Magical Masquerade: A Regency Masquerade Read online

  Hilary Gilman

  Magical

  Masquerade

  Pleasant Street Publications

  Cover Design by Lee Wright, Halo Studios London

  www.halostudios.co.uk

  Copyright © Hilary Lester 2013

  ISBN-13: 978-1497411654

  ISBN-10: 1497411653

  All rights reserved: No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  By the same author

  Historical Romance

  Moonlight Masquerade

  Mysterious Masquerade

  Merry Masquerade

  Dangerous Escapade

  (first published as Dangerous Masquerade)

  Gamble with Hearts

  The Cautious Heart

  Fantasy

  Tides of Fire (as Hilary Lester)

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  One

  It had been another cold and blustery day in the bleakest November the oldest inhabitants of the little village could remember. As the evening advanced, the wind dropped, and a freezing mist rolled in from the harbour. Those villagers yet abroad wrapped their cloaks tight about them and hurriedly sought the shelter of their own firesides.

  On the outskirts of the village, there stood a tumbledown old house, half-timbered, with overhanging gables and tall, twisted chimneys. Within its inhospitable walls, two young ladies sat huddled over an inadequate fire in the dark, oak-panelled parlour. The pair shared a vivid beauty that did much to improve their dreary surroundings, but the tarnished gilt and faded brocade of the chairs formed a poor setting for the girl who held her hands to the embers in a vain attempt to warm them. The glow of the fire set the great ruby on her left hand flaming, and she twisted it absently this way and that so that its light reflected against the spotted mirror and the cracked, diamond-paned door of the china cabinet.

  Eugénie, the newly married Duchess of Rochford, wore a modish, fur-trimmed pelisse of burgundy velvet, with a high collar and frogging, Hussar style, across the breast. Her sable muff was tossed carelessly onto the settle, and her high-crowned bonnet lay on top of it, sadly crushing three expensive, dyed ostrich plumes. Her Grace wore her hair in a mass of glossy black ringlets, and from her pretty ears hung heavy diamond drops. Her twin, Mignonette de Saint-Saze, in contrast, wore a shabby round-gown of fawn merino; her only ornament a fine cameo brooch at her throat. Her hair was parted in the centre and drawn back in two, smooth, black wings across her, no less pretty, ears, which were, however, unadorned.

  The twins were, at birth, identical, but there had never, even in childhood, been any doubt as to which was which. Eugénie was a restless, mercurial creature, charming, helpless, and utterly beguiling, while her twin was characterised by the family, who relied entirely on her selfless devotion, as practical, reliable, and dull. Indeed, when a ribald old duke of the ancien régime had said, his eyes lingering on her tender, full-lipped mouth, that he envied the man who would have the awakening of her, he was held to be senile, as well as disgusting.

  Mignonette, more inured than Eugénie to the Spartan conditions prevailing at home, took her sister’s cold hands in hers and rubbed them vigorously to warm them as she said, ‘Oh Génie, what happy, happy news! A child on the way and you only married in September! Is the Duke very pleased? He must be, I think.’

  Eugénie pulled her hands away pettishly. ‘Oh, leave be. Rochford does not know. I have not told him.’

  ‘You have not told him? But, my love, why ever not?’

  Eugénie dropped her head into her hands, pressing the palms against her eyelids. Her fingertips trembled against her hair. ‘I cannot. You do not understand.’

  Mignonette gently pulled the fluttering hands away from her twin’s face and imprisoned them between her own. ‘But I want to understand. Something has gone terribly wrong. Tell me.’

  ‘You want to know what is wrong?’ Eugénie laughed a little hysterically. ‘Only this: the Duke, my husband, has yet to consummate our marriage!’

  The colour drained from Mignonette’s face. ‘But—but, Génie, how can this be?’

  ‘Come, you are not so innocent as all that! You know how babies are made.’

  ‘I meant how— Oh, it is Charles D’Evremont’s I suppose.’

  Eugénie’s face crumpled. ‘I discovered I was enceinte just days after the Pelican was sunk. I was in despair, for how could I tell Grandmère that I would not marry the Duke after all the sacrifices she had made to send me to London? I dared not.’

  ‘You married the Duke knowing that you were—? Ah, I see, you meant to pass the child off as his?’

  ‘Of course. What else could I do? But when he came to me, on our—our wedding night— I could not—I could not feign a—I showed him my disgust and—well, the upshot was he told me that, as his embraces were so repugnant to me, he would not trouble me with them again. And he has kept his word.’

  Minette put both arms around her twin, rocking her gently. ‘There, there, my love, there, there.’ Eugénie sobbed quietly against her sister’s shoulder. Presently, she lifted her tear-stained face and cried, ‘Oh, Minette, what am I going to do?’

  ‘You must tell the Duke the truth and throw yourself upon his mercy,’ answered her twin in a decided tone.

  ‘I would rather die! He has no mercy. You do not know him.’

  ‘But in your letters to Grandmère, you were full of his praises. You said you were in love!’

  ‘Of course, I did. I was so afraid she would find out that I was still seeing Charles.’

  ‘So you never loved Rochford?’

