Mary Balogh - A Summer to Remember

“Ah, but Vauxhall is a wonderful, enchanted land,” he told her. “And famous as a setting for dalliance and other romantic capers. Have you been there before?”

“No. And your conversation borders upon the offensive, my lord.”

He wondered if she knew how delectable she looked when she was at her most prim and indignant, as she was now. Her already upright posture had taken on a distinct resemblance to a poker at the mention of dalliance. Her chin had lifted an inch. She gazed disdainfully off across the water instead of looking back at him. She was wearing the lavender cloak she had worn to the theater, its wide hood pulled halfway over her dark curls for the river crossing, though the evening was balmy. Beneath it she wore a high-waisted, long-sleeved gown of ivory lace over silk. He had wondered, when he first set eyes upon her earlier in the evening, how she could always appear to be the best-dressed lady at any gathering despite the comparative simplicity of her dresses. But the answer had come to him almost immediately. To add to her other ladylike perfections, she was also a woman of exquisite taste.

The realization somehow made this evening’s task more daunting. There were ten days of his wager remaining. He was to be married to her within ten days or else be three hundred pounds the poorer. Married to her? Within ten days? Was it possible? But the word impossible had never been part of his vocabulary.

Kit listened to the babble of voices around them. Miss Merklinger and her cousin, Miss Abbott, were commenting on everything they saw with bubbling, youthful enthusiasm. But Lauren Edgeworth, having allowed plenty of time for her last scolding words to sink home, was speaking again, her face still half turned from him.

“Why were you swimming half clad in the Serpentine?” she was asking. “Why did you make such a public spectacle of yourself? Do you enjoy giving outrage wherever you go?”

“Ah.” He chuckled. “You have been told about that, have you?”

“And yet you expect me to allow myself to have my name linked with yours?” she added.

“You would not wish for the acquaintance of someone who makes a spectacle of himself in public places?” he asked her. “Someone who courts notoriety? I am desolate. But the child was wailing pitifully, you must understand, and his nurse was at the very tail end of her tether. I do believe she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that her only remaining option was to smack him.”

“ What child?” She turned a frowning face toward him.

He chuckled. She looked beautiful even when she was cross. “I might have guessed,” he said, “that those old tabbies would tell only part of the story. The child had a new boat, you see, which set off boldly and proudly for the distant horizon and held its course for all of one minute while he jumped up and down with glee and yelled loudly enough to do an infantry sergeant proud. And then it sank ignominiously without leaving so much as a bubble on the surface. It was several yards from shore by that time.”

“And you dived in to retrieve it.” Her tone held a mingling of incredulity and scorn.

“Not immediately,” he explained. “I waited until the nurse’s total incompetence to deal with the crisis became evident. It was a crisis, you see. What self-respecting captain can watch his ship go down without him and not throw a massive tantrum, after all? When there was no other course open to me but to witness a justifiably hysterical lad being cuffed by his insensitive nurse, I removed as many of my clothes as I decently could—though I understand there are varying opinions upon just how many that is—and dived in. I recovered the boat from its muddy grave. I thought my actions were rather heroic. So did the lad.”

She stared at him, obviously speechless.

“You see,” he explained, tipping his head to one side, “I was a boy once myself.”

“Once? You mean you have grown up?” She bit her lip—to hold back a smile? But there was telltale laughter in her voice.

“Lady Waddingthorpe and Mrs. Healy-Ryde swelled with outrage, like two hot-air balloons,” he said abjectly.

For a moment, even in the moonlight, he could see her eyes light with merriment. But—damn it!—before she could express it the exclamations of Miss Merklinger and Miss Abbott drew the attention of everyone in the boat to the fact that it was drawing in to the bank. Light shivered across the water from the many lamps strung in the trees of Vauxhall Gardens.

“Oh!” Lauren Edgeworth said.

“You see?” he said gently. “It is an enchanted land, is it not?”

“Magical,” she agreed with such warm fervor that he guessed she had forgotten her eternal—or infernal—dignity for the moment.

He handed her out, and they followed the others into the pleasure gardens, whose enchantment could weave its spell even over such jaded tastes as his own. The long colonnades, the extensive groves of trees, and the wide avenues would have made for pleasant strolling even during the day, he guessed. But during the evening all was transformed into a glorious wonderland by the colored lamps waving from the colonnade and from the tree branches, the moonlight and starlight like twinkling lamps in a distant black ceiling. The music of the orchestra wafting from the direction of the open-air pavilion wrapped itself about them and muted the sounds of voices and laughter from the dozens of merrymakers.

It was the perfect setting for dalliance.

And for a marriage proposal.

They took their places in the box Merklinger had hired for the evening, close to the orchestra and the wide open space before it where the audience stood during concerts and other spectacles and where the dancing would take place tonight. They ate strawberries and cream and drank wine and enjoyed the evening air. Miss Abbott flirted with Mr. Weller. Mrs. Merklinger courted Farrington for her daughter with single-minded devotion. Merklinger hailed almost everyone who passed in front of their box and engaged anyone who stopped in hearty conversation. Kit turned to Lauren Edgeworth.

“Will you waltz with me?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” Miss Merklinger exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Let us all waltz. May we, Mama?”

