A Masked Deception

Chapter 15

The Earl of Brampton had spent a busy few days in London. He had to see his man of business about various matters relating to his several estates, and he had more than one meeting with an eminent engineer, arranging for the man to visit Brampton Court and make plans for draining the marsh. The drainage scheme would free many more acres of land for cultivation and would help his tenants to a more prosperous way of life.

Yet Brampton was not happy during those few days. As long as he was busy, he felt tolerably contented. But the house in Grosvenor Square felt empty and cheerless with no other occupants than the skeleton staff that was kept there during the summer months. Sitting in his library on the third evening, after an early return from a sparsely populated club, Brampton mused on the change that had occurred in him in just a few months. He vividly remembered getting embarrassingly drunk in this very room because his happy solitude was about to be shattered by a dull and insipid bride.

Dull and insipid! Meg! Sweet, sensible, and intelligent Meg? He found now that life was dull only without her. He got up restlessly from his chair, refilled his glass, and sipped its contents. He smiled ruefully at himself. Was he about to get drunk because he was forced to be away from her for a few days?

Brampton set the glass down firmly beside the brandy decanter and left the library. He went to his room and let Stevens help him off with his clothes and on with his nightshirt and dressing gown. He dismissed his valet before going to bed. He wandered aimlessly to the chair beside the empty fireplace. How restless he felt! How he needed his wife, even the little she had so far been prepared to give of herself.

Brampton got to his feet again, opened the door into the dressing room that connected his bedchamber with his wife's, and then the door into her room. He wandered inside. The room was very tidy, very empty. He crossed to the bed and sat on its edge. He rubbed one hand lightly back and forth across the pillow. If only she were there. He made a decision as he sat there not to spent another night away from home-and home now meant wherever Meg was. Although he had a full day of business yet to transact, somehow he would speed through it so that he would have enough daylight hours left in which to ride back to Brampton Court.

His decision made, Brampton rose to leave his wife's room. He could sleep now. He smiled as he noticed a closet door slightly ajar, and crossed the room to close it. Something was in the way. He stooped to pick up a fan that had dropped to the floor and surveyed the rackful of ball gowns that had been left behind because they would not be needed in the country. He smiled fondly down at the fan-his favorite, the wine-colored one. He could picture her so clearly flirting it in his direction while her eyes sparkled at him through the slits of the silver mask. He raised his arm to place it on a shelf.

Then Brampton froze! My God, that was not his wife's fan. It belonged to-He felt his heart pumping and was convinced that he had stepped straight into a nightmare. How had it got there? Had she been in the house, in his wife's room?

Brampton gazed frantically around the closet. He could see that one box on a top shelf had tipped forward, probably dislodged when something had been pulled from beneath it. The lid had shifted off the box; the fan could easily have slipped out of it.

Brampton had a sickening feeling of deja vu. He knew before he lifted down the box what he would find inside; he knew the truth. Only his wife had been in her own room. His wife was his angel! By the time he had set the box on the bed and lifted the lid, he would have been surprised not to find the silver gown and mask and the powdered wig inside.

He sank onto the bed beside the box, all feeling mercifully dead inside him for a while. And yet he was struck with the thought of what a fool he had been. Now that he knew, the truth seemed so obvious that he was convinced he must have been blind. The same height, the same light, slender figure, the same response in himself, though it had been more physical in the case of his angel.

Shame and embarrassment were the first feelings to return. What a fool he had made of himself, making excuses to spend evenings away from Meg just so that he could meet her in a clandestine manner and make passionate love to her in the darkness of Devin Northcott's bed. And that heart-wrenching good-bye-when he was to see her at the breakfast table a few hours later. His avoidance of his wife's bed because he felt he had sullied his honor in another woman's arms. My God, what a prize idiot he had made of himself!

How she must have laughed at him!

Fury was the feeling that finally came-and held. He had just been spending weeks setting his wife up on a pedestal, almost worshiping her for her perfections, and all the time she was a low little schemer. She had quite deliberately set him up as a fool. He had spent all the months of their marriage feeling guilt over his physical use of her, imagining that their intercourse was causing her displeasure and perhaps pain. And yet in reality she was an experienced little slut who had opened to him with more sexual abandon than any of the most practiced lightskirts that he had ever taken to bed. Brampton viciously relived that last night of love, forgetting the first and his feeling then that she was in fact untutored in the arts of lovemaking.

Was she in the habit of such behavior? Brampton wondered. Was he the only man she had disguised herself for? Did she live a double life-the demure, irreproachable Countess of Brampton in public, a high-class little whore in private? No, that must be going too far. He passed a shaking hand across his forehead. There could not be that much duplicity in her. It was his Meg he was thinking of! But then, half an hour before, he would not have dreamed it possible for Meg to dress up and act like his little French angel. My God, that was Meg he had made love to!

