Chapter Two #3
She had fashioned her costume with an almost defiant determination.
Her skirt was of crimson satin, its ragged hem barely covering the top of her riding boots.
She wore no petticoats. Maura noticed dimly that she felt remarkably unencumbered.
A crimson and white striped scarf covered her head.
Her hair flowed in loose waves over her shoulders and down her back, nearly to her waist. She’d tucked a loose, gauzy, peasant cut blouse into the skirt, cinched tight by a wide leather belt, and borrowed a cutlass from among those in the baron’s costume room.
But it was the blouse that gave Maura pause. Not wanting to be trussed up twice over, she had discarded her corset for the night. She wore a sleeveless, black leather vest over it. Eileen had tightened the laces of the front of the vest quite tight.
One fleeting glance at her reflection and her jaw dropped. Her eyes widened in consternation. Her breasts swelled high and round and full, straining against the nearly sheer white cloth. “Oh, my,” she breathed. “Oh, my.” She longed to snatch up the coverlet and sling it over her shoulders.
But that would have been so very counterproductive.
Eileen left with a smile. Maura jumped when a knock on the door sounded a few minutes later.
“Maura?”
She slipped a small silken pouch—different than her other—held by a black ribbon, over her head and between her breasts.
She opened the door to Murdoch, dressed as—very apropos—a butler.
She stepped into the corridor. He blinked when he saw her costume but made no comment.
“We are late,” Maura said hurriedly. “We should go.”
Murdoch closed the door. “You have the pouch from Toothless Nan? The—”
“Yes, yes, I have it.”
“You realize, Lady Maura,” Murdoch said worriedly, “if we cannot discover who he is, one of us will have to query the baron.”
Maura said nothing. Somehow she sensed that she would know exactly who he was, no matter his costume. But she didn’t say so. Instead she said, “Remember the plan. When I do not appear downstairs promptly at seven to—”
“Yes, yes. I know where to find you.” Murdoch’s tone was unmistakably grim. “And now I must warn you, Lady Maura, that if all does not go as planned, do not hesitate to do what you must to prevent him from—”
“Yes, yes, Murdoch, I shall!” Maura was impatient.
Just before they ascended the stairs that led to the ballroom, Murdoch laid a hand on her arm. His gaze searched hers questioningly. “Are you certain,” he said quietly, “this is what you want?”
Maura’s eyes darkened. “Pray do not ask that, Murdoch. It is what I must do. You know that I promised Papa.”
He sighed. “I know, child. But there is an old Irish proverb: ‘If you dig a grave for others, you might fall into it yourself.’ That is what worries me.”
“I shall be fine, Murdoch. Truly.”
In the ballroom, the baron, dressed as King Henry VIII, greeted them heartily. There was food, but Maura could scarcely eat. Her gaze roamed the room.
She spied a jester. A small-statured man dressed as Napoleon. No, that was definitely not the duke. Eileen had said he was tall.
Maura’s palms were damp. She would never have called herself vengeful.
And it wasn’t revenge that filled her chest. Fear, excitement, all the chaos in the world.
She spied a priest garbed all in black. Eileen’s words echoed in her mind.
Takes to the ladies, he does. Now that would have been irony indeed, if he chose to dress as a priest!
Growing restless, she began to walk the perimeter of the ballroom. Her gaze seemed to scour every inch. They’d missed the introduction of the duke. Why did this have to be a masquerade? She or Murdoch would have to ask his whereabouts after all.
Maura felt her mouth pinch tight. She sought to soften it.
She’d conjured up a far different vision of the duke than Eileen had described.
Oh, aye, she could well imagine his appearance.
She pictured him as his pirate ancestor.
A scurvy, slimy runt of a man. With yellow, rotted teeth—what teeth there were left!
No doubt Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden, was surely the ugliest man to walk the earth. On that thought, she stopped short.
And then…no sound in the world, no image, no words could have prepared her for what she saw next. Lingering near the hall entrance stood a man. An exceedingly tall man. One eye patched, a tartan thrown over one just as exceedingly broad shoulder.
Maura froze.
Her heart thundered.
Her pulse lurched.
Their eyes met…and held. Held endlessly, she thought vaguely.
Yet in that mind-shattering instant their eyes caught, that same sizzling sense of certainty slid over Maura, the way it had the night her father died. She had felt it in her father’s blood—she felt it in hers.
By heaven, it was him. Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden. The man known as the Black Scotsman.
It spun through her mind that perhaps it was fitting that she had chosen her garb as she had…She stood as if anchored to the earth, unable to move, to even blink, as she watched him slowly make his way toward her…
Together they stood.
Face-to-face.
Toe-to-toe.
Pirate-to-pirate.