The Duke's Masquerade Wallflower

Chapter 1

One

“Your Grace, a woman is awaiting you by the conservatory.”

Gabriel turned from the fire, casting a glance at James, who was sprawled in the armchair beside him. His friend’s brow quirked in response in a familiar assessing manner, before he laughed wearily into his hand and reached for his half-finished tumbler of brandy.

Eyeing his own heavy crystalline glass, and then taking a sip for courage, Gabriel suppressed a sigh, not for the first time that evening. “Which one do you mean?” he asked the footman.

“Which conservatory, Your Grace,” the footman replied nervously, “or which woman?”

“Shall I ask a question too, for good measure?” James put in cheekily.

Gabriel gave James another long-suffering look.

His friend merely shrugged before addressing the footman again.

“His Grace asks a fair question. And His Grace cannot blame you for being confused either, young man. This London house of yours is large in the extreme. And, as for the women, and the way they have attended in masked droves tonight—”

“On this day, my birthday,” Gabriel stressed with good humor, “I shall suffer no further chaffing from you. It is the least you can agree to, seeing as you did not get me a gift, and seeing as how, worse still, you dragged me into this room promising to make some declaration to me, and I have yet to hear anything of note beyond your appraisal of the drink.”

James had the decency to feign guilt. “I was building up to the declaration in my own time.”

“Building up to it by measures of my good brandy.”

Gabriel rose and walked toward the waiting footman.

He could not remember the young man’s name.

The London house, Hartmere House, employed an entirely different roster of staff than his beloved Wide River Abbey in Surrey.

But such times as these—birthdays, grand returns to society, family reunions—required him to be in London, where he would remain against his will until he could slip away again unnoticed.

The likelihood of that happening anytime soon was slim.

It was late February. The social Season was in its infancy.

His friends in the House of Lords were always wanting to take their luncheon with him.

The war was over, but there was always some task seeking a duke to undertake it, and some eager matchmaker wanting to make his acquaintance, whom he couldn’t refuse without raising eyebrows because of his slowly advancing age.

“You’re going?” James asked, aghast. “This woman he talks about could be anyone. Is it so easy to tempt you away? It is no wonder you have cultivated such a devilish reputation, if this is all it takes to tempt you into an assignation.”

Gabriel smirked. “I am nothing if not accommodating to the gentler sex, in assignations or otherwise. But I am certain this is innocent. How sorry I am to leave you, Beaumont. Your news will have to wait. Return to the party and try to keep the guests busy in my stead.”

He left before he could know whether James had agreed or disagreed with his request, walking past the currently nameless footman toward the conservatory. He had hoped to move unseen between the drawing room and his destination.

The guests had congregated in the ballroom. Music drifted on the air toward him, muffled by the distance between him and the party, and the sound of his hessian boots clicking against the parquet.

He was alone now and took a moment to fasten his black half-mask again, slipping it around his ears instead of leaving it dangling above his cravat. His lashes beat against the paper-maché inside the mask, and the smell of glue was overwhelming.

When the corridor opened into the vestibule, he heard someone call his title.

A group of young brunette women and an older chaperone who resembled them stood waiting to greet him.

He smiled but hastened his step before the chaperone could pounce.

Gabriel knew how to tell the innocent mothers from the troublemakers.

It was not reasonable to go chasing after women who concealed their identities, especially at his own birthday masquerade ball.

Gabriel knew this, and he also knew there was a chance this mysterious woman would be the mother of a daughter seeking to associate herself with him through some old or fragile connection to the Ashcroft family.

But it was as he said. He was nothing if not accommodating.

And a little risk was worth the reward of meeting someone who might genuinely entertain him, though this had never happened and, more the pity, he feared it never would.

The western wing was quiet. The conservatory—the plant room as his mother had inelegantly but tenderly called it—waited at the very end of the wing.

He could smell it before he saw it. The air was different in this part of the house, suffused with the smell of damp soil.

A woman was humming to herself out of view.

The woman. Gabriel tensed but marched forward.

