A Masquerade in the Moonlight

Chapter 11

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

— Henry Fielding

Thomas sought out Marguerite late that same day, finding her walking in the park with her chaperone, Mrs. Billings, and approached her on the path when the older woman was detained, speaking to a friend.

“Good afternoon, my darling,” Thomas chirped, tipping his hat to her while admiring her trim walking dress—and the even trimmer form it covered. “I trust you passed a pleasant night. Oh, dear. Is that a trace of rice powder on your upper lip? Don’t tell me your tender skin became chafed some way. Perhaps I should consider doing the gentlemanly thing and consign my mustache to the shaving bowl. After all, I would be the last man on earth to wish you any pain—or embarrassment. A gentleman to his toes—that’s Thomas Joseph Donovan.”

Marguerite continued down the path, not looking at him, red flags of color flying in her cheeks. “Go away.”

He danced after her, his curly-brimmed beaver at a jaunty angle, his hands behind his back, his grin advertising his enjoyment. “Go away? Leave you? I’d sooner poke a sharp stick in my eye.”

“All right. That seems reasonable. Let’s find you a stick, shall we? There must be one about here somewhere.”

“Marguerite—aingeal—you don’t mean that.”

She kept moving. “You’re right. I don’t. I’d rather you’d drink poison—preferably one that ensures a slow, painful death. I believe I should have no trouble selling tickets to such a spectacle. William, for one, would doubtless enjoy witnessing your final agonies from a front-row seat. Please send a note round to Portman Square if you decide to accommodate me. But, in the meantime, Donovan—go away.”

Thomas tipped his hat and went, sensing his eventual victory.



An enormous bouquet of spring flowers arrived in Portman Square the following afternoon. The enclosed note read: Because I could not send you a shrubbery.

Marguerite all but threw the bouquet into Maisie’s grateful arms, then fled into the conservatory and slammed the door behind her. When, an hour later, one of the footman presented her with a package that had just been delivered from a Bond Street jeweler’s and she opened it to find an exquisitely designed jeweled hairpin nestled inside, the sound of a clay flowerpot crashing against the brick floor could be heard all the way to the kitchens.

Two hours later, when a second bouquet, this one of perfect rosebuds ranging from palest pink to deepest red, arrived at the servant’s entrance with no note attached, Cook sniffed deeply of one of the lovely blooms, shrugged, and had them placed in her own room.



Marguerite exited her grandfather’s Portman Square mansion slowly the next morning, looking both left and right and then left again before stepping off the portico and motioning for Maisie to follow.

She had traveled only a few yards before a young couple dressed in outlandish theatrical costume leapt from a hired coach and began enacting the marriage scene from The Taming of the Shrew in front of her.

Marguerite did the only thing left open to her. She plunked herself down unceremoniously on the bottom step of a neighboring building and laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks.



She discovered a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a single yellow rose sitting beside her plate when she sat down to luncheon. This time the card quoted a line from Romeo and Juliet: “This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.” Lifting the bloom to her nose and sniffing deeply of its perfume, Marguerite made up her mind.

She would not give up her plans for The Club, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also follow her heart.



“You have a visitor, Miss Balfour,” Finch said, bowing as he stopped just inside the morning room door, where Marguerite had settled herself in anticipation of just such an announcement.

She lifted a hand to her head, just to be sure none of her curls had escaped the yellow velvet ribbon Maisie had used to secure her hair, then took another swallow of sweet tea before setting down her cup. “That would be the American, wouldn’t it, Finch?” she asked, congratulating herself for having correctly read Donovan’s crafty mind. He had pursued her for three days; and it was more than time she sat still, sipped her tea, and allowed him to catch her.

“No, Miss, and I don’t have to tell you that it’s cost me another fiver with Sir Gilbert,” Finch answered, causing Marguerite to look at him in surprise. “It’s Sir Peregrine Totton who is cooling his heels in the foyer. He must have pulled one of his two mincing feet from the grave long enough to take the air. Shall I throw him over my shoulder and carry him in? It’s a long journey from the foyer to this room, and I wouldn’t want a corpse on my hands if his tick-tock should give out.”

Marguerite tamped down her disappointment, belatedly realizing her mistake. Donovan wouldn’t come to Portman Square. He was biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to get her alone the way he had the other night in the shrubbery. He must know, as she knew, their next meeting would not be the sort either would wish interrupted. And the only notice he’d take then of any ribbons in her hair would come when he pulled them loose and buried his fingers in her tumbling curls. She felt herself blushing and quickly covered her reaction to such a wicked, unladylike thought with a forced cough.

