The Magnificent Masquerade Part 8

Chapter Fourteen.

Emily had been playing Beethoven for more than an hour, completely absorbed and happy, when something-a breath, a slight movement, a change in the air-made her aware of another presence in the room. Startled, she whirled about on the bench. "Oh," she said, stiffening, "it's you." The intruder was Toby, ensconced in a high-backed easy chair, his feet raised on an ottoman and his hands tucked comfortably behind his head. "Don't stop on my account," he urged. "Go on with your playing."

"No, thank you," she said, getting up quickly. "I've quite Finished"

"That's not so." He, too, got to his feet. "You've got to learn not to tell so many whiskers, my girl. If you hadn't discovered my presence here, you would have gone on playing for some time, wouldn't you? Tell the truth, now, Miss Jessup. Wouldn't you?"

She put up her chin proudly. "Perhaps I would. But if we're going to tell the truth, then you can't pretend you wish to sit there and listen to me play, can you?"

"Really the truth?" He rubbed his chin ruefully. "Well, then, I admit that I ain't musical and that I don't go out of my way to attend concerts and musicales. And I really abhor being stuck for an evening listening to a gaggle of females sing in their high, quivery sopranos while their mamas beam and beg 'em to sing 'just one more little tune, my love." But I've been sitting here for quite some time listening to you, and I must say that I was very impressed with how quick your fingers dance over those keys and how grand the sounds are that you bring out of that old instrument."

"Thank you, sir," Emily said-with a slight, acknowledging bow, "that was the kindest thing you ever said to me. But how much time was the 'quite some time' that you've been listening?"

"About fifteen minutes," Toby said. Then he shrugged. "Well, perhaps it was ten."

"Or perhaps five?"

He grinned. "Very well, five."

"Five minutes can be a long time for someone who isn't musical to listen to Beethoven, so I'll spare you any more. If you'll excuse me, sir, I shall leave you in peace."

He reached out and took her arm. "Don't go yet, Miss Jessup. I've come down particularly to seek your companion s.h.i.+p."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Have you stopped speaking the truth so soon? I'm quite aware that you've been avoiding me for two days. You've told me to my face that you find me a bore. So why have you suddenly come seeking my companions.h.i.+p?"

He grimaced ruefully. "Must I tell the truth again?"

"It usually is best."

"Well, then, the truth is that Greg ordered me to."

"That's what I thought." She tried to ease her arm from his grip. "There was not the least need for your brother to coerce you, sir. I am perfectly content with my own company. Please consider yourself absolved from your obligations to me, and let me go."

"I will, of course, if you insist. But I wish you'd relent and sit down with me. We'll make a strange marriage if we can't even speak to one another."

Emily felt her cheeks blanch. "M-marriage?" she stammered.

His eyebrow rose. "Yes, marriage. Nuptials. Wedlock. Does my speaking the words frighten you? Or is it the thought of the actual deed that turns you pale?"

"I .. . I don't know." She turned a pair of frightened eyes up to his face. "You are so ... blunt. I didn't expect ..." She paused and bit her lip.

"Didn't expect me to mention it? Good G.o.d, Miss Jessup, didn't you think we'd even talk about it? Why do you think you're here?"

Her eyes fell. "Well, perhaps I should sit down with you after all," she said with a surrendering sigh.

He led her to the armchair he'd been sitting in and gallantly handed her into it. Then he perched himself on the ottoman. "There, that's better. Now, then, shall we jump right to it and talk about our marriage, or would you rather make some innocent chit-chat first? Come, come, Miss Jessup, say some thing." When she still didn't say anything, he leaned forward and added encouragingly, "I know one thing we can speak of right away, and that is your name."

She threw him another frightened glance. "My name?"

"Yes. Do you expect me to call you Miss Jessup until our wedding day, or may I begin to call you by your given name? It seems to me we'd make real progress toward a more comfortable intimacy if we call each other Toby and Kitty."

Emily s.h.i.+fted in her seat. She knew she had to say something, but she didn't have any idea of how to conduct this interview. What was her att.i.tude toward the marriage plan supposed to be? Was she to behave as if she accepted the wedding intentions with enthusiasm or as if she was only reluctantly acceding to the authority of her parents? Or should she act as if she had every intention of rejecting the plan in the end? Good heavens, she asked herself, why hadn't she and Kitty discussed these questions before? Meanwhile, Toby was sitting before her with his brows arched expectantly, waiting for a response. "I have no objection to your calling me Kitty," she said cautiously.

"Good," he said, "but-?"

"But?"

"I heard a but in your voice. What else did you want to say?" He waited a moment, but when he got no response, he jumped to his feet in annoyance. "I don't know why you're so afraid to say what's on your mind, Kitty. We Wisharts are not monsters, you know. We won't eat you."

