A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,67
chin jutting out belligerently. “That was a sinister remark. I cannot believe we’re having this conversation, any more than I can understand why I am continuing to stand here, listening to your insults. Good-bye, Mr. Donovan!”
“Is this where you meet the gamester, Marguerite? Here, in the mews? And how long are you going to let Chorley win before you strip him of his last penny so that he’s disgraced?” Thomas asked as she turned her back, then watched dispassionately as her shoulders stiffened, then slumped.
She turned around slowly, her head tipped to one side, looking at him as if he had just told her he’d rediscovered the formula for Greek fire and was willing to sell it to her, for a price. “What do you want, Donovan?”
He ignored her question. “And isn’t it strange Sir Peregrine discovered the secret to some ancient coded map just days after I heard you invite him to browse the bookstalls with you. You did take him to the bookstalls, didn’t you?”
“If I did—what of it?”
“Yes, indeed, that’s what I thought. Just a coincidence, I thought. But then I said to myself, I said: ‘Thomas, maybe it isn’t a coincidence. Maybe,’ I said to myself, ‘she’s up to something. Maybe she’s up to mischief.’”
“I see,” Marguerite replied, her smile tight. “And do you have many of these conversations with yourself?”
Thomas ignored her barb, continuing, “I thought about Sir Peregrine. He’s just eager enough to make a name for himself in the intellectual community to grab at any chance to prove his genius, isn’t he? Will he be sailing for Italy any day now, in search of some nonexistent Roman ruin? Is that what you want—to have them all banished? No, that wouldn’t explain Georgianna Rollins, would it?”
“You’re mad, do you know that? When you close your eyes at night, do you worry there are hairy monsters hiding beneath your bed? Do you see goblins in dark corners? Or perhaps you’re a devotee of Gothic novels, and believe spies and ne’er-do-wells lurk everywhere?”
Again, he ignored her. “I haven’t figured out what you’ve planned for Harewood, although I think he’s an unhappy man, and unhappy men are vulnerable to many different kinds of attack. Which leaves Lord Laleham. Are there others, or have I got the lot of them identified? No matter, five are enough to get on with, aren’t they? Better stay away from Laleham, Marguerite. He won’t involve himself personally, but only send someone else to deal with you. Although,” he said, touching a hand to his own still-tender jaw, “he does make exceptions.”
“I’m not going to stand here for another instant and listen to this nonsense,” Marguerite declared feelingly. “Obviously you’ve taken some maggot into your shallow brain, and I would find it impossible to reach you with any application of common sense. The men you’re speaking of are all my friends, my very good friends since my childhood. Why, knowing I’m an orphan, they’ve gone out of their way to ease my entry into society. I would never wish harm to any of them.”
Thomas grinned and spread his arms wide. “Your friends. Judas once said that of Jesus, or so I was taught—not that I’d compare any of the five with anything vaguely holy or deserving of respect. I’ll admit it, aingeal, you’re a riddle to me. A curious, bewitching riddle. You’re up to mischief—I’d bet Paddy’s new cane on it—but for the life of me I can’t understand just what it is. I’ve only been unlucky enough to have stumbled into the middle of it.”
Marguerite was silent for some moments before she smiled back at him, approaching him slowly until she could lay her fingers on the folds of his cravat. “What would it take, Donovan,” she asked, her voice low and sultry, “for you to stumble out again?”
His heart lurched in his chest, partly from her proximity, partly from her thinly veiled offer, but mostly from disgust, both with her and with himself for wanting to tell her just what it would take. Her lips, pressed against his. Her arms, holding him tightly. Her body, soft and willing beneath his hands.
“They hurt you somehow, didn’t they, Marguerite?” he questioned her quietly, searching her face for some sign of pain, some inkling of what drove her. “You’re too proud to do what you’re doing now, to offer your innocence for my silence, unless these men did something unforgivable. What did they do?”
Her fingers tangled deeper in the folds of his cravat. He