“You are spending entirely too much time with my grandfather, Finch,” she said as primly as she could, knowing no matter what she said Finch would do as he pleased. He had been at Chertsey since before she’d been born and had long ago become immune to any save his own authority. Besides, she truly had enjoyed the butler’s jokes. “Please, show Sir Peregrine in—and do try your utmost to keep a civil tongue in your head while you’re about it. Sir Peregrine is a dear friend.”

“I wouldn’t know why. He’s only been here a moment and already he’s told me that vase on the hallway table—the one your sainted grandmother put such stock by—is nothing but a worthless lump of crockery.”

“He did? What a—no, never mind. Just go fetch his creaking lordship in here before he starts directing the underfootmen to rearrange the furniture.”

Finch turned, shaking his head as he made for the doorway. “Never met such a perishing, puffed-up prig in the whole of my life.”

Marguerite laid aside the copy of La Belle Assemblée she had been leafing through without really paying attention to any of the announcements of beauty creams and figure-enhancers advertised on its pages, and prepared her mind for her first encounter with Sir Peregrine since he had holed himself up in his offices with the coded manuscript he’d unearthed the afternoon he had visited the bookstalls with her.

She had expected him sooner, which was her own fault, for she had somehow flattered him by believing he possessed at least half the intelligence he boasted of with such depressing regularity. She must be careful not to fall victim to Sir Peregrine’s high opinion of himself, or she might not be able to guide him toward the next step without first employing both a lantern and bell she could ring over his head as she led him down the path to public disgrace.

She’d just folded her hands in her lap and pinned a demure, expectant smile on her wide-eyed face when Sir Peregrine’s slim figure fairly bounded into the room. He was waving the yellowed manuscript above his head.

“Marguerite!” he exclaimed, falling to one knee in front of her with a youthful sprightliness that, if Finch were to have witnessed the maneuver, doubtlessly would have surprised the butler no end. “Give me your dainty hand, so that I might salute it! Allow me to kiss the nethermost hem of your garment! For I owe it to you. I owe it all to you!”

“La. sir, you make my girlish head swim with these compliments,” she answered, extending her hand and rolling her eyes as he planted a fervent kiss on her third knuckle. “But, rise, please, and explain yourself, for I vow I cannot understand a word of what you are saying. Surely, Perry, you have not been imbibing so early in the day? It’s not at all like you.”

He clambered to his feet, sparing a moment in his enthusiasm to wipe at the knee of his pantaloons, then sat down beside her, his two hands clutching the brittle manuscript in a death grip. “But I am drunk, my dear girl. Drunk with excitement! With the thrill of discovery! With the thought of what that discovery will bring to the intellectual community!”

And to yourself, Marguerite thought happily. Dear Perry, you won’t disappoint me by allowing your genius to remain hidden under a bushel. Not if my father and I know our man. She extracted a lace-edged handkerchief and began fanning herself with it. “Please, Perry, you move too quickly for a lowly female. Can you not control yourself enough to explain? And what do I have to do with anything even the slightest bit intellectual? You know as well as I that I’m barely out of the schoolroom. If there is credit to be earned in whatever it is you’re speaking of, it belongs solely to you, dear Perry. I would not have it any other way!”

Sir Peregrine frowned, as if the thought of openly sharing credit for his grand discovery had never entered his mind, then patted Marguerite’s hand. “Not to worry, dear child. I have no desire to bandy your name in public. I only meant that you had been the one to lead me to the bookstalls that fateful day. Of course, you had nothing to do with my brilliant discovery. Why, if you’ll recall, Marguerite, you were about to lay down twenty pounds of your quarterly allowance for a clumsily rendered copy of Chaucer.”

“Machiavelli, Perry. It was a clumsy copy of Machiavelli,” Marguerite corrected him, a line from the cunning Machiavelli’s Il Principe popping into her head. “There are three sorts of intellect,” the political philosopher had written, “the one understands things by its own quickness of perception; another understands them when explained by some one else; and the third understands them neither by itself nor by the explanation of others. The first is the best; the second very good, and the third useless.” Donovan, bless and damn him, comprehends by himself, she decided. Sir Peregrine, blown up by his own assessment of his intellect, was “useless.”

