The Magnificent Masquerade (24 page)

"Schoolboys can be the most disgraceful of
all," Lady Upton said in her obnoxiously decisive manner. "And Toby
Wishart has already made himself known as a loose screw."

The countess nodded in agreement.
"Dreadful scamp. Gotten himself into all sorts of scrapes. Hermione, dear,
do play your card. It's your turn."

Lady Birkinshaw discarded without looking.
"Yes, but none of the scrapes that Birkinshaw told me of were more than
mere waggishness," she protested, hoping against hope that the countess's
story was exaggerated.

"Your husband evidently doesn't gossip as
much as my brother William," the countess laughed. "William told me
that Wishart chose a girl who was decidedly lacking in tact. When he was called
down to rusticate in Suffolk, it seems he left her without funds. Well, the
doxy-I think my brother says she goes by the picturesque name of Lolly
Matchin-made quite a vulgar row about it until Edgerton paid her off."

 "Good God!" Lady Birkinshaw
muttered under breath. "What have I done?"

"You've made a mistake, that's what you've
done," Lady Upton chortled, picking up the trick. "I knew you weren't
thinking when you discarded that jack of clubs. That mistake, my dear, has cost
you the game!"

But whist was the last thing on Lady
Birkinshaw's mind. She made her excuses as soon as she could and hurried home.
She could hardly wait to give her idiotic husband a piece of her mind.

Lord Birkinshaw, however, was not to be found
anywhere in his home. He'd gone to his club, of course. The fact that Lady
Birkinshaw should have expected such to be the case in no way eased her
frustration. To make matters worse, he didn't return home until well past
midnight. By that time his wife was in a rage. "You thoughtless,
impulsive, brainless nincompoop," she greeted him the moment he stepped in
the door, "you've really done it this time!"

Poor Lord Birkinshaw had imbibed a large share
of White's liquor stock and was feeling very woozy. "Don' know what
y'rjawin' about, m' love," he mumbled, "but tell me all about it in
th' mornin'. I'm off't' bed." With that, he pecked her cheek and stumbled
cheerfully toward the stairs.

"Stand where you are!" his wife
ordered in the dulcet tones of a sergeant of the guard. "You will not go
to bed tonight. Instead, you will order the carriage, and we will set off for
Suffolk. I've had Jenkins pack your bag already, so there's nothing to keep us
from starting out at once."

"Startin' out f' where?" he asked,
peering at her from a pair of utterly bewildered eyes.

"Suffolk. The Edgerton place. That's
where." "But, my love, we can't go't' Suffolk tonight. It's pas'
midnight. Besides, it'll be snowin' before mornin', if I'm any judge. Air
smelled like snow't' me."

"I don't care about the hour or the
weather. We must go right now to save our daughter from the dreadful fate you
wished upon her."

"Drea'ful fate? Wha' drea'ful fate is
that, m' dear?"

"Confound it, Thomas Jessup," his
wife exploded, throwing up her hands in disgust, "I might have known that
you'd be soused just at the moment when I need you most!"

His lordship drew himself up in offense.
"Not soused. Just a wee bit vertig'nous. Jus' tell me slowly 'n' calmly
... what drea'ful fate's befallen our Kitty?"

"It hasn't befallen her yet," his
wife said impatiently. "We must hurry and keep it from befalling
her."

"Yes, m'love ... but what mus' we keep
from befallin' her?"

"Marriage is what. Marriage! Toby Wishart
must not be permitted to marry Kitty!"

Lord Birkinshaw pursed his lips and tried to
concentrate. "Marriage? But ... th' matter's all settled, ain't it? Can't
stop it now. Gave m' word. Gave m' hand, hang it all! Settled!" Lady
Birkinshaw rounded on him in fury. "I don't care about your word or your
hand! We are going to Suffolk to bring our daughter home, do you hear me? We
are going whether you will it or not, whether it snows or not, or whether you
gave your word or not!" She picked up a bonnet which had been lying on a
nearby chair and clapped it on her head.

"I will not have my daughter wed to that
cad!" His lordship gaped at her. "Are y' speakin' of young Wishart?
He ain't a cad. A bit of a scapegrace, perhaps, but not a cad. After all, he's
only a boy!"

