Laura stood up. "I thank you for your concern for my welfare, cousin Henry," she said, "but I must decline your generous offer. Indeed, I can truly say that you overwhelm me."

"You cannot refuse the money," Henry said, with a certain amount of glee. "We have already written to Churchward to draw up the papers. My dear Laura, I fear you must simply accept your fate." He bowed. "I will see myself out since that fool Carrington is incompetent. I trust that when you receive the money the first thing that you will do is to employ a proper butler." He nodded thoughtfully. "Indeed, I shall put the matter in train myself."

"No, you will not," Laura said wrathfully. "I am perfectly satisfied with the services of Carrington and Mrs. Carrington, Henry, and I do beg you not to interfere in the running of my household. Once again, I insist on declining your money."

Henry merely waved dismissively. "We will see you tonight at the Mischief Ball, cousin Laura, where I am persuaded you will be feted as is appropriate as one of Fortune Folly's finest heiresses!"

He strode from the room and Laura found herself tempted to pick up one of her grandmother's ancient pieces of china and vent her rage by throwing it after him. Instead she reached for the decanter and poured herself a pleasantly large gla.s.s of wine. At least there was one thing that Henry did not know. He had not the least chance of recognizing her at the ball that evening, or indeed of recognizing any of the other heiresses, either. Even if word of her sudden wealth spread like wildfire, no gentleman would be able to identify her in the throng.

Not that that solved the problem of the money. She sank down into an armchair and gulped down her wine. She would have to see what Mr. Churchward could do to help her, for she had no intention of accepting Henry and Basil's attempts to bribe someone to take her off their hands. For the moment, though, there was nothing she could do. The Duke of Cole had, against her will, made her one of the richest matrimonial prizes in Fortune's Folly. She wondered how long it would be before the whole village had heard the news.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"THERE'S A PROBLEM," Miles Vickery said.

"Another one?" Dexter asked tersely. He had arrived late in Sir Montague Fortune's ballroom that evening, the lukewarm suitor, dragging his feet. He had spent another fruitless day investigating the Crosby case, this time visiting the site of the murder. Sir William, his game-keeper had stated, had expressed the need to make a call of nature whilst out shooting and had disappeared into the woods, which was why there were no witnesses to the crime. Dexter had thoroughly examined the place the body was found but had discovered no further clues. There was nothing but the missing ring to link the murderer with his victim. To add to his frustrations, Laura Cole and Elizabeth Scarlet had stopped him on his way back into the village and demanded payment of the pontage. As he handed over his last few pennies Dexter had wondered what on earth had possessed him to suggest the tax in the first place. Misplaced arrogance, he supposed, just as Laura had claimed.

He had seen Lydia Cole engaged in furtive conversation with a gentleman in the market square as he had entered the Morris Clown Inn. Both Lydia and her beau, if that was who the man was, had melted away when they had seen him. Dexter wondered if Faye Cole had any inkling that her daughter was meeting a man in secret. She was still throwing Lydia in his way at every possible opportunity, apparently oblivious to the fact that neither Dexter nor Lydia wished it. Their courtship had never been more than lukewarm in the first place, Dexter reflected, and now it was stone-cold. Faye, however, was the only person who did not appear to realize this. Even Sir James Wheeler had picked up on the fact that Dexter was no longer squiring Lydia about and had dropped into conversation, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, that his daughter Mary was to have thirty thousand pounds on her marriage.

Dexter might want the thirty thousand pounds but he did not want Mary Wheeler, no matter that she was the sort of wife who would not disturb the even tenor of his life. He dreamed about Laura. He ached for her. He had tried telling himself that it was no more than a physical impulse that would burn itself out but he did not really believe it. He did not know how to be free of wanting her. Knowing that she had ended their affair because she cared for him rather than because she cared nothing seemed to have changed all his plans. He wanted to know the whole truth now. He was obsessed.

He looked at the crowds of ladies who thronged the ballroom at Fortune Hall. For this one night it seemed that hostilities over the Dames' Tax had been suspended and every heiress in the town-for the event had been restricted to those ladies only-had accepted Sir Montague's invitation. In their silken dominoes they formed an ever-shifting pattern of glorious color. It should have been an environment rich for exploitation by the unscrupulous fortune hunter. But as Miles had said, there was a problem and Dexter saw it at once.