But he could be used.

“Yes, yes. If you insist. Machiavelli. Whatever,” Sir Peregrine responded testily, for he loathed being contradicted, even in minor things. “But you must listen. You must understand, as best your female brain can comprehend it, the importance of my discovery.”

“Of course, Perry. If you insist. But first, would you like me to ring for a fresh pot of tea and another cup? Finch will be most delighted to serve you, as he has often spoken to me about how much he admires and respects you.”

“Tea?” Sir Peregrine looked at her as if she had just offered to set his hair on fire. “I don’t want tea. Don’t you understand? I’m attempting to tell you of a discovery that will rock this island to its foundation.”

“Really? Goodness, how exciting. Then we most certainly shall not have tea. Some warm scones, perhaps? No? All right, Perry—only speak slowly as you tell me your news, so that I might absorb some scant particles of what you are to say.” She longed to box his ears, but refrained. At least Sir Ralph appreciated that she might possess a mind.

Sir Peregrine laid the thin manuscript on his lap, spreading it flat with reverent fingers. “It was exceedingly difficult, you understand, but I knew from the first that I had stumbled onto something of the most preeminent importance.” He leaned toward her, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “It is written in code, you know. Latin code, and deuced difficult to decipher until I found the key.”

“Written by whom, Perry?” Marguerite whispered back, once more blessing her grandfather for having insisted she learn Latin, and Maxwell for his many and varied talents. “Why? And to what purpose?”

Sir Peregrine looked to the single entrance to the morning room, as if half expecting someone to be secreted behind the door, eavesdropping. He flicked out his tongue, wetting his lips, then said, “His name was Balbus. Even his name served as a clue, for it means ‘indistinct speaker.’ But that’s not important. He and his family resided here—in London—until the Roman legions withdrew to protect Italy. He was forced to leave hurriedly, so that his fortune and household goods had to be left behind. He hid everything—buried it, actually—and left this coded manuscript detailing where he had buried it.”

Marguerite looked down at the yellowed parchment. “But, surely, Perry, no mere parchment could have survived this long. It has to be, like my Machiavelli, a forgery—a fake.”

He shook his head, waving his hands in front of his face as if to ward off her glaring stupidity. “Balbus may have gone, but he never gave up hope of returning to claim his treasure. His words were copied by his son, and his son’s son, and his son’s son’s sons, one of whom eventually found his way back to England several dozen years after William the Conqueror invaded our shores. Here he and his sons, and his sons’ sons, and his sons’ sons’ sons must have waited through the long centuries, hoping, until somehow the parchment was lost.” He pressed his hands to his bony chest. “How they must have suffered, so close to their treasure and unable to retrieve it. Until now.”

And then he smiled, all traces of sympathy for the long dead Balbus and his frustrated family fleeing as his eyes lit with pleasure. “You will never guess where the fool man buried his treasure, Marguerite. You will never guess, if I allowed you to try for the next hundred years, why Balbus’s descendants were unable to claim that treasure.”

“I imagine you’re correct, Perry. Please, you mustn’t keep me on tenterhooks. You must tell me at once, or I vow I shall perish of anticipation!”

Sir Peregrine rubbed his hands together as his eyes took on the fevered glaze of the true adventurer. “If my calculations are correct—and I have no reason to doubt them, for mathematics have always been my strongest suit—Balbus buried his most prized possessions not more than a dozen feet outside what is now the south wall of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula!”

“But the chapel is inside the walls of the Tower of London, which were built by William the Conqueror! I know I remember that from my lessons.” Marguerite’s voice rose, displaying a mixture of delight and anguish. “Oh, how terrible! No wonder the man’s family couldn’t retrieve their booty. But neither will you, Perry. You will never be able to obtain royal permission to sink so much as a single spade within the grounds of the Tower.”

“But I already have, dear child. I have just come from Stinky, who has convinced the Prince of Wales to allow the excavation.” He frowned momentarily, adding, “I shall be forced to share the credit with the prince, but that is of no real moment. Only think of it, Marguerite! Think of what has been discovered to date, here in London and elsewhere. Ancient coins, statuary, mosaics! I have invited all the chairmen of the greatest societies to witness the digging that will commence two days from now—I needed time to have a public announcement forwarded to the newspapers, you understand. The prince has promised a museum to exhibit the treasures. It will be built right on the grounds of the Tower—and he has hinted that he will name me as curator. At long last, after all the years of ridicule, of neglect by my peers, my inferiors! My reputation is made!”

