her. Furthermore, when he’d tried to kiss her hand the day he’d offered for her, she’d cringed in horror and fled from his presence.

“Meg is a wee bit shy,” her gargoyle of a father had explained when he’d signed the marriage contract. But how was a man supposed to build a marriage, much less produce an heir, with a woman as timid as that?

Not for the first time, he cursed his father for his incompetent management of Ravenswood, an estate that had once been one of the richest and most productive in all of Kent. The illustrious house of Hampton had fallen low, indeed, to be forced to align itself with a loose screw like Squire Barrington and his attics-to-let daughter.

In due time, he arrived at the Ravenswood stables, dismounted and handed his favorite stallion over to his head groom, who was well acquainted with his employer’s nocturnal habits. For a long moment, the earl stood watching the pale morning sun caress the mellow stone walls of the ancient manor house that was now his to maintain as seven generations of Hamptons before him had.

“Whatever it takes to save Ravenswood from the auction block, I will do,” he vowed to himself as he strode toward the rear entrance that allowed him private egress to his suite of rooms on the third floor. Grimly, he reminded himself that he’d survived horrors during his five years on the Spanish Peninsula that were far worse than any miserable marriage might produce.

And there were compensations. Sophie, for instance. Good sport that she was, Alderman Whitcomb’s generous-hearted widow had accepted his need to marry the Barrington heiress without a whimper—even assured him that as far as she was concerned, their “arrangement” need not be altered. After all, he would have more of the ready to see to her needs as well as those of Ravenswood.

Then there was the London season, where he’d cut such a swath before purchasing his colors, despite the fact that, with his jet-black hair and dark eyes, he looked more like an Italian or Spaniard than an English aristocrat. It would be good to escape his work at Ravenswood, and his brainless bride, for a brief period each spring. He could visit his club, see his friends, look over the latest crop of opera dancers—partake of all the pleasures available to a titled man of means.

By the time he’d climbed three flights of stairs and arrived at his chambers, his gloomy mood had brightened considerably. Now all that stood between him and his peace of mind was the niggling thought that if and when he did manage to get his skitterish wife with child, he had no guarantee the resulting offspring wouldn’t take after her witless side of the family.

T
he ride from London to Kent seemed interminable to Maeve, particularly the last hour when a sudden squall drove the squire to relinquish his saddle-horse and sink into the stained velvet squabs inside his antiquated travel carriage. She had thoroughly despised her father before ever meeting him and so far he had not improved with acquaintance. Furthermore, he had obviously been imbibing freely from the flask of brandy she had seen him slip into his saddlebag just before they left London. Still, she made a halfhearted attempt to initiate a conversation.

“I am curious about my sister,” she said. “Tell me about her if you please, sir.”

“There’s nothing much to tell. She’s just a plain as dirt kind of woman, same as ye. Only where ye’re cheeky and sharp-tongued—she’s so shy she fair turns herself inside out just trying to say a simple word or two.”

“How interesting.” Maeve didn’t care much for her father’s description of herself, accurate though it might be, and she suspected her twin’s social ineptitude stemmed from a lifetime of living under the clod’s tyrannical thumb. “Won’t our glaring differences present a problem when it comes to convincing Meg’s friends I am she?” she asked sourly.

“She don’t have any friends, far as I can see, except perhaps the local vicar and he strikes me as something of a dimwit. Why just last month the fool preached a sermon against the hunt, of all things. Made out it was some kind of sin against nature instead of the fine, gentlemanly sport everyone knows it to be.”

Maeve felt it prudent to keep mum about her violent opposition to the ghastly pastime with which a large segment of England’s richest inhabitants were obsessed.

“Just keep your eyes on the floor and your mouth shut, same as Meg does,” the squire continued, “and there’s none will twig ye ain’t who you pretend to be—least of all the Earl. Only time he’s seen Meg in the past ten years is when he made his marriage offer, and what’d the silly twit do then? Run from the room bawling like a babe with a bellyache, that’s what. So, quit your fretting. There’s no reason whatsoever why anything should go amiss.”

Maeve could think of any number of reasons why such a crazy scheme might blow up in their faces, but before she could voice them, the squire dismissed the subject and launched into a discourse on his pack of hunting hounds. In glowing words, he extolled their fine blood lines, their uncanny ability to sniff out the poor fox who was their victim and the fine litter of pups he expected his prize bitch to whelp shortly after he returned home. It was all too obvious his interest lay with his hounds, not with his daughter.

Maeve soon came to the conclusion that she had been lucky to have been the twin Lily took as her “half of the whole.” With all her faults, her beautiful, self-centered mother had once in a while managed to show a little affection for her plain offspring. She found herself wondering if Meg’s shyness stemmed from a feeling of unworthiness because she felt no one cared about her. If so, finding a twin sister to love and support her might be the very thing she needed to make her blossom as she should.

At long last the carriage passed through the massive iron gates of the squire’s estate just as the first shades of night darkened the rain-soaked landscape. With the luggage coach trailing behind them, they slowly traversed the muddy lane that led to Barrington Hall—a huge three-story stone structure with a recessed entry and at least eight tall chimneys protruding from its high, gabled roof.

Maeve stepped from the carriage into a driving rain and stood for a moment surveying what, except for a quirk of fate, might have been her home for the past twenty-two years. It was not an inviting sight. Ugly patches of moss clung to the gray stone walls of the ancient manor house, the square, mullioned windows looked dark and dirty and forbidding and a rivulet of rainwater spilled from a clogged drain in the eave directly above the front door.

“Damn and blast, meant to have that drain cleaned out after the last rain. Plain forgot it once the sky cleared,” the squire mumbled, stepping through the miniature waterfall to bang on the door with an iron knocker in the shape of a dog’s head. He knocked again, tried the knob, then gave the door a sharp kick with the toe of his boot when no one answered. “Hallo in there. Open up if ye know what’s good for ye,” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Finally, the door creaked open, revealing a woman whose plump pink cheeks were framed with vivid, henna-colored sausage curls. Cook or housekeeper, Maeve surmised, since the woman’s barrel-shaped body was covered by a voluminous apron which might once have been white but was now as gray and stained as the stone of the ancient manor house.

“Hold your water, squire. It’s a fair piece from the kitchen to this door and these hell-bred hounds don’t make it no easier,” the woman snarled, tripping over a pair of ancient foxhounds who chose that moment to wriggle past her and leap on the squire in a frenzy of devotion.

“Down lads. Down. I’ve me fancy town clothes on,” he ordered, pushing them aside to step through the doorway. Crooking his finger, he beckoned Maeve to follow him and a moment later she found herself in a huge, high-ceilinged entry hall which reeked of stale tobacco smoke and damp dog.

“Where’s the demmed snooty-nosed butler I hired on me last trip to London?” the squire demanded, hunkering down to rub behind the ear of first one dog, then the other. “With the prodigious wage I pay him, y’d think he could stir his lazy bones to answer the door in weather like this.”

He looked around him with obvious frustration. “And where’s the footman? There’s trunks of bride clothes to be carried up to Meg’s bedchamber.”

“Don’t you remember, you crazy old fool? Y’sacked Mr. Fogarty the day afore y’left for London—and the footman with him—cause y’d got it into yer head they was helping themselves to that pricey brandy y’d bought off some Frog smuggler.”

“Demmed if I didn’t! And good riddance too, if ye ask me,” the squire muttered, intent on petting his dogs. To Maeve’s surprise, he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he’d just been called a fool by a servant.

“I’ll not argue with you there,” the housekeeper said, with an indignant sniff. “But I’m all the house staff what’s left in this pile of stone, save the half-wit pot boy, and you’ll soon see the last of me ‘less you get me some help.”

“Stop yer grouching. I’ll hire a couple of village girls in the morning,” the squire grumbled. “A fine welcome home this is after the hellish fortnight I just been through.”

Sticking his head out the door, he shouted to his rain-drenched coachman, “Fetch a couple of grooms to come unload the luggage—and mind ye give them wet nags a good rub down afore ye bed them down for the night.”

He turned to Maeve. “In case ye’re wondering, this mouthy old woman is me housekeeper, Mrs. Emma Pinkert,” he said, then turned beet red when he apparently realized his slip of tongue. As “Margaret,” Maeve should know very well who Mrs. Pinkert was. “An almond to a yev forgot her, with being away so long,” he added lamely.

Mrs. Pinkert’s bright blue eyes grew round as teacups. “Lord luv us, yev slipped a cog for sure. Miss Meg’s not going to forget me in a fortnight, when I’ve been here nearly five years. She may be shy, but she’s not stupid like some I could name.”

She glanced out the open door. “And where’s Betty?” She threw up her hands. “Don’t tell me you’ve sacked Miss Meg’s abigail too! Whatever were you thinking of? Betty was the only one her own age the poor little mite ever talked to.”

“I didn’t sack the chit,” the squire blustered. “I … I give her a couple weeks holiday to visit her sick mother in … in Shropshire.”

“Shropshire? I never heard tell Betty was from Shropshire.”

The squire scowled. “Well she was, and that’s a fact. Now leave off your blooming nagging, and put me dinner on the table. Me belly’s so empty, it’s all but collapsed against me backbone.”

He gave Maeve a toothy grin. “It’s glad I am to be back here in Kent where we keep decent country hours. Me stomach got all out of kilter staying at Hermione’s place. Never once sat down to dinner before eight or nine o’clock the whole time I was there. ‘Fashionable’ she called it. More like ‘numskullery’ if ye ask me.”

