A Dangerous Masquerade Read Free Page A

friends and no money, she’d been forced to look for work.  The comtesse had taken her on and Constance had loved her as the sister she’d never had.
    Her servant Pierre had followed her to Paris from the south of France, where they had been living.  He’d been her father’s friend and was devoted to her.  Without him she could not have carried out her daring plan to adopt the comtesse’s identity and attend the various evening affairs where she had earned her living at the gaming table.
    Unlike her father, Constance was not a true gambler.  She hated the need for what she did, but there was to her mind little choice.  Unless she sold the comtesse’s jewels and costly gowns she could not continue to live in the comte’s house, nor could she help keep the children the nuns had rescued from returning to the streets and their lives of degradation.
    The first time she’d gambled what was left of the comte’s gold, she’d been terrified of being denounced as an impostor and turned from the house.  However, she’d been accepted everywhere.  It was not until some weeks after her masquerade began that she realised everyone thought she was a rich widow.  She was courted and fawned over, and, more importantly, she was lucky at the tables.  She had won something every time she played.  Sometimes it was a matter of a few guineas, sometimes she won hundreds and once even a thousand francs.
    Constance kept only enough to pay for their food and fuel at the house.  Everything else she gave to the nuns for the children, keeping back only her stake of fifty gold guineas, which she’d won from an English milord the very first night.  That money was safely hidden in her room at the house; the purse she’d stolen that night would go to the nuns.  She hadn’t bothered to count her ill-gotten gains.  Constance was deeply ashamed of the impulse that had made her take the stranger’s money.  She might not have done it had she not heard someone say that he was a rake and an uncaring swine.  Now, she tried to assuage her conscience by telling herself that he could afford to lose the money he’d won from others.
    Coming to the house she sought, she glanced back once more.  The street was empty.  No one stood in the shadows.  She needed to be sure she had not been followed, because she knew the nuns had an enemy – a ruthless wicked man who would take the children if he discovered where they were and force them into lives of shame that would lead to their early deaths.
    There was no one in the shadows.  She breathed a sigh of relief and lifted the knocker.  Immediately it was opened.  Pierre smiled; his relief that she’d arrived safely evident as he pulled her inside.
    ‘You were not followed?’
    ‘I believe not,’ she said.  ‘As you see I am here safely.  Is Sister Helene here?’
    ‘She is waiting for you in the parlour. Little Lucille was ill earlier – a nightmare.  She woke the others and Sister Helene had to comfort Lucille before she would sleep again.’
    ‘Lucille has never spoken of what happened to her before she was found, though we know she was near to starving and covered in bruises.’
    ‘She cried out that the evil man was after her,’ Pierre said.  ‘If I knew his name I would break his neck with my bare hands.’
    His big face creased with pity and Constance shook her head at him.  ‘You must control your anger, my friend.  You are needed here to protect the children – and I need you.  I could not do what I do without you.’
    ‘You should stop soon,’ Pierre warned.  ‘If your identity were discovered you might be arrested and imprisoned for theft.’
    ‘I have stolen nothing…of the comtesse’s,’ Constance said but she could not meet her friend’s eyes.  This night she had become a thief and the knowledge did not sit well with her.  For a moment she considered seeking out the lord whose purse she’d taken and giving him his money back, but if she did that the