Fortunately, Kit discovered when he looked at the young lady, rather startled, she had not mistaken the object of his invitation. Her sparkling gaze was fixed upon Farrington, who was climbing indulgently to his feet while the girl’s mother beamed benevolently upon them.

“A waltz,” she said. “You have not yet been given the nod of approval by any of the patronesses of Almack’s to dance it, my love, and neither has Amelia. But in Vauxhall I daresay the rules are not so strictly observed. Off you go and enjoy yourselves.”

And so they waltzed, Kit and Lauren, and the other two couples too, beneath the stars and beneath the swaying lamps, the evening breeze fluttering the lace of Lauren’s overdress and tousling Kit’s hair. The delicate arch of her spine had been made to fit his hand, he discovered again. And the waltz might well have been invented for her to dance. She performed the steps with elegance and grace. And she was more beautiful than he had had any right to hope.

She would make a perfect countess when the time came. His father could have no greater objection to her than the fact that she was not Freyja. How very different they were. . . . But he did not choose to pursue that thought. This woman would suit him well enough.

“Can there be anything more romantic than waltzing beneath the stars?” he asked her, his voice lowered for her ears only.

She had been gazing about at the trees and lamps, but she looked directly at him when he spoke. “I suppose,” she said gravely, “one’s answer to that must depend upon one’s partner.”

He chuckled. “I tremble to ask,” he said. “Can there be anything more romantic than this waltz beneath the stars?”

“There can be few activities more pleasant than this, my lord,” she said. A setdown if ever he had heard one.

“I could think of a few.” He deliberately dropped his gaze to her mouth and tightened his hand at her waist. And what the devil was he about, trying to annoy her when he should be wooing her?

“Why do you persist in flirting with me?” she asked him. “Have I not made it abundantly clear to you that I will not succumb to flattery? Does my reluctance amuse you?”

Her primness amused him—surprisingly. It should be annoying, he supposed, but it was not. He found her grave dignity almost endearing.

He twirled her without answering, drawing her closer when he saw another couple perilously close. But she was having none of it. She set the correct distance between them once more and looked into his eyes with steady reproach.

“There was a large bumpkin about to mow you down,” he explained. “That one. Oops.” The large young man he indicated had just collided with another couple. Kit chuckled. “I will take you strolling when the waltz is over. And before you say the very firm no you are drawing breath for, I plan to make all proper by suggesting that the others accompany us.”

She closed her mouth and looked warily at him.

“It would be a shame,” he said, “to come to Vauxhall and not see as much of it as possible, would it not? The paths are wooded and rural and unutterably romantic.”

“I did not come here for romance,” she said.

“There are other alternatives.” He smiled wickedly at her and twirled her again, and her neck arched back as she gazed up at the wheeling colors of the lamps. “Why did you come?”

When she did not immediately answer, he sighed soulfully. The music, he sensed, was about to end.

“Come strolling with me,” he said. “With the others for propriety, of course.” If he could not escape their chaperonage once they were away from the environs of the pavilion, then he would have lost his touch indeed.

The music drew to a close, and they stood facing each other while all about them couples made their way back to the boxes.

“You hesitate because I swam in the Serpentine wearing only my pantaloons?” he asked her.

“You make a joke of everything,” she said. “I wonder if anything is serious to you.”

“Some things,” he assured her. Ah yes, some things. “Walk with me.”

“Very well,” she said at last. “Provided everyone else agrees to accompany us, my lord. But I will not tolerate either flirtation or dalliance.”

“I promise neither to flirt with you nor to dally with you,” he said, smiling, his right hand over his heart.

She looked unconvinced.

“Very well,” she said again.

Lauren had always loved beauty. The park at Newbury Abbey was beautiful, especially on a sunny summer’s day when the wind off the ocean was not too blustery. It was the inner lawns and flower gardens that she loved best, though, those parts of the park that had been tamed and cultivated. Those parts that were civilized. She had never really liked the wilder valley and beach, which were all a part of the park. They were untamed and disordered. Sometimes they frightened her in a way she could never quite explain. They reminded her, perhaps, of how little control humankind has over its own destiny. Of how close we always are to chaos.

She was terrified of chaos.

Vauxhall Gardens was a sheer delight. Nature had been tamed here and made lovely. The forest was lit by lamplight and traversed by wide, well-illumined paths with sculptures and grottos to add interest and elegance. The paths were crowded with strollers, all of whom were behaving in a perfectly civilized manner.

And yet she was aware of danger. Miss Merklinger and Lord Farrington, Miss Abbott and Mr. Weller, walked ahead of them, talking and laughing among themselves. Lord Ravensberg made no attempt to join in their conversation even though Lord Farrington was a personal friend of his. And every minute set the two of them at a slightly greater distance behind the other four.

Every so often narrower paths wound away into the trees. They were darker, lonelier than the main thoroughfare.

Lauren could almost read Lord Ravensberg’s mind. He intended that they take one of those side paths. Just the two of them. She shivered. She could increase her pace and close the distance with the others. She could herself join in their conversation. Or she could, when the time came, firmly refuse to leave the main path. He would hardly try forcing her to comply with his wishes, after all. The fact that she was even having this inner debate with herself bewildered her. Lauren Edgeworth had always known what was what, and it would certainly not be the thing to go off with a virtual stranger along a deserted path when he could have nothing but dalliance on his mind.