The Purloined Heart (The Tyburn Trilogy)
The
Purloined
Heart
The
Purloined
Heart
Maggie MacKeever
Vintage Ink Press
Los Angeles
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictionally.
Copyright © 2013 by Gail Clark Burch
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-0-9889799-1-8
Library of Congress Control Number:
2013943437
First Printing: July 2013
Cover based on ‘Portrait of a Woman’, ca 1797, painted by Elisabeth Louise Vigee LeBrun, 1801. Original located at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Robert Dawson Evans Collection.
This book is an original publication of Vintage Ink Press. For further information contact
www.vintageinkpress.com
Printed in the United States of America
With a nod to the incomparable Georgette.
And, after all, what is a lie? ‘Tis but the truth in masquerade.
—George Gordon, Lord Byron
“I don’t think,” said Viscount Ashcroft, “this is a good idea.”
“So you’ve told me several times,” retorted the young woman strolling by his side. “Perhaps you think I have gone deaf?”
“If that don’t beat all,” Tony muttered, much struck by this ingratitude; had he not put aside his own plans, against his better judgment, to escort her to this masquerade ball being held by members of Watier’s Club to celebrate the long-awaited peace between Great Britain and France, only to discover the surroundings most unsuitable for a respectable female due to the presence of demi-reps? Tony might not be in the habit of hobnobbing with the muslin company but he recognized the breed and if that wasn’t Harriette Wilson standing over there he’d eat his hat, not that he was wearing a hat, being dressed as a medieval monk in a dreary full-length hooded robe, a cross hanging from his neck and a cord around his waist, when he’d wanted to come as Sinbad the Sailor, sporting a hooped earring and a cutlass and tall leather boots, a parrot perched on his shoulder demanding pieces of eight—
He paused, having lost his train of thought. At any rate, if he
had
to be here at least his companion might have left the matter of her costume up to him, in which case she wouldn’t have been one of several nigh-identical Dianas, and so he informed her.
“But I don’t
want
to draw attention,” she protested. “And the costume was at hand. You’re cross because you were persuaded to come as a monk, and Caro Lamb mistook you for Lord Byron, and made a cake of herself. Try for a little patience, Tony. We needn’t stay much longer now.”
“How do you define ‘not much longer’?” inquired the viscount, who had already endured several country dances and a gavotte. “Ten more minutes? Two more hours? Tell you what, I’m going in to supper. You do as you please. ” He plunged into the noisy throng, which was immense and colorful as well, everyone having been required to come in costume except the club members, who wore blue dominoes. The doors to the supper rooms had been flung open to accommodate two thousand gay, glittering, and half-tipsy guests.
Maddie sighed. She had grown fond of Tony since they joined in a conspiracy to mislead his mama and her papa by pretending an inclination toward matrimony neither of them felt; and regretted having made him cross.
She wasn’t hungry. Maddie snatched a glass of iced champagne from a passing servant’s tray — her sixth of the evening, Tony could have pointed out — and made her way in the opposite direction, savoring this rare opportunity to speak to whomever she chose, say whatever she pleased, without being scolded for it afterward. Maddie didn’t care for being scolded, or receiving disappointed glances, or any of the various unpleasantnesses that now made up her days.
A corpulent Elizabethan courtier bumped into her. Maddie caught his arm before he could pitch forward on his nose. “Thank’ee,” he said, as he righted himself. “Demned if you ain’t a sweet piece. That is—” He winked a bloodshot eye. “Could a man but feast upon your beauty, he’d have no need for mortal food.”
Beauty, was it? Maddie pointed him at the supper rooms and gave him a push. “You need spectacles, sir.”
“Damn me. Spectacles,” the courtier muttered, as he staggered away. Aware that she was being foolish, Maddie peeked in a pier glass.
Alas, no transformation had taken place. Even costumed in a chiton that clung to her body, girded at breast and waist and leaving one arm bare; even wearing a blonde wig dressed in a classical manner and sandals laced up around her calves, a bow slung over her shoulder and a quiver filled with golden arrows and no gloves whatsoever because Tony had forbade them, she looked what she was: an ordinary female of seven-and-twenty years, with a plumpish figure, a roundish face made no more exotic by the half mask she wore.
