Masquerade

by

Sheri Cobb South

Sir Richard Grenville stood just inside the assembly room's arched doorway, his dark eyes glittering through the slits of his black half-mask as he surveyed the revelry within. To be sure, a public masquerade ball was hardly the place where one might expect to find one of Society's most respected figures, but that was precisely the reason Sir Richard had deigned to attend. He would be trapped in a lifetime of dull propriety soon enough; he was determined to enjoy his freedom while still he might.

The night was already far advanced, Sir Richard having first looked in at his club. But since his fellow clubmen seemed determined to foist upon him their felicitations on his betrothal to Miss Anne Lindley, the announcement of which had appeared in that morning's edition of The Morning Post, he had soon abandoned White's in favor of more diverting company. He had stopped at his lodgings just long enough to drape a black satin domino over his immaculately tailored evening wear, making certain to draw its hood well forward over his fashionably cropped black hair, lest his presence at such a vulgar amusement be remarked upon.

As diversions go, he could not have chosen a better one, for nothing could be further removed from the mousy little Miss Lindley than the company in which he now found himself. The mask of anonymity emboldened the revelers to cast aside the code of behavior to which the light of day demanded strict adherence. Throughout the crowded assembly room, lusty cavaliers pursued squealing shepherdesses, while coquettish goddesses put up token resistance to cowled monks behaving as no churchman should. A smile tugged at Sir Richard's lips. His betrothed would be shocked speechless by such goings-on. Not, he acknowledged, that Miss Lindley had much to say for herself even in the safety of her mother's drawing room.

The whirl of colorful costumes and sober dominoes slowed to a stop as the country dance ended. Then, after allowing the masquers a moment to solicit new partners, the orchestra in the balcony struck up a lively waltz. As the champagne had been flowing freely, some of the participants performed the steps rather unsteadily, but their ineptitude in no way detracted from their obvious enjoyment. Shrill feminine shrieks pierced the air as more than one gentleman took advantage of his close proximity to his partner by stealing a kiss. Gradually Sir Richard became aware that one of these cries was not the feigned protestations of a coy maiden, but a genuine cry of distress. His more chivalrous instincts fully engaged, his gaze swept the dance floor until it rested on a lithe Salome struggling in the arms of Henry VIII.

“I don’t wish to dance with you any more!” the lady panted, vainly attempting to free herself from his greedy embrace. “Pray let me go!”

Her partner was disinclined to comply, and Sir Richard, observing that the lady’s struggles posed considerable jeopardy to a costume composed entirely of filmy gauze veils, judged it time to intervene. He strode up to the pair and tapped the portly monarch on the shoulder.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I believe the lady is promised to me for this dance,” he lied without hesitation.

The gold coins adorning the girl’s headdress jingled as the pair turned toward Sir Richard, revealing one countenance white with fear and another flushed with spirits.

“Eh, what? Who are you?” demanded stout Henry, his words slurred.

Taken by surprise, he slackened his grip on his partner, and Sir Richard seized the opportunity to take the lady’s hand and draw it through the crook of his arm.

“Merely this lady’s escort, coming to reclaim her,” he replied. “Come along, my dear.”

Without giving either of them time to protest, he bore her inexorably away, until at last they were swallowed up into the whirling crowd.

“Oh, where are you taking me, sir?” Salome asked breathlessly.

“To claim my promised dance,” Sir Richard replied.
Bright spots of color stained her cheeks beneath her mask. “You know quite well that I never promised you a dance!”

“Indeed, I do,” he acknowledged, inclining his hooded head. “I humbly beg your pardon for the prevarication. Would you prefer that I return you to your former partner?”

“No,” she said miserably. “I do not wish to dance with anyone. I want to go home!”

“I am sure you do,” Sir Richard said, more gently this time. “But fleeing from the assembly in the middle of a dance would only invite a degree of attention you would do best to avoid. Come, child,” he added, seeing that she was not convinced, “I’ll not eat you, I promise.”

Reluctantly, she allowed him to place his arm about her waist, and she slipped her trembling hand into his steady one. Sir Richard was careful to keep the proper twelve inches between them, and she gradually lost her initial distrust of him.

“I--I have not thanked you for coming to my rescue,” she said timidly, her eyes cast demurely downward. “I do so now, most humbly.”

“The honor is all mine, I assure you.”

Sir Richard was assailed by a sense of déjà vu. He had spoken those same words only two days earlier, when Miss Lindley had thanked him for what she called his very obliging offer. Strange that they should be so much more sincere now, uttered to a masked stranger, than they had when spoken to the rather insipid young lady betrothed to him from her cradle.

