A Masked Deception Read online

  A Masked Deception

  Mary Balogh

  Mary Balogh

  A Masked Deception

  Chapter 1

  Richard Adair, seventh Earl of Brampton, was not quite sure whether he was feeling just uncomfortable or actually bored. Neither was a feeling he usually allowed himself to be trapped into. He lifted the delicate china teacup to his lips, only to discover that it was empty. He set it down in the saucer and placed both on the table beside his chair.

  He looked across the drawing room to his companion, who appeared to be quite comfortably engrossed in her embroidery. His eyes traveled with some distaste to the little lace cap that she wore on her brown hair, which was drawn smoothly back from her face and coiled in heavy braids at the back. How old was she, for God's sake? Brampton wondered irritably. Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? She behaved as if she were a maiden aunt in her dotage.

  His eyes wandered over the placid face, eyes lowered to her work, surprisingly long, dark lashes fanning pale cheeks, the straight, short nose, a mouth that could be described as sweet, but was certainly not inviting. Would one call her face heart-shaped? he wondered idly. Or was that glamorizing it too much?

  He watched the rise and fall of her slight breasts, which were flattered by the high waistline of her blue muslin day dress. He looked at her little feet, set neatly side by side in their dark-blue slippers. Altogether, he concluded silently and bluntly, she was not much of a prize.

  Margaret Wells paused in her work and raised her eyes to his. He was jolted back to reality, suddenly aware of his ill-mannered silence.

  "What do you hear of your brothers, my lord?" she asked, her voice low and melodic, but totally lacking in the type of inflection that could capture his interest.

  "My mother received a letter from him just one week ago," he replied. "He is still in Spain, enduring the rain and the mud and the constant marches from place to place, but so far has escaped injury."

  "I am pleased to hear that, my lord," she commented.

  And that exhausted that topic, he decided gloomily.

  He drew a deep breath and finally got to the point of his visit. "Miss Wells," he began, crossing one elegantly booted leg over the other, "you must know, I believe, that I have spoken with your father and received his permission to pay my addresses to you. You would be doing me a great honor if you would consent to become my wife."

  He kept his eyes steadily on the little figure seated on the sofa opposite him. Her eyes stayed on the embroidery, but her hands had stilled.

  "Yes, my lord, I did know the reason for your visit," Margaret replied, her voice quite calm. "You mistake, sir. The honor is all mine. I shall be happy to accept your proposal."

  She looked up at him again, and once more he felt jolted. Those gray eyes certainly did not belong with the plain and placid little person that was Margaret

  Wells. They almost made him forget that she was not at all beautiful.

  Brampton shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Now what? He had not thought beyond the terrible ordeal of the proposal. He got to his feet and bowed formally.

  "You have made me a happy man, Miss Wells," he lied. "I am afraid that we have not yet had a chance to become well acquainted, but I believe that we shall deal well together. I have spoken with your mother, and she has agreed to allow me to escort the two of you to the opera this evening. I believe that her sister and your uncle will make up the party."

  Margaret murmured her thanks, quietly set aside her needlework, and rose to her feet. She looked up into his face from the vantage point of somewhere on a level with his broad shoulders accentuated by a tight-fitting and immaculately tailored coat of green superfine.

  "Until this evening, then, Miss Wells," Brampton said. "Good afternoon to you." He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips.

  "Good afternoon, my lord," Margaret replied, dropping him a deep curtsy.

  Eleven hours later, at two o'clock in the morning to be exact, the Earl of Brampton sat alone in the library of his town house in Grosvenor Square, getting slowly but very effectively drunk. The brandy decanter beside him was all but empty; another stood on the desk, waiting to be tackled. Chalmer, the butler, and Stevens, Brampton's valet, had both been sent to bed and ordered not to disturb him again that night.

  "So," he said aloud to his brandy glass, peering through the clear liquid to the dancing flames of the log fire a few feet away, "at the grand age of thirty-three, you are getting leg-shackled, are you, Brampton? You are giving up all the loneliness and cheerlessness of a bachelor home for the bliss of matrimony-and with an antidote like Margaret Wells, self-styled spinster who was unable to snare a husband in more than five Seasons in London, until she gave up the struggle and donned her old maid's cap."

  He laughed harshly, reached out with one foot to push a log back into the blaze, and lurched to his feet. A few moments later he gazed with satisfaction at a full glass of brandy and stumbled back to his chair.

  "And with this paragon of beauty and feminine grace and charm," he continued, still aloud, "you are proposing to set up your nursery." He shuddered with distaste at the fashionable phrase which always conjured up in his mind unpleasant images of squawking babies and nursemaids.

  Brampton drank down his brandy as he would a glass of water on a hot day. He let his head fall back against the comfortable headrest of his favorite leather chair. A curse on all mothers and sisters, he thought with weary venom, and closed his eyes.

  He was back in his mother's drawing room a week before. A note summoning him there had been awaiting him when he returned home from a morning visit to Tattersall's, where he had been trying to close a deal for the purchase of a pair of matched grays for his new curricle.

  Brampton knew that he did not visit his mother as often as he should. He had all the affection in the world for her, but was very aware that she had a one-track mind. Marriage seemed to be the only topic that really animated her and gave her the energy to get up in the morning and live through the day. Up to two years ago, the situation had been tolerable. There had been three daughters to bring out and get suitably matched. That task had been finally accomplished three years before, when Brampton's youngest sister, Lucy, had married Sir Henry Wood at the age of nineteen.

  For one year after the marriage of her daughter. Lady Brampton had only occasionally nagged her older son to choose a wife and settle down; her younger son, Charles, had still been at home. Then Charles had persuaded his brother to buy him a commission in the army and had gone adventuring to Spain to fight Bonaparte's troops. Lady Brampton had stepped up the campaign against Richard.

  It had reached its climax during that afternoon visit a week before. Brampton had known she meant business as soon as he saw Rosalind, the oldest of his sisters, firmly ensconced in the chair next to the hearth. Rosalind had always been considered the "sensible" one. All that meant was that she was prosy and totally lacked a sense of humor. She had obviously been installed as moral support.

  It had not taken his mother many minutes to come to the point. It was time he put behind him his wild ways (someone had obviously told her of his latest mistress, then) and took a wife; he was the head of the family and should take it upon himself to set a good example to the other members; it was high time that he secured the succession by setting up his nursery (he had winced); dear Charles could be killed any day and then the future of the family would look very bleak, everything depending upon dear Richard; and-the crowning detail of her argument-how would he enjoy seeing Cousin Osbert succeed to the title, the property, and the fortune?

  Brampton refrained from pointing out that he was never likely to see any such thing, since he would have to be dead before Osbert could succeed-supposing, of course, that Charles w
ere also dead. He crossed one leg over the other and stared gloomily at his left foot, jiggling it slightly so that the tassels of his gleaming Hessians swung back and forth.

  "Really, Richard dear, you should consider poor Mama's feelings," Rosalind had added, "if she were to be ousted from her home by my upstart cousin."

  Brampton had blinked. His mother lived in a very comfortable house on Curzon Street, left her quite unentailed in her husband's will. He had wisely refrained from pointing out this fact. He had stood up and wandered restlessly to the window that overlooked the busy street outside.

  "Very well, Mama," he had said at last, abruptly. "I have been aware of my responsibility for some time now. Unfortunately, I have no candidates for wife in mind. Do you?" He had swung around and favored his mother with a piercing glance from his blue eyes.

  She had picked up her cue without hesitation. "Well, there's Melissa Rathb-"

  "Not a simpering miss from Almack's," Brampton had cut in. "Spare me that, Mama."

  "Well, she is rather silly, and her conversation is not highly edifying," Rosalind had commented, unexpectedly coming to her brother's defense.