"That's just it," his wife declared,
snatching up her cloak with one hand and grasping. his arm in a viselike grip
with the other. "Just barely of age and already the fellow is reputed to
be a ... a damnable libertine!" She pulled her poor, confused husband
after her to the door. "I can't speak for you," she added as she
dragged him, stumbling, out into the cold, "but I, for one, would rather
break my word than permit my daughter to wed a man who, even before his
twenty-first birthday, has already become a dastardly lecher!"

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Emily dreamed that she was about to perform
Beethoven's Sonata Opus 31, Number 3, in an enormous drawing room filled with
hundreds of people. She'd taken her place at the piano, a hush had fallen over
the crowd, she'd flexed her fingers and was about to place her hands on the
keys when, suddenly, her left arm refused to move. She couldn't lift it high
enough to reach the keyboard. Something seemed to have imprisoned her arm right
at the shoulder. She writhed and moaned and tried to free herself but to no
avail. The expression on the faces of the people in the audience changed from
polite expectation to disdain. Some of them laughed. She struggled harder to
free her arm. "I can play it," she pleaded. "If you will just be
patient-!" But her arm would not come loose. The crowd began to jeer.
"Kitty can't play a note!" they shouted. "Not a note. Kitty
can't play."

"Let me go!" she cried, twisting
herself about desperately.

"I'm not Kitty!"

But they kept calling "Kitty! Kitty!"
until the din was unbearable.

"Stop calling me that!" she screamed
at them so loudly that she woke herself up.

She opened her eyes to a darkened room. Someone
was bending over her, calling her name. "Kitty," he urged with
worried tenderness, "wake up!"

"Toby?" Her voice was thick with
sleep. "Is that you?"

"Are you in pain, my love?" he asked,
stroking her forehead. "I can give you a dose of laudanum if you are."

She shook her head. "No, thank you, I'm
all right."

"You were moaning in your sleep, so I
thought-" "I'm fine really. What are you doing here?"

"Just watching over you. I made your
abigail go to bed. She looked a little red about the eyes."

Emily rubbed her eyes. "That was good of
you, sir. Very kind."

His eyebrows rose. "Sir? We're back to
sir?" "Very well, then, Toby." She tried to sit up. "I
assure you,

Toby, that there's no need to stay. I don't
need watching over."

"Here, let me help you," he said,
sitting down on the edge of the bed and propping her up so that her back rested
on his shoulder. "I like watching over you, you know. You're beautiful
when you're asleep."

"Don't be so silly," she said,
blushing. "You shouldn't be watching me sleep. You shouldn't be here at
all." "Yes I should. I'm the one who got you into this fix, and I'm
the one who's going to help you get well." Emily frowned. "Is that
why you're here? Doing penance? How many times must I tell you that the
accident was not your fault? And I'm only a little bruised. I shall soon be all
over it.

So you may take your unnecessary guilt and go
to bed." "Do you really believe that I'm here doing penance?" he
asked, brushing back her sleep-tousled hair with his fingers.

"Have you forgotten what I told you this
afternoon when I left you at the door?"

Emily sighed deeply. "I haven't forgotten.
You said you may be falling in love with me."

"Did I say that? If I did, it was only
because of shyness." He bent his head and put his lips on her forehead.
"There is no may be' about it, my girl. I am in love with you." She
couldn't help smiling. "Shyness? You haven't an ounce of shyness in your
makeup."

"Yes, I have. You make me shy." He
took her chin in his hand and tilted her head toward him. "You are so much
above me in every way that I'm in constant awe of you." Her smile faded.
"You mustn't say that, Toby. It's not true at all. When you learn the
truth, you'll discover that it's you who are above me."

"I don't know what you mean," he
said, his brows knitting together. "You've said something like that
before. What truth is there to discover?"

"The truth about me."

"Confound it, what's the mystery? What
truth? Tell me!"

She shook her head. "I can't, Toby. It's
not my secret to reveal."

He looked down at her, puzzled. "Is it
some skeleton in the family closet? A mad uncle? A feeble-minded brother? A
drunken sot of a cousin who makes scenes at the family dinners?"

"Oh, Toby, you clown, don't make me laugh.
It hurts."

"I'm sorry, my love. I'll try not to. But
if it's none of those things, then-"

"I wish it were one of those things. But
this is even worse."

