“Sir Niles belongs to a class of men that treat IOUs very seriously. I would rather have them disappear than continue to blight a young man’s happiness. Rest assured, however, that as soon as I can contrive some method, my brother will repay every cent. He’ll be going into the bank soon and will be paid a regular salary.”
“They tried that with me once, putting me into harness when I wanted to run free. Didn’t work. Don’t suppose your brother’d consider becoming my apprentice? Hours aren’t so good, but the money keeps rolling in.”
“Until you wind up twisting in the wind,” Rose said and saw him jump as if stung.
“What d’you want to go and say that for? Ain’t this house cursed enough without you dragging in a gibbet?”
“Ssh.” Rose held her finger to her lips, shutting her eyes to focus on the tiny sound she’d heard. “Please keep your voice down,” she said, demonstrating.
The Black Mask came so close, she could smell the leather of his mask. Surprisingly, he himself did not have any offensive odor, only a clean scent she couldn’t place; She hadn’t smelled it in her mysterious man’s embrace, which convinced her more than ever that some buck was merely entertaining himself last night.
“You can say what you like,” he murmured, his voice hoarser still with the effort of whispering. “This Alardyce beau must be a mean-spirited fellow if you’d rather trust me than him.”
“I told you why ... besides, my brother wouldn’t like it.”
“He would like you cavorting with the criminal classes?”
“No, of course not.” He stood much too close, but Rose found herself with no more space for retreat behind her. “I just want him to be happy.”
“What about you?” His breath teased her cheek, and it, too, held no trace of vileness.
Slightly off balance, Rose caught at his forearm to steady herself. It was like catching an iron bar. “I want to be happy, too.”
His fingertips were surprisingly smooth and gentle as he ran them lightly over her cheek. Rose’s eyes swept closed as she involuntarily concentrated on the sensations he aroused. “Keep your rings and such,” he said, his lips touching her ear. “I’ll claim my own reward.”
He stepped back. “Look out in the hall to see if the house is stirring.”
Feeling as if she’d escaped her fate by a hair’s breadth, Rose looked and listened with her door open a crack. “I think it’s all clear,” she said.
“I’ll go the way I came.” He swept past her into the darkened hall. “Go back to bed.” His voice was less than a whisper, and she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t heard him add a very rude word.
* * * *
In the morning, her rational nature told her it had all been a dream. The Black Mask could not have stood in her bedroom and talked to her. It was just too impossible to believe.
Even as she went to the wardrobe to take down the reticule, she told herself how foolish she was to bother checking for the mask. It hadn’t gone anywhere, for there’d been no one to take it.
Pulling open the drawstring, she plunged in her hand, only the cardboard bottom met her questing fingers. Opening the bag fully, she upended it and shook.
Rose thought at first she’d merely moved the mask and then forgotten she’d done it. Or perhaps she’d walked in her sleep. She’d heard of people doing all sorts of strange things while sleepwalking—painting pictures, picking flowers, even untying knots they’d tied while awake.
Despite resisting the notion with logic and good sense, she gave in to the impact of reality. Though she’d not been embarrassed with the Black Mask in the room—why not?—in hindsight, she was one entire blush. If meeting Sir Niles under perfectly innocent circumstances in the garden put her reputation in jeopardy, how much more shameful to meet a famous criminal in her bedroom.
Suddenly, being alone did not appeal to her. She threw on her dressing gown, pulling the softness up to her throat. Hurrying down the hallway, she rapped sharply on Rupert’s door. When he did not immediately answer, she rapped again, harder, her other hand on the doorknob.
It ripped through her grasp as Rupert yanked the door open. He raised one hand to shield his eyes against the dim light of the hall. He wore his breeches and a stained shirt. His cheeks and chin were covered with bristles and his lips were cracked, a white crust around them. His breath smelled like a mad alchemist’s workshop.
“Rupert!” Rose, shocked by his appearance, shrank back.
“What the devil? Rose, what do you want?”
“I... I need to talk to you.”
“Now? Can’t it wait? I have the devil’s own headache.”
“You were drinking?”
He gave a hollow laugh. “Who? Me?”
Rose hesitated before asking her next question, but she needed to know. “Did you ... gamble? Very much?”
