A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,78
could be heard all the way to the kitchens.
Two hours later, when a second bouquet, this one of perfect rosebuds ranging from palest pink to deepest red, arrived at the servant’s entrance with no note attached, Cook sniffed deeply of one of the lovely blooms, shrugged, and had them placed in her own room.
Marguerite exited her grandfather’s Portman Square mansion slowly the next morning, looking both left and right and then left again before stepping off the portico and motioning for Maisie to follow.
She had traveled only a few yards before a young couple dressed in outlandish theatrical costume leapt from a hired coach and began enacting the marriage scene from The Taming of the Shrew in front of her.
Marguerite did the only thing left open to her. She plunked herself down unceremoniously on the bottom step of a neighboring building and laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks.
She discovered a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a single yellow rose sitting beside her plate when she sat down to luncheon. This time the card quoted a line from Romeo and Juliet: “This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.” Lifting the bloom to her nose and sniffing deeply of its perfume, Marguerite made up her mind.
She would not give up her plans for The Club, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also follow her heart.
“You have a visitor, Miss Balfour,” Finch said, bowing as he stopped just inside the morning room door, where Marguerite had settled herself in anticipation of just such an announcement.
She lifted a hand to her head, just to be sure none of her curls had escaped the yellow velvet ribbon Maisie had used to secure her hair, then took another swallow of sweet tea before setting down her cup. “That would be the American, wouldn’t it, Finch?” she asked, congratulating herself for having correctly read Donovan’s crafty mind. He had pursued her for three days; and it was more than time she sat still, sipped her tea, and allowed him to catch her.
“No, Miss, and I don’t have to tell you that it’s cost me another fiver with Sir Gilbert,” Finch answered, causing Marguerite to look at him in surprise. “It’s Sir Peregrine Totton who is cooling his heels in the foyer. He must have pulled one of his two mincing feet from the grave long enough to take the air. Shall I throw him over my shoulder and carry him in? It’s a long journey from the foyer to this room, and I wouldn’t want a corpse on my hands if his tick-tock should give out.”
Marguerite tamped down her disappointment, belatedly realizing her mistake. Donovan wouldn’t come to Portman Square. He was biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to get her alone the way he had the other night in the shrubbery. He must know, as she knew, their next meeting would not be the sort either would wish interrupted. And the only notice he’d take then of any ribbons in her hair would come when he pulled them loose and buried his fingers in her tumbling curls. She felt herself blushing and quickly covered her reaction to such a wicked, unladylike thought with a forced cough.
“You are spending entirely too much time with my grandfather, Finch,” she said as primly as she could, knowing no matter what she said Finch would do as he pleased. He had been at Chertsey since before she’d been born and had long ago become immune to any save his own authority. Besides, she truly had enjoyed the butler’s jokes. “Please, show Sir Peregrine in—and do try your utmost to keep a civil tongue in your head while you’re about it. Sir Peregrine is a dear friend.”
“I wouldn’t know why. He’s only been here a moment and already he’s told me that vase on the hallway table—the one your sainted grandmother put such stock by—is nothing but a worthless lump of crockery.”
“He did? What a—no, never mind. Just go fetch his creaking lordship in here before he starts directing the underfootmen to rearrange the furniture.”
Finch turned, shaking his head as he made for the doorway. “Never met such a perishing, puffed-up prig in the whole of my life.”
Marguerite laid aside the copy of La Belle Assemblée she had been leafing through without really paying attention to any of the announcements of beauty creams and figure-enhancers advertised on its pages, and prepared her mind for her first encounter with