She moved away from the glass. Odd encounters were to be expected, Maddie told herself, when a female wandered off alone. She strolled through the grand silk-lined rooms, lavish with elegant furnishings and crammed with costumed figures, listening to snippets of conversation as she passed her fellow guests. “Byron!” sniffed a Marie Antoinette in hoop skirts and panniers, ruffles and lace; “All that brooding and posturing and pouring vinegar over his potatoes. Someone should give the man a good shake.” Two Roman senators were placing odds on whether the Prince Regent’s efforts to exclude the Princess of Wales from the festivities were destined for success. Several dashing officers of the 19
th
Light Dragoons were defaming a female of their acquaintance whose affair with the local apothecary had resulted in a not-so-secret abortion, which her husband hadn’t yet found out.
One officer eyed Maddie, thereby proving that even the most unremarkable female was worthy of attention when she went out in public wearing less than her chemise. Maddie averted her gaze and asked a footman for directions to the ladies’ withdrawing room.
The chamber was light and airy, with papered walls, a central fireplace, and crimson-upholstered furniture. A matron dressed in flowing Greek draperies perched on one of the sofas while a harried-looking maidservant pinned up her torn hem. “He kept a mistress from the moment of his marriage,” confided the matron to her young companion, an Austrian peasant girl; “as any fool might have foreseen.” The shepherdess expressed greater interest in the recent elopement of a certain earl. Leaving the ladies to their gossip, Maddie placed her empty champagne glass on a table and went out into the hall. From the public rooms drifted distant laughter, and music, and conversation. She hoped Tony was enjoying his meal.
If the viscount had the right of it, barques of frailty numbered among the guests. Had the Greek matron been a courtesan? The peasant girl? Maddie doubted she would recognize a high flyer if one leapt up and bit her on the nose.
A slender hand plucked at her quiver. Maddie paused. The hand belonged to a youthful Henry VIII wearing black satin knee-breeches, fur-trimmed metallic brocade coat, purple tunic, full face mask and a velvet hat.
“ ‘
Many arrows, loosèd several ways, fly to one mark’,” quoted His Majesty, sounding less like a monarch than a pubescent boy.
Maddie knew her Shakespeare,
Henry V,
to be precise. She did
not
know why Henry should quote Shakespeare at her. Still, this was a gala, where people were imbibing more than they should, herself among them, and so she joined in the spirit of the thing.
“ ‘
As many ways meet in one town; as many fresh streams meet in one salt sea—
’ ”
“ ‘
So many a thousand actions, once afoot, end in one purpose’.” Henry draped an arm around her shoulder. He stood mere inches taller than she.
His Majesty stank of stale perfume. “You mustn’t let me keep you from your royal duties, sire.”
“ ‘
Every subject’s duty is the king’s. But every subject’s soul is his own’.”
Henry detached himself and moved on along the hall.
Maddie adjusted her quiver, which His Majesty had knocked askew. She suspected young Henry had been drinking something stronger than champagne.
Why had he been lurking outside the ladies’ withdrawing room?
She knew she shouldn’t follow. Probably she wouldn’t have followed, save for those six glasses of champagne. But Maddie was having an adventure, she reminded herself; and though she had reservations about the business, she’d not soon be granted another opportunity to behave as badly as she wanted with no one to say her nay.
The distant sounds of revelry faded altogether as she trailed the furtive monarch into the more private recesses of the house; along a hallway lacking footmen, which was passing strange when one considered the plentitude of footmen elsewhere, including the ballroom, where they stood every few feet against the wall, fluttering large fans.
The dim corridor stretched before her. Several candles had flickered out. Maddie slipped back into the shadows each time His Majesty glanced behind him, half-expecting someone to seize her by the scruff of the neck and demand she explain her presence in this part of the house.
Henry reached the hallway’s end, halted in front of a closed door. Maddie ducked down beside an elegant commode.
A silent moment passed. She peered around the commode’s curved side. Henry knocked once, again, and entered the room.
The door clicked shut behind him. Maddie crept across the carpet, her pulse pounding in her throat.
She bent to peer through the keyhole. Her bow and quiver slid sideways, pulling her off balance. Steadying herself with one hand on the doorknob and the other on the jamb, she peered into the room.
Henry stood in the middle of the chamber, arms folded across his chest. Looming over him was an Egyptian pharaoh clad in sandals, a kilt that hung from waist to knee, and a golden bird mask. A blue and yellow striped headcloth was secured around his forehead by a golden asp with head reared back to strike. In one hand he held a scepter resembling a small shepherd’s crook.
The men were arguing. Maddie couldn’t make out their words. Something to do with being slave to an unamiable woman, and political necessity. Henry presented the pharaoh with his back and started toward the door. The pharaoh raised his scepter and brought it down on Henry’s skull.
Maddie’s fingers tightened on the knob. The door swung open and she stumbled into the room. Henry lay crumpled on the floor in an expanding pool of bright red blood.