A Dangerous Masquerade (2 page)

             
There was not a single light in the house.  Had the countess retired immediately?  It was unusual not to leave at least one lantern burning somewhere.  By morning the candle might have burned down, but at night there ought to be a few lights throughout the house.  What kind of a house was this?  Where were all the servants?

             
Moraven’s instincts told him that he had stumbled on a mystery.  Suddenly, a thought struck him.  The youth he’d seen leaving the house – could that possibly have been the countess in disguise?

             
If she had courage enough to walk through the streets of Paris at night dressed in her finery with only one servant, she might dare to risk walking alone as a youth.  While most would think the countess worthy of attention, a slight youth might pass unnoticed.

             
Why was she leading a double life?  Why had she stolen his purse – and where was she going?

             
Moraven was thoughtful as he stared up at the house.  His business in Paris was already dangerous enough.  No one knew who he truly was or what he did and it must stay that way.  He ought not to let himself be distracted from the business in hand, but his curiosity was aroused.

             
He knew he could not just walk away from this situation.  He wanted to know more about the countess and what she was doing…

Chapter One

Constance  Hatherstone glanced over her shoulder, feeling uneasy.  No one was following her and yet she had felt that she was being followed when she left the Comte de Mercie’s house earlier.  Her unease was due to the dreadful thing she’d done that night, something she’d never done before.  She’d stolen a man’s purse.  Driven by desperation to an act she despised, she had chosen her victim because he seemed so casual about his good fortune that evening.  Many men were driven by the same desperation that she felt, the need to survive - and some had a deep need to win; like a disease in their blood that drove them to their own destruction.  Her father had been a man of that unfortunate ilk.

Constance gambled because she had no choice.

It was the first time she’d lost so heavily and she suspected she’d been the victim of a card sharp, though she hadn’t been able to spot how he’d done it.  Her sensitive fingers had not detected any obvious markings on the cards, which was usually a sure sign that the pack had been spiked.  Perhaps it was just that her luck had turned. Papa had always said that Luck was a lady and as fickle as the rest of her kind – but Papa had been bitter at the end.

Her throat closed as the memories swept into her mind, but she thrust them away.  She had mourned him sincerely, but that time was behind her.  Life had moved on and she had moved with it when she became the beautiful Comtesse Madeline Dupree’s maid and companion.

Where was her young and beautiful but desperately sad mistress?  Constance wished that she knew but she’d heard nothing since the young woman fled from her brute of a husband into the night some months earlier.  Perhaps she was dead…

The thought entered Constance’s mind that if the comtesse were truly dead she could sell her jewels and put the money to good use.  Everyone believed that she, Constance, was the comtesse, because Madeline’s lecherous husband had kept his lovely wife locked up for most of the time since bringing her to his home in Paris.  He was cruel and his treatment of her young mistress had often angered Constance.  She might have left his house soon after her mistress vanished had he not fallen ill.  Despite feeling nothing but disgust for the way he’d treated his wife, Constance could not abandon him to the servants who cared nothing for his comfort.  Had she not remained to nurse him he would have died within hours.

Constance and the Sisters of Mercy had nursed him through two months of a terrible illness, making his last days as comfortable as possible.  The doctors had taken Constance for his wife and she had not bothered to deny it, because she did not wish anyone to know that the comtesse had run away.  If her mistress wished to return and claim her fortune no one would have been any the wiser.  However, the weeks and months passed and there was no word from the rightful owner of the house and the valuable clothes and jewels Madeline had left behind.

At first Constance had managed by using a little money she discovered in the comte’s strongbox under his bed.  She had gradually dismissed all the servants except for Heloise, who was too old to find work elsewhere.  Together they had struggled on alone.  Constance refused to sell anything that belonged to her former mistress.  If the comtesse returned she would at least have her clothes and jewels.

However, one month after the old man died, Constance received a visit from one of the nuns that had helped her nurse him.  Believing Constance to have inherited the comte’s fortune she asked for help for her project.

‘If we cannot help these children they will go back to the streets and end as prostitutes, thieves and worse,’ Sister Helene told her.  ‘We had a protector until a few weeks ago, but he was killed.  Unless we can find money soon, I think all we have tried to do will be destroyed.’

‘May I see your children?’ Constance asked, her throat tight with pity.  She instinctively trusted the nun, who had been so gentle and kind with a man who had not truly deserved her help.  ‘I am not sure what I can do.  The comte was no longer a wealthy man – most of his money was lost at the gambling tables or spent on lavish living.’

‘Then you cannot help me,’ Helene said.  ‘Forgive me, comtesse.  I believed you must still be rich.  I saw you wearing your jewels once, though I did not see your face then for you were veiled.’

‘The comte kept me close,’ Constance replied.  She did not dare to confess to anyone that she was not the comte’s wife for fear that some grasping relative should come forward to steal what was Madeline’s by right.  Even to the nun who had befriended her she could not confess that she was merely the comtesse’s maid and the daughter of an English language teacher. 

‘Forgive me, I should not have asked – but of course you may see the children.’

Constance had been taken to a house and shown the children who lived under the protection of the nuns.  All of them had had sad and sometimes terrible lives before they came to the house and her heart was torn by their stories:  girls who had been sold into a kind of slavery; young boys who were beaten and ill used by their masters, and others who could not even tell their stories because they were too traumatised to speak.

