A Masquerade in the Moonlight(126)
He addressed Harewood’s back. “Is that it, Ralph, or are you going to tell me you’ve also disgraced yourself? Have you taken to running into the Serpentine in the buff, or perhaps you’ve decided to attempt a career on the stage? Please, Ralph, don’t tease me—I am waiting, heart in mouth, for you to tell me if you, too, have inexplicably descended to the level of village idiot.”
Ralph whirled around to face Laleham, his usually expressionless eyes glittering with what looked to be religious zeal. “I want that diary you found, William.”
“Diary? What diary would that be?” Laleham stepped back a pace, lowering his wineglass onto the drinks table with a steady hand as he kept his eyes trained on Harewood. Something was wrong here. Something was most seriously wrong.
“Don’t be obtuse, Willie! Geoffrey Balfour’s diary, the one detailing how we’d tricked him into getting his friends to invest in our bubble,” Harewood said, taking a single step in the earl’s direction. “The one he was forever scribbling in, the one you held over all our heads in order that we join this damn scheme of yours with the Americans. I want it. The rest are gone, and Geoffrey’s scribbles are the least of their problems, but my name is in it, too. You took great pains to show it to me, remember? If we’re to be partners, you and I—true partners—I need the thing destroyed.”
William smiled, happy to unbalance the man. “This is what all the fuss is about, all this heat, this dead of the night summons? Why, Ralph, you disappoint me. Surely you realized I was showing you all a forgery? The man was a dreamer and failed poet, a worthless waste of anyone’s concern. What on earth could any of us fear from his notations on the local flora and fauna and such nonsense? I wrote the diary you saw. It may have been unsporting of me, but I needed your help.”
The truth worked nicely, as unexpected truth invariably did, and William began to relax, for Ralph was behaving so totally out of character he had begun to worry.
“You—it was—where is it now?”
Now a lie might be best, especially since Ralph hadn’t seemed to notice that the forged diary had mentioned only four names, not all five; Laleham hadn’t been about to incriminate himself, after all, and one never knew when the diary might be useful in future. “I burned it, of course. It had served its purpose, and I couldn’t leave it lying about, now could I, to be discovered by just anybody? Ralph,” he added, sighing, “isn’t it silly of us to argue now, when we’re so close to our goal.”
Ralph took another step forward, and suddenly there was a pistol in his hand. “Not our goal, William—my goal. I don’t need you anymore. What good were you anyway? Keeping to the background, just so that you can step forward at the end and scoop up the lion’s share of the profits, not to mention all the glory? Just as it always was, William—you as the head and we the arms and legs, doing all the work, taking all the risks. Well, no more. You and your whore of a consort will have nothing—and I will have it all.” He smiled again, and this time his smile wasn’t simply distasteful, it was frighteningly triumphant. “And I’ll have it all forever.”
William’s hands balled into fists, but he kept his tone even. “Again with this strange obsession with Marguerite. I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. And lower that pistol, please, before you hurt yourself.”
Ralph moved even closer, the pistol looming large in his hand. “Marguerite. Your so pure, so innocent Marguerite. If she’s a virgin, I’m a Dutchman! God save me from the ravings of a man grown too old to recognize an obsession. She’s been tipped on her heels by our dear American friend Donovan. I saw them together, that night you sent me chasing after the American when he left Richmond. I just didn’t tell you, did I? Oh, you look surprised, William. But why? He as good as announced his intentions every time we met. He wanted her, and he got her. She’s Victoria’s daughter, remember. Balfour females seem to have a penchant for throwing themselves away on inferiors. It is not every woman who shares your high opinion of yourself.”
Laleham felt his head beginning to pound. “Liar. You’ve overstepped yourself this time, Ralph. I’ve put up with your foolishness, your dark moods, your endless line of soothsayers. Oh, yes, I know about them—your ridiculous superstitions, your womanish fear of death. I know everything about you, Ralph, about all of you. How else has it been so lamentably easy for me to use you? But now you’ve gone too far. You’ll pay for this insult. You’ll pay dearly.”