The Magnificent Masquerade (13 page)

Alicia gaped. "Oh, Miss Jessup, does it
really?"

"Yes, it does. I've noticed it several
times. And you must stop calling me Miss Jessup if you want me to continue to
call you Alicia. My name is Em- Kitty, if you please."

"But, Kitty, my dear, were you trying to
tell me that I should pretend to Hugh that I feel better than I do?" Emily
knit her brow. She hadn't intended to advise Alicia to scheme. That sounded
more like Kitty's sort of advice. On the other hand, she didn't see what harm
there would be in so mild a pretense. "Just give me a little time to
think. Perhaps Ki-I mean my abigail can help me think of an idea."

"Your abigail?"

"Yes. I ... er ... often consult her in
such matters. She's a very ingenious young woman."

Alicia pulled herself up higher on her pillows
and studied Emily with a cocked head. "Do you know, I'm feeling better!
You've cheered me up more than I dreamed anyone could. I'm so glad you've come
to stay with us, Kitty. Mama is quite right about you, you know. She said
you're the sweetest young thing. I think Greg's choosing you for Toby was the
best thing that's happened to this family in years."

But if Alicia and Lady Edith were taken with
Emily, it was soon obvious that Toby was not. All afternoon he avoided her.
Then he absented himself from the tea table. Finally, at dinner that evening,
he teased her unmercifully until his brother told him sharply to cease and
desist. Even then the dastardly fellow said bluntly-right in front of her!-that
anyone who couldn't laugh at his taunts had no sense of humor. When Kitty came
to undress her at night, Emily recounted the dinner conversation with tight
lips. "The fellow is a swine," she declared furiously. "He kept
saying things like, `I hate goodness ... it ruins conversation," or “Every
proper lady becomes a bore at last." I knew he meant me, but he expected
me to laugh at those cruel quips!"

"He does sound a beast," Kitty agreed
as she undid Emily's evening dress, "but I don't see why you should take
on so. He's nothing to you, and yet your hands are trembling just speaking of
him."

Emily looked down at her quivering fingers.
"I don't know why I'm so upset. I think I'm beginning to ... to hate
him."

She looked over her shoulder at Kitty in
amazement. "You know, Miss Jessup, I don't think I've ever hated anyone in
my life before."

"Is that true?" Kitty shook her head
in disbelief. "I've hated so many people I've lost count."

"Have you really? Who?"

"Let's see." She puckered her brow
thoughtfully as she tucked away the gown and pulled out the nightgown.
"There was a drawing master Mama hired when I was a little girl. He always
insisted that I copy exactly what he drew, and when I dared to draw what I
wanted, he rapped my fingers most painfully with his ruler. Oh, how I despised
that man! And there was a peddler at a fair from whom I bought what was
supposed to be a gold ring. I gave him every penny that I'd saved for months and
months, and when the ring turned black in less than two days, I went back to
find him, but of course he was gone. I'm still furious when I think of
it." She raised the nightgown over Emily's head. "And sometimes I've
hated Bella-"

`Bella? At school?" Emily asked, peering
at Kitty in surprise as her head emerged from the neck of the nightgown.

"Yes, quite often. Especially when she
tattles. You needn't look at me as if I were a demon. It's perfectly natural to
hate, I think, and not so dreadful if you don't take action." Emily's huge
eyes widened in awe. "Take action?"

"Yes, like putting a dose of belladonna in
the hated one's tea, or pushing him off a high tower."

"Goodness, how can you even think-?"

"I don't, really. Hating someone doesn't
automatically make one a murderer, you know. Although ..." Kitty couldn't
help smiling wickedly. "... I have sometimes wanted to wring Bella's
neck."

"I know just what you mean," Emily
said, climbing into bed. "I had the urge, all evening, to slap Toby
Wishart's face!"

Kitty, playing the role of abigail to the hilt,
tucked Emily's comforter in all around her. "Then why didn't you?"

"Slap his face? You mean really?"

"Yes, why not? A slap is not a crime, you
know. And the fellow deserved it, didn't he?"

"Oh, Miss Jessup, I couldn't actually slap
someone, even if he did deserve it."