“Yes, Perry,” Marguerite answered solemnly, reaching for her teacup as she bit on the tender skin inside her cheeks nearly hard enough to draw blood. “I rather imagine it is.”



The remainder of the afternoon passed quickly for Marguerite, now that she’d decided she understood what Donovan was about. “This bud... may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”

Donovan had told her he disliked Romeo and Juliet, but that hadn’t kept him from using lines from the play to his own advantage. The man had no scruples when it came to something he wanted.

But then, neither did she.

No wonder she was so attracted to him.

No wonder that she would go more than halfway to meet him.

She passed an hour poring over the stack of invitations that sat in a dish on the mantelpiece in the drawing room, at last determining that Lady Jersey was the one woman she could depend upon to have invited the American to her ball, as the Almack’s patroness was the sort who never overlooked a chance for a whiff of scandal or daring.

That decision behind her, Marguerite soaked in a scented tub before dinner until Maisie threatened to pour a pitcher of cold water on her head if she didn’t soon rouse herself, then ate sparingly from a cold collation she had asked to have served in her room.

Her gown had to be perfect, and no less than another hour was devoted to its selection as she and Maisie sat on the hearth rug before the fire and the maid brushed her drying curls until they were gleaming. She would wear white, Marguerite concluded, which was not an unusual color for a young lady just Out, but it had to be just the correct shade of white. Not too close to pink or so dull it would glow yellow in the candlelight.

No. It had to be sparkling white—white as the sun at noon on the hottest day of summer, white as bed sheets hung to dry in the garden at Chertsey, white as a virgin bride going to her marriage bed.

And it couldn’t have too many buttons.

Once she was dressed, the simple but elegant gown of heavy silk boasting only a single ruffle at its hem, but accenting her small, rounded bosom, its square-cut neckline showing her shoulders to advantage, she sat in front of the dressing table and all but reduced Maisie to tears with her detailed instructions as to precisely how to draw her coppery hair severely back from her brow and to the left, catching the thick mass just above and behind her left ear with the jeweled hairpin Donovan had given her, so that the curls cascaded onto her shoulder while leaving her slim neck exposed.

Maisie helped her into tight-fitting white kid gloves that ended above her elbows, a tedious exercise that occupied nearly a quarter-hour, then muttered under her breath as Marguerite decided against gloves entirely and the maid was called to duty for another fifteen minutes, working the kid back down her mistress’s arms.

But at last she was ready, a decorative gold-spangled gauze shawl dangling from her elbows beneath her short, puffed sleeves, and she impulsively kissed Maisie on the cheek as that woman sat sprawled in a slipper chair, breathing heavily from her exertions, before going off in search of her grandfather.

She found Sir Gilbert in his study, grumbling into his too-tight cravat, for he disliked Lady Jersey five times worse than he disliked balls, and would much rather spend the night with Finch, playing Whist for coppers.

“Ah, here’s my most handsome escort,” Marguerite said, sweeping into the room in her new evening slippers that were so comfortable they reminded her of barefoot strolls on the sweet spring grass at Chertsey. “Oh, dear,” she said, frowning as she halted not three feet in front of Sir Gilbert. “Is that a scowl I see, Grandfather? Don’t tell me you’re planning to cry off at the last possible moment. That would be so unfair, for I’m convinced Lady Jersey is counting on you to make up one of the numbers of eligible gentlemen who will squire all the unlovelies she’s so prone to launch at their heads.”

He lifted one bushy gray eyebrow and glared up at her. “You’ve got a mean streak in you, Marguerite,” he growled, shifting in his chair. “Remind me of your grandmother more with each passing day.”

“Thank you, Grandfather,” Marguerite responded, curtsying. “Aren’t you going to compliment me on my toilette? It will doubtless take Maisie entire days to recover from the miracle she has wrought this evening.”

“You won’t send anyone screaming for cover, little girl, if that’s what you mean,” Sir Gilbert answered gruffly, pushing himself up from his chair as if reluctant to leave its comfort. “Now, now. Don’t pout. You know very well how beautiful you are, and shouldn’t be dangling after compliments. Where’s your mother’s pearls? Shouldn’t you be wearing them? Look sort of naked without anything, you know.”

Marguerite’s hands flew to her bare throat. “Why, you terrible old man, to shock me with such plain speech.”

Sir Gilbert gave a blustering cough and made for the drinks table and a glass of the gin he favored—and the same gin Marguerite had generously watered just that afternoon, although her grandfather was not to know that. “I couldn’t shock you, little girl, if I were to spout a string of curses as long as Sir Peregrine Totton’s nose.”

After pouring himself a generous portion, he turned to squint in Marguerite’s direction. “I tripped over Totton this afternoon as he was mincing out of here, as full of himself as ever. Worst fiver I ever made, damn if it wasn’t. He ain’t going to be there tonight, is he? Him, or that hangdog Harewood, or that paper-skulled Mappleton? I don’t mind Laleham, seeing as how he’s our neighbor and all—and at least he don’t spend all his time making a cake of himself.”

Marguerite seated herself in the chair Sir Gilbert had recently vacated, demurely spreading her skirts around her. “Why, I suppose they will all be in attendance. Along with my other beau, of course, Lord Chorley.”

Sir Gilbert threw back the gin in one long gulp, then shivered. “Odds fish! I’d as lief offer m’self up to be purged by that quack you hired to ride herd on me. Chorley’s so dense he takes all the joy out of stripping him of his blunt. Marguerite—darling child—can’t you see it in your heart to muddle through tonight without me? That Billings woman should be enough for you. God knows she’s more than enough for me!”

Marguerite, who felt herself to be getting more than sufficient experience at playacting these days, drew her fine features into a disappointed frown, then brightened, as if she’d just had a most wonderful idea. “Are you open to bribes, Grandfather?” she asked, grinning up at him.

Sir Gilbert slammed the empty glass down on the table. “Done!” he exclaimed, obviously delighted with his granddaughter’s ready acceptance of his defection. Then he sobered. “What is it? I won’t be tricked into allowing you use of my saddle, the way you do at Chertsey. This is London, gel, and it’s your sidesaddle or nothing here. And I won’t let you shoot anybody either—unless it’s one of those old fools you’ve got running tame in my house. I’ll make an exception in that case.”

“Oh, pooh!” Marguerite exclaimed, feigning displeasure as she stood. “Very well, old man. But could we compromise? You mentioned that I look naked without Mama’s pearls. However, I expressly did not wear them because they were not the correct shade with this gown—not that I would ask you to worry your head about such things.”

She approached Sir Gilbert, sliding her arms around his neck and tilting her head to one side coquettishly. “But Grandmother’s beautiful ruby necklace—ah, Grandfather, it would be perfect!”

“My Margy’s rubies?” Sir Gilbert shook his head. “Pretty enough baubles, I suppose. But they’re as red as spilled blood, as l recall, and not the thing for an innocent young gel to be sporting.”

“Yes, blood red.” Marguerite leaned forward, laying her cheek on the old man’s broad chest. Like the blood of a virgin, offered to the man she gives herself to. She wished, had planned, for this to be a night of omens, of veiled symbolism; a momentous night, and one Thomas Joseph Donovan would never dare to forget. “Did I forget to tell you Lord Mappleton is bringing Georgianna Rollins with him tonight? He sent round a note this afternoon in which he expressly wished the opportunity to visit with you this evening at Lady Jersey’s, to thank you for introducing him to his lovely Georgianna.”

“Oh, no. Not that. Anything but that decrepit Romeo and Miss Eyebrows! Miss Eyebrows—that’s what Donovan calls her. Now, there’s a man I could welcome!” He disentangled himself from Marguerite’s embrace and approached the fireplace, pushing a concealed button on the ornately carved mantelpiece so that the painting of his late wife slipped to one side, revealing a shallow compartment and a metal strongbox. In less than a moment he was rooting through its contents for the delicate gold and ruby necklace.

“And the earrings, Grandfather,” Marguerite prompted from behind him, knowing she’d as much be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Society would not take kindly to seeing her in rubies. “They are quite small, as I remember, and not in the least decadent. And, as my arms are bare, the bracelet as well?”

Five minutes later, after Mrs. Billings had appeared, drab gray gown and resigned expression intact—even in the face of her charge’s outlandish jewelry—Marguerite kissed Sir Gilbert good night and headed for the doorway.

