A Masquerade in the Moonlight(17)
Thomas retrieved his hat and gloves from a small table in the antechamber and strode long-leggedly toward the staircase, his mind whirling as he attempted to make some sense of Marguerite’s unexpected appearance. “I don’t suppose to understand anything at all concerning Miss Balfour, save that she’s English to her toes—and the most delectable morsel I’ve ever seen,” he said, jamming the hat onto his head as he stepped out into the sunshine. “Tell me, Paddy—has my new suit of evening clothes arrived as yet? I believe I’ll be attending Lady Sefton’s ball this evening after all.”
“Feel a seduction coming over you, do you, m’fine boyo?” Dooley asked, hailing a passing hackney cab.
“Ah, Paddy, old friend, how well you know me.” Thomas’s teeth flashed white beneath his mustache as he bent his long frame and slid across the greasy leather seat in front of his friend. “Whoever said serving one’s country should be unremittingly serious work?”
CHAPTER 3
Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no fibs.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Marguerite knew she looked her best as she stood just outside the ballroom, yet wondered why she had felt the need to tend to her toilette with such care, as if she were arming herself for battle and not simply dressing for another exceedingly silly ball. The evening at Lady Sefton’s promised to be no different than any other since she had come to London—no more or less important.
No, that wasn’t true. It was one thing to lie to others, but it would be foolhardy—even dangerous—to lie to herself. Tonight would be very different. She knew perfectly well why she had lingered so long over her selection of the ivory silk gown she had finally chosen and why she had dared instruct the always competent Maisie over the styling of her coppery curls rather than to simply trust the woman’s judgment.
Her attire was her battle raiment, and she was about to face her adversary. His name wasn’t Lord Mappleton, or Sir Peregrine, or any of the rest. His name was Thomas Joseph Donovan, and he was, in his own way, as potentially ruinous to her peace of mind as William Renfrew, Earl of Laleham, her father’s “enigmatic” W.R.
Where Lord Laleham was seemingly without weakness, “without any visible failing” she might exploit, Thomas Joseph Donovan was without fear—a faintly mad, reckless sort who possessed a glib tongue, a quicksilver personality impossible to pigeonhole, and a wealth of intelligence and discernment hidden deep inside his open, laughing, seemingly guileless blue eyes.
His extremely appealing blue eyes.
She had known he was in with Sir Peregrine that afternoon. She had known it because she had asked Grouse, whom she had seen hovering outside in the hallway, pacing and biting on his thumb, terrified to reenter the room and inform his employer there wasn’t so much as a sliver of cheese to be found to serve his guests.
Ordinarily, Marguerite would not have burst in on Sir Peregrine for she was, after all, a well brought up young lady, no matter how devious her motives. But the impulse to see Thomas Joseph Donovan again, to see him in his official capacity, had been too intense to overcome. That—and she detested admitting this to herself—and the opportunity to bait him with her plans for the evening, just to see if he took the hook in his mouth.
But now it appeared he had no intention of furthering their acquaintance.
Didn’t he feel the same excitement she did when they spoke, when they so much as looked at each other, the thrill of the hunt that skipped down her spine when she’d recognized a fellow conspirator, the physical attraction that she had assumed to be mutual?
A dangerous attraction.
Surely he would come.
He had to come!
“Marguerite, my dear, I hesitate to interrupt your thoughts, but I fear I should mention you’re wringing your hands. Such worrying of your gloves is potentially injurious to the kid, which is unconscionably dear, and the action is not quite as ladylike as I should hope.”
Mrs. Billings’s carefully couched censure, delivered with the older woman’s usual “the meek shall inherit the Earth” condescension, touched Marguerite on the raw, although she knew her chaperone meant well. She always meant well, more was the pity. But upbraiding Mrs. Billings would only prompt the woman to issue a lengthy apology liberally sprinkled with advice about even-tempered misses catching more beaux than do uncivilized Hottentots. Knowing this, Marguerite only smiled apologetically at the woman, then folded her hands neatly in her lap.