Chapter Three
Marcus, not normally particularly excited about masquerade balls, admitted to a deep gratitude for that evening’s event because it was relieving him of the company of Socrates.
Not that he disliked the creature—Socrates was a sweet fellow, and he brought delight to any woman in the vicinity merely by his presence.
But Socrates had yet to cease behaving as though Marcus was his sole reason for existing, and it was slightly unspeakable being on the receiving end of the kind of adoring attention his dog dispensed. Since even Socrates’s most ardent admirer (Alice) agreed that dogs really shouldn’t be present at a ball, Socrates had been spirited away by Cook, whom the creature had shown a willingness to tolerate for a brief amount of time (due mostly to the application of kitchen scraps) before he began the mournful howling that marked his every absence from his master.
Marcus was dancing with his grandmother, Lady Tremont, who, in accordance with the masquerade theme, was wearing an extremely tall wig he suspected had been fashionable in her debutante years, along with a club-shaped patch positioned below her left eye. Though she was well over seventy, Marcus thought she looked charmingly young, and he told her so.
“Rogue,” she said tartly, but the corner of her mouth trembled with pleasure.
While many of the guests had come to the ball dressed as kings or dairy maids or mythological characters—he suspected the Thor who’d just moved past him was the Marquess of Tyne—Marcus’s only concession to the masquerade was a black satin demi-mask. Scores of other gentlemen were also dressed like him, in black evening coats and pantaloons with matching demi-masks, which effectively deepened his concealment, because it would be hard to tell one gentleman from another.
“You are deliberately using up one of the waltzes you might be sharing with a young lady by dancing with your ancient grandmother,” Lady Tremont informed him.
“I am waltzing with you because I adore you.” His grandmother, not known for effusions of emotion, blushed. Marcus hid a smile.
“I’d forgotten how charming you can be when you wish, young man,” she said. “You are becoming so serious. One might even think that you don’t much care to laugh.”
Marcus frowned. “Who doesn’t like to laugh?”
“You, sometimes, from the looks of it. Take care that the duties of the marquessate don’t weigh you down. There, see, you’re frowning now.”
He supposed he did sometimes feel weighed down by his responsibilities. He certainly liked to laugh and enjoy himself, but he did often have a great deal on his mind, things that had to be seen to. “That’s only because you are casting aspersions.”
“I think your mother is trying to get your attention.” Lady Tremont squinted. “Oh, look, she’s just realized you’re wasting a waltz with me.”
“Would you cease this talk of wasted waltzes? I have not waltzed with a more pleasing companion in quite some time.”
“Which only speaks volumes about the young ladies with whom you’ve been dancing.”
Marcus sighed. “There’s a list this time.”
“A list, you say?” Lady Tremont chortled. “Debutantes ranked by beauty, age, size, and goodness?”
“I’m sure nothing like that,” Marcus said, which was true. His mother was far too kind to treat anyone, least of all harmless young ladies, as cattle. Well, mostly harmless—Miss Clarinda Faraday kept sending him bold, meaningful glances over the shoulder of her dance partner. Having observed her eyeing a fellow he suspected was the Marquess of Exmore, Marcus was fairly certain that Miss Faraday’s goal was to snare a marquess, any marquess.
“The perils of being so very eligible,” Lady Tremont said with mock pity. “At least there are two other marquesses present tonight to attract the attention of the matchmaking mamas.”
It was at that moment that Marcus’s eyes, carelessly passing over his grandmother’s left shoulder, fell on a woman dressed in blue. She was striking, even with part of her face hidden by her silver demi-mask. A delicate wash of pink warmed the fair skin of her cheeks, her glossy dark brown hair looked as rich as sable, and she had a shapely figure that showed to advantage in her gown. But her beauty wasn’t what riveted him—there were scores of beautiful women present. Partly, he was drawn to her mouth, which was curled in an expression of benevolent amusement. But mostly, he was drawn to her eyes.
He couldn’t see their color—he was a good dozen feet away—but they had light in them. And he suddenly knew that he had to know more about that light.
But who was she? Even though she was wearing a mask, he was certain that if he’d ever seen those eyes before, he would remember.
