Devil-May-Dare. Mary Nichols
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but in daylight or in the bright lights of a ballroom she would have to improve the make-up. She would not be able to change her hair colouring with dye, which she would have liked to do as an extra precaution against being recognised, because she would afterwards have to reappear as Lydia Wenthorpe, so she would have to wear a wig.
Tom called to her from the other side of her bedroom door and she ran to open it, standing before him, quizzing glass in hand. ‘How do I look?’
‘Bang-up,’ he whispered in admiration. ‘Not even Aunt Aggie would recognise you.’
‘I hope she may not see me. Are you ready?’
‘Yes. We’ll hire a rumbler down the road.’
The night was dark and the gas lamps shed a poor light, which suited Lydia, and they took care not to linger when they came under their yellow glow. A hackney was found and in a very short time they were deposited on the outskirts of the fair and were soon swallowed up by the mělée of people, old and young, male and female, gentry and artisan, who had come to enjoy themselves.
They attracted no attention as they wandered between stalls which offered a huge variety of goods from sweetmeats and mussels, to poems and broadsheets proclaiming the latest news. Prize-fighters, stripped to their waists, defied anyone to take them on, slack-rope walkers tottered precariously above their heads, barkers shouted for custom to view the bearded lady or the two-headed sheep. All around them were jugglers, fire-eaters, performing dogs and fortune-tellers.
‘Shall you have your fortune told?’ Tom asked. ‘If you can fool a fortune-teller, it would be a capital test.’
‘Should I?’ It had been so easy up to now and being lost in the crowds was certainly of little use as a test for her disguise. ‘You’ll wait close at hand?’
‘I’ll be right outside.’
Thus reassured, Lydia entered the tent where a gaudily dressed gypsy, all dangling earrings and bracelets, sat at a table. ‘Sit ye down, young feller,’ she said, indicating a chair opposite her and whipping the cover from a glass ball on the table. ‘Which is it to be, the crystal or the palm?’
‘The crystal.’
‘Cross my palm with silver. A tanner will do but if you really want to know the future a fore-coach-wheel would be the least of it.’
Lydia dug into her pocket and extracted a half-crown and put it into the gypsy’s open palm.
‘Ah, my lovely,’ the old crone said. ‘I do not need a crystal ball to tell me you are not what you seem.’
‘Oh?’ Lydia raised one blackened brow.
‘You would have me think you are a young gentleman of fashion…’
‘And I am not?’ Lydia queried, keeping her voice huskily low.
‘No, barely out of the schoolroom, you are. Your clothes are too big and no doubt belong to an older brother and your voice is scarce broken. Slipped your leash for a night, is that it? I do not think I care to take your money, for your future lies in a spanking from your papa and that needs no second sight.’
Lydia gave a low chuckle, determined not to let her pose lapse. If the old hag thought she was dealing with a boy, at least she was halfway to her goal. ‘What can you tell me that does need a crystal ball?’
The gypsy put her hands around the glass and peered into its depths. ‘That’s strange,’ she said. ‘It is all misty, nothing is clear; it is as if someone were trying to deceive me. This I do not like.’ She looked up with bright boot-button eyes. ‘But this I do see — a fortune in gold and jewels, and a tall, dark man who is not pleased. Beware of trying to deceive him, young miss.’
‘Miss?’ she queried, taken aback.
‘Thought you’d take me for a fool, did ye?’ the old woman cackled. ‘But it takes more than clothes and bootblacking to hoax a Romany princess. Do it for a wager, did ye?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Lydia said, afraid of the gleam in the woman’s eye. ‘I meant no harm. I can see you are, indeed, very clever and I will remember what you say about the tall, dark man.’ With the gypsy’s cracked laugh ringing in her ears, she ran from the tent and straight into the broad chest of the Marquis of Longham.
STARTLED, Lydia stifled the Oh! she had on her lips and changed it to a husky grunt, as he took a step backwards and looked down at her. ‘Look where you’re going, boy.’
‘Pardon, monsieur.’ Why had Tom not seen the Marquis and waylaid him, or tried to warn her? If it was his idea of a test for her disguise, then it was a very dangerous one. ‘My fault entirely.’
The Marquis was regarding her in the same lop-sided way he had used at the ball and she was afraid he had penetrated her disguise. Oh, what a fool she had been to suppose she could get away with it! He was far too perceptive and if he recognised her now the whole masquerade would be at an end for she would never dare to repeat it in their own social circles. She was swamped by a feeling of relief at the thought of not having to do it, followed immediately by the dread of what Douglas Fincham would do. Tom was a fool and she was an even bigger one. And she would rather anyone but the Marquis know it.
‘No harm done.’ He touched the curly brim of his tall beaver and strode away to be lost in the crowds.
She let out a huge sigh and turned to look for Tom. He was standing on the edge of a knot of people watching a boxing match and had his back to her. She went to stand beside him and nudged his arm. ‘Fine look-out you turned out to be.’
He turned and grinned. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Who did you think it was, Lord Longham?’
‘No, why?’
‘I just bumped into him.’
He seemed unconcerned, as he craned his neck to see the end of the bout. ‘Did he recognise you?’
‘If he did, he did not say so.’
‘There you are, then!’ He began pushing his way through the spectators to reach the front as the fight ended with the amateur challenger being carried off unconscious. The barker began haranguing the watchers for a new challenger. ‘Who’ll go a round with the champion?’ he shouted. ‘Who fancies themselves at the fisticuffs?’ One round, that’s all, one round and still standing and twenty yellow Georges will be yours. Come on, ain’t there a fighter among ye?’
Tom pushed his way to the front and had his hand on the rope before Lydia realised what he intended. She pulled on his coat-tails. ‘No, Tom, he’ll kill you.’
While Tom turned to remonstrate with her, his opportunity was lost because another contender had climbed into the ring. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said, more unnerved than she liked to admit by her encounter with the Marquis. ‘I’ve had enough for one night.’
‘After this bout,’ he said, turning back to the ring and gasping with surprise because the man who was stripping off his coat and waistcoat was none other than Jack Bellingham. ‘Oh, this will be a rum ‘n and no mistake.’
He would not leave and they were so near the front that Lydia could see every bruise the protagonists inflicted on each other and hear every grunt of pain; she found herself wincing and wishing she could look away, but she could not take her eyes from the two men, one huge and thick-set with cropped hair and a thick bull-neck which disappeared into massive shoulders, and the other, as tall as his adversary, but whose broad shoulders tapered to a slim waist and hips and whose long, supple legs were serving him well as he moved lithely about the ring. Jack Bellingham had boxed before, that much was evident, and he was giving as good as he got as they weaved and ducked and threw punches while the crowd yelled their support and Tom cried, ‘Go to it, Jack! Send him to grass!’
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