  "Then how about Nora Denning? She has beauty, wealth, position…"

  "No!" Brampton had thundered. "If I want an iceberg, I shall join a naval expedition to the North."

  "Really, my dear, I do believe she would make an excellent countess," Lady Brampton had urged.

  "Perhaps so, Mama, but she will not be my countess," her son had answered firmly.

  "You are being very unreasonable, my love," Lady Brampton had complained.

  Rosalind had reached into her reticule and withdrawn her vinaigrette, glaring meaningfully at her brother. "There is always Margaret Wells," she had said.

  Brampton had laughed. "Yes, I suppose there is always Margaret Wells," he had agreed.

  "Really, Richard," Rosalind had continued crossly, "she is a very respectable female. It is true that she never really took with the ton, but I do believe it was her good sense and proper manner that frightened away any would-be suitors. She would make an eminently suitable wife, I am sure. True, her father is neither titled nor wealthy, but he is of impeccable lineage and manages to maintain a country estate as well as a town house. I hear they are even planning a Season for the younger girl, Charlotte."

  "Margaret Wells. Is she the sweet little lady who has taken to sitting with the chaperones at assemblies? And has donned caps?" Lady Brampton had asked.

  And somehow, he was never to know quite how, Brampton had found himself drawn inextricably into the scheme. Lady Brampton had renewed her old acquaintance with Mrs. Wells; the Earl of Brampton had joined a card table at White's Club with Mr. Wells one evening and had waited on him the next day to propose a marriage contract with his daughter.

  Brampton, reclining now in his library, raised his glass to his eye. Strange! Brandy was dark brown, was it not, not transparent? And when you turned the glass upside down, was not the liquid supposed to pour out? His sluggish brain finally reached the inevitable conclusion: the glass must be empty! "At least I am not quite drunk," he sighed with relief as he pulled himself out of his chair and tried to steer the shortest course to the desk. The glass refilled, Brampton somehow found his way back to the sanctuary of the chair and sank into it.

  Well, the deed was done. He was affianced, and according to the code of gentlemanly ethics by which he lived, there was no possible way of turning back now. He was doomed to having that dull and unattractive woman living permanently in his home. He was going to have to visit her bed regularly each night. I shall have to hope that she proves fertile and I potent, he thought in despair. Once she begins to increase, at least I shall be spared that ordeal. Until the next time around, that is.

  His thoughts passed sluggishly, but by a natural progression, to Lisa. He wished that he had not drunk so much. It might have helped now to drive to the little house in which he had set her up three months ago in a discreet area of London, and bury his sorrows and misgivings in her soft and ample and very feminine body. He thought longingly of her thick, blond hair and her tantalizingly rouged cheeks and full lips, of her heavy breasts, narrow waist, and ample hips, of her nimble, roving fingers.

  He dragged his mind away. Not tonight! He could not even drag up enough desire to make the thought process worthwhile. At least in the future he would have Lisa to satisfy his sexual appetite while duty forced him to use his wife to procure the succession.

  Brampton's head drooped. He began to snore heavily at about the same moment as his half-filled brandy glass slipped from his nerveless fingers and spilled its contents over his library carpet.

  Margaret Wells was still awake. She had retired to her room as soon as Lord Brampton had returned her and her mother to their home after the opera. Kitty, her lady's maid, had undressed her, brushed and braided her hair, brought her a cup of steaming chocolate, and snuffed the candles before she left. For a couple of hours Margaret had tossed and turned, trying to still her churning thoughts, trying to induce sleep. But by now she had accepted the fact that she would not sleep, and lay quietly on her back, hands propped behind her head on the pillow, staring at the rust-colored velvet hangings above her head.

  She was not quite sure whether she was in the middle of a rapturous dream or a ghastly nightmare. All she did know was that suddenly, with only one day's warning, she was betrothed to the man she had loved passionately and hopelessly for six years. Her mind could still not grasp the fact as reality. When Papa had warned her the day before that Richard Adair, Earl of Brampton, was to come the next day to pay his addresses to her, Margaret had felt a sick lurching of her stomach. How had her father discovered her feelings? What sort of a sick joke was he playing on her?

  And when she had sat across from the earl that afternoon, she had had to use all her willpower to put into practice the training of her youth-to sit quietly poised before him, not betraying her feelings by so much as a tremble in her hands or a softening of her lips. But she had had to look up at him now and again to convince herself that he really was there. She had not needed the evidence of her eyes when he had taken her hand in his. All her feelings had come to the fire and she had had great difficulty controlling her voice when his lips had brushed her hand for a brief moment.

  Margaret had had a quiet childhood and a strict upbringing. Her father was not a wealthy man. He had kept his family at his estate in Leicestershire most of the time, taking them to London only occasionally. Her mother was a quiet and sober woman; she had instilled these virtues in her daughter. When Margaret's only sister had been born seven years after her, Margaret had been expected even more to set an example as the older sister. And she had learned her lesson well. No one knew, except perhaps Charlotte, who loved her sister so deeply that she saw beyond the outer facade, that Margaret was a woman with passion and deep feelings, who longed to be gay and adventurous. All signs of the real Margaret were fiercely repressed.

  Her parents had taken her to London for her come-out when she was eighteen. Although not wealthy, Mr. Wells was accepted unquestioningly by the ton; Margaret, therefore, had soon been caught up in the whirl of balls, routs, soirees, and other entertainments with which the ton occupied their time. And she had loved every moment of it. Although her public image was the quiet one which she had been trained to project, she had not lacked either for female friends or for male admirers. She had not exactly taken the ton by storm, but her trim little figure, her heart-shaped face with the large, quiet gray eyes framed by long, dark lashes, and her sweet mouth had made her a pleasing attraction.

  That had all been before the night of the Hetheringtons' masquerade ball, two months after her come-out. The chance to attend a masquerade was rare; the regular masquerade balls held at the opera house were considered unsuitable for the girls of the ton. They were noisy, rather ribald affairs. Consequently, invitations to the Hetheringtons' ball had been coveted and the event had developed into a great squeeze. Fortunately, the day had bee
n unseasonably warm for April. The garden had been decked with lanterns so that the crowd had been able to spill out into the outdoors away from the stuffy ballroom.

  Margaret had been dressed as Marie Antoinette, her wide-skirted silver dress and powdered wig hired for the occasion, a silver mask covering her whole face except her eyes, mouth, and jawline. She had been excited. Somehow, knowing that she was disguised almost beyond recognition, she had felt as if she could throw away the restraints that were normally second nature to her. She had danced and laughed and talked, lowering the tone of her voice and assuming a French accent. Her behavior had become even more animated when she had realized that both her mother and her father had disappeared into the card room.

  And then she had seen the Earl of Brampton. He had been unmistakable, his tall, broad-shouldered figure clothed in a black domino, a glimpse of blue satin coat and knee breeches, snowy white neckcloth and stockings beneath, his rather long dark hair waving back from his face, a token black mask covering his eyes. Margaret's heart had missed a beat even before she had realized that those eyes were fixed steadily on her as she sipped her lemonade and chatted animatedly to the flushed young man beside her.

  Margaret had seen Brampton before at various assemblies and had a schoolgirlish infatuation for his handsome, romantic figure. He was older than she, and she had very sensibly concluded that he was beyond her touch. She would be content to worship from afar. But now, seeing his eyes still on her, she had flirted her fan daringly in his direction and turned her back on him, swinging the wide skirt with her hips as she did so.

  One minute later she had felt a hand on her arm. "Will you do me the honor of dancing the next waltz with me, mademoiselle?" his low voice murmured seductively into her left ear.

  Margaret had pretended to consult her little engagement booklet. "But yes, monsieur," she had replied, with theatrical accent intact, "I see that the next waltz is free."