A Masquerade in the Moonlight(10)
Marguerite frowned, looking to the man Thomas was now staring at in, he hoped, mingled alarm and greeting. “Lord Mappleton?” she asked, turning back to Thomas once more. “Arthur is somehow involved with the Lord of the Treasury, isn’t he? These government doings are so very much above a woman’s simple intellect, of course—but I do believe I’m correct. And you say your government has sent you to speak with him? Then you are an American after all. How very droll.”
“We are attempting to avert a war between our two countries, Miss Balfour,” Thomas said, waving to Lord Mappleton, who had been momentarily delayed, as he had stopped to kiss a young debutante’s hand, holding on to the kid gloved paw a moment too long, Thomas noticed. Randy old goat. “Not that I would think to parch your lovely ears with such dry talk.”
“No, indeed, sir,” Marguerite countered sweetly, snapping open the fan that hung from her wrist on a riband and waving it coyly beneath her chin. “I should be most fatigued if you were to prose on forever about your country’s most distressing Embargo Act—passed by your legislature in 1807, I believe, and supposedly aimed at both France and my own country—or if you were to speak of this stubborn business of perversely forbidding England to exercise its sovereign power to ask its own citizens to serve their country in time of war.”
“You’re boarding our ships, interrogating our crews, and pressing good Americans into naval service for your own gain,” Donovan was stung into replying before he could stop himself. “I’d hardly call that neighborly.”
Marguerite’s smile was dazzling. “Ah, so you are here in the role of diplomat, Mr. Donovan? Yes, yes, I can see that you must be. And will you also bite off Lord Mappleton’s head in order to serve your government, or do you reserve your vehemence for innocent females who merely parrot lessons learned in the schoolroom?”
“My most profound apologies, Miss Balfour,” Thomas countered, stepping away from her slightly in order to bow over her hand, deliberately lowering himself to meet her expectations. “I am a boor and a brute, and I should be flogged on the morrow for reacting in such an ungentlemanly way. I grovel before you, abashed at my crude behavior, and too overcome with remorse to continue to be a pleasant supper companion to anyone of such fine sensibilities as yourself. Please allow me to return you to your chaperone, so that I might flee the scene of my crushing faux pas posthaste, seek out a dark, deserted alleyway, and hurl myself on my sword.”
“If you are expecting me to attempt to dissuade you from any such melodramatic gesture, Mr. Donovan, I suggest you rethink the matter, as I believe I have wearied of our little game,” Marguerite replied tersely, withdrawing her hand from his purposely limp grip. “And there is really no need for you to seek out my chaperone, for Lord Mappleton here will be happy to escort me down to supper. Won’t you, Arthur?” she inquired sweetly, turning to hold out her hand to the portly gentleman who had at last torn himself away from the debutante (who appeared greatly relieved to see him go), and was now hovering close beside Marguerite, busily wiping at his perspiration-sheened brow with a large handkerchief.
Lord Mappleton’s fleshy jowls quivered like blancmange as he shook his head in obvious confusion. “What? What? Take you down-to supper? Odds fish, gel—ain’t that what we was planning all along? Check your card! I’m sure I had you put me down for supper. Can’t expect me to dance, now can you? Not with this gout! Oh, hullo, Danton. Recognize the mustache. Silly thing, ain’t it? How d’you keep it from dripping marmalade at breakfast? Never mind, I don’t really care. Well, now, fancy meeting up with you here.” He frowned and waggled his head once more, so that he resembled nothing more than a benign English bulldog. “Was I supposed to?”
“That had been my belief, yes, your lordship—and the name is Donovan,” Thomas replied evenly, looking to Marguerite, who now stood smiling at him with an expression that told him he was no longer wanted and should know enough to take himself off. “However,” he added hastily, seeing the cloud of displeasure that descended on Lord Mappleton’s face, “I, too, can no longer remember precisely why. I believe my brains have become muddled from the moment I first was introduced to the most delightful Miss Balfour by that nice gentleman, Mr. Julian Quist. Do you by chance know the fellow, my lord?”
“Quist? Wonderful lad. Ten thousand a year, I hear, but with not a jiggle of sense of how to set up his stable.” He took Marguerite’s hand and laid it on his forearm, patting her fingertips with not quite avuncular affection. “Not nearly good enough for you, though, my sweet child. And an encroaching mama to boot. No, no, not good enough by half. Well, a pleasure seeing you, Danvers. We must be off now, mustn’t we, m’dear? All the good seats will be snatched up if we don’t hurry. I hear they’re serving up some lovely fat shrimp.”