A Single Thread of Moonlight Page 5

  “I hope so. And then I shall uncover your secret identity, mysterious lady.”

  The words cut too close for comfort and I made my curtsey and left, but not before directing another flirtatious smile at the prince – after all, if he was looking for me then he would be too busy to propose to Agatha. It seemed that another opportunity had fallen in my lap – this time in the form of a handsome prince. This evening truly was a fairy tale.

  The ball was spread over three rooms: the enormous ballroom, a card room where many of the gentlemen and several of the ladies would gamble with one another’s fortunes, and a dining room, where refreshments were served, which was where I was headed. It was hot and I was thirsty for a cool glass of lemonade; besides, going in search of a drink also gave me a sense of purpose that I desperately needed.

  Despite leaving the prince behind, many eyes continued to follow me from behind their masks. My entrance, I supposed, had not been what one might call subtle.

  I turned the last few minutes over in my mind, The prince had seemed charming – and willing to be charmed. Perhaps matters with Agatha were not as far along as Helena hoped. I thought about this as I made my way towards a long table covered in clean white linen and helped myself to a glass of lemonade. Unfortunately, it was almost as warm as the room, and I grimaced as I took a sip.

  “Horrible, isn’t it?” a bright voice asked from beside me. I turned to find a small woman in a purple silk mask and a dress that I recognized well. It was Nicholas Wynter’s cousin, Teresa, and she was beaming up at me.

  My pulse stuttered, and I was gladder than ever for the mask that I wore.

  “It’s a little … warm,” I agreed.

  “I know, I know, but then you don’t come to Devonshire House for the refreshments, do you?”

  “What do you come for?” I asked.

  “Well, for the pageantry,” Teresa said, waving her hand around her. “To admire all the ladies’ gowns.” She smiled impishly. “And the gentlemen’s fine suits too.”

  “And the gentlemen within them?” I felt an answering grin tug at my mouth.

  “I am an extremely happily married lady,” Teresa said primly, ruining the effect with a laugh. “But it is nice to look.”

  I laughed too.

  “Your gown is beautiful,” Teresa said, and my laughter stopped. “Is it from Madame Solange’s?”

  “Yes,” I said weakly, and then, though it felt bizarre to be talking about my own work, I added, “Yours is lovely as well.”

  “Yes,” Teresa agreed, satisfied. “I had it from Madame Solange’s too, and I tell you I’ll be going there for everything from now on.”

  I couldn’t help the twinge of professional pride at those words.

  “Even my awful cousin Nick was impressed and he’s such a stickler, impossible to please,” she continued. “He’s around here somewhere, I must introduce you.” She pulled herself up short at that. “I suppose I should introduce myself first! Teresa St-Clair.” She held out her hand and I shook it.

  “Serena Fox,” I replied, the name feeling strange in my mouth. If Nicholas Wynter was here that was one more person to avoid. I was certain those cold eyes would see straight through me – mask or no mask.

  “I saw you dancing with the prince,” Teresa said, and I winced. Seeing it she laughed again. “Yes, you caused quite the stir.”

  “It was not my intention, I promise.”

  “I should perhaps warn you that the gossips here have him as good as married off to someone else. They’re expecting a proposal any moment.”

  “Oh really?” I smiled innocently.

  It was at that moment that I spotted her.

  Helena.

  She was on the other side of the open door, the one that led to the ballroom, resplendent in ivory satin. She wore a matching mask, but there was no mistaking those green eyes, that almost unnatural grace.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Teresa, “but I see someone I’ve been trying to catch up with. Will you excuse me?”

  “Of course!” Teresa exclaimed. “It’s so difficult to find one’s friends in this den, isn’t it? It was nice to meet you.”

  I smiled and turned away, my eyes not straying an inch from Helena as I began to edge in her direction.

  I wondered how I would begin the conversation, but it turned out that I didn’t have to. She was looking for me.

