Mary Balogh - The Secret Mistress

“Oh,” she said. Ferdinand had been boasting just last week about a curricle race that he had won, even though Tresham described him as one of the world’s worst whips. Angeline had almost had a fit of the vapors, even though she had been very proud of her brother for winning. She had not understood quite how dangerous such races were, however. “I am so sorry.”

“So am I,” he said. “He had no business behaving so recklessly. He had duties to his position. More important, he had a wife and a young daughter.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “he succumbed to a momentary temptation to return to the wildness of his youth. Perhaps he was not always so irresponsible.”

“He was,” he said curtly.

Angeline said nothing as they wound their way along a path in the direction of the pond.

“I loved him,” he said just as curtly.

And she realized something. He was a man in pain. Still. It was perhaps even more painful to mourn for someone who in many ways did not deserve your grief than it was to mourn for someone who did. No, there was no perhaps about it. There was still a deep, unresolved pain somewhere in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought about her mother.

“And so you feel,” she said, “that you must do better than he did.”

There was a rather lengthy silence this time as they stopped by the pond and gazed onto its dark surface, which was lit in part by one of the lamps in a nearby tree. The fountain bubbled softly in contrast with the sound of lively music coming from the ballroom.

“Not really,” he said. “I was always more serious-minded than Maurice. I always felt that I should do what I ought to do and that I should consider the effect my behavior would have on other people, particularly on those close to me, if I did not. I was always a dull fellow, and I compounded my dullness by criticizing the way Maurice neglected Wimsbury Abbey and the other estates. I criticized him for his wild, reckless behavior, especially after his marriage. But—”

“But—?” she prompted when he stopped.

“But everyone loved him despite it all,” he said. “Everyone adored him, in fact.”

“Even the Countess of Heyward?” she asked softly.

“Lorraine.” He spoke just as softly. “I believe she did at the start. She had a difficult confinement with Susan. He was there when it started. Then he went out. He returned three days later, in the same clothes, unshaven, red-eyed, still foxed. He had been celebrating with his friends, he told us.”

“Perhaps,” she suggested, “pain frightened him.”

“But Lorraine could not have run away if she was frightened,” he said. “I believe her love died during those three days. Or perhaps it was nothing so sudden and dramatic. Perhaps her eyes were gradually opened both before and after the birth. It must be hard to be married to a rake.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

One solution, of course, was to become as rakish as one’s husband. As her mother had done. If rakish was the right word to apply to a woman, that was.

“There is a seat just behind us,” she said. “Shall we sit for a while?”

He looked back and then led her toward it. It was set just below the branch from which the lamp swung in the slight breeze. Dim light flickered over their heads and then reflected in the water. There was the smell of water and greenery, Angeline noticed. It was more enticing than the heavier scent of all the flowers in the ballroom.

They sat in silence for a few moments and she sensed his growing discomfort.

“I do beg your pardon,” he said abruptly at last. “I ought not to have spoken of such personal matters.”

It was the darkness and relative seclusion, she guessed, that had loosened his tongue. She was glad it had happened, though. She felt that she had learned a great deal about him in just a few minutes, when perhaps he had spoken incautiously of private concerns. But she did not want them to become maudlin.

“What ought we to be talking about, then?” she asked him. “The weather? Our health? Bonnets? I can talk of bonnets forever if you have enough time to listen. I have bought thirteen of them since coming to London. Thirteen. Can you imagine? But every time I buy one, you see, and think it is the prettiest thing I have ever seen in my life, I see another the very next time I am out shopping that is even prettier, and what am I to do? I must buy the other one as well, of course, since it would not be kind to return the first and I cannot possibly live without the second. Someone at the shop made the first, after all, and would be hurt if I returned it for the reason that I had found something I liked better. And then, of course, I find one even prettier than the one that was prettier than the first, and I must have it. And … Well, and so on. Am I incorrigible?”

He did not smile, but she sensed that his discomfort had left him and that he was more relaxed. Perhaps he was even smiling. She could not see his face clearly enough to know for sure. Perhaps he needed someone to talk about bonnets with him occasionally rather than books.

“What answer am I to give to that?” he asked her. “I suspect you are exaggerating.”

“Not at all,” she said. “Thirteen. Ask Cousin Rosalie. Ask Tresham. He has started to look pained, poor man, every time a new bill appears on his desk. But he gave us carte blanche to shop for my come-out and has no grounds now upon which to complain, has he? And they were all irresistible bonnets. Though I have always had a weakness for hats. Did you like the one I was wearing in the park this morning?”

“Your hat?” he said a little too quickly. “I did not notice it.”

“Liar.” She laughed. “Ferdinand told me it was quite atrocious, that it made him almost ashamed to be seen with me. But my brothers are always blunt to the point of rudeness. They used to play horrid tricks on me when we were children. Sometimes they allowed me to play with them, particularly if their game called for them to rescue a lady in distress or to win a lady’s favor with some deed of great derring-do. But sometimes they did not want me, and then they would tell me to meet them in a certain place at a certain time and sneak away a different way and at a different time. And then they would always ask me with a show of great innocence why I had not shown up and would take great pleasure in giving me the details of all I had missed.”

