A Marriage of Notoriety
A Marriage of Notoriety
Diane Gaston
The scars she keeps hidden…The mysterious pianiste is the Masquerade Club's newest attraction, captivating guests with her haunting music. What is the true identity of the lady concealed beneath the mask?Only Xavier Campion, the club's new proprietor, recognizes Phillipa Westleigh, the lady with whom he once shared a dance. Concerned for her safety, Xavier escorts her home each night. But when their moonlit strolls are uncovered, the only protection Xavier can offer is marriage!The Masquerade ClubIdentities concealed, desires revealed…
The servant brought her cloak and Xavier took it from him.
He stepped towards Phillipa and placed it around her shoulders, so close she felt the warmth of his body. The touch of his hands on her shoulders caused a frisson of sensation down her back.
She disliked being so affected by Xavier Campion. It made her think of how she’d felt dancing with him. The thrill of coming close to him, of touching him.
The servant opened the door and the cool evening air revived her.
Phillipa crossed over the threshold with Xavier right behind her. ‘I do not need an escort.’
He fell in step with her. ‘Nevertheless, I need to do this.’
She scoffed. ‘Do not be absurd. You can have the company of any woman you like. One of the gentlemen told me so.’
His step slowed for a moment. ‘Phillipa, if any danger should befall you on this walk home I would never forgive myself for not preventing it.’
He sounded so serious.
‘So dramatic, Xavier. I am not your responsibility.’
His voice turned low. ‘At this moment you are.’
Welcome to
Diane Gaston’s
THE MASQUERADE CLUB
Identities concealed, desires revealed …
This is your invitation to Regency society’s most exclusive gaming establishment.
Leave your inhibitions at the door, don your disguise and indulge your desires!
Club proprietor Rhys, the most renowned gambler in London, finally meets his match in
A REPUTATION FOR NOTORIETY
Already available
And now Rhys’s friend Xavier, the most devilish rogue in town, prefers to gamble with ladies’ hearts in
A MARRIAGE OF NOTORIETY
A Marriage of Notoriety
As a psychiatric social worker, Diane Gaston spent years helping others create real-life happy endings. Now Diane crafts fictional ones, writing the kind of historical romance she’s always loved to read. The youngest of three daughters of a US Army Colonel, Diane moved frequently during her childhood, even living for a year in Japan. It continues to amaze her that her own son and daughter grew up in one house in Northern Virginia. Diane still lives in that house, with her husband and three very ordinary housecats. Visit Diane’s website at http://dianegaston.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE MYSTERIOUS MISS M
THE WAGERING WIDOW
A REPUTABLE RAKE
INNOCENCE AND IMPROPRIETY
A TWELFTH NIGHT TALE
(in A Regency Christmas anthology) THE VANISHING VISCOUNTESS SCANDALISING THE TON JUSTINE AND THE NOBLE VISCOUNT† (#ulink_4595a737-ea6e-5466-ad94-8e1a2def7125) (in Regency Summer Scandals) GALLANT OFFICER, FORBIDDEN LADY* (#ulink_e66bf655-0324-534d-9ce7-373ab04f2b31) CHIVALROUS CAPTAIN, REBEL MISTRESS* (#ulink_e66bf655-0324-534d-9ce7-373ab04f2b31) VALIANT SOLDIER, BEAUTIFUL ENEMY* (#ulink_2f8ba29d-3095-5c10-9708-fda11c1b8459) A NOT SO RESPECTABLE GENTLEMAN?† (#ulink_4595a737-ea6e-5466-ad94-8e1a2def7125) BORN TO SCANDAL A REPUTATION FOR NOTORIETY** (#ulink_e66bf655-0324-534d-9ce7-373ab04f2b31)
† (#ulink_d81f61c7-fcf0-5031-8239-ee6da7384bee)linked by character
* (#ulink_d81f61c7-fcf0-5031-8239-ee6da7384bee)Three Soldiers mini-series
* (#ulink_d81f61c7-fcf0-5031-8239-ee6da7384bee)The Masquerade Club
and in Mills & Boon
HistoricalUndone! eBooks:
THE UNLACING OF MISS LEIGH
THE LIBERATION OF MISS FINCH
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks?
Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
AUTHOR NOTE
The timeless theme of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast often reappears in romance novels, as well as in Disney movies, Phantom of the Opera, King Kong and more. Do we ever tire of this story? I’ve written it before, in my Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBook THE UNLACING OF MISS LEIGH (my Phantom of the Opera story), and now in A MARRIAGE OF NOTORIETY. I dare say I will write it again.
Part of the appeal of the Beauty and the Beast theme is its message—genuine beauty is what one has on the inside, not the way one appears on the outside. How many of us look in the mirror and forget this as we examine every flaw? How often do we gaze at models in magazines or celebrities on the red carpet and feel like garden gnomes in comparison? And how much do all of us want to be loved for who we are, not the way we appear?
I enjoyed exploring this issue once more, and giving my hero and heroine their own chance to discover that beauty isn’t just skin-deep.
Dedication
For my new daughter-in-law Beth, beautiful on the inside and the outside,
and a wonderful addition to our family.
Contents
Prologue (#u40251d0f-2bc8-5141-858c-b7c45aa5a8ff)
Chapter One (#u2765be96-668b-596e-9d7a-915db7f5cde4)
Chapter Two (#u79defafa-9e4f-5449-a4ea-0f146b4665e1)
Chapter Three (#u6f7e52d8-2754-5e10-97c0-36917158d137)
Chapter Four (#ucbe76b78-19d8-5e2e-9a74-c79b0ef9da14)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
London, Spring 1814
‘Mr Xavier Campion,’ Lady Devine’s butler intoned in a baritone voice.
‘Adonis is here!’ gasped one of the young ladies standing near Phillipa Westleigh. The others shared furtive smiles.
Phillipa knew precisely who her friends would see when their gazes slipped towards the doorway. A young man tall and perfectly formed, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and muscled limbs. His hair would be as dark as the ebony keys on a pianoforte and longer than fashionable, but an excellent frame for his lean face, strong brow, sensitive mouth.
The young ladies had been tittering about him the whole evening. Would he come to the ball? Could they contrive an introduction? He’d been the main topic of conversation since they’d discovered him at the opera the night before. ‘He is an Adonis!’ one had proclaimed and the name stuck.
Phillipa had not attended the opera that night, but heard before all of them that he’d come to town. She, too, glanced to the doorway.
Clad in the formal red coat of the East Essex infantry, Xavier Campion looked as magnificent as a man could look in regimentals.
He scanned the room, his brilliant blue eyes searching until reaching Phillipa. His lips widened into a smile and he inclined his head before pivoting to greet Lord and Lady Devine.
‘He smiled at us!’ cried one of Phillipa’s friends.
No. He’d smiled at her.
Phillipa’s cheeks flushed.
Did he remember her? They’d been childhood friends in Brighton during the summers, especially the summer when she fell and suffered her injury.
Phillipa’s hand flew to her cheek, to where the jagged scar marred her face. Not even the clever feather her mother insisted be attached to her headpiece could hide the disfigurement.
Of course he remembered her. How many scar-faced girls could be known to handsome Xavier Campion?
She swung away, while the others giggled and whispered to each other. She heard their voices, but could not repeat a word any of them spoke. All she could think was how it might be if her appearance were different, if her right cheek were not branded with a jagged red scar. How she wished her complexion was as unflawed as her friends’. Then she could merely have a pretty ribbon threaded through her hair instead of the silly headpiece with its obvious feather. She wished just once Xavier Campion could look upon her and think her as beautiful as he was handsome.
Her companions suddenly went silent and a masculine voice spoke. ‘Phillipa?’
She turned.
Xavier stood before her.
‘I thought that was you.’ He’d noticed her scar, he meant. ‘How are you? It has been years since I’ve seen you.’
The other young ladies stared in stunned disbelief.
‘Hello, Xavier,’ she managed, keeping her eyes downcast. ‘But you have been at war. You have been away.’ She dared glance up to his face.
His smile made her heart twist. ‘It is good to be back in England.’
One of her friends cleared her throat.
Phillipa’s hand fluttered to her cheek. ‘Oh.’ She looked from Xavier to the pretty girls around her. It was suddenly clear why he had approached her. ‘Let me present you.’
When the introductions were complete the other young ladies surrounded him, asking him clever questions about the war, where he’d been and what battles he’d fought.
Phillipa stepped back. She’d served her purpose. Her introductions made it possible for him to ask any of them to dance. She imagined their minds turning, calculating. He was only the younger son of an earl, but his looks more than made up for a lack of title. And he was reputed to have a good income.
Her friends were solidly on the marriage mart. They’d all been bred to hope for the perfect betrothal by the end of their first Season. Phillipa’s hopes had quickly become more modest and certainly did not include snaring the most handsome and exciting young man in the room. Not even ordinary eligible gentlemen paid her the least attention. Why should Xavier Campion?
In Brighton, when she’d been a young, foolish child, she’d been his companion. Although a few years older, he played children’s games with her. He filled buckets at the water’s edge with her and built castles out of the pebbles on the beach. They’d chased each other through the garden of the Pavilion and pressed their faces against its windows, peeking at the grandeur inside. Sometimes when they were at play, she’d stop and stare, awestruck at his beauty. Many a night she’d fall asleep dreaming that some day, when she was grown, Xavier would ride in like a prince on horseback and whisk her away to a romantic castle.
Well, she was grown now and the reality was that no man wanted a young lady with a scar on her face. She was eighteen years old and it was past time to put away such childhood fancies.
‘Phillipa?’ His voice again.
She turned.
Xavier extended his hand to her. ‘May I have the honour of this dance?’
She nodded, unable to speak, unable to believe her ears.
Her friends moaned in disappointment.
Xavier clasped her hand and led her to the dance floor as the orchestra began the first strains of a tune Phillipa easily identified, as she’d identified every tune played at the balls she’d attended.
‘The Nonesuch’.
How fitting. Xavier was a nonesuch, a man without equal. There were none such as he.
The dance began.
Somehow, as if part of the music, her legs and feet performed the figures. In fact, her step felt as light as air; her heart, joy-filled.
He smiled at her. He looked at her. Straight in her face. In her eyes.
‘How have you spent your time since last we played on the beach?’ he asked when the dance brought them together.
They parted and she had to wait until the dance joined them again to answer. ‘I went away to school,’ she told him.
School had been a mostly pleasant experience. So many of the girls had been kind and friendly, and a few had become dear friends. Others, however, had delighted in cruelty. The wounding words they’d spoken still felt etched in her memory.
He grinned. ‘And you grew up.’
‘That I could not prevent.’ Blast! Could she not contrive something intelligent to say?
He laughed. ‘I noticed.’
The dance parted them again, but his gaze did not leave her. The music connected them—the gaiety of the flute, the singing of the violin, the deep passion of the bass. She would not forget a note of it. In fact, she would wager she could play the tune on the pianoforte without a page of music in front of her.
The music was happiness, the happiness of having her childhood friend back.
She fondly recalled the boy he’d been and gladdened at the man he’d become. When his hand touched hers the music seemed to swell and that long-ago girlish fantasy sounded a strong refrain.
But eventually the musicians played the final note and Phillipa blinked as if waking from a lovely dream.
He escorted her back to where she had first been standing.
‘May I get you a glass of wine?’ he asked.
It was time for him to part from her, but she was thirsty from the dance. ‘I would like some, but only if it is not too much trouble for you.’
His blue eyes sparkled as if amused. ‘Your wish is my pleasure.’
Her insides skittered wildly as she watched him walk away. He returned quickly and handed her a glass. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
Showing no inclination to leave her side, he asked polite questions about the health of her parents and about the activities of her brothers, Ned and Hugh. He told her of encountering Hugh in Spain and she told him Hugh was also back from the war.
While they conversed, a part of her stood aside as if observing—and judging. Her responses displayed none of the wit and charm at which her friends so easily excelled, but he did not seem to mind.
* * *
She had no idea how long they chatted. It might have been ten minutes or it might have been half an hour, but it ended when his mother approached them.
‘How do you do, Phillipa?’ Lady Piermont asked.
‘I am well, ma’am.’ Phillipa exchanged pleasantries with her, but Lady Piermont seemed impatient.
She turned to her son. ‘I have need of you, Xavier. There is someone who wishes a word with you.’
He tossed Phillipa an apologetic look. ‘I fear I must leave you.’
He bowed.
She curtsied.
And he was gone.
No sooner had he walked away than her friend Felicia rushed up to her. ‘Oh, Phillipa! How thrilling! He danced with you.’
Phillipa could only smile. The pleasure of being with him lingered like a song played over and over in her head. She feared speaking would hasten its loss.
‘I want to hear about every minute of it!’ Felicia cried.
But Felicia’s betrothed came to collect her for the next set and she left without a glance back at her friend.
Another of Phillipa’s former schoolmates approached her, one of the young ladies to whom she had introduced Xavier. ‘It was kind of Mr Campion to dance with you, was it not?’
‘It was indeed,’ agreed Phillipa, still in perfect charity with the world, even though this girl had never precisely been a friend.
Her schoolmate leaned closer. ‘Your mother and Lady Piermont arranged it. Was that not clever of them? Now perhaps other gentlemen will dance with you, as well.’
‘My mother?’ Phillipa gripped the stem of the glass.
‘That is what I heard.’ The girl smirked. ‘The two ladies were discussing it while you danced with him.’
Phillipa felt the crash of cymbals and the air was knocked out of her just like the day in Brighton when she fell.
Prevailing on family connections to manage a dance invitation was precisely the sort of thing her mother would do.
Dance with her, Xavier dear, she could almost hear her mother say. If you dance with her, the others will wish to dance with her, too.
‘Mr Campion is an old friend,’ she managed to reply to the schoolmate.
‘I wish I had that kind of friend.’ The girl curtsied and walked away.
Phillipa held her ground and forced herself to casually finish sipping her glass of wine. When she’d drained the glass of its contents she strolled to a table against the wall and placed the empty glass on it.
Then she went in search of her mother and found her momentarily alone.
It was difficult to maintain composure. ‘Mama, I have a headache. I am going home.’
‘Phillipa! No.’ Her mother looked aghast. ‘Not when the ball is going so well for you.’
Because of her mother’s contrivance.
‘I cannot stay.’ Phillipa swallowed, trying desperately not to cry.
‘Do not do this to yourself,’ her mother scolded, through clenched teeth. ‘Stay. This is a good opportunity for you.’
‘I am leaving.’ Phillipa turned away and threaded her way quickly through the crush of people.
Her mother caught up with her in the hall and seized her arm. ‘Phillipa! You cannot go unescorted and your father and I are not about to leave when the evening is just beginning.’
‘Our town house is three doors away. I dare say I may walk it alone.’ Phillipa freed herself from her mother’s grasp. She collected her wrap from the footman attending the hall and was soon out in the cool evening air where no one could see.
Tears burst from her eyes.
How humiliating! To be made into Xavier Campion’s charity case. He’d danced with her purely out of pity. She was foolish in the extreme for thinking it could be anything else.
Phillipa set her trembling chin in resolve. She’d have no more of balls. No more of hopes to attract a suitor. She’d had enough. The truth of her situation was clear even if her mother refused to see it.
No gentleman would court a scar-faced lady.
Certainly not an Adonis.
Certainly not Xavier Campion.
Chapter One
London, August 1819
‘Enough!’ Phillipa slapped her hand flat on the mahogany side table.
The last time she’d felt such strength of resolve had been that night five years ago when she fled Lady Devine’s ball and removed herself out from the marriage mart for good.
To think she’d again wound up dancing with Xavier Campion just weeks ago at her mother’s ball. He’d once again taken pity on her.
No doubt her mother arranged those two dances as well as the first. More reason to be furious with her.
But never mind that. The matter at hand was her mother’s refusal to answer Phillipa’s questions, flouncing out the drawing room in a huff instead.
Phillipa had demanded her mother tell her where her brothers and father had gone. The three of them had been away for a week now. Her mother had forbidden the servants to speak of it with her and refused to say anything of it herself.
Ned and Hugh had a rather loud quarrel with their father, Phillipa knew. It occurred late at night and had been loud enough to wake her.
‘It is nothing for you to worry over,’ her mother insisted. She said no more.
If it were indeed nothing to worry over, then why not simply tell her?
Granted, in the past several days Phillipa had been closeted with her pianoforte, consumed by her latest composition, a sonatina. Pouring her passions into music had been Phillipa’s godsend. Music gave her a challenge. It gave her life meaning.
Like getting the phrasing exactly right in the sonatina. She’d been so preoccupied she’d not given her brothers or her father a thought. Sometimes she would work so diligently on her music that she would not see them for days at a time. It had finally become clear, though, that they were not at home. That in itself was not so unusual, but her mother’s refusal to explain where they had gone was very odd. Where were they? Why had her father left London when Parliament was still in session? Why had her brothers gone with him?
Her mother would only say, ‘They are away on business.’
Business, indeed. A strange business.
This whole Season had been strange. First her mother and brother Ned insisted she come to town when she’d much have preferred to remain in the country. Then the surprise of her mother’s ball—
And seeing Xavier again.
The purpose of that ball had been a further surprise. It was held for a person Phillipa had never known existed.
Perhaps that person would explain it all to her. His appearance, the ball, her brothers’ and father’s disappearance—all must be connected somehow.
She’d ask John Rhysdale.
No. She would demand Rhysdale tell her what was going on in her family and how he—her half-brother, her father’s illegitimate son—fit into it.
Rhysdale’s relationship to her had also been kept secret from her. Her brothers had known of him, apparently, but no one told her about him or why her mother gave the ball for him or why her parents introduced him to society as her father’s son.
A member of the Westleigh family.
Her mother had given her the task of writing the invitations to the ball, so she knew precisely where Rhysdale resided. Phillipa rushed out of the drawing room, collected her hat and gloves, and was out the door in seconds, walking with a determined step towards St James’s Street.
She’d met Rhysdale the night of the ball. He was very near to Ned’s age, she’d guess. In his thirties. He looked like her brothers, too, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Like her, as well, she supposed, minus the jagged scar on her face.
To Rhysdale’s credit, he’d only given her scar a fleeting glance and afterward looked her in the eye. He’d been gentlemanly and kind. There had been nothing to object in him, except for the circumstances of his birth.
And his choice of friends.
Why did Xavier Campion have to be his friend? Xavier, the one man Phillipa wished to avoid above all others.
Phillipa forced thoughts of Xavier Campion out of her mind and concentrated on being angry at her mother instead. How dared her mother refuse to confide in her?
Phillipa had a surfeit of her mother’s over-protection. She could endure a ball with no dance partners. She could handle whatever mysterious matters led to her family’s aberrant behaviour. Just because an ugly scar marred her face did not mean she was a child.
She was not weak. She refused to be weak.
Phillipa took notice of passers-by staring at her and pulled down a piece of netting on her hat. Her mother insisted she tack netting on to all her hats so she could obscure half her face and not receive stares.
She turned off St James’s Street on to the street where Rhysdale lived. When she found the house, she only hesitated a moment before sounding the knocker.
Several moments passed. She reached for the knocker again, but the door opened. A large man with expressionless eyes perused her quickly. His brows rose.
‘Lady Phillipa to see Mr Rhysdale,’ she said.
The man stepped aside and she entered the hall. He lifted a finger, which she took to mean she should wait, and he disappeared up the staircase.
The doors to rooms off the hall were closed, and the hall itself was so nearly devoid of all decoration that it appeared impersonal. Perhaps a single gentleman preferred no decoration. How would she know?
‘Phillipa.’ A man’s voice came from the top of the stairs.
She looked up.
But it was not Rhysdale who descended the stairs.
It was Xavier.
He quickly approached her. ‘What are you doing here, Phillipa? Is something amiss?’
She forced herself not to step back. ‘I—I came to speak with Rhysdale.’
‘He is not here.’ He glanced around. ‘You are alone?’
Of course she was alone. Who would accompany her? Not her mother. Certainly her mother would never make a social call to her husband’s illegitimate son. ‘I will wait for him, then. It is a matter of some importance.’
He gestured to the stairs. ‘Come. Let us sit in the drawing room.’
They walked up one flight of stairs and Phillipa glanced into a room she presumed would be the drawing room. She glimpsed several tables and chairs.
‘What is this?’ she exclaimed.
Xavier looked dismayed. ‘I will explain.’ He gestured for her to continue up another flight of stairs.
He led her into a comfortably furnished parlour and extended his arm towards a sofa upholstered in deep-red fabric. ‘Do be seated. I will arrange for tea.’
Before she could protest, he left the room again. Her heart beat at such rapid rate that her hands trembled as she pulled off her gloves.
This was ridiculous. She refused to be made uncomfortable by him. He meant nothing to her. He’d merely been a boy who’d once been her playmate. Defiantly she swept the netting over the brim of her hat. Let him see her face.
He stepped back in the room. ‘We’ll have tea in a moment.’ Choosing a chair near her, he leaned close. ‘I do not know when—or if—Rhys will come back.’
‘Do not tell me he has disappeared as well!’ What was going on?
He touched her hand in a reassuring gesture. ‘He has not disappeared. I assure you.’
She pulled her hand away. ‘Where is he?’ she demanded.
He leaned back. ‘He spends most days with Lady Gale.’
‘Lady Gale?’ What did Lady Gale have to do with anything?
Lady Gale was the stepmother of Adele Gale, the silly young woman to whom her brother Ned was betrothed. Both Adele and Lady Gale had been guests at her mother’s ball, so Rhysdale might have met them there, but was there more to that connection?
Xavier frowned. ‘You do not know about Rhysdale and Lady Gale?’
Phillipa waved a frustrated hand. ‘I do not know anything! That is why I am here. My brothers and my father have disappeared and my mother will not tell me where they have gone or why. I came to ask Rhysdale where they were, but it seems I’ve been excluded from even more family matters.’
There was a knock on the door and a manservant entered, carrying the tea tray. As he placed the tray on a side table, he gave Phillipa a curious look.
Because of her scar, no doubt.
Xavier nodded to him. ‘Thank you, MacEvoy.’
The servant bowed and walked out, but not before tossing her another glance.
Xavier reached for the teapot. ‘How do you take your tea, Phillipa? Still with lots of sugar?’
He remembered that? She’d had a sweet tooth as a little girl. That had been a long time ago, however.
She stood. ‘I do not wish to drink tea. I came here for answers. I am quite overset, Xavier. I do not know why everything is kept secret from me. Do I look as if I cannot handle adversity?’ She jabbed at her scar. ‘I am well practised in adversity. My mother—my whole family, it seems—apparently thinks not.’ She faced him. ‘Something important has happened in my family—something more than Rhysdale’s appearance—and I am to be told nothing? I cannot bear it!’ She pressed her hands against her temples for a moment, collecting herself. She pointed towards the door. ‘What is this place, Xavier? Why does my half-brother have a room full of tables where the drawing room should be and a drawing room on a floor for bedchambers?’
* * *
Xavier stared back at Phillipa, considering how much to tell her.
He preferred this version of Phillipa to the one he’d so recently encountered at her mother’s ball. That Phillipa barely looked at him, barely conversed with him, even though he’d danced twice with her. She’d acted as if he were a loathsome stranger.
Her present upset disturbed him, however. Ever since they’d been children, he’d hated seeing her distressed. It reminded him of that summer in Brighton when the pretty little girl woke from a fall to discover the long cut on her face.
He admired Phillipa for not covering her scar now, for showing no shame of it or how she appeared to others. Besides, her colour was high, appealingly so, and her agitation piqued his empathy. He understood her distress. He would greatly dislike being left out of family matters of such consequence.
But surely she’d been told of Rhys’s arrangement with her brothers?
‘Do you not know about this place?’ He swept his arm the breadth of the room.
Her eyes flashed. ‘Do you not comprehend? I know nothing.’
‘This is a gambling establishment.’ All of society knew of it. Why not Phillipa? ‘Nominally it is a gambling club so as to adhere to legalities. Have you not heard of the Masquerade Club?’
‘No.’ Her voice still held outrage.
He explained. ‘This is the Masquerade Club. Rhys is the proprietor. Patrons may attend in masks and thus conceal their identities—as long as they pay their gambling debts, that is. If they need to write vowels, they must reveal themselves.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘In any event, it is meant to be a place where both gentlemen and ladies may enjoy cards or other games. Ladies’ reputations are protected, you see.’
She looked around again, her expression incredulous. ‘This is a gambling house?’
‘Not this floor. These are Rhys’s private rooms, but he is not here very often these days.’
She pressed fingers to her forehead. ‘Because he is with Lady Gale.’
He nodded. Rhys’s connection to Lady Gale ought to have been roundly discussed at the Westleigh residence.
He could tell her this much. ‘Sit, Phillipa. Have some tea. I will explain.’
He reached for the teapot again but she stopped him with a light touch to his hand. ‘I will pour.’ She lifted a cup and raised her brows in question.
‘A little milk. A little sugar,’ he replied.
She fixed his cup and handed it to him. ‘Explain, Xavier. Please.’
‘About Lady Gale and Rhys,’ he began. ‘Earlier this Season Lady Gale came masked to the Masquerade Club.’
She lifted her cup. ‘She is a gambler? I would not have guessed.’
He lifted a shoulder. ‘Out of necessity. She needed money. She attended often enough for Rhys to become acquainted with her. In learning of her financial need, he began paying her to come gamble.’
‘Paying her?’ Her hand stopped before the teacup reached her lips.
He gave a half-smile. ‘He fancied her. He did not know her name, though. Nor did she know his connection to your family.’
She looked at him expectantly. ‘And?’
‘They became lovers.’ He took a breath. ‘And she is with child. They are to be married as soon as the licence can be arranged.’ He paused. ‘And other matters settled.’
‘Other matters.’ Her brows knitted. ‘Ned’s courtship of Lady Gale’s stepdaughter, do you mean?’
He nodded. ‘And more.’
Rhys’s gambling house and his affair with Lady Gale had hardly caused her a blink of the eye. Surely she was made of stern enough stuff to hear the whole of it.
She gave him a direct look. ‘What more?’
‘Do you know of Ned and Hugh’s arrangement with Rhys?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I am depending upon you to tell me all of it, Xavier. All of it.’
How could he resist her request?
Ever since her injury. What age had he been? Twelve? She’d been about seven and he’d never forgotten that summer.
How it pained him to see that little girl so wounded, so unhappy.
If only he could have prevented it.
He’d felt it his duty to cheer her up. He’d learned that summer that one should act, if one could. Not hold back.
So he’d made her his responsibility and worked to cheer her up.
It was not his place to tell her about her family’s affairs, but....
He set his jaw. ‘This past April Ned and Hugh came to Rhys and asked him to open a gaming house. They had scraped together the funds for it, but they needed Rhys to run it.’
‘They asked Rhysdale to run a gaming house for them?’ She sounded incredulous.
He took a sip of tea. ‘Out of desperation. Your family was in dire financial straits. Did you know of that?’
She shook her head.
He might as well tell her all. ‘Your father’s gambling...and carousing...brought your family to the brink of ruin. You, your mother, everyone who depended upon the Westleigh estates for their livelihood would have suffered terribly if nothing had been done.’
Her eyes widened. ‘I had no idea.’
‘So Ned and Hugh hit upon the idea of a gaming house. Rhys agreed to run it, although your father gave him no reason to feel any sense of loyalty to the family. Besides taking half the profits, though, Rhys asked that your father publicly acknowledge him as his natural son.’
‘Hence my mother’s ball.’ She caught on quickly.
‘Indeed.’ The ball was part of Rhys’s payment. ‘The scheme worked perfectly. The element of masquerade has made this place successful beyond anyone’s hopes. Your family is rescued.’
She looked askance. ‘If all has gone so well, where are my father and brothers?’
‘They went to the Continent. To Brussels.’ Ought he tell her this part? He peered at her. ‘Phillipa, are you close to your father?’
She laughed. ‘I dare say not.’ She glanced away, her face shadowed. ‘Should he chance encounter me, he looks through me. Or away.’
His heart constricted.
‘Your father made trouble for Rhys, I’m afraid. He detested Rhys being the family’s salvation.’ She did not need to know all the details. ‘Suffice to say your father challenged Rhys to a duel—’
‘A duel!’ She looked aghast.
‘It did not take place,’ he assured her. ‘Your brothers stood by Rhys and together they forced your father to relinquish all control of the family’s money and property to Ned.’ Either that or publicly shame the man. ‘They offered your father a generous allowance, but only if he moved to the Continent. Your brothers travelled with him to make certain he reaches his destination and keeps his word. He is to remain there. He will not come back.’
‘He is gone?’ She turned pale, making her red scar more vivid. ‘I had no notion of any of this.’
He feared she would faint and he rose from his chair to sit beside her on the sofa, wrapping an arm around her. ‘I know this is a shock.’
He remembered how he’d held her as a little girl, when she cried about being ugly. He’d never thought her ugly. Certainly not now, although to see her face, half-beautiful, half-damaged, still made something inside him twist painfully.
She recovered quickly and moved from his grasp. ‘How could I have been so unaware? How could I have not had some inkling?’
‘It is not your fault, Phillipa. I am certain they meant to protect you,’ he said.
‘I do not need their protection!’ she snapped. She looked at him as if he were the object of her anger. ‘I do not need pity.’
He admired her effort to remain strong.
‘I must leave.’ She snatched up her gloves and stood.
He rose as well. ‘I will walk you home.’
Her eyes shot daggers. ‘I am fully capable of walking a few streets by myself.’
He did not know how to assist her. ‘I meant only—’
She released a breath and spoke in an apologetic tone. ‘Forgive me, Xavier. It is unfair of me to rail at you when you have done me the honour of exposing my family to me.’ She pulled on her gloves. ‘But truly there is no need to walk me home. I am no green girl in need of a chaperon.’
‘If that is your wish.’ He opened the door for her and walked with her down the stairs.
She stopped on the first-floor landing and pointed to a doorway with a half-closed door. ‘Is this the game room?’
‘It is.’ He opened the door the whole way. ‘You can see the card tables and the tables for faro, hazard and rouge et noir.’
She peeked in, but did not comment.
As they continued down the stairs, she asked, ‘Why are you here in a gaming house, Xavier?’
He shrugged. ‘I assist Rhys. As a friend.’
He was useful to Rhys. Because of his looks, men dismissed him and women were distracted. Consequently, he saw more than either sex imagined and, for that, Rhys paid him a share of his profits.
‘Do you have the gambling habit, then?’ she asked.
Like her father? ‘Not a habit,’ he responded, although once it had been important to prove himself at the card table. ‘These days I play less and watch more.’
They reached the hall and Xavier walked her to the door. When he turned the latch and opened it for her, she pulled down the netting on her hat, covering her face.
The action made him sad for her.
He opened his mouth to repeat the offer to escort her.
She lifted a hand. ‘I prefer to be alone, Xavier. Please respect that.’
He nodded.
‘Good day,’ she said in a formal voice and stepped away.
Xavier ducked inside and grabbed his hat. He waited until he surmised she would have reached the corner of the street, then stepped outside and followed her, keeping her in sight, just in case she should require assistance of any kind. He followed her all the way to her street and watched until she safely entered her house.
It was a familiar habit, looking out for her, one he’d practised over and over that long-ago summer in Brighton, when his duty towards her first began.
Chapter Two
Phillipa walked briskly back to her family’s town house, emotions in disharmony. Her mind whirled. Rhysdale’s gaming house. Her father’s shameful behaviour.
Xavier.
She had not expected to see Xavier and her face burned with embarrassment that it had been he who exposed her family’s troubles to her.
Her family’s shame. Did there ever exist such a father as hers? What must Xavier think of him? Of them?
Of her?
She hurried through the streets.
How could she have been so insensible? Her family had been at the brink of ruin and she’d not had an inkling. She should have guessed something was awry. She should have realised how out of character it was for her father to hold a ball for anyone, least of all a natural son.
Seeing Xavier there distracted her.
No. It was unfair to place the blame on Xavier. Or even on her family.
She was to blame. She’d deliberately isolated herself, immersing herself in her music so as not to think about being in London, not to think of that first Season, that first dance with Xavier, nor of dancing with him again at the ball.
Instead she’d poured everything into her new composition. With the music, she’d tried to recreate her youthful feelings of joy and the despairing emotions of reality. She’d transitioned the tune to something bittersweet—how it had felt to dance with him once again.
Her mind had been filled with him and she’d not spared a thought for her family. In fact, she’d resented whenever her mother insisted she receive morning calls, including those of Lady Gale and her stepdaughter. It surprised her that she’d paid enough attention to learn that Ned intended to marry the artless Adele Gale. The girl reminded Phillipa of her school friends and that first Season when they’d been innocent and starry-eyed.
And hopeful.
Phillipa had paid no attention at all to her father, but, then, he paid no attention to her. She long ago learned not to care about what her father thought or did or said, but how dared he be so selfish as to gamble away the family money? She would not miss him. It was a relief to no longer endure his unpleasantness.
Phillipa entered the house and climbed the stairs to her music room. She pulled off her hat and gloves and sat at the pianoforte. Her fingers pressed the ivory keys, searching for expression of the feelings resonating inside of her. She created a discordant sound, a chaos, unpleasant to her ears. She rose again and walked to the window, staring out at the small garden behind the town house. A yellow tabby cat walked the length of the wall, sure-footed, unafraid, surveying the domain below.
Her inharmonious musical notes re-echoed in her ears. Unlike the cat, she was not sure-footed. She was afraid.
For years she’d been fooling herself, saying she was embracing life by her study of music. Playing the pianoforte, composing melodies, gave her some purpose and activity. Although she yearned to perform her music or see it published for others to perform, what hope could she have to accomplish that? No lady wanted a disfigured pianiste in her musicale. And no music publisher would consider an earl’s daughter to be a serious composer.
There was an even more brutal truth to jar her. She was hiding behind her music. So thoroughly that she had missed the drama at play on her family’s stage. All kinds of life occurred outside the walls of her music room and she’d been ignoring it all. She needed to rejoin life.
Phillipa spun away from the window. She rushed from the room, startling one of the maids passing through the hallway. What was the girl’s name? When had Phillipa begun to be blind to the very people around her?
‘Pardon, miss.’ The girl struggled to curtsy, even though her hands were laden with bed linens.
‘No pardon is necessary,’ Phillipa responded. ‘I surprised you.’ She started to walk past, but turned. ‘Forgive me, I do not know your name.’
The girl looked even more startled. ‘It is Ivey, miss. Sally Ivey.’
‘Ivey,’ Phillipa repeated. ‘I will remember it.’
The maid curtsied again and hurried on her way.
Phillipa reached the stairs, climbing them quickly, passing the floor to the maids’ rooms and continuing to the attic where one small window provided a little light. She opened one of the trunks and rummaged through it, not finding for what she searched. In the third trunk, though, triumph reigned. She pulled it out. A lady’s mask, one her mother had made for her to attend a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens during her first Season. It had been specifically designed to cover her scar.
She’d never worn it.
Until now.
Because she’d decided her first step to embrace life and conquer fear was to do what Lady Gale had done. She would wait until night. She would step out into the darkness and make her way to St James’s Street.
Phillipa would attend the Masquerade Club. If Lady Gale thought it acceptable to attend, so could she. She would don the mask and enter a gaming house. She would play cards and hazard and faro and see what sort of investment Ned and Hugh had made in Rhysdale.
He would be there, of course, but that was of no consequence. If she encountered Xavier, he would not know her.
No one would know her.
* * *
That night Phillipa stepped up to the door to Rhysdale’s town house. No sounds of revelry reached the street and nothing could be seen of the gamblers inside, but, even so, she immediately sensed a different mood to the place than earlier in the day.
She sounded the knocker and the same taciturn manservant who’d attended the hall that morning answered the door.
‘Good evening, sir.’ She entered the hall and slipped off her hooded cape. This time she did not need netting to hide her face; her mask performed that task.
The manservant showed no indication of recognising her and she breathed a sign of relief. The mask must be working.
She handed him her cape. ‘What do I do next? I am new to this place, you see.’
He nodded and actually spoke. ‘Wait here a moment. I will take you to the cashier.’
The knocker sounded the moment he stepped away, but he returned quickly and opened the door to two gentlemen who greeted him exuberantly. ‘Good evening to you, Cummings! Trust you are well.’
Cummings took their hats and gloves and inclined his head towards Phillipa. ‘Follow them, ma’am.’
The gentlemen glanced her way and their brows rose with interest. How novel. Without her mask most men quickly looked away.
‘Is this your first time here, ma’am?’ one asked in a polite tone.
‘It is.’ She made herself smile.
The other gentleman offered an arm. ‘Then it will be our pleasure to show you to the cashier.’
This was how she would be treated if not disfigured. With pleasure, not pity.
How new, as well, to accept the arm of a stranger when she’d been reared to acknowledge gentlemen only after a formal introduction took place. Would he think her fast for doing so? Or did it not matter? The gentleman would never know her.
She’d already defied the conventions of a well-bred lady by walking alone on the streets at night. She’d gathered her cloak and hood around her and made her way briskly, ignoring anyone she passed. Gas lamps lit most of the way and there had been plenty of other pedestrians out and about to make the trek feel safe.
Taking the arm of a stranger for a few seconds seemed tame after that.
He and the other gentleman escorted her to one of the rooms that had been hidden behind closed doors earlier that day. It was at the back of the house and, judging from the bookshelves that lined one of the walls, must have once been the library. Besides a few lonely books on the shelves, the room was as sparsely decorated as the hall. A large desk dominated the room. Behind the desk sat the man who had served her tea.
‘MacEvoy,’ one of her escorts said. ‘We have a new lady for you. This is her first time here.’
MacEvoy looked her straight in the face. ‘Good evening, ma’am. Shall I explain how the Masquerade Club operates?’
‘I would be grateful.’ She searched for signs that this man recognised her. There were none.
He told her the cost of membership and explained that she would purchase counters from him to use in play in the game room. She could purchase as many counters as she liked, but, if she lost more than she possessed, she must reveal her identity.
This was how patrons were protected, he explained. They would know who owed them money, and those who needed their identity protected dared not wager more than they possessed.
Phillipa had little interest in the wagering, but hoped she purchased enough counters to appear as if she did.
‘We will take you to the gaming room, ma’am,’ one of her escorts said.
‘That would be kind of you.’ She knew the way, but did not want the gentlemen to realise it.
When they entered the room, it seemed transformed, a riot of colour and sound. The rhythm of rolling dice, the hum of voices, the trill of shuffling cards melded into a strange symphony. Could such noise be recreated in music? What might be required? Horns? Drums? Castanets?
‘Ma’am, do you wish to join us in cards?’ One of her gentlemen escorts broke her reverie.
She shook her head. ‘You have assisted me enough, sir. I thank you both. Please be about your own entertainment.’
They bowed and she turned away from them and scanned the room as she made her way to the hazard table. To her great relief, she did not see Xavier. A pretty young woman acted as croupier at the hazard table, which surprised Phillipa. She’d not imagined women employed to do such a job. She knew the rules of hazard, but thought it insipid to wager money on the roll of dice. Phillipa watched the play, interested more in the people than the gambling. Several of the croupiers were women. The women players were mostly masked, like she, but some were not. She wondered about them. Who were they and why did they not worry about their reputations? Perhaps she was in the company of actresses. Opera dancers. Women who would not hide from life.
There certainly seemed to be great numbers of counters being passed around in the room. Those who won exclaimed in delight; the losers groaned and despaired. Happy sounds juxtaposed with despairing ones. She’d never heard the like.
She glimpsed Rhysdale. He circulated through the room, watching, stopping to speak to this or that person. He came close to her and her heart raced. He looked directly at her, nodding a greeting before passing on. She smiled. He had not recognised her.
She walked over to the faro table. If hazard was an insipid game, faro was ridiculous. One wagered whether a particular card would be chosen from the deck. If you placed money on the banker’s card you lost, if on the winning card you won double.
Still, she ought to gamble. To merely gape at everything would appear a bit suspicious.
She stifled a giggle. Out in society, people treated her as if she did not exist. Here she feared them noticing her.
She played at faro and became caught up in the spirit of the game. She cried with joy when she won and groaned at her losses, just like the other patrons. She was merely one of the crowd. Even her deep-green gown blended with the tableau as if she were a part of the décor of reds, greens and glinting golds. Her anonymity became like a cloak around her, protecting her so well she forgot that, besides Rhysdale, there might be someone at the club who could recognise her.
* * *
Xavier defused some escalating tempers, interrupted some reckless wagers and otherwise performed the same tasks as always at the Masquerade Club. His mind, however, continued to wander back to that morning.
Ought he have sent Phillipa to Rhys? Should it have been Rhys’s choice of whether to tell her about her father, about the gaming house?
No. Rhys might have some of the same blood flowing through his veins as Phillipa, but she was a stranger to him. Xavier had known her for ever, even before her injury. He’d been close to her once. Her injury bound them together.
Or at least it bound him to her.
He’d been wrong to neglect her since the war ended. He should have sought her out before this. Made certain she was in good health and in good spirits. Perhaps that was why she was so cold to him at the ball.
Perhaps he would call upon her soon. See how she was faring after what he’d told her this afternoon.
Satisfied with that thought, Xavier circulated throughout the room, perusing the players and the croupiers, remaining alert to any potential problems. Most of the players here tonight were familiar to him as regular attendees. Even the masked ones were familiar, although there were a few whose identities he’d not yet guessed.
A new woman caught his eye. He’d not seen her arrive and did not know in whose party she might be included, but there was something about her...
She dressed expensively in a gown of dark-green silk. Its sheen caught the lamplight and transformed the rather plain style into something elegant. Who was she and why she was here for the first time?
Xavier watched her.
And came more disturbed.
His brows knit as he walked closer to her. He knew her, did he not?
Xavier stood across the faro table from her, waiting for the puzzle pieces to sort themselves. She glanced up and her gaze held his for a brief moment. She quickly looked away.
He walked around the table and leaned towards her ear. ‘May I have a moment to speak with you, miss?’
She bowed her head and allowed him to lead her out of the room.
He brought her to a private corner of the hallway and backed her against the wall. ‘What the devil are you doing here, Phillipa?’
She glared at him. ‘How did you know it was me?’
How did he know? The set of her shoulders. The tilt of her chin. Her smile. ‘It was not that difficult.’
‘Rhysdale did not recognise me.’ That chin lifted.
‘He does not know you as I do.’ But he would not allow her to change the subject. ‘Why are you here?’
She shrugged. ‘To gamble. Why else?’
‘Who is with you?’ Her brothers were gone. And, if they had not been, they would have had to answer to him for bringing their sister here.
‘No one,’ she said.
‘No one?’ She could not have come alone. ‘How did you get here?’
She gave him a defiant look. ‘I walked.’
Walked? ‘Alone?’
She did not waver. ‘Yes, alone.’
He seized her arm. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? You cannot walk about alone at night.’
‘It is only a few streets.’ She continued to stare into his eyes. ‘Besides, Ned and Hugh taught me how to defend myself.’ She lifted her skirt and showed him a sheathed knife attached to her calf.
As if she would have time to draw it, if a man accosted her. As if such a man could not easily grab it from her hand.
‘And that makes you safe.’ He spoke with sarcasm.
‘There were plenty of people about and street lamps were lit along Piccadilly. It was like walking in daytime.’
He doubted that. He also doubted that she was there for the simple reason of gambling. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us talk in the supper room.’
The supper room served wine and spirits and a buffet supper. Designed in the style of Robert Adam, its décor was light and airy, the opposite of the game room with its darker colours. Chairs and tables covered with white linens were arranged for conversation. Along one wall stood a huge buffet table upon which were set out a variety of cold meats, cheeses, cakes and compotes. Patrons could help themselves to the food and sit at tables covered with white linen. Servants attended the room, providing drink.
The supper room was a needed respite from the high emotions in the game room, Xavier thought.
‘Be seated. I’ll get you something to eat.’ He led her to a table set away from the few people seated in the room and made his way to the buffet.
To his dismay, Rhys was in the room, chatting with some gentlemen seated not too far away from the white pianoforte in the corner.
Xavier glanced back at Phillipa, whose posture had stiffened. She, too, had noticed Rhys.
Rhys excused himself and crossed the room to Xavier. ‘I noticed we have a new woman patron.’ He faced Xavier but his back was to Phillipa. ‘What is wrong with her? She did not seem to be falling at your feet like other woman.’
Xavier’s good looks did not matter one jot to Rhys. In fact, Rhys was perhaps the only person, besides Xavier’s own family, of whom he could say such a thing. Rhys was no fool, though. He knew women were attracted to Xavier.
Xavier evaded the question. ‘I am reasonably sure she is merely here for the gambling. Not the sort to cause trouble.’
Rhys laughed. ‘I thought you’d met your match.’
Xavier shook his head.
Rhys put a hand on Xavier’s arm. ‘I have a favour to ask of you.’
During the war, Rhys twice saved Xavier’s life. At Badajoz. At Quatre Bras. Xavier would have done the same for Rhys. ‘What is it?’
Rhys glanced around. ‘Take over the club for a few days, will you? The gentlemen with whom I was conversing have an investment that may interest me, but it would require a few days’ travel.’
‘Certainly,’ Xavier agreed. ‘What sort of investment?’
‘Steam engines,’ Rhys replied.
‘Steam engines?’ The machines that had caused such riots and unrest in the textile industry?
‘Expanding their use. Making them smaller. Steam engines will do great things, you will see.’ Rhys wanted another way to build wealth besides a gambling house. He’d never intended to make gambling his life.
Gambling and soldiering had enabled Rhys to survive after Rhys’s mother died and Lord Westleigh abandoned him to the streets. Xavier, on the other hand, had grown up amidst luxury and the devotion of his parents and siblings. They made unusual friends.
Xavier nodded. ‘If it looks to be a good investment, make certain I have a share.’
Rhys leaned forwards. ‘If it is the sort of investment I expect, I may be asking you to take over the gaming house altogether.’
Run the gaming house? Xavier would do it. He delighted at doing the unexpected. Nearly everyone he’d ever met expected him to coast through life on his looks, but that was the last thing Xavier intended to do. He’d prove himself by skill, cunning, strength. Character. He’d already proved himself a good gambler, a brave soldier; he’d not mind proving he could run the best gaming house in London.
He glanced back at Phillipa. ‘I’ll take over the gaming house, if it comes to that, Rhys. But now I had better not keep this lady waiting.’
Rhys clapped him on the back and left the room.
Xavier brought two plates of food to the table where Phillipa waited.
‘You must not have told him,’ she said as he placed a plate before her.
‘Told him?’ Ah, she thought he would tell Rhys about her. ‘Of course not.’ He meant no one to know she’d come here. ‘I am going to get you through this folly of yours without injury to your person or your reputation.’
‘Reputation?’ She made a disparaging sound. ‘After what you told me about my father today, is not the whole family drenched in scandal? What does my reputation matter now?’
He signalled to a servant to bring some wine. ‘Society has always known your father to be a gambler and a philanderer. His self-exile to the Continent will seem like an honourable act. Your family’s reputation should stay intact.’
The wine arrived and Phillipa took a sip.
Her voice dipped low. ‘No matter. I have no need to preserve a reputation. That is for marriageable young ladies or matrons concerned about children.’
He felt a stab of sympathy. ‘You do not intend to marry?’
She glanced away. ‘Do not be absurd. You know what is beneath this mask.’ She turned back to him with a defiant gaze. ‘So there is nothing to risk. If I am attacked on the street, what will it matter?’
‘Do not pretend to be stupid, Phillipa,’ he growled. ‘A horror could befall you much worse than a cut on a face.’ At Badajoz he’d seen what violence men could inflict on women.
She blinked. ‘I know.’
He pushed the plate closer to her. ‘Have a bit of cake and let us speak of other things besides horrors.’
She obliged him and he found himself fascinated by the small bite she took of the cake, of her licking a crumb off her lip. Her lips were a most appealing shade of pink.
‘I am not really so much in the doldrums, you know,’ she went on. ‘I was merely trying to provoke you.’
He grinned. ‘Poke me and I’ll poke you back.’
They’d played that game as children. Much to his annoyance, as he recalled.
She pursed her lips. ‘You had better not poke me. I poke back much better than I used to. I am no longer a little girl, you know.’
He could not help but let his gaze peruse her. ‘I know.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Do not make a jest of me, Xavier.’
A jest? He was seeing her as a man sees a woman. ‘You ought to know me better, Phillipa.’
‘I do not know you at all now.’ Her expression turned bleak. ‘It has been a long time since we were children.’
‘I have not changed.’ He had changed, though. He’d once told himself he’d always look out for her, but he’d left her behind, a mere memory, as he grew to manhood and went to war.
‘I have changed.’ She lifted her chin again. ‘I have become quite independent, you know.’
‘Hence the excursion to a gaming hell.’ He touched her hand, but quickly withdrew.
Her fingers folded. ‘A gaming hell makes it sound so nefarious. It is rather staid, though. What a disappointment.’
He frowned. ‘What did you expect?’
‘Some debauchery, at least!’ She laughed. ‘I did not know what to expect, but my curiosity was piqued to see what my brothers thought would be the saving of our family. And of our village and its people. There are a great deal of counters being won and lost.’
‘In gambling, the house always has the advantage. Rhys’s success has been beyond everyone’s expectations.’ And Xavier vowed he’d make even more money from it.
Phillipa finished her wine. ‘May I return to the tables, Xavier? I still have money left to lose.’
He didn’t want to take her back to the game room. Not all the patrons of the place were gentlemen. She was too attractive—alluring, even—and she was alone. ‘Rhys is in the game room.’
‘Are you afraid he’ll recognise me this time?’ she asked.
‘You should worry over it,’ he countered. ‘He might recognise you. Or someone else might.’
Her eyes shifted. ‘No they won’t. They have never looked at me long enough to recognise me in a mask.’ She stood. ‘I wish to return to the tables. I was getting accustomed to faro. I believe I will play some more.’
He had no choice but to stand. ‘Very well, Phillipa.’
When they walked back to the doorway, she inclined her head towards the piano. ‘Who plays for you?’
He shrugged. ‘No one. It is left from the previous owner.’ Who also ran a brothel here as well as a gaming house, but she did not need to know that. A young fellow played the piano and the girls sang and flirted with the men.
He escorted Phillipa back to the game room and left her at the faro table where he had found her.
‘Campion brought you back?’ One of the men gave her a flirtatious look. ‘We despaired of ever seeing you again. Has the pick of the ladies, that one has.’
Xavier did not hear Phillipa’s response.
He could not hover around her, though. He’d only call more attention to her. There were gossips in the crowd who would make it their business to discover who she was.
He would watch from afar, in case she needed assistance, and when she made ready to leave, it would not be alone.
He stepped in to the hall where Cummings attended the door.
No one entered or left without Cummings knowing of it. ‘Do you recall the new woman who came earlier, the masked one in the dark-green gown?’ Xavier asked.
Cummings nodded.
‘When she is ready to leave, detain her and alert me. Do not allow her to leave until I speak with her.’
Cummings nodded again and, if he thought anything odd in this request, made no comment. But, then, Cummings rarely commented about anything.
‘I thank you, Cummings.’
Xavier returned to the game room, glancing first to see that Phillipa still played at the faro table. He’d keep an eye on her as well as on the other gamblers, and he’d be ready to see that Phillipa arrived safely to her town-house door.
* * *
After Xavier left her at the faro table, Phillipa’s very limited interest in gambling waned even further, but she persisted, merely to show him he could not drive her away.
One of the gentlemen who’d escorted her to the cashier and to the gaming room approached her. ‘Are you enjoying yourself, ma’am?’
How unexpected it was to be called ‘ma’am’ as if she were a married lady.
Xavier glanced in her direction so she smiled at the gentleman. ‘I am indeed. I even win sometimes.’
The gentleman laughed. ‘That is the main purpose of coming here.’ One brow rose. ‘Or do you have another purpose in mind?’
By his very significant look, she knew he meant something of consequence. She was not sure, but it could be flirtation. How very unexpected, if so.
‘The gambling attracts me, of course.’ Why not simply ask him what he means? ‘What else could there be?’
His eyes flitted over her person. ‘I saw that Mr Campion singled you out for notice. Are you to be another of his conquests?’
Her smile stiffened. This was the second man to suggest such a thing. ‘Another of his conquests? Goodness! How many does he have?’
He slid Xavier a jealous look. ‘He can have any woman he wishes.’
That did not precisely answer her question.
No matter. What difference to her how many women fell for the handsome Xavier Campion? What woman would not? She’d always known women found him irresistible.
For some odd reason, it bothered her to hear this man say so.
‘Does he wish to claim you?’ the man persisted.
Surely this was impertinence. Apparently impertinence was acceptable behaviour in a gaming house. And perhaps this gentleman did not think her a young lady worthy of respect.
That was why most of the women in the room wore masks, was it not? They would be scorned and their reputations ruined if their identities were known here. The masks protected them.
Ironically her mask merely assured that a gentleman would speak to her. He certainly would not have done if he had seen her face.
She turned back to the faro table. ‘I do believe Mr Campion merely wished to welcome me to the house.’
The man bowed. ‘I do understand.’
He understood? She wished she did. She’d intended to merely avoid his question. There was nothing to be understood.
He walked away.
She shook her head. If that man intended a flirtation, he gave up too easily.
She caught Xavier looking at her and, as she turned away from him, caught a woman glaring at her. Out of jealousy? Now this was a unique experience. A woman shooting daggers of jealousy at her instead of melting with pity.
All this was new. New people. New experiences. If she’d not consumed a little too much wine when with Xavier and if the hour were not so dreadfully late, her heart would be racing with excitement. She found it difficult to keep from yawning, though. Her mask itched and her feet hurt and she yearned to be between the cool linens of her bed.
She should leave.
Phillipa walked out of the room and cashed in her counters with the cashier. She’d lost money, but it hardly signified since the money simply went back to her family. She made her way to the hall to collect her cape and gloves. The same taciturn hall servant stood there.
And so did Xavier.
When the servant walked off to get her things, she faced him. ‘Making sure that I leave, Xavier?’
‘No.’ He did not look pleased. ‘I will walk you home.’
‘That is not necessary, I assure you,’ she responded. ‘I am perfectly capable of walking by myself.’
‘Regardless, I will walk you home.’
The servant brought her cloak and Xavier took it from him. He stepped towards Phillipa and placed it around her shoulders. The touch of his hands on her shoulders caused a frisson of sensation down her back.
She disliked being so affected by Xavier Campion. It made her think of how she’d felt dancing with him. The thrill of coming close to him, of touching him.
The servant opened the door and the cool evening air revived her.
Phillipa crossed over the threshold with Xavier right behind her. ‘I do not need an escort.’
He fell in step with her. ‘Nevertheless, I need to do this.’
She scoffed. ‘Do not be absurd. You can have the company of any woman you like. One of the gentlemen told me so.’
His step slowed for a moment. ‘Phillipa, if any danger should befall you on this walk home, I would never forgive myself for not preventing it.’
He sounded so serious.
‘So dramatic, Xavier. I am not your responsibility.’
His voice turned low. ‘At this moment, you are.’
It was very late. Three in the morning, at least, and she had never walked the streets of Mayfair at such an hour. Certainly not with a man at her side.
A man like Xavier.
But she must not think of him like that.
They crossed Piccadilly and as they headed towards Berkeley Square, their footsteps sounded a rhythm broken only by the echoing of a carriage or hackney coach somewhere in the distance. Other sounds—voices, music—wafted to her ears, only to fade quickly. She concentrated on the sounds, searching for a melody she might recreate on her pianoforte, a melody that would sound like the night felt. Cool, peaceful, empty.
‘Are you talking to yourself, Phillipa?’ Xavier asked.
She’d been lost in her music. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Your lips were moving.’
She’d been playing the music to herself. How daft she must appear. ‘I—I hear music in the sounds of the night. I try to remember them.’
‘Music?’ He could not hear the music, obviously.
‘In our footsteps. The carriages.’ She shrugged. ‘The other sounds.’
He paused before responding. ‘I see.’
Her mask irritated her face. She untied it and pulled it off, rubbing her scar before concealing her face with the hood of her cloak.
‘I like music,’ she explained. ‘I have studied music and the pianoforte a great deal over the last few years.’ Since that ball when she’d first danced with him. Of course, she’d never played ‘The Nonesuch’ again, though it had once been a favourite of hers. ‘It is my greatest pleasure.’
‘Is it?’ He acted as if interested. ‘I should like to hear you play.’
Such a polite thing to say. The sort of thing one says when pretending an interest that doesn’t truly exist. Like choosing a dance partner as a favour to one’s mother’s friend.
‘I play the pianoforte alone. It consumes my time.’ She made it seem as if she preferred not to have an audience when she really longed to play for others, to discover if her compositions and her technique had any merit.
He stopped speaking for a half a street.
She regretted snapping at him. ‘I think I spend too much time with my music. I think that is why I did not notice that my family was in distress.’
‘You isolated yourself.’ He sounded as if that would be a sad thing.
‘Too much, perhaps,’ she admitted. ‘That is the main reason I decided to visit the Masquerade Club.’
‘Could you not simply decide to attend balls and routs and musicales instead?’ His tone disapproved.
She was invisible in such places. No one looked at her if they could help it. No one spoke to her if they could avoid it.
When she donned the mask this night all that changed. ‘Perhaps balls and routs and musciales are not exciting enough for me.’
His fingers closed around her arm and he stopped walking. ‘Too much excitement can be dangerous. You must not play with fire, Phillipa.’
‘Fire?’ She laughed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that men will notice you at the gaming house. They will not expect you to be an innocent young girl.’
‘Innocent girl? Young? I am three and twenty. Quite on the shelf.’ But devoid of any experience, of that he was correct.
They walked again. ‘You have had your excitement,’ he went on. ‘Go back to playing your music now.’
She was eager to return to her music room, to write down the notes she’d heard in the sounds of the street at three in the morning, the sounds of a gaming hell, of his voice.
But she could not be done with the Masquerade Club. She wished to see and hear more; she wished to experience more.
Too bad for him. ‘I plan to return.’
‘No!’ he growled.
She lifted her chin. ‘I fully realise you do not wish me around you, Xavier, but it is you who have insinuated yourself into my company, not the reverse.’
‘You wrong me again.’ He sounded angry. ‘We are old friends, Phillipa. I owe you my protection as sure as if you were one of my sisters.’
‘Once, perhaps, you were under an obligation to do me a kindness.’ Her chest ached in memory. ‘Not any more.’
A carriage clattered by and she forced herself to listen to the horses’ hooves clapping against the cobbles, the wheels turning, the springs creaking.
She made it into music inside her head so she would not have to speak more to him, nor think about the thrill of him walking beside her, a sensation distracting in the extreme.
Would her old school friends still envy her as they’d once done when she’d danced with him all those years ago? Her friends were all married now. Some very well. Some very happily. She’d lost touch with most of them, although on the rare occasion her mother convinced her to attend some society event, she often saw some of them. Her most regular correspondence was with Felicia, who moved to Ireland when she married and never returned to England. Felicia’s letters were all about her children, her worries about the poor and her fears of typhus. Felicia would probably not even remember when Phillipa had danced with the most handsome man at the ball. How trivial it would seem to her if she did.
They reached Davies Street and the Westleigh town house.
‘Will someone let you in?’ Xavier asked, walking her directly to the door.
She pulled a key from her reticule. ‘No one will even know I’ve been gone.’
He took the key from her hand and turned it in the lock. As he opened the door, she stepped closer to slip in.
‘Farewell, Phillipa,’ he murmured, handing her back the key, standing so close his breath warmed her face. His voice felt as warm around her.
‘Xavier,’ she whispered back, unable to thank him for doing something she didn’t want, battling a familiar yearning she thought she’d defeated years ago.
She closed the door quietly and set her chin. ‘I will see you when night falls again,’ she said, knowing he could not hear.
Chapter Three
The next day Xavier saw Rhys off to travel north to look into this steam engine venture. That night, as other nights, Xavier walked through the gaming room, watching to see if all ran smoothly. From the beginning of the Masquerade Club he’d assisted Rhys in this task. The croupiers and the regular patrons were now used to him, but he’d needed to earn their respect.
It was not unusual for other men to underestimate him. He knew their thinking—that a man with his looks could not possibly have anything of substance to offer. Soldiers in his regiment had scoffed at his capacity to lead them until he proved himself in battle. Even the enemy on the battlefield took one look at him and dropped their guard. He could still see the surprised faces of those who felt the sharp edge of his sabre.
Xavier always believed he possessed courage, strength, cunning, but battle had tested it and proved it to him once and for all.
But he was done with war and fighting. He’d seen enough blood and suffering and death.
Xavier shook off the memories and made another circuit of the room. He paused at the hazard table, watching the men and women throw away fortunes with the roll of the dice, paying close attention to the dice, making certain they were not weighted.
Hazard, so dependent upon chance, had never interested him. To own the truth, even games of skill had lost their appeal. He’d demonstrated to the sceptics—and to himself—that he could win at cards. He possessed a tidy fortune to show for it.
Running the Masquerade Club was his latest challenge. Making it a success, in terms of popularity and profitability, was a game he intended to win. When Rhys returned, the house would be showing greater profits and more patrons than ever before.
Xavier knew he could be good at this. Hadn’t he been the one to notice the irregularities at the hazard table, the ones that so involved Lady Gale and ultimately Lord Westleigh?
Good riddance to that man. Everyone was better off with him gone. Especially Lord Westleigh’s family.
Especially Phillipa.
Lord Westleigh had been on the brink of ruining Phillipa’s life.
She had changed from that waif-like little girl he’d vowed to protect at Brighton. He’d been nearly five years older than she, but after her injury that summer, he’d made himself her champion, doing his best to distract her from her scar and keep sadness and despair at bay. He’d repeated this charge every summer until his family no longer summered at Brighton.
He’d never forgotten her.
In 1814, when Napoleon had been banished to Elba and peace briefly reigned on the Continent, Xavier found her again and danced with her at one of the Season’s balls. She’d seemed as light-hearted and gay as her many friends. And as pretty—if one ignored her scar. He’d looked forward to a second dance that night and a chance to spend more time with her, but she’d taken ill, her mother said. And he’d left for his regiment the next day.
Phillipa had changed in these last five years, though. She was remote. Guarded. As if she’d built a wall around herself, too deep and high to breach.
At least he’d seen her home safely last night. It had been foolish of her to come to the Masquerade Club alone. Still, he wished he could see her again.
Two men and a woman at the faro table parted and his wish came true.
There Phillipa stood.
She’d come back, even though he’d told her not to.
She glanced at him at that moment, straightening her spine defiantly. He acknowledged her with a nod.
He had a mind to march over, seize her arm and drag her out of this room, out of this gaming house and back to her home. Such a disruption would not be good for the house. And he certainly did not want to cause her undue attention.
He waited.
Finally she walked out of the room. He leaned over to one of the croupiers. ‘I’ll be right back.’
He caught up to her in the hallway. They were alone. ‘Phillipa.’
She turned and held her head high.
‘Are you leaving?’ He would not allow her to walk home alone.
She did not answer right away. ‘I am going to the supper room.’
He took her arm. ‘I will come with you.’
When they entered the room, she strode directly to the buffet and made her own selections.
He asked one of the servants to bring wine to his table, selecting one far enough away that the other diners could not hear their conversation. The wine arrived before she left the buffet.
She turned and paused as if trying to decide whether to join him or not. Tossing her head, she carried her plate to his table and sat down in silence.
He leaned towards her. ‘What possessed you to return here, Phillipa? I told you not to.’
She sipped her wine. ‘You told me I’d had enough excitement, as if you could know.’
‘This is not a fit place for you.’ How could he convince her? ‘Not all who come here are gentlemen and ladies.’
‘Enough, Xavier.’ She glared at him. ‘I will not be treated as if I am still seven years old. My half-brother made this a place ladies could gamble and so I shall gamble here. You cannot and will not stop me.’
She was right. He could not stop her. But he did have an obligation to her. He’d always had an obligation to her. ‘Do you intend to come again?’
‘Of course.’ She smiled smugly. ‘As often as I wish.’
‘Name the nights you will come and the times. I will escort you to and from the place.’ He could at least see she was safe on the streets.
‘No!’ she snapped.
‘Why?’ This was more foolishness. ‘It is to keep you safe.’
She held his gaze with an obstinate look. Finally she said, ‘Very well, but only if you agree not to tell Rhysdale.’
He’d never had any intention to tell Rhys. ‘Very well.’
Their conversation became more companionable after that. She asked about some of the patrons and he told her frankly which men were gentlemen and which were not. She asked questions about the running of the Masquerade Club, about the collection of the money, especially for the card games. She asked about profits and the potential for losses.
She had a quick mind, grasping the workings of the place as quickly as did her brother Hugh.
* * *
After half an hour, she rose to leave. As they walked towards the door and passed the pianoforte, Phillipa ran her fingers over the keyboard. ‘It seems a shame that no one ever plays. This is a pretty instrument.’
‘It has a nice sound, as I recall.’ Under Madame Bisou, the previous owner, music and raucous singing had filled the room for part of the night.
Phillipa looked at him with a careful expression. ‘I will play for you, if you will allow me to.’
He cocked his head, thinking. It would keep her out of the gaming room, at least.
He gestured to the piano bench. ‘Give it a try, Phillipa. Play whatever you like.’
She smiled. ‘Not tonight. Tomorrow night.’
* * *
The next night Xavier met Phillipa outside her town house at the agreed upon hour. He walked with her through Mayfair, crossing Piccadilly to St James’s Street and finally to the gaming hell. She headed straight to the supper room and the pianoforte.
He stayed to listen to her. If she was dreadful, he could stop her. Amateurs were often dreadful. Enough wrong notes, enough singing off-key and people would find another house in which to gamble. That would not happen under his watch.
Her first song he’d heard before—‘I Have A Silent Sorrow Here’, a song of unrequited love. The strings of the pianoforte and her voice resonated with emotion. She sang the song so beautifully it convinced him she had once loved a man who did not love her.
Who the devil was that man? That man who hurt her so? Was that what caused her to isolate herself? Had he made her bitter and unhappy?
The second song had a similar theme, although he’d never heard the tune before. Even more melancholic than the first, she sang of watching her beloved across a room and of being invisible to him.
He forgot about anything but the pain and sadness of her song, the emotion in her voice. He’d failed at his youthful vow to protect her. He’d not been there when this man wounded her. He clenched a fist. He’d like to find that fellow now.
She next played something light-hearted and he woke from his reverie. He glanced at the faces in the supper room. The people seated there abandoned their conversations. With rapt expressions, they all turned toward Phillipa.
The only way Phillipa would be a liability to the gaming house was if patrons abandoned the gaming tables to come hear her perform.
Xavier yearned to abandon his duties to stay to listen to her, but he’d already spent enough time away from the gaming room. He reluctantly left the supper room. In the gaming room the sounds were not melodic. Voices humming, dice rolling, cards shuffling. Although the sound of her voice and of the pianoforte sometimes broke through the din.
* * *
She did not stay long that evening, only a little more than two hours. As she promised to do, she sent word to him when she wished to go home. To escort her home would take little more than a half-hour. For that amount of time he could leave the club in the hands of Rhys’s employees.
They stepped out into the cool night air.
Her spirits were so high, she seemed irrepressible. It reminded him of that long-ago ball.
‘You enjoyed yourself tonight?’ he guessed.
She almost danced down the pavement. ‘I did. No one seemed disappointed in my playing.’
‘You did very well.’
She did more than very well.
‘Did I?’ She skipped ahead of him and faced him while walking backwards. ‘Do you truly think so?’
She pulled off her mask and the gas lamps illuminated her face, making it glow. Her happiness made her beautiful.
His heart swelled for her. ‘I know little of music, but I enjoyed what I heard.’
She grinned and twirled around. ‘That is all I wish!’
She chattered on about the songs she’d sung and played, reviewing her mistakes, assessing what went well. He liked listening to her. It reminded him of when she’d been a little girl and he’d been able to get her to happily chatter on.
In no time at all they reached her door and he put the key in the lock.
She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you so much, Xavier. You have made me very happy tonight.’
Her lips felt soft and warm.
He wrapped his arms around her and brought his lips within a hair’s breadth of hers. He felt her breasts rise and fall against his chest, further tantalising him. Her eyes grew wide as her mouth opened in alarm.
Banking his impulses, he lightly touched his lips to hers.
When he released her, his breath came faster. ‘I want you always to be happy, Phillipa,’ he murmured. ‘Same time tomorrow?’
She blinked up him, her brow puzzled. ‘Same time tomorrow.’
He opened the door and she slipped inside.
It took him a moment to move away.
He’d appointed himself her protector, but perhaps his hardest task would be to protect her from himself.
* * *
For the next four nights Xavier met Phillipa at her town house and returned her home again. They walked side by side through the night with only the occasional gaslight or rush light to break through the darkness. There were few carriages in the streets and fewer still pedestrians sharing the pavement. They talked of her music and the patrons who attended the gaming house, traded stories of what transpired in the supper room and in the game room.
Xavier was careful not to touch her, at least not to touch her in the way he most desired. The old camaraderie from their childhood days might have returned, but what consumed Xavier’s senses was the woman Phillipa had become. So graceful. So quick-witted. So passionate.
So unaffected by him.
How ironic that he should desire a woman who gave no sign at all of desiring him.
It was fortunate, he supposed, because this idyll could not continue indefinitely. When Rhys returned her performances would stop, and, Xavier suspected, Phillipa would have no more use for him. Still, he did not regret his decision to allow her to perform.
It brought her joy.
It even brought increased profits. People came to The Masquerade Club to hear her play and they stayed to gamble.
Could he contrive to see her when it was over? Would she receive him? Did he want to push himself on a woman who did not want him? God knew, he detested being pursued by someone he did not want.
This night she performed for two hours, as had become her custom, and sent word to Xavier that she was ready to leave. As they’d done on previous nights, they stepped out into the night air and began to share the night’s events with each other. This night, though, when they crossed Piccadilly and made their way to the unlit streets of Mayfair, Xavier felt a change in the air. It was nothing more than an odd sound, an unfamiliar shadow, but the soldier in him went on alert.
When he and Phillipa reached Hay Hill, the hairs on the back of his neck rose and he could almost hear the drum beat of the pas de charge.
He stopped her and lowered his voice. ‘Do you still carry your dagger?’
‘Yes.’ She caught his nerves.
‘Pull it and hand it to me now.’
She did as he asked.
As soon as the knife was in his hands, three men burst from the darkness. One, stinking of drink, seized him from behind and dragged him into the Brunton Mews. Xavier twisted his way free and slashed the dagger at the man, slicing in to a tattered uniform. In his ears he heard the sounds of battle. Muskets firing. Cannons booming. Men and horses screaming.
But this was not battle.
Another man grabbed for his wrist and tried to wrest the knife from his grasp. Xavier whirled on him, kicked him in the groin and sent him sprawling.
The third man had Phillipa in his grip. Xavier strained to come to her aid, but the first man set on him again.
‘We need money,’ the man cried. No doubt he was a former soldier now driven to theft and violence.
‘Leave us! Release her!’ Xavier lunged at him, slicing the man’s cheek and neck with his blade.
The man cried out and clapped his hand to his face. Blood dripped through the man’s fingers and on to his uniform. Xavier turned away at the sight and saw the second man regain his feet. Xavier’s thoughts were only on Phillipa.
She struggled to free herself. She gripped her captor’s hair and pulled it hard, before stomping on the man’s foot.
The second man went to aid the man fighting with Phillipa. Xavier launched himself forwards and seized the man’s collar, pulling him away.
That man pulled a knife. ‘Not so brave now, pretty boy.’ He laughed. ‘Give us your money.’
One more man underestimating him.
Xavier lifted his hands as if surrendering. ‘I want no trouble.’
The man sneered in contempt and lowered his hands slightly, the chance Xavier anticipated. He let out a cry, so fierce and wild, the man shrank back. Xavier charged straight for him, his fist connecting to the man’s chin. The man’s knife dropped to the street.
Xavier slammed him against the wall of the building and put the dagger to his throat. ‘Not so brave now, are you?’
‘Don’t cut me! Don’t cut me!’ the man pleaded.
Xavier snarled, ‘Leave now and you leave with your lives.’
The man nodded in fear. ‘We’re leaving. We’re leaving!’ He raised his hands in the air and Xavier stepped away. The man sidled away and grabbed the arm of the man still trying to stop the bleeding of the cut to his face.
The third man now had Phillipa’s reticule in his grip. She would not release it. His eyes widened when his companions ran off and Xavier advanced on him. Phillipa blocked the man’s escape. He picked her up and thrust her aside.
She hit the pavement flat on her face, her forehead bouncing on to its hard surface.
She did not move.
‘Phillipa!’ Xavier ran to her.
* * *
Phillipa heard a man call her name.
She scented sea air and heard waves rolling on to the shore. She felt small and frightened and in pain. Her face hurt and she tasted blood.
She tried to move, but the wind had been knocked out of her. ‘Phillipa!’ the voice called again.
A man’s hands turned her on her back. The darkness had melded into dusk and the air was briny.
‘Wake up, my girl,’ the voice said.
She opened her eyes and her vision filled with the face of a man. A stranger to her, but she’d seen him before, in this exact way—or so it felt.
‘Phillipa, wake up.’ The face changed before her eyes, turning into Xavier’s face.
She gasped.
‘Are you hurt?’ Xavier’s hands were all over her, touching her arms, her legs, her torso. ‘Did he hurt you?’
This was not at the seaside?
No, it was London. She and Xavier had been walking home. This was not Brighton. She was not a little girl. This was Xavier with her.
‘I’m not hurt,’ she managed.
She tried to sit up. His arms embraced her and lifted her to her feet. He held her against him. ‘I thought you were hurt.’ He held her tighter. ‘I thought I had lost you.’
She remembered men jumping out of the darkness at them. She remembered fighting to be free.
But for a moment she’d been back in Brighton. She’d seen a different man lean over her. He appeared as real as Xavier appeared now.
She trembled. She’d seen something that was not really there.
Panic rose inside her, kept at bay only because of the strength of his arms. He comforted her. She was safe. Xavier held her.
He loosened his grip. ‘I must get you home.’
Supporting her weight with one arm, he led her out of the mews, past Berkeley Square to Davies Street.
Her head throbbed as she remembered he’d had to fight off two men. ‘Did they hurt you?’ she asked. ‘Did they get your money?’ Her reticule still dangled from her arm.
His voice turned low and fierce. ‘Not that miserable lot of ruffians.’
They reached her door and he embraced her again. ‘I should have prevented that attack. We should not have been walking at this hour. I was wrong to agree to this.’
If he had not been with her, what would have happened to her? There had been three of them.
Her heart pounded, anticipating what would come next. He intended to forbid her to come to the Masquerade Club. He would stop her performances right when she was learning about how to make the music most entertaining. He would take it all away.
She could not bear it.
‘Do not forbid me this, Xavier.’ Her voice trembled and her head ached.
‘It is not safe, Phillipa,’ he insisted. ‘You simply cannot take the risk.’
The hood of her cloak had fallen away, exposing her disfigurement. She pulled it up again and put the key in the lock, turning it.
He covered her hand with his. ‘Phillipa, do not come to the gaming house. Do not try it alone.’
She opened the door and turned to him. ‘May I have my dagger back?’
He hesitated, but finally handed it to her.
‘Thank you, Xavier.’ Impulsively she threw her arms around him. ‘You saved us both.’
To her surprise, he returned her embrace with one of his own. He held her against him so tightly it seemed as if he would never release her.
‘Phillipa,’ he rasped in her ear, as if wanting something more of her, but she did not know what.
She only knew she felt even more shaken when he finally released her and she hurried inside the house.
Chapter Four
Phillipa tossed and turned in her bed. If she drifted into sleep, her attacker returned, jarring her awake. Worse, in her dream, the attacker bore the face of the man she’d seen in her vision.
She must call it a vision. What else could it be? She’d seen something that did not exist. Not only seen, she’d actually been in another place, a place that smelled and sounded like the seaside.
Like Brighton.
Was she going mad?
She closed her eyes and made herself imagine the image of her real attacker. And then she purposely recalled the face of the phantom man. She could remember both, but remembering was not remotely akin to what she had experienced. Seeing the phantom face, feeling as if she were in another place, those were not mere memories.
Even now, safe in her home, in her bed, she trembled in fear. It made no sense to feel afraid now; she’d not been excessively afraid during the attack. Fear had not been a part of fighting off her attacker and refusing to give him her reticule. The terror had come when she fell and that phantom face appeared.
It had seemed so very real.
If it were not enough to worry about going mad, her head also hurt like the dickens. She rose from bed and, by the dawning light from the window, peered at herself in her dressing table mirror. Her forehead bore a nasty scrape.
Phillipa walked back to her bed and pulled off a blanket. She wrapped it around herself and curled up in a chair to watch the light from the window grow brighter.
Her maid entered the room quietly and jumped when Phillipa turned towards her in the chair. ‘My lady!’
‘I could not sleep, Lacey.’ Phillipa stretched. ‘I might as well dress, I suppose.’
Her maid helped her into a morning dress and stood behind her to pin up her hair as she sat at the dressing table.
The girl glanced at her in the mirror. ‘What happened to your forehead?’
‘It is nothing,’ Phillipa answered quickly. ‘I...I bumped into the wall by accident.’
The maid looked sceptical.
Lacey was younger than Phillipa and had been hired as Phillipa’s lady’s maid after the Westleighs arrived in London for the Season. How nice it would be if Phillipa could confide in her about how her injury came about.
‘I’ll just wear a cap today,’ Phillipa said as the maid pinned up her hair. ‘We need not mention my injury to my mother. No need to worry her.’ A cap should hide the scrape well enough. Besides, her mother never looked at her too closely these days.
The girl nodded. ‘Yes, miss.’
Once dressed, Phillipa went straight to her music room. She placed her fingers on the keys of the pianoforte and tried to release the emotions inside her. The keys produced dissonant, unharmonious sounds and her fear returned, as if her world were crumbling around her and she could not stop it, the same feeling she experienced when she fell.
Her music reflected the confusion inside her. No phrase complemented any other.
She became dimly aware of a rapping at the door, but she did not stop playing. Whoever it was would eventually go away.
Suddenly her mother stood before her, shocking her as much as if her mother had been a vision herself.
‘Gracious, Phillipa! At least play a tune. This noise grates upon my nerves.’ Her mother pressed her fingers to her forehead.
Phillipa and her mother had barely spoken since the quarrel that sent Phillipa in search of answers about her family. And led her to Xavier. Now she could not speak of what she’d learned without revealing that she knew of the Masquerade Club.
Phillipa lifted her hands from the keys. ‘As you wish, Mama.’
She softly played ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, reciting the words in her head—Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone.
She’d not felt alone since Xavier allowed her to perform at the Masquerade Club.
‘When do Ned and Hugh return from wherever they are?’ She knew her mother would not tell her, but it might make her leave the room before noticing Phillipa’s bruise.
Her mother, still straight-backed and regal though in her fifty-fifth year, pursed her lips before answering, ‘Please do not tease me about their whereabouts. I have no wish to have that discussion with you again.’
Phillipa continued to play pianissimo.
‘Do you come to Lady Danderson’s musical evening with me tonight?’ Her mother’s tone dripped with disapproval. No doubt she expected Phillipa to refuse.
She was correct ‘I think not.’
Her mother swept a dramatic arm encompassing the pianoforte and half the room. ‘Why not? I thought you loved music.’
Phillipa shot her a sharp look, but averted her eyes. No sense revisiting her mother’s displeasure at her retreat from society. ‘It is to be an amateur performance, is it not? Lady Danderson’s daughters and other young ladies and gentlemen of her choosing?’
‘It is,’ her mother admitted.
‘But she has not chosen me.’
Her mother cleared her throat. ‘That is true, but...’
Phillipa stopped playing. ‘I do understand it, Mama. The performers are eligible young people. She wishes them to show off to good advantage.’ Phillipa did not need to explain to her mother that she would never show off to good advantage. Her mother would be first to agree. ‘There is no reason for me to be there.’
‘Well, there is the music,’ her mother added.
Phillipa resumed playing and the final lines of the song came to her—Oh! Who would inhabit this bleak world alone? ‘I would not enjoy it.’
‘I will attend without you, then.’ Her mother turned away and then swung back. ‘Perhaps I will ask Miss Gale if she will come with me. She is at least a sociable sort.’
Miss Gale was the young woman Phillipa’s brother Ned wanted to marry. She was also the stepdaughter of Lady Gale, the woman carrying Rhysdale’s child, the woman who also came masked to the Masquerade Club.
‘Miss Gale will be glad of my company.’ It was her mother’s parting shot. She strode out of the room.
Phillipa’s head suddenly ached, but she moved her fingers over the keys, barely pressing them this time, searching for a melody, any melody to erase this unrest within her.
* * *
Xavier waited for Phillipa that night at their appointed place, at their appointed time. This time, however, he waited with a hackney cab.
He paced the pavement, rather hoping she would not show up, yet yearning to see her, needing to know for certain that her injuries were minor. A blow to the head could be deceiving. What if she had been truly hurt, like that long-ago time in Brighton?
He’d have failed her again, that was what. And this time it would be his fault.
The jarvey leaned down from his perch atop the coach. ‘How much longer, sir? My time is money.’
‘I’ll pay you for your time, do not fear.’ Xavier paced some more.
Her town house door finally opened and a shadowy, cloaked figure emerged.
Phillipa.
She glanced towards where he stood near the coach, pausing briefly to put on her shoes before heading in his direction. She showed no sign that she knew it was he and looked as if she intended to walk past him.
‘Phillipa,’ he called out.
She drew back.
‘It is Xavier.’ He stepped in her path. ‘I have a hackney coach.’
‘Xavier?’
He opened the coach door.
She looked uncertain. ‘You brought a hackney for me?’
‘I feared you might try to walk alone.’ Or be too injured to make the attempt, he added silently as he helped her climb into the coach.
She settled in the seat and pulled her cloak around her. ‘I did not expect this.’
Xavier sat beside her in the close quarters of the coach’s dark interior. He felt her warmth, inhaled the scent of jasmine that clung to her. Her face was shrouded by her mask, but he longed to see her for himself. Was she bruised? Did her injuries again show on her face?
‘Have you suffered any ill-effects from last night?’ he asked.
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Diane Gaston
The scars she keeps hidden…The mysterious pianiste is the Masquerade Club's newest attraction, captivating guests with her haunting music. What is the true identity of the lady concealed beneath the mask?Only Xavier Campion, the club's new proprietor, recognizes Phillipa Westleigh, the lady with whom he once shared a dance. Concerned for her safety, Xavier escorts her home each night. But when their moonlit strolls are uncovered, the only protection Xavier can offer is marriage!The Masquerade ClubIdentities concealed, desires revealed…
The servant brought her cloak and Xavier took it from him.
He stepped towards Phillipa and placed it around her shoulders, so close she felt the warmth of his body. The touch of his hands on her shoulders caused a frisson of sensation down her back.
She disliked being so affected by Xavier Campion. It made her think of how she’d felt dancing with him. The thrill of coming close to him, of touching him.
The servant opened the door and the cool evening air revived her.
Phillipa crossed over the threshold with Xavier right behind her. ‘I do not need an escort.’
He fell in step with her. ‘Nevertheless, I need to do this.’
She scoffed. ‘Do not be absurd. You can have the company of any woman you like. One of the gentlemen told me so.’
His step slowed for a moment. ‘Phillipa, if any danger should befall you on this walk home I would never forgive myself for not preventing it.’
He sounded so serious.
‘So dramatic, Xavier. I am not your responsibility.’
His voice turned low. ‘At this moment you are.’
Welcome to
Diane Gaston’s
THE MASQUERADE CLUB
Identities concealed, desires revealed …
This is your invitation to Regency society’s most exclusive gaming establishment.
Leave your inhibitions at the door, don your disguise and indulge your desires!
Club proprietor Rhys, the most renowned gambler in London, finally meets his match in
A REPUTATION FOR NOTORIETY
Already available
And now Rhys’s friend Xavier, the most devilish rogue in town, prefers to gamble with ladies’ hearts in
A MARRIAGE OF NOTORIETY
A Marriage of Notoriety
As a psychiatric social worker, Diane Gaston spent years helping others create real-life happy endings. Now Diane crafts fictional ones, writing the kind of historical romance she’s always loved to read. The youngest of three daughters of a US Army Colonel, Diane moved frequently during her childhood, even living for a year in Japan. It continues to amaze her that her own son and daughter grew up in one house in Northern Virginia. Diane still lives in that house, with her husband and three very ordinary housecats. Visit Diane’s website at http://dianegaston.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE MYSTERIOUS MISS M
THE WAGERING WIDOW
A REPUTABLE RAKE
INNOCENCE AND IMPROPRIETY
A TWELFTH NIGHT TALE
(in A Regency Christmas anthology) THE VANISHING VISCOUNTESS SCANDALISING THE TON JUSTINE AND THE NOBLE VISCOUNT† (#ulink_4595a737-ea6e-5466-ad94-8e1a2def7125) (in Regency Summer Scandals) GALLANT OFFICER, FORBIDDEN LADY* (#ulink_e66bf655-0324-534d-9ce7-373ab04f2b31) CHIVALROUS CAPTAIN, REBEL MISTRESS* (#ulink_e66bf655-0324-534d-9ce7-373ab04f2b31) VALIANT SOLDIER, BEAUTIFUL ENEMY* (#ulink_2f8ba29d-3095-5c10-9708-fda11c1b8459) A NOT SO RESPECTABLE GENTLEMAN?† (#ulink_4595a737-ea6e-5466-ad94-8e1a2def7125) BORN TO SCANDAL A REPUTATION FOR NOTORIETY** (#ulink_e66bf655-0324-534d-9ce7-373ab04f2b31)
† (#ulink_d81f61c7-fcf0-5031-8239-ee6da7384bee)linked by character
* (#ulink_d81f61c7-fcf0-5031-8239-ee6da7384bee)Three Soldiers mini-series
* (#ulink_d81f61c7-fcf0-5031-8239-ee6da7384bee)The Masquerade Club
and in Mills & Boon
HistoricalUndone! eBooks:
THE UNLACING OF MISS LEIGH
THE LIBERATION OF MISS FINCH
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks?
Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
AUTHOR NOTE
The timeless theme of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast often reappears in romance novels, as well as in Disney movies, Phantom of the Opera, King Kong and more. Do we ever tire of this story? I’ve written it before, in my Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBook THE UNLACING OF MISS LEIGH (my Phantom of the Opera story), and now in A MARRIAGE OF NOTORIETY. I dare say I will write it again.
Part of the appeal of the Beauty and the Beast theme is its message—genuine beauty is what one has on the inside, not the way one appears on the outside. How many of us look in the mirror and forget this as we examine every flaw? How often do we gaze at models in magazines or celebrities on the red carpet and feel like garden gnomes in comparison? And how much do all of us want to be loved for who we are, not the way we appear?
I enjoyed exploring this issue once more, and giving my hero and heroine their own chance to discover that beauty isn’t just skin-deep.
Dedication
For my new daughter-in-law Beth, beautiful on the inside and the outside,
and a wonderful addition to our family.
Contents
Prologue (#u40251d0f-2bc8-5141-858c-b7c45aa5a8ff)
Chapter One (#u2765be96-668b-596e-9d7a-915db7f5cde4)
Chapter Two (#u79defafa-9e4f-5449-a4ea-0f146b4665e1)
Chapter Three (#u6f7e52d8-2754-5e10-97c0-36917158d137)
Chapter Four (#ucbe76b78-19d8-5e2e-9a74-c79b0ef9da14)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
London, Spring 1814
‘Mr Xavier Campion,’ Lady Devine’s butler intoned in a baritone voice.
‘Adonis is here!’ gasped one of the young ladies standing near Phillipa Westleigh. The others shared furtive smiles.
Phillipa knew precisely who her friends would see when their gazes slipped towards the doorway. A young man tall and perfectly formed, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and muscled limbs. His hair would be as dark as the ebony keys on a pianoforte and longer than fashionable, but an excellent frame for his lean face, strong brow, sensitive mouth.
The young ladies had been tittering about him the whole evening. Would he come to the ball? Could they contrive an introduction? He’d been the main topic of conversation since they’d discovered him at the opera the night before. ‘He is an Adonis!’ one had proclaimed and the name stuck.
Phillipa had not attended the opera that night, but heard before all of them that he’d come to town. She, too, glanced to the doorway.
Clad in the formal red coat of the East Essex infantry, Xavier Campion looked as magnificent as a man could look in regimentals.
He scanned the room, his brilliant blue eyes searching until reaching Phillipa. His lips widened into a smile and he inclined his head before pivoting to greet Lord and Lady Devine.
‘He smiled at us!’ cried one of Phillipa’s friends.
No. He’d smiled at her.
Phillipa’s cheeks flushed.
Did he remember her? They’d been childhood friends in Brighton during the summers, especially the summer when she fell and suffered her injury.
Phillipa’s hand flew to her cheek, to where the jagged scar marred her face. Not even the clever feather her mother insisted be attached to her headpiece could hide the disfigurement.
Of course he remembered her. How many scar-faced girls could be known to handsome Xavier Campion?
She swung away, while the others giggled and whispered to each other. She heard their voices, but could not repeat a word any of them spoke. All she could think was how it might be if her appearance were different, if her right cheek were not branded with a jagged red scar. How she wished her complexion was as unflawed as her friends’. Then she could merely have a pretty ribbon threaded through her hair instead of the silly headpiece with its obvious feather. She wished just once Xavier Campion could look upon her and think her as beautiful as he was handsome.
Her companions suddenly went silent and a masculine voice spoke. ‘Phillipa?’
She turned.
Xavier stood before her.
‘I thought that was you.’ He’d noticed her scar, he meant. ‘How are you? It has been years since I’ve seen you.’
The other young ladies stared in stunned disbelief.
‘Hello, Xavier,’ she managed, keeping her eyes downcast. ‘But you have been at war. You have been away.’ She dared glance up to his face.
His smile made her heart twist. ‘It is good to be back in England.’
One of her friends cleared her throat.
Phillipa’s hand fluttered to her cheek. ‘Oh.’ She looked from Xavier to the pretty girls around her. It was suddenly clear why he had approached her. ‘Let me present you.’
When the introductions were complete the other young ladies surrounded him, asking him clever questions about the war, where he’d been and what battles he’d fought.
Phillipa stepped back. She’d served her purpose. Her introductions made it possible for him to ask any of them to dance. She imagined their minds turning, calculating. He was only the younger son of an earl, but his looks more than made up for a lack of title. And he was reputed to have a good income.
Her friends were solidly on the marriage mart. They’d all been bred to hope for the perfect betrothal by the end of their first Season. Phillipa’s hopes had quickly become more modest and certainly did not include snaring the most handsome and exciting young man in the room. Not even ordinary eligible gentlemen paid her the least attention. Why should Xavier Campion?
In Brighton, when she’d been a young, foolish child, she’d been his companion. Although a few years older, he played children’s games with her. He filled buckets at the water’s edge with her and built castles out of the pebbles on the beach. They’d chased each other through the garden of the Pavilion and pressed their faces against its windows, peeking at the grandeur inside. Sometimes when they were at play, she’d stop and stare, awestruck at his beauty. Many a night she’d fall asleep dreaming that some day, when she was grown, Xavier would ride in like a prince on horseback and whisk her away to a romantic castle.
Well, she was grown now and the reality was that no man wanted a young lady with a scar on her face. She was eighteen years old and it was past time to put away such childhood fancies.
‘Phillipa?’ His voice again.
She turned.
Xavier extended his hand to her. ‘May I have the honour of this dance?’
She nodded, unable to speak, unable to believe her ears.
Her friends moaned in disappointment.
Xavier clasped her hand and led her to the dance floor as the orchestra began the first strains of a tune Phillipa easily identified, as she’d identified every tune played at the balls she’d attended.
‘The Nonesuch’.
How fitting. Xavier was a nonesuch, a man without equal. There were none such as he.
The dance began.
Somehow, as if part of the music, her legs and feet performed the figures. In fact, her step felt as light as air; her heart, joy-filled.
He smiled at her. He looked at her. Straight in her face. In her eyes.
‘How have you spent your time since last we played on the beach?’ he asked when the dance brought them together.
They parted and she had to wait until the dance joined them again to answer. ‘I went away to school,’ she told him.
School had been a mostly pleasant experience. So many of the girls had been kind and friendly, and a few had become dear friends. Others, however, had delighted in cruelty. The wounding words they’d spoken still felt etched in her memory.
He grinned. ‘And you grew up.’
‘That I could not prevent.’ Blast! Could she not contrive something intelligent to say?
He laughed. ‘I noticed.’
The dance parted them again, but his gaze did not leave her. The music connected them—the gaiety of the flute, the singing of the violin, the deep passion of the bass. She would not forget a note of it. In fact, she would wager she could play the tune on the pianoforte without a page of music in front of her.
The music was happiness, the happiness of having her childhood friend back.
She fondly recalled the boy he’d been and gladdened at the man he’d become. When his hand touched hers the music seemed to swell and that long-ago girlish fantasy sounded a strong refrain.
But eventually the musicians played the final note and Phillipa blinked as if waking from a lovely dream.
He escorted her back to where she had first been standing.
‘May I get you a glass of wine?’ he asked.
It was time for him to part from her, but she was thirsty from the dance. ‘I would like some, but only if it is not too much trouble for you.’
His blue eyes sparkled as if amused. ‘Your wish is my pleasure.’
Her insides skittered wildly as she watched him walk away. He returned quickly and handed her a glass. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
Showing no inclination to leave her side, he asked polite questions about the health of her parents and about the activities of her brothers, Ned and Hugh. He told her of encountering Hugh in Spain and she told him Hugh was also back from the war.
While they conversed, a part of her stood aside as if observing—and judging. Her responses displayed none of the wit and charm at which her friends so easily excelled, but he did not seem to mind.
* * *
She had no idea how long they chatted. It might have been ten minutes or it might have been half an hour, but it ended when his mother approached them.
‘How do you do, Phillipa?’ Lady Piermont asked.
‘I am well, ma’am.’ Phillipa exchanged pleasantries with her, but Lady Piermont seemed impatient.
She turned to her son. ‘I have need of you, Xavier. There is someone who wishes a word with you.’
He tossed Phillipa an apologetic look. ‘I fear I must leave you.’
He bowed.
She curtsied.
And he was gone.
No sooner had he walked away than her friend Felicia rushed up to her. ‘Oh, Phillipa! How thrilling! He danced with you.’
Phillipa could only smile. The pleasure of being with him lingered like a song played over and over in her head. She feared speaking would hasten its loss.
‘I want to hear about every minute of it!’ Felicia cried.
But Felicia’s betrothed came to collect her for the next set and she left without a glance back at her friend.
Another of Phillipa’s former schoolmates approached her, one of the young ladies to whom she had introduced Xavier. ‘It was kind of Mr Campion to dance with you, was it not?’
‘It was indeed,’ agreed Phillipa, still in perfect charity with the world, even though this girl had never precisely been a friend.
Her schoolmate leaned closer. ‘Your mother and Lady Piermont arranged it. Was that not clever of them? Now perhaps other gentlemen will dance with you, as well.’
‘My mother?’ Phillipa gripped the stem of the glass.
‘That is what I heard.’ The girl smirked. ‘The two ladies were discussing it while you danced with him.’
Phillipa felt the crash of cymbals and the air was knocked out of her just like the day in Brighton when she fell.
Prevailing on family connections to manage a dance invitation was precisely the sort of thing her mother would do.
Dance with her, Xavier dear, she could almost hear her mother say. If you dance with her, the others will wish to dance with her, too.
‘Mr Campion is an old friend,’ she managed to reply to the schoolmate.
‘I wish I had that kind of friend.’ The girl curtsied and walked away.
Phillipa held her ground and forced herself to casually finish sipping her glass of wine. When she’d drained the glass of its contents she strolled to a table against the wall and placed the empty glass on it.
Then she went in search of her mother and found her momentarily alone.
It was difficult to maintain composure. ‘Mama, I have a headache. I am going home.’
‘Phillipa! No.’ Her mother looked aghast. ‘Not when the ball is going so well for you.’
Because of her mother’s contrivance.
‘I cannot stay.’ Phillipa swallowed, trying desperately not to cry.
‘Do not do this to yourself,’ her mother scolded, through clenched teeth. ‘Stay. This is a good opportunity for you.’
‘I am leaving.’ Phillipa turned away and threaded her way quickly through the crush of people.
Her mother caught up with her in the hall and seized her arm. ‘Phillipa! You cannot go unescorted and your father and I are not about to leave when the evening is just beginning.’
‘Our town house is three doors away. I dare say I may walk it alone.’ Phillipa freed herself from her mother’s grasp. She collected her wrap from the footman attending the hall and was soon out in the cool evening air where no one could see.
Tears burst from her eyes.
How humiliating! To be made into Xavier Campion’s charity case. He’d danced with her purely out of pity. She was foolish in the extreme for thinking it could be anything else.
Phillipa set her trembling chin in resolve. She’d have no more of balls. No more of hopes to attract a suitor. She’d had enough. The truth of her situation was clear even if her mother refused to see it.
No gentleman would court a scar-faced lady.
Certainly not an Adonis.
Certainly not Xavier Campion.
Chapter One
London, August 1819
‘Enough!’ Phillipa slapped her hand flat on the mahogany side table.
The last time she’d felt such strength of resolve had been that night five years ago when she fled Lady Devine’s ball and removed herself out from the marriage mart for good.
To think she’d again wound up dancing with Xavier Campion just weeks ago at her mother’s ball. He’d once again taken pity on her.
No doubt her mother arranged those two dances as well as the first. More reason to be furious with her.
But never mind that. The matter at hand was her mother’s refusal to answer Phillipa’s questions, flouncing out the drawing room in a huff instead.
Phillipa had demanded her mother tell her where her brothers and father had gone. The three of them had been away for a week now. Her mother had forbidden the servants to speak of it with her and refused to say anything of it herself.
Ned and Hugh had a rather loud quarrel with their father, Phillipa knew. It occurred late at night and had been loud enough to wake her.
‘It is nothing for you to worry over,’ her mother insisted. She said no more.
If it were indeed nothing to worry over, then why not simply tell her?
Granted, in the past several days Phillipa had been closeted with her pianoforte, consumed by her latest composition, a sonatina. Pouring her passions into music had been Phillipa’s godsend. Music gave her a challenge. It gave her life meaning.
Like getting the phrasing exactly right in the sonatina. She’d been so preoccupied she’d not given her brothers or her father a thought. Sometimes she would work so diligently on her music that she would not see them for days at a time. It had finally become clear, though, that they were not at home. That in itself was not so unusual, but her mother’s refusal to explain where they had gone was very odd. Where were they? Why had her father left London when Parliament was still in session? Why had her brothers gone with him?
Her mother would only say, ‘They are away on business.’
Business, indeed. A strange business.
This whole Season had been strange. First her mother and brother Ned insisted she come to town when she’d much have preferred to remain in the country. Then the surprise of her mother’s ball—
And seeing Xavier again.
The purpose of that ball had been a further surprise. It was held for a person Phillipa had never known existed.
Perhaps that person would explain it all to her. His appearance, the ball, her brothers’ and father’s disappearance—all must be connected somehow.
She’d ask John Rhysdale.
No. She would demand Rhysdale tell her what was going on in her family and how he—her half-brother, her father’s illegitimate son—fit into it.
Rhysdale’s relationship to her had also been kept secret from her. Her brothers had known of him, apparently, but no one told her about him or why her mother gave the ball for him or why her parents introduced him to society as her father’s son.
A member of the Westleigh family.
Her mother had given her the task of writing the invitations to the ball, so she knew precisely where Rhysdale resided. Phillipa rushed out of the drawing room, collected her hat and gloves, and was out the door in seconds, walking with a determined step towards St James’s Street.
She’d met Rhysdale the night of the ball. He was very near to Ned’s age, she’d guess. In his thirties. He looked like her brothers, too, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Like her, as well, she supposed, minus the jagged scar on her face.
To Rhysdale’s credit, he’d only given her scar a fleeting glance and afterward looked her in the eye. He’d been gentlemanly and kind. There had been nothing to object in him, except for the circumstances of his birth.
And his choice of friends.
Why did Xavier Campion have to be his friend? Xavier, the one man Phillipa wished to avoid above all others.
Phillipa forced thoughts of Xavier Campion out of her mind and concentrated on being angry at her mother instead. How dared her mother refuse to confide in her?
Phillipa had a surfeit of her mother’s over-protection. She could endure a ball with no dance partners. She could handle whatever mysterious matters led to her family’s aberrant behaviour. Just because an ugly scar marred her face did not mean she was a child.
She was not weak. She refused to be weak.
Phillipa took notice of passers-by staring at her and pulled down a piece of netting on her hat. Her mother insisted she tack netting on to all her hats so she could obscure half her face and not receive stares.
She turned off St James’s Street on to the street where Rhysdale lived. When she found the house, she only hesitated a moment before sounding the knocker.
Several moments passed. She reached for the knocker again, but the door opened. A large man with expressionless eyes perused her quickly. His brows rose.
‘Lady Phillipa to see Mr Rhysdale,’ she said.
The man stepped aside and she entered the hall. He lifted a finger, which she took to mean she should wait, and he disappeared up the staircase.
The doors to rooms off the hall were closed, and the hall itself was so nearly devoid of all decoration that it appeared impersonal. Perhaps a single gentleman preferred no decoration. How would she know?
‘Phillipa.’ A man’s voice came from the top of the stairs.
She looked up.
But it was not Rhysdale who descended the stairs.
It was Xavier.
He quickly approached her. ‘What are you doing here, Phillipa? Is something amiss?’
She forced herself not to step back. ‘I—I came to speak with Rhysdale.’
‘He is not here.’ He glanced around. ‘You are alone?’
Of course she was alone. Who would accompany her? Not her mother. Certainly her mother would never make a social call to her husband’s illegitimate son. ‘I will wait for him, then. It is a matter of some importance.’
He gestured to the stairs. ‘Come. Let us sit in the drawing room.’
They walked up one flight of stairs and Phillipa glanced into a room she presumed would be the drawing room. She glimpsed several tables and chairs.
‘What is this?’ she exclaimed.
Xavier looked dismayed. ‘I will explain.’ He gestured for her to continue up another flight of stairs.
He led her into a comfortably furnished parlour and extended his arm towards a sofa upholstered in deep-red fabric. ‘Do be seated. I will arrange for tea.’
Before she could protest, he left the room again. Her heart beat at such rapid rate that her hands trembled as she pulled off her gloves.
This was ridiculous. She refused to be made uncomfortable by him. He meant nothing to her. He’d merely been a boy who’d once been her playmate. Defiantly she swept the netting over the brim of her hat. Let him see her face.
He stepped back in the room. ‘We’ll have tea in a moment.’ Choosing a chair near her, he leaned close. ‘I do not know when—or if—Rhys will come back.’
‘Do not tell me he has disappeared as well!’ What was going on?
He touched her hand in a reassuring gesture. ‘He has not disappeared. I assure you.’
She pulled her hand away. ‘Where is he?’ she demanded.
He leaned back. ‘He spends most days with Lady Gale.’
‘Lady Gale?’ What did Lady Gale have to do with anything?
Lady Gale was the stepmother of Adele Gale, the silly young woman to whom her brother Ned was betrothed. Both Adele and Lady Gale had been guests at her mother’s ball, so Rhysdale might have met them there, but was there more to that connection?
Xavier frowned. ‘You do not know about Rhysdale and Lady Gale?’
Phillipa waved a frustrated hand. ‘I do not know anything! That is why I am here. My brothers and my father have disappeared and my mother will not tell me where they have gone or why. I came to ask Rhysdale where they were, but it seems I’ve been excluded from even more family matters.’
There was a knock on the door and a manservant entered, carrying the tea tray. As he placed the tray on a side table, he gave Phillipa a curious look.
Because of her scar, no doubt.
Xavier nodded to him. ‘Thank you, MacEvoy.’
The servant bowed and walked out, but not before tossing her another glance.
Xavier reached for the teapot. ‘How do you take your tea, Phillipa? Still with lots of sugar?’
He remembered that? She’d had a sweet tooth as a little girl. That had been a long time ago, however.
She stood. ‘I do not wish to drink tea. I came here for answers. I am quite overset, Xavier. I do not know why everything is kept secret from me. Do I look as if I cannot handle adversity?’ She jabbed at her scar. ‘I am well practised in adversity. My mother—my whole family, it seems—apparently thinks not.’ She faced him. ‘Something important has happened in my family—something more than Rhysdale’s appearance—and I am to be told nothing? I cannot bear it!’ She pressed her hands against her temples for a moment, collecting herself. She pointed towards the door. ‘What is this place, Xavier? Why does my half-brother have a room full of tables where the drawing room should be and a drawing room on a floor for bedchambers?’
* * *
Xavier stared back at Phillipa, considering how much to tell her.
He preferred this version of Phillipa to the one he’d so recently encountered at her mother’s ball. That Phillipa barely looked at him, barely conversed with him, even though he’d danced twice with her. She’d acted as if he were a loathsome stranger.
Her present upset disturbed him, however. Ever since they’d been children, he’d hated seeing her distressed. It reminded him of that summer in Brighton when the pretty little girl woke from a fall to discover the long cut on her face.
He admired Phillipa for not covering her scar now, for showing no shame of it or how she appeared to others. Besides, her colour was high, appealingly so, and her agitation piqued his empathy. He understood her distress. He would greatly dislike being left out of family matters of such consequence.
But surely she’d been told of Rhys’s arrangement with her brothers?
‘Do you not know about this place?’ He swept his arm the breadth of the room.
Her eyes flashed. ‘Do you not comprehend? I know nothing.’
‘This is a gambling establishment.’ All of society knew of it. Why not Phillipa? ‘Nominally it is a gambling club so as to adhere to legalities. Have you not heard of the Masquerade Club?’
‘No.’ Her voice still held outrage.
He explained. ‘This is the Masquerade Club. Rhys is the proprietor. Patrons may attend in masks and thus conceal their identities—as long as they pay their gambling debts, that is. If they need to write vowels, they must reveal themselves.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘In any event, it is meant to be a place where both gentlemen and ladies may enjoy cards or other games. Ladies’ reputations are protected, you see.’
She looked around again, her expression incredulous. ‘This is a gambling house?’
‘Not this floor. These are Rhys’s private rooms, but he is not here very often these days.’
She pressed fingers to her forehead. ‘Because he is with Lady Gale.’
He nodded. Rhys’s connection to Lady Gale ought to have been roundly discussed at the Westleigh residence.
He could tell her this much. ‘Sit, Phillipa. Have some tea. I will explain.’
He reached for the teapot again but she stopped him with a light touch to his hand. ‘I will pour.’ She lifted a cup and raised her brows in question.
‘A little milk. A little sugar,’ he replied.
She fixed his cup and handed it to him. ‘Explain, Xavier. Please.’
‘About Lady Gale and Rhys,’ he began. ‘Earlier this Season Lady Gale came masked to the Masquerade Club.’
She lifted her cup. ‘She is a gambler? I would not have guessed.’
He lifted a shoulder. ‘Out of necessity. She needed money. She attended often enough for Rhys to become acquainted with her. In learning of her financial need, he began paying her to come gamble.’
‘Paying her?’ Her hand stopped before the teacup reached her lips.
He gave a half-smile. ‘He fancied her. He did not know her name, though. Nor did she know his connection to your family.’
She looked at him expectantly. ‘And?’
‘They became lovers.’ He took a breath. ‘And she is with child. They are to be married as soon as the licence can be arranged.’ He paused. ‘And other matters settled.’
‘Other matters.’ Her brows knitted. ‘Ned’s courtship of Lady Gale’s stepdaughter, do you mean?’
He nodded. ‘And more.’
Rhys’s gambling house and his affair with Lady Gale had hardly caused her a blink of the eye. Surely she was made of stern enough stuff to hear the whole of it.
She gave him a direct look. ‘What more?’
‘Do you know of Ned and Hugh’s arrangement with Rhys?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I am depending upon you to tell me all of it, Xavier. All of it.’
How could he resist her request?
Ever since her injury. What age had he been? Twelve? She’d been about seven and he’d never forgotten that summer.
How it pained him to see that little girl so wounded, so unhappy.
If only he could have prevented it.
He’d felt it his duty to cheer her up. He’d learned that summer that one should act, if one could. Not hold back.
So he’d made her his responsibility and worked to cheer her up.
It was not his place to tell her about her family’s affairs, but....
He set his jaw. ‘This past April Ned and Hugh came to Rhys and asked him to open a gaming house. They had scraped together the funds for it, but they needed Rhys to run it.’
‘They asked Rhysdale to run a gaming house for them?’ She sounded incredulous.
He took a sip of tea. ‘Out of desperation. Your family was in dire financial straits. Did you know of that?’
She shook her head.
He might as well tell her all. ‘Your father’s gambling...and carousing...brought your family to the brink of ruin. You, your mother, everyone who depended upon the Westleigh estates for their livelihood would have suffered terribly if nothing had been done.’
Her eyes widened. ‘I had no idea.’
‘So Ned and Hugh hit upon the idea of a gaming house. Rhys agreed to run it, although your father gave him no reason to feel any sense of loyalty to the family. Besides taking half the profits, though, Rhys asked that your father publicly acknowledge him as his natural son.’
‘Hence my mother’s ball.’ She caught on quickly.
‘Indeed.’ The ball was part of Rhys’s payment. ‘The scheme worked perfectly. The element of masquerade has made this place successful beyond anyone’s hopes. Your family is rescued.’
She looked askance. ‘If all has gone so well, where are my father and brothers?’
‘They went to the Continent. To Brussels.’ Ought he tell her this part? He peered at her. ‘Phillipa, are you close to your father?’
She laughed. ‘I dare say not.’ She glanced away, her face shadowed. ‘Should he chance encounter me, he looks through me. Or away.’
His heart constricted.
‘Your father made trouble for Rhys, I’m afraid. He detested Rhys being the family’s salvation.’ She did not need to know all the details. ‘Suffice to say your father challenged Rhys to a duel—’
‘A duel!’ She looked aghast.
‘It did not take place,’ he assured her. ‘Your brothers stood by Rhys and together they forced your father to relinquish all control of the family’s money and property to Ned.’ Either that or publicly shame the man. ‘They offered your father a generous allowance, but only if he moved to the Continent. Your brothers travelled with him to make certain he reaches his destination and keeps his word. He is to remain there. He will not come back.’
‘He is gone?’ She turned pale, making her red scar more vivid. ‘I had no notion of any of this.’
He feared she would faint and he rose from his chair to sit beside her on the sofa, wrapping an arm around her. ‘I know this is a shock.’
He remembered how he’d held her as a little girl, when she cried about being ugly. He’d never thought her ugly. Certainly not now, although to see her face, half-beautiful, half-damaged, still made something inside him twist painfully.
She recovered quickly and moved from his grasp. ‘How could I have been so unaware? How could I have not had some inkling?’
‘It is not your fault, Phillipa. I am certain they meant to protect you,’ he said.
‘I do not need their protection!’ she snapped. She looked at him as if he were the object of her anger. ‘I do not need pity.’
He admired her effort to remain strong.
‘I must leave.’ She snatched up her gloves and stood.
He rose as well. ‘I will walk you home.’
Her eyes shot daggers. ‘I am fully capable of walking a few streets by myself.’
He did not know how to assist her. ‘I meant only—’
She released a breath and spoke in an apologetic tone. ‘Forgive me, Xavier. It is unfair of me to rail at you when you have done me the honour of exposing my family to me.’ She pulled on her gloves. ‘But truly there is no need to walk me home. I am no green girl in need of a chaperon.’
‘If that is your wish.’ He opened the door for her and walked with her down the stairs.
She stopped on the first-floor landing and pointed to a doorway with a half-closed door. ‘Is this the game room?’
‘It is.’ He opened the door the whole way. ‘You can see the card tables and the tables for faro, hazard and rouge et noir.’
She peeked in, but did not comment.
As they continued down the stairs, she asked, ‘Why are you here in a gaming house, Xavier?’
He shrugged. ‘I assist Rhys. As a friend.’
He was useful to Rhys. Because of his looks, men dismissed him and women were distracted. Consequently, he saw more than either sex imagined and, for that, Rhys paid him a share of his profits.
‘Do you have the gambling habit, then?’ she asked.
Like her father? ‘Not a habit,’ he responded, although once it had been important to prove himself at the card table. ‘These days I play less and watch more.’
They reached the hall and Xavier walked her to the door. When he turned the latch and opened it for her, she pulled down the netting on her hat, covering her face.
The action made him sad for her.
He opened his mouth to repeat the offer to escort her.
She lifted a hand. ‘I prefer to be alone, Xavier. Please respect that.’
He nodded.
‘Good day,’ she said in a formal voice and stepped away.
Xavier ducked inside and grabbed his hat. He waited until he surmised she would have reached the corner of the street, then stepped outside and followed her, keeping her in sight, just in case she should require assistance of any kind. He followed her all the way to her street and watched until she safely entered her house.
It was a familiar habit, looking out for her, one he’d practised over and over that long-ago summer in Brighton, when his duty towards her first began.
Chapter Two
Phillipa walked briskly back to her family’s town house, emotions in disharmony. Her mind whirled. Rhysdale’s gaming house. Her father’s shameful behaviour.
Xavier.
She had not expected to see Xavier and her face burned with embarrassment that it had been he who exposed her family’s troubles to her.
Her family’s shame. Did there ever exist such a father as hers? What must Xavier think of him? Of them?
Of her?
She hurried through the streets.
How could she have been so insensible? Her family had been at the brink of ruin and she’d not had an inkling. She should have guessed something was awry. She should have realised how out of character it was for her father to hold a ball for anyone, least of all a natural son.
Seeing Xavier there distracted her.
No. It was unfair to place the blame on Xavier. Or even on her family.
She was to blame. She’d deliberately isolated herself, immersing herself in her music so as not to think about being in London, not to think of that first Season, that first dance with Xavier, nor of dancing with him again at the ball.
Instead she’d poured everything into her new composition. With the music, she’d tried to recreate her youthful feelings of joy and the despairing emotions of reality. She’d transitioned the tune to something bittersweet—how it had felt to dance with him once again.
Her mind had been filled with him and she’d not spared a thought for her family. In fact, she’d resented whenever her mother insisted she receive morning calls, including those of Lady Gale and her stepdaughter. It surprised her that she’d paid enough attention to learn that Ned intended to marry the artless Adele Gale. The girl reminded Phillipa of her school friends and that first Season when they’d been innocent and starry-eyed.
And hopeful.
Phillipa had paid no attention at all to her father, but, then, he paid no attention to her. She long ago learned not to care about what her father thought or did or said, but how dared he be so selfish as to gamble away the family money? She would not miss him. It was a relief to no longer endure his unpleasantness.
Phillipa entered the house and climbed the stairs to her music room. She pulled off her hat and gloves and sat at the pianoforte. Her fingers pressed the ivory keys, searching for expression of the feelings resonating inside of her. She created a discordant sound, a chaos, unpleasant to her ears. She rose again and walked to the window, staring out at the small garden behind the town house. A yellow tabby cat walked the length of the wall, sure-footed, unafraid, surveying the domain below.
Her inharmonious musical notes re-echoed in her ears. Unlike the cat, she was not sure-footed. She was afraid.
For years she’d been fooling herself, saying she was embracing life by her study of music. Playing the pianoforte, composing melodies, gave her some purpose and activity. Although she yearned to perform her music or see it published for others to perform, what hope could she have to accomplish that? No lady wanted a disfigured pianiste in her musicale. And no music publisher would consider an earl’s daughter to be a serious composer.
There was an even more brutal truth to jar her. She was hiding behind her music. So thoroughly that she had missed the drama at play on her family’s stage. All kinds of life occurred outside the walls of her music room and she’d been ignoring it all. She needed to rejoin life.
Phillipa spun away from the window. She rushed from the room, startling one of the maids passing through the hallway. What was the girl’s name? When had Phillipa begun to be blind to the very people around her?
‘Pardon, miss.’ The girl struggled to curtsy, even though her hands were laden with bed linens.
‘No pardon is necessary,’ Phillipa responded. ‘I surprised you.’ She started to walk past, but turned. ‘Forgive me, I do not know your name.’
The girl looked even more startled. ‘It is Ivey, miss. Sally Ivey.’
‘Ivey,’ Phillipa repeated. ‘I will remember it.’
The maid curtsied again and hurried on her way.
Phillipa reached the stairs, climbing them quickly, passing the floor to the maids’ rooms and continuing to the attic where one small window provided a little light. She opened one of the trunks and rummaged through it, not finding for what she searched. In the third trunk, though, triumph reigned. She pulled it out. A lady’s mask, one her mother had made for her to attend a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens during her first Season. It had been specifically designed to cover her scar.
She’d never worn it.
Until now.
Because she’d decided her first step to embrace life and conquer fear was to do what Lady Gale had done. She would wait until night. She would step out into the darkness and make her way to St James’s Street.
Phillipa would attend the Masquerade Club. If Lady Gale thought it acceptable to attend, so could she. She would don the mask and enter a gaming house. She would play cards and hazard and faro and see what sort of investment Ned and Hugh had made in Rhysdale.
He would be there, of course, but that was of no consequence. If she encountered Xavier, he would not know her.
No one would know her.
* * *
That night Phillipa stepped up to the door to Rhysdale’s town house. No sounds of revelry reached the street and nothing could be seen of the gamblers inside, but, even so, she immediately sensed a different mood to the place than earlier in the day.
She sounded the knocker and the same taciturn manservant who’d attended the hall that morning answered the door.
‘Good evening, sir.’ She entered the hall and slipped off her hooded cape. This time she did not need netting to hide her face; her mask performed that task.
The manservant showed no indication of recognising her and she breathed a sign of relief. The mask must be working.
She handed him her cape. ‘What do I do next? I am new to this place, you see.’
He nodded and actually spoke. ‘Wait here a moment. I will take you to the cashier.’
The knocker sounded the moment he stepped away, but he returned quickly and opened the door to two gentlemen who greeted him exuberantly. ‘Good evening to you, Cummings! Trust you are well.’
Cummings took their hats and gloves and inclined his head towards Phillipa. ‘Follow them, ma’am.’
The gentlemen glanced her way and their brows rose with interest. How novel. Without her mask most men quickly looked away.
‘Is this your first time here, ma’am?’ one asked in a polite tone.
‘It is.’ She made herself smile.
The other gentleman offered an arm. ‘Then it will be our pleasure to show you to the cashier.’
This was how she would be treated if not disfigured. With pleasure, not pity.
How new, as well, to accept the arm of a stranger when she’d been reared to acknowledge gentlemen only after a formal introduction took place. Would he think her fast for doing so? Or did it not matter? The gentleman would never know her.
She’d already defied the conventions of a well-bred lady by walking alone on the streets at night. She’d gathered her cloak and hood around her and made her way briskly, ignoring anyone she passed. Gas lamps lit most of the way and there had been plenty of other pedestrians out and about to make the trek feel safe.
Taking the arm of a stranger for a few seconds seemed tame after that.
He and the other gentleman escorted her to one of the rooms that had been hidden behind closed doors earlier that day. It was at the back of the house and, judging from the bookshelves that lined one of the walls, must have once been the library. Besides a few lonely books on the shelves, the room was as sparsely decorated as the hall. A large desk dominated the room. Behind the desk sat the man who had served her tea.
‘MacEvoy,’ one of her escorts said. ‘We have a new lady for you. This is her first time here.’
MacEvoy looked her straight in the face. ‘Good evening, ma’am. Shall I explain how the Masquerade Club operates?’
‘I would be grateful.’ She searched for signs that this man recognised her. There were none.
He told her the cost of membership and explained that she would purchase counters from him to use in play in the game room. She could purchase as many counters as she liked, but, if she lost more than she possessed, she must reveal her identity.
This was how patrons were protected, he explained. They would know who owed them money, and those who needed their identity protected dared not wager more than they possessed.
Phillipa had little interest in the wagering, but hoped she purchased enough counters to appear as if she did.
‘We will take you to the gaming room, ma’am,’ one of her escorts said.
‘That would be kind of you.’ She knew the way, but did not want the gentlemen to realise it.
When they entered the room, it seemed transformed, a riot of colour and sound. The rhythm of rolling dice, the hum of voices, the trill of shuffling cards melded into a strange symphony. Could such noise be recreated in music? What might be required? Horns? Drums? Castanets?
‘Ma’am, do you wish to join us in cards?’ One of her gentlemen escorts broke her reverie.
She shook her head. ‘You have assisted me enough, sir. I thank you both. Please be about your own entertainment.’
They bowed and she turned away from them and scanned the room as she made her way to the hazard table. To her great relief, she did not see Xavier. A pretty young woman acted as croupier at the hazard table, which surprised Phillipa. She’d not imagined women employed to do such a job. She knew the rules of hazard, but thought it insipid to wager money on the roll of dice. Phillipa watched the play, interested more in the people than the gambling. Several of the croupiers were women. The women players were mostly masked, like she, but some were not. She wondered about them. Who were they and why did they not worry about their reputations? Perhaps she was in the company of actresses. Opera dancers. Women who would not hide from life.
There certainly seemed to be great numbers of counters being passed around in the room. Those who won exclaimed in delight; the losers groaned and despaired. Happy sounds juxtaposed with despairing ones. She’d never heard the like.
She glimpsed Rhysdale. He circulated through the room, watching, stopping to speak to this or that person. He came close to her and her heart raced. He looked directly at her, nodding a greeting before passing on. She smiled. He had not recognised her.
She walked over to the faro table. If hazard was an insipid game, faro was ridiculous. One wagered whether a particular card would be chosen from the deck. If you placed money on the banker’s card you lost, if on the winning card you won double.
Still, she ought to gamble. To merely gape at everything would appear a bit suspicious.
She stifled a giggle. Out in society, people treated her as if she did not exist. Here she feared them noticing her.
She played at faro and became caught up in the spirit of the game. She cried with joy when she won and groaned at her losses, just like the other patrons. She was merely one of the crowd. Even her deep-green gown blended with the tableau as if she were a part of the décor of reds, greens and glinting golds. Her anonymity became like a cloak around her, protecting her so well she forgot that, besides Rhysdale, there might be someone at the club who could recognise her.
* * *
Xavier defused some escalating tempers, interrupted some reckless wagers and otherwise performed the same tasks as always at the Masquerade Club. His mind, however, continued to wander back to that morning.
Ought he have sent Phillipa to Rhys? Should it have been Rhys’s choice of whether to tell her about her father, about the gaming house?
No. Rhys might have some of the same blood flowing through his veins as Phillipa, but she was a stranger to him. Xavier had known her for ever, even before her injury. He’d been close to her once. Her injury bound them together.
Or at least it bound him to her.
He’d been wrong to neglect her since the war ended. He should have sought her out before this. Made certain she was in good health and in good spirits. Perhaps that was why she was so cold to him at the ball.
Perhaps he would call upon her soon. See how she was faring after what he’d told her this afternoon.
Satisfied with that thought, Xavier circulated throughout the room, perusing the players and the croupiers, remaining alert to any potential problems. Most of the players here tonight were familiar to him as regular attendees. Even the masked ones were familiar, although there were a few whose identities he’d not yet guessed.
A new woman caught his eye. He’d not seen her arrive and did not know in whose party she might be included, but there was something about her...
She dressed expensively in a gown of dark-green silk. Its sheen caught the lamplight and transformed the rather plain style into something elegant. Who was she and why she was here for the first time?
Xavier watched her.
And came more disturbed.
His brows knit as he walked closer to her. He knew her, did he not?
Xavier stood across the faro table from her, waiting for the puzzle pieces to sort themselves. She glanced up and her gaze held his for a brief moment. She quickly looked away.
He walked around the table and leaned towards her ear. ‘May I have a moment to speak with you, miss?’
She bowed her head and allowed him to lead her out of the room.
He brought her to a private corner of the hallway and backed her against the wall. ‘What the devil are you doing here, Phillipa?’
She glared at him. ‘How did you know it was me?’
How did he know? The set of her shoulders. The tilt of her chin. Her smile. ‘It was not that difficult.’
‘Rhysdale did not recognise me.’ That chin lifted.
‘He does not know you as I do.’ But he would not allow her to change the subject. ‘Why are you here?’
She shrugged. ‘To gamble. Why else?’
‘Who is with you?’ Her brothers were gone. And, if they had not been, they would have had to answer to him for bringing their sister here.
‘No one,’ she said.
‘No one?’ She could not have come alone. ‘How did you get here?’
She gave him a defiant look. ‘I walked.’
Walked? ‘Alone?’
She did not waver. ‘Yes, alone.’
He seized her arm. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? You cannot walk about alone at night.’
‘It is only a few streets.’ She continued to stare into his eyes. ‘Besides, Ned and Hugh taught me how to defend myself.’ She lifted her skirt and showed him a sheathed knife attached to her calf.
As if she would have time to draw it, if a man accosted her. As if such a man could not easily grab it from her hand.
‘And that makes you safe.’ He spoke with sarcasm.
‘There were plenty of people about and street lamps were lit along Piccadilly. It was like walking in daytime.’
He doubted that. He also doubted that she was there for the simple reason of gambling. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us talk in the supper room.’
The supper room served wine and spirits and a buffet supper. Designed in the style of Robert Adam, its décor was light and airy, the opposite of the game room with its darker colours. Chairs and tables covered with white linens were arranged for conversation. Along one wall stood a huge buffet table upon which were set out a variety of cold meats, cheeses, cakes and compotes. Patrons could help themselves to the food and sit at tables covered with white linen. Servants attended the room, providing drink.
The supper room was a needed respite from the high emotions in the game room, Xavier thought.
‘Be seated. I’ll get you something to eat.’ He led her to a table set away from the few people seated in the room and made his way to the buffet.
To his dismay, Rhys was in the room, chatting with some gentlemen seated not too far away from the white pianoforte in the corner.
Xavier glanced back at Phillipa, whose posture had stiffened. She, too, had noticed Rhys.
Rhys excused himself and crossed the room to Xavier. ‘I noticed we have a new woman patron.’ He faced Xavier but his back was to Phillipa. ‘What is wrong with her? She did not seem to be falling at your feet like other woman.’
Xavier’s good looks did not matter one jot to Rhys. In fact, Rhys was perhaps the only person, besides Xavier’s own family, of whom he could say such a thing. Rhys was no fool, though. He knew women were attracted to Xavier.
Xavier evaded the question. ‘I am reasonably sure she is merely here for the gambling. Not the sort to cause trouble.’
Rhys laughed. ‘I thought you’d met your match.’
Xavier shook his head.
Rhys put a hand on Xavier’s arm. ‘I have a favour to ask of you.’
During the war, Rhys twice saved Xavier’s life. At Badajoz. At Quatre Bras. Xavier would have done the same for Rhys. ‘What is it?’
Rhys glanced around. ‘Take over the club for a few days, will you? The gentlemen with whom I was conversing have an investment that may interest me, but it would require a few days’ travel.’
‘Certainly,’ Xavier agreed. ‘What sort of investment?’
‘Steam engines,’ Rhys replied.
‘Steam engines?’ The machines that had caused such riots and unrest in the textile industry?
‘Expanding their use. Making them smaller. Steam engines will do great things, you will see.’ Rhys wanted another way to build wealth besides a gambling house. He’d never intended to make gambling his life.
Gambling and soldiering had enabled Rhys to survive after Rhys’s mother died and Lord Westleigh abandoned him to the streets. Xavier, on the other hand, had grown up amidst luxury and the devotion of his parents and siblings. They made unusual friends.
Xavier nodded. ‘If it looks to be a good investment, make certain I have a share.’
Rhys leaned forwards. ‘If it is the sort of investment I expect, I may be asking you to take over the gaming house altogether.’
Run the gaming house? Xavier would do it. He delighted at doing the unexpected. Nearly everyone he’d ever met expected him to coast through life on his looks, but that was the last thing Xavier intended to do. He’d prove himself by skill, cunning, strength. Character. He’d already proved himself a good gambler, a brave soldier; he’d not mind proving he could run the best gaming house in London.
He glanced back at Phillipa. ‘I’ll take over the gaming house, if it comes to that, Rhys. But now I had better not keep this lady waiting.’
Rhys clapped him on the back and left the room.
Xavier brought two plates of food to the table where Phillipa waited.
‘You must not have told him,’ she said as he placed a plate before her.
‘Told him?’ Ah, she thought he would tell Rhys about her. ‘Of course not.’ He meant no one to know she’d come here. ‘I am going to get you through this folly of yours without injury to your person or your reputation.’
‘Reputation?’ She made a disparaging sound. ‘After what you told me about my father today, is not the whole family drenched in scandal? What does my reputation matter now?’
He signalled to a servant to bring some wine. ‘Society has always known your father to be a gambler and a philanderer. His self-exile to the Continent will seem like an honourable act. Your family’s reputation should stay intact.’
The wine arrived and Phillipa took a sip.
Her voice dipped low. ‘No matter. I have no need to preserve a reputation. That is for marriageable young ladies or matrons concerned about children.’
He felt a stab of sympathy. ‘You do not intend to marry?’
She glanced away. ‘Do not be absurd. You know what is beneath this mask.’ She turned back to him with a defiant gaze. ‘So there is nothing to risk. If I am attacked on the street, what will it matter?’
‘Do not pretend to be stupid, Phillipa,’ he growled. ‘A horror could befall you much worse than a cut on a face.’ At Badajoz he’d seen what violence men could inflict on women.
She blinked. ‘I know.’
He pushed the plate closer to her. ‘Have a bit of cake and let us speak of other things besides horrors.’
She obliged him and he found himself fascinated by the small bite she took of the cake, of her licking a crumb off her lip. Her lips were a most appealing shade of pink.
‘I am not really so much in the doldrums, you know,’ she went on. ‘I was merely trying to provoke you.’
He grinned. ‘Poke me and I’ll poke you back.’
They’d played that game as children. Much to his annoyance, as he recalled.
She pursed her lips. ‘You had better not poke me. I poke back much better than I used to. I am no longer a little girl, you know.’
He could not help but let his gaze peruse her. ‘I know.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Do not make a jest of me, Xavier.’
A jest? He was seeing her as a man sees a woman. ‘You ought to know me better, Phillipa.’
‘I do not know you at all now.’ Her expression turned bleak. ‘It has been a long time since we were children.’
‘I have not changed.’ He had changed, though. He’d once told himself he’d always look out for her, but he’d left her behind, a mere memory, as he grew to manhood and went to war.
‘I have changed.’ She lifted her chin again. ‘I have become quite independent, you know.’
‘Hence the excursion to a gaming hell.’ He touched her hand, but quickly withdrew.
Her fingers folded. ‘A gaming hell makes it sound so nefarious. It is rather staid, though. What a disappointment.’
He frowned. ‘What did you expect?’
‘Some debauchery, at least!’ She laughed. ‘I did not know what to expect, but my curiosity was piqued to see what my brothers thought would be the saving of our family. And of our village and its people. There are a great deal of counters being won and lost.’
‘In gambling, the house always has the advantage. Rhys’s success has been beyond everyone’s expectations.’ And Xavier vowed he’d make even more money from it.
Phillipa finished her wine. ‘May I return to the tables, Xavier? I still have money left to lose.’
He didn’t want to take her back to the game room. Not all the patrons of the place were gentlemen. She was too attractive—alluring, even—and she was alone. ‘Rhys is in the game room.’
‘Are you afraid he’ll recognise me this time?’ she asked.
‘You should worry over it,’ he countered. ‘He might recognise you. Or someone else might.’
Her eyes shifted. ‘No they won’t. They have never looked at me long enough to recognise me in a mask.’ She stood. ‘I wish to return to the tables. I was getting accustomed to faro. I believe I will play some more.’
He had no choice but to stand. ‘Very well, Phillipa.’
When they walked back to the doorway, she inclined her head towards the piano. ‘Who plays for you?’
He shrugged. ‘No one. It is left from the previous owner.’ Who also ran a brothel here as well as a gaming house, but she did not need to know that. A young fellow played the piano and the girls sang and flirted with the men.
He escorted Phillipa back to the game room and left her at the faro table where he had found her.
‘Campion brought you back?’ One of the men gave her a flirtatious look. ‘We despaired of ever seeing you again. Has the pick of the ladies, that one has.’
Xavier did not hear Phillipa’s response.
He could not hover around her, though. He’d only call more attention to her. There were gossips in the crowd who would make it their business to discover who she was.
He would watch from afar, in case she needed assistance, and when she made ready to leave, it would not be alone.
He stepped in to the hall where Cummings attended the door.
No one entered or left without Cummings knowing of it. ‘Do you recall the new woman who came earlier, the masked one in the dark-green gown?’ Xavier asked.
Cummings nodded.
‘When she is ready to leave, detain her and alert me. Do not allow her to leave until I speak with her.’
Cummings nodded again and, if he thought anything odd in this request, made no comment. But, then, Cummings rarely commented about anything.
‘I thank you, Cummings.’
Xavier returned to the game room, glancing first to see that Phillipa still played at the faro table. He’d keep an eye on her as well as on the other gamblers, and he’d be ready to see that Phillipa arrived safely to her town-house door.
* * *
After Xavier left her at the faro table, Phillipa’s very limited interest in gambling waned even further, but she persisted, merely to show him he could not drive her away.
One of the gentlemen who’d escorted her to the cashier and to the gaming room approached her. ‘Are you enjoying yourself, ma’am?’
How unexpected it was to be called ‘ma’am’ as if she were a married lady.
Xavier glanced in her direction so she smiled at the gentleman. ‘I am indeed. I even win sometimes.’
The gentleman laughed. ‘That is the main purpose of coming here.’ One brow rose. ‘Or do you have another purpose in mind?’
By his very significant look, she knew he meant something of consequence. She was not sure, but it could be flirtation. How very unexpected, if so.
‘The gambling attracts me, of course.’ Why not simply ask him what he means? ‘What else could there be?’
His eyes flitted over her person. ‘I saw that Mr Campion singled you out for notice. Are you to be another of his conquests?’
Her smile stiffened. This was the second man to suggest such a thing. ‘Another of his conquests? Goodness! How many does he have?’
He slid Xavier a jealous look. ‘He can have any woman he wishes.’
That did not precisely answer her question.
No matter. What difference to her how many women fell for the handsome Xavier Campion? What woman would not? She’d always known women found him irresistible.
For some odd reason, it bothered her to hear this man say so.
‘Does he wish to claim you?’ the man persisted.
Surely this was impertinence. Apparently impertinence was acceptable behaviour in a gaming house. And perhaps this gentleman did not think her a young lady worthy of respect.
That was why most of the women in the room wore masks, was it not? They would be scorned and their reputations ruined if their identities were known here. The masks protected them.
Ironically her mask merely assured that a gentleman would speak to her. He certainly would not have done if he had seen her face.
She turned back to the faro table. ‘I do believe Mr Campion merely wished to welcome me to the house.’
The man bowed. ‘I do understand.’
He understood? She wished she did. She’d intended to merely avoid his question. There was nothing to be understood.
He walked away.
She shook her head. If that man intended a flirtation, he gave up too easily.
She caught Xavier looking at her and, as she turned away from him, caught a woman glaring at her. Out of jealousy? Now this was a unique experience. A woman shooting daggers of jealousy at her instead of melting with pity.
All this was new. New people. New experiences. If she’d not consumed a little too much wine when with Xavier and if the hour were not so dreadfully late, her heart would be racing with excitement. She found it difficult to keep from yawning, though. Her mask itched and her feet hurt and she yearned to be between the cool linens of her bed.
She should leave.
Phillipa walked out of the room and cashed in her counters with the cashier. She’d lost money, but it hardly signified since the money simply went back to her family. She made her way to the hall to collect her cape and gloves. The same taciturn hall servant stood there.
And so did Xavier.
When the servant walked off to get her things, she faced him. ‘Making sure that I leave, Xavier?’
‘No.’ He did not look pleased. ‘I will walk you home.’
‘That is not necessary, I assure you,’ she responded. ‘I am perfectly capable of walking by myself.’
‘Regardless, I will walk you home.’
The servant brought her cloak and Xavier took it from him. He stepped towards Phillipa and placed it around her shoulders. The touch of his hands on her shoulders caused a frisson of sensation down her back.
She disliked being so affected by Xavier Campion. It made her think of how she’d felt dancing with him. The thrill of coming close to him, of touching him.
The servant opened the door and the cool evening air revived her.
Phillipa crossed over the threshold with Xavier right behind her. ‘I do not need an escort.’
He fell in step with her. ‘Nevertheless, I need to do this.’
She scoffed. ‘Do not be absurd. You can have the company of any woman you like. One of the gentlemen told me so.’
His step slowed for a moment. ‘Phillipa, if any danger should befall you on this walk home, I would never forgive myself for not preventing it.’
He sounded so serious.
‘So dramatic, Xavier. I am not your responsibility.’
His voice turned low. ‘At this moment, you are.’
It was very late. Three in the morning, at least, and she had never walked the streets of Mayfair at such an hour. Certainly not with a man at her side.
A man like Xavier.
But she must not think of him like that.
They crossed Piccadilly and as they headed towards Berkeley Square, their footsteps sounded a rhythm broken only by the echoing of a carriage or hackney coach somewhere in the distance. Other sounds—voices, music—wafted to her ears, only to fade quickly. She concentrated on the sounds, searching for a melody she might recreate on her pianoforte, a melody that would sound like the night felt. Cool, peaceful, empty.
‘Are you talking to yourself, Phillipa?’ Xavier asked.
She’d been lost in her music. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Your lips were moving.’
She’d been playing the music to herself. How daft she must appear. ‘I—I hear music in the sounds of the night. I try to remember them.’
‘Music?’ He could not hear the music, obviously.
‘In our footsteps. The carriages.’ She shrugged. ‘The other sounds.’
He paused before responding. ‘I see.’
Her mask irritated her face. She untied it and pulled it off, rubbing her scar before concealing her face with the hood of her cloak.
‘I like music,’ she explained. ‘I have studied music and the pianoforte a great deal over the last few years.’ Since that ball when she’d first danced with him. Of course, she’d never played ‘The Nonesuch’ again, though it had once been a favourite of hers. ‘It is my greatest pleasure.’
‘Is it?’ He acted as if interested. ‘I should like to hear you play.’
Such a polite thing to say. The sort of thing one says when pretending an interest that doesn’t truly exist. Like choosing a dance partner as a favour to one’s mother’s friend.
‘I play the pianoforte alone. It consumes my time.’ She made it seem as if she preferred not to have an audience when she really longed to play for others, to discover if her compositions and her technique had any merit.
He stopped speaking for a half a street.
She regretted snapping at him. ‘I think I spend too much time with my music. I think that is why I did not notice that my family was in distress.’
‘You isolated yourself.’ He sounded as if that would be a sad thing.
‘Too much, perhaps,’ she admitted. ‘That is the main reason I decided to visit the Masquerade Club.’
‘Could you not simply decide to attend balls and routs and musicales instead?’ His tone disapproved.
She was invisible in such places. No one looked at her if they could help it. No one spoke to her if they could avoid it.
When she donned the mask this night all that changed. ‘Perhaps balls and routs and musciales are not exciting enough for me.’
His fingers closed around her arm and he stopped walking. ‘Too much excitement can be dangerous. You must not play with fire, Phillipa.’
‘Fire?’ She laughed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that men will notice you at the gaming house. They will not expect you to be an innocent young girl.’
‘Innocent girl? Young? I am three and twenty. Quite on the shelf.’ But devoid of any experience, of that he was correct.
They walked again. ‘You have had your excitement,’ he went on. ‘Go back to playing your music now.’
She was eager to return to her music room, to write down the notes she’d heard in the sounds of the street at three in the morning, the sounds of a gaming hell, of his voice.
But she could not be done with the Masquerade Club. She wished to see and hear more; she wished to experience more.
Too bad for him. ‘I plan to return.’
‘No!’ he growled.
She lifted her chin. ‘I fully realise you do not wish me around you, Xavier, but it is you who have insinuated yourself into my company, not the reverse.’
‘You wrong me again.’ He sounded angry. ‘We are old friends, Phillipa. I owe you my protection as sure as if you were one of my sisters.’
‘Once, perhaps, you were under an obligation to do me a kindness.’ Her chest ached in memory. ‘Not any more.’
A carriage clattered by and she forced herself to listen to the horses’ hooves clapping against the cobbles, the wheels turning, the springs creaking.
She made it into music inside her head so she would not have to speak more to him, nor think about the thrill of him walking beside her, a sensation distracting in the extreme.
Would her old school friends still envy her as they’d once done when she’d danced with him all those years ago? Her friends were all married now. Some very well. Some very happily. She’d lost touch with most of them, although on the rare occasion her mother convinced her to attend some society event, she often saw some of them. Her most regular correspondence was with Felicia, who moved to Ireland when she married and never returned to England. Felicia’s letters were all about her children, her worries about the poor and her fears of typhus. Felicia would probably not even remember when Phillipa had danced with the most handsome man at the ball. How trivial it would seem to her if she did.
They reached Davies Street and the Westleigh town house.
‘Will someone let you in?’ Xavier asked, walking her directly to the door.
She pulled a key from her reticule. ‘No one will even know I’ve been gone.’
He took the key from her hand and turned it in the lock. As he opened the door, she stepped closer to slip in.
‘Farewell, Phillipa,’ he murmured, handing her back the key, standing so close his breath warmed her face. His voice felt as warm around her.
‘Xavier,’ she whispered back, unable to thank him for doing something she didn’t want, battling a familiar yearning she thought she’d defeated years ago.
She closed the door quietly and set her chin. ‘I will see you when night falls again,’ she said, knowing he could not hear.
Chapter Three
The next day Xavier saw Rhys off to travel north to look into this steam engine venture. That night, as other nights, Xavier walked through the gaming room, watching to see if all ran smoothly. From the beginning of the Masquerade Club he’d assisted Rhys in this task. The croupiers and the regular patrons were now used to him, but he’d needed to earn their respect.
It was not unusual for other men to underestimate him. He knew their thinking—that a man with his looks could not possibly have anything of substance to offer. Soldiers in his regiment had scoffed at his capacity to lead them until he proved himself in battle. Even the enemy on the battlefield took one look at him and dropped their guard. He could still see the surprised faces of those who felt the sharp edge of his sabre.
Xavier always believed he possessed courage, strength, cunning, but battle had tested it and proved it to him once and for all.
But he was done with war and fighting. He’d seen enough blood and suffering and death.
Xavier shook off the memories and made another circuit of the room. He paused at the hazard table, watching the men and women throw away fortunes with the roll of the dice, paying close attention to the dice, making certain they were not weighted.
Hazard, so dependent upon chance, had never interested him. To own the truth, even games of skill had lost their appeal. He’d demonstrated to the sceptics—and to himself—that he could win at cards. He possessed a tidy fortune to show for it.
Running the Masquerade Club was his latest challenge. Making it a success, in terms of popularity and profitability, was a game he intended to win. When Rhys returned, the house would be showing greater profits and more patrons than ever before.
Xavier knew he could be good at this. Hadn’t he been the one to notice the irregularities at the hazard table, the ones that so involved Lady Gale and ultimately Lord Westleigh?
Good riddance to that man. Everyone was better off with him gone. Especially Lord Westleigh’s family.
Especially Phillipa.
Lord Westleigh had been on the brink of ruining Phillipa’s life.
She had changed from that waif-like little girl he’d vowed to protect at Brighton. He’d been nearly five years older than she, but after her injury that summer, he’d made himself her champion, doing his best to distract her from her scar and keep sadness and despair at bay. He’d repeated this charge every summer until his family no longer summered at Brighton.
He’d never forgotten her.
In 1814, when Napoleon had been banished to Elba and peace briefly reigned on the Continent, Xavier found her again and danced with her at one of the Season’s balls. She’d seemed as light-hearted and gay as her many friends. And as pretty—if one ignored her scar. He’d looked forward to a second dance that night and a chance to spend more time with her, but she’d taken ill, her mother said. And he’d left for his regiment the next day.
Phillipa had changed in these last five years, though. She was remote. Guarded. As if she’d built a wall around herself, too deep and high to breach.
At least he’d seen her home safely last night. It had been foolish of her to come to the Masquerade Club alone. Still, he wished he could see her again.
Two men and a woman at the faro table parted and his wish came true.
There Phillipa stood.
She’d come back, even though he’d told her not to.
She glanced at him at that moment, straightening her spine defiantly. He acknowledged her with a nod.
He had a mind to march over, seize her arm and drag her out of this room, out of this gaming house and back to her home. Such a disruption would not be good for the house. And he certainly did not want to cause her undue attention.
He waited.
Finally she walked out of the room. He leaned over to one of the croupiers. ‘I’ll be right back.’
He caught up to her in the hallway. They were alone. ‘Phillipa.’
She turned and held her head high.
‘Are you leaving?’ He would not allow her to walk home alone.
She did not answer right away. ‘I am going to the supper room.’
He took her arm. ‘I will come with you.’
When they entered the room, she strode directly to the buffet and made her own selections.
He asked one of the servants to bring wine to his table, selecting one far enough away that the other diners could not hear their conversation. The wine arrived before she left the buffet.
She turned and paused as if trying to decide whether to join him or not. Tossing her head, she carried her plate to his table and sat down in silence.
He leaned towards her. ‘What possessed you to return here, Phillipa? I told you not to.’
She sipped her wine. ‘You told me I’d had enough excitement, as if you could know.’
‘This is not a fit place for you.’ How could he convince her? ‘Not all who come here are gentlemen and ladies.’
‘Enough, Xavier.’ She glared at him. ‘I will not be treated as if I am still seven years old. My half-brother made this a place ladies could gamble and so I shall gamble here. You cannot and will not stop me.’
She was right. He could not stop her. But he did have an obligation to her. He’d always had an obligation to her. ‘Do you intend to come again?’
‘Of course.’ She smiled smugly. ‘As often as I wish.’
‘Name the nights you will come and the times. I will escort you to and from the place.’ He could at least see she was safe on the streets.
‘No!’ she snapped.
‘Why?’ This was more foolishness. ‘It is to keep you safe.’
She held his gaze with an obstinate look. Finally she said, ‘Very well, but only if you agree not to tell Rhysdale.’
He’d never had any intention to tell Rhys. ‘Very well.’
Their conversation became more companionable after that. She asked about some of the patrons and he told her frankly which men were gentlemen and which were not. She asked questions about the running of the Masquerade Club, about the collection of the money, especially for the card games. She asked about profits and the potential for losses.
She had a quick mind, grasping the workings of the place as quickly as did her brother Hugh.
* * *
After half an hour, she rose to leave. As they walked towards the door and passed the pianoforte, Phillipa ran her fingers over the keyboard. ‘It seems a shame that no one ever plays. This is a pretty instrument.’
‘It has a nice sound, as I recall.’ Under Madame Bisou, the previous owner, music and raucous singing had filled the room for part of the night.
Phillipa looked at him with a careful expression. ‘I will play for you, if you will allow me to.’
He cocked his head, thinking. It would keep her out of the gaming room, at least.
He gestured to the piano bench. ‘Give it a try, Phillipa. Play whatever you like.’
She smiled. ‘Not tonight. Tomorrow night.’
* * *
The next night Xavier met Phillipa outside her town house at the agreed upon hour. He walked with her through Mayfair, crossing Piccadilly to St James’s Street and finally to the gaming hell. She headed straight to the supper room and the pianoforte.
He stayed to listen to her. If she was dreadful, he could stop her. Amateurs were often dreadful. Enough wrong notes, enough singing off-key and people would find another house in which to gamble. That would not happen under his watch.
Her first song he’d heard before—‘I Have A Silent Sorrow Here’, a song of unrequited love. The strings of the pianoforte and her voice resonated with emotion. She sang the song so beautifully it convinced him she had once loved a man who did not love her.
Who the devil was that man? That man who hurt her so? Was that what caused her to isolate herself? Had he made her bitter and unhappy?
The second song had a similar theme, although he’d never heard the tune before. Even more melancholic than the first, she sang of watching her beloved across a room and of being invisible to him.
He forgot about anything but the pain and sadness of her song, the emotion in her voice. He’d failed at his youthful vow to protect her. He’d not been there when this man wounded her. He clenched a fist. He’d like to find that fellow now.
She next played something light-hearted and he woke from his reverie. He glanced at the faces in the supper room. The people seated there abandoned their conversations. With rapt expressions, they all turned toward Phillipa.
The only way Phillipa would be a liability to the gaming house was if patrons abandoned the gaming tables to come hear her perform.
Xavier yearned to abandon his duties to stay to listen to her, but he’d already spent enough time away from the gaming room. He reluctantly left the supper room. In the gaming room the sounds were not melodic. Voices humming, dice rolling, cards shuffling. Although the sound of her voice and of the pianoforte sometimes broke through the din.
* * *
She did not stay long that evening, only a little more than two hours. As she promised to do, she sent word to him when she wished to go home. To escort her home would take little more than a half-hour. For that amount of time he could leave the club in the hands of Rhys’s employees.
They stepped out into the cool night air.
Her spirits were so high, she seemed irrepressible. It reminded him of that long-ago ball.
‘You enjoyed yourself tonight?’ he guessed.
She almost danced down the pavement. ‘I did. No one seemed disappointed in my playing.’
‘You did very well.’
She did more than very well.
‘Did I?’ She skipped ahead of him and faced him while walking backwards. ‘Do you truly think so?’
She pulled off her mask and the gas lamps illuminated her face, making it glow. Her happiness made her beautiful.
His heart swelled for her. ‘I know little of music, but I enjoyed what I heard.’
She grinned and twirled around. ‘That is all I wish!’
She chattered on about the songs she’d sung and played, reviewing her mistakes, assessing what went well. He liked listening to her. It reminded him of when she’d been a little girl and he’d been able to get her to happily chatter on.
In no time at all they reached her door and he put the key in the lock.
She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you so much, Xavier. You have made me very happy tonight.’
Her lips felt soft and warm.
He wrapped his arms around her and brought his lips within a hair’s breadth of hers. He felt her breasts rise and fall against his chest, further tantalising him. Her eyes grew wide as her mouth opened in alarm.
Banking his impulses, he lightly touched his lips to hers.
When he released her, his breath came faster. ‘I want you always to be happy, Phillipa,’ he murmured. ‘Same time tomorrow?’
She blinked up him, her brow puzzled. ‘Same time tomorrow.’
He opened the door and she slipped inside.
It took him a moment to move away.
He’d appointed himself her protector, but perhaps his hardest task would be to protect her from himself.
* * *
For the next four nights Xavier met Phillipa at her town house and returned her home again. They walked side by side through the night with only the occasional gaslight or rush light to break through the darkness. There were few carriages in the streets and fewer still pedestrians sharing the pavement. They talked of her music and the patrons who attended the gaming house, traded stories of what transpired in the supper room and in the game room.
Xavier was careful not to touch her, at least not to touch her in the way he most desired. The old camaraderie from their childhood days might have returned, but what consumed Xavier’s senses was the woman Phillipa had become. So graceful. So quick-witted. So passionate.
So unaffected by him.
How ironic that he should desire a woman who gave no sign at all of desiring him.
It was fortunate, he supposed, because this idyll could not continue indefinitely. When Rhys returned her performances would stop, and, Xavier suspected, Phillipa would have no more use for him. Still, he did not regret his decision to allow her to perform.
It brought her joy.
It even brought increased profits. People came to The Masquerade Club to hear her play and they stayed to gamble.
Could he contrive to see her when it was over? Would she receive him? Did he want to push himself on a woman who did not want him? God knew, he detested being pursued by someone he did not want.
This night she performed for two hours, as had become her custom, and sent word to Xavier that she was ready to leave. As they’d done on previous nights, they stepped out into the night air and began to share the night’s events with each other. This night, though, when they crossed Piccadilly and made their way to the unlit streets of Mayfair, Xavier felt a change in the air. It was nothing more than an odd sound, an unfamiliar shadow, but the soldier in him went on alert.
When he and Phillipa reached Hay Hill, the hairs on the back of his neck rose and he could almost hear the drum beat of the pas de charge.
He stopped her and lowered his voice. ‘Do you still carry your dagger?’
‘Yes.’ She caught his nerves.
‘Pull it and hand it to me now.’
She did as he asked.
As soon as the knife was in his hands, three men burst from the darkness. One, stinking of drink, seized him from behind and dragged him into the Brunton Mews. Xavier twisted his way free and slashed the dagger at the man, slicing in to a tattered uniform. In his ears he heard the sounds of battle. Muskets firing. Cannons booming. Men and horses screaming.
But this was not battle.
Another man grabbed for his wrist and tried to wrest the knife from his grasp. Xavier whirled on him, kicked him in the groin and sent him sprawling.
The third man had Phillipa in his grip. Xavier strained to come to her aid, but the first man set on him again.
‘We need money,’ the man cried. No doubt he was a former soldier now driven to theft and violence.
‘Leave us! Release her!’ Xavier lunged at him, slicing the man’s cheek and neck with his blade.
The man cried out and clapped his hand to his face. Blood dripped through the man’s fingers and on to his uniform. Xavier turned away at the sight and saw the second man regain his feet. Xavier’s thoughts were only on Phillipa.
She struggled to free herself. She gripped her captor’s hair and pulled it hard, before stomping on the man’s foot.
The second man went to aid the man fighting with Phillipa. Xavier launched himself forwards and seized the man’s collar, pulling him away.
That man pulled a knife. ‘Not so brave now, pretty boy.’ He laughed. ‘Give us your money.’
One more man underestimating him.
Xavier lifted his hands as if surrendering. ‘I want no trouble.’
The man sneered in contempt and lowered his hands slightly, the chance Xavier anticipated. He let out a cry, so fierce and wild, the man shrank back. Xavier charged straight for him, his fist connecting to the man’s chin. The man’s knife dropped to the street.
Xavier slammed him against the wall of the building and put the dagger to his throat. ‘Not so brave now, are you?’
‘Don’t cut me! Don’t cut me!’ the man pleaded.
Xavier snarled, ‘Leave now and you leave with your lives.’
The man nodded in fear. ‘We’re leaving. We’re leaving!’ He raised his hands in the air and Xavier stepped away. The man sidled away and grabbed the arm of the man still trying to stop the bleeding of the cut to his face.
The third man now had Phillipa’s reticule in his grip. She would not release it. His eyes widened when his companions ran off and Xavier advanced on him. Phillipa blocked the man’s escape. He picked her up and thrust her aside.
She hit the pavement flat on her face, her forehead bouncing on to its hard surface.
She did not move.
‘Phillipa!’ Xavier ran to her.
* * *
Phillipa heard a man call her name.
She scented sea air and heard waves rolling on to the shore. She felt small and frightened and in pain. Her face hurt and she tasted blood.
She tried to move, but the wind had been knocked out of her. ‘Phillipa!’ the voice called again.
A man’s hands turned her on her back. The darkness had melded into dusk and the air was briny.
‘Wake up, my girl,’ the voice said.
She opened her eyes and her vision filled with the face of a man. A stranger to her, but she’d seen him before, in this exact way—or so it felt.
‘Phillipa, wake up.’ The face changed before her eyes, turning into Xavier’s face.
She gasped.
‘Are you hurt?’ Xavier’s hands were all over her, touching her arms, her legs, her torso. ‘Did he hurt you?’
This was not at the seaside?
No, it was London. She and Xavier had been walking home. This was not Brighton. She was not a little girl. This was Xavier with her.
‘I’m not hurt,’ she managed.
She tried to sit up. His arms embraced her and lifted her to her feet. He held her against him. ‘I thought you were hurt.’ He held her tighter. ‘I thought I had lost you.’
She remembered men jumping out of the darkness at them. She remembered fighting to be free.
But for a moment she’d been back in Brighton. She’d seen a different man lean over her. He appeared as real as Xavier appeared now.
She trembled. She’d seen something that was not really there.
Panic rose inside her, kept at bay only because of the strength of his arms. He comforted her. She was safe. Xavier held her.
He loosened his grip. ‘I must get you home.’
Supporting her weight with one arm, he led her out of the mews, past Berkeley Square to Davies Street.
Her head throbbed as she remembered he’d had to fight off two men. ‘Did they hurt you?’ she asked. ‘Did they get your money?’ Her reticule still dangled from her arm.
His voice turned low and fierce. ‘Not that miserable lot of ruffians.’
They reached her door and he embraced her again. ‘I should have prevented that attack. We should not have been walking at this hour. I was wrong to agree to this.’
If he had not been with her, what would have happened to her? There had been three of them.
Her heart pounded, anticipating what would come next. He intended to forbid her to come to the Masquerade Club. He would stop her performances right when she was learning about how to make the music most entertaining. He would take it all away.
She could not bear it.
‘Do not forbid me this, Xavier.’ Her voice trembled and her head ached.
‘It is not safe, Phillipa,’ he insisted. ‘You simply cannot take the risk.’
The hood of her cloak had fallen away, exposing her disfigurement. She pulled it up again and put the key in the lock, turning it.
He covered her hand with his. ‘Phillipa, do not come to the gaming house. Do not try it alone.’
She opened the door and turned to him. ‘May I have my dagger back?’
He hesitated, but finally handed it to her.
‘Thank you, Xavier.’ Impulsively she threw her arms around him. ‘You saved us both.’
To her surprise, he returned her embrace with one of his own. He held her against him so tightly it seemed as if he would never release her.
‘Phillipa,’ he rasped in her ear, as if wanting something more of her, but she did not know what.
She only knew she felt even more shaken when he finally released her and she hurried inside the house.
Chapter Four
Phillipa tossed and turned in her bed. If she drifted into sleep, her attacker returned, jarring her awake. Worse, in her dream, the attacker bore the face of the man she’d seen in her vision.
She must call it a vision. What else could it be? She’d seen something that did not exist. Not only seen, she’d actually been in another place, a place that smelled and sounded like the seaside.
Like Brighton.
Was she going mad?
She closed her eyes and made herself imagine the image of her real attacker. And then she purposely recalled the face of the phantom man. She could remember both, but remembering was not remotely akin to what she had experienced. Seeing the phantom face, feeling as if she were in another place, those were not mere memories.
Even now, safe in her home, in her bed, she trembled in fear. It made no sense to feel afraid now; she’d not been excessively afraid during the attack. Fear had not been a part of fighting off her attacker and refusing to give him her reticule. The terror had come when she fell and that phantom face appeared.
It had seemed so very real.
If it were not enough to worry about going mad, her head also hurt like the dickens. She rose from bed and, by the dawning light from the window, peered at herself in her dressing table mirror. Her forehead bore a nasty scrape.
Phillipa walked back to her bed and pulled off a blanket. She wrapped it around herself and curled up in a chair to watch the light from the window grow brighter.
Her maid entered the room quietly and jumped when Phillipa turned towards her in the chair. ‘My lady!’
‘I could not sleep, Lacey.’ Phillipa stretched. ‘I might as well dress, I suppose.’
Her maid helped her into a morning dress and stood behind her to pin up her hair as she sat at the dressing table.
The girl glanced at her in the mirror. ‘What happened to your forehead?’
‘It is nothing,’ Phillipa answered quickly. ‘I...I bumped into the wall by accident.’
The maid looked sceptical.
Lacey was younger than Phillipa and had been hired as Phillipa’s lady’s maid after the Westleighs arrived in London for the Season. How nice it would be if Phillipa could confide in her about how her injury came about.
‘I’ll just wear a cap today,’ Phillipa said as the maid pinned up her hair. ‘We need not mention my injury to my mother. No need to worry her.’ A cap should hide the scrape well enough. Besides, her mother never looked at her too closely these days.
The girl nodded. ‘Yes, miss.’
Once dressed, Phillipa went straight to her music room. She placed her fingers on the keys of the pianoforte and tried to release the emotions inside her. The keys produced dissonant, unharmonious sounds and her fear returned, as if her world were crumbling around her and she could not stop it, the same feeling she experienced when she fell.
Her music reflected the confusion inside her. No phrase complemented any other.
She became dimly aware of a rapping at the door, but she did not stop playing. Whoever it was would eventually go away.
Suddenly her mother stood before her, shocking her as much as if her mother had been a vision herself.
‘Gracious, Phillipa! At least play a tune. This noise grates upon my nerves.’ Her mother pressed her fingers to her forehead.
Phillipa and her mother had barely spoken since the quarrel that sent Phillipa in search of answers about her family. And led her to Xavier. Now she could not speak of what she’d learned without revealing that she knew of the Masquerade Club.
Phillipa lifted her hands from the keys. ‘As you wish, Mama.’
She softly played ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, reciting the words in her head—Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone.
She’d not felt alone since Xavier allowed her to perform at the Masquerade Club.
‘When do Ned and Hugh return from wherever they are?’ She knew her mother would not tell her, but it might make her leave the room before noticing Phillipa’s bruise.
Her mother, still straight-backed and regal though in her fifty-fifth year, pursed her lips before answering, ‘Please do not tease me about their whereabouts. I have no wish to have that discussion with you again.’
Phillipa continued to play pianissimo.
‘Do you come to Lady Danderson’s musical evening with me tonight?’ Her mother’s tone dripped with disapproval. No doubt she expected Phillipa to refuse.
She was correct ‘I think not.’
Her mother swept a dramatic arm encompassing the pianoforte and half the room. ‘Why not? I thought you loved music.’
Phillipa shot her a sharp look, but averted her eyes. No sense revisiting her mother’s displeasure at her retreat from society. ‘It is to be an amateur performance, is it not? Lady Danderson’s daughters and other young ladies and gentlemen of her choosing?’
‘It is,’ her mother admitted.
‘But she has not chosen me.’
Her mother cleared her throat. ‘That is true, but...’
Phillipa stopped playing. ‘I do understand it, Mama. The performers are eligible young people. She wishes them to show off to good advantage.’ Phillipa did not need to explain to her mother that she would never show off to good advantage. Her mother would be first to agree. ‘There is no reason for me to be there.’
‘Well, there is the music,’ her mother added.
Phillipa resumed playing and the final lines of the song came to her—Oh! Who would inhabit this bleak world alone? ‘I would not enjoy it.’
‘I will attend without you, then.’ Her mother turned away and then swung back. ‘Perhaps I will ask Miss Gale if she will come with me. She is at least a sociable sort.’
Miss Gale was the young woman Phillipa’s brother Ned wanted to marry. She was also the stepdaughter of Lady Gale, the woman carrying Rhysdale’s child, the woman who also came masked to the Masquerade Club.
‘Miss Gale will be glad of my company.’ It was her mother’s parting shot. She strode out of the room.
Phillipa’s head suddenly ached, but she moved her fingers over the keys, barely pressing them this time, searching for a melody, any melody to erase this unrest within her.
* * *
Xavier waited for Phillipa that night at their appointed place, at their appointed time. This time, however, he waited with a hackney cab.
He paced the pavement, rather hoping she would not show up, yet yearning to see her, needing to know for certain that her injuries were minor. A blow to the head could be deceiving. What if she had been truly hurt, like that long-ago time in Brighton?
He’d have failed her again, that was what. And this time it would be his fault.
The jarvey leaned down from his perch atop the coach. ‘How much longer, sir? My time is money.’
‘I’ll pay you for your time, do not fear.’ Xavier paced some more.
Her town house door finally opened and a shadowy, cloaked figure emerged.
Phillipa.
She glanced towards where he stood near the coach, pausing briefly to put on her shoes before heading in his direction. She showed no sign that she knew it was he and looked as if she intended to walk past him.
‘Phillipa,’ he called out.
She drew back.
‘It is Xavier.’ He stepped in her path. ‘I have a hackney coach.’
‘Xavier?’
He opened the coach door.
She looked uncertain. ‘You brought a hackney for me?’
‘I feared you might try to walk alone.’ Or be too injured to make the attempt, he added silently as he helped her climb into the coach.
She settled in the seat and pulled her cloak around her. ‘I did not expect this.’
Xavier sat beside her in the close quarters of the coach’s dark interior. He felt her warmth, inhaled the scent of jasmine that clung to her. Her face was shrouded by her mask, but he longed to see her for himself. Was she bruised? Did her injuries again show on her face?
‘Have you suffered any ill-effects from last night?’ he asked.
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Diane Gaston
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The scars she keeps hidden…The mysterious pianiste is the Masquerade Club′s newest attraction, captivating guests with her haunting music. What is the true identity of the lady concealed beneath the mask?Only Xavier Campion, the club′s new proprietor, recognizes Phillipa Westleigh, the lady with whom he once shared a dance. Concerned for her safety, Xavier escorts her home each night. But when their moonlit strolls are uncovered, the only protection Xavier can offer is marriage!The Masquerade ClubIdentities concealed, desires revealed…