The Magnificent Masquerade Part 17

She sat down opposite him. "I'm not reprehensible. I did it in defense of my life. I didn't want to marry your brother."

"Yes," he said drily. "I know."

"It seemed a good scheme at the time." She folded her hands on the table and looked down at them guiltily. "But it hasn't turned out well. I've searched for hours, but I haven't found Emily."

"You needn't worry about that. She never left the house."

"Never left? How can that be? I found a note-"

"She meant to go, but circ.u.mstances prevented it. Your parents' arrival, for one."

She gasped. "Oh, no! So soon? Do they know all? Are they very angry with me?"

"Not very. They seem to expect such behavior of you. I'm the one who's very angry."

She c.o.c.ked her head and peered at him. "Are you, my lord?"

"Didn't you expect me to be? And you needn't 'my lord' me any longer, now that you're not a housemaid in my employ. My name is Greg."

She smiled. "Yes, I know. I often call you Greg in my thoughts. But I really don't see why you should be so angry with me. I didn't do you any harm."

"That shows how little you know about it!" He glared at her for a moment and then, noting that she was about to pursue the subject, held up a restraining hand. "I'm too tired to sit here bantering with you, ma'am. Can we bespeak two bed rooms in this establishment? I am desperate for a little sleep."

"I've already arranged a room for myself, but I'm certain Mrs. Watson will find a place for you. The very best bedchamber, undoubtedly, for the Earl of Edgerton."

"What do you mean, you've arranged for a room? And, by the way. what are you doing acting as barmaid in this place?"

"I'm working for my board. You see, after I'd paid your footman and stableman their bribes, I-"

"Bribes, eh? So that's how you managed it. Some heads will roll when I get home!"

Kitty looked distressed. "You don't mean to ... sack them, do you?"

"That is not your concern. You are no longer one of the belowstairs staff."

"Yes, but ... if they are discharged, it will be my fault."

"Yes, that's true. Nevertheless, I cannot have men working for me who can be so easily seduced. But go on with your tale."

She shrugged, put that matter of Jemmy and Reeves out of her mind, and continued. "Well, I hadn't gone very far when I realized I'd given away every cent I had in the world. I hadn't left myself a groat. So when I reached here this afternoon, frozen and penniless, I offered my services to Mrs. Watson in exchange for a bed." She looked up again with a mischevious grin. "When she heard I'd been an abigail at the 'great house' with years of experience, she was glad to have me."

He shook his head in reluctant admiration. "I'll say one thing for you, Kitty Jessup. You are intrepid. Incorrigible, but intrepid. Nothing seems to defeat you. Your father predicted you'd turn up safe, and he was right."

Her grin widened. "Then you're not so terribly angry with me after all, are you?" she asked coyly.

Something in her grin, in her self-satisfied manner, in her complete disregard of the effect her mischief had had on others, caused an explosion within him. It was as if this provoking, vexatious, troublesome creature was actually proud of having cause all this confusion! All the anger that had been bottled up in him came roiling to the surface. "Not angry?" he asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "You think I'm not angry?" He rose to his feet and stood towering over her. "But of course that's what you think. Who could possibly remain angry with the so-adorable Kitty Jessup? And, after all, why should I be angry? Everything has turned out just as you planned, has it not? And no one is very much hurt. Only your friend, who has a dislocated shoulder and a.s.sorted bruises to show for her loyalty to you. And your parents, who traveled all night through the snow to find you, only to be mortified by the trick you played on them. And the footman and stableman, who shall lose their posts because of you. And Naismith, of whom you made such a fool. And the other servants, who will feel betrayed and who will never again wish to look you in the eye. To say nothing of me-the first of the hundreds of eligibles whose hearts you intend to break-who's been driven to distraction trying to clean up the chaos in your wake!"

Kitty's shining happiness had evaporated with his first angry word, and she'd grown colder and paler as his diatribe proceeded. Now, almost numb with shock and pain, she gazed up at him with a face from which every ounce of color had been drained. "Please, Greg," she whispered, agonized, holding up a hand as if to protect herself from a blow, "don't go on. Don't!"

Her stricken look pierced through him. He felt like a beast, like the monster he'd told Emily Pratt he could never be. Something strong and demanding within his breast wanted to take her in his arms, soothe her, and tell her he'd never hurt her again. But his mind would not permit it. His mind warned him that he needed the protection of his anger to keep himself safe from her.

Perhaps the best course at the moment was a compromise between the two. "Very well," he said, expelling a deep breath, "I suppose that's quite enough anger for now. I'm much too tired to remember the dozens of other reasons you've given me for wrath." He walked slowly to the taproom door. "I'll have plenty to say tomorrow, when I'm refreshed enough to remember how furious with you I am, but for tonight I'm saying nothing more than good night."

She remained seated, motionless, at the table in the now deserted room. "Good night, my lord," she said.

"I trust you'll be ready to depart by seven. It will be slow going, even if the snow has stopped, and I want to be home before dark."

"Yes, my lord," she said dully. "Seven."

