A Masquerade in the Moonlight(12)
Thomas grinned, causing Dooley to wish he wasn’t almost thirty years older and only half so strong as his companion in intrigue, for he’d dearly love to whack the youngster upside his handsome head. “Now, Paddy, you wouldn’t begrudge a man for looking, would you? And that’s all I did, I swear it. Although Miss Marguerite Balfour might merit watching.”
“A pretty puss, I wager. Is that watching you plan to be doing, boyo, or tumbling?”
“She calls Mappleton by his Christian name, Paddy, and—or so I have heard tonight from our latest contributor to the war effort—she’s also known to openly favor the attentions of rich old men like Totton, Chorley, and even Harewood—among others. Gaining quite the reputation, our Miss Balfour is, for a young lady who is just making her come-out.”
“Oh, is she now?” Dooley asked, suddenly interested in the conversation once more. “Marguerite, you say? Isn’t that one of those fancy Frenchie names? Could they be courting the Froggies, too? That isn’t fair, Tommie—they came to us first.”
Thomas subsided into the chair once more, again cradling the snifter of brandy. “Don’t read too much into this, Paddy. All of these men are old as dirt—although Harewood is slightly younger than the rest—and they all have fortunes no ambitious young lady would sniff at. Perhaps she hopes to wed one of them this year and bury him the next. God knows she’s sharp enough to have thought of such a scheme, and independent-minded enough to wish to have the social freedom of a young, beautiful widow.”
Dooley looked closely at Thomas and saw that he was gnawing on his lower lip, something he did when in deep thought—or when he was frustrated. “Independent? That’s a strange word for it. Gave you the brush, didn’t she?” he asked, grinning. “Sounds like a woman after m’own heart.”
Thomas rose from the chair once more, stripping off his jacket with more haste than care, so that Dooley could have sworn he heard the seams groaning. “And you can have her, with my blessings,” Thomas said, flinging the jacket onto a chair in a heap. “The last thing this American needs is an intelligent woman. All this man wants is a willing one. Good night, Paddy—we’ve a long day in front of us tomorrow, numbing our worthless colonial rumps in the anteroom of the Department of the Admiralty.”
Dooley picked up the discarded jacket and folded it over his arm, knowing he would be the one called upon to take a pressing iron to the thing the next time Thomas needed it so he could go strut about in society like some damned peacock. “And a goodnight to you, boyo—but remember this. I’m in this with you, and not your bloody maid of all work.”
CHAPTER 2
I know indeed the evil of that I purpose; but my inclination gets the better of my judgment
— Euripides
The sun stole slowly across the tastefully decorated bedchamber, picking out the distinctive lines of a Sheraton chaise longue, dappling the cabbage rose design of the expanse of carpet, and finally slanting toward the wide tester bed topped with wrinkled sheets and a trailing coverlet, and piled high with pillows—but minus its occupant for the past two hours, although it had just gone eleven.
Marguerite Balfour, her buttercup yellow dressing gown cinched tightly at the waist by a satin ribbon, her long, glorious dark copper hair haphazardly tied up with a yellow satin riband, did not notice the sun’s advance as she sat with her usual elegantly erect posture at her mother’s tambour desk, tracing one manicured fingertip down the page of an old diary.
“‘Lord M—Loves money more than anything. A skirt-chasing buffoon with the wits of a flea,’” she read out loud, then closed the book and leaned against the back of her chair, smiling sadly as she looked at the portrait of an extremely handsome, yet faintly melodramatic-looking young man that hung over a nearby table. “An apt description, Papa, but you neglected to mention ‘Lord M’ also pinches. Much as I’m convinced your friend Arthur had designs on Mama—for the man would have designs on anything in skirts—I believe he was only a minor player. His disposal, already in progress, should not be a problem.”
Marguerite sat forward once again and reopened the diary, turning directly to the page she had dog-eared last summer, after the funeral, when she had first discovered her father’s private papers among her mother’s belongings, obviously unread by that woman. She could recite the remainder of the list labeled “The Club” without looking: