Мэри Бэлоу - Someone to Romance

A marquess’s daughter would do quite nicely, it seemed, when a duke’s was no longer available. The father was making much of Estelle, who made a very pretty mermaid, with feet that peeked discreetly from beneath her multicolored tail. Her mask matched it.

“I am crushed,” Jessica told Avery and Anna between sets.

She waltzed with Gabriel not long before midnight. He was tense and grim faced, she could see, though he did not miss a step. She was feeling the fluttering of nerves in her stomach too.

“One could almost believe,” he said, “that he is expecting to inherit a king’s title.”

“I suppose,” she said, “he has been something of a nobody for most of his life, Gabriel. And he had almost no expectation either until recent years. Both you and your cousin, not to mention your uncle, stood between him and the title—and fortune. Does he have money of his own?”

“I think not,” he said. “He was always eager to live upon the hospitality of my uncle and aunt at Brierley.”

“The unmasking is to happen after this set,” she told him, as though he was not well aware of that fact for himself.

“Yes,” he said. “It may all come to nothing, you know, Jessie. It may be a massive anticlimax.”

“But only we will know,” she said. And all the Westcotts and those with family connections to them.

The music came to an end. Had that last waltz of the set been shorter than the others? It did not matter. It was over, and Lady Farraday, assisted by her husband’s hand, was climbing to the orchestra dais and raising her arms for silence. She got it after a few moments of excited murmurings and hushing sounds from everyone else. She looked around the ballroom, clearly enjoying the drama of the moment, and slowly removed her own mask. The obligatory gasp of surprise was followed by the equally obligatory round of applause.

“Yes,” she said when it had died down. “It is I. And this is the moment when I get to discover if I have been entertaining a roomful of total strangers and impostors all evening.” She waited for the laughter to subside. “My lords and ladies and gentlemen, it is time to remove your masks and reveal your identities.”

There was a great deal of noise and laughter as everyone complied and looked around at one another and pretended astonishment at discovering acquaintances they had not identified until that precise moment.

Manley Rochford, as they had hoped, aroused particular interest now that everyone could admit to knowing who he was. And he was standing, conveniently enough, almost in the center of the ballroom. Well-wishers gathered about him to shake his hand or to curtsy. He smiled graciously upon them all, a rather handsome King Arthur without his mask. His son, still glittering even without his mask, stood smiling at his right hand while his wife hovered at his left.

Gabriel looked steadily at Jessica and offered his arm. They approached that most dense group of guests together and a pathway opened before them, perhaps because the space had been occupied by Avery and Anna, Elizabeth and Colin, Alexander and Wren, Boris and Bertrand, and Sir Trevor and Lady Vickers.

Manley Rochford looked graciously upon the two of them, prepared to receive their homage.

“Hello, Manley,” Gabriel said.

Twenty

Manley looked somewhat startled at being so familiarly addressed. His smile faltered for a moment, but he nodded graciously at them both.

“Mr. Thorne, Papa,” Anthony Rochford said. “I have told you about him. And Mrs. Thorne—Lady Jessica Thorne.”

“Ah, yes.” Manley’s eyes rested upon Jessica. “I understand congratulations are in order. And Mr. Thorne.” He made them a slight bow.

“ Gabriel Thorne,” Gabriel said. “How are you, Manley?”

Manley frowned in puzzlement. “Do I know you?” he asked—and Gabriel saw the beginnings of unease in the man.

“A long time ago,” he said. “Thirteen years ago and more.”

He was very aware of Jessica’s hand on his arm. He knew, though he did not turn his head to look, that since removing her mask she had become the cool, poised, aristocratic Lady Jessica. He was aware too that the loud sounds of merriment that had succeeded the unmasking were dying down slightly in their immediate vicinity.

Manley’s handsome face, framed by becomingly graying hair upon which sat a jeweled crown, had paled. His jaws had clamped together—to prevent him from gaping, perhaps.

A definite quiet had fallen upon the crowd around them now, and Gabriel sensed that other people were drawing closer to see what was happening.

“It cannot be.” The words barely passed Manley’s lips. “No.”

“But yes,” Gabriel said. “It can be. And it is.”

Manley’s wife set a hand on his arm. Gabriel could not for the life of him remember her name. She had always been a shadowy figure, along with Philip’s wife. And his aunt too. Women were not highly regarded by most of the Rochford men.

“Manley,” she said, her voice noticeably shaking. “He is Gabriel .”

Manley shook off her arm with open impatience. His nostrils flared. His eyes blazed. “You are dead . This man is an impostor.” He pointed a finger at Gabriel and took one wild look about the crowd, as though searching for an ally. “Marjorie, we are leaving.”

Marjorie. That was her name.

“Papa?” Anthony Rochford said. “This is Mr. Thorne. The man from America I told you about. Mama?”

“Actually,” Gabriel said without taking his eyes off Manley, and he knew now that he had a rather large and avidly listening audience of the cream of society, “I was born with the name Rochford. Gabriel Rochford. I kept that name until I sailed for America thirteen years ago.”

The reaction was worthy of any melodrama. There was a gasp followed by loud murmurings followed in turn by frantic shushing noises.

“Papa?” Anthony Rochford sounded close to panic now.

Manley ignored him. He was having a bit of an onslaught of panic of his own, Gabriel guessed. But he mastered his emotions with a visible effort. He thrust back his shoulders and continued to point a now shaking finger at Gabriel. He looked rather magnificent, actually, with his crown glinting in the candlelight from the chandelier overhead. All he needed to complete the picture was Excalibur clutched in his hand.

“This man,” he said, addressing the crowd, which must have swelled to consist of almost every guest at the ball. “ This man , who changed his name and hid away in America, as well he ought, for thirteen years, has now been driven by ambition to consider it worth the risk of returning at the last possible moment to claim his birthright. I am here to stop him in the name of justice.”

“You may try, Manley,” Gabriel said. He was surprised by how little hate he felt for his cousin, who would have sent him to the gallows thirteen years ago and would do it again now. He felt only contempt.

“This man,” Manley said. “This Gabriel Rochford is a murderer. ”

There was another wave of sound. Manley waited for it to subside, as it soon did. No one wanted to miss a word. He took a step forward, leaving his wife and son slightly behind him. He knew how to play to an audience, Gabriel thought appreciatively.

“This man,” Manley continued, “ravished the young and innocent daughter of a neighbor of the Earl of Lyndale, his uncle, and left her in disgrace and with child. When confronted by the young lady’s brother and my dear friend , Gabriel Rochford murdered him. He shot him in the back. I witnessed him doing so , though I was too far away, alas, to stop him. Is there a worse or more cowardly crime than to shoot an unarmed man in the back?”