She paused just at the threshold and looked back at her grandfather, knowing in her heart it would be the last time she would see him through the eyes of innocence. Then she took a deep breath, turned, lifted her chin—and went off to face her future.



“Stand still, for the love of heaven! How do you expect me to tie this thing if you’re going to be wriggling about? Anyone would think you’ve got bugs up your breeches.”

Thomas lifted his chin and peeked over the top of Dooley’s gray head, the better to see himself in the mirror. “Paddy, you’re doing it all wrong,” he complained, reaching up his own hands to adjust the neck cloth—the third he had donned in as many minutes. “And you’re choking me half to death.” He pulled the starched linen loose and threw it on the bed. “Never mind, Paddy. It’s useless to go on with this one. Hand me another. I’ll just tie it the way I’ve always done, and the devil with it.”

“And isn’t that what I’ve been saying all along?” Dooley asked, picking up the discarded neck cloth and wiping his sweaty brow with the thing. “To tell the God’s truth, boyo, you look better a little mussed—more human. Anyone would think you were fitting yourself out to be a bridegroom, the way you’ve been fussing. Good—that one looks better.” He tossed the neck cloth onto a chair and picked up his hat. “Can we be going now, or would you be wanting me to give your jacket another brush-up? Or mayhap you’d like to reconsider your rig-out entirely? You’ve changed two times already, by the hokey, so I wouldn’t be more than half surprised to see you stripping to the buff and starting over yet again.”

Thomas shrugged into his midnight blue frock coat, shaking his head, but avoiding Dooley’s eyes, for he was feeling somewhat embarrassed. He was acting like a nervous bridegroom. “No, Paddy, I think I’m ready now. Is the coach you hired waiting?”

Dooley preceded him out of the bedchamber and into the small sitting room. “It had better be, boyo, for the blunt we had to lay down for a single night’s hire.”

“A closed coach,” Thomas said, grabbing a cloak and opening the door to the hallway before motioning for Dooley to lead the way. “You did remember it’s to be a closed coach.”

“Which one of your two eyes do you want me to blacken, Tommie, asking me such a question? You told me a closed coach, and I hired a closed coach. I didn’t even ask why, now did I? Nor did I inquire as to why I’m supposed to be going along with you tonight, when you know I take to all this dressing up and carrying on like the devil loves holy water.” He stopped at the top of the stairway to look piercingly at Thomas. “You’re up to no good, aren’t you, Tommie?”

“Now, Paddy, you wouldn’t want to hear the answer to that, now would you?” Thomas brushed by Dooley and descended the stairs two at a time, leaving the shorter man to catch up.

When they reached the street and the waiting coach, Thomas changed the subject. “You saw Chorley today?” he questioned Dooley as they climbed into the coach after giving the driver Lady Jersey’s direction (and some short, private instructions he hoped with all his heart the hired coachie would soon have need to carry out).

“That I did, and in that same filthy gaming hell,” Dooley answered, settling himself for the short ride that, if Lady Jersey’s ball was going to be as crowded as most balls, would take at least two hours. “He’s losing now, boyo, just as you said he would. Losing more in one turn of a card than I’ll see in my lifetime. Near the end today he started scribbling his vowels, gambling with money he doesn’t have. Tell me, Tommie, how does any one man, even an Englisher, get so thoroughly stupid?”

Thomas smiled broadly, silently congratulating Marguerite for her unerring assessment of Lord Chorley’s weak character. “He can’t help it, Paddy. All the man’s ducks were laying for a while, and he’s convinced they will again, if only he can hold on until his luck turns. Only it won’t. Our friend of the frayed cuffs and the fuzzed cards will make sure of that. I wonder what Marguerite plans for his lordship once his pockets are completely to let, for she’s the one who’ll be holding those IOU’s, you know. We Irish may have invented the practice of scribbling our vowels for debts, but the English have taken to it like fish to water.”

The coach, that had been moving along slowly but steadily, halted as they came near the square, to join the long line of vehicles that made a three-block procession to Lady Jersey’s front door. Dooley shook his head. “She baits Mappleton with a few diamonds and a much too willing young woman, sets a sharper on Chorley, and God only knows about this business with Totton—and you think it’s funny? Don’t it all make you wonder what she might have planned for you? You’re even talking about marrying the girl.”

Thomas pulled a cheroot from his pocket and stuck it, unlit, between his teeth. “Ah, Paddy, I know,” he said, grinning again. “Isn’t love grand?”