A Masquerade in the Moonlight (12 page)

“Coo!” the groom exclaimed, obviously impressed. “Ain’t never seed that a’fore, yer worship. Yer did that slick as Cook’s fat tabby cat catches itself a mouse.”

“And he didn’t even split his buckskins, more’s the pity. Can we be off now?” Marguerite gritted out from between clenched teeth, her riding crop biting into her palm as she squeezed her hand into a fist. “Or would you first care to balance on your hands as you ride once around the square, like the performers at Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre? I assure you, I won’t mind at all. We English do so value a good show, although we are accustomed to viewing such performances in a more suitable theater.”

“I’ll pass on that offer, Miss Balfour, intriguing as it sounds.” Thomas slipped his booted feet into the stirrups and turned the gelding so that his knee brushed up against Marguerite’s. “And please forgive my zeal in mounting,” he said, his tone implying that he wasn’t at all sorry for having outdone her in exhibiting his horsemanship. “As your grandfather has agreed we might dispense with your groom, I suggest we proceed to the park before the traffic on the streets becomes oppressive.”

“Yes,” Marguerite agreed, using the pressure of her left thigh to urge Trickster forward at a walk, “I shouldn’t wish to be subjected to two oppressive occurrences in the same morning.”

“And which would have been the first, Miss Balfour?” Thomas asked as his ugly mud-brown mount picked its way over the cobblestones with all the grace of a cross-eyed hen in stubbles. “I know I am meant to ask, even as I know you hope I will not appreciate your answer.”

“And you’d be correct on both counts, Mr. Donovan. Your arrival in the breakfast room was the first,” Marguerite answered sweetly, waving to a passerby as they exited the square and headed toward Oxford Street and the park. “Not that you noticed. Oh, no. You were entirely too occupied with charming a gullible old man with your Irish blarney. And yes, I do know what blarney is, Mr. Donovan.”

“As do I, Miss Balfour. Dear, sainted, Cormac McCarthy, the Lord of Blarney. When your Queen Elizabeth attempted to convince him to give up claim to his title he talked her into circles, never saying yes and never saying no, until she declared—”

“‘This is all Blarney. What he means he never says; what he says he never means!’” Marguerite finished for him, her mood brightening considerably as she remembered her father quoting the queen’s words to her as they sat together in the drawing room at Chertsey one winter’s night, watching the fire die. She smiled, giving up her anger. “You tell a fine story yourself, Mr. Donovan, when we both know Philadelphia hasn’t seen an Indian attack in more than thirty years.”

Thomas’s grin transformed him into a cheeky youth. “More like fifty, but Sir Gilbert doesn’t know that,” he reasoned, turning his horse into the park. “I simply told him an old story I’d heard in one of the taverns. He seemed appreciative.”

“He seemed bewitched, you mean. Letting me go off without a groom.” She shook her head. “He’s never done that before, even when I ride out with William. I can’t decide whether Grandfather believes you to be harmless, or if he’s merely interested in collecting on some terrible wager with Finch.”

“William? Would that be another of your long-in-the-tooth beaux?”

“The Earl of Laleham is no more than fifty, Mr. Donovan, and has been a dear friend and neighbor for all of my life.” Marguerite longed to bite her tongue, for she knew the American was the sort to remember every word she said. She slanted a look at Thomas from beneath her sooty lashes, remembering Lord Chorley’s admission last night that Thomas had boldly announced his intention to seduce her. “Are you jealous, Mr. Donovan?”

“Hardly, Miss Balfour,” he responded with yet another confident, ingratiating smile—so that she longed to murder him. He wasn’t even going to bother to be subtle about his seduction. The cheek of the man!

“But we will invite him to the wedding,” he continued reasonably, “seeing as how he’s a particular favorite of yours. Will you insist on all the doddering old men you favor being there? Chorley, Totton, Harewood—even that pitiful Mappleton, among others? If so, I’ll be sure to have a physician in attendance, in case any of them suffers an apoplexy during the ceremony.”

