The Magnificent Masquerade (19 page)

Fortunately, the next day dawned bright and
sunny. Everyone in the household was cheered by the change in the weather.
Edgerton set out early to supervise the renewed work on the dairy farm. Lady
Edith took a stroll through the gardens. Alicia permitted Miss Leacock to dress
her in a becoming yellow morning gown and actually came down to breakfast. And
Emily sat down at the piano and played with enthusiastic energy for two hours.
When she finished, she turned on her seat to find Toby, in his riding clothes,
sitting before the window watching her. "How long have you been listening
this time?" she asked.

"Since you started."

"But that was two hours ago!" She
narrowed her eyes in disbelief. "You couldn't have been sitting here for
two hours."

"Oh, but I was. I've been waiting to ask
you to ride with me, but I didn't want to interrupt."

"Then you've quite wasted your
morning," Emily said with a touch of malicious satisfaction. "I've
told you before I that I don't ride."

"Yes, so you said. But come anyway. I'll
teach you. Every well-bred young lady should ride, you know."

She shook her head stubbornly. "I don't
even have a riding costume."

"Shame on you, Miss Kitty Jessup. That
really is a whisker."

"Are you calling me a liar?" Emily
demanded, taking immediate offense again.

"I'm afraid I must. You see, I sought out
your abigail and told her to get your riding clothes ready. She said she'd do
so at once. So, miss, you obviously do have riding clothes." Emily
colored. "You had no right-!"

"Please, Kitty, let's not quarrel. It's a
lovely day for riding. Do go up and change. Your abigail's waiting to dress you
right now. You may as well say yes, ma'am, for I don't intend to take no for an
answer."

Emily hesitated and then shrugged in reluctant
agreement. She had been wondering if she could endure spending the rest of the
day wandering through the chilly rooms, all of which she'd explored many times
already. This outing would at least bring some variety to her day. "Very
well," she said, striding purposefully to the door, "but I warn you,
Toby Wishart, that if you find me a bore in the drawing room, you'll find me
much worse on a horse."

Kitty, while helping her into the riding dress,
tried to allay her fears. "Sitting a horse is as easy as pie," she
declared, "so long as you don't become tense. You mustn't allow the horse
to sense that you're fearful."

"But I'm more than fearful," Emily
asserted. "I'm terrified!”

"There's absolutely no need to be. Just
sit easily, hold the reins with a light hand, and keep the animal to an easy
canter. Tell Toby you don't wish to gallop today."

"But even with an easy canter I could
fall, could I not?"

"You won't fall. One isn't thrown by a
horse that only ambles along. And if you should feel unsteady, just take one
hand from the reins and grasp hold of the pommel. That'll make you feel secure,
I promise you."

That advice, and the sight of her face under
the charmingly feathered, tilted-brim riding cap, gave Emily the courage she
needed. She joined Toby in the front hallway, and when she saw the appreciative
gleam in his eyes at her appearance in riding garb, her confidence soared. She
strolled out to the stables with him, feeling almost jaunty.

Toby, remembering his brother's claim that the
girl was really a superb rider, chose a spirited mare for her. "You'll
like Carlotta, Kitty. This black-coated charmer was named for her Spanish sire,
Carlos El Maligno, an evil-hearted devil of an animal. She inherited his
wonderfully springy step."

"I'd rather have a slug," Emily
muttered, eyeing the dancing horse dubiously.

Toby laughed. "We don't own a slug, I'm
afraid. You'll have to make do with this beauty."

He helped her up, and they set off down the
bridle path at an easy gait. Emily felt a moment of terror at the unexpected
height of the horse, but once she became accustomed to sitting so high above
the ground she was able to relax. Carlotta seemed perfectly docile, and after a
little while Emily decided that Kitty had been right; riding a horse was not so
difficult. To her great surprise, Emily began to enjoy herself. It was lovely
to be so comfortably seated in this gently rocking saddle, her skirts draped
gracefully over the horse's side and her silk neckerchief whipping out behind
her in the wind. She felt like a noble lady in an Arthurian romance, riding out
in stately elegance toward some great adventure. She glanced over at Toby. He
seemed so handsome and manly astride his*prancing steed that he fit perfectly
into her imaginary romance. He was (at least momentarily) her Gawain, her
gallant knight, a medieval hero ready to ride into danger at her behest or
joust with a fierce foe for her honor. At that moment he met her eye.

