A Masked Deception Read Free Page B

and added as an after thought, “I should like a glass of lemonade, please.”
    Brampton had drawn her arm gently through his again and led her back to the terrace.
    “Stay here, angel,” he had said, releasing her arm. “I shall bring you some lemonade without delay.”
    “Margaret!” a shocked voice had hissed as the earl disappeared into the ballroom. “Where have you been, my girl? Your father and I have been searching for you this half-hour past. Do you know no better, child, than to walk alone in the garden at night, with a man?”
    Margaret’s mother had whisked her away home without more ado, and she had not been allowed to attend any social functions for the next week.
    That night had been an end and a beginning for Margaret. It had been the end of her delight in the activities of the ton. She had participated in a vast number of events for the rest of that Season and for the next five, and she had received three offers of marriage, one at the end of that first Season from an earnest young man who wrote a sonnet to her eyes, and two others in later years. But she had not been able to force herself either to enjoy the activities or to welcome any of the proposals. It had been the beginning of her undying and hopeless passion for the Earl of Brampton.
    She had seen him with fair frequency. She had even danced with him on rare occasions, always for country dances or quadrilles, never for the waltz. And he had never shown the slightest hint of recognition or even a gleam of interest in her. Margaret had borne it all in patient silence. Only Charlotte had guessed that she had had an unhappy love experience in her past, and Charlotte thought the whole painful situation unutterably romantic.
    And now, by some bizarre twist of fate, Brampton had chosen her for his bride. Margaret was in no doubt of the reason. A nobleman in his thirties, who had a reputation as a habitual womanizer, could have only one possible reason for wanting to marry a virtual stranger. He wanted children to secure his line. Like other men of his type, he would turn elsewhere for love, and she would be expected to act as if she did not know or care. Margaret suppressed a sob of despair.
    But at least she would have part of him. She would share his name. She would live with him and see him daily. She would finally, after six long years, find out what it was like to be in bed with him. Margaret, even at the age of twenty-five, was still not quite sure what happened between a man and a woman in bed, but she remembered quite clearly what had started to happen to her body when he had caressed her with expert lips and tongue and hands.
    Margaret shivered and sighed. And finally she closed her eyes and slept deeply.

CHAPTER 2

    R ichard and Margaret Adair, Earl and Countess of Brampton, sat side by side on the comfortable green velvet seat of his traveling couch. They had been wed that morning and were on their way to the earl’s chief seat, Brampton Court in Hampshire, for their honeymoon. They sat now in silence, their forced and stilted conversation having flickered to an end an hour before. Margaret had her eyes closed and pretended to sleep.
    Brampton looked across at her from his comer, his eyes inspecting her slowly from head to foot. She had removed her pink bonnet; it lay on the seat opposite. He looked at the brown hair, drawn severely back from her forehead and the sides of her face and coiled in heavy braids on top of her head. Not a wisp or a curl had been allowed to escape, to tease a man’s imagination or make his fingers itch to explore. Her face (yes, it was definitely heart-shaped!) was composed, eyes closed, long eyelashes resting lightly against her cheeks, her lips set together.
    She still wore her deep-pink velvet pelisse. It hid her figure, though he could see the regular rise and fall of her slight breasts. Her hands, clad in white kid gloves, were clasped neatly in her lap. Her feet in their white ankle boots were set side by