"Well, I could." She gave the pillows
a last pat and went to the door. "And you could, too, given the right
circumstances. It seems to me that you just don't hate him enough." After
Kitty left, Emily blew out her bedside candle and snuggled down under the
covers. Oh, yes, she thought, I hate him enough. How could she help but hate
him? Hadn't he made it clear to everyone that he thought her a prude and a
bore? And hadn't he snored through her performance at the piano? In fact, if he
continued to behave in the same odious way as he did this evening, she might
very well bring herself to slap him. As Miss Jessup had said, a slap was not a
crime. She smiled to herself in the darkness. Why, her palm was actually
tingling in anticipation!

Chapter Twelve

Kitty closed the door of Emily's bedroom behind
her and raised her candle high. The corridor leading to the back stairs loomed
ahead of her like a dark cave. Why, she wondered, couldn't Lord Edgerton keep
the corridors lit as her father did at Birkinshaw House? At home the candles in
the hallway sconces burned all night. But it was probably impractical here. The
corridors in this place were so long and numerous that their distance was
undoubtedly measured in miles instead of feet. Even so, there should have been
some candle sconces installed here and there. What if, stumbling about in the
darkness, one should come upon a rat?

Holding her candle before her carefully, Kitty
lifted her skirts with her free hand and proceeded with a gingerly step down
the hallway. She could see the glow from the main staircase ahead of her. That,
of course, was nicely lit, even though the back stairs had sconces only at the
turnings. The Wisharts are very generous about their own comfort, she said to
herself with a touch of bitterness, but what do they care about the comfort of
the staff? The thought made her stop in her tracks and grin with satisfaction:
she was beginning to think like a servant!

There was a sound of footsteps on the main
stairs, and in a moment a figure appeared down the hall. It was a gentleman,
and he, too, carried a candle. Kitty wondered if she was about to come face to
face with her intended, but she realized at once it wasn't he. She'd gotten a
glimpse of Toby at the disastrous dinner the night before, and she was certain
that he was stockier than the gentleman now approaching. In another instant she
could see that the gentleman was Lord Edgerton himself. Kitty peered through
the shadows at him admiringly. He seemed to her to be the physical embodiment
of everything manly. There was something about the way he held his head, the
way his step seemed to be propelled from the hip, the way his arm swung from
his shoulder with a suggestion of restrained strength that fascinated her.
Emily might find the revolting Toby handsome, but Kitty was convinced that his
brother had something more than mere handsomeness in his face. Lord Edgerton's
face had character.

She wondered if he would remember that it was
she who'd laughed at his joke the night before. Would he stop and speak to her?
An exchange of pleasantries with him would be a very satisfying way to end her
day. Her blood tingled in her veins in excited anticipation.

They were now face to face. Kitty dropped a
curtsey. "Good evening, your lordship," she said breathlessly. Lord
Edgerton barely glanced at her. "'Evening," he muttered abstractedly
and passed by.

Kitty stood frozen to the spot. He hadn't even
taken notice of her! Blast the man, she thought angrily, can't he see I'm
someone special? Does this deuced bombazine hide one's personality so
completely? She knew that servants were not supposed to make themselves
noticed, but she was Kitty Jessup, and Kitty Jessup, even in servants' garb,
was not the sort to disappear into the woodwork. It was not her way. And then,
as usually happened when she felt challenged, her brain bubbled up with a
naughty and utterly irresistible idea. "Aaaaaaaah!" she screamed,
letting her candle, stick and all, fly through the air. "A rat!"

"What?" his lordship asked, wheeling
about. "Where?"

"There! Right there!" She ran toward
him, holding her skirts high. "Aaaah! Don't let it bite me!" And she
leaped up at him, knowing full well that his instincts would be quick enough to
catch her up in his arms.

She was not mistaken in him. He caught her
without a moment's hesitation, although he dropped his candle in the process.
It, like hers, fell to the ground and went out, leaving only the dim glow from
the stairway to pierce the darkness. "Good God!" he exclaimed,
tottering to regain his balance while holding her against him. "Are you
sure?" "Of course I'm sure," she said, clutching him about the
neck. "I saw its beady eyes!"

"Is that all?" he asked in some
disgust. "If all you saw were the eyes, how can you tell it was a rat? It
was probably only a mouse."