Sir Montague had decreed that the ball should be a masquerade and so all the guests were masked. There was no way to identify the ladies, let alone to know whether or not they were heiress to fifty thousand pounds.

Dexter groaned. "I might have known that Monty would make a hash of this," he said. "What possessed him to decide it should be a masked ball?"

"He liked the t.i.tle Mischief Masquerade," Miles said, grinning, "but unfortunately he didn't think of the consequences." He frowned as he scanned the crowds. "There's something else, as well. I didn't think there were this many females in Fortune's Folly, let alone heiresses. It doesn't seem possible."

"It isn't," Dexter said grimly.

Miles stared at him. "Then who are these women? Where have they all come from?"

"I don't know," Dexter said. "Neighbors, friends...all invited by the ladies themselves simply to confuse us, I suspect, and since they are all in disguise it is impossible to sort the real heiresses from the interlopers."

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned," Miles said. "How are we to find ourselves a rich wife amongst so many decoys? It's not sporting."

"It is when you want to beat Sir Montague at his own game," Dexter said. He sighed. "It's very clever. I was half expecting no one to attend this evening but instead we get so many ladies in disguise that we cannot tell them apart. I imagine your cousin had something to do with this, Miles. It has all the hallmarks of her planning."

He searched the shifting throng for a glimpse of Laura. He had no idea whether she was there or not, although Miles had mentioned in pa.s.sing earlier in the day that Laura might attend. One glance suggested that there were at least a dozen women of the right height and coloring who could be Laura. In theory there was no way that he could tell. Yet something in his blood, a p.r.i.c.kle of awareness, an edge of antic.i.p.ation, told him that she was indeed present and that given time, he could find her even in this anonymous crowd.

I would know her even in the dark....

Rational sense told him that he should not seek her out. He should not even think of it. But his reason was stretched to the breaking point. He wanted to confront Laura and discover the truth of the past. He had to know.

Sir Montague arrived a moment later. His face was a mottled red and behind his mask his eyes were almost popping with annoyance and frustration.

"Dexter, do something!" he besought. "I did not invite all these women to my house! I've been trying to find the real heiresses but every demmed female I approach tells me she is worth fifty thousand pounds!" He looked as though he was about to rend his clothes in his fury. "There isn't enough food for all these guests and I've had to send to the kitchens for more. I won't have it said that I keep a poor table. But they'll eat me out of house and home just like those demmed sheep!"

Dexter started to laugh. "Accept it, Monty. You have been outmaneuvered-again."

Sir Montague's eyes bulged. "I'll demand that they unmask! I'll send them home!"

"You can't do that without appearing even more of a fool..." Dexter stopped and started again. "That would appear very ungracious, Monty. Everyone would be talking about you even more than they are now, and not in a good way."

"d.a.m.n them!" Sir Montague was almost crying. "All I wanted was their money!"

"And by now it must be clear they do not wish to give it to you," Dexter said. He smiled. "Excuse me, Monty. There is someone I simply must find."

"That would be my Lydia, I imagine!" The fluting tones of Faye Cole were instantly recognizable even though she was concealed in a voluminous purple domino and frighteningly feathered mask that made her look like a predatory peac.o.c.k. "She is waiting to dance with you, Mr. Anstruther." She tapped him roguishly on the arm with her fan. "A little clue for your ears alone-Lydia is dressed in a rose-pink domino."

"Thank you, your grace," Dexter said gravely, making a mental note to avoid every wearer of rose-pink dominoes in the room.

He plunged into the crowd. Everywhere he looked, gazetted fortune hunters were trying desperately to ascertain the ident.i.ty of the masked ladies. The ladies in turn seemed very willing to flirt but equally unprepared to reveal themselves. He saw Nat Waterhouse, languid in a black domino, leaning in a doorway talking to a lady who might or might not have been Lady Elizabeth Scarlet. The lady in question had red hair escaping in curls from beneath her hood, but then so did at least three other ladies nearby. She was peeping demurely at Nat from behind her mask in a manner quite opposite to Lady Elizabeth's forthright style. Nat looked totally dazzled and more than a little confused.