Brampton closed his eyes and tried to force his whirling thoughts into some order. A loud cracking sound brought his eyes open again. The fan lay in two pieces in his hands. He tossed them on top of the other contents of the box and pulled himself wearily to his feet.

Meg! His angel! His wife! His hopes for a beautiful marriage had died in the last half-hour. The woman he had loved and longed for did not exist. There was only a woman he did not know. Physically, he knew her intimately. And they had shared the same home for several months. But he did not know her. He had married her so that she would bear his heirs. And after almost daily intimacies, there was no sign of a pregnancy. Did she know how to prevent that, too, the little schemer? Brampton laughed harshly and returned to his own room, leaving the box of clothes open on his wife's bed.

He lay down on his bed, though for many hours he did not close his eyes. He fell into an uneasy doze at dawn and awoke in a foul mood and with a crashing headache when Stevens brought him his shaving water and pulled back the heavy draperies from the windows.

There could be no continuation of business that day. Brampton wrote hasty notes to his man of business and the engineer he had hired, instructed his valet to pack his bags and have his curricle ready to leave in one hour's time, and proceeded to dress himself and eat what breakfast he had appetite for.

He was on his way a little before the appointed time. He estimated that he should be at Brampton Court soon after the luncheon hour. What a different homecoming he was contemplating this morning, though, from the one he had looked forward to yesterday. Then he was going home to his perfect Meg, his little porcelain doll, to try, ever so gently, to win her love. Now he was going to confront a bold, two-faced little schemer with her duplicity, to demand an explanation, to mete out punishment. She was certainly going to discover how hard his hand could be before he decided which of his estates would serve as the most cheerless place of banishment for her.

The Earl of Brampton drove his curricle into the courtyard of his country home through a drizzle that seemed to herald a heavier rain later on. It suited his mood to perfection, he thought grimly, making no attempt to prevent droplets of rain from dripping off his hair and down the back of his neck. He jumped down from his high perch, handed the ribbons to a groom who had come running from the stables, and glanced up to the windows of the drawing room as he ran up the steps and into the house.

"Where is her ladyship?" he asked the footman who took his damp hat and gloves.

"The countess is not at home, my lord," the footman replied, his voice expressionless, his posture stiff. There had been some gossip belowstairs about the goings-on of the morning, and he did not at all like the sound of his lordship's voice or the expression of his face.

"My mother?"

"The dowager Countess of Brampton is in her room, I believe, my lord."

"Thank you." Brampton took the stairs two at a time and knocked on his mother's door. Perhaps she would know where he could find his wife. He was in no mood to postpone this confrontation until she chose to put in an appearance.

"Enter," his mother's voice said from inside the room. She was reclining on a chaise longue, a lace handkerchief held delicately to her forehead. Her lady's maid stood behind her, holding her vinaigrette.

"Ah, Richard, my dear," she said languidly, "thank heaven you are home."

"What is it, Mama?" he asked, his brows knitting.

The dowager paused in the middle of her big scene and surveyed her son. He was obviously blue-deviled over something. He could not have heard yet, though, surely, or he would not be standing so still in the doorway. It flashed through her mind that marriage had not brought much happiness to her favorite son. And yet Margaret was a gem of a wife, even if she was not as flashy and elegant as some of the girls of the ton. And why had there been no announcement of the impending event? Her woman's intuition told her that such an occasion was less than nine months away. Was he not pleased? Had Margaret not told him for some reason? The boy needed a good jolt to convince him of what a treasure he was ignoring. And how dare he barge into her room looking as black as thunder when she was the one with all the woes? She decided on impulse to play devil's advocate.

"It's Margaret," she said faintly.

"Meg?" Was that a look of alarm that momentarily flashed into his eyes. "Is she ill, Mama? Hurt? Where is she?"

"Gone!"

"Gone? What are you talking about, Mama?" The earl strode impatiently into the room and stood over the wilting form of his mother.

"Gone to Portsmouth, Richard. Don't ask me why, my dear."

"Why in thunder has she gone to Portsmouth, Mama? You make no sense at all. Who accompanied her?"

"Devin Northcott, Richard."

"Dev? Why?" Brampton had gone very still.

"Betty, my vinaigrette, please!" The dowager waved a hand vaguely in the direction of her maid. "I think maybe you should go after them, Richard."

Brampton stood rooted to the spot for a moment.

"When did they leave?" he asked with dangerous calm.

"Maybe half an hour ago, dear," she said.

Ten minutes later, the earl was galloping through the gates of Brampton Court, having taken time only to change into a dry coat and to saddle his fastest horse. But already he was soaked.

