Girl in the Beaded Mask (2 page)

Lulu could hardly breathe as the car turned in at the stone gates of Granley Hall and joined the long queue of vehicles snaking their way up to the house. She peered out the window to see a kaleidoscope of lights, turning the old stone manor into a blazing fairyland glory. She could hear the faint strains of dance music.

She pulled a silver compact from her little beaded handbag and looked anxiously into the glass. She had powdered over her freckles and rouged her lips, and her bobbed hair was held back with diamond clips shaped like leaves. She had filched them from her mother's jewel case in the hope they made her look older, more sophisticated.

Tomorrow, they would go straight back and hopefully no one would be any the wiser about this whole secret excursion. Mum would think she had spent the night with a school friend, and Lulu would have a glorious memory.

Hopefully.

She carefully smoothed the skirt of her beaded silver satin Poiret gown and straightened the straps of her silver dancing shoes. She was almost there now, almost to that enchanted fairy-ball.

The car drew to a halt at the front of the house, and a footman in a powdered wig and white satin knee breeches and jacket opened her door. As she stepped out, she saw the host, Bertie Finch-Granley, hurrying toward her with his hands outstretched. He wore a black velvet cape and a red-and-black feathered mask, like a large, dramatic bird.

“Darling Lulu!” he cried. “At last you've been able to come to my little soiree.”

Lulu quickly slipped on her own silver beaded mask and took his hands as he kissed her cheek. “I'm so excited to finally get a look at it! It's gorgeous.”

“You haven't seen anything yet.” He gave her his arm and led her around the side of the lit-up house.

A smooth, green lawn sloped away from the back terrace, ending in a shimmering lake. Two huge, open-sided tents were set up there, one of them with a dance floor and a jazz band and the other with a buffet and a champagne fountain, interspersed with large flower arrangements of exotic lilies and orchids.

Both the tents were crowded with people, men in elegant black evening suits and black masks, women in butterfly-bright beaded and embroidered gowns. They twirled around the dance floor to the raucous strains of “Ain't We Got Fun.” Shrieks of laughter filled the summer night air.

“What do you think, darling?” Bertie asked.

“It's absolutely wizard,” Lulu answered, trying to look at everything at once. “It's definitely no staid deb dance!”

“Just a little soiree I throw together at the last minute,” Bertie said happily. He led her into the buffet tent, which was just as packed with people as the dance floor. The long, white-draped tables were covered with trays of smoked salmon, caviar on blinis, stuffed mushrooms, lobster patties and glistening French chocolates, all presided over by a huge ice sculpture of Poseidon.

A bartender was busy mixing up sidecars and pink ladies, but Bertie snatched two glasses of champagne from a waiter's tray and handed one to Lulu.

She sipped at it, giggling as the bubbles tickled her throat. “Delicious,” she said.

“Now, darling, there is someone I particularly want you to talk to,” Bertie said. “He desperately needs cheering up, and I think you are just the one to do it.”

Lulu studied the crowd around her, but she didn't see the man she had come to find. David had to be here somewhere, and she had to find him. “I don't know, Bertie….”

“Trust me. I have a sense of these things.” Bertie led her out of the tent and down a winding pathway toward the edge of the lake. A few couples strolled there, and some people were even in boats out on the water.

There were fairy lights strung in the trees, twinkling through the thick leaves, but they cast only a little light and everything was in shadows. The moon shone on the lake.

“Over there,” Bertie whispered. He gestured at a figure standing at the water's edge, next to a pavilion-shaped swimming cabana.

Lulu gasped. Even in the shifting moonlight, she knew it was David. No one else had such broad, strong shoulders, or stood so straight and still. The stars glistened on his glossy dark hair, and he looked so lost in solemn thought even in the midst of the wild party.

He
was
there, right there in front of her. Lulu's heart pounded in her ears, and she gulped down the rest of her champagne. It warmed her down to her toes and gave her courage.

