Susan Carroll (3 page)

As she met the room full of hostile stares,
she felt as though time had reversed itself. Suddenly she was
seventeen again, stepping into this same ballroom for the very
first time, only not alone. Then her husband had stood by her side,
and the strange faces had surged nearer for a closer inspection of
Lord Ewan Grantham's bride. She remembered clinging to Ewan's elbow
and being ruthlessly shaken off. Trembling, she had forced a smile
to her lips, wanting so badly to make a good impression; wanting to
make Ewan proud of her. But her husband's well-modulated voice had
cut through whatever self-possession she had maintained. "Ah, Lady
Porterfield, this is my bride, Phaedra, fresh from the wilds of
Donegal. You must excuse her appearance. I had not thought it
necessary to tell her hoops were always worn for evening functions.
One would have imagined that even in Ireland- Ah, well. Phaedra,
make your curtsy."

She felt his hand in the small of her back,
shoving her off-balance. "And don't mumble, dearest. Her ladyship
will think you unacquainted with English, and I assure you no one
here speaks Gaelic any more than they do Hindi." Ewan had joined in
the laughter at his own wit. Her eyes brimming with tears, Phaedra
had stared at her handsome husband as if seeing him for the first
time. Cruel, petty, mean-spirited, he would never love her. She had
realized, more painfully still, that she did not love him; she had
realized this in a room full of heartless, uncaring strangers. The
knowledge left her soul stripped bare. She felt set adrift,
alone.

Alone ... even as she was tonight. Phaedra
shook out her skirts, dispelling the hurtful images of the past.
She was no longer seventeen, but six and twenty, no longer a bride,
but a widow. Ewan was dead. These people, his shallow friends, no
longer had the power to wound her, nor could they force her to
observe the hypocrisy of a mourning she did not feel. Lifting her
chin, she placed one silk-shod foot after the other, stepping with
measured tread into the ballroom, her fingers tightening around the
ivory handle of her fan.

Phaedra had not gone far when she was
accosted by a set of wide hoops swirling under the rustle of a blue
silk domino. The lady's rows of white-dusted curls were adorned
with ostrich feathers, the outline of her mask emphasizing the pert
tilt of her chin and the black silk patch expertly placed at the
corner of her pouting red lips.

"My dearest Phaedra," the young woman
trilled. "So unexpected a pleasure."

"Good evening, Muriel," Phaedra said.

The woman started, disconcerted to have her
disguise so easily penetrated. But Miss Muriel Porterfield's
high-pitched voice was easily as distinctive as Phaedra's red
hair.

"I simply never dreamed to find you returned
to London, let alone as a guest at my ball. And so charmingly late,
as usual."

Phaedra gave her a brittle smile. "You are
looking well, Muriel. But if you will excuse me, I believe I must
offer my respects to your esteemed mother.”

She gestured toward where a formidable dame
stood, her hollow cheeks puffed out with cork plumpers. She held
court amidst a circle of clucking dowagers, all of them unmasked,
all of them haughtily aloof from the ball's proceedings.

Muriel caught Phaedra firmly by the elbow,
steering her in the opposite direction. "Most unwise. Dearest Mama
is already in a high tweak. She disapproves of masked balls. It
took endless coaxing to persuade her to allow me to have this one.
And now your arrival!"

Muriel rolled her eyes. "Frankly, she is less
than enchanted. So old-fashioned, you know, in her notions of
propriety, especially with regard to widows-being such a notable
one herself. She still wears weepers upon her sleeves, and Papa has
been dead an age."

Phaedra attempted to disengage her arm. "I
did not come here to be intimidated and skulk around as if-"

"But she is, at this very moment, attempting
to decide if she should have you discreetly evicted. Far better to
avoid Mama until she has time to reflect upon the rashness of such
a decision." Muriel smiled demurely. "I have always found it
so."

Phaedra hesitated, risking one more look at
Lady Porterfield. Both plump cheeks shook with outrage. Phaedra
opted for the better part of valor. It was no part of her plan to
find herself escorted to the door before she had achieved her
purpose in coming here this evening. She hoped that would not take
long. The heat was oppressive. Already she could feel beads of
moisture gathering upon her brow beneath the mask.

"Very well," she conceded, allowing Muriel to
lead her through the press of guests.