"I know that. You must understand that it is difficult for me to speak of our ... our marriage when I know that you don't desire it."

"But I do desire it," he said, seating himself again. "You must be joking! You know you don't like me at all." Now it was his eyes which fell. "I wouldn't say that, exactly. I like you well enough right now ... now that we're being honest with each other like this."

"If we're being so honest, then admit that you'd never have chosen me if you were left to your own devices. You certainly can't believe that we'd suit."

"I'm not sure what I believe. Perhaps we might." "What folderol! Name one way in which we might possibly suit! We've already eliminated music ..."

He shrugged. "And games. And sports. But there are more important things that bring a man and wife together. Building a home ... having babies ..."

Emily gasped. "Babies!" The thought of having Toby's babies brought a surge of color to her cheeks.

"Good G.o.d, you're blus.h.i.+ng," he exclaimed, teasing. "You are a prude."

"Yes, I am! Babies, indeed. How can you speak of having babies with a woman you don't even like?"

"That's jumping to a conclusion much too early in the game, my dear. I might like you a great deal in that way.

Having babies together is certainly one way in which we might suit very well. We haven't tested ourselves in that direction yet."

"Tested ourselves? How could we possibly test ourselves?" Then, with a sudden gasp, she stared at him with revulsion.

"Unless I misunderstand you, sir, you are making an utterly vulgar suggestion. So vulgar that I shall have to leave this room at-"

He chortled. "You do misunderstand me, Kitty. I only meant that we haven't tested our compatibility at kissing."

Color flooded her cheeks again. "K-kissing?" "Kissing. You have heard of it, I trust? One presses one's lips to the lips of one's betrothed ... or one's sweetheart ... and if the sensation is a pleasant one, the pair may consider themselves to be 'suited' for marriage in one of the most important ways."

"Bos.h.!.+ No one can interpret so much from a mere kiss," Emily said decidedly, trying by an air of sophistication to cover her earlier gaffe.

"A mere kiss, miss? If one can call a kiss 'mere," one hasn't been properly kissed at all. Here, let me show you."

And before she knew what he was about, he got to his feet, pulled her to hers, slipped an arm about her waist, and planted a very substantial kiss on her mouth.

In no way could that kiss be called mere. A better word, she realized much later, might be provocative. The first sensation it provoked in her was confusion. She'd never been held in a man's arms before, much less been kissed, so it took some seconds for her to grasp what was happening. When the confusion cleared, and she realized she was being very soundly kissed, she felt positively thrilled, for the sensation was even more intoxicating than she'd imagined in her girlish dreams it would be. But by the time he let her go, another, much more provoking and unpleasant sensation had taken over-humiliation. A proper lady, she told herself, would not be manhandled like this by a proper gentleman, certainly not in the gentleman's own drawing room. Whether the impropriety was Toby's or hers she was not sure, but she was sure that she should never have permitted such a thing to occur. He must hold her cheap to have done this to her. Humiliation brought tears to her eyes.

She pushed away from him and turned her back. "How d-dared you do such a th-thing?" she demanded, her voice shaking.

The fellow actually laughed. "How dared I? I didn't think that question had been asked for a hundred years, except in those dusty, old-fas.h.i.+oned novels."

"You can certainly find innumerable ways to insult me," she cried, wheeling on him. "First you k-kiss me as if I were n-nothing but a vulgar little doxie, and then you c-call me old-fas.h.i.+oned. Well, I know what Ki-what a real lady would do to you now! She'd slap your face!" And Emily lifted her hand and swung at him with all her might.

He caught her wrist in midair. He gripped it in a painful, viselike hold and bent her arm back behind her until she had to fall against him to keep him from breaking it. His face was so close to hers that she thought the beast was going to kiss her again. But he only grinned. "I don't permit anyone to slap me, ma'am, not even the little chit who's going to be my wife." "Your wife?" She wrenched herself from his hold. "I will never be your wife! I wouldn't marry you if-"

"Please don't say what I think you're going to say," he laughed, watching her stalk to the door. "Please don't say it!" But she couldn't be stopped. She glared at him from the doorway and spat the words out as though n.o.body in the whole world had ever said them before. "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last-"

"I know, I know," he groaned mockingly. "If I were the last man on earth."

Chapter Fifteen.

Kitty had been quite right about Miss Leac.o.c.k's willingness to "prettify" Miss Alicia. Not only did she agree (with the restrained enthusiasm her excessively ladylike character permitted) to the scheme, but she invited Kitty to a.s.sist her. The two appeared at Miss Alicia's door precisely one hour before the doctor was due to arrive, armed with the Persian red dressing gown, a curling iron, a small coal brazier, a pot of rouge, a vial of Honey Waters, and a box of Ivory powder. There were many more ointments, powders, and beauty-enhancing artifices they could have brought, but as Miss Leac.o.c.k said, "we mustn't overdo, not this first time." Miss Alicia did not, at first, show any enthusiasm for their plan for beautification. She claimed to be too weak to sit up, much less to dress or to "do up" her hair. But Kitty insisted that her mistress would be much offended if her gift of the dressing gown were not put to use. Miss Alicia, not wis.h.i.+ng to hurt the feelings of the visitor who'd shown her so much kindness, finally agreed to allow Miss Leac.o.c.k to drape her in the robe.