  Her sister shuddered. ‘Mon Dieu, no! Apart from all else, he is quite hideously ugly. And old!’

  Minette pictured Charles D’Evremont as she had last seen him on board The Pelican, young and strong, with his sun-bleached hair ruffled by a brisk sea-breeze. ‘I see. Then you must leave him. Go to the house in Avignon to have the baby, and when you return—’

  ‘And give him grounds to divorce me? No. I have lost everything else; I cannot lose all this.’ She gestured at the diamonds in her ears and the sable wrap discarded on the floor. ‘I will be a duchess whatever happens.’

  ‘But what else can you do? Do you hope he will not notice? He is only eight-and-thirty, not yet, I think, on his dotage.’

  ‘I know! I know! Certainly, I must go to Avignon, as you say. You remember the Bovarys? They lived on the estate. Madame is kind. I shall give the child to her. She will raise it as her own. Of course, I shall pay them well. But the Duke must not know that I have gone to France.’

  Minette shook her head. ‘You are not making any sense.’

  ‘Yes, I am. Do you not see yet? I shall go to France, and you will take my place as Rochford’s wife.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Do you not see how perfect it is? No one outside the family even knows you exist. Who would suspect?’

  ‘G
énie! This is nonsense. I might look like you, but I could never be you. You have a whole life in London, new friends, relatives of whom I know nothing.’

  ‘Silly, I’m not suggesting that you give Ton parties and pay morning calls. I know you could not. But you could very well set it about that you are indisposed and retire to Camer Castle. You would tell the servants that you are too unwell to receive callers, and all you need do is spend the next few months dawdling around the house and grounds, just as you do here.’

  ‘And the Duke? I suppose he will notice nothing?’ said Minette with unusual acidity.

  ‘I doubt if he will come near you. If he does, why then your illness accounts for any differences.’

  ‘And if he should change his mind about the—the consummation of the marriage?’

  ‘Why should he? He has his own amusements and, in any event, he is so absurdly sensitive about his disfigurement that he would rather die than offer himself to be rejected again.’

  ‘Disfigurement? What disfigurement? You said nothing about this in your letters.’

  ‘I thought you knew. Everyone knows. There was a fire at the Castle years ago, and he was, no doubt, very brave and saved many lives; but the upshot is that he has only one eye and the whole of one side of his face is scarred. It makes me shudder even to think of it.’

  ‘Poor gentleman.’

  ‘Oh, you need not pity him. He has a perfectly devoted mistress in the saintly Lady Ashbury, and goodness knows how many high-flyers he has had in keeping.’ She dismissed her husband with a little shrug and, fixing her huge dark eyes on her sister’s face, she said, ‘You will help me, will you not, dearest Minette? I am quite ruined else.’

  ‘Darling, how can I? You know I would do anything in the world for you, but—’

  Eugénie slipped from her chair and sank to her knees in front of her sister. ‘Minette, please, please do this for me! I shall kill myself if the Duke discovers the truth, I swear it.’

  At that moment, the door opened, and a personage entered the room. She was a very old lady but, although she walked with a cane, she still held herself exceedingly upright. Her white hair was beautifully coiffed, in the style of fifty years earlier, under a black lace cap. The exquisite moulding of her cheekbones and jaw was evident beneath the fragile, porcelain skin for which she had once been celebrated. She stood watching her granddaughters, one eyebrow raised enquiringly.

  ‘It seems strange to find the Duchess of Rochford in this humble position,’ she remarked in her thin, beautiful voice. Her accent was pure Versailles despite the fact that she had now lived in England for over thirty years.

  Eugénie rose with more haste than grace and brushed her creased skirts with unsteady hands. ‘Good evening, Grandmère.’

  The Marquise de Montauban inclined her head slightly, offering a cheek, which the duchess dutifully kissed.

  ‘I—I hope I f-find you well?’ stammered Eugénie ‘Has this horrid damp weather been b-bad for your gout?’

  ‘We will not speak of what I have suffered,’ pronounced the Marquise. ‘You will tell me now what foolishness you have perpetrated. Oh, do not look so innocent. I have known you all your life recollect.’

  ‘Nothing, there is nothing!’ insisted Eugénie in a hysterical voice.

  Her grandmother looked her up and down and, seating herself in a winged armchair by the fire, she said calmly, ‘You are with child, I see.’

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘Never mind how. You are with child, and it is not a matter for rejoicing. The child then is not your husband’s.’

  Eugénie nodded, twisting her fingers together and shuffling her feet as she had been wont to do when taxed with a misdemeanour in childhood.

  ‘You have reason to know this. Would the Duke also?’

  Another nod. The Marquise’s eyes gleamed. ‘This must be thought of.’ Her gaze rested consideringly on Minette. ‘Yes, it might work.’

  Eugénie flashed her twin a look of triumph. ‘That is just what we have been discussing. Have we not, Minette?’

  ‘No!’ Minette sprang to her feet. ‘I cannot—will not—do it!’ She began to pace back and forth across the shabby carpet. ‘Think of the disgrace if—when—the truth is discovered!’

  The Marquise regarded her least favourite granddaughter with cold eyes. ‘Control yourself, Mignonette. The truth will not be discovered. If it were generally known that Eugénie has a twin, perhaps. As it is, why should anyone question if Eugénie is Eugénie?’ She turned suddenly to the Duchess. ‘You have not told the Duke you have a twin?’

  ‘No, of course not, we agreed.’

  ‘Yes. It was well thought of, that.’

  Minette ceased her pacing and faced her grandmother. ‘And if Rochford wishes to make love to his own wife? What am I to do then?’

  The Marquise looked down her high-bred nose and said in a voice of icy contempt, ‘You will do your duty, of course.’

  Two

  The following morning, the carriage returned, empty, to the ducal town house in Curzon Street. The coachman carried a letter for the Duke informing him that the Duchess was unwell and would remain at her grandmother’s house for at least a sennight.

  Minette watched the carriage leave with the calm of despair. ‘I take it you have no fear that your loving husband will come hastening down to Sussex to attend your sickbed?’

  Eugénie shrugged. ‘I doubt if he would come to attend my deathbed.’

  ‘But what a charming illustration of fashionable marriage!’

  ‘What a silly little romantic you are. Do you think mine is the only loveless marriage among the Ton? I could name you a score of couples that dislike each other quite as much as Rochford and I.’

  ‘Rochford, at least, cannot always have disliked you. Why should he marry you if not for love?’

  ‘Love? I do not think him capable of it. He is cold, Minette. Cold as ice.’ She shivered.

  ‘But not to Lady—what was the name—Ashbury—one presumes?’

  ‘Oh no, not to her.’ She paused, considering. ‘Mind you, I do not think it can be a very passionate affair now, whatever once it was. It has been going on for so very long, and she is years older than him.’

  ‘Do you meet?’

  ‘Oh, we exchange bows in passing, but I have never spoken to her. I have not the least objection to the connection; indeed, I am quite grateful for her, but she does not seem to view the matter in a reasonable light.’

  ‘Did she hope to marry him herself?’

  ‘Oh no! Lord Ashbury would have to divorce her, and really, why should he when he has been complaisant for so many years?’

  Minette shook her head, laughing. ‘I wonder why you called her “the saintly Lady Ashbury” if that is the case.’

  Eugénie shrugged her pretty shoulders and pouted a little. ‘I suppose it is because she is so very devoted to Rochford and so respectable in every other particular. She always looks as though she has just finished praying for forgiveness. And she does good works!’

  ‘To atone?’

  ‘I expect so. But enough about that tedious woman. You and I must work, work, work! There is so much for you to learn.’

  There followed, for Minette, interminable hours of instruction. ‘To get from my bedchamber to the yellow drawing room, you must—; to come from the rose garden to the terrace, you pass—; the housekeeper’s name is Pritchard. She adores Rochford—’

  Her hair was cut and curled, her ears pierced, and her red hands, chapped from washing and ironing her grandmother’s lace caps, were slathered in goose fat and covered in cotton gloves. Fortunately, her own quiet dignity ensured that she looked and behaved every inch a duchess, and the lack of Eugénie’s fluttering charm could easily be set down to her illness.

  The sisters, now truly identical, were walking in the small garden, enjoying a few moments of weak, wintery, sunshine. Minette was, as ever, thoughtful while her sister chattered, breaking off to utter, ‘You have not been listening
to a word I have been saying!’

  Minette did not bother to deny it. ‘Génie, will you tell me something honestly?’

  Eugénie shrugged. ‘Of course. Am I not always honest with you?’

  ‘But not with others? Never mind answering that. Tell me, just why did Rochford offer for you?’

  Her sister laughed. ‘You are not very complimentary. I should have thought it was obvious why.’

  ‘You say he was never in love with you?’

  Eugénie condescended to give this some thought. ‘I think he wanted me for his collection.’

  ‘His collection?’

  ‘He collects beautiful things,’ Eugénie said simply. ‘The castle is full of his purchases.’

  ‘And you were another purchase?’

  ‘His finest,’ her sister asserted with a silvery laugh.

  ‘It was not then because he wanted an heir?’

  ‘Oh, no doubt; but the matter is not urgent. His cousin, William Clareville, is the heir. He is at Eton, and I believe Rochford is quite fond of him. Now, if anything were to happen to William, the next heir is Franklyn Clareville, and Rochford would do anything to keep him out of the succession.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘I am getting cold. Shall we go in?’

  It was not until the girls were sitting alone after dinner that Minette reverted to the subject. ‘Why does Rochford wish to keep—what is his name?—out of the succession?’

  ‘Franklyn ? Oh, he loathes him. Partly because it was he that set the fire.’

  ‘The fire in which Rochford was disfigured?’

  ‘Yes. He claimed it was an accident, of course, but the rumour is that he and Rochford quarrelled over a woman and that was his revenge. The fire started in the stables, you know.’

  ‘Good God! He must be a monster.’

  ‘Oh no, it was a mere schoolboy prank that went amiss. He is most charming and very handsome, I assure you. He is still everywhere received, although, if the ladies of Almacks knew the worst stories, they would not let him defile their holy assemblies.’