“See something interesting, do you, Marcus?” his grandmother asked. As the movements of the dance brought them in clear sight of the woman in blue, he inclined his head in her direction.
“Do you know who that lady is, the one in that silvery blue gown?”
Lady Tremont squinted, and he was reminded that she was not wearing her spectacles. “Is that Francesca Gaitskill? I believe she’s recently arrived in town, and she has dark hair.”
“It’s not Francesca Gaitskill,” he said as the music came to an end.
Marcus took his grandmother’s elbow to lead her off the dance floor, all the while keeping the mystery woman in sight, which wasn’t easy in the crowded room. He suspected, from the heads turned in her direction, that several other gentlemen had their eyes on her as well.
“Go,” Lady Tremont said.
“Eh?”
She patted his hand where it touched her elbow. “Never mind about me, I’m not so nearsighted that I can’t find my way to the lemonade table. Go speak with this blue-clad lady. If she’s some new mystery beauty, every unmarried man in the room will already be scheming to make her acquaintance, and a disgraceful number of married ones as well.”
Marcus didn’t need to be told twice. He dropped a kiss on his grandmother’s forehead and muttered his thanks.
* * *
Rosamund, twirling around the ballroom in the arms of a gentleman wearing a wine-colored demi-mask, already knew that she would remember this night for the rest of her life.
She was at the Marquess of Boxhaven’s masquerade ball, in his grand town house, surrounded by happy, lovely people dancing to beautiful music. From the tips of her jeweled dancing shoes to the topmost swirl of her hair, she felt grateful to be alive and young. Across the ballroom, she had spied her aunt and cousins standing amid a group of ladies watching the dancers, and nothing had happened. The ballroom was so crowded, in fact, that Rosamund doubted her relatives would even see her. Even if they did, she felt fairly safe behind her mask, and she knew that she looked nothing like the shabbily dressed person on whom they regularly dumped their piles of holey stockings.
She had been prepared to simply watch the dancers. She had not danced since she was fourteen, and she had thought that simply being at the ball was already so wonderful that it would have been enough. But hardly had she entered the ballroom when a gentleman had approached and asked for a dance, and she hadn’t lacked for partners since.
When it happened, her gallant partner in the wine-colored mask was playfully, though with increasing focus, trying to guess her name. Rosamund’s eyes, passing over the shoulder of her partner, met those of a tall gentleman, and something electric passed between them.
Her dance partner was still talking, but it was as though everything and everyone in the ballroom were falling away, and the only other person now there with her was the tall gentleman whose gaze held hers.
He was dressed in black with a beautifully crisp white cravat and a black satin demi-mask. His hair was golden brown, and she thought—or maybe she felt, or just knew—that his eyes were blue. He smiled at her, collapsing the space between them as the dance came to an end.
“Won’t you please tell me your name, oh mystery lady?” her partner asked, breaking the spell.
Before she could reply—not that she intended to give her name—the tall gentleman was at her side.
“I believe the next dance is mine,” he said, his eyes glittering at her conspiratorially.
She smiled. She’d never tasted champagne, but she’d seen it freshly poured in a glass, and she felt as though champagne bubbles were rising inside her. “Is it?”
He cast a look at her dance partner that was equal parts haughty and warm, and she wondered who this tall gentleman was. He might be some lord, perhaps a friend of the Marquess of Boxhaven. He might even be the marquess, she thought giddily, before discarding the idea. The Marquess of Boxhaven would be far too busy at his own ball to be taking note of someone like her. He was probably dancing with at least a viscountess.
“You’ll excuse us, won’t you?” the tall gentleman said to her partner.
Her partner inclined his head—she had the sense the two men knew each other, though the conventions of the masquerade encouraged anonymity. With a last glance at Rosamund, her dancing partner walked away.
“I’m not certain that was polite,” she said to the tall gentleman, but she was smiling.
“He’ll live.” The music was starting. “Do you really want to dance?” he asked.
The next dance was a quadrille, whose steps she remembered finding confounding as a girl. The waltz was, in fact, the only dance she really knew how to do, probably because she could practice it alone in her room, humming as she twirled around with a broom handle.