Suddenly he wheeled about. "But I warn you, you vixen, that if you have any intention of running off again-and causing further consternation for your parents and turmoil for everyone else-it will not be I who comes after you. From this moment on, if you play the slightest prank or devise the simplest scheme, I'll wash my hands of you!"

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Kitty did not attempt to run away again. She was ready at seven on the dot, waiting meekly for Lord Edgerton in the private parlor of the Fiddle and Bow. The snow had stopped falling and a hint of sunshine was beginning to be seen through the thinning clouds, but traveling would still be difficult.

She was stirring her spoon, with an obvious lack of enthusiasm, in a bowl of porridge (which Mrs. Watson insisted on serving her so that "somethin' warm and fillip' will stick't' yer ribs") when Edgerton came in. He gave her a grunt as a greeting and, after determining that she was no more eager to finish her breakfast that he was to start his, hurried her out to the inn yard and into the closed, four-horse coach he'd hired from Mrs. Watson. (Three of the four horses were his own. He left only the curricle and Kitty's "borrowed" carriage in the innkeeper's care.) The hired coachman climbed up on the box and they were off.

It was slow going, and the silence in the coach made the trip seem interminable. At first Kitty made a few feeble attempts to initiate a conversation, but when she received only monosyllables in response, she ceased trying. An hour went by, during which he stared glumly out of his window and she stared resolutely out of hers.

Finally she shattered the silence with a question that shook him out of his lethargy with a start. "Do gentlemen ever offer cartes blanches to well-born ladies, or must the offers be restricted to opera dancers and fancy pieces?" she asked without preamble.

"What a deuced, improper question that is, especially from a young lady who has presumably been gently reared," he said with quenching disapproval.

"You didn't seem to mind that sort of question when you thought I was a housemaid," she accused.

"I knew who you were almost from the first, so that part of your accusation is patently false. And you have no way of knowing if I minded those questions or not." He crossed his legs and leaned back in his comer at an angle so that he could observe her more closely. "Is this the only subject you are interested in discussing, Miss Jessup?"

"It is the only subject, of several I've tried, that prompted a reaction from you, my lord. So there! But I shall be happy to discuss any subject you like, after you answer my question."

"The answer is that there are no rules about that sort of thing. A gentleman may offer a carte blanche to any woman he pleases. It is to be hoped, however, that a real lady would reject that sort of offer out of hand."

She threw him a look of scorn. "That was phrased with admirable, fatherly tact, my lord. Thank you. But if I read correctly between the lines, I might take it, might I not, that there have been ladies here and there who have accepted such offers?"

"Here and there. But why do you ask such a thing?"

"Well, you see, I've been sitting here wondering if perhaps you rejected my suggestion that you offer me a carte blanche because you knew I wasn't really an abigail. I wondered if perhaps, knowing I was Kitty Jessup, you thought I would only accept an offer of marriage."

"I certainly did. That's why I wanted Toby to offer you marriage. There are certain women to whom one offers marriage and other women with whom one makes liaisons. You, my dear, are one of the former."

"But if some ladies accept cartes blanches, how can you be sure I'm not that sort?"

The look of amus.e.m.e.nt that she'd so often seen in his eyes came back again. "Because, my little innocent, you are a little innocent. That's how I'm sure."

"But I shan't always be an innocent, shall I? In a few years I shall be very sophisticated. Can I then be one of the 'other' women?"

"No. I'm afraid not, for by then you will be a happy wife surrounded by several chubby babies."

"Dash it all, Greg Wishart, you are making this very difficult for me! What if I never marry? What if I remain single and grow to be very beautiful and worldly ... would you offer me a carte blanche then?"

His expression changed abruptly, his mouth hardening and his eyes darkening with anger. "Is this what you've been leading up to?" he demanded, leaning forward and grasping her by the shoulders as if he intended to give her a sound shaking. "I thought I'd made it plain that this notion of yours to become my mistress was to be put out of your mind! I make things difficult for you, do I? Well, you, you benighted, provoking, tormenting wretch, are making things impossible for me! Have you no sense of propriety at all? No iota of self restraint? Can't you, just once, behave as you ought?"

Her cheeks flamed in shame, her throat tightened, and tears filled her eyes. "What g-good is b-behaving as I ought," she stammered, "if it keeps me from ... from ..."

"From what?"

"N-never mind. You would only get m-more angry if I t-told you."

"I wouldn't doubt it. But behaving properly is something one does simply because it should be done. It's not done to bring rewards but for its own sake. Like virtue."

"I don't want to be proper!" she said, thrusting his hands away and turning her back on him. She drew herself up, dashed the tears from her cheeks, and stared, unseeing, out the coach window.

"Or virtuous either, for that matter. If you wanted somebody virtuous and proper you would have married your Miss Inglesham."

"Well, that's a facer," he admitted reluctantly, feeling uncomfortably aware that he'd sounded like a pompous a.s.s. "I didn't mean that you needed to be virtuous and proper to the point of dullness."

She lowered her head until her forehead rested on the icy window gla.s.s. "Just how proper and virtuous would I have to be," she asked in a small voice, "for you to wish to marry me?"