He shrugged and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. Maybe. For the love of heaven, Rose, would you ask someone to bring me some coffee? I don’t know where my man has wandered off to.”
“Yes, of course,” Rose said, moved to pity. “But if you could just tell me ...”
“I told you, I don’t know,” he snarled. “Why are you bothering me about that? It’s none of your business.”
“I can’t bear to watch you destroying yourself. At this rate, what will be left for the army?”
“What difference can it make? I’ll never have the money to join.”
“Not if you keep gambling.”
“How else am I to get it? If my luck weren’t so cursed bad...”
“If... if I could find the money for you ...”
As if he were a prisoner shown an open window which led to either freedom or death, wild hope and tormenting doubt battled across Rupert’s dissipated countenance. “How could you?”
“I might marry a wealthy man. A brother-in-law could buy you a commission. Father couldn’t stop you then, as you are of age. He’d have to accept a
fait accompli.”
“Who? Who wants to marry you?”
“How much do you owe?”
“What? You can’t be planning to marry someone depending on how much I owe? No, Rose. I’m not worth that.”
He stumbled forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a rough, brotherly hug. “You just forget all about me. I’ll go to perdition in my own way. But don’t you go making a sacrifice of yourself. Anything would be better than that.”
Rose blinked back tears. “No, no, Rupert. It’s going to be all right.”
A giggle interrupted them. When they looked around, Lucy, pretty in her mobcap, dipped them a curtsy. “Begging your pardon, Miss Rose, Mr. Rupert. Her ladyship asks if you’d lower your voices to consider the hour.”
Rose stepped out of Rupert’s encircling arms. “Lucy, would you bring my brother some coffee?” She rolled her eyes at him drolly. “And could you arrange for a bath?”
“For you, miss?” Lucy’s dimples showed.
“No. For Mr. Spenser.”
Rupert glanced between the two grinning girls. “Why do I feel as though you are trying to drop me a hint? Kindly don’t spare my feelings.”
“Very well, then. Rupert, dearly as I love you, I must tell you...”
“Never mind, never mind. Lucy, coffee first. Pots of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Lucy came to take down Rose’s breakfast tray, she was no longer smiling. “There’s a dreadful row going on downstairs, miss,” she replied when Rose asked her what was wrong.
“Row? The cook isn’t quarreling with Hurst, is she?”
“No, miss. It’s her ladyship. She and the general are having the most dreadful row. We’re that worried, miss.”
Rose had only to slip on her shoes to be dressed. “Should I go down?”
“Would you? It’s not right, so loving as they mostly are.”
Rose tied her shoelaces, reflecting that the question of whether the servants knew of Aunt Paige’s romance had been answered. Although judging by the raised voices that met her at the bottom of the stair, the question of romance might not need answering soon.
“You’re being so unreasonable,” Aunt Paige said, in the tone of a woman pushed to the limits of patience.
“And you’re as stubborn as Clancy’s mule, my lady.” The general had clearly passed the limits some time ago. Rose didn’t stop to knock. Morning visitors would be arriving very soon. Hurst could carry off just about any calamity with calm, but even his talents would be tested by greeting callers with a storming argument proceeding in the next room.
“What is wrong?” Rose asked as soon as she’d closed the door behind her.
Aunt Paige sat bolt upright in her favorite chair, her hands gripping the ends of the wooden arms like talons. “Nothing but a demonstration of male pride,” she declared.
“Pride? You talk of pride?” The general, in civilian clothes, took hasty strides before the fireplace, his hands clasped tightly in title small of his back. “I’m greeted this morning by
the news that my fiancée’s house has been attacked by a scofflaw who should have been caught and hung weeks ago. I rush to her side to renew my offers of tenderest devotion, and she claims she doesn’t need me.”
“I never said that,” Paige answered. “I said your protection wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“Of course it would have. That dastard never would have dared step foot in this; house if a man lived in it.”
“You’re being illogical,” Paige said, as if she’d said it several times already. “There are men living here. Hurst, the footman, the boot boy, and Rupert.”
“Rupert? He was on the toddle last night. I saw him at Peck’s myself.”
“You were at Peck’s?”
