The Madcap Masquerade Read Online Free Page B

tall chimneys protruding from its high, gabled roof.
    Maeve stepped from the carriage into a driving rain and stood for a moment surveying what, except for a quirk of fate, might have been her home for the past twenty-two years. It was not an inviting sight. Ugly patches of moss clung to the gray stone walls of the ancient manor house, the square, mullioned windows looked dark and dirty and forbidding and a rivulet of rainwater spilled from a clogged drain in the eave directly above the front door.
    “Damn and blast, meant to have that drain cleaned out after the last rain. Plain forgot it once the sky cleared,” the squire mumbled, stepping through the miniature waterfall to bang on the door with an iron knocker in the shape of a dog’s head. He knocked again, tried the knob, then gave the door a sharp kick with the toe of his boot when no one answered. “Hallo in there. Open up if ye know what’s good for ye,” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
    Finally, the door creaked open, revealing a woman whose plump pink cheeks were framed with vivid, henna-colored sausage curls. Cook or housekeeper, Maeve surmised, since the woman’s barrel-shaped body was covered by a voluminous apron which might once have been white but was now as gray and stained as the stone of the ancient manor house.
    “Hold your water, squire. It’s a fair piece from the kitchen to this door and these hell-bred hounds don’t make it no easier,” the woman snarled, tripping over a pair of ancient foxhounds who chose that moment to wriggle past her and leap on the squire in a frenzy of devotion.
    “Down lads. Down. I’ve me fancy town clothes on,” he ordered, pushing them aside to step through the doorway. Crooking his finger, he beckoned Maeve to follow him and a moment later she found herself in a huge, high-ceilinged entry hall which reeked of stale tobacco smoke and damp dog.
    “Where’s the demmed snooty-nosed butler I hired on me last trip to London?” the squire demanded, hunkering down to rub behind the ear of first one dog, then the other. “With the prodigious wage I pay him, y’d think he could stir his lazy bones to answer the door in weather like this.”
    He looked around him with obvious frustration. “And where’s the footman? There’s trunks of bride clothes to be carried up to Meg’s bedchamber.”
    “Don’t you remember, you crazy old fool? Y’sacked Mr. Fogarty the day afore y’left for London—and the footman with him—cause y’d got it into yer head they was helping themselves to that pricey brandy y’d bought off some Frog smuggler.”
    “Demmed if I didn’t! And good riddance too, if ye ask me,” the squire muttered, intent on petting his dogs. To Maeve’s surprise, he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he’d just been called a fool by a servant.
    “I’ll not argue with you there,” the housekeeper said, with an indignant sniff. “But I’m all the house staff what’s left in this pile of stone, save the half-wit pot boy, and you’ll soon see the last of me ‘less you get me some help.”
    “Stop yer grouching. I’ll hire a couple of village girls in the morning,” the squire grumbled. “A fine welcome home this is after the hellish fortnight I just been through.”
    Sticking his head out the door, he shouted to his rain-drenched coachman, “Fetch a couple of grooms to come unload the luggage—and mind ye give them wet nags a good rub down afore ye bed them down for the night.”
    He turned to Maeve. “In case ye’re wondering, this mouthy old woman is me housekeeper, Mrs. Emma Pinkert,” he said, then turned beet red when he apparently realized his slip of tongue. As “Margaret,” Maeve should know very well who Mrs. Pinkert was. “An almond to a yev forgot her, with being away so long,” he added lamely.
    Mrs. Pinkert’s bright blue eyes grew round as teacups. “Lord luv us, yev slipped a cog for sure. Miss Meg’s not going to forget me in a fortnight, when I’ve