As the violins scraped to a halt, he released his partner’s waist so that he might take her arm. “Now that we have silenced any wagging tongues, I shall return you to your party.”

“You are most obliging, sir, but I have none,” confessed the fair unknown.

Sir Richard was startled into trodding upon the hem of a nearby Queen Elizabeth, who pouted her rouged lips at his clumsiness.

“No party?” echoed Sir Richard, unmindful of the offended monarch. “Good God, you never came alone! Really, what can your mother have been thinking, to let you attend such a function unchaperoned?”

Salome studied the curling toes of her slippers. “She did not know I planned to attend.”

“In other words, you never asked for her permission.”

Up came Salome’s chin. “No, I did not,” she replied defiantly. “What purpose would it serve? She would only have forbidden me!”

“My good child, she would be a most unnatural parent if she had not!”

Salome stamped her foot in vexation. “Is it not enough that I have consented to marry the man of Mama’s choosing? And after I am wed, I shall be obliged to do as he wishes! Oh, am I never to please myself?”

“It pleases you, then, to receive such attentions as were being forced on you earlier?”

“N-no,” she confessed, much subdued. “But I did not think--I did not expect--”

“I am sure you did not,” Sir Richard said gently. "But your presence at such an assembly, and in such a garment, must present a far from flattering impression of your character."

"To be sure, I did wonder about the costume," admitted Salome, glancing doubtfully at her person as if to ensure that all her veils were in place. "But beggars cannot be choosers, and my cousin Elizabeth, who lent it to me, assured me that I would see ladies wearing much worse."

As if to prove the accuracy of this statement, a scantily-clad Diana floated by on the arm of a medieval archer, who tore his gaze from the huntress's decolletage long enough to ogle Salome appreciatively. Instinctively, she moved closer to Sir Richard, who draped a black-clad arm protectively about her shoulders.

"And now, having confirmed your cousin's worldly wisdom, I am going to arrange for a hackney to convey you home," he declared, hailing a nearby footman for this purpose.

Now that she was free to go, the young lady was oddly reluctant to do so. "Will I see you again?" she asked shyly.

"You are promised to another," Sir Richard reminded her.

"But Cousin Elizabeth says a married lady may have any number of beaux, so long as she is discreet," she said hopefully.

Sir Richard's lips twitched in spite of the heaviness that had descended upon his heart. "Child, I think you had best not set too much store by Cousin Elizabeth's advice. Besides," he added bleakly, "I too am promised."

Salome caught her breath with a sound suspiciously like a sob. "Oh! I didn't know. And you are in love with her?"

"No, until tonight I could honestly say that my heart was my own. But she has done nothing to warrant such shabby treatment by me. She deserves my loyalty, even if I cannot give her my love."

"You are truly a gentleman, and I am glad to have known you--if only for one night."

There was no time to say more, as the hackney was at the door. Through the slits of her mask Salome's eyes sparkled with tears, and as she turned away, her veiled head bowed, Sir Richard's heart was wrung.

"Wait!" he commanded. "Will you be at Almack's on Wednesday?"

She paused and looked back to nod her head. "I am to attend the assembly with Mama--and my fiance."

"I shall wear a white rose in my buttonhole," he said quickly, as they closed the distance to the waiting carriage. "Will you wear a similar flower pinned to your bodice, so that I may know you arrived home safely? I will not approach you unless you wish it, I swear."

The coachman was holding the door; her foot was on the step. In another moment they would part, never to meet again.

"Yes," she said, her fingers closing over his as he handed her into the closed carriage. "Yes, I will."

"Until Wednesday, then."

Sir Richard touched her trembling fingers ever so briefly to his lips before relinquishing her to the coachman's care. A moment later the horses were whipped up, and the carriage lumbered out into the street. Sir Richard remained where he was for a long moment, watching the pale face at the window until it was swallowed up by the darkness.

The image remained branded upon his memory, but by the following Wednesday it had assumed the hazy, illusory quality of a dream--a dream which, however vivid it might have seemed at the time, had no more substance than a shadow. Gently bred young ladies, he reminded himself as he coaxed his starched linen cravat into an intricate Oriental knot, did not attend masquerades unattended, and gentlemen did not fall in love at first sight with the sort of female who did.

