The Madcap Masquerade Page 3

  “Down lads. Down. I’ve me fancy town clothes on,” he ordered, pushing them aside to step through the doorway. Crooking his finger, he beckoned Maeve to follow him and a moment later she found herself in a huge, high-ceilinged entry hall which reeked of stale tobacco smoke and damp dog.

  “Where’s the demmed snooty-nosed butler I hired on me last trip to London?” the squire demanded, hunkering down to rub behind the ear of first one dog, then the other. “With the prodigious wage I pay him, y’d think he could stir his lazy bones to answer the door in weather like this.”

  He looked around him with obvious frustration. “And where’s the footman? There’s trunks of bride clothes to be carried up to Meg’s bedchamber.”

  “Don’t you remember, you crazy old fool? Y’sacked Mr. Fogarty the day afore y’left for London—and the footman with him—cause y’d got it into yer head they was helping themselves to that pricey brandy y’d bought off some Frog smuggler.”

  “Demmed if I didn’t! And good riddance too, if ye ask me,” the squire muttered, intent on petting his dogs. To Maeve’s surprise, he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he’d just been called a fool by a servant.

  “I’ll not argue with you there,” the housekeeper said, with an indignant sniff. “But I’m all the house staff what’s left in this pile of stone, save the half-wit pot boy, and you’ll soon see the last of me ‘less you get me some help.”

  “Stop yer grouching. I’ll hire a couple of village girls in the morning,” the squire grumbled. “A fine welcome home this is after the hellish fortnight I just been through.”

  Sticking his head out the door, he shouted to his rain-drenched coachman, “Fetch a couple of grooms to come unload the luggage—and mind ye give them wet nags a good rub down afore ye bed them down for the night.”

  He turned to Maeve. “In case ye’re wondering, this mouthy old woman is me housekeeper, Mrs. Emma Pinkert,” he said, then turned beet red when he apparently realized his slip of tongue. As “Margaret,” Maeve should know very well who Mrs. Pinkert was. “An almond to a yev forgot her, with being away so long,” he added lamely.

  Mrs. Pinkert’s bright blue eyes grew round as teacups. “Lord luv us, yev slipped a cog for sure. Miss Meg’s not going to forget me in a fortnight, when I’ve been here nearly five years. She may be shy, but she’s not stupid like some I could name.”

  She glanced out the open door. “And where’s Betty?” She threw up her hands. “Don’t tell me you’ve sacked Miss Meg’s abigail too! Whatever were you thinking of? Betty was the only one her own age the poor little mite ever talked to.”

  “I didn’t sack the chit,” the squire blustered. “I … I give her a couple weeks holiday to visit her sick mother in … in Shropshire.”

  “Shropshire? I never heard tell Betty was from Shropshire.”

  The squire scowled. “Well she was, and that’s a fact. Now leave off your blooming nagging, and put me dinner on the table. Me belly’s so empty, it’s all but collapsed against me backbone.”

  He gave Maeve a toothy grin. “It’s glad I am to be back here in Kent where we keep decent country hours. Me stomach got all out of kilter staying at Hermione’s place. Never once sat down to dinner before eight or nine o’clock the whole time I was there. ‘Fashionable’ she called it. More like ‘numskullery’ if ye ask me.”

  He paused. “But I expect before y’come to table ye’ll be wanting to wash off the dust of the road and use the necessary in that pretty bedchamber of yers what’s the first door to the left of the stairs on the second floor.”

  Maeve excused herself with great relief and fled up the nearby staircase before her less than subtle father gave the entire game away. The last thing she heard before she entered the chamber to which he’d directed her was a loud, smacking noise like a hand striking a buttocks and the squire’s gravelly voice inquiring, “So Emma, ye old tart, did ye miss me whilst I was gone up to London town?”

  Maeve woke to bright sunshine streaming through her window her first morning at Barrington Hall. An omen, she hoped, that this madcap masquerade of hers would end happily for both Meg and herself.