A lady in a green domino approached Dexter and brazenly solicited his hand for the set of dances that was forming. He refused her politely. The ballroom was becoming heated now and the atmosphere was changing from the politely conventional to the feverishly flirtatious. There was something about a masquerade that was uninhibited and abandoned. A number of couples were already drifting away to pursue their dalliance in discreet alcoves. Miles was dancing with Alice Lister and although he was maintaining a perfectly proper distance from her there was something in his eyes as he smiled down at her that was not proper at all. Dexter hoped that Miss Lister was aware of Miles's reputation as a rake and could deal with him as he deserved.

Dexter spotted Lydia Cole, who was indeed in a pink domino and was dancing with a man Dexter did not recognize whilst her mother stood glaring on the sidelines. For once Lydia looked blissfully happy. Her eyes were half-closed, there was a dreamy smile on her lips and she was completely ignoring the d.u.c.h.ess's disapproval. Faye made flapping motions to summon Dexter but he bowed and moved on with a slight smile. He saw Sir James Wheeler almost literally push his daughter Mary into the arms of Lord Armitage, who carried her off triumphantly into the dance. His opportunities to marry a fortune were narrowing by the minute, Dexter thought wryly. Lord Liverpool would probably wash his hands of him. His mother's creditors would be baying for blood.

Sir Montague Fortune hurried past pursued by two giggling women who looked suspiciously like Cyprians. Not that Sir Monty was complaining. His temper seemed to have improved enormously. And still Dexter searched the shifting crowds and could not see Laura.

Then the ma.s.s of people fell back a little and before him was a woman wrapped in a midnight-blue domino. She was standing with her back to him. His heart leaped. She turned slowly. Beneath the hood he glimpsed a lock of dark hair before she tucked it back and out of sight with one gloved hand. Her eyes, shadowed by a sapphire-blue mask, looked deep and mysterious. Laura. It had to be.

"Madam..." Dexter reached her side in a single step.

"Sir?" The lady turned toward him. Her mouth curved into a smile that was sinfully tempting but at the same time promised nothing to the overeager fortune hunter. Behind the mask her cool hazel gaze appraised him.

"Would you care to dance with me?" Dexter reached to take her hand and lead her onto the floor where the first bars of a polonaise were playing.

She slipped away from him, elusive as ever. "Thank you, but I do not dance tonight." Her tone, cool as ice, sent shivers down his spine. She spoke so low he could not recognize Laura's voice for sure, and she kept the hood close about her face.

"Then if you do not dance, what do you do here?" he asked. "Do you have a pa.s.sion for the card tables?" He threw her a sideways look. "Would you like to challenge me?"

Once again she smiled that faint and mysterious smile. "Not at cards. I would perhaps challenge you in a game of wits. But I do not gamble, sir, and I suspect that neither do you." She tilted her head to look at him thoughtfully. "You do not look like a gambling man to me, nor indeed a man who would do anything to excess."

"Are you suggesting that I have no vices?" Dexter said.

She laughed. "Certainly not. Which of us can claim that? Not you, sir, from the look of you."

"What can you mean?"

"A handsome fortune hunter on the catch for a rich wife?" Her smile was mocking. "For shame! That is vice enough."

Dexter laughed ruefully. "Are you rich?" he inquired. "I am sure you and I would deal well together since it seems I cannot deceive you."

She cast him another quick glance. "I may be an heiress-who can tell amongst this throng? But if I were I would expect a pretty wooing in return for my money."

"But you would think it no more than a pretense and my compliments insincere," Dexter pointed out, "since you have already divined that I seek a fortune."

"That is true," she agreed. "If you flirted with me I would know that all you really desired was to walk down the aisle with my moneybags."

"That would not be all I desired." This time Dexter caught her hand and she permitted him to keep it. The touch lit his blood with sparks of fire in much the same way that crossing wits with her did. It was tempting and seductive.

"I would enjoy courting you," he said. "And I would make sure that you enjoyed it, too."

She opened her eyes wider in amus.e.m.e.nt. "You are very direct," she said, "and dangerous, too. A less experienced lady than I might be tempted into believing you, whereas I know that, having claimed no interest in flirting with me, that is precisely what you are doing now."

Dexter took two gla.s.ses of wine from a pa.s.sing servant and steered her to an alcove where there was a cushioned love seat in the deep window embrasure. It was lit by one branch of candles high on the wall. She sat at one end of the seat, maintaining a scrupulous distance from him. When he handed the gla.s.s to her she raised her brows.