Constance knew that she must help them.  She could not steal what belonged to her former mistress, but she would borrow the clothes and jewels to somehow make money for the children.  At first she’d tried to beg money from the ladies and gentlemen who sent her invitations to their card parties and balls.  Most gave her a few francs and forgot her the moment she left their house, the others simply refused.  Children of that kind deserved their fate; they were depraved and ignorant and it was a waste of the comtesse’s time to try to help them.  Instead, she should come to evening soirees and card parties and look for a rich gentleman to replace her dead husband.

Constance had been angered by the attitude of many of these rich aristocrats.  They had so much but they would give nothing to help those who were deprived and ill-treated.  The anger had burned inside her for two days and then she’d hit upon her plan.

Constance’s father had been a brilliant language teacher, which was why she spoke French like a native,  but he’d ruined his life because of the gambling fever that would not let him be.  At times he’d struggled against it for his daughter’s sake, especially after he found a good position working for a French aristocrat, but the need to gamble was so great that he had taught his daughter to play cards like a professional.  She’d played with him for buttons just to keep him happy, learning how to tell when she was being cheated; how to notice the signs when someone was uneasy and when they thought they had the winning hand.  For a while her father had fought his addiction and won, but then he lost his position, because he was unjustly accused of taking a broach from his employer’s wife’s room.

Without a reference and with the shadow of being named a thief hanging over him, he’d gone back to the tables to try and win enough money to keep them both alive.  At first he’d succeeded, but then one night he was attacked, robbed and left for dead in the gutter.  He’d been alive when Constance and her faithful servant found him, but despite her nursing he’d died a few days later.

‘Forgive me, Constance,’ he begged her.  ‘I ruined your mother when I married her.  She was the daughter of a lord and should have made a good marriage but she fell in love with me and we ran away together.  When she died I promised her I would mend my ways and look after you.  Forgive me, daughter.  I’ve failed you, as I failed her.  Go to your mother’s family and ask them to help you.  It is your only chance of a future.’

‘It’s not your fault, Papa…’

Constance had wept after he died, but she’d done everything that ought to be done.  Seeing him decently buried, though it took every penny she had and the sale of her mother’s pearls.  She had written once to her mother’s father but no reply had come and, alone, with few friends and no money, she’d been forced to look for work.  The comtesse had taken her on and Constance had loved her as the sister she’d never had.

Her servant Pierre had followed her to Paris from the south of France, where they had been living.  He’d been her father’s friend and was devoted to her.  Without him she could not have carried out her daring plan to adopt the comtesse’s identity and attend the various evening affairs where she had earned her living at the gaming table.

Unlike her father, Constance was not a true gambler.  She hated the need for what she did, but there was to her mind little choice.  Unless she sold the comtesse’s jewels and costly gowns she could not continue to live in the comte’s house, nor could she help keep the children the nuns had rescued from returning to the streets and their lives of degradation.

The first time she’d gambled what was left of the comte’s gold, she’d been terrified of being denounced as an impostor and turned from the house.  However, she’d been accepted everywhere.  It was not until some weeks after her masquerade began that she realised everyone thought she was a rich widow.  She was courted and fawned over, and, more importantly, she was lucky at the tables.  She had won something every time she played.  Sometimes it was a matter of a few guineas, sometimes she won hundreds and once even a thousand francs.

Constance kept only enough to pay for their food and fuel at the house.  Everything else she gave to the nuns for the children, keeping back only her stake of fifty gold guineas, which she’d won from an English milord the very first night.  That money was safely hidden in her room at the house; the purse she’d stolen that night would go to the nuns.  She hadn’t bothered to count her ill-gotten gains.  Constance was deeply ashamed of the impulse that had made her take the stranger’s money.  She might not have done it had she not heard someone say that he was a rake and an uncaring swine.  Now, she tried to assuage her conscience by telling herself that he could afford to lose the money he’d won from others.

Coming to the house she sought, she glanced back once more.  The street was empty.  No one stood in the shadows.  She needed to be sure she had not been followed, because she knew the nuns had an enemy – a ruthless wicked man who would take the children if he discovered where they were and force them into lives of shame that would lead to their early deaths.

There was no one in the shadows.  She breathed a sigh of relief and lifted the knocker.  Immediately it was opened.  Pierre smiled; his relief that she’d arrived safely evident as he pulled her inside.

‘You were not followed?’

‘I believe not,’ she said.  ‘As you see I am here safely.  Is Sister Helene here?’

‘She is waiting for you in the parlour. Little Lucille was ill earlier – a nightmare.  She woke the others and Sister Helene had to comfort Lucille before she would sleep again.’

‘Lucille has never spoken of what happened to her before she was found, though we know she was near to starving and covered in bruises.’

‘She cried out that the evil man was after her,’ Pierre said.  ‘If I knew his name I would break his neck with my bare hands.’

His big face creased with pity and Constance shook her head at him.  ‘You must control your anger, my friend.  You are needed here to protect the children – and I need you.  I could not do what I do without you.’

‘You should stop soon,’ Pierre warned.  ‘If your identity were discovered you might be arrested and imprisoned for theft.’

‘I have stolen nothing…of the comtesse’s,’ Constance said but she could not meet her friend’s eyes.  This night she had become a thief and the knowledge did not sit well with her.  For a moment she considered seeking out the lord whose purse she’d taken and giving him his money back, but if she did that the children would soon starve.

‘Constance…’ Sister Helene came into the room.  ‘How glad I am to see you.  Forgive me – did you bring money?  We have none left and I must pay the taxes for this house and we need fuel for the fire and food.’

‘Taxes…’ Constance was taken back.  Would she have to pay taxes on the comte’s house?  ‘How much do you need?’