A Masquerade in the Moonlight(72)
Marguerite continued down the path, not looking at him, red flags of color flying in her cheeks. “Go away.”
He danced after her, his curly-brimmed beaver at a jaunty angle, his hands behind his back, his grin advertising his enjoyment. “Go away? Leave you? I’d sooner poke a sharp stick in my eye.”
“All right. That seems reasonable. Let’s find you a stick, shall we? There must be one about here somewhere.”
“Marguerite—aingeal—you don’t mean that.”
She kept moving. “You’re right. I don’t. I’d rather you’d drink poison—preferably one that ensures a slow, painful death. I believe I should have no trouble selling tickets to such a spectacle. William, for one, would doubtless enjoy witnessing your final agonies from a front-row seat. Please send a note round to Portman Square if you decide to accommodate me. But, in the meantime, Donovan—go away.”
Thomas tipped his hat and went, sensing his eventual victory.
An enormous bouquet of spring flowers arrived in Portman Square the following afternoon. The enclosed note read: Because I could not send you a shrubbery.
Marguerite all but threw the bouquet into Maisie’s grateful arms, then fled into the conservatory and slammed the door behind her. When, an hour later, one of the footman presented her with a package that had just been delivered from a Bond Street jeweler’s and she opened it to find an exquisitely designed jeweled hairpin nestled inside, the sound of a clay flowerpot crashing against the brick floor could be heard all the way to the kitchens.
Two hours later, when a second bouquet, this one of perfect rosebuds ranging from palest pink to deepest red, arrived at the servant’s entrance with no note attached, Cook sniffed deeply of one of the lovely blooms, shrugged, and had them placed in her own room.
Marguerite exited her grandfather’s Portman Square mansion slowly the next morning, looking both left and right and then left again before stepping off the portico and motioning for Maisie to follow.
She had traveled only a few yards before a young couple dressed in outlandish theatrical costume leapt from a hired coach and began enacting the marriage scene from The Taming of the Shrew in front of her.
Marguerite did the only thing left open to her. She plunked herself down unceremoniously on the bottom step of a neighboring building and laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks.
She discovered a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a single yellow rose sitting beside her plate when she sat down to luncheon. This time the card quoted a line from Romeo and Juliet: “This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.” Lifting the bloom to her nose and sniffing deeply of its perfume, Marguerite made up her mind.
She would not give up her plans for The Club, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also follow her heart.
“You have a visitor, Miss Balfour,” Finch said, bowing as he stopped just inside the morning room door, where Marguerite had settled herself in anticipation of just such an announcement.
She lifted a hand to her head, just to be sure none of her curls had escaped the yellow velvet ribbon Maisie had used to secure her hair, then took another swallow of sweet tea before setting down her cup. “That would be the American, wouldn’t it, Finch?” she asked, congratulating herself for having correctly read Donovan’s crafty mind. He had pursued her for three days; and it was more than time she sat still, sipped her tea, and allowed him to catch her.
“No, Miss, and I don’t have to tell you that it’s cost me another fiver with Sir Gilbert,” Finch answered, causing Marguerite to look at him in surprise. “It’s Sir Peregrine Totton who is cooling his heels in the foyer. He must have pulled one of his two mincing feet from the grave long enough to take the air. Shall I throw him over my shoulder and carry him in? It’s a long journey from the foyer to this room, and I wouldn’t want a corpse on my hands if his tick-tock should give out.”
Marguerite tamped down her disappointment, belatedly realizing her mistake. Donovan wouldn’t come to Portman Square. He was biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to get her alone the way he had the other night in the shrubbery. He must know, as she knew, their next meeting would not be the sort either would wish interrupted. And the only notice he’d take then of any ribbons in her hair would come when he pulled them loose and buried his fingers in her tumbling curls. She felt herself blushing and quickly covered her reaction to such a wicked, unladylike thought with a forced cough.