A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,46
there will be a riot in the pits. Shall I buy us some oranges, so we can launch them at the stage if the caterwauling upsets you overmuch?”
Mrs. Billings, her watery blue eyes wide, leaned forward to whisper to Marguerite. “You mustn’t do any such thing, my dear, much as I’m convinced you are only teasing poor Sir Gilbert and cannot really wish to take part in any such debauchery—if it were to occur, which, of course, any young lady of breeding could only consider to be a deplorable exhibit of the lamentable lack of manners in today’s young gentlemen.”
“Oh, quite, Billie,” Marguerite answered, longing to strangle the woman, who had probably never indulged in a single moment of frivolity in her entire life. But, as Mrs. Billings was as stupid as she was humorless, she made a fitting chaperone, for Marguerite didn’t have time to waste outwitting the woman. Not while she was juggling four plans in her head at once. Four separate yet connected plans—and one maddeningly attractive American. “I was only teasing. Grandfather, did I mention we’re being joined by Lord Mappleton this evening?”
Sir Gilbert sat forward quickly, nearly toppling from his chair. “Awful Arthur? God’s teeth, gel, whatever for? I thought you was done with old men—not that he’ll be breaking down my door, begging for your hand. Holding out for a rich wife, that’s Arthur. Held out so long, nobody’ll have him! Now what’s the matter with that Donovan fella? All right, he’s an American, and with Irish dirt clinging to his boots into the bargain—but at least he’s not got one foot stuck in his dotage and the other already hovering over the grave. You—Mrs. Billings, or whatever your name is—what am I paying you for? Didn’t I tell you to have a talk with the child?”
Mrs. Billings sat up very straight in her chair and inclined her head toward Sir Gilbert. “I most certainly have discussed Miss Balfour’s penchant for favoring older gentlemen,” she said, her voice quiet and slightly pained. “However, as your granddaughter has informed me she will seek my advice if ever she desires it and will most probably do me an injury if I persist in my attempts to lead her down the correct paths, I have held my counsel.”
Sir Gilbert gave a crack of laughter. “What did you say, gel? Did you threaten to put a toad in her bed as you did with one of your nannies?”
Marguerite kept her eyes on the gallery below Box Seven, smiling as she responded to the question. “How you wound me, Grandfather,” she said, feigning insult. “I’m a woman grown now. I haven’t attempted anything so immature in ages.”
“She threatened to insert a notice in all the newspapers that I had become betrothed to the second cousin of the Maharaja of Rampur and would shortly be leaving for India to take up my duties as the man’s fourth wife,” Mrs. Billings said, her voice thin and slightly mean. “She is sometimes not a nice child, your granddaughter. I would have perished of embarrassment.”
“Nonsense, Billie,” Marguerite responded, opening her fan and beginning to wave it in front of her, for the heat in the building was stifling. “I would never be so lucky. You will doubtless live forever, never to leave my side until we are both quite old.”
“You will marry one day soon,” Mrs. Billings pointed out, hope coloring her usually drab voice as she settled back in her chair once more, “and I will expect a glowing letter of recommendation to soothe me as I apply for another position of employment. I have earned it, even more so than when I was squiring that unfortunate Miss Linguist about the city last Season. She may have ended wed to a third son, but then what can one expect of a girl with a squint?”
“Done! You’ll have your recommendation, if that will get us quit of you—but not until we have her safely bracketed. I promised her mother, you know. Marguerite, my pet, I had no idea you were so burdened with this woman. Remind me to buy you something pretty someday soon,” Sir Gilbert announced, banging his cane on the floor a single time for emphasis. “Now, with that settled, where is this Georgianna person you’ve told me about? You say I know her, and I’ve racked my brain all of the afternoon without remembering.”
Marguerite pinned a bright smile on her face. “As I told you, Grandfather, Georgianna Rollins is the