The dressing took a great deal of effort and was accompanied by many sighs and groans, but when Miss Leac.o.c.k held up a mirror to Miss Alicia's face and declared that it was "truly astonis.h.i.+ng how the color manages to brighten your complexion," Miss Alicia looked almost pleased with herself and declared that she felt a great deal better. Taking that declaration as an opening to push Alicia into agreeing to other adornments, Kitty urged the bedridden woman to permit-her to curl her hair "just the way I did MissJessup's this morning." Alicia graciously acquiesced, and Kitty reached for the curling iron, which Miss Leac.o.c.k had already set warming in the brazier in which she'd piled some glowing coals from the fireplace. Never having handled a curling iron in her life, Kitty didn't realize that the handle, also made of iron, became almost as hot at the tip when it had been heating in the coals for any length of time. Ignorantly grasping the handle in a firm grip, she received a painful shock. She dropped the iron with a shriek and began to hop about the room, shaking her hand vigorously to ease the burn. "Good G.o.d, girl, you didn't pick it up without the holder, did you?" Miss Leac.o.c.k muttered, thrusting a thick pad into her hand. "How could you be so forgetful?"

"Sorry," Kitty said, wincing in pain. Bravely trying to behave like any ordinary abigail to whom such accidents were undoubtedly commonplace, she picked up the curling iron with the pad and set it back in the brazier. Miss Leac.o.c.k, evidently not intending to make a to-do over Kitty's scorched palm, returned to her task of dabbing Miss Alicia's face and neck with a wad of cotton soaked in the Honey Waters. Kitty, realizing with some chagrin that abigails' minor injuries were not going to be given the sympathy and loving care that a n.o.bleman's daughter might expect in similar circ.u.mstances, blew a cooling breath over her throbbing palm, gave it one last shake, and set to work attempting to curl Miss Alicia's hair.

She was working on the third curl when Miss Leac.o.c.k looked up from her own work and began to watch what the younger abigail was doing. After a moment, and with a strange look in her eye, she took the iron from Kitty's hand. "I think, Emily," she said with quiet firmness, "that I shall do Miss Alicia's hair myself, since I am more familiar with what she likes. You may wash her with the aromatic lotion, if you please."

When the work on the coiffure was completed, Miss Leac.o.c.k suggested that Miss Alicia permit them to powder her face and black her lashes. The suggestion was immediately rejected. "You know what damage the tiniest use of cosmetics does to my delicate complexion, Miss Leac.o.c.k," Alicia reminded her, waving away the paints and powders with a shudder. But a last look at herself in the mirror that Miss Leac.o.c.k held up for her brought a smile to her lips. "You've done my hair very well, Miss Leac.o.c.k. Very well. I like the curls you've arranged to fall over my forehead. It almost makes me seem a bit ..." She gave a tiny giggle as she tried to think of an appropriate word. "... well, frivolous." But, as usual with Miss Alicia, her cheerfulness was a fleeting emotion; one dark thought or another always came along to cloud the little gleams of suns.h.i.+ne in her life. "Oh, dear," she said, her smile dying away, "you don't think Dr. Randolph will find the curls too frivolous, do you?"

"Oh, no, Miss Alicia, it's not in the least frivolous," Miss Leac.o.c.k a.s.sured her.

"I'd wager Dr. Randolph finds them so attractive he'll accept your invitation to tea, just to see them again," Kitty ventured.

Miss Leac.o.c.k threw her a look that said she was going too far. But Miss Alicia only looked thoughtful. "Invitation to tea?" she echoed faintly. "Why, I've never dared-"

"But of course you haven't," Miss Leac.o.c.k murmured soothingly, plumping up her pillow. "He would never come to tea unless you were coming down. And he knows that you almost never feel well enough to do so."

"Yes, that's quite true," Miss Alicia agreed with a sigh. The subject was dropped. But by the time Dr. Randolph arrived, the two abigails had propped Miss Alicia into a sitting position (by piling up an additional four pillows behind her back), tied the neck ribbons of the dressing gown into a charming bow at her throat, and (by dint of a great deal of coaxing) pinched her cheeks into a faint glow of pink. The doctor was so startled at the sight of her that he gaped. "Well, well," he remarked, his face lighting up, "what have we here? Have you stumbled on some miraculous cure?"