He paused. “But I expect before y’come to table ye’ll be wanting to wash off the dust of the road and use the necessary in that pretty bedchamber of yers what’s the first door to the left of the stairs on the second floor.”

Maeve excused herself with great relief and fled up the nearby staircase before her less than subtle father gave the entire game away. The last thing she heard before she entered the chamber to which he’d directed her was a loud, smacking noise like a hand striking a buttocks and the squire’s gravelly voice inquiring, “So Emma, ye old tart, did ye miss me whilst I was gone up to London town?”

Maeve woke to bright sunshine streaming through her window her first morning at Barrington Hall. An omen, she hoped, that this madcap masquerade of hers would end happily for both Meg and herself.

She stretched lazily and took her first good look at the room that belonged to her twin; she’d been too preoccupied to see much of it the night before. All pink and white with a delicate Hepplewhite dressing table and chair and a ruffled canopy over the bed, it was a bit too fussy and frilly for Maeve’s taste. Still, it was a pretty, feminine room and she found it a pleasant relief from the rustic masculinity of the rest of the manor house. Furthermore, it was blessedly free of the odor of dog—something which appeared to be an integral part of every other room in Barrington Hall.

She ran her fingers over the linen sheet that stretched beneath her and the pillow on which she’d lain her weary head the night before, and felt a strange bonding with the woman whose bed she inhabited and whose identity she had temporarily assumed.

If her first evening at the Hall was any example of life with the lusty squire and his housekeeper cum cook cum mistress, Maeve could understand why her sister had turned into a shy recluse. There was no middle ground with such people. To keep one’s sanity, one would either have to join in their vulgar ribaldry or retreat into a shell of silence, as Meg had.

Dinner had been a hearty affair—and a democratic one. Mrs. Pinkert’s idea of serving a meal to her employer was to plunk a huge platter of mutton, potatoes and vegetables in the middle of the table, then sit down and help herself before the squire could nab the choicest morsels for himself.

There was no conversation during dinner, indeed no sound at all except that of the hounds chomping on the bones which both the squire and Mrs. Pinkert tossed them once they’d sucked them clean of flesh and marrow. The hour was reserved for serious eating and drinking. Only after the squire had finished off his last bite of mutton, sat back and given a tremendous belch, did he turn sociable. It transpired that he had returned from London with a collection of lewd jokes, the like of which would have curled the hair of the most decadent Corinthian and, as Mrs. Pinkert happily remarked, she dearly loved a good joke.

Maeve was no stranger to such humor. Lily and her admirers had often entertained themselves with the suggestive kind of stories that were taboo in the proper salons of Mayfair. But while Lily had had an earthy sense of humor, she’d favored a clever turn of phrase, a subtle use of the double
entendre
. There was nothing subtle about the squire’s humor. The more he drank, the raunchier his stories grew—and the raunchier his stories grew, the louder Mrs. Pinkert laughed.

Maeve had to chuckle in spite of herself. One could search the world over and never find two more thoroughly unlovely specimens of humanity than Squire Barrington and Mrs. Pinkert. Yet the two of them were so delighted with each other, they’d apparently forgotten all about her. Quietly excusing herself, she slipped from her chair and sought her bedchamber.

It was much too early to retire, but by the time she’d unpacked the three trunks holding her twin’s bride clothes and hung the collection of exquisite gowns in the armoire, she was too tired to stay awake a moment longer.

She was awakened from a deep sleep sometime in the middle of the night by the familiar sound of creaking bedsprings. Just for a moment, she imagined herself a child again, alone in her trundle bed, while Lily “entertained” one of her gentlemen friends in the adjoining chamber. Then she remembered where she was, and what had precipitated her coming there, and wept bitter tears, more for the death of her illusions than for the death of a mother she realized she had never really known at all.

But now it was a new day. The sun was shining and nothing looked as bleak as it had in the dark of night. She could even admit to seeing a modicum of humor in her situation. It was out of the pan, into the fire where parents were concerned. For if ever there was a more outrageous parent than Lily, it surely had to be the squire. With her usual optimism, Maeve decided there was something to be said for being stripped of everything one held dear. Whatever the future, it had to be an improvement over the moment at hand.

She rose, washed her face and hands and dressed in a stylish blue bombazine walking dress, sturdy half-boots and a chip straw bonnet which Lady Hermione had purchased for Meg. The particular shade of blue turned her green eyes a muddy nondescript color, but other than that, it was a vast improvement over the drab brown or gray gowns she usually wore. Wrapping her own warm shawl about her shoulders, she slipped silently from the manor house to explore her father’s estate before the other occupants of the house awakened.