Читать книгу Girl in the Beaded Mask - Amanda McCabe, Amanda McCabe - Страница 7

David Carlisle sat by the window in his dimly lit library, a half-full glass of whiskey in his hand. He didn’t see the sunset outside that streaked the sky with glorious pinks and oranges, turning the overgrown gardens to a shimmering gold. He didn’t hear the click of the door as the housekeeper peeked in and then scurried away again, leaving a dinner tray on the table outside.

He stared down at the invitation on the window ledge. The white card was so heavy the warm summer breeze didn’t stir it. The black engraving was dark and stark.

A midsummer masked ball. A night of champagne, music, gardens crowded with tipsy revelers in feathered masks. Noise and light and heat. Nothing sounded worse.

David took a deep drink of the whiskey, rough and hot at the back of his throat. But it didn’t make the card disappear.

Most people knew better than to send him invitations now. When he first came home from the war, his mother still lived here at the abbey with him and she urged him to go out to balls and dinners, to meet people—especially marriageable young ladies. She wanted things to go on just as they always had, in the orderly, pretty, Edwardian world she grew up in. Eventually she gave up and moved to the south of France.

Her world was gone, and no amount of parties would erase what had happened in the trenches of France. Nothing could bring back the friends he had lost, or his old self. And no young lady in her right mind would want to marry him.

As he sipped at the whiskey, the image of one lady in particular came into his mind and she wouldn’t go away. Lulu Hatton. For some strange reason she often came to him at weird moments, the vision of her bright smile and vivid red hair. The sound of her laughter. She had always been laughing, always rushing out to grab life with both hands.

She had been a part of his life for years, the kid sister of his Eton friend Bill Hatton. A cute, funny girl who followed him around and played ridiculous pranks on him.

When he was in the horrors of France, that hell of mud and blood and rot, the memory of Lulu and the joyous life of Hatton Hall was like a sunny dream he could take out and hold on to. A lifeline.

But then, when the war was over and he had hobbled home with his scars and nightmares, he made himself do his duty and go visit Hatton Hall to pay his condolences over poor Bill. He had barely stepped out of his car when the doors opened and Lulu ran out. The sun was brilliant on her autumn-colored hair, even brighter against the stark black of her dress. To his shock, she had run down the steps and thrown her arms around him, holding him tightly.

And there, in her embrace, he felt his frozen heart begin to thaw just a bit. But he wasn’t ready to let go of the numbness. He couldn’t heal, not then—maybe not ever. So he held her away and said something about how she had grown up.

He hadn’t seen her since, except in glossy photos in magazines. Lulu at dances, at flower shows, at tea parties and tennis games, surrounded by eager young men.

Soon she would probably marry one of them, and have a brood of rowdy, red-haired children at some country estate, and she would be happy. And he would still be here at the abbey, watching her in the magazines.

David put down the empty glass and reached for the invitation. A handwritten note was scrawled across the bottom of the card.

David—I know you’ll say no, as you do every year, but do come this time. Enough of being the Hunchback of Notre Dame! Your friends miss you. P.S. Lady Elizabeth Ashley will be there. Sincerely, Bertie.

David laughed ruefully. Bertie Finch-Granley had been another friend of David’s and Bill’s at school, a funny, flamboyant character who forgot his own war experiences in wild parties. His midsummer masked ball had become legendary.

But Lady Elizabeth was not the lure Bertie thought. Giving in to the whim of going to the races with her had been a mistake. Better he should stay home and play the Hunchback.