Nevertheless, he tucked a single white rosebud into his buttonhole before donning his satin-lined evening cloak and setting out for Miss Lindley's home in Bedford Square. Here he was ushered into the hall just in time to see Miss Lindley's abigail drape a velvet cloak over her shoulders. Miss Lindley gave a small gasp upon hearing him announced, and Sir Richard, observing her nervous start and downcast eyes, could not feel optimistic about the future of their union. Still, he bowed over her cold hand before turning to greet her mother, an awe-inspiring figure in puce satin.

"Lud, Anne, don't be so missish," chided Mrs. Lindley as she gave her future son-in-law her hand to kiss. "One would think you were about to have a tooth drawn! Now, show Sir Richard a pleasant face, if you please!"

"I beg your pardon," murmured Miss Lindley in a voice so low that Sir Richard was obliged to bend to hear it. "No offense was intended, sir."

"And none taken," he assured her with a rather mechanical smile, consoling himself with the reflection that one of the few advantages of marriage to Miss Lindley, besides a sizable dowry (which he did not need) and an heir for his nursery (which he did) was the fact that, once wed, he would no longer be obliged to call on the overbearing Mrs. Lindley while he paid court to her daughter.

But he was too well-bred to allow such thoughts to show, and so with every appearance of pleasure he offered one arm to his betrothed and the other to her mama, and escorted his ladies to the carriage which would convey them to that most exclusive of assembly rooms. Mrs. Lindley kept up a constant flow of chatter all the way to King Street, perhaps to compensate for the fact that her daughter turned a shoulder to Sir Richard and gazed mutely out of the window. Sir Richard, for his part, endured his mother-in-law's monologue with an expression of rapt interest, all the while impatient to reach Almack's, where he might search the crowd for a fair Salome with a white rose at her bosom.

Upon being set down before the select establishment, the trio went to their respective cloakrooms. Sir Richard was the first to emerge, and he assumed a position against the doorjamb where he might search for his mysterious Salome among the dancers while he awaited his ladies' return.

He had not long to wait.

"Here we are!" sang Mrs. Lindley, her overly cheerful demeanor greating against his already sorely tried nerves.

Bracing himself to do his duty by his betrothed, he turned somewhat woodenly to request the first dance, and froze where he stood. For there, framed in the cloakroom door, stood Miss Lindley, demure in celestial blue satin. She wore no ornament save a matching ribbon threaded through her light brown hair--and a single white rose at her breast.

For her part, Miss Lindley was equally immobile, staring open-mouthed at the white rosebud adorning his lapel.

"It is you!" she cried, utterly forgetful of her surroundings. "It was you all along!"

"But of course it is Sir Richard!" scolded her mama. "Pray, whom else should it be? Really, Anne, do you want your affianced husband to think you are a zany?"

Her affianced husband, however, appeared to be afflicted with the same mental lapse. "It seems we meet again, Salome," he said, smiling tenderly down at her. "Shall we dance?"

"Oh, yes!" she said, and although she blushed, her rapt gaze never left his face as she placed her gloved hand upon his proffered arm.

Upon reaching the dance floor, however, Sir Richard apparently lost interest in the set then forming for the cotillion, and led his partner instead to a small antechamber concealed from curious eyes by a heavy brocade curtain.

Alone with her erstwhile rescuer, Miss Lindley swallowed hard. "You will no doubt require an explanation for my shocking conduct--"

"No explanations are necessary," said Sir Richard. "Far be it from me to disparage my future mama-in-law, but the only thing shocking about your slipping away without permission is that you did not make the attempt long ago. Or do you make a habit of such outings?" he added, struck by this new concern.

"No, no! This was the first," she assured him.

"A betrothal celebration, of sorts? How very flattering, to be sure! Be warned, however," he added with mock severity, "I will not tolerate such clandestine behavior once we are married."

Miss Lindley looked up at him, her blue-gray eyes filled with a curious mixture of hope and doubt. "Are--are we still to be married, then?"

"Unless my previous conduct has given you such a disgust of me that you cannot bring yourself to wed me--"

"Oh, no!" Miss Lindley lost no time in setting his mind at ease. "Your conduct was nothing but gentlemanly throughout!"

"On the contrary; I recall telling at least one bald-faced lie."

Miss Lindley could not credit it. "A lie? When?"

"When I said that I did not love you," confessed Sir Richard, cupping her chin in his hand. "For I have recently discovered that I do--very, very much. And so for the second time, Miss Lindley--Anne--will you do me the honor of bestowing upon me your hand in marriage?"

"Yes. Oh, Richard, we will do better this time, will we not?"

"Much better, my dear Salome," he assured her, then took her in his arms and set out to prove his point.

THE END