"Only a mouse? Only a mouse? How would you
like to feel a mouse nuzzle your ankle in this wretched black hole of a
hallway? Besides, you can't be sure it wasn't a rat." "Yes, I can. We
don't have rats. I employ a veritable platoon of servants to keep this place
free of them." Kitty hid her face in his neck. "It felt like a rat to
me."

"Did it indeed?" he asked, lifting
her chin and trying to look into her face. "How can it have felt like a
rat, may I ask?"

Kitty gave. a very convincing shudder and
buried her head in his shoulder again. "I could sense his pointy
snout," she whispered with a proper touch of terror.

"Now, see here, girl," his lordship
said firmly, "if I give you my word that we don't have rats, may I be
permitted to put you down?"

"Only if you're certain that whatever it
is is gone," she said promptly, letting her cheek brush against his.

"If it's still lingering about here after
the racket you made, it's the stupidest rat in creation," he said drily.
"There! Even you called it a rat."

"Mouse, then. I meant mouse. Now let me
put you down and find my candle. I promise not to desert you until we've
ascertained that the corridor is free of any and all rodents." He set her
on her feet and bent down, feeling about in the darkness until his hand touched
the candle, still in its holder. Then he started for the stairway.

"Where are you going?" she cried,
clutching at his arm fearfully.

"Only to get us some light. Here, take my
hand if you must."

He led her to the stairs and held his candle to
the first lighted taper he came upon. "There now," he said, returning
to the corridor and holding the light high, "are you now convinced that no
creeping creature is lurking about?"

"Yes, my lord," she said with a meek
bob. "Thank you, my lord. I'm sorry I ... er ... jumped up on you that
way. I quite lost my head."

"Yes, you did, didn't you? I didn't know
that housemaids were so terrified of mice."

"Not mice, remember," she corrected.
"Rats, if you please. Rats, Besides, I'm not a housemaid. I'm Miss
Jessup's abigail."

He held the candle closer to her face.
"Ah, yes, so you are. Forgive me, but I seem to have forgotten your
name."

"Emily, my lord. Emily Pratt."

"Well, Emily Pratt, can it be that you've
never encountered a mouse at Birkinshaw House?"

"I don't come from Birkinshaw House. I
come from the Marchmont Academy. And no, I never did encounter a rat there.
Miss Marchmont keeps cats."

"So you insist it was a rat, do you?"
He frowned at her forbiddingly, but she didn't miss the touch of amusement in
his eyes. "Has anyone ever told you, Emily, that you have a saucy
tongue?"

"Yes, my lord," she answered
demurely, "I've been accused of it once or twice."

"I'm not surprised. Rats, indeed. I have a
feeling that you'd have stirred up as a great a fuss if the creature had been
nothing more than a spider. However, in this case, since I didn't see the
creature myself, I suppose I must give you the benefit of the doubt. I'll grant
that it is possible-though highly unlikely-that the creature was a rat. And
since the slight possibility does exist, I shall help you find your candle and
escort you to the back stairs."

"Thank you, my lord. That is most kind of
you." Something in her tone made him throw her a suspicious look. But
after meeting her very level stare, he shrugged and picked up her candle.
"Here, girl, give me your hand and come along."

He led her down the corridor, covering its
entire length in no more than two dozen long strides. Clutching his hand, Kitty
had to run to keep up with him. When they reached the landing of the back
stairs, she released her grip and made another bobbing curtsey. "I am very
grateful to you, my lord," she said. "It isn't often that the master
of the house goes out of his way for a mere abigail."

"It isn't often that someone accuses me of
harboring rats in the hallway," he countered, lighting her candle with his
own. "I hope, girl," he added, handing her the candle, "that you
won't frighten the other maids with-" He stopped short, peering at her
through the added brightness of the second candle. "Wait a moment! This
isn't the first time I've encountered that saucy tongue of yours, is it? It was
at the table last night. Aren't you the chit who spoke French?"

"Well, yes, my lord, I was that
'chit," but I don't exactly-"

"You're a strange sort of abigail, I must
say."

Kitty wondered if she'd gone too far.
"S-Strange, my lord? Because I know a little French?"