“I'm sure you remember David Carlisle?” Bertie said. “He was friends with poor Bill, too.”

“I remember him,” she whispered.

“He's become a terrible recluse, I'm afraid. But I managed to lure him here. Hopefully we can make him have a little fun.”

“I do hope so.”

Bertie beamed at her. “I knew you would see it my way, darling! Now I must run and do my duty as host. You go and see what you can do with our friend there.” He took her empty glass from her hand and rushed away with a swirl of his cape.

Lulu looked back to David. He hadn't moved from his place by the water. He still stared out at she knew not what, shutting out the merriment of the party.

She took a deep breath and walked toward him before she could change her mind. This was what she had come for, to find David.

As she reached him, he finally looked over at her. He didn't wear a mask—the scrap of black satin dangled from his hand. The silvery moonlight flowed over his face, etching the austere, elegant angles of his cheekbones and knife-straight nose. In the darkness she couldn't see the scars on his left cheek.

One dark brow arched, but Lulu wouldn't be scared off by his quiet stillness. He surely couldn't know it was her, not in the darkness and with her mask. She didn't have to be herself, not yet. She could be a sophisticated temptress, like in a movie.

She pitched her voice low and gravelly, like an actress she had once seen onstage in London. “It's beautiful out here tonight, isn't it?” she said. “Like a whole different, peaceful world.”

He raised the glass in his other hand and took a long drink. Then he smiled at her, a crooked, wry smile that made her heart pound all over again. She had forgotten the power of his smile.

“I think most people would rather be back at the party, dancing,” he said.

No,
Lulu thought. This was exactly where she wanted to be.

“I like it here,” she said. “You can find dancing and jazz at any old party, but places like this are harder to come by.”

“A different, peaceful world,” he said quietly, echoing her earlier words.

“Yes.” Lulu edged closer to him, until she could feel the heat of his tall, lean body reach out to wrap around her. Everything else faded—the music, the laughter of the people out on the lake, even her own nervousness—and there was just him, there with her. David, the man for whom she had been waiting for so long.

“I don't think I've seen you at one of Bertie's parties before,” she said.

“I don't venture out from my house very often these days,” he answered, giving her another smile.

“Really? Why ever not?”

David drained the last of the liquid from his glass and put it down on a stone railing that separated the bank from the lake. “I suppose I'm not the best company.”

“I think you're doing just fine.” Lulu carefully edged even closer until her bare arm brushed the soft sleeve of his evening jacket. “I like being here with you.”

He looked down at her, and his face was blank and smooth in the moonlight, no expression at all. “Do you?”

“You don't chatter on and on, like all those London boys who only want to talk about cricket,” she said. “It's quite exhausting.”

Finally, that smile touched the edge of his lips again. It was slow and careful, as if he were out of practice when it came to smiling, but Lulu thought it was beautiful.

“You've come to the right place, then,” he said. “I have no interest in cricket at all. I don't think I've been near an organized sport since school.”

“Oh, I know.”

His brow arched. “How do you know?”

“Oh,” Lulu stammered, quickly trying to cover her little slip. “You just don't look the type. I like that.”

She brushed her hand against his, and to her delighted astonishment he took her fingers in his cool clasp. “And you're the first lady I've met who prefers quiet to dancing.”

“Well, not always,” she admitted, hardly able to think with his touch on her skin. Vaguely, through the glittering haze he created around them, she heard music, loud and rhythmic. She grabbed on to it like a lifeline, a last chance to think clearly again. “In fact, why don't we dance now?”

She stepped closer to him and slid one hand to his shoulder, taking the other tightly against her palm. At first his movements were stiff and uncertain, as if he didn't quite remember the steps. He laughed ruefully, and Lulu laughed, too, even though her heart was pounding so loudly she could hardly hear anything else. She was with
David
—he was right here, holding on to her. It was like a wonderful dream, and she didn't intend to let it go.

