She clutched at the handrail all the way down the stairs. The last thing she wished to do was trip and tumble headlong into the hall below.
‘Nellie, my love,’ cried a man’s voice, as she descended from the last step. ‘You look sublime!’
It was a slender young man, dressed as an Elizabethan courtier. She was just basking in a sense of achievement at having fooled him, when he shocked her by walking slap up to her and kissing her cheek, just where the mask ended and her skin began.
She’d sniffed and turned her head away before she realised the gesture might give her away.
‘Beg pardon,’ said the courtier, raising his hands in apparent surrender. ‘Didn’t think. Must have taken you hours to get into costume. Don’t want it spoiled before you go into the ball.’
Thank heaven this young man didn’t know her very well. She slid him a sideways glance, wondering exactly who he was. At this time of year the house always swarmed with all sorts of extra staff, from Nellie the famous singer, to the humble artist brought in to chalk fabulous yet ephemeral decorations on the ballroom floor. He couldn’t be one of the extra servants, even though she’d met him in the service corridor, or he wouldn’t be all dressed up and ready to attend the masquerade. From the familiar way he’d spoken to her, it was more likely he was one of the troupe of players who worked at the same theatre as Nellie. Wasn’t he the one who played romantic leads? Eduardo something or other—that was it. Though the name was patently false. This man was no more Italian than Nellie, for all that people called her the Neapolitan Nightingale.
Still, he would lend credence to her disguise if he escorted her into the ballroom. So she took his arm and drifted down the corridor beside him, thankful that she’d bitten her tongue when he’d accosted her. The moment she opened her mouth, her disguise would fall apart. No matter how hard she’d tried, she simply couldn’t imitate the mellifluous tone of Nellie’s voice, let alone capture the way she peppered her speech with vulgarisms.
But at least if Eduardo had been fooled by the way she’d moved, the fake mole on her bosom, and the cloud of perfume hanging round her, then it looked as though her plan stood some chance of succeeding.
‘Uh-oh,’ murmured Eduardo into her ear, a few moments later. ‘Here come your admirers.’
She froze as the gentlemen guests of the house party all turned to peruse her through their eyeglasses, detached themselves from the respectable females they were supposed to be escorting and headed her way. Her stomach lurched. Was this what Nellie felt like every time she went onstage?
‘Don’t worry, I shan’t cramp your style,’ said Eduardo, letting go of her arm. She was just about to beg him not to desert her, when he slapped her bottom with an earthy chuckle.
Making her wish him at Jericho.
Five minutes later, she realised he was no worse than any of the other men. They all seemed to think her derrière existed for the sole purpose of being patted, or pinched, or squeezed. It wasn’t long before she was sure it must be a mass of bruises. How on earth did Nellie put up with this kind of treatment? She was sorely tempted to sidle into an alcove and keep her back to the wall, only that might mean losing sight of David.
She’d hoped he would have been amongst the crowd clustering round Nellie. But, bother him if he wasn’t being particularly attentive to her tonight—at least, the woman he thought was her, since she was dressed as a white cat, and attended by a girl who was very obviously Marianne.
Oh, but he did look splendid in the full-skirted coat, long dark wig, and tricorne hat of the seventeenth century. The telescope he held in his hand told the world that he was dressed as Sir Isaac Newton. Well, of course, David being a man of science himself, he was bound to choose such a costume, rather than something more frivolous, like a pirate, or a Roman emperor, or an Elizabethan courtier.
Her own Uncle Maurice was dressed tonight as Henry VIII, a figure he managed to emulate extremely well, since he was rather corpulent and florid of complexion. She smiled at him in relief when he offered her a glass of champagne, feeling sure her dear old Uncle Maurice wouldn’t pinch her, or squeeze her bottom. But her relief was short-lived. First, he tried to manoeuvre her under one of the kissing boughs. Then he asked if she would like to come to his room that night. Of course Uncle Maurice was rather foxed. And he didn’t have very good eyesight. Nevertheless, it was with genuine indignation, larded with a good deal of revulsion, that she rapped him over the wrist with her fan.
It was all proving far more difficult than she could have imagined. She’d assumed David would have approached her before now. She’d banked on it. He’d been so fascinated by Nellie, from the moment she’d arrived. So fascinated that she’d even accused him of flirting with the singer.
David had pokered up. Sworn it was no such thing.
‘If you cannot tell the difference between flirting, and the conversation of an educated man with an intelligent woman, then I despair of you,’ he’d said. ‘The Neapolitan Nightingale has a unique perspective on the world. She has travelled extensively, and rubbed shoulders with the very highest, though she comes from very humble origins.’
Nellie certainly did have an entertaining way of talking, Julia had to admit. Though her stories were sometimes rather scurrilous, she always related them so wittily that Julia could hardly blame David for joining the throng of her admirers.
Though now she wished she hadn’t reproved him for doing so. He was behaving with perfect propriety, just when she most wished him to stray!
She’d almost given up hope of getting him on his own, when a gust of cold air swirled into the ballroom, heralding the arrival of a troupe of mummers. At the sound of their pipe, fiddle, and drum, the professional musicians laid down their own instruments, left their chairs, and headed for the refreshments table. With murmurs of anticipation, the masked-and-costumed guests fanned out, yielding the heart of the ballroom to the newcomers.
Julia’s stomach constricted into a knot. If she didn’t make a move soon, David would leave. Since they’d discussed her father’s refusal to countenance David as a suitor, he hardly ever visited the Hall any more. It was only because of the Christmas masquerade ball, to which all the tenants were invited, that he was here now. Once the mummers finished their act, everyone would unmask, go in to supper, and then go home. And he would return to Edinburgh, and it would be months and months before she could see him again.
It was her last chance. If she didn’t manage to entice David away from the other masqueraders, in her guise as Nellie, the fallen woman who exerted such fascination over every single man attending this house party—and quite a few of the married ones, too—she would have failed. And she couldn’t fail. She just couldn’t.
There had to be some way. Some way to indicate she wanted to get him alone without having to open her mouth and say it, thereby giving away her identity.
But how? How did anyone convey their intentions without speaking?
And then it hit her. She’d hated the way men had been pinching and pawing at her all evening, but it had certainly conveyed their intentions.
Her heart sped up a little more. Both because she’d come up with a plan, and because David had temporarily moved out of sight.
But then she spotted him again. She wondered that she’d lost sight of him even for those few moments, because he was half a head taller than most of the gentlemen present. Especially with that tricorne hat, worn over that long, curled wig.
He was subtly moving to the back of the crowd as they all pressed forward to get a better view. Of course the mummers were dressed up to play out the tale of St George and the dragon. And they would include a scene where a doctor was called to bind up St. George’s wounds. It was a comic scene, which always annoyed David intensely, since he was studying medicine himself and couldn’t bear to see a doctor being made a figure of fun.
Her heart in her mouth, she edged around the outskirts of the crowd until she was right behind him.