  “Ah,” Helena said, reaching out for my arm as I approached, her tone dripping with warm honey. “Our mystery guest.”

  Finally, after seven years, here we were, face to face. My stomach was doing somersaults, and my mouth had gone dry. It had been such a long time, and I had changed so much, but still – what if she recognized me?

  “My dear, I was hoping to meet you, you’re all anyone is talking about!”

  She might have fooled anyone else, but she couldn’t fool me. I heard the steel in those words. The attention that I had received from Prince Stefan had been unwelcome.

  Good, I thought, pasting on a smile that was a mirror to her own.

  “How funny,” I said lightly. “I promise that I’m not the least bit interesting.” I was proud of the steadiness of my voice, the way my words came out, cool and smooth. As if they were words that belonged here in this great room thronging with the aristocracy.

  “Surely that is for us to decide.” Helena’s smile sharpened into something more feline. “Forgive me,” she said. “Have we met? You seem … familiar.”

  I shrugged nonchalantly, the merest raising of a shoulder. “I don’t believe so, but it’s hard to know for certain with all these masks.”

  “So true.” Helena leaned in conspiratorially. “But then I suspect that’s the appeal of a masked ball, isn’t it?” She laughed, and my fingers curled at my sides. It was a musical laugh, a twinkling cadenza. I remembered my father’s face when she would laugh with him.

  “I expect you’re right,” I managed.

  “I don’t think we’re technically supposed to introduce ourselves until the unmasking at midnight,” Helena continued, “but I suppose we might bend the rules, mightn’t we?” She gave me a warm, confiding smile – one that I never saw as her stepdaughter. “I am Lady Scott-Holland, and my daughters Agatha and Cassandra are about the place somewhere… Ah!” She smiled. “There’s Agatha over there, dancing with the prince.”

  “What a beautiful gown,” I said, turning to look at them. “And how well she dances.”

  In fact, Agatha did dance well, and the dress – a frothy pale pink confection on to which I had laboriously stitched hundreds of seed pearls – suited her perfectly. She and the prince made a handsome pair.

  “Are you much acquainted with Prince Stefan?” Helena asked.

  I widened my eyes. “Me? No, I have never had the pleasure of meeting the prince before this evening.”

  “Yet he seemed quite taken with you.” Helena’s smile was getting nowhere near her eyes, which were watchful. “To be singled out to dance twice in a row! I really must ask the question on everyone’s lips. Who are you?”

  “I suppose you will all find out at midnight,” I replied sweetly.

  “How mysterious,” Helena said, her voice flat.

  “Are you well acquainted with the prince, Lady Scott-Holland?” I asked innocently, ready to gather as much information as I could on the progress she and Agatha had made.

  Helena’s eyes lit and her mouth opened in response, but suddenly a familiar voice caressed my ear.

  “There you are,” said Nicholas Wynter. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  My eyes flashed to his, an unreadable frost blue. Mine, I hoped, did not betray the utter panic I felt.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Lady Scott-Holland, I need to borrow this lovely young lady.” He was utterly calm, unruffled.

  “Of course, of course.” Helena nodded.

  I had absolutely no desire to go with him, or to cut short my conversation with Helena. I had waited years fo
r this opportunity.

  “Lady Scott-Holland and I were talking,” I said, allowing a touch of ice to creep into my voice.

  Unbelievably, Nicholas Wynter laughed. “No need to get on your high ropes with an old friend, is there?” he asked me. Then, sharing a conspiratorial wink with Helena, he added, “Honestly, she’s always been like this. She used to order me around with great authority, even when she was in the nursery.”

  I stared at him, my mouth opening, but no words coming out. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Helena absorb this detail thoughtfully.

  Unfortunately, Nicholas used my momentary confusion to turn away, making it clear I was to follow, tossing a charming smile over his shoulder at Helena as he did so.

  I walked beside him, rigid with fury, as he made his way through the ballroom. It would hardly help matters if I refused to go with him or made a scene.