“I met several of my old officers there for a dinner.”
“So you weren’t here?”
“How could I be here?’ I told you ...”
“Then it wouldn’t have made any difference if you were living here or not. The Black Mask—if it was indeed he—chose a time when most of the inhabitants were not at home. Obviously, he’d been watching the house for who knows how long.”
“Ah!” The general’s face, intent with impending triumph, must have looked very similar on the battlefield. “If I were living here, I’d have soon sent the spalpeen on his way. Aye, and put my boot in his backside for good measure.”
Paige slumped as though exhausted. Shaking her head in disbelief, she glanced at Rose. “What was it you said about men being incalculable?”
“I’ve spent my entire life with men,” the general said. “I’ve marched them and fought with them and taken mess with them three times a day for nearly forty years. I can tell you, my lady, I’d rather fight a battalion of men than have a simple conversation with a woman. They’re illogical.”
“There is the door, sir. Your precious mankind awaits you.”
The general stared at her, his anger fading to dismay. Then pride came to stiffen his backbone. “Very well, my lady. Good morning.”
Rose, hating to see the back of the general, touched Paige’s hand. When her aunt glanced up, Rose, frowning, shook her head, then nodded toward Sir Augustus. Paige, lips tight, thought for an instant. “Oh, Augustus, don’t be silly. I’m sorry.”
He paused with his hand on the knob. “It’s true, though. You don’t need me. You have everything you want.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Your husband’s left you independent.”
‘Yes, they did.”
“I... I think I should leave London, Paige. I have a little estate in Cork. I should go to see how it has fared after the winter. An absent landlord’s not good for the land or the people. I’m thinking about living there.”
Paige’s posture had again stiffened, but this time the rigidity was not of anger. Looking at her aunt’s face, Rose saw not a trace of impatience or ire. Instead, she seemed paralyzed by indecision. Even Rose realized this was the moment in which Paige must make up her mind whether to keep to her free widowhood or to throw it away in reckless surrender. Rose wished she’d not intruded.
They insisted on thanking her, as though their engagement were somehow her doing. Sir Augustus claimed, then and there, the permanent title of uncle. Rose wanted only to escape, to leave them to their happiness. Hurst’s announcement of a morning caller gave her an excuse to leave Paige and Augustus alone. Something in their blissful, slightly stunned expressions made her feel very lonely indeed.
Rose managed to give the impression of attending to Ariadne and her mother, who had come to invite her to a house visit in the country. Rose gave an evasive answer and hailed with pleasure the appearance of two of her large admirers. Ariadne clearly wanted to stay, and Rose encouraged her to do so. Her mother did not seem too put out by this. Rose recalled that Ariadne had two younger sisters on the brink of their own bows to society.
When the hour for calls had passed, Rose learned from Hurst that the general had also left the house. The butler was carrying out of the drawing room two used glasses and an unfurled bottle of champagne.
Paige embraced her niece, kissing her on both cheeks. “My word, what have I done? Cork, for heaven’s sake. I don’t even know what to wear.”
“Does it matter? The general won’t notice.”
“Of course it matters. I’m a bride again, may the Lord have mercy upon me. I shall need all new night-clothes and underthings, at any rate.”
“Why?”
Paige’s cheeks turned pink. “Brides and matrons wear different styles. Oh.., you know what I mean. As a widow, I’ve been wearing very modest, very boring nightclothes. No one sees them but me and my maid. But a husband is a different matter.”
“I haven’t noticed that your underclothes are particularly boring. They’re more interesting than mine,” she said, thinking of her cashmere dressing gown and how she’d wished it were floating cambric and delicate lace.
“We shall buy you some new things as well. Madame Corant has the most charming Moravian white-work petticoats. Remind me to pick up a few pairs of stockings too. Pink, if she has them.”
Before they could go shopping, however, the general returned with a meek man carrying a large black case under his arm. He bowed to Paige and Rose. Undoing hasps and clasps, he opened the case to expose row after row of sparkling, gleaming rings. The sunlight rebounded off them as though the little man had opened a case full of water, sending rippling ribbons of light around the room.
“By Jove,” Rupert said, “ ‘ware Black Mask.”