Marguerite felt her heart beginning to pound warningly beneath the crisp white fabric of her ruffled blouse. She would ignore his inane, absurd teasing about the possibility of a marriage between them. It was disconcerting enough that he had taken the trouble to learn the names of her admirers—her prospective victims. Except for William, of course. He hadn’t seemed to be aware of William. “You appear to have taken an inordinate amount of interest in my social connections, Mr. Donovan. I’m flattered,” she said, looking straight ahead and seeing the riding path was clear. “But for now, I believe Trickster would enjoy a gallop—to the small stand of trees at the first curve in the path—if your mount can keep up, that is?”

Thomas looked to the trees that were a good three hundred yards in the distance, then smiled at Marguerite. “For a fiver, Miss Balfour?” he asked, so that she longed to scream.

“Twice that, Mr. Donovan,” she replied with doubled determination to show the American her heels, then gathered herself to urge Trickster into an immediate gallop. “At the count of three?”

“You may go at three,
aingeal
, but I shall be the Compleat Gentleman and wait for the count of five.”

Marguerite deliberately eyed the gelding from its bony hindquarters to its overly long neck and ridiculously twitching ears. The horse should be shot; it was that ugly. “Really, Mr. Donovan? Very well, you’re on. One—two—
three!
”

Trickster responded wonderfully, leaping forward immediately, eager to stretch her strong legs in an out-and-out gallop. Marguerite lowered her body over the mare’s back, quietly urging her on, feeling the power of the animal’s muscles gathering and releasing beneath her, carrying her along as they skimmed over the ground, the slight breeze ruffled into an invigorating wind as they cut through it, heading for the trees, and victory.

Insult her, would he! She had been sat on her first pony before she could walk! Not only could she outride Thomas Joseph Donovan, but she could outshoot him, outfence him, outtalk him—even out
lie
him!

She and Trickster were no more than halfway between the starting point and the trees when she heard the thunder of hoofbeats behind her and dared to look back to see Thomas and the homely gelding gaining on her.

She couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling her! The rawboned horse had metamorphosed, becoming beautiful, its fluid movements a poetry to watch, its rider low in the saddle, a part of a masterful whole, so that they had nearly melded to become one surging mass of power.

Man and horse blew past her as if she and Trickster were running in quicksand, leaving them nothing to do but follow as best they could, although Marguerite was sorely tempted to rein the mare in, turn for home, and leave the depressing defeat behind her.

But she wouldn’t do anything so mean-spirited, though she longed to with all her being. She had been bested fairly, and she had to acknowledge her defeat and congratulate the winner—even if it killed her! How could she have forgotten her father’s advice to always look below the surface? Clearly the ugly, rawboned horse had the spirit and heart of a winner.

By the time she had brought Trickster to a halt in front of the trees Thomas had dismounted and was leaning at his ease against one of them, barely breathing hard, his hands folded over his chest, his shock of tawny hair attractively windblown.

It belatedly occurred to Marguerite, as she looked at him, that they were now in one of the more secluded areas of the park. A heartbeat later, she wondered why that knowledge didn’t bother her as much as it excited her.

Thomas looked up at her, questioningly. “Ah, there you are, Miss Balfour. Did you take a detour? I missed you along the way—unless I was moving too quickly to notice near stationary objects. Do you like my horse? Ireland born and bred, you know—with long experience in outrunning the English. May I help you dismount, or do you wish to impress me yet again with your horsemanship?”

All thoughts of congratulating him on his victory evaporated in the heat of her renewed anger. “You know, Mr. Donovan,” she said, indicating that he might help her to the ground, “I believe I could detest you most completely, if only you weren’t already beneath contempt.”

He lifted his arms to her and, against her better judgment, she kicked free of the stirrup and allowed him to help her down, his touch at her waist sending unexpected shivers up her spine, a reaction she was determined to ignore. “We’ll rest the horses for a few minutes,” she said after feeling her feet once more firmly on the ground, “and then you may return me to Portman Square. It is not necessary, however, that we converse at all in the interim. I, for one, have nothing to say to you—and you
never
say anything of value.”

Thomas stripped off his hacking jacket and spread it on the soft grass with the grace Sir Walter Raleigh must have employed when draping his cape across a mud puddle for his queen, indicating she should join him in the shade, several yards away from the deserted path. Then, once she was seated—for what else could a lady of breeding do but comply?—he went down on his haunches close beside her, his back against a wide tree trunk.

