Page 69 of The Heiress in Disguise
A mask. He was holding a mask.
And it wasn’t just any mask. It was the mask that the masked gentleman wore—the one who had been meeting with Ella.
All at once, everything began to fall into place.
That mask was his. That meant… that meanthewas the masked gentleman! Not a gentleman at all, then! A commoner, a servant, had been posing as a gentleman, sneaking into the masquerade party, sneaking around with Ella—oh, it was too delicious. Jane wondered what would happen when she revealed this secret.
And then, suddenly, she doubted herself.
The gentleman and the servant were one and the same. She was sure of that. But how could she know which version of this man wastrue? What if hewasa gentleman? He’d had an invitation to the ball—how could she explain that, if not by his being a gentleman? He must be.
But who could he be?
The earl’s son, perhaps. The earl was old enough to have a son… she had seen him. There had been no discussion of a son, but perhaps he had been keeping his identity a secret. What if he’d had a son all along? Jane didn’t know why they would lie about it, but it was obvious that lieswerebeing told. Philip and the mask stranger were one and the same, so this manhadlied about his identity, and if he had lied about that, he might have lied about anything.
She turned and hurried away. She would learn no more from watching him now, and she feared being caught by him. A manwho kept secrets might be a dangerous man if his secrets were revealed. She didn’t want to take a chance.
Back at home, she found Lady Gwyneth in her own bedroom, drinking her usual unsweetened tea. Lady Gwyneth frowned at her. “I heard you coming all the way down the hall,” she complained. “You run with such a heavy step, Jane.”
“Forgive me, Lady Gwyneth, but you asked me to watch Ella,” Jane said. She was slightly out of breath. “I’ve discovered something that I think will be of interest to you.”
“Tell me.”
“I told you Ella had been meeting with the servant from next door—that Philip,” Jane said. “They meet in the woods today, and when their meeting came to an end, I followed Philip to see what he would do. I discovered something that amazed me. He possesses the mask worn by the curious stranger who attended the masquerade ball. The two men are one and the same!”
Lady Gwyneth sat upright. “Are you very sure about this, Jane?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “I saw it clearly.”
“And he has such noble bearing—that explains it,” Lady Gwyneth breathed. “The servant is secretly a gentleman!”
Jane nodded eagerly. “I came to the same conclusion,” she said.
“But why would he pose as a servant? Why would anybody do such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “But he was asking Ella questions.”
“What sort of questions?”
“Questions about the family. He wanted to know about her parents, and he wanted to know about the way she was treated. He seemed to believe she was mistreated.” Jane hesitated here. Ellawasmistreated. Was she wrong for siding against her old friend?
But no. There had been too many lies, and all of them had turned in Ella’s favor so far. Ella did not need any further looking after. It was time for Jane to take control of this. It was time for Ella to learn that not everything could go her way. That simply wasn’t right or fair.
And the treatment Ella received wasn’t so bad. She had never been starved, had she? And no one had struck her in years. She would survive this. But Jane wasn’t going to sit back and let all the good things go to Ella. She deserved some good things for herself.
“This is terrible,” Lady Gwyneth murmured. “If he’s asking questions about the family, he might mean us harm. I’ll have to let mother know.”
“That would probably be wise,” Jane agreed. “But what do you think she’ll do?”
“We can’t allow Ella to meet with this man ever again,” Lady Gwyneth said. “She’ll have to be stopped. I don’t know how we’re going to stop her exactly—there will have to be more restrictions placed upon her so that she doesn’t leave the house for any reason. It’s just too risky to have her going out when I know that she might be telling tales about our family to people who have no right to be asking questions.”
“How will you keep her in the house?” Jane asked. “She has ways of sneaking around, you know. Begging your forgiveness, but you wouldn’t have realized she was going out as it is if I hadn’t said something about it.”
“No, that’s true,” Lady Gwyneth agreed. “And now that we know we’re being observed so closely, we can’t simply lock her up, which is most unfortunate. We’ll have to come up with some sort of legitimate reason to prevent her from going out.
Well… she has been meeting with multiple men each time she leaves the house. That’s very untoward. It’s rather the behaviorof a loose woman, really. She can’t be allowed to continue her dalliances with all these men. That’s a reason to keep her inside.”
“It really isn’t good for her either,” Jane said. “She’ll surely come to disgrace. I don’t think she realizes that the two men are one and the same—she thinks she’s meeting with two separate men. You’re quite right that there’s something wrong with that.”