"Do you then number drinking amongst your vices?" she asked. "I would not have thought it."

"I am getting a taste for it," Dexter said. He looked at her. "Have we met before, madam? I have an astonishing sense of recognition about you, as though we had already crossed swords at least once."

A dimple dented her cheek at the corner of her mouth. Dexter watched, fascinated.

"How can I tell if we have already met?" she murmured. "One fortune hunter can be..." She paused. "Disappointingly like another, I find."

Dexter winced at the setdown. "You are harsh, madam. Do you see nothing here tonight to please you?"

Her gaze lingered on him. Beneath the mask her lips curved into a smile. "Oh, there are some things here that please me." She glanced away at the swirling kaleidoscope of colored dancers in the ballroom. "There are a great many men in black dominoes tonight," she observed. "How interesting. Perhaps they see the lighter colors as being too feminine for them."

"Sir Montague is in bright red," Dexter pointed out.

She laughed. "And I think we all understand what he is trying to convey with a scarlet domino!" She shook her head. "I will allow that it is also most amusing to see the fortune hunters trying to work out which ladies are the heiresses and which are not. To see Sir Montague courting a pair of actresses in the hope that they are rich debutantes..." She laughed. "Well, he will probably end up paying them for their favors rather than them bestowing a fortune on him!"

"Yes," Dexter said. "That was clever. A plan of your own contriving?"

"Perhaps." She inclined her head slightly. "The point, sir, is that every gentleman in Fortune's Folly thinks that every lady is fair game. As long as she has money they care little about anything else. Oh-" Her tone was scornful. "No, I mistake. They care if she is pretty, as well. It is not essential if she is rich, but it is desirable. It is as though they are purchasing a horse. Looks, pedigree, value..." She shrugged. "The ladies of Fortune's Folly do not care to be treated like livestock."

"I think that the ladies of Fortune's Folly have made their disapproval abundantly clear," Dexter said.

"Not clear enough to stop that fool Sir Montague." She sighed as Monty Fortune scampered past again with the two actresses chasing him with hunting cries. "Oh dear, I should have guessed that he would actually enjoy this. How very provoking!"

"Not everyone hunts a fortune because they are greedy and covetous," Dexter said. "Perhaps you should not judge all gentlemen by Sir Montague's example."

She looked at him, the smile fading from her eyes. "Perhaps I should not. What are your reasons, sir?"

"I am a fortune hunter because my family is poor," Dexter said slowly. It felt very important to tell her the truth of his situation. "I am the eldest of seven brothers and sisters who require to be educated and launched into the world," he said. "I have a widowed mother who does not understand the meaning of the word retrench. I had an unreliable, spendthrift father who was the poorest example a man could have to follow." He sighed. "I feel that I have an obligation to provide for and look after my dependents. My employer also demands my marriage as a sign of my trustworthiness. My family's creditors demand it because we are mortgaged to the hilt and in debt to the tune of several thousand pounds." He shrugged self-deprecatingly. "There you have it."

Her gaze scoured his face as though she was testing his honesty. "Then it is a shame that you are so bad at catching a rich wife," she said. The smile was back in her eyes. "I have observed that about you. Some men see it as a challenge and take pleasure in the chase, but you..." She shook her head. "I do not think that you enjoy it. Your heart is not in it."

"I hate it." Dexter spoke with unaccustomed pa.s.sion and saw the surprise reflected in her eyes. "It offends my honor," he added, "even when I acknowledge the necessity of it."

Their gazes met and he was snared in the candid warmth of her eyes. She was smiling a little and it felt as though she understood exactly how he felt. It felt as though she knew him through and through: the man who sought to do the right thing for the sake of his family even when it was at the expense of his own principles.... His breath caught. For a full five seconds it felt as though he could not inhale.

"Does it offend your honor to offer marriage without love?" she asked.

Dexter shifted. "I would like to offer marriage with at least a mutual respect."

She took a long, thoughtful sip of her wine. "Mutual respect is a worthy aim," she said, "and it can grow over time." She looked him directly in the eyes and he felt a jolt of emotion that he could not immediately identify. "But without love, marriage is a long cold business. Believe me, I should know."