Holding his prancing gelding in tight rein so
that he could keep abreast of her, he threw her a warm smile, as if he knew
-and shared-her secret thoughts and felt the same pleasure she was feeling.

A surge of joy swept through her at what she
saw in his eyes, but she quickly looked away lest he see too much in hers.
Instead, she drew in a quick breath and looked about her. The view from atop
the mare was new to her and amazingly beautiful. The fields stretching out
before her were rimed with frost and seemed to shimmer in the sunlight like a
silver sea. The horses' breath turned to mist in the cold and rose up to blend
with hers. The air was crisp and clear, tingling her cheeks and the tips of her
ears, and the wind was just sharp enough to bring an effervescence to her
blood. She'd had no idea, until this moment, that a ride on horseback could be
like this.

But Toby, not really the gallant knight she was
imagining him to be, was not the sort to endure a sedate amble for very long.
"Let's race over that rise to the home woods," he suggested eagerly.

"No, thank you," Emily said, waking
abruptly from her daydream, "I don't care to gallop today."

"Nonsense, my dear. This is a perfect day
for racing. You needn't fear that I have too much advantage over you, you know.
I've given you one of the fleetest animals in our stable.

And to prove that I'm more than fair, I'll
allow you a fifty yard lead."

"But I told you, Toby, that I really don't
ride." "You also told me you didn't have a riding costume. I don't
know why you insist on telling me such rappers. I have it on excellent
authority that you're a ripping horsewoman."

"It's not a rapper, Toby, I swear! This is
the first time I ever-"

"Well, let's see about that, shall
we?" Toby, with a roguish grin, lifted his riding crop and whipped it
across the mare's flanks. Carlotta, daughter of Carlos El Maligno, shivered To
life and set off in a headlong gallop across the field as if possessed of the evil
spirit of her forebear. She disappeared over the rise in a trice, but not
before Toby caught a glimpse of Emily's tenor-stricken face. Good God, he
thought, his heart clenching in panic, have I made a terrible mistake? He
spurred his mount instantly in pursuit, but he heard her scream before they'd
gone a yard. He raced at breakneck speed across the field, but as soon as they
flew over the rise, he saw the sight he'd been dreading and brought his horse
up short. She lay face down on the ground before him, absolutely unmoving.
"Oh, God," he moaned as he flung himself from his mount, "I've
killed her. Dear God, don't let me have killed her!"

He knelt beside her, heart pounding and hands
trembling. He stared at her for a moment, afraid to touch her. One of her arms
was buried beneath her and the other was flung out over her head. Her hat was
lying a few feet beyond her outstretched fingers, and her hair, which had been
pinned into a neat bun, had loosened and fallen in a twisted rope over one
shoulder.

Her silk scarf lay limply across her back,
quivering in the wind. It was the only sign of movement he could detect. He
bent over her. "Kitty?" he whispered into her ear. "Kitty?"

There was no response, but a little wisp of
mist floated from her almost-buried nose. She was breathing! Gently he turned
her over. She groaned softly but did not open her eyes. He lifted her head and
shoulders from the ground, bracing her back with his arm and resting her head
on his shoulder.

"Please, Kitty, say something," he
pleaded. "Be the sweet little kitten that you are and tell me you're all
right!" Her eyelids fluttered, and her eyes slowly opened. She focused her
gaze on his face, but the expression in her eyes was vague and disoriented, as
if she were deep in a dream. Then, to his astonishment, her lips curved in a
slow smile and two lovely, vertical dimples appeared in her cheeks. She lifted
one hand like a somnambulist to his face and traced the line of his jaw with
one finger. "Gawain..." she breathed.

"Gawain? I ain't Gawain." He searched
her face fearfully. "Who the devil's Gawain? Good God, the fall must've
rattled your brains! Don't you know me, Kitty? Look at me, girl! Don't you
recognize me at all!"

