Diane Gaston - A Marriage of Notoriety

Instead she’d poured everything into her new composition. With the music, she’d tried to recreate her youthful feelings of joy and the despairing emotions of reality. She’d transitioned the tune to something bittersweet—how it had felt to dance with him once again.

Her mind had been filled with him and she’d not spared a thought for her family. In fact, she’d resented whenever her mother insisted she receive morning calls, including those of Lady Gale and her stepdaughter. It surprised her that she’d paid enough attention to learn that Ned intended to marry the artless Adele Gale. The girl reminded Phillipa of her school friends and that first Season when they’d been innocent and starry-eyed.

And hopeful.

Phillipa had paid no attention at all to her father, but, then, he paid no attention to her. She long ago learned not to care about what her father thought or did or said, but how dared he be so selfish as to gamble away the family money? She would not miss him. It was a relief to no longer endure his unpleasantness.

Phillipa entered the house and climbed the stairs to her music room. She pulled off her hat and gloves and sat at the pianoforte. Her fingers pressed the ivory keys, searching for expression of the feelings resonating inside of her. She created a discordant sound, a chaos, unpleasant to her ears. She rose again and walked to the window, staring out at the small garden behind the town house. A yellow tabby cat walked the length of the wall, sure-footed, unafraid, surveying the domain below.

Her inharmonious musical notes re-echoed in her ears. Unlike the cat, she was not sure-footed. She was afraid.

For years she’d been fooling herself, saying she was embracing life by her study of music. Playing the pianoforte, composing melodies, gave her some purpose and activity. Although she yearned to perform her music or see it published for others to perform, what hope could she have to accomplish that? No lady wanted a disfigured pianiste in her musicale. And no music publisher would consider an earl’s daughter to be a serious composer.

There was an even more brutal truth to jar her. She was hiding behind her music. So thoroughly that she had missed the drama at play on her family’s stage. All kinds of life occurred outside the walls of her music room and she’d been ignoring it all. She needed to rejoin life.

Phillipa spun away from the window. She rushed from the room, startling one of the maids passing through the hallway. What was the girl’s name? When had Phillipa begun to be blind to the very people around her?

‘Pardon, miss.’ The girl struggled to curtsy, even though her hands were laden with bed linens.

‘No pardon is necessary,’ Phillipa responded. ‘I surprised you.’ She started to walk past, but turned. ‘Forgive me, I do not know your name.’

The girl looked even more startled. ‘It is Ivey, miss. Sally Ivey.’

‘Ivey,’ Phillipa repeated. ‘I will remember it.’

The maid curtsied again and hurried on her way.

Phillipa reached the stairs, climbing them quickly, passing the floor to the maids’ rooms and continuing to the attic where one small window provided a little light. She opened one of the trunks and rummaged through it, not finding for what she searched. In the third trunk, though, triumph reigned. She pulled it out. A lady’s mask, one her mother had made for her to attend a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens during her first Season. It had been specifically designed to cover her scar.

She’d never worn it.

Until now.

Because she’d decided her first step to embrace life and conquer fear was to do what Lady Gale had done. She would wait until night. She would step out into the darkness and make her way to St James’s Street.

Phillipa would attend the Masquerade Club. If Lady Gale thought it acceptable to attend, so could she. She would don the mask and enter a gaming house. She would play cards and hazard and faro and see what sort of investment Ned and Hugh had made in Rhysdale.

He would be there, of course, but that was of no consequence. If she encountered Xavier, he would not know her.

No one would know her.

* * *

That night Phillipa stepped up to the door to Rhysdale’s town house. No sounds of revelry reached the street and nothing could be seen of the gamblers inside, but, even so, she immediately sensed a different mood to the place than earlier in the day.

She sounded the knocker and the same taciturn manservant who’d attended the hall that morning answered the door.

‘Good evening, sir.’ She entered the hall and slipped off her hooded cape. This time she did not need netting to hide her face; her mask performed that task.

The manservant showed no indication of recognising her and she breathed a sign of relief. The mask must be working.

She handed him her cape. ‘What do I do next? I am new to this place, you see.’

He nodded and actually spoke. ‘Wait here a moment. I will take you to the cashier.’

The knocker sounded the moment he stepped away, but he returned quickly and opened the door to two gentlemen who greeted him exuberantly. ‘Good evening to you, Cummings! Trust you are well.’

Cummings took their hats and gloves and inclined his head towards Phillipa. ‘Follow them, ma’am.’

The gentlemen glanced her way and their brows rose with interest. How novel. Without her mask most men quickly looked away.

‘Is this your first time here, ma’am?’ one asked in a polite tone.

‘It is.’ She made herself smile.

The other gentleman offered an arm. ‘Then it will be our pleasure to show you to the cashier.’

This was how she would be treated if not disfigured. With pleasure, not pity.

How new, as well, to accept the arm of a stranger when she’d been reared to acknowledge gentlemen only after a formal introduction took place. Would he think her fast for doing so? Or did it not matter? The gentleman would never know her.

She’d already defied the conventions of a well-bred lady by walking alone on the streets at night. She’d gathered her cloak and hood around her and made her way briskly, ignoring anyone she passed. Gas lamps lit most of the way and there had been plenty of other pedestrians out and about to make the trek feel safe.

Taking the arm of a stranger for a few seconds seemed tame after that.

He and the other gentleman escorted her to one of the rooms that had been hidden behind closed doors earlier that day. It was at the back of the house and, judging from the bookshelves that lined one of the walls, must have once been the library. Besides a few lonely books on the shelves, the room was as sparsely decorated as the hall. A large desk dominated the room. Behind the desk sat the man who had served her tea.

‘MacEvoy,’ one of her escorts said. ‘We have a new lady for you. This is her first time here.’

MacEvoy looked her straight in the face. ‘Good evening, ma’am. Shall I explain how the Masquerade Club operates?’

‘I would be grateful.’ She searched for signs that this man recognised her. There were none.

He told her the cost of membership and explained that she would purchase counters from him to use in play in the game room. She could purchase as many counters as she liked, but, if she lost more than she possessed, she must reveal her identity.

This was how patrons were protected, he explained. They would know who owed them money, and those who needed their identity protected dared not wager more than they possessed.

Phillipa had little interest in the wagering, but hoped she purchased enough counters to appear as if she did.

‘We will take you to the gaming room, ma’am,’ one of her escorts said.

‘That would be kind of you.’ She knew the way, but did not want the gentlemen to realise it.