by Abby Ayles
Unfortunately, his pause had held him long enough in place that Jasper was rapidly approaching, and unless he broke into a run, he was not going to be able to avoid their meeting.
Christopher straightened his back instead, and made as if he had been waiting for Jasper like the old friends that they were.
“Christopher,” Jasper said, with an air of smugness. “I see you are here to enjoy the evening as well.”
“I did not know you were coming,” Christopher bit out.
“Nor I,” Jasper said.
There was a merry twinkle in his eye, one that Christopher did not like at all.
“I had no notion this event was even taking place until I was alerted earlier this afternoon. I heard you were to be in attendance and I simply had to come along myself.”
“And why should that be?” Christopher asked flatly. He was not going to pander to Jasper and pretend that they were still friends.
“Now, is that any tone or manner with which to address your superior?” Jasper asked. His tone was jovial enough, but there was venom behind the words.
“When I see my superior, I shall be sure to mark how I address him,” Christopher shot back before he could stop himself.
He knew that such rudeness could get him into trouble, and for a moment he had been riled enough not to care. That played right into Jasper’s hands, however, and went against the vow he had made; he rebuked himself instantly.
“Such insubordination towards your Captain will not be tolerated,” Jasper said. He reached out a casual hand and brushed it over Christopher’s badges of office, as if knocking a piece of lint away.
“Mind that you keep your impudent tongue a little closer in your head if you wish to avoid disciplinary action.”
Christopher swallowed, and held his tongue entirely. He did not trust himself at that moment to say anything which would not get him into further trouble.
“Well,” Jasper said cheerfully as if they were discussing the weather and nothing more. “I will see you in there, Lieutenant Hardwicke. I hear there is to be much dancing.”
Jasper melted away into the crowd at the entrance, and Christopher gave himself several moments to fight for his composure.
Feeling a little cooler in the head at last, Christopher renewed his steps and entered the hall, being met immediately with music, the sound of chattering voices, and laughter all around.
It was clearly a gay affair. Young people were clustered around the whole space, talking animatedly and showing off their best gowns and suits.
The women were decked out in pale pastel colors, looking like flowerbeds ready for the spring. Many of them wore dresses that were perhaps a slightly older style; the fabric, dyed to match this season’s colors, kept them fashionable enough.
The red of soldiers’ uniforms dotted the crowd, and Christopher saw many privates – though few officers like himself and Jasper. Jasper, he realized, was likely the highest-ranked man in the place.
And that went for social standing in its entirety; he recognized no one of good breeding, none of the familiar faces that were doing the rounds of the society balls.
None of the attendants were dressed in a style that might set them out as belonging to a higher class. He felt certain in the belief that these revelers were mostly ‘Miss’ and ‘Mr.’, rather than ‘Lord’ and ‘Lady’.
Across the room, he spotted hair gleaming in the light of the candles that hung above them, and when she turned, he saw that he had been right in his recognition.
Kitty White was there, talking with a young female friend who looked uncomfortably thin.
He walked across the room to them, cutting a swathe between the groups of conversationalists, his path easy since the dancing had not yet begun.
It was only just before he reached her that Jasper slid to his side, but before Christopher could protest, she turned around and saw them.
“Lieutenant!” she screeched, her voice so grating that Christopher wondered how he had ever managed to withstand a conversation with this creature. “You came to see me!”
“Yes, Miss Kitty,” Christopher said, being absolutely sure to use her title correctly.
She might not have been of any social importance, but he had no intention of allowing her to believe that things were on an informal standing between them.
“And Lieutenant Rivers, too,” she cooed, fluttering a smile in the direction of the other man.
“Christopher has not kept you up to date, I see,” Jasper said, favoring her with an indulgent smile. “It is Captain Rivers, now.”
Kitty’s eyes widened to a degree that was almost comical.
“Is that so?” she asked, looking with wonder at the new insignia on his jacket.
“A recent development,” Jasper informed her. “I was commended by the Major; another of our colleagues had to resign his position and so I was a clear shoe-in for the commission.”
“How exciting!” Kitty exclaimed.
Christopher stood looking between the two of them. He was feeling a little bemused. It was as though he was being pushed out of the conversation entirely.
“Kitty,” he began, feeling the need to get the weight off his chest as soon as possible. “I really must -”
“And are you still stationed in the same barracks?” Kitty interrupted, looking up at Jasper adoringly. “I shouldn’t wish to miss you if you are suddenly moved to another part of the country!”
“I am staying put,” Jasper assured her. “If you are to remain locally, I am certain we will have many opportunities for our paths to cross.”
Christopher sighed to himself. This was not going as planned at all.
The first quiet sounds from the far side of the room indicated that the musicians were picking up their instruments and making sure that they were in tune, and the dancing was soon to begin.
“May I have this first dance?” Jasper smoothly enquired.
“Of course!” Kitty beamed, not even looking at Christopher. “Lead on, Captain.”
They walked out to join the other couples in the center of the room who were preparing to dance, leaving Christopher watching them go with his mouth open.
He soon closed his jaw. It was clear to him that Kitty had exchanged her favors for the man with the higher commission, and good luck to the both of them. She would be finely disappointed; he, perhaps, had met his match in deception.
He lingered to watch them a while longer, how Kitty threw her head back to laugh at every witty thing to pass Jasper’s lips (and a few unwitty things besides, no doubt).
It was strange, as if he were looking into some window on an alternate future. There they were, his former best friend and his former interest.
Or perhaps that had all only been a distraction from Juliana; he could not recall ever having had any real feelings for her at all.
Christopher was satisfied, at least by some margin. There they were – two chapters of his life that he had now resolved to close forever, and without a moment of remorse.
It was clear as day that neither had ever truly had any real interest in him. Rather, they were both attracted to the same thing: his status, and what it could afford to them if they stood by his side.
Christopher looked around the room once more with even fresher eyes, and saw that he was without a doubt the only real lord out of the lot of them. That determined, he saw that this was no place for him.
He walked around the side of the dancers as rapidly as he could, weaving between those who stood to watch or to converse, and slipped out by the same way he had gone in.
He cursed when he saw that his coach had deserted him, after all; but no matter.
There were plenty more still arriving, the horses looking thin and the upholstery peeling; but it had been a night of slumming it. One more coach would not make too much of a difference to all that.
Chapter 29
They were seated in the sitting room that morning, each buried in their own pursuits. The Duke of Prighton
read the newspaper with a cup of tea, pursing his lips at almost everything that he read, though most of it had no bearing on him.
The Baroness sat with her keen old eyes angled downwards through a pair of eyeglasses, balancing on the tip of her nose as she embroidered a delicate rose pattern onto a length of fabric.
It was rather an old-fashioned pattern, but since Juliana was not going to have to wear it, she did not feel the need to say so.
Juliana sat by the window at her own work, putting some fine detailing onto a ribbon that she intended to tie around her bonnet. She had devised her own pattern of birds in flight, which she thought was rather fetching when repeated in this way.
John and Mary were nