Midnight Masquerade Read Free Page B

claiming insanity in the family. Any pending major misalliance on Bertie’s part would be bound to help, but then, one’s own mother. . . . And Bertie was such a jingle brain she’d end up marrying whatever hedgebird he got for the part.
    When they reached the home road, it was nearly midnight, and he still had no solution to his problem. “Wake up!” Pierre said, nudging him in the ribs with the butt of his whip.
    Belami pulled out his watch and focused his eyes to read it in the moonless shadows. Ten minutes to twelve. He left it in his hand to watch for midnight, but looked around at the scene before him. Beaulac reared its handsome head and shoulders up into the whirling snow that swept through the black night on eddies of wind. Beaulac was too formal a building to entirely please this romantic young lord. He would have preferred a heap in the gothic style, with arched windows that were so much more feminine than the mullioned rectangles of Beaulac. He was fond of flying buttresses, and an occasional gargoyle would have pleased him; but on this night, with the darkness and snow concealing the severe geometry of Beaulac, he was satisfied with his home. The many lit windows lent a lively and haphazard air to the place. His gaze wandered off to the grounds, noticing the undisturbed snow. The last guest must have arrived several hours ago, he thought, but at least no one had left yet.
    He happened to glance up to the roof, and thought he discerned a shadow moving there. He smiled, recalling the many times he had stood there himself, draped in a sheet, to scare the wits out of the gullible servants. What had he called that ghost he was supposed to be? Knag, that was it, with the k silent. Pity Beaulac didn’t have a real ghost like Longleat’s Green Lady, to rescue him from this unwanted entanglement. A bemused smile hovered about his lips as he sat, staring and thinking unholy thoughts.
    The long hand was still several minutes away from twelve as they pulled into the stable, but Belami said, “Bonne et Heureuse Année , Pierre,” anyway.
    Pierre sneezed violently. “La même pour vous, melord.”
    “ Gezundheit ”
    “ Comment ?”
    “Let another groom tend the grays and you look after yourself. I suggest a warm bath and a hot drink,” Belami said.
    “No hands but these take care of my grays,” Pierre declared, holding out his hands.
    “Those hands won’t do any of us much good if they’re attached to a corpse,” Belami said, and hastened off.
    He entered by the kitchen door, to slip up to his room by the back stairs and change his clothes. It was odd, but convenient, that there were no servants in the kitchen. They must have gone up to serve the midnight dinner. The stable was full of carriages, so the ball was obviously in progress.
    Belami had left his valet in London, as the man was in the throes of a torrid triangular love affair with Lord Norris’s upstairs maid. Belami was a firm believer in true love, especially for people other than himself. He had given Uggams a handful of golden boys to help his suit along, and offered the woman a position in his own household as well, if she accepted his valet’s offer. His generosity had left him with only Pierre to help with his dressing, and for the present, he must help himself. Naturally his grays came first.
    He struggled out of his topboots, fawn trousers, and jacket alone, and scrambled into his pantaloons and black jacket. He brushed his hair and tied up his cravat with a careless disregard for the Waterfall and Oriental and such fashionable arrangements as prevailed amidst the ton. While his fingers performed these automatic functions, his mind reverted to Knag, and other more plausible means of egress from an unwanted engagement.
    Belowstairs, the hands of the clock rapidly approached midnight.
    * * * *
    It was some moments later when Belami hastened, head bent, along the upstairs hall. He took no notice of the female guest approaching till he had