She carefully guided him in the slow dance steps until he found the rhythm again. The grace and agility she had once admired as he danced with other, luckier girls on the Hatton Hall terrace was still there, hidden, just waiting to come out.

But
she
was the lucky girl now. As his arms closed around her, Lulu rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. The music swayed and turned slow and languid. She let that music slowly wind around her as his warmth seeped into her heart and she didn't know anything but him. It was all she had longed for so long.

She had never felt so safe in her life, and she never wanted the music to end.

Their steps slid together perfectly, their bodies fitting as if they had always been just like that.
This
was the dance she had always been waiting for, and the one she would always want. With him.

If only David could feel the same.

But as the song wound to a close, his arms slipped away from her and he took a step back. Lulu shook away the shimmering clouds of her dream and looked up to see a wry, humorless smile twisted his lips.

“I think you've done your duty now, my dear,” he said.

Lulu blinked at him. “My…duty?”

“Didn't our host urge you to take pity on the poor, lonely man hiding in the shadows?”

“Certainly not!” she said indignantly. How could he think that of her, of himself? Didn't he see, didn't he
know?

But she knew that he didn't know. He couldn't. Whatever terrible things had happened to him, however dark his heart had become, he was still David. She didn't know how to tell him that in a way he could believe.

She had to show him.

Lulu stepped closer to him, one inch at a time as if she feared he would run from her. He stood very still, as wary as a jungle tiger, as she wrapped her hands around the lapels of his jacket and went up on tiptoe. Gently, softly, she kissed the scars that marred his face below the edge of the mask. One, then the other, to show him how beautiful he was to her.

She ended with a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth. “I'm here because I want to be,” she whispered. “This is the
only
place I want to be—with you.”

He gave a deep growl, and suddenly his arms were around her, pulling her close and setting his lips against hers.

Lulu's mouth parted on a startled gasp, and she felt the touch of his tongue on hers, tasting, exploring. When other men had done that it seemed somehow vile, and she had pushed them away with impatience. But with David, it felt wonderfully delightful, creating a heavy, delicious heat deep inside of her. Was he convinced of her true feelings now?

She twined her arms around his neck and went up on tiptoe, letting him deepen the kiss. It felt as if she had dived into a warm pool of water, deeper and deeper, until all there was in the world was
him.
His touch, his kiss, the way he made her feel.

It was even better than she had ever dreamed it could be.

She buried her fingers in the rough, waving silk of his hair and held him close to her. She felt him groan against her lips, a ragged sound of need that echoed her own. She pressed herself tight to his body, and there was the hard proof of his desire, she could feel its weight against her belly through the thin satin of her gown.

He
did
want her! David Carlisle actually wanted her, as she wanted him.

He spun her around in his arms without breaking their frantic kiss and she felt him lift her up onto the wide stone railing. She instinctively parted her legs and he stepped between them. One of his hard, strong hands swept under her thigh, on the bare skin above her sheer stocking, and raised her even higher against him. She wrapped her legs around his hips as their kiss slid deeper and deeper into burning, desperate need.

Things were moving so fast, like a car roaring free through the night, but Lulu didn't care. She
wanted
this, had wanted it for what seemed like forever. It felt exactly right.

And he wanted it, too, she could taste it in his kiss, feel it in the tension of his body against hers. Once he knew it was really her he kissed…

Knew it was her!
Lulu suddenly drew back, shocked to remember she wore a mask and it was dark, that David didn't know who he kissed. But he slid his kiss from her mouth to her cheek, to the soft, sensitive spot just below her ear. He bit lightly at her earlobe and then soothed the sting with his tongue, his breath warm in her ear, and she forgot her fears.

“You're so beautiful,” he said hoarsely as his lips traced the arch of her throat. “I don't know what madness has come over me.”

“Moon madness,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and let her head fall back to his kiss. “I feel it, too. It's wonderful.”