She smiled at him and reached out to cover his hand with her own.

Oh, goodness me. Action before thought—again.

She knew immediately that she had committed a dreadful wrong. For one thing, he stiffened instantly though he did not move his hand. For another, she felt immediately heated and breathless and flustered—and quite unable to snatch back her hand or, better yet, to tap his lightly and withdraw her own as though nothing untoward had happened at all.

Instead, she left her hand where it was and gazed at him with wide eyes.

Oh, goodness gracious me, she could feel the touch all the way up through her breasts into her throat and her cheeks and all the way down to her toenails.

It was not the first time she had set her hand on the back of his. She had done it when he led out into the opening set of dances. She had done it again when they had left the supper room. But somehow this was altogether different.

He turned his hand beneath hers so that they were palm to palm. And then he closed his fingers about her hand.

She swallowed hard and loudly enough to drown out all other sounds for a half-mile radius.

“Have you been told,” he asked her, “that I am to be your primary suitor, Lady Angeline? Have you been instructed to allow me to court you?”

She almost froze with horror. He did think she was flirting with him.

She was not really. Was she?

Flirting was such a trivial thing.

“No,” she said. “No. Absolutely not. I was told that you had requested the opening set with me. I could have said no, but I had no reason whatsoever to do so even though I did not know at the time who the Earl of Heyward was. Nothing was said about courtship. In fact, Tresham—”

But she could hardly tell him that Tresham had called him a dry old stick, could she?

“I am sorry,” he said. “I have embarrassed you.”

“No, you have not,” she lied, and she closed her eyes briefly so that she could concentrate upon the sensation of having her hand enclosed in his.

Cool night air. Warm, steady, very male hand. The most delicious contrast in the whole wide world.

And then she felt her hand being raised until it was against his lips.

Angeline, eyes still closed, thought she might well die. Of happiness.

“I must return you to the ballroom,” he said.

Must you?

But she did not say the words aloud. Thank heaven! She had been quite forward enough tonight as it was. She got to her feet and drew her hand from his to straighten her skirt.

“This has been a memorable day,” she said brightly as she looked up to find him standing only a few inches away from her. “Has it been as happy a one for you as it has for me? Despite the fact that you have had to dance? I will never forget a single moment of it.”

“It has been a happy day,” he said.

She tipped her head to one side. He had spoken with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm.

“But the happiest part is that it is almost over?” she said, smiling ruefully.

“You are pleased to put words in my mouth,” he said. “I would not be so ill-mannered as to suggest any such thing, Lady Angeline.”

But he had not denied it.

“I hope,” she said, and her voice sounded breathless in her own ears, “it will be a happier day in retrospect than it has been in the living. I do hope so.”

And she whisked herself about and strode back along the path in the direction of the terrace and the ballroom beyond, her hands clutching the sides of her gown. She could almost hear Miss Pratt calling after her to stop striding like a man and remember that she was a lady.

She did not want him to catch up to her and offer his arm. She did not want to touch him again.

Not yet.

She would suffocate.

Tresham and Ferdinand had both used to tell her that she never did anything by halves—whether it was galloping her pony hell-bent for leather, diving into the lake at the deepest part as though she meant to dive right down to China, or climbing the highest tree as though to reach the clouds. It had always been said with a certain degree of affectionate admiration.

They would not admire her now.

For she did not fall in love by halves either.

She was an absolutely hopeless case, in fact.

No, not hopeless.

One day he would love her too.

Passionately.

If one was going to dream, one might as well dream big.

EDWARD ENJOYED MORE than half a day of relative freedom. He rode early in Hyde Park again with a group of friends—there were five of them this time—and encountered no one he did not wish to see. No one with the last name of Dudley, in other words. He spent an hour or so in the study with his secretary, looking over some important papers, dictating a few letters, deciding which of a flood of invitations he ought to accept and which he would decline, with regrets. He attended the House and even spoke up during one of the debates that interested him. He was to meet Headley and another friend later at White’s, where they were to dine together. They would probably linger there over their wine and their port until it was time to return home to bed.

It was only a relative freedom, of course, for his mind would not remain focused just upon the day’s business.

He must find time to call upon Eunice soon. He could not help feeling that he had abandoned her last evening when Windrow had asked her to dance. He ought to have objected, to have put a firm stop to the man’s insolence. Not that he owned Eunice, of course, or had any claim upon her at all, in fact. She would undoubtedly have been vexed with him if he had interfered. And she was still insisting that he marry someone more suited to his station, even though she had admitted that the ending of their agreement had left her feeling unsettled.

Dancing with Windrow had actually had a positive effect upon her fortunes. She had had partners for each set afterward. It was true that she professed to despise dancing and all the frivolities of ton entertainments, but even so, she surely did not enjoy being a wallflower either.