No Marriage Of Convenience - No Marriage Of Convenience Part 31
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No Marriage Of Convenience Part 31

Chapter 13.

T he Dowager Countess of Marlowe sat in her morning room as she had nearly every morning for forty-five years, breakfasting on tea and toast. The only change to this regime had been the addition in recent years of a bit of preserves to her breakfast menu.

There were, after all, many more things she regretted about her life and the choices she had made than the late addition of preserves to her morning repast.

Out in the hall, the bell rattled on its hanger, announcing the arrival of a caller.

She sniffed at this breech of etiquette, since it was hardly the hour to make calls, let alone to leave a card.

Yet in spite of her love of rules and order, she was glad for the interruption and the possibility of a guest.

Her maid entered the room. "Ma'am, there is a gentleman to see you. He is most insistent." The girl took

a step back, as if waiting for an ensuing explosion.

The Countess felt a tinge of guilt. Was she truly such an old dragon that she left everyone quaking in his boots? The idea both pleased and annoyed her. "Don't leave me guessing, Regina. Who is it at this hour?"

"The Duke of Everton."The Countess shook her head, not sure she'd heard the girl right. "Who?""The Duke of Everton, my lady." The girl fidgeted for a moment.Why would Everton be making a social call after all these years? "Well, don't just stand there, see him in!" the Countess snapped.

Regina retreated quickly, and moments later showed the Duke into the room.

The Countess rose and made a regal curtsey at his entrance. "Your Grace," she said. "This is indeed an

honor."

"My lady, you look as well as ever," he said.

"And you've always been a gracious liar." She waved her hand at an empty seat at her breakfast table and nodded to Regina to bring another setting. With the Duke seated and a cup of tea poured, she waved the girl to leave and waited until the door closed behind her.

"I have never been one to waste words or time, my lady, so I will get to the point straightaway. Why did Elise go to France?"

Elise.

No one had mentioned her daughter's name in years. Most had forgotten she'd ever existed-which was fine for the most part with the Countess.

"Madame, I don't mean to bring you distress, but I will have the answer I've waited twenty-six years to hear."

She took a tentative sip of her tea, trying to find a way to evade Everton. But the man was a duke and unused to being denied answers.

"You know why Elise went to France. She wanted to visit one of my husband's cousins. And I saw nothing wrong in sending her before she accepted your hand." She didn't look him in the eye, rather picked up her spoon and stirred another lump of sugar into her tea.

"That, Madame, is a lie." He paused for a moment, then rose from his seat and began to pace around the room. With his back to her, he said in a melancholy voice, "I loved Elise. I know she never cared for me that way, but I loved her all the same. And while you've done your best to see that she is forgotten by society, I never have. Not her smile, nor the way she walked, nor her green eyes. I loved her then, I love her still. You owe me the truth."

A chill spread down the lady's spine. He knew. Somehow he knew.

He turned around, and the Countess's heart began to thrum with a wild cadence.

The Duke leaned over the table and stared directly at her. "But I will ask you one more time. Why did Elise go to France?"

Clamping her lips shut, the lady could only shake her head. She couldn't betray her daughter's shame. She hadn't then, she wouldn't now.

He nodded. "I thought so." He paced a few more steps and stopped before the garden door, staring out at the early roses blooming in their ordered rows. "Well, if you refuse to speak, then let's discuss something else. Are you coming to my masquerade?"

The Countess shook her head. "You know I don't go out anymore."

"I had hoped you would make an exception this year. There is a young woman I would like you to meet."

An uneasy silence grew between them, until finally the Countess asked, "What do I care for these young chits they pass off as ladies? 'Tis part of why I don't go out much. I can't stand to see their simpering, mincing manners."

"I think you might make an exception in this case." He turned and faced her, his gaze intent.

"And why is that?" she snapped, more than a little unnerved at this entire interview. "Because she is Elise's daughter."

The noise in the house grew more raucous with each passing minute.

Mason glanced up from his desk. What the devil was that woman concocting now? A week in his houseand she'd created a new form of chaos every single day.And the girls! She'd wrought a miracle with the girls. He'd heard Beatrice curse only twice in the last three days, and moreover, she'd apologized profusely for each slip. Maggie hadn't broken anything in the past twenty-four hours, and Louisa had even offered to help Cousin Felicity with her mending.

Louisa sewing?

He was starting to think Riley had made a bargain with the devil and found him new nieces.Still, that didn't excuse this constant tromping overhead. He was trying to save his family from ruin, andshe was making it impossible for him to concentrate. Not that close attention would change matters. Hiscreditors were pressing for payment to the point that he couldn't put them off any longer. Even thepromise of the play's profits wasn't enough.

To date his investigation into Riley's stalker had come up empty-handed. If he was going to find herdeadly enemy he'd need more resources.

He needed cash.

And Miss Pindar presented his only likely solution. All it would take was a special license and a quick trip to the parson and he'd have enough money to finance the girls' Season and restore Sanborn Abbey and the lands around the estate.

There has to be another way, he thought, sifting through Freddie's investments one more time.

Overhead, the racket rose to a new level of irritation.

"Belton! What is that infernal clamor?"

Mason waited for a response. And waited, and waited a little longer. He rose from his seat and made for

the foyer. "Belton?" To his shock and chagrin, the ever-present butler was not at his post.