"Is it not the most infamous crush?" Muriel
sighed. "My ball shall be acclaimed a roaring success, though I was
most distressed earlier. Parliament sat so late, we were dreadfully
thin of masculine company. All the men are such selfish beasts
these days. They talk of nothing but the American war and that
scurrilous rogue writing those horrid pamphlets. I wish they might
hang this tiresome Robin Goodfellow and be done with it."

"They would have to discover who he is
first." Phaedra's lips tilted into a smile that she quickly
suppressed. It would not do to look as though she knew more than
she ought.

But Muriel was too taken up with enumerating
the triumphs of her ball to take notice of much else. "Three young
women have swooned from the heat already. We've done far better
than Lady Hartford's rout. She can boast but two casualties."

"You may have a fourth victim upon your hands
if I do not soon get a breath of air." Phaedra fanned herself more
vigorously, an unpleasant thrumming starting inside her head in
tempo with the scrape of the bows against the violin strings. The
sensation grew worse as the crowd surged backward to make room for
the dancers in the center of the marbled floor. But Muriel found
them a spot near one of the massive white pillars that supported
the cherub-bedecked ceiling of the ballroom, and sent one of the
liveried footmen to procure Phaedra a glass of lemonade.

Phaedra sipped at the tepid liquid, studying
the brilliant blur of dancers as they promenaded before her. All
the men looked so much alike in their white-powdered wigs, their
features obscured by the strips of velvet tied about their eyes.
Why of all things did this affair tonight have to be a masquerade?
It made the task of locating one particular man nearly hopeless.
She had not even any notion what the Marquis de Varnais looked
like. Doubtless the fellow would be possessed of a long thin nose,
perfectly sized to be poked into other people's affairs. Her temper
threatened to get the better of her all over again when she thought
of her grandfather's last letter.

You can cease importuning me, my girl, Sawyer
Weylin had written. I absolutely refuse to send my carriage to
fetch you as long as my new friend, the Marquis de Varnais, advises
against it. Armande believes that Bath is the perfect place for
widows.

If the marquis fancied that, Phaedra thought,
clenching her jaw, then it was obvious he had never been there.
Bath was no longer fit for anyone but invalids and gout-ridden old
men. How could her grandfather listen to such tripe? Beneath her
anger lurked her fear that Sawyer Weylin meant to abandon her
before she found some other means of independence. Her grandfather
had made clear his displeasure that she had not borne a child to
Ewan. But that would have been a miraculous feat, considering how
rarely her husband had ever touched her.

Phaedra suppressed that old bitterness,
concentrating upon her anger with this Armande person. When she
found him, she would give him a blistering set-down he was unlikely
to forget. The Marquis de Varnais would think twice before ever
attempting to interfere in the life of Lady Phaedra Grantham
again.

Intent upon scanning the crowded room,
Phaedra paid but halfhearted attention to the steady stream of
gossip Muriel poured into her ears.

"Lady Lizzie Devon is rumored to be already
with child. You can be certain all the old tabbies will be counting
the months backward when that babe is born. And did you hear about
poor Tony Aackerly? He was caught stealing a gold watch from a
jewelry shop, and was flung into Newgate like a common thief. Only
fancy! That some shabby shopkeeper could have a gentleman treated
thus-"

"Never mind all that," Phaedra cut her off.
Although she was loath to do so, she saw that she would have no
choice but to enlist Muriel's aid. "Answer me one question. I am
looking for a man. I heard that he was to be present at your ball
tonight."

"Dear me." Muriel simpered. "For one so
recently widowed, you seem in a powerful hurry. Though perhaps
marriage is not what you have in mind?"

"What a shocking suggestion from a young
unmarried female!" Phaedra said. "But I shall resist the temptation
to carry tales to your mama if you point out for me Armande de
LeCroix, the Marquis de Varnais.”

"Aha!" Muriel's eyes danced. "You always were
a sly one. Not nicknamed the Lady Vixen for nothing! I might have
known that even buried in a dreary place like Bath, you would
manage to hear about our mysterious marquis."

"Mysterious?" Phaedra frowned. "Why
mysterious?"

"My dear, he simply seemed to spring up in
our midst out of nowhere. No one had ever heard of the man
before."