  “Feeling faint?” he said loudly, out of nowhere. “Of course, we must get you some air!” He led me out of a pair of French doors and on to an enormous stone balcony.

  I looked around. There was no one else here, which suited me just fine. It was time to tell Nicholas Wynter exactly what I thought of him.

  “What on earth do you think you are doing?” I snapped.

  “Finding us somewhere to talk privately, Miss Grey. What else?”

  So he knew who I was.

  He leaned back against the balustrade, the picture of tranquillity. He was partly in shadow now, but still disgustingly handsome. His dark hair gleamed; his eyes behind the silver mask he wore seemed an even more dazzling arctic blue than when I had seen him last. He wore a waistcoat of silver brocade underneath a black suit. As a dressmaker I had no choice but to admire the craftsmanship. It fit him like a glove.

  “I have no desire to talk to you,” I said. “I thought I had made that abundantly clear. In fact, I am worried that you may need medical attention. Tell me, did you suffer any head injuries as a child?”

  His eyes flashed appreciatively. “I knew that I had a good feeling about you.”

  “I’ve had enough of this.” I turned to go.

  “Wait!” Nicholas called out, and something in his tone made me stop. “I know you said that you didn’t want anything to do with me, but that was when – and please do correct me if I’m wrong about this – you were under the impression that I wished to make you my mistress. I do not.”

  “You … do not?” I repeated, my hand falling away from the door handle.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Forgive my bluntness, but I think we should get that cleared up straight away. I’ve never found the idea of keeping a woman anything other than distasteful.”

  “But you said…” I trailed off, trying to remember our earlier conversation.

  “I said that I had a proposition for you, and I do.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Yes, that’s right. Then I believe you told me you would buy me a canary.”

  “I said –” Nicholas held up a finger – “that I had never considered a canary, which was true.”

  I shook my head. “I believe my original impression of you still stands.”

  He pulled himself away from the edge of the balcony, taking a lazy step towards me. “Just hear me out,” he said. “Please.”

  It was the please that did it. It was not a word I had imagined was in his vocabulary.

  “Fine.” I crossed my arms. “Let’s hear this proposition. Quickly, if you will. It is cold.”

  Almost before the words had left my mouth, I found myself being draped in a thick, dark jacket – still warm with the heat of his body. It felt shockingly intimate.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled, thrown.

  He brushed the thanks aside, and stood for a moment, eying me with a speculative gaze that was disconcerting. It didn’t help that without the jacket I could see how nice his arms were in his fine linen shirt. The man could certainly wear a waistcoat.

  “It is an idea that I think will sound … strange to you,” he began.

  “As opposed to everything else you’ve said and done so far,” I said.

  “What I wish to do is to employ you.”

  “You need a dressmaker on your staff?”

  The briefest hint of a smile touched his lips, gone before I could even be certain it was there at all. “It is not your dressmaking abilities that I require.”

  “This sounds suspiciously like we’re coming back to something improper.”

  “I suppose to most people it would seem that way,” he agreed easily. “I want your help, so that I can ruin a man. A specific man, in fact. Prince Stefan of Saxe-Illyris.”

  I felt my mouth drop open. Whatever I had been expecting him to say, it was not that.

  “I would like for you to convince the prince to propose to you, and then I would like for you to jilt him. Publicly.”

  “Propose … marriage?”

  “No, Miss Grey, I want you to get him to propose a game of whist,” he snorted. “Of course, marriage.”

  “Lord Wynter,” I began.

  “I believe you should call me Nick,” he said. “If we are to be co-conspirators.”

  “Lord Wynter,” I tried again, more firmly this time. “I have no idea what you are talking about, or frankly how you expect me to get a prince to propose to a seamstress…”

  “Oh, that.” He waved my concerns aside. “You’re not going to be a seamstress, are you? You’re going to be Serena Fox, the extremely wealthy heiress whose factory-owning father is in line for a title.”