Her shadow came into view before she did...

And he realized that he recognized her immediately, even behind her full, opalescent mask.

Gabriel scoffed, shaking his head. “So, it was you all along,” he said. “You told the poor lad to be purposefully vague, didn’t you? You could have come and sought me by your own hand, aunt. Why did you not?”

Elisabeth smiled, cracking open the door to the plant room.

Her gray hair sparkled in the light of the wall sconces, her eyes curving behind her delicate white mask.

It matched her cream-colored gown. She shone from head to toe.

His aunt was a curious creature, and there were many things the ton criticized about her.

But her fashion had never been one of them.

“You could have refused me, devised some excuses. And while you say you loathe the attention of young, eligible women and their mothers—I have seen firsthand how taxing it is—you cannot abide a mystery. So, I gave you one.”

“It was a rather short-lived mystery in the end.”

She laughed. “But didn’t your heart beat a little faster because of it?”

“Beware...” Gabriel warned, playfully. “I have heard poetry is a dangerous pursuit, especially in one’s golden years.”

“Oh, these years are not golden,” she replied, tilting her head to the side. “Any color but gold. Walk with me, Gabriel, just a moment.”

“So we can debate colors some more?”

“Just walk,” she commanded, her faint French accent slipping through her tone.

He nodded, threading his arm through hers and leading her through the tall glass doors.

He pressed them closed with his free hand, securing them in the privacy of the plant room.

The windows stretched all the way to the ceiling, arching overhead and emitting a wash of silvery moonlight over the planters.

It was warm here despite the season, but he instinctively drew his aunt closer anyway.

She seemed thinner beside him than before. She had worn more perfume than usual that evening, and it tickled his nose. He would have recognized the smell anywhere—the bouquet of pears and violets that she had always preferred to wear.

“I spent yesterday afternoon with Morland going over the plans for the conservatory this year,” she explained, pointing at the small workbench by the door where someone had left a note. “Shall I proceed without you, or would you like to look over our designs before we commence with the planting?”

“What grows here is not my concern,” Gabriel replied sincerely. “Why have you begun preparing this house so soon? You only returned from Italy three days ago. You should rest from your travels.”

He paused for a moment.

“Does this mean you are staying here for the entire Season? Why not return to Wide River with me? It is not good for you to be alone.”

“I would not be the first dowager to live alone. And I am not so old that I cannot manage without you,” she protested.

She had been the eldest child in her generation.

Gabriel’s mother had been the youngest. There had been sixteen years between them, and they’d had six other siblings.

They were all dead now—every last member of the Corneille brood except Elisabeth.

Though, of course, she was a Bamford now, and had been a Bamford for thirty years.

“A big house to myself is what I require. I despair when I am being inactive.”

“You and I have that in common.”

“Among a great many other things, my dearest nephew.” Elisabeth smiled tenderly, and Gabriel refrained from checking her. She was his only remaining nephew, which made him the dearest by default.

“We like the same people, for one thing,” she continued. “You would have so liked my traveling companions in Italy.” She slowed to a stop and freed her arm, opening her other hand. “They were the ones who helped me decide to purchase you this.”

In the palm of her gloved hand there was a small glass object. He could not tell immediately what it was, only that it perfectly occupied the space between Elisabeth’s fingers and her wrist. Some parts were clear, and others were tinted blue, red, yellow, and purple.

“It’s a bird,” he realized aloud, taking the small crystal sculpture from her with care. “A very expensive bird, from the looks of it.”

“There was an artisan in Venice who worked with glass. We visited his workshop. He told us his family has worked there in that workshop for three centuries.”

“Then he was likely a charlatan as well as an artisan.” Gabriel laughed as Elisabeth elbowed him in the side. “I am playing with you. This is a very nice birthday gift. Thank you. It should do nicely in the reading room, on the mantle.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder, angling the sculpture so she could see. “Can you not tell what bird it is?”

“No. I have never seen a bird like this. Blue, and red and yellow. It cannot exist here in England.”