Chapter 34
The evening of the masquerade arrived.
Ellie did dress as Cap o’ Rushes, having found one absolutely correct gown in the infinite number of trunks that now seemed to be in her collection.
The costume required only a simple mask and the addition of a rustic-looking burlap overdress, which she sewed with the help of Agnes, who’d come over to Struan’s townhouse as well.
“Can you see any of the gown underneath?” Ellie asked anxiously.
Agnes pursed her lips. “Mmmm, only little hints, if the light falls just so. In the ballroom, amid everyone else trying to be showy, you’ll not be noticed at all until you choose to be.”
Ellie nodded. “Good. The ties on the overdress will be easy to loosen, and I’ll yank the overdress off just at midnight when the unmasking will be announced.”
The crowd was even bigger than the previous parties, and Ellie soon wished she could run away. Alas, they were stuck there till at least midnight. Averill had insisted that both families must stand together during Mr Farquhar’s proposal, as a show of approval.
She stood near Mairi most of the evening.
As far as she could tell, almost no one identified them, and certainly didn’t associate them with the hosts.
Catriona Ross joined them early on. She was a striking figure, since she had black hair, a black gown, and a beautiful black satin cat mask complete with ears and whiskers.
She made a habit of hissing at any gentleman who dared ask her for a dance, which caused her and Mairi no end of mirth. Ellie was rather awed by Miss Ross.
“Everything all right?” a man in a lion mask asked them as he walked by.
“Splendid,” Miss Ross snapped back. “Keep your eyes on McGregor, Thane. We’re doing just fine.”
He growled before he moved off.
“If Mr MacPhearson asked, would you dance with him?” Ellie ventured.
“Perhaps,” Miss Ross said with a wicked smile. “If I’m in the mood. He is a good dancer,” she added. “My aunt once bullied him into dancing with me.”
Before Ellie could ask for details, Mairi murmured, “Our men are circling like wolves.”
“Where? Who?”
Her sister pointed out a slender gentleman wearing a feathered mask with a long pointed beak. “Mr Buchanan is the stork over there—bit on the nose, I fear. And there is Mr MacKenzie as a bear. Appropriate.” Ellie nodded, seeing Duncan in the corner.
“And Mr Shaw as…the Grim Reaper?”
“I think he’s a monk,” Ellie corrected her, though she had to admit that Calan’s costume was rather off-putting. The long dark robe and the pointed hood completely concealed his appearance.
“He’s holding a skull.”
“A contemplation on Death,” Struan murmured, joining them.
“Hermits do that sort of thing.” Struan had opted to not wear any costume, and even his black half-mask didn’t do much to hide his identity to those who knew him—the scarring on his cheek and neck was plain to see.
Ellie was privately pleased with his choice.
Struan had no need to hide anything about him, and she was impressed that he wasn’t attempting to conceal his appearance.
“Better than a scythe,” Ellie said. “I thought he would look…merrier.” She was surprised he’d pass up a chance to charm a lady.
“He’s not here to have fun,” Struan said. “Calan takes serious things seriously.”
Mairi made a skeptical noise, then said, “Our father hasn’t left the ballroom all evening. He’s glad-handing anyone he sees. I don’t think you’ll have much chance to pull him away from the crowd.”
“We have time,” Struan replied.
“Not that much. The unmasking is at midnight,” Ellie said.
They all looked to the large clock standing at one end of the room. Midnight was in less than an hour.
Averill was, of course, the center of attention, in her scandalously thin silk gown and gold headdress.
If she were to appear on a public stage, she’d be arrested for violating the indecency statutes.
But because she was a lady of society, celebrating her triumphant impending marriage, she was called an original, and garnered all praise.
(The men were especially willing to praise her.
It was a very thin silk gown.) Ellie noticed that Averill kept glancing to a man wearing a leafy green mask and a green velvet jacket over his darker green satin waistcoat.
She smiled every time she caught his eye.
“Who’s that man in green?” Ellie asked Mairi. “That’s not Mr Farquhar.”
“Who? Oh, no, certainly not. Farquhar is wearing some medieval getup. He’s Prince Somebody-or-Other. I don’t know who that man is. Why?”
“Averill keeps flirting with him.”
“She flirts with every man.” Mairi shrugged.
Time raced forward, and soon the clock chimed midnight.
“It’s time! It’s time!” Averill called out. “On the last bell, reveal yourself!”
Ellie took a deep breath. “Here we go.”
