A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,47
daughter of an old school chum of Mama’s—or at least that’s what she wrote in the note she sent round the other morning. As far as I know, you’ve never met her, and neither have I, which is why I suggested we meet at the theater. If we don’t like her, we can shed her quickly enough after the performance, but I felt we owed Mama to be courteous to the girl. Who knows? You may see her and remember her mother or even having met Miss Rollins herself. Just, please, Grandfather, be good, and don’t ask any embarrassing questions.”
“I’m always on my best behavior, gel, which is more than I can say for some people sitting here tonight. But, Marguerite, I have to tell you something. I can’t see the point of meeting people I already know and haven’t seen the need to remember, and I don’t have the patience at my age to meet new people I might not want to remember. Ah, never mind. This must be the gel now.”
Marguerite, realizing that she was more than a little nervous now that another step of her plan for revenge was actually at the point of being commenced, steeled herself not to overreact and rose to meet the young woman who had just come into the box, her shadow of a chaperone quickly seating herself beside Mrs. Billings in the second row.
The young woman who had entered was slightly taller than Marguerite, and most modestly dressed in a simple long-sleeved ivory gown that reached from her satin slippers to the lace ruching and quantity of Berlin floss at the base of her long, slim throat—along with an extremely lovely diamond necklace. Her hair was blond—an exceedingly fashionable color this season—and her pale face was just short of pretty, for her brows were very straight and significantly fuller than could be considered flattering, and her jaw possessed more steel than gentle curves. But she was rather lovely in her own way.
Even surprising.
“You must be Georgianna!” Marguerite trilled, racing up the two shallow steps to envelop the young woman in a welcoming embrace. “How good it is to meet you, and you’ve found us in this immense building without any trouble at all. How utterly brilliant of you.”
“Nope. Never laid m’peepers on either the hen or the chick,” Sir Gilbert grumbled from behind them. “I may be old, but I’m not the sort to have forgotten those eyebrows—a lapse that I’d have to consider to be something only a whisker short of remarkable. Here, here, Marguerite, let the poor thing go before you crush her. There’s little enough air in this box as it is now that Mappleton’s standing here, blocking the doorway. Besides, I don’t want to talk to him.”
“What? What? Oh, you’re funning me, aren’t you, Sir Gilbert?” Lord Mappleton asked, pushing himself into the box, for the area was becoming rather crowded. “Always were one for the jokes, as I remember—those times I met you when we was all visiting down at Laleham Hall. Good times we had then, didn’t we—until that day last year when your dear daughter... yes... well...” His voice trailed off as he lifted a hand to his mouth and indulged in a fit of coughing most probably caused, Marguerite decided, when he’d nearly choked on his babbling tongue.
“Rhubarb and calomel,” Mrs. Billings prescribed, earning herself a corroborating nod from Miss Rollins’s chaperone. “Only thing for a cough like that.”
“Billie, please,” Marguerite said, glaring at the woman before rushing into a dizzying round of introductions that ended with Lord Mappleton being seated to the left of Georgianna, while Marguerite took up her own chair on the other side of the narrow center aisle. “Georgianna,” she prompted as she caught out Lord Mappleton staring at the way Miss Rollins’s thigh pressed intimately, daringly against his own, “are you enjoying your sojourn in our fair metropolis? Have you seen the sights?”
Georgianna smiled, not at Marguerite, but at Lord Mappleton. “Alas,” she said in a high, faintly affected voice, batting her eyelashes at the man, “I have not been more than a few blocks from our rented house in Brook Street. I so wish I could see some of the city before I am forced to return home next week. My uncle, with whom I have lived since my dear parents were run down in that horrid carriage accident, is now poorly himself. I cannot bear to stay from his side for too long, and not simply