Phaedra found this intriguing. "But surely
the French ambassador would know all the noblemen from his own
country."

"It scarce matters. Lord Varnais is
absolutely the sensation of the season. Now if you will excuse me.
Mama is scowling at me. I really must pay more heed to the invited
guests."

"But I want you to introduce me to the
marquis."

Muriel's bow-shaped lips puckered into an
expression of smug satisfaction. "He is not here yet. Like you, le
cher marquis adores making a grand entrance." Lifting her skirts,
she prepared to glide away.

"But how shall I recognize him?" Phaedra
asked.

"When Armande de LeCroix puts in his
appearance, even if he is masked, you will know him."

Phaedra reluctantly let Muriel go. The young
woman's casually dropped remarks had changed Phaedra's entire
estimation of the man she had come to confront.

Mysterious. . . never heard of before? But
her grandfather trusted few men and liked even fewer, reserving a
special antipathy for foreigners. His sudden friendship with this
marquis seemed all the more puzzling. The rogue must be possessed
of a great deal of charm; she could scarcely contain her impatience
to meet him. But, tired from a day's hard journeying, she was in no
humor to wait much longer. Thanks to her grandfather's refusal to
send his carriage, Phaedra had been obliged to travel upon the
common stage, squashed between a fat farmer's wife and a shopkeeper
smelling of fish. Her widow's jointure was small, and the cost of
her fare had made a considerable dent in her meager savings. This
fact only added to the grudge she harbored against the unknown
marquis.

Her irritation increased with her growing
discomfort in the stuffy ballroom. Despite the fact it was too
early for the unmasking, she removed the velvet, which had begun to
chafe the sensitive skin beneath her eyes, and stuffed the mask in
her knotted purse.

Refusing several invitations to dance,
Phaedra kept her eyes fixed on the doorway. She studied the few
late arrivals, one portly gentleman whose garters peeked out
beneath his breeches, the other a gangly youth who'd affected the
style of the Macaronis, his hair a mountain of powdered frizz.

Damn Muriel. Why must she play at these
games? Phaedra would never be able to guess which man might be the
marquis. Thrusting aside another hopeful dance partner, she moved
forward, determined to end this nonsense by making blunt
inquiry.

The next instant she froze where she stood.
Another man strode in behind the other two. Sweeping off a great
cloak of black silk lined with scarlet, he flung it to a footman,
the candlelight playing over a broad pair of shoulders covered by a
cream-colored satin coat in the first mode of elegance. His
white-powdered hair was pulled back in severe style, tied in a
queue at the nape of his neck. He wore no domino, his only effort
at disguise the silver mask concealing the upper portion of his
face. Why then, Phaedra wondered, did he possess such an aura of
intrigue?

Perhaps it was the way he moved. He stepped
forward into the room, conveying an impression of aloofness, of
isolation even in the midst of the crowd.

Phaedra jumped as the bone sticks of a fan
rapped her on the shoulder. She tore her gaze from the man to
confront Muriel's glinting eyes. "Well, my dear, may I not present
you to the marquis? It is a meeting I would not miss for worlds, I
assure you."

Phaedra nodded, her heart giving a sudden
thud. She followed Muriel, hardly watching where she was going, her
eyes drawn to the man who was as yet oblivious to her
existence.

He must be handsome, she decided from what
she could see of his features, but in a cold sort of way. His lips
were frozen in an expression of hauteur; his jawline was perfectly
chiseled, as though carved from granite.

"My dear Marquis," Muriel said, propelling
Phaedra forward. "You have arrived at last."

"
Bon soir
, mademoiselle." As he turned
from greeting Muriel to encompass Phaedra in his bow, she saw the
eyes that glittered behind his mask, narrow slivers of ice-blue.
Try as she would to suppress it, a shiver swept through her.

“My lord, you must allow me to present a dear
friend of mine," Muriel began, but the marquis interrupted her.

"Introductions at a masked ball,
mademoiselle?" he mocked. "You will destroy all the evening's
mystery."

Muriel giggled. "Alas, sir, I fear my friend
is far too eager for your acquaintance to await the unmasking. Lady
Grantham, may I present Armande de LeCroix, the Marquis de Varnais.
My lord, the Lady Phaedra Grantham. "