“Good luck,” Struan told her.
She and Mairi moved to the central platform, where they were expected to be for the next event of the evening.
Mairi untied the mask she wore and stepped up to the platform. “Hypatia arrives,” she said dryly to her father and stepmother.
“Where’s your sister?” McGregor asked.
Ellie undid the ribbons keeping the tattered overdress bound to her. As it started to fall to the floor, she grabbed the messy wig she wore over her real hair and flung it away too, letting the blonde waves cascade down her back. Finally she pulled off her mask. “Here!”
She stepped forward, her cloth-of-gold gown catching all the candlelight and throwing it back.
“Elspeth?” her father asked, as if he’d never seen her before.
“Yes, it’s me,” she declared. It was her, Cap o’ Rushes, the scullion who worked her hands raw for a household that never bothered to thank her. It was her, the hidden princess in the fairy tale, decked in gold.
* * * *
Struan gazed at Ellie, in her dazzling ensemble that had been hidden until just a moment ago. Everyone in the room was struck silent for just a few seconds. Ellie was the brightest thing in the room, and the loveliest.
“Miss McGregor. I mean, Mrs MacInnes. I mean… Please. Allow me.” The stuttering Mr Farquhar took her hand and helped her up the last few steps with the sort of consideration he’d not shown his presumed fiancée a moment prior.
“Elspeth!” her stepmother said. “You’re like the sun!” Her tone was full of surprise and delight, and Ellie glowed at the words. Struan happened to agree with the woman’s assessment, but how had anyone taken this long to notice that Ellie was pure sunshine?
Averill did not have the same reaction. “This is my party,” Averill hissed. “Everyone’s supposed to be talking about me. And you pulled a trick like that.”
Ellie looked at her and replied calmly, “What trick? I told you I was dressing as Cap o’ Rushes. It’s your own cross to bear if you don’t bother to learn what that means.”
Mairi, in her own learned costume, smiled.
Struan took his mask off and stepped up as well. He would support Ellie on this stage or any other.
“Well, go on,” Averill muttered to her intended.
Mr Farquhar cleared his throat and slowly, with some evident discomfort, bent down on one knee before Averill, who preened in delight as everyone’s attention fell upon her.
Before Farquhar could say anything, though, an unknown voice boomed out, “All hail Aphrodite! Queen of Love!”
The audience applauded politely, and Averill smiled even as her brow furrowed. She looked over the crowd. Obviously, the all hail was not planned by her.
Then a man moved to the low stage, parting the other guests around him to make way. “Ah, my goddess! Have you forgotten your longtime worshipper? Before you continue, Averill darling, I wish to make a toast.”
Everyone looked at the man who’d spoken up.
He was handsome, in the way that many men in their twenties are handsome—dark-haired, nicely groomed, well-dressed.
He didn’t have a costume as such, only dark eveningwear like many other gentlemen present.
He held a velvet half mask in his other hand.
Struan didn’t recognize him, but he saw Averill go absolutely dead white.
“Scott Lister,” she gasped.
The newcomer turned to the crowd at large, holding up a champagne glass.
“My toast is to this young lady, the one who everyone here rightly hails as a goddess and a beauty and a star among the many women who have put themselves on the marriage mart this season. But what the good people here do not know is that this shining star has a secret.”
“Don’t you dare,” Averill said, her voice weak but her eyes blazing with hatred.
Farquhar stood up and stepped back, confused at this turn of events. “Who’s this man?” he muttered, clearly baffled.
“What would I not dare for the sake of the truth?” Mr Lister returned mockingly to Averill.
He looked over the rapt crowd. “Not long ago, this lovely star shone so bright that she grew bigger and brighter, and soon enough there was another little star shining too. And the second star looked just like the first, isn’t that true, Averill? ”
“Averill, what’s this about?” asked Farquhar. He was already edging away from her, because there was little question what it was about. Farquhar’s own mother was frantically signaling him to come to her, as if Averill were a venomous snake.
“It’s nothing! It’s lies!” Averill said. “Robert, stand with me. You are to be my husband!”
“This is not yet decided,” he replied.
“And he’s never been alone with her!” his mother added with relief in her tone. “So he is not at fault for any past indiscretions.”
“I am pure!” Averill shrieked.
The newcomer, Mr Lister, laughed cruelly. “An immaculate conception, darling? That’s not how I remember it.”
“Get out of my house with your slander, sir!” McGregor shouted, stepping up to the man. His face was nearly purple with rage.