Margaret rose to her feet as Brampton stood in the doorway of the private parlor at the Crown and Anchor Inn. Devin's hand stayed on her shoulder.

"Richard!" she cried. "What brings you here?" But the glad smile died from her lips as she realized that he was not looking at her. He stood, dripping rainwater onto the carpet, his blue eyes arctic, gazing at Devin.

"I shall see you outside, Northcott," he said very quietly. "Now!"

"I say, Bram," Devin said awkwardly, and he removed his hand from Margaret's shoulder as if he had suddenly realized that it was still there, "you ain't annoyed, are you?"

"I suggest you move immediately," Brampton said through his teeth. "I should hate to make a scene inside a public inn in the presence of a lady."

"Hey, Bram." Devin was beginning to flush with anger. "You've no call to be on your high ropes, y'know. I had to bring lady Bram with me. Wasn't much choice, old man."

"Out!" Brampton said. His eyes had not once shifted from Devin's.

"Richard," Margaret began, "I think there has been some misund-"

"Silence, ma'am!" he thundered, his eyes still not shifting, his voice cold as ice. "You will remain here until I come for you, and silent until I speak to you."

Margaret's face turned chalk-white and she swayed noticeably to her feet. She put a shaking hand to her mouth.

Devin's eyes narrowed. "Can't have you talk like that to a lady," he said, "even if she is your wife. Let's go, Brampton!"

The earl stepped to one side to allow his adversary to pass through the doorway ahead of him. Devin almost collided with Charles, who came bouncing in.

"Anxious to get going, Northcott?" Charles asked cheerfully. "Are the other ladies not down yet? Hey, Dick, where did you spring from?" He stopped in momentary amazement and then burst into amused chuckles. "Who's next?" he said. "Mama and the three girls? We should have quite the family gathering by nightfall."

"What the devil is going on?" Brampton's fists were clenched at his sides. He was regarding Charles as intently as he had looked at Devin just a few minutes before.

"Well, I'm trying to get my betrothed transported from this inn to Brampton Court by nightfall, Dick. But the party keeps getting larger and larger, you see. If I wait much longer, I shall need a whole caravan of carriages." He grinned at the three occupants of the room and then eyed each of them more penetratingly. "Hey, do I detect a certain tension in the air?"

"I believe your brother has just made the same error about me as I made about you when I arrived," Devin said stiffly.

"He thinks you're eloping with Charlotte?" Charles grinned. "Well, that would be more like it, I would say." He winked at Margaret, but suddenly found himself lunging forward to catch her as she fell. "By Jove, Dick," he said, glancing up at his brother with startled eyes as he placed her half-fainting form in a chair and chafed her hands, "you didn't believe what I think you believed, did you?"

Brampton had not moved, had made no effort to go to the assistance of his wife.

"I think you had better start explaining some things, brother," he said quietly.

"Again?" Charles asked, pained. But he was saved from an immediate explanation by the arrival in the room of Charlotte, Juana, the second cousin, and the duenna.

"We are ready," Charlotte announced gaily. "It is amazing how quickly one can learn sign language. Charles, introduce Juana to my sister."

Juana meantime was also chattering to Charles, perhaps saying the same thing in Spanish.

"Oh, my lord!" Charlotte said, suddenly noticing her brother-in-law standing silent to one side of the door. "Are you here, too?"

"I believe I took a wrong turn somewhere on the road," he said grimly. "I seem to have walked into Bedlam."

It took Charles another precious ten minutes to explain the situation to everyone's satisfaction and to introduce Juana to the earl and the countess. Brampton looked somewhat dazed. Charles was not sure whether all this unexpected mixup was working to his advantage or not. Certainly his foreign bride-to-be seemed to have been accepted without argument. Perhaps he was not to escape so lightly after all, though.

"Your strange behavior seems to have caused an extraordinary degree of trouble and misunderstanding," his brother said with a calm that Charles distrusted. "We shall discuss it further at home,Charles, when we can have more privacy. For now, I suggest that we begin the journey home if we wish to arrive before morning!"

It was agreed, after much voluble discussion in two languages, that the three Spaniards would travel together in one carriage with Charles, their servant on the box with the coachman, and that the countess would travel in the other carriage with her sister and Devin Northcott. Devin's insistent offer to ride Brampton's horse so that the earl could travel with his wife was just as persistently declined.

Brampton, Devin, and Margaret were the last to leave the parlor.

"I owe you an apology, Dev," Brampton said stiffly. "I made an unforgiveable assumption. Forgive me?"

"Don't mention it, old man," Devin replied awkwardly, and glanced uneasily at Margaret, who still sat, pale as a ghost, in her chair by the fire. He followed the others outside.