"Marry you?" He gave a snorting laugh. "Are you now going to suggest marriage? What brought about this change? Did you think I would be more amenable to this new suggestion because it would be more proper?"

"The suggestion has nothing to do with propriety. If it did, I could never have made it. If one is being proper, the gentleman has to make the offer."

"Does he indeed?" his lordship said drily. "I didn't think you had enough sense of propriety to realize that."

"That's just what's wrong with propriety. If I'd been proper, we'd never be speaking of marriage at all. Sometimes a lady has to be improper. You certainly had no intentions of making me an offer." She peeped over her shoulder at him. "Had you?"

"Certainly not. I'm much too old to be making offers to chits of eighteen. Even proper ones."

"What has your age to do with it?"

"A great deal. I'm middle-aged and you're a child."

"I don't know why it pleases you so much to keep repeating that I'm a child, but the repet.i.tion doesn't make it true. I am of age. And you needn't try to make yourself sound like a doddering old codger. You can't be more than ... say ... forty."

"I'm thirty-five," he blurted out, stung. She chortled in triumph. Greg reddened and gave an embarra.s.sed laugh.

"All right, you minx. You've made another point."

She turned around and faced him. "Then, if the age objection has been dispensed with, what else keeps you from making an offer?"

"Good G.o.d, what a persistent wench you are! Why are you bringing up the subject of marriage at all? I thought you found wedlock to be worse than death."

"Who told you that?" she asked, surprised.

"Miss Emily Pratt told me. The real Emily Pratt." Kitty fumed. "She had no right to do so! And if I did utter such a foolish statement, it was before I fell in love with you."

The words sent a tremor right through him. But he was too sensible to let his emotions take control. "You don't love me, Kitty," he said gently. "You only think you do. It's a girl's infatuation, that's all."

She shook her head. "You can't know that. You don't know what I feel."

"I know enough. I know you'll feel this way for many young men before you settle down. You'll break many hearts. You yourself predicted it. Hundreds, wasn't that your own estimate?"

"I suppose Emily told you that, too. Well, that isn't true any more either. But I don't suppose you'll believe that, any more than you believe anything else I've said to you. Oh, well," she sighed, "none of it matters, anyway, since you don't love me. Not that I blame you. How could you love someone as benighted, provoking, troublesome, and childish as I?"

"I have no idea. But I do."

Her hands flew to her mouth, smothering her gasp. "What did you say?" she asked when she'd recovered her breath. "You can't mean it!"

"I do mean it, worse luck! I think I've loved you ever since you first forced yourself on me by demanding protection from a rat that wasn't there."

"Oh, Greg!" she breathed, a glow suffusing her entire face.

"There's no need to grow ecstatic, girl, for I don't intend to marry you, however much it hurts to deny myself the joy of it.

You are eighteen. You have years ahead of you to enjoy before you settle down. You told Emily you wanted the flirting, the dancing, the romances, the blessed freedom that you'd dreamed of all the years of your growing up, and you have every right to-"

She leaned toward him and put her hand over his mouth. "Why won't you believe me? None of that means anything to me now."

He took her hand from his mouth, kissed it gently, and laid it down in her lap. "But it will, as soon as this infatuation of yours pa.s.ses. Then I will become the first of those hundreds whose hearts you'll break."

"But, dash it all, I don't wish to break any hearts! Yours most of all."

"Don't concern yourself, my dear. At my age, broken hearts are rarely fatal."

The finality of his tone chilled her through. She turned back to the window in despair. "But what if they are fatal at mine?" she asked sadly.

He didn't answer. And she, her spirit wounded by his repeated rejection of every offer of love she'd made, succ.u.mbed to defeat and stared in silent misery at the pa.s.sing landscape until the carriage arrived at Edgerton Park.

Before the carriage came to a halt, Greg tapped her on the shoulder. "The whole household must be aware, by this time, that you're the real Miss Jessup, so will you please, my dear, try to behave appropriately. Your parents have been sufficiently embarra.s.sed by your roguery. I trust you will refrain from further mischief, at least while you remain under my roof."

She turned from the window and fixed him with a look of ice. "I will behave with the utmost propriety, I a.s.sure you."

Naismith emerged from the house to let down the steps of the carriage, and he welcomed them both with an impa.s.sive bow. When his eyes met Kitty's, there was not a flicker of recognition in them. He turned and led them across the terrace with his usual, measured dignity. Kitty, now familiar with the methods used by the household staff to keep abreast of the doings of the family, knew that their approach was being observed by dozens of pairs of eyes, so, true to the promise she'd just made, she paraded alongside his lordship with as dignified a step as the butler himself.

As she and Greg followed several paces behind the butler, Kitty realized that this might be the very last time she'd be able to exchange a private word with him. Despite her promise to behave herself, she could not let this final opportunity escape her.

"If I promise on my honor always to behave with propriety, would you reconsider-?" she whispered urgently. Greg was as aware as she that they were undoubtedly being watched.

"No," he hissed between clenched teeth, staring straight ahead of him.

"If I swear I'll never concoct another scheme or play another-"

"No!"