A Masked Deception

"Indeed!" Charlotte drew in a deep breath and seemed incapable of expelling it for a moment.

"Lottie, indeed you have behaved badly," Margaret added in firm support of Devin. "You must know that an elopement will place you beyond the approval of society. And there is no need for it, love. We may not approve the match, but I am sure that neither Richard nor I would actively try to stop the marriage if you truly want to carry it through."

Charlotte stared back and forth between Devin and Margaret, openmouthed. "What elopement? What marriage?" she asked, puzzled.

Charles suddenly exploded into mirth from across the room. "Charlotte, my love, I'll bet it was the letter," he managed to get out between bursts of laughter. "You featherbrained little twit, I should have insisted on reading it. Margaret is obviously under the impression that you and I are eloping to the Continent together."

"How could they?" Charlotte asked. "You didn't think that, did you, Meg? But I told you in the letter that Charles loved Juana and that everyone would see it when we got back tonight. And I told you that I came only because… Well, I told you why I came, Meg."

"Who is Juana?" Margaret asked weakly.

"Margaret," Charles said, trying to contain his amusement, "will you come sit by the fire? Northcott, take a seat. I think I had better explain this mess to you myself."

Within five minutes the misunderstanding had been cleared up, though Margaret took it upon herself to scold both her sister and her brother-in-law for irresponsible behavior. Devin said not a word from his chair close to the door, nor did he return the shy, anxious glances that Charlotte cast in his direction from time to time. She had the feeling that her plan had come crashing around her ears and that he had taken her in disgust. She drew hope, however, from the masterful words he had spoken earlier in the conversation.

"We must see to getting back to Brampton Court tonight," Charles said finally. "I was about to go hire an extra post chaise when you two arrived."

"There will be no need," Margaret said. "We came in a carriage, too. Surely there will be enough room for everyone."

"I shall go see about the horses," he replied. "Charlotte, my love"-he missed the glower cast in his direction by Devin-"go upstairs to Juana and let her know by some sort of sign language that she should hurry and that my sister-in-law is here waiting to meet her."

They left together. Devin crossed the room and placed a hand on Margaret's shoulder. "All's well, Lady Bram," he said. "You can stop worrying. No one need ever know-not even Bram if you choose not to tell him." He leaned forward to gaze concernedly into her face.

This was the sight and these were the words that greeted the Earl of Brampton as he pushed open the door to the parlor.

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 co

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 ma

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.