Brampton crossed the room to his wife's side. She waited, with lowered eyes, for his apology, for an end to this terrible nightmare. He had never spoken harshly to her before.

"I shall escort you to your carriage, ma'am," he said, his voice devoid of all expression, and extended his arm to her.

Margaret never knew afterward how that interminable journey was passed. The atmosphere in the carriage was almost unbearably uncomfortable. Each of the three occupants felt embarrassed in the presence of the others. Margaret herself felt humiliated that Devin had witnessed the set-down Richard had given her and embarrassed that he could have thought she was running away with Devin; she felt vexed with Charlotte. Devin was equally embarrassed at Brampton's mistake, and unhappy over the continued coolness of Bram to his wife, which had been evident when he handed her silently into the carriage; he felt shy with Charlotte, unable to say what he wanted to say because Margaret was there, and yet quite incapable of talking about other matters. Charlotte was self-conscious in the presence of Devin, unsure of his attitude toward her and therefore uncertain of how she should behave; she felt guilty in the presence of Meg, knowing she had behaved disgracefully and somehow aware that she had brought Meg into disfavor with his lordship.

The Earl of Brampton, who had been on the road all day long and who was soaked to the skin, rode close to the two carriages more by instinct than by conscious effort. His mind was almost numb. He had been humiliated by his foolish gaffe back at the inn. It had been stupidity to assume that Dev and his wife were running away together. Dev had ever proved a loyal friend and his scheming little wife had nothing to gain either socially or financially by running away. Yet he was aware that his confrontation with her was still to come. But it was going to be more difficult now that the momentum had gone from his attack. Why the devil had he wanted to scoop her up into his arms and cradle her head against his shoulder when she sat so pale and still back at that infernal inn?

And then there was Charles' situation to be dealt with when they got home. No one but Charles would be capable of presenting his family with such a surprise and in such a ludicrously mismanaged way. It was almost amusing, the earl decided grimly. He was going to have to contend with his mother's fits of the vapors for what would be left of the evening by the time they arrived back, he did not doubt. Charles meanwhile was enjoying every moment of the trip, sitting beside his Juana and holding her hand, and entering into a hearty quarrel with her over the reception she had received from her future brother- and sister-in-law. She had considered it decidedly cool. He had thought it remarkably warm.

Some time after a very late dinner, when all the participants in the Portsmouth fiasco plus the dowager countess were in the drawing room trying to hold a conversation in two languages, with Charles and-to a lesser degree-the earl acting as interpreters, Devin Northcott crossed to Charlotte's side.

"These are family matters that do not concern you or me," he said quietly. "Shall we withdraw?"

She was on her feet in a moment, nervously aware that her future was about to be decided one way or another.

He led her to the library, the weather being still too damp to permit a stroll in the garden. Charlotte seated herself on a sofa; Devin crossed to the empty fireplace and rested one arm on the mantel.

"Ain't going to make a speech," he said. "You'll find some reason to bite my head off again if I do. Do I have any hope, Charlotte?"

"Any hope, sir?" Charlotte was alarmed at how loudly her voice came out.

"I love you," he said. "Want to marry you."

"Oh!"

"Oh? Nothing more to say? Most unusual."

Charlotte got shakily to her feet. "I thought perhaps I had so disgraced myself today," she said humbly, "that you would not wish to associate with me anymore."

"Well, you do get into more scrapes than any other girl I ever knew," said Devin unwisely. "Thought I might help keep a firm hand on you. Wouldn't want m' wife jauntering around the country with other men whenever she wanted, y'know."

"Oh! There you go again," Charlotte flared. "So I am still a flirt! Still a little girl who needs a strong hand. And you, sir, are still stuffy and conceited and-oh! What are you doing?"

"Shutting you up," he said grimly. "Don't intend to have a scold for a wife."

Charlotte found herself being firmly held and soundly kissed by her stuffy, conceited suitor, and thoroughly enjoying the ordeal.

Devin was slightly breathless when he finally released her mouth. "Anything else to say?" he asked severely.

"No, Devin."

"Good."

He kissed her again, and her arms found their way around his neck and into his hair.

"Nothing official, mind," he said several minutes later as they sat together on the sofa, though they might as well have chosen a chair for all the space they occupied. "Have to leave in the morning to visit your father. Is he likely to approve?"

"Oh, I think so," she sighed, burrowing her head into his shoulder. "Will you be gone long, Devin?"

"Only as long as I have to," he said. "Probably find you gone to fight Napoleon in Spain by the time I get back."

"No, truly, Devin, I shall be waiting for you. I have loved you forever, I promise."

"Make sure it stays that way," he commanded sternly.

"Yes, Devin."