  She stretched lazily and took her first good look at the room that belonged to her twin; she’d been too preoccupied to see much of it the night before. All pink and white with a delicate Hepplewhite dressing table and chair and a ruffled canopy over the bed, it was a bit too fussy and frilly for Maeve’s taste. Still, it was a pretty, feminine room and she found it a pleasant relief from the rustic masculinity of the rest of the manor house. Furthermore, it was blessedly free of the odor of dog—something which appeared to be an integral part of every other room in Barrington Hall.

  She ran her fingers over the linen sheet that stretched beneath her and the pillow on which she’d lain her weary head the night before, and felt a strange bonding with the woman whose bed she inhabited and whose identity she had temporarily assumed.

  If her first evening at the Hall was any example of life with the lusty squire and his housekeeper cum cook cum mistress, Maeve could understand why her sister had turned into a shy recluse. There was no middle ground with such people. To keep one’s sanity, one would either have to join in their vulgar ribaldry or retreat into a shell of silence, as Meg had.

  Dinner had been a hearty affair—and a democratic one. Mrs. Pinkert’s idea of serving a meal to her employer was to plunk a huge platter of mutton, potatoes and vegetables in the middle of the table, then sit down and help herself before the squire could nab the choicest morsels for himself.

  There was no conversation during dinner, indeed no sound at all except that of the hounds chomping on the bones which both the squire and Mrs. Pinkert tossed them once they’d sucked them clean of flesh and marrow. The hour was reserved for serious eating and drinking. Only after the squire had finished off his last bite of mutton, sat back and given a tremendous belch, did he turn sociable. It transpired that he had returned from London with a collection of lewd jokes, the like of which would have curled the hair of the most decadent Corinthian and, as Mrs. Pinkert happily remarked, she dearly loved a good joke.

  Maeve was no stranger to such humor. Lily and her admirers had often entertained themselves with the suggestive kind of stories that were taboo in the proper salons of Mayfair. But while Lily had had an earthy sense of humor, she’d favored a clever turn of phrase, a subtle use of the double entendre. There was nothing subtle about the squire’s humor. The more he drank, the raunchier his stories grew—and the raunchier his stories grew, the louder Mrs. Pinkert laughed.

  Maeve had to chuckle in spite of herself. One could search the world over and never find two more thoroughly unlovely specimens of humanity than Squire Barrington and Mrs. Pinkert. Yet the two of them were so delighted with each other, they’d apparently forgotten all about her. Quietly excusing herself, she slipped from her chair and sought her bedchamber.

  It was much too early to retire, but by the time she’d unpacked the three trunks holding her twin’s bride clothes and hung the collection of exquisite gowns in the armoire, she was too tired to stay awake a moment longer.

  She was awakened from a deep sleep sometime in the middle of the night by the familiar sound of creaking bedsprings. Just for a moment, she imagined herself a child again, alone in her trundle bed, while Lily “entertained” one of her gentlemen friends in the adjoining chamber. Then she remembered where she was, and what had precipitated her coming there, and wept bitter tears, more for the death of her illusions than for the death of a mother she realized she had never really known at all.

  But now it was a new day. The sun was shining and nothing looked as bleak as it had in the dark of night. She could even admit to seeing a modicum of humor in her situation. It was out of the pan, into the fire where parents were concerned. For if ever there was a more outrageous parent than Lily, it surely had to be the squire. With her usual optimism, Maeve decided there was something to be said for being stripped of everything one held dear. Whatever t
he future, it had to be an improvement over the moment at hand.

  She rose, washed her face and hands and dressed in a stylish blue bombazine walking dress, sturdy half-boots and a chip straw bonnet which Lady Hermione had purchased for Meg. The particular shade of blue turned her green eyes a muddy nondescript color, but other than that, it was a vast improvement over the drab brown or gray gowns she usually wore. Wrapping her own warm shawl about her shoulders, she slipped silently from the manor house to explore her father’s estate before the other occupants of the house awakened.

  She was in the habit of walking the streets surrounding Lily’s small house early each morning, but she had never before walked in the country. She found herself wondering how one kept from getting lost without the usual city landmarks to find one’s bearings. She would, she decided, simply keep the eight tall chimneys of Barrington Hall in sight at all times as her guide.

