Read A Masked Deception for Free Online Page B

frustration of having neither the time nor the freedom to reach for the unknown something that the weight of his body and his brief lovemaking made her own body ache for.
    No, Margaret was not unhappy. She resumed her embroidery.
    Charlotte perfected the plan the next day while driving in Hyde Park with Devin Northcott. She had puzzled over it so much after leaving Margaret in the drawing room that she had given herself a headache. So quiet was she at dinner that night, in fact, that Brampton commented on it.
    “Are you feeling quite well, Charlotte?” he asked with concern.
    “What? Oh, yes, my lord,” she answered. “Just a little tired, maybe, after last night’s ball.”
    “And did you enjoy yourself?” he asked. “You most certainly did not lack for partners.”
    “Oh, it was ever so much fun, my lord,” Charlotte began, her natural enthusiasm for life beginning to bubble again. But she was immediately struck by a thought that had her once more silent and dreaming.
    Should she suggest that Lord Brampton give a masquerade ball in his home so that Meg could appear mysteriously as Marie Antoinette and bowl him off his feet? No, it would not work. How would anyone explain away the disappearance of the hostess?
    “Northcott informs me that he is to take you driving tomorrow,” Brampton commented. Having broken off his relationship with Lisa just that afternoon, he felt somewhat ill-at-ease with his wife, and was anxious to keep Charlotte talking. Usually she chattered on without any encouragement.
    “Yes, my lord. He has a new high-perch phaeton, and I have a new bonnet,” Charlotte explained, as if these facts justified the situation entirely. “And Meg says that it would be quite unexceptionable for me to accept the invitation.”
    “Oh, quite,” replied Brampton, glancing down the table to his wife. She was smiling affectionately at her sister, her usual quiet, calm self.
    Charlotte’s thoughts were on the wing again. Could she ask Mr. Northcott to give a masquerade party? No, he occupied only bachelor rooms. Anyway, she was still a little shy of him because he was so old (somewhere in the region of Lord Brampton’s age, she guessed) and was so much the perfect gentleman of fashion. She had found it easy to converse with him during the two dances they had shared the night before and during his visit that afternoon, but she did not think she yet had the courage to ask so great a favor of him.
    The London weather cooperated for the afternoon drive. It was a perfect spring day. Charlotte was able to wear her new apple-green muslin dress and the matching parasol with brown fringes. Her brown bonnet was trimmed with green, yellow, and straw-colored leaves and flowers that complemented her auburn hair. Devin Northcott thought she made a perfect picture in his new phaeton and told her so.
    Charlotte admired his appearance no less. He wore biscuit-colored buckskins and white-tasseled Hessian boots that shone so brightly she felt she would be able to see her face in them if she leaned forward. His dark-green coat had the perfect cut that only the renowned Weston could have tailored; his snowy-white neckcloth had been arranged in complicated folds, though Charlotte could not put a name to the creation. Was it a waterfall? A mathematical? He wore a dark beaver on his fair hair. Devin Northcott was not a tall man, and he had a slight figure, but Charlotte concluded that she liked his air of kindly gentility.
    They arrived at Hyde Park at the fashionable hour of five o’clock. It seemed that half the haut monde were there, most people wheeling around slowly in carriages of various descriptions, some on horseback, a few on foot. Everyone was there to see and to be seen, to nod at acquaintances, to cut enemies, to exchange the latest on-dits with friends.
    Charlotte enjoyed herself thoroughly. She found herself admired and ogled by several young bucks, some of whom she had met at the Brampton ball two nights before.