"And love is a dangerous illusion," Dexter said. He felt as though he needed to a.s.sert his belief in rationality over emotion. He felt as though his careful, logical values were somehow slipping away, undermined by the current of undeniable feeling between them.

She laughed. "How like a man to be so cynical!"

"So you believe in love?" Dexter said.

"Of course." There was a wistful expression in her face that made his heart thump. He reached forward to take her gloved hand and felt the little shiver of awareness that shook her.

"Have you ever been in love?" he said.

She looked at him for what felt like a long time, her gaze shadowed and dark. She ran her fingers thoughtfully over the rim of the gla.s.s in her hand and he felt the touch like an echo inside.

"Twice," she said. "I have been in love twice in my life. The first time was with my husband, which, I suppose, is as it should be."

Dexter leaned forward. "And the second?"

Again she raised her gaze to his and his heart turned over at the expression in her eyes. He was back in the parlor of the Half Moon Inn when he had accused her of being a hypocritical wh.o.r.e and in that moment she had looked at him without artifice and he had seen the pain and denial in her eyes. Now he saw again all the grief and hurt that was in her and it made the blood slam through his body.

"The second time I fell in love by accident," she said softly. "I had not intended it. I am not even sure how it happened. But it was the worst thing that I could possibly have done because I was not free."

SHE HAD TOLD HIM too much.

As soon as she had spoken, Laura felt her heart contract with fear. Lured on by the intimacy of their situation, seduced by the look in Dexter's eyes, she had forgotten herself and gone right to the edge of indiscretion. She had been tricked-no, she had tricked herself into believing for a moment that she could be honest with Dexter when in fact their closeness was a dangerous illusion.

She had not intended it to be like this. When Dexter had first approached her she had recognized him at once and had been incredulous that he had even thought of trying to flirt with her. Then she had remembered that she was an heiress now and his advances had made a horrible kind of sense. Dexter must have heard the rumors of her newly acquired fortune and with the ruthlessness of the true fortune hunter he had switched his attentions from Lydia to her. His courtship of Lydia had been faltering, anyway, and she was the better bet. She was as rich as Lydia now and she had already shown herself hopelessly susceptible to him. It was distasteful but all too plausible. She had felt shocked, disillusioned and angry.

The more she had thought about it the more Dexter's calculated attempt at seduction had infuriated her and she had been determined to play him at his own game to see just how far he would go, just what sort of a heartless philanderer he really was beneath the facade of the honorable man. He had painted himself as a reluctant fortune hunter out to marry money solely for the benefit of those who relied on him, but Laura thought that was probably all part of the plan to gain her sympathy-and her money.

Yet despite being armed against him, somewhere along the way she had forgotten to be wary of him and to guard her tongue. She had trusted him because he seemed sincere. She could not help herself. She loved him and she wanted to believe in him. And so she had allowed him to lead her too close to intimate disclosure. She had gone right to the edge of admitting that Dexter himself was the other man she had loved. If he knew that-and knew that she and Charles had been completely estranged-it was but a small step to questioning Hattie's parentage. She had put her daughter in danger with her indiscretion. She had compromised Hattie's safety because she had spoken too freely. She thought of the hideous scandal that would ensue if even the slightest hint emerged that Hattie was Dexter's child and not Charles's. Her daughter's future would be tarnished irreparably and it would all be her fault.

"Laura?" Dexter must have seen the sudden anxiety in her for he put out a hand to her. "What is wrong?"

"I have to go now," Laura said. Panic fluttered in her chest like trapped b.u.t.terflies and she sought to control it. She pulled off her mask and dropped it on the seat. She felt shaken and angry with herself as well as with him. She had been a fool to trust him, even for a moment, and to bring herself and Hattie so close to ruin. And he had been a scoundrel setting out to woo her coldly for the money.

"Excuse me," she said. "That was a pretty flirtation, Mr. Anstruther, but I fear it will not succeed. I am aware that your courtship of my cousin is not proceeding well." She looked at him. "No doubt you are also aware that I am now an heiress. But to transfer your attentions to me with such blatancy even though you have so poor an opinion of me-"

She stopped. The shock in Dexter's face was so abrupt and so vivid that it could not be a.s.sumed. Her heart seemed to stumble. He had not heard about Henry's largesse.

He had not known she was an heiress.