Mr Lister looked smug. “It’s not slander if it’s true, and after all, I can prove it. You yourself gave money to me on account of the little star.”
“After you refused to do the honorable thing,” McGregor snapped, evidently forgetting that he had first denied the whole situation.
“She didn’t do anything to preserve her honor. Why should I?”
Averill hurled a wineglass at the man, who dodged so nimbly that Struan decided he must be used to having drinks thrown at him.
The crowd was absolutely buzzing at this point. If McGregor failed to join the level of society he sought, he had succeeded at entertaining them.
“Oh, Lord,” Ellie whispered. “What is happening?”
“The truth is coming out,” Struan said in a low voice. “And as we both know, that can be a tumultuous process.”
“If you’d continued to pay, I wouldn’t have to ruin your party,” Lister was saying. “You failed to uphold your end of our agreement.”
“I tried, but you ignored my letter!” McGregor blustered. “And if you’d read it and followed the instructions, we wouldn’t be here now.”
“You mean you wouldn’t invite me to the festivities?” said Lister. “When I am such an intimate friend of the family?”
More gasps.
Struan put the last pieces of the puzzle together. “You wouldn’t have been invited because you’d be dead,” he informed the man.
“What?” Lister looked alarmed for the first time.
McGregor was already shaking his head. “Nonsense. Complete balderdash.”
“I believe I received the letter McGregor wrote to you, sir,” Struan said. “A letter that instructed me to come to a certain church at a certain time. It was an invitation meant for you.”
“Two unsigned letters, sent from the same house, but sent to the wrong recipients after they were shuffled accidentally by a maid!” Ellie added. She turned to Lister. “Repeat the content of the letter. I know you remember the words.”
“It said Go to Hell,” he announced, in a tone that suggested he’d never been so offended.
Ellie flushed, and Struan realized again how happy he was that her letter never got to him.
“Those words were meant for another man,” she said. “But I can see how you interpreted it to mean that McGregor was no longer willing to go along with…whatever you’d arranged with him.”
“The mix-up may have saved your life,” Struan said. “Since I got McGregor’s instruction to you, I happened to be standing where McGregor told you to be, and a heavy stone gargoyle plummeted to earth a breath away.”
Lister’s eyes widened, then he turned to regard McGregor. “Indeed?”
“Ravings,” McGregor said. “You have no proof.”
“Sadly, that is true,” Struan said more quietly. “There was no witness to him being on the roof.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lister said. “McGregor will suffer anyway. Tonight is his downfall, and though the golden goose is now cooked, I’ve eaten enough golden eggs.” He smirked, holding up his glass again.
“To golden eggs.” Mairi lifted her glass as well.
“I hate you!” Averill screamed at Mairi, or perhaps the whole crowd. “I did what you told me. So did Mama! I was about to be engaged, to a man you picked!”
“At great expense,” McGregor added, glaring at Averill. “I should have given instructions to leave you in Ireland with the baby!”
Gasps echoed throughout the crowd. Several ladies appeared about to faint—though Miss Ross was not one of them.
Duncan was obviously covering a laugh, and Calan, who’d removed his hood, had a suspicious twitch to his mouth.
He now stood behind the family, his movements so subtle no one even noticed he’d stepped up on the platform.
Then McGregor whirled on Mairi. “And you, you harpy! What good have you done to advance the family name? You forced me to rely on that piece of muslin!”
“You forget Elspeth, who made a fine match,” Mairi said coldly.
“She married a monster, but at least she is married. You are a complete disappointment to your mother’s memory.”
Mairi lunged at her father, but Calan had somehow guessed where things were going and hooked one hand around her arm, pulling her back. Ellie couldn’t hear what he said to Mairi, but despite her sister’s flaming eyes, it must have kept her from attacking her father.
McGregor was shouting at the footmen to close the doors, as if restraining the guests would stop the gossip. Mrs McGregor took two steps forward and suddenly collapsed. Duncan and Thane rushed forward to help her while McGregor jumped down from the platform and ran for the doors.
Struan quickly headed him off. “You can’t leave your own party, sir. What will people think?”
McGregor jumped back as if Struan had physically threatened him. “Get away from me! None of this is my fault. It’s Averill that’s to blame. Everything that happened is because of her!”
“Father!” Ellie snapped. “You can’t blame others for your own actions! You made her give up that baby. And Averill, why did you…” Ellie looked around. “Wait, where is Averill?”
Everyone looked.
But Averill was gone.