  With dazzling clarity, the pieces fell into place in my head. “You sent me the dress and the invitation?” My words rang out, aghast.

  “Of course. I thought you had already worked that part out.”

  “Why would I… Why would you…” I stammered, my mind grasping desperately for anything that made sense of this. “You mean to tell me that you are my fairy godmother?”

  For the first time since we had met, Nicholas Wynter looked disconcerted. “Your what?”

  It was not a question I could answer though, because I was too busy laughing. I think it was some form of hysteria, but the idea that I had – for even a moment – considered the man in front of me to be my fairy godmother was, frankly, hilarious. The perplexed frown he wore did not help.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, finally getting a hold of myself. “What matters is that I’m afraid that I can’t help you. I have no idea why you would want to embroil anyone in such a plan, but I would never—”

  I stopped.

  Lord Wynter wanted to get the prince to propose to me.

  If the prince proposed to me then he would not be proposing to Agatha, as it was increasingly clear everyone expected him to do.

  And Helena’s humiliation would be absolute.

  I liked that idea; I liked that idea very much.

  Nicholas was still talking, saying something about renumeration and the sums he would pay me for my involvement.

  “…enough to set up your own shop should you wish to do so, though, of course…”

  “How would it work?” I interrupted him.

  His eyebrows rose. “It is perfectly simple,” he said. “You will become Serena Fox, with the personal history that I have created for you. I will vouch for you as an old family friend and spread the story of your enormous wealth – no one will doubt my word.”

  Arrogance dripped from every sentence, but I couldn’t argue with it. If anyone could control society’s opinion of me, it was Nicholas Wynter.

  “It was clear to me from the start that you could pass for well-born – it’s in your voice and the way you stand.” He paused then, but if he was waiting for me to fill him in on my family history then he would be waiting a long, long while. Seeming to realize this, he continued. “I can help to polish you up, and we can pass any mistakes off as those of a sheltered heiress whose doting father has kept her in the country.”

  “You think the fact that I’m an heiress will be enough to snare a prince?” I aske
d, incredulous.

  “Prince Stefan has come to England with a single purpose,” Nicholas said. “In order to avoid marrying the lady his grandmother, the queen, has chosen for him, he must arrange an advantageous match, and fast. Stefan has expensive tastes. He’s here to catch a rich bride, one who can keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed. I believe that, were he to think you wealthy, you would have no trouble succeeding with him. You are exactly his … type.” He gave something of a grimace.

  “So Serena Fox doesn’t exist?” I asked.

  “She will do – if you agree to become her for the next two weeks.”

  “Two weeks?”

  A lock of his hair fell forward and he pushed it back with an impatient hand. “That’s how long the prince has left before his grandmother requires his presence at home. She was reluctant to allow him to come in the first place and if he doesn’t return with a respectable match arranged, then he must marry her choice of bride. A cousin of his, I believe – a woman of good standing, very wealthy – and entirely under her thumb. Prince Stefan has no desire for a wife whose fortune will be under his grandmother’s control.”

  I watched him thoughtfully. I wondered what it was that Nicholas was not saying.

  “Rumour has it that he is about to propose to Lady Scott-Holland’s daughter,” I said carefully.

  “Precisely.” His eyes gleamed in the dark.

  “So you want me to prevent him from finding an acceptable partner before the time runs out, by directing his interest towards me?”

  “Correct. And then, when his interest is confirmed, when he has thrown over all others, I would also like you to reject him, publicly and in the most humiliating way possible.”

  “But … why?” I asked.

  His eyes shuttered. “That is not a matter for discussion,” he said coldly.

  I hesitated. Would I really conspire to harm an innocent man, in order to revenge myself against the woman who had taken everything from me?

  Yes, yes, I would. I would steel myself against any softer feeling, I would do what I needed to do to pull Helena’s perfect life apart, stitch by stitch if I had to. Preventing her family from marrying into royalty was only the beginning. When I was through with her, Helena would be ruined. I owed it to my father.