Page 10 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“Quickly, you mustn’t be seen,” Rosalind exclaimed, thrusting the mask into her friend’s hand.
Elizabeth smiled, raising the mask to her face, and disappearing behind its ornate façade.
“Yours looks wonderful, Rosalind. Let’s go in. I presume you want to escape from your parents?” she asked, lowering her voice, as Rosalind glanced back towards the carriage.
It was exactly what she wanted to do, and not bothering to wait for her mother and father to emerge from the compartment, the two of them hurried up the steps, joining the masked throng entering the manor house.
Unlike a normal ball, there was to be no formal introductions, and no master of ceremonies announcing their presence. Rosalind had her invitation, and she handed it to the steward, who bid her enter the ballroom, where a quartet of musicians were playing, and the guests already helping themselves from the refreshment table.
“It’s so much better than a normal ball, don’t you think? No one’s examining anyone else or judging them by who their father is or where their money comes from,” Rosalind said, glancing around her at the striking array of masks on display.
Her own was far from the most ostentatious, while others had chosen more reserved designs, such as that of her mother. There were feathers and ribbons, silk headdresses, and trailing veils. Everyone had made an effort, and there were many compliments on the different designs and creations.
“I’m being looked at,” Elizabeth whispered, and she nodded across the ballroom to a tall person wearing a midnight blue frock coat and a mask designed to look like the face of an eagle or some other bird of prey.
Rosalind smiled.
“And you’re looking back, Elizabeth. You could dance with him. There’s nothing to hold you back,” she said, urging her friend forward.
Elizabeth laughed.
“Oh, but we’ve only just got here. The dancing hasn’t even started yet,” she said, even as the gentleman in question approached her.
“Might I have the first dance?” he asked, offering Elizabeth his arm, but not revealing his face.
Rosalind was curious why he had chosen Elizabeth and not her, but she was not about to feel jealous. She was pleased for her friend, and as Elizabeth and the masked stranger went off arm in arm, she looked around her for a possible dancing partner. The other guests were pairing off. Masked women and men laughing with one another at the fun of dancing with faces unseen.
“Isn’t it jolly?” a woman to Rosalind’s left said, and Rosalind nodded.
“It certainly is,” she replied, even as she herself had no one to dance with yet.
The musicians now struck up a waltz, and the guests danced as best they could, some of the holding sticks of their masks up to their faces, while others had tied ribbons around the back of their heads. Rosalind stepped back, standing by a column, and examining the ballroom more carefully by way of appearing distracted, rather than left out.
Graystone Manor, the home of the Marchioness of Graystone, was an interesting dwelling. The marquess had been an art lover, and the walls were covered with items from his collection. Those on display in the ballroom were of a tasteful nature, but Rosalind remembered her mother talking in scandalized tones about the “other” works of art the marquess had collected.
“Nudes. As though the human form should be something to display and ogle at,” the duchess had once said, tutting and shaking her head.
Rosalind had been intrigued, and she had a mind to seek out some of these paintings for herself. She could see her mother across the room, her mask barely concealing her face, and the duke sitting next to her. They would want her to dance with Richard, but since Rosalind had no way of knowing where he was, and he had no way of knowing where she was, she felt confident in the prospect of avoiding him for the evening.
“And slipping away from here, too,” she said to herself, intent on seeing the marquess’ paintings for herself, and perhaps gaining some inspiration, too.
Chapter 5
“And I doubt we’ll see Lord and Lady Hestermann, not after what happened between her and the stable boy. Though I suppose she’ll be behind a mask, won’t she? I wouldn’t dare. And then there’re the Scruton sisters. They spent an entire season courting the same man, and neither of them realized it. The shock must’ve been terrible.” Sebastian’s stepmother said as they rode together in their carriage towards Graystone Manor.
But Sebastian was not really listening. His mind was preoccupied. He was thinking about his father, still wondering when the first signs of madness had gripped him, and whether he had even realized it.
“I’m sure they were very surprised,” he said absentmindedly.
“And one wonders about the scandals tonight. A masquerade allows for any amount of debauchery,” Victoria continued.
His stepmother was always interested in the affairs of others. She held a salon every Saturday, where women of equal scandal ridden interest gathered to discuss the latest gossip of the ton. Sebastian despised the thought of it, particularly as he knew how easily he, himself, could become the object of such scandalous gossip and rumor.
He made no secret of his fears, but that did not mean the ton would not twist the facts and make a scandalous example of him. The mad earl, driven to insanity by a family curse. It sounded like a gothic horror, a cheap, penny novel, where the coming of the full moon brought with it untold acts of barbarity. Sebastian sighed.
“That’s why they have the masks, isn’t it?” he said, and his stepmother raised her eyebrows.
“Are you still dwelling on your father? Try to put him out of your mind, Sebastian,” she said, but Sebastian could not put that matter out of his mind, even as their carriage now drew up outside the manor house.