“If you insist, Miss Balfour,” he said at last, “I will remain mute. But I must remind you—you had agreed to hear the sad story of my life. My poor but honest youth in County Clare, where I was orphaned at the tender age of eleven; my voyage to America, stowed away in with the baggage; my apprenticeship to a printer in Philadelphia; my slow but sure rise to considerable wealth and questionable respectability; my appointment as one of my president’s emissaries to the British government. It is such an exhilarating story, and morally uplifting. But if you no longer want to hear it—”

“I believe I just did hear it, Mr. Donovan,” Marguerite pointed out, cutting him off as she stripped off her gloves, laying them down beside her on Thomas’s jacket. But then her interest in what he had revealed got the better of her. “Did you really stow away on a ship? Wasn’t that prodigiously dangerous?”

He pushed himself away from the tree trunk, to sit even closer beside her, and smiled widely, so that she was once more intrigued by the lines that crinkled at the outside corners of his eyes, and captivated by the near living thing that was his full, barely tamed mustache. “Not half so dangerous as sitting here in the shade of this wonderfully concealing stand of trees, Miss Balfour, and looking into your beautiful emerald green eyes. As a matter of fact, I believe I might just drown in their cool depths and go to my death a happy man.”

She lifted her gaze from his mouth to look into his laughing blue eyes, swallowing down hard on a sudden apprehension, a renewed interest, an unladylike curiosity that threatened to betray her. But why was she surprised? Wasn’t this why she had agreed to meet him? Because of this feeling she refused to call by any name other than “curiosity”?

She made an attempt at coyness. “You—you must not speak so intimately, Mr. Donovan. I know I have allowed you liberties I shouldn’t have, but I believe this farce of a courtship has gone far enough. I may be young, but I’m not completely empty-headed—and not without information gleaned from listening well as silly debutantes giggle in withdrawing rooms. That, and the warning I received from Stinky—I mean, Lord Chorley—are enough to have put me firmly on my guard. You are no more than a self-serving flirt, Mr. Donovan, and I refuse to have you amuse yourself any more at my expense.”

“Now I’m hurt, Miss Balfour. I assure you,” he said, his voice rather low, even rough. “I find nothing amusing in our current situation.”

She felt his hand brush the back of hers, his fingers caressing her skin before slipping underneath, where they skimmed light circles on her palm, stroked the sensitive area of her inner wrist, then encircled that wrist, drawing her slowly, but inexorably closer to him.

“I find you fascinating,” he said, his warm breath fanning her heated cheek, his words setting small fires deep inside her chest. “Even frightening.”

Marguerite’s heart began to race, galloping at twice the pace Trickster had set earlier, but still she could not outrun the seductive look in Thomas Donovan’s eyes or the attraction she felt for him, the danger that emanated from him, the insane, illogical, yet compelling need to be closer to him, to feel his mouth on hers.

And he was going to kiss her. She was as sure of that as she was positive she would live to regret this entire morning. She tore her gaze away from his nearly hypnotic stare only to find herself captivated once more by his mouth.

How would his ridiculous mustache be against her skin—rough or soft?

How would it feel to have his strong arms around her, to experience the pressure of the hard wall of his muscular chest against her breasts?

And why was she thinking such things? Had she lost her senses entirely?

“We—I—that is, I don’t think we should...” Marguerite’s voice trailed off as Thomas slid his other hand onto her thigh just above her bent knee, so that she could feel the heat of him through the skirt of her riding habit. She instantly became aware of a responsive tightening between her legs, at the very heart of her being, and was amazed at the never before felt sensation. It was intriguing, to say the least.

“Well, maybe just this once...” she whispered as if to herself, although she knew he’d heard her, then closed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, preparing herself for his kiss.

“No, no,” she heard Thomas say as she felt his touch on her mouth, tugging at her tightly pursed bottom lip with the tip of his index finger. Her eyes flew open and she saw that he was smiling, although he was definitely not laughing at her. “For all your bravado, for all your daring talk, you are an innocent. Just as I thought. Just as I’d hoped. Now listen,
aingeal
. It’s not at all like sucking lemons, this business of kissing. More like sipping the nectar of the gods. Just relax, sweet Marguerite, and I’ll teach you.”