She blinked her eyes and groaned. The face of
the handsome knight of her dreams was transforming itself into that of Toby
Wishart, with his roguish eyes and self-indulgent, thicklipped mouth that had
so often in the past few days mocked her unmercifully. But now those eyes
looked painfully distracted and the mouth was twisted into an agonized grimace.
She realized all at once that she was lying on the ground, that he was holding
her in his arms, and that his distraction had something to do with her. Slowly,
as if her brain were functioning under water, everything drifted back to her.
The ride, the horse's sudden dash over the hill, the fall ... it was all
returning to her consciousness. And she was becoming aware, too, of a painful
throbbing in her forehead and excruciating soreness in various parts of her
body. She wanted to close her eyes and sink back into the foggy nothingness
from which his voice had roused her, but the agony in his face touched her and
kept her from sinking into a swoon. "I know you, Toby," she managed
to whisper.

He gave a convulsive shudder and clutched her
to him. "Oh, you darling girl," he muttered into her neck, "you
know me! Thank God!" And, in blessed relief, he lifted his head and kissed
her with an intensity of feeling he didn't even know he possessed. He felt
himself trembling all over. Never had he kissed a woman in quite this way. Was
it relief, he wondered, that had set him shaking like a schoolboy, or was this
something else?

Emily, bruised and shaken though she was,
couldn't help noticing that this kiss of his was quite different from the last.
When he'd kissed her in the drawing room, he'd, been very much in command of
the situation. This time the arms with which he clutched her were quivering
with an emotion over which he seemed to have no control. She, too, wondered if
this reaction of his was merely relief that she hadn't been seriously injured
or something much more significant. "Oh, Toby," she gasped,
wide-eyed, when he released her, "what is it? Did I frighten you so
dreadfully? There's no need to tremble so, really there isn't. I'm only bruised."

"Are you sure? Try to move your arms and
legs." Without taking his supporting arm from her back, he got to his
feet. "Here, let me help you up. Can you stand?" And with the
greatest solicitude, he gently lifted her and set her feet on the ground.

She felt dizzy and sore but she was certain
nothing was broken. "There. I'm standing. And I shall be able to walk back
if you give me an arm. So you needn't look at me any longer with that stricken
look."

"Do I look stricken? If I do, it's because
this was all my fault. I thought ... Greg said he was certain you'd been riding
since childhood. I don't know how he can have made such a mistake. But I'm not
trying to place the blame on his shoulders. It is all mine. When you told me
you didn't wish to gallop, I should've listened to you. I don't know how to
apolo-"

"It's not necessary," Emily said,
cutting him short. She realized all too well that her lie about her true
identity was more to blame for this accident than his whipping the horse.

“I forgive you”

"I don't know why you should," he
muttered in self-reproach, abruptly lifting her up in his arms, "for I
don't forgive myself."

"Heavens, Toby," she protested,
"what are you doing? Put me down!"

"It's more than a mile to the manor house
from here. The least I can do is carry you home." He shifted her higher
upon his chest and started off. "After a fall like yours, you must be put
to bed and checked by Dr. Randolph."

"But you can't carry me all that way.
Please, Toby, I am quite well enough to-"

"Be still, woman, and don't be forever
arguing with me. I can put my breath to better use than to banter with you, you
know. You ain't a featherweight."

But in truth he was enjoying the weight of her
in his arms. He was sorry, when they came to the door, that he had to put her
down. It was only his concern for the whereabouts of the horses that made him
release her on the doorstep. "Will you be able to manage the stairs on
your own? If you can, I think

I'd better get back and see if I can find the
horses." "Yes, thank you, Toby, do go on. I shall be fine." He
held the door for her and watched her pass him by. "Kitty?"

She turned back curiously. "Yes?"

"It's the most astounding pass. I never
expected ... but I do believe ..." He threw her a sheepish grin.
"What would you think if I told you I was falling in love with you?"
She felt her heart give a little lurch in her chest. "In love with me? Are
you, Toby?"

"I think so. Would it please you if I
were?"

The look on his face was so surprisingly,
sincerely, boyishly eager that it stirred her deeply. For a moment she forgot
who she really was. "Yes. Oh, yes," she breathed, fixing her wide
eyes on his face. But the truth of her deception was never far from her
consciousness, and she immediately realized the necessity of retracting. She
sighed a long, lingering sigh. "If only..."