"No, of course not," Alicia said, blus.h.i.+ng. "I only put on this-"

"Miss Alicia followed your advice," Miss Leac.o.c.k interrupted smoothly, "and did not take a single headache powder since you left. I do believe her health is taking a turn for the better."

"And about time, too," the doctor said, crossing to the bed and taking his patient's narrow wrist between his fingers. "I told you often enough, Alicia, that if you stopped relying on these medications you would feel better. And now look at you! One day of restraint and you're looking five years younger."

"Five years-!" Alicia smiled beatifically. "You cannot mean it, Hugh!"

"Of course I mean it." Still holding her hand, he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Now, when have you ever known me to offer Spanish coin?"

At this point, Miss Leac.o.c.k and Kitty tiptoed from the room. As soon as they'd closed the door behind them, Kitty clapped Miss Leac.o.c.k on the back, gleeful despite the burning pain in her palm. "I'd say that went very well, wouldn't you?" But Miss Leac.o.c.k didn't return her smile. "Never mind that," she said, frowning at Kitty with narrowed eyes. "Who are you, miss?"

Kitty's high spirits were immediately quenched. "Who am I? Wh-what do you mean?"

"Ye're no abigail, Emily Pratt. I've never yet met an abigail who didn't know how to handle a curling iron. I'd hazard a month's wages on your being some sort of imposter." Kitty looked at her accuser with wide-eyed innocence. "But, Miss Leac.o.c.k, I told you I'm not really an abigail. I was maid-of-all-work at the Marchmont Academy. Miss Jessup just hired me for a fortnight. She's keeping me as abigail until her visit here is over, and then I'm to return to the academy." Miss Leac.o.c.k shook her head. Taking Kitty's two hands in hers, she said, "No maid-of-all-work has hands like these. These hands haven't scrubbed floors or emptied slops in all their existence. Are you going to tell me who you are and what we're up to, or shall I tell Mr. Naismith that we're some sort of humbug?"

Kitty winced. "Tell Mr. Naismith? You wouldn't!" The abigail crossed her arms over her chest decisively. "I would and I will."

Kitty eyed the older abigail accusingly. "I thought you were my friend."

"One can't be friends with someone who has secrets."

"But you have a secret from me, don't you? And yet I wish to be your friend."

Miss Leac.o.c.k drew herself up in offense. "What secret?"

"Your given name."

"Oh, pooh! That's a mere trifle ... and not at all the same thing!"

"What if I swore to you that my secret is as trifling as yours? Would you trust me and stay silent a little while?"

"I don't know, Emily. I don't see how such a secret could be trifling. You might very well be up to something dreadful, like robbing the family."

"That's stuff and nonsense. Do I look like a robber to you?"

The abigail studied her intently. "Well, no, but-"

"If I give you my word that-"

At that moment Miss Alicia's door opened and the doctor emerged. "Ah, there you are, Miss Leac.o.c.k," he said, beaming at her over the spectacles that always seemed to slip halfway down his nose. "I wish you to tell Lady Edith for me that I found Miss Alicia much improved. Perhaps her ladys.h.i.+p can encourage her to take some exercise while she is feeling so much better. Something simple, like a parade through the picture gallery or a stroll through the gardens on the next balmy day. I know it's too much to expect her to do any bending or stretching, but any little exertion might bring her to a more normal way of life. In any case, tell her ladys.h.i.+p that I'm encouraged. I'm very encouraged." He adjusted his spectacles, put on his beaver, and started down the hall. "Oh, yes," he added, glancing back over his shoulder, "and tell her, too, that I've accepted Miss Alicia's invitation to return later today, to tea."

"Good gracious," Miss Leac.o.c.k exclaimed in an awestruck whisper, staring after the doctor's retreating form, "he said he's coming to tea! She actually asked him to tea!"

"See? I knew it would work," Kitty said in triumph. "We make a good team, don't we, Miss Leac.o.c.k?"

"I was beginning to think so," she answered, eyeing Kitty dubiously.

"Are you still suspicious of me? Good heavens, Miss Leac.o.c.k, anyone can see I'm no criminal! I give you my word."

Kitty's tone and expression were convincingly earnest. "If I swear to you that I'm up to no harm, that my secret affects n.o.body but me, and that I will reveal it to you very soon, will you keep still about me 'til the end of our visit here?" Miss Leac.o.c.k sighed in surrender. She didn't really wish to bring trouble on the girl's head, for she was becoming quite fond of her. Besides, she found the younger woman very persuasive. "If you will swear that you're up to no harm ..."

"I swear it on my honor," Kitty a.s.sured her.

"Very well then. I'll hold my tongue for a while. But how soon-?"

"How soon will I tell you?" Kitty laughed and planted a kiss on the older woman's cheek. "Right after you tell me your full name."