“Actually, a lemonade sounds more the thing,” she said.
“Lemonade it is.” He placed a gloved hand lightly at her elbow and guided her through a throng of people toward the table. The room had been crowded when she’d arrived and since then had become only more so, and now it was rather difficult moving about.
“How thirsty are you?” he asked as their progress was arrested by a seemingly impenetrable mass of people.
“Not terribly,” she said. “I suppose it’s more that I’ve become warm.”
“Oh, there you are,” an older woman in a cream mask said to Rosamund’s partner, squeezing past a man dressed as a bishop. “It’s just as I feared.”
The tall gentleman laughed. “A success, you mean? Yes, I fear the ball is quite horribly successful.”
“Cheeky fellow. You know what I mean. People will be feeling terribly crowded. I really don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t think there is anything to do,” he said. “And I don’t think anyone else particularly minds that it’s a squeeze. What do you think?” he asked, turning to Rosamund, who was watching him and the woman in the cream mask with dawning comprehension.
The woman who was expressing such hostly concern—and who had, now that Rosamund was noticing, hair nearly the same color of golden brown as the tall gentleman—could only be Lady Boxhaven. Which would mean that the tall gentleman was a member of her family, and Rosamund would lay odds he was her son. That meant either her younger son, or the marquess.
From the way he’d sent her dancing partner scurrying, she had a pretty good idea which son he was, and her heart skipped in her chest.
They were looking at her, waiting for a reply.
“I don’t mind being a little crowded when a ball is so wonderful,” she said.
His eyes twinkled at her before he turned to the other woman, surely Lady Boxhaven. “There, you see? An impartial observer. The ball’s a success and not at all horrible.”
Lady Boxhaven’s attention finally came fully upon Rosamund. She had very kind, soft eyes, and she seemed to pause as she regarded Rosamund. “Well, an impartial observer is a very good thing,” she said with a smile. “Do excuse me, please, I think I am wanted,” and she disappeared back into the crowd.
“I suppose that little conversation has given you clues about my identity,” the tall gentleman said.
“I suppose it has,” Rosamund agreed, liking the way his eyes teased hers. A lady passing next to Rosamund jostled her, and the marquess—for she was now certain her companion must be him—steadied her with a hand on her elbow.
“Shall we go out to the terrace?” he asked. “It will be cooler outside, and I should think less crowded.”
“Yes, please. This truly is a wonderful and successful ball, but too much successfulness at one time could make a person’s head spin.”
“Successfulness.” He chuckled. “A very nice way of putting not being able to move.”
With a stride that clearly expected to encounter no opposition—and, to Rosamund’s delighted amusement, didn’t—he led her to the open doors leading to the terrace. Outside, the air was cool and fresh, and only a few couples stood about here and there. He guided her to a spot away from the others, near where the balustrade led down a short set of steps to a garden.
“Now then,” he said, leaning a bit closer and offering the kind of beguiling grin that had probably stolen more than a few feminine hearts, “since you’ve had clues to my identity, don’t you think it a good idea to offer me some clues to yours?”
She laughed. “No. This is supposed to be a night of mystery.”
“A night of mystery,” he repeated. “But my identity isn’t a mystery to you anymore, is it?”
“Not unless you aren’t the Marquess of Boxhaven and that wasn’t your mother speaking with us just a minute ago.”
He inclined his head with playful dismay. “Will you at least tell me if we have ever met before? Though I feel certain I would know if we had.”
She felt certain she would know if they had even passed each other on the street, because there was something about him, something that made her heart race and her skin feel warm, and she knew she hadn’t stopped smiling since their eyes had met on the dance floor. He was special, but not because he was wealthy and titled. He was handsome and commanding and, for whatever reason she could not have named, completely interesting to her, and she wanted to know everything about him. She liked him.
“We’ve never met before,” she said.
He nodded, as if he too would have known her. “Did you come tonight with your family?”
She smiled, feeling that nothing in her life had ever been more fun than teasing this man. “That would be a helpful clue, wouldn’t it?”