A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,85
a hand on his arm and turned to see Sir Ralph Harewood’s impassive, forgettable face.
“Good evening to you, Sir Ralph,” Thomas said, wishing the fellow on the other side of the moon. “I see you’re in your usual high good humor.”
“We have to talk,” Harewood said out of the corner of his mouth, as if he feared someone might overhear him in the loud, crowded ballroom.
“No,” Thomas answered cheerfully, pointedly looking down at Sir Ralph’s hand so that the man removed it with some alacrity. “We don’t have to talk. As I recall our last conversation, it’s now up to you to act.”
“The arrangements must go through as planned,” Harewood told him fiercely, so that Thomas raised his eyebrows, amazed at the man’s show of emotion. “We have mutual needs, shared objectives. Surely, if we only sit down together for some hours and discuss it, some compromise might be reached that will satisfy both of us. After all, we’re on the same side, so to speak.”
Thomas was pleased by Harewood’s seeming desperation. “Yes, I suppose such an outcome is not beyond the realm of possibility, but I am suddenly put in mind of the tragedy of Lord Thomond’s cocks. You do remember the story, don’t you, Sir Ralph? Lord Thomond’s hired feeder—an Irishman, as I remember—locked up his lordship’s cocks all in the same room the night before matches worth a considerable amount of money to his lordship, only to find the cocks all dead or lamed the next morning, for they had attacked each other quite viciously, as cocks are wont to do. The Irishman, when asked why he had put the birds together answered that, as they were all on the same side, he had not thought they would destroy each other.”
“I hold no animosity toward you, Mr. Donovan,” Harewood responded, his dark eyes looking as dead as nail heads in a coffin. “Perhaps you are made uneasy with having to deal with those fools who exhibited themselves so poorly at Richmond. I cannot blame you. But their work is all but completed, soon making them unnecessary to our plans. If you were to deal with me directly, exclusively—”
Harewood’s voice trailed off, his mouth snapped shut as if someone had pulled on a string attached to his jaw, and Thomas turned and looked behind him, surprised to see the Earl of Laleham enter the room, dressed most elegantly in his usual funereal black and dazzling white linen. The earl stopped just inside the room and lifted a hand to one corner of his tightly compressed mouth as if attempting to soothe away a pain, then moved on.
The thieves begin to fall out, Thomas thought, and so much so that an ailing Laleham must abandon his bandages and exert the power of his intimidating presence in order to keep his minions in line. How very intriguing.
Thomas smiled at Harewood, laying a hand on the man’s forearm in an openly friendly gesture he knew would not be lost on Lord Laleham. “You begin to interest me, sir,” he said, nodding to Laleham to show he’d seen him. The earl turned away, bowing politely to a dowager rigged out in ghastly purple. “I’ll be taking the air in the park tomorrow, at eleven. Perhaps you, too, enjoy a morning constitutional?”
Harewood shook his head. “No. That’s too public. On Friday Lord Brill and his lady will be hosting a masquerade at Vauxhall. Both Vauxhall and masquerades are entirely déclassé in this enlightened age, but it will serve us nicely, as there are too many eyes about for us to meet informally. You won’t even need an invitation, as long as you are in costume. I shall be wearing a gray domino.”
“Of course you will,” Thomas responded, enjoying the mental image of unremitting drabness Harewood had evoked. “And what shall I wear? Could I arrive dressed as Saint Patrick, casting out snakes before me, or do you believe that would be pushing the matter too far?”
“I fail to see any need for levity. A black domino will be sufficient—and a mask over your eyes. You would not wish to call attention to yourself.”
“Indeed, no,” Thomas agreed solemnly, or at least as solemnly as he could without questioning his own sanity. He removed his hand from Harewood’s arm and bowed, more than ready to remove himself from the fellow’s company. “Very well, Sir Ralph. Until Friday? At midnight? Midnight seems to be the appropriate hour, don’t you think?”