Мэри Бэлоу - Someone to Romance

And would he recognize them before midnight?

Would anyone?

Would anyone recognize Mr. Anthony Rochford himself?

Even those few people who had accepted their invitations but had half decided that they would not go to something that was sure to be a sad squeeze decided that after all they must attend.

Lady Farraday’s ball had become the most anticipated entertainment of the Season.

Mary was the only one who needed a heavy disguise, for she was quite a distinctive figure to those who knew her—and presumably Manley and his wife as well as their son had seen her a time or two. She rather fancied the nun’s costume that was presented for her review among a few other possibilities. It would cover all but her face from eyebrows to chin and would enable her to hide her bad arm.

“Hmm,” Jessica said when Mary tried it on. “Your face is still recognizable, Mary. We must add a mask—just a half one. Full masks are horrid things. It becomes hard to breathe, especially in a stuffy ballroom. Black, I think.” She added the mask to Mary’s disguise and took a step back.

“The bandit nun,” Gabriel said, and Mary laughed merrily.

“The bandit nun,” she said. “I like it. May I choose this costume, Jessica?”

Surprisingly— very surprisingly—her face had lit up with delight when Gabriel had asked if she had ever wanted to go to a masquerade. And when he had explained to her what the plans were for Lady Farraday’s ball, she had first looked very serious, and then had lit back up and looked like an excited child in anticipation of a treat, seated as she had been in that chair, which was many sizes too large for her. Her feet did not even reach the floor.

“Provided I will not have anything to do except sit and watch—until after midnight,” she had said, “I will do it. Will I be able to wear a costume?”

“It is imperative that you do,” Gabriel had told her, and she had smiled from him to Jessica and looked very pleased indeed with the world. “You will be quite safe, Mary. I will see to it.”

“I know you will,” she had said. “What an adventure I am having. Did I tell you that Ned and his elder son are staying at my cottage to look after my animals until I return? They are very kind. So is Ned’s dear wife for allowing him to do it.”

“Do you wonder that I love her, Jessie?” Gabriel asked that night when they lay in bed, relaxing after making love. Perhaps it was not the wisest thing to say of another woman to one’s brand-new wife.

“I do not,” she told him. “I think, Gabriel, she must be an angel. And what a foolish thing to say. How embarrassing.” She laughed. “But she must be.”

He turned onto his side and kissed her. Hard. And for perhaps the first time since returning to England he was consciously glad he had come. Even with all the challenges ahead, he was glad.

Gabriel chose a black domino for his costume, with a black half mask. It was neither an imaginative nor a very effective disguise, but that would not matter. He did not care if everyone recognized him—as everyone surely would—as long as Manford and his wife did not until midnight. He did not even care if he was pointed out to them as Gabriel Thorne. It was unlikely that after thirteen years they would know him just from the lower half of his face.

“Oh,” Mary, the little bandit nun, said when she saw him on the evening of the masquerade, “you do look splendidly handsome, Gabriel. Does he not, Jessica?”

“Be still, my heart,” Jessica said, smiling brightly at him and fairly rocking him back on his heels. She herself had already been looking disturbingly gorgeous in her deep pink domino and matching mask even before she added the smile.

“Mine could not grow stiller if it tried,” he said, his eyes fully upon her. “It has already stopped.”

Mary clapped her hands and laughed with glee.

“And as for you,” he said, “you look very fierce, Mary. Who has ever heard of a nun with a mask? She can only intend mischief. You must stop smiling, however, if you hope to frighten everyone.”

She did stop smiling. Suddenly, so did all of them. For this was it. The confrontation they had planned with such meticulous care together with Jessica’s family, who had insisted, against his better judgment, upon being involved. The most carefully thought-out plans, of course, often went awry. Everything depended upon Manley’s being there tonight. They had all done their part to see that he would be. There was nothing else they could do on that front but wait and see.

There was a knock on the sitting room door and Horbath reported almost immediately that her ladyship, the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, awaited Miss Beck in her carriage outside the hotel doors.

“She will be kind,” Gabriel assured Mary before escorting her downstairs. “She can be a bit intimidating, but she admires your courage. She told Jessie so.” He worried about poor Mary, who had lived most of her life as a hermit, her companions almost exclusively of the animal kingdom. She was to sit for most of the evening between the dowager and her sister.

“But of course she will be kind,” Mary said, not looking nearly as nervous as Gabriel felt and Jessica looked. “She is Jessica’s grandmama, is she not?”

She had not yet seen Jessica at her aristocratic best. She probably would later tonight. But Mary would not be intimidated anyway, he suddenly realized. Her eyes would look past every barrier to the good that lay within any person she met.

Except when there was no goodness to be seen.

Manley Rochford was dressed as King Arthur, complete with a golden crown encrusted with paste jewels and a black mask. His wife—unfortunately, considering her rather plain, matronly looks, a number of guests remarked behind their hands or fans—appeared as Guinevere, also with a mask. Several people did not know them, but since most had come in the hope of catching a glimpse of them and perhaps making themselves known to them so that they would be the more assured of receiving invitations to the grand celebrations they were said to be planning, they were soon pointed out to everyone by those who did know.

Anthony Rochford was unmistakable in a billowing, all-enveloping domino and a mask that covered three-quarters of his face, for the entire costume was a glittering gold embellished with sequins. And who, anyway, could mistake that smile even though it proceeded from almost the only part of his body that was not covered?

Masquerades were always amusing, Jessica thought, for of course very few people went unknown to everyone else. The few exceptions were almost always those people whom almost no one knew anyway. She recognized friends and acquaintances wherever she looked. And family members, of course. And they were all here—except Harry, who had returned home to the country yesterday. Even Grandmama and Great-aunt Edith and Miss Boniface had come, partly because wild horses could not keep them away on this particular occasion, Grandmama had told her, and partly because they had undertaken the important task of looking after Mary until she was needed later, which might or might not happen. Mary sat now, resembling a mischievous elfin blackbird, between Boadicea—Grandmama—on her left and someone who was either a dragon or a giant robin—Great-aunt Edith—on her right. Miss Boniface, like many of the other guests clad in a domino and mask, hovered behind them.

Some members of Jessica’s old court found her out—it was not difficult—and swore to broken hearts and other silly things like the determination to challenge Gabriel to pistols at dawn. A few of them danced with her.

One thrilling moment came when the golden domino bowed before her, solicited her hand for a dance, congratulated her on her recent marriage, and proceeded to look tragic while they danced. In other words, his smile was not in evidence except when he looked at other women, which he did a number of times. He smiled with dazzling intensity at Estelle, who was partnered with Adrian Sawyer, Viscount Dirkson’s son. He smiled without ceasing when he danced the next set with Estelle and then swept her off in a flourish of gold to introduce her to King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.