In fact, no one was about. The entire ground floor was empty, while upstairs in the ballroom, it sounded as if they were entertaining half the ton.

Practice, hah! She was throwing some type of bacchanalian revel, by the sound of it.

Well, enough was enough.

He took the stairs two at a time. As he came to the open doors of the ballroom, his anger turned to a

stunned silence.

The ballroom had been transformed into a forest of silk trees. In the middle of this fanciful woods stood Louisa, dressed in a simple white gown, her blond hair unbound and falling down to her waist.

"If only my dreams could come true," the girl was saying, "I would see my Geoffroi again."

A young man dressed like a woodcutter came forward out of the trees and fell to his knees. "I am only imagining this. 'Tis some fairy magic or curse. For there is my true love, Aveline. Come to me, if you are real."

"I am, and ever shall be, your Aveline," Louisa said, rushing to the man's open arms.

For a moment there was silence, then the room echoed in a deafening thunder of applause.

The cheers and whistles startled Mason out of his awestruck reverie for the sights before him, as now he realized that the entire company of the Queen's Gate sat around the edges of their mock stage watching the performance, as well as the bulk of his household staff.

"Excellent! Very good, Louisa," Riley said, coming forward, an open book in her hands. She jotted down a few notes and then looked around. "Now I think we need to go over the pirate scene again. From the top of Act Two."

There were general groans and complaints, but Riley didn't seem to hear them, as she ordered the scenery changed and the players to their feet.

Mason slipped into the room and found himself standing beside none other than Belton.

"Uh, my lord," Belton stuttered. "I was just about to put a halt to this decadence. A shocking display. Hardly appropriate for the girls to be watching, let alone participating in. Shall I make them stop?"

Mason almost laughed, for Belton sounded about as convincing as Cousin Felicity did when she came home with bundles of packages and claims of not having visited her dressmaker-though he did have a point about the propriety of Louisa's practicing with the players.

Mason would have called a halt to the entire charade if it hadn't been for one thing. Louisa's face shone with a smile the likes of which he hadn't seen in years. Not the cattish, sulky turn of her lips he'd grown used to, but a genuine smile. The kind he remembered about her when she'd been a little girl and would rush to his arms for a hug and the required present of candy he always brought her from Oxford when he visited Sanborne Abbey during the holidays.

The center of attention, she wasn't selfishly basking in it, demanding her due; rather, she appeared to be having the time of her life playing the impetuous Aveline, the role Mason knew was Riley's.

"Should I start over here, Riley?" she was asking, placing herself between two actors, one of whom was wearing an eye patch to distinguish him as a pirate.

Riley nodded. "Yes, that is perfect. Now just like you practiced."

Louisa launched into her lines, with an earnest gusto and a surprising amount of talent.

"She's quite good," Mason muttered.

"A rousing performance, my lord," Belton said. "Most convincing."

Yet it wasn't Louisa's performance holding Mason's rapt attention; it was the director. His gaze kept wandering over to the woman pacing along the imaginary border of the stage, script in hand, her steady gaze focused intently on the action before her.

Dressed in a plain muslin gown, she was hardly the silken minx who'd appeared in his study all these days ago. With her hair pulled back in a simple chignon, tendrils slipping down here and there, and a sensible pair of shoes on her feet, she looked more country farm wife than celebrated Cyprian. What he marveled at was how she seemed to move with each line, pulling the play in and out of the actors as if she were breathing for them.

Nothing slipped past her sharp gaze: the stance of a pirate, Aveline's gown, the way a line should and should not be intoned. She nurtured the story from her company the way a mother coaxed a baby to take its first steps.

Her smile when the scene moved perfectly touched his heart, and he pitied the players who garnered her frown for flubbed lines or disjointed movements. Without even realizing it, he found that he'd whiled away an hour just watching her work.

And work hard, with purpose, he noted with a self-conscious twinge.

When she stepped into the scene and started to play the role of Aveline to demonstrate how it should be

done, she took his breath away with her power to transform herself so artlessly. 'Twas a magical moment when Riley faded to the background and the character she played came rising to the surface.

What she did so effortlessly Mason knew came through discipline and intelligence.

This was no woman of leisure, no pampered feline awaiting her lover and her next bauble from Rundell

and Bridge; this was a woman whose livelihood and welfare revolved around making this play and theseplayers a success.Riley worked-worked hard to make her vocation a success.And it shamed Mason to think that he couldn't say the same about his life.So lost in his own musings, he didn't notice that Riley had made her way to his side."She's very good," she said. "You St. Clairs have a flair for the dramatic."

"What?" Mason asked, realizing that he'd been lost in thought."Louisa," Riley said, nodding at his niece, who was even now reciting Aveline's soliloquy from memory."She's a natural. I hope you don't mind me using her. Ginny usually stands in for me when we do theserehearsals so I can see the play, but she's sick and couldn't make it."

Mason gazed for a moment at his niece. "No, I don't mind."Riley grinned. "If she weren't the daughter of an earl, I'd cast her as Aveline right this moment.""But that's your part," Mason said."Yes," Riley said, "but look at her. She is Aveline, especially with Roderick playing Geoffroi. Together, they have something very special. As if they were star-crossed lovers."

Mason watched his niece for a moment and realized how right Riley was. It wasn't just Louisa, but

Roderick as well. As the two young actors read their lines, they made their audience believe them, as if they truly longed to be together.

Perhaps a little too much.