"Worse? What could be worse? Unless-"
He gasped, clapped a hand to his forehead in exaggerated alarm and groaned.
"Oh, horror of horrors! Unless-can it be that you're hideously disfigured
somewhere under your clothes?" His eyes laughed down at her, but his
expression remained one of horrified revulsion. "Aha, that's it! You have
a huge and ugly strawberry mark on your left thigh!"

She bit her lip but couldn't hold back the
giggles that shook her sides painfully. "Please, Toby," she gasped,
"you said you wouldn't make me laugh."

He turned serious at once. "I'm sorry, my
love. But I have to make you see that even if there is a secret, it can't make
any difference to my feelings for you. Do you think there is anything you could
tell me that would make me stop loving you?"

 "You mustn't even start loving me,
Toby. You mustn't."

"Yes, so you've said. But you're too
late." And to prove it, he bent his head and kissed her gently.

"Oh, Toby!" she moaned, holding him
off with her good arm. "Don't-!"

He let her go, placed her carefully against the
pillows, and rose. "If you really want me to hold back, then you must
explain why," he said reasonably.

She lowered her head. "I can't."

"You don't trust me, is that it? Or you
don't love me enough. Come to think of it, you've never said you love me."

He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her
hands in his. "Do you?"

She looked at him tearfully. "Please, Toby,
don't make me-"

"Do you?"

She pulled her hands from his grasp and buried
her face in them. "Yes, I do. I do! More than I can's-say!"

"Then we have no problem. We'll be
married, just as our families wish."

She lifted her head, stared at him hopelessly
for a moment, and then turned her head into the pillows. "No, we
won't," she said flatly.

"But why not? Why won't you tell me?"

She didn't look up. "Let's not go round
and round the same circle, my dear. Just ... go away."

"Go away?" he echoed furiously. "Is
that all you can say to me?"

"Yes. That's all. Except that I'm ... very
tired." He threw up his hands in frustration. "Very well, if that's
what you wish, I'll go. Shall I help you lie down first?"

"No, thank you."

"Shall I fix you a laudanum mixture to
help you sleep?"

"No, thank you."

"Shall I send for your abigail?"

 "No, thank you."

"Why don't you say `No, thank you,
sir'?" he demanded angrily.

She turned her head toward him, her face
stained with tears. "I'm terribly's-sorry, Toby. I wish. . ."

"Yes, so do I." He clenched his fists
and thrust them into the pockets of the riding breeches he still wore.
"You know, I always thought that falling in love ... really falling in
love . would be a marvelous thing to happen to me. I always wanted to fall in love.
But it turns out to be a lot like falling off a horse. It hurts all over."

"Yes," came a small voice from the
bed. "I know." He shut his eyes in pain. "Then, for God's sake,
why-?" She gave a small sob. "One of these days. . ."s-soon
...you'll understand."

He stormed to the door. "No I won't. You
can give me a hundred explanations-a thousand, even-for why this is happening
to us, but I'll never understand. Never, as long as I live."

He threw open the door, crossed over the
threshold, and made as if to slam the door with a good, loud crash. There was
nothing that would give him more satisfaction at that moment than making a
noisy, stormy, angry exit. But a glance at the dimly lit figure lying
motionless on the bed stayed his hand. He gave her one last look and closed the
door quietly behind him.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Ever since Toby Wishart had dismissed her from
her post at Emily's bedside and sent her to her bed, Kitty had been trying to
cry herself to sleep. The feeling of misery, which had overwhelmed her when
she'd been dismissed from Lord Edgerton's study, had worsened while she'd been
sitting at Emily's side with nothing to do but watch her friend sleep. With
nothing else to occupy her mind, she'd reviewed the entire incident in Lord
Edgerton's study, and she soon realized that she'd made a terrible fool of
herself. She'd been hideously hoydenish and vulgar and had embarrassed his
lordship and herself. He was a man who was drawn to elegant ladies with
graceful hands, and she had behaved like a trollop. She'd never be able to look
the man in the face again.

Sleep had been eluding her for two hours or
more when there was a tap at her door. It was Peggy with a message from Toby,
requesting that she resume her vigil at Miss Jessup's bedside. "I'll sit
up fer ye, if y're too weary," Peg offered kindly after getting a glimpse
of Kitty's reddened eyes.