  With that in mind, she set off at a brisk pace, past the stables and down the driveway she’d ridden up the day before. Turning left at the gate, she followed the road until, after an hour of steady walking, it dwindled into a country lane just wide enough for one carriage. An orchard in full, glorious bloom bordered the lane on her right, a meadow dotted with grazing sheep on her left. Swept up by the sheer beauty of the landscape, she ploughed on, though the lane was still muddy from the heavy rains of the previous evening.

  A mile or so farther, she stopped to catch her breath and get her bearings. She breathed deeply, amazed at the crystalline purity of air free from the smoke and dirt of the capital—and even more amazed at the silence, broken only by the faint chirping of a flock of birds nesting in the hedgerows bordering the lane.

  The city was never silent. She wondered if she could ever accustom herself to the quiet of the country. Her urban ears automatically listened for the rattle of carriage wheels over cobblestones, the voices of street venders hawking their wares.

  Then all at once the stillness was broken by the sound of voices—strong male voices raised in a bawdy country song. The sound appeared to be coming from beyond a small hill to her right. Curious, she wriggled through a break in the hedgerow and waded through the dew-damp grass to the stand of beeches at the top of the hill.

  “Spring planting,” she said to herself, studying the activity in the valley below. She wondered if the men involved were her father’s tenant farmers or if she had walked so far she had crossed over into the Earl of Lynley’s estate.

  A confirmed city dweller, she had never actually witnessed the planting of crops, but she had read about it and the scene before her was just as she had envisioned it. A dozen or more men, with huge canvas sacks of seeds strapped to their left shoulders, walked beside shallow, neatly spaced trenches, spreading seed as they went. Behind each man, a young boy with a hoe covered the trench with the dark, rich loam piled alongside it and tamped it firmly in place. Men and boys alike, they sang as they worked and every dip of a hand into a sack, every sweep of a hoe across the soil was as rhythmic and precise as the movements of dancers executing the steps of a minuet.

  The sun was higher in the sky now and its rays warmer. Maeve removed her shawl and seated herself on a fallen log to watch the age-old springtime ritual that had probably been carried out in this very valley for centuries. The farm laborers ranged in age from very young to very old, but one and all, they looked to be strong and healthy and well fed. If they were, in fact, the squire’s tenants, he was a much more conscientious landowner than she would have credited him.

  One fellow in particular caught her eye. A head taller than the other men, he had a dark, foreign look about him that set him apart from the rest. As she watched, he reached the end of a row, dropped his sack and proceeded to strip off his shirt, leaving him bare to the waist.

  Maeve gasped. Despite her unconventional upbringing, she had never before seen a living, breathing man in such a state of undress. Her knowledge of the male body was limited to Lord Elgin’s famous sculptures at the British Museum. But cold, hard marble, no matter how explicit, had not prepared her for the sight of powerful muscles rippling beneath sweat-sheened skin the color of fine bronze. The incredible masculine beauty of the tall, black-haired farm worker literally took her breath away.

  As if suddenly sensing her presence, he turned his head in her direction and raked her with eyes that, even from a distance, she could see were as inky black as his hair. She fully expected him to snatch up his shirt and quickly cover his nakedness. He did no such thing; instead his perusal of her grew even bolder.

  In vain, she tried to tear her gaze from his. For a long heart-stopping moment he held her spellbound with a brazen stare that sent tremors of awareness ricocheting through the most feminine parts of her body—until the satisfied male smile curving his full, sensuous mouth shocked her back to reality.

  The nerve of the cheeky fellow! A total stranger, and an ordinary farmhand to boot, ogling her with the same proprietary look she’d seen on the faces of the men who had bought and paid for Lily’s services. Gathering her shawl about her, she rose from her log and made as dignified an exit from the grove of trees as the humiliating circumstances afforded.

  Far to her left, the chimneys of Barrington Hall, while still in sight, now looked more like a row of toothpicks than the imposing appendages she’d spied when first alighting from the squire’s carriage. She wondered what had possessed her to walk so far, when she’d known full well she would have to walk just as far on the return trip. Resigned to her fate, she scrambled down the hill to the lane and hastened back to the manor house as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Hot and tired, she stopped just inside the gate to catch her breath and put her thoughts in order before continuing to the house. What in the world had happened to her back on that hill? Try as she might, she could not ignore the fact that the unsettling tremors she’d experienced on that hill still echoed deep inside her.

  But why? She had been around men all her life—handsome, urbane, sophisticated men. Not a one of them had ever evoked a reaction in her such as she’d experienced watching the dark-haired farmhand strip to the waist. She shuddered, wondering if she’d inherited more of her mother’s alley-cat tendencies than she’d realized.

  With a toss of her head, she instantly dismissed the idea as utter nonsense and marched resolutely toward the manor house. She was simply out of her element here in the country; the city was her natural venue. She had no doubt whatsoever that once she returned to familiar surroundings, she would be her normal, disciplined self.

  In the meantime, she would have to make very certain she never again wandered into territory where she might encounter such a disturbing sight.

  ***

  In an unusually thoughtful mood, the Earl of Lynley mounted his horse and rode slowly home from his day of working in the fields with his tenant farmers. It was something he’d done every spring he’d been in Kent since he was old enough to take his place as a hoe-boy. But the experience had somehow failed to satisfy him today.

  To begin with, the last person he’d expected to find walking alone so far from home was the oh-so-proper Miss Meg Barrington. Nor would he have expected her to sit herself down on a log to watch him and his men at spring planting. She was country born and bred; she had to know men who worked the fields shed their shirts when the sun grew too hot. Yet, from her gaping mouth and crimson cheeks when he’d shed his, one would think he had taken her completely by surprise.

  And she had been different somehow from the timid mouse who had run in terror from him a mere fortnight ago. The Miss Barrington of this morning had displayed none of the lowered eyelids and trembling limbs that had repelled him at their last meeting. There had been a certain boldness in her gaze when it locked with his, a self-assurance which had sparked his interest in a way her former timidity never could.

  He had delighted in it at the moment, but now that he thought more about it, he found it strangely troubling. The squire had sent word two weeks before that he was tak
ing her to London to buy bride clothes. What could have happened during that fortnight in the city to have changed her?

  Instantly a dozen things came to mind. He knew all too well what brought sparkle to a woman’s eyes and roses to her cheeks. He’d accomplished the miracle himself more times than he could remember.

  She’d undoubtedly met some man while in London. Most likely one of those powder and paint dandies who prowled the salons of Mayfair looking for just such an innocent country goose as Meg Barrington. He gritted his teeth at the thought of another man touching the woman who was to be his bride. Never mind that he was marrying her against his will or that he, himself, was far from chaste. There were rules about such things. If he must marry a plain-faced frump then, by God, he would at least demand that she be one who was pure and untouched.

  But how could he tell before his betrothal was announced and it was too late to call the whole thing off?

  “Kiss her,” he advised himself out loud. He had often boasted that with his vast experience, he could instantly tell all there was to know about a woman by the way she kissed. He would apply that test tonight at the ball. He would take Miss Barrington aside and kiss her before the squire could make his announcement and if she failed the test … .

  He smiled to himself. There would be time enough to worry about that when the time came.

  ***

  After a hearty tea shared with the squire and Mrs. Pinkert, Maeve retired to her chamber to ready herself for the ball at which she was to make her debut impersonating her twin. With the exception of the one disturbing incident with the farmhand, her first full day at Barrington Hall had gone surprisingly well.

  She’d toured the vast house in the morning before the squire and Mrs. Pinkert rose from their beds, and in the early afternoon she’d begun work on the third in a series of cartoons she’d been commissioned to do on the unpopular Prince Regent and the crowd of sycophants who surrounded him. She had even, during her long hours of solitude, managed to come to grips with her reaction to the handsome rustic. It had taken some doing, but she’d finally chalked it up to hunger. She was, she suddenly remembered, never at her best before breakfast.