A Masquerade in the Moonlight(23)
“Really, Mr. Donovan?” Marguerite responded, lifting her fork and inserting the last bit of cream pie between her full, deeply pink lips. “I should think,” she continued after dabbing her serviette against those same enticing lips, “your beloved, native Ireland lies only a short journey away, so that you should not have to attempt to comfort yourself with reminders rather than to see the place itself. Do you have plans to visit your homeland while you are on this side of the ocean?”
“Ah, dear treasure of my heart, but I did visit the Auld Sod, me and Paddy both, before sailing on to London. Beautiful County Clare. Alas,” he ended, sighing soulfully, doing his best to look pitiful, “there is nothing there for either of us now save memories.”
She laid down her serviette and looked into his eyes, her own limpid with sympathy. Was it real, or was she only reacting as she must know she should? It was plaguey difficult deciding what was true and what was false when dealing with Miss Marguerite Balfour. “How very sad. Please, if you promise to refrain from giving voice to any more foolish endearments, will you tell me about your life in Ireland?”
Thomas decided to believe the possible lie that she was sincere in her interest—not that he was. He closed his eyes. “No, no. I wouldn’t wish to distress you with my tale of woe.” He opened his eyes again, waiting for her to discreetly push him into confession. She didn’t disappoint him.
“Are you an orphan, Mr. Donovan?” she asked, tilting her head slightly, so that the light of the chandelier just above them turned her hair to dark, liquid fire. “If so, I can understand your sorrow for I, too, am without parents, although I do have my dear grandfather to comfort me. As you and Mr. Dooley must have each other to turn to in times of remembered grief.”
Dooley? Dooley, who had his quarrelsome wife, an older-than-the-flood mother-in-law whose eyesight might be failing but whose razor-sharp tongue could still strip the hide off a man at twenty paces, and a half dozen runny-nosed children waiting for him in Philadelphia? “Yes, dear lady, Paddy and I do at least have each other. He is such a comfort to me—after the trouble.”
She leaned slightly closer, so that he could smell her provocative perfume, see her modestly displayed expanse of flawless, creamy bosom rise and fall with her every breath. Saint Peter and all the apostles, but she was a tempting morsel! And she knew it, blast her! “The trouble? You cannot stop now, Mr. Donovan, for I vow I’m near to bursting with curiosity. Please—tell me what happened.”
Lean a little closer, aingeal, and that lovely gown hiding your glory from me will burst, for which I shall be eternally grateful. “Oh, very well,” he answered, sighing, employing every bit of willpower he could marshal not to reach across the small table and run his middle finger from the underside of her chin, to the base of her throat, to the cunning cleft between her breasts—and beyond. “But not here, Miss Balfour. I fear I sometimes allow my emotions to get the better of me when I think of my childhood in County Clare. Perhaps if we were to stroll outside, onto the balcony, where it’s less public?”
Her smile was triumphant as she held out her hand for him to help her to rise, which confused him, for he had thought this to be his victory. “Of course, Mr. Donovan. I shouldn’t wish for you to become a watering pot here, among so many people who would be sure to gawk and point fingers. Let us adjourn to yon balcony, where you might weep to your heart’s content with only me there to mock you.”
She allowed him to slip her arm through the crook of his elbow as they threaded their way through the crowded tables and out onto the balcony, although she did stop several times to introduce him to people who, every last man at least, looked down their noses at him (a mighty feat, he acknowledged with some admiration, for people who remained seated while he was left standing, like some lackey at their service).
To a man they had wasted no courtesy on the companion Marguerite introduced as “an emissary of President Madison.”
To a woman, however, Thomas noticed, his presence had seemed more than welcome. Either English women were sadly ignorant politically or they were more impressed with his appearance than his official presence. It was really too bad he hadn’t been sent to negotiate with the ladies of London. Not only would there be no war looming on the horizon, but he would probably sail home with papers deeding him half the British Empire!
“Lovely people, your countrymen,” Thomas commented as he assisted Marguerite to a stone bench at one side of the balcony—the dark side of the balcony, away from the lights and noise in the supper room. “I felt most welcome as you introduced me.”