A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,32

the performers at Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre? I assure you, I won’t mind at all. We English do so value a good show, although we are accustomed to viewing such performances in a more suitable theater.”

“I’ll pass on that offer, Miss Balfour, intriguing as it sounds.” Thomas slipped his booted feet into the stirrups and turned the gelding so that his knee brushed up against Marguerite’s. “And please forgive my zeal in mounting,” he said, his tone implying that he wasn’t at all sorry for having outdone her in exhibiting his horsemanship. “As your grandfather has agreed we might dispense with your groom, I suggest we proceed to the park before the traffic on the streets becomes oppressive.”

“Yes,” Marguerite agreed, using the pressure of her left thigh to urge Trickster forward at a walk, “I shouldn’t wish to be subjected to two oppressive occurrences in the same morning.”

“And which would have been the first, Miss Balfour?” Thomas asked as his ugly mud-brown mount picked its way over the cobblestones with all the grace of a cross-eyed hen in stubbles. “I know I am meant to ask, even as I know you hope I will not appreciate your answer.”

“And you’d be correct on both counts, Mr. Donovan. Your arrival in the breakfast room was the first,” Marguerite answered sweetly, waving to a passerby as they exited the square and headed toward Oxford Street and the park. “Not that you noticed. Oh, no. You were entirely too occupied with charming a gullible old man with your Irish blarney. And yes, I do know what blarney is, Mr. Donovan.”

“As do I, Miss Balfour. Dear, sainted, Cormac McCarthy, the Lord of Blarney. When your Queen Elizabeth attempted to convince him to give up claim to his title he talked her into circles, never saying yes and never saying no, until she declared—”

“‘This is all Blarney. What he means he never says; what he says he never means!’” Marguerite finished for him, her mood brightening considerably as she remembered her father quoting the queen’s words to her as they sat together in the drawing room at Chertsey one winter’s night, watching the fire die. She smiled, giving up her anger. “You tell a fine story yourself, Mr. Donovan, when we both know Philadelphia hasn’t seen an Indian attack in more than thirty years.”

Thomas’s grin transformed him into a cheeky youth. “More like fifty, but Sir Gilbert doesn’t know that,” he reasoned, turning his horse into the park. “I simply told him an old story I’d heard in one of the taverns. He seemed appreciative.”

“He seemed bewitched, you mean. Letting me go off without a groom.” She shook her head. “He’s never done that before, even when I ride out with William. I can’t decide whether Grandfather believes you to be harmless, or if he’s merely interested in collecting on some terrible wager with Finch.”

“William? Would that be another of your long-in-the-tooth beaux?”

“The Earl of Laleham is no more than fifty, Mr. Donovan, and has been a dear friend and neighbor for all of my life.” Marguerite longed to bite her tongue, for she knew the American was the sort to remember every word she said. She slanted a look at Thomas from beneath her sooty lashes, remembering Lord Chorley’s admission last night that Thomas had boldly announced his intention to seduce her. “Are you jealous, Mr. Donovan?”

“Hardly, Miss Balfour,” he responded with yet another confident, ingratiating smile—so that she longed to murder him. He wasn’t even going to bother to be subtle about his seduction. The cheek of the man!

“But we will invite him to the wedding,” he continued reasonably, “seeing as how he’s a particular favorite of yours. Will you insist on all the doddering old men you favor being there? Chorley, Totton, Harewood—even that pitiful Mappleton, among others? If so, I’ll be sure to have a physician in attendance, in case any of them suffers an apoplexy during the ceremony.”

Marguerite felt her heart beginning to pound warningly beneath the crisp white fabric of her ruffled blouse. She would ignore his inane, absurd teasing about the possibility of a marriage between them. It was disconcerting enough that he had taken the trouble to learn the names of her admirers—her prospective victims. Except for William, of course. He hadn’t seemed to be aware of William. “You appear to have taken an inordinate amount of interest in my social connections, Mr. Donovan. I’m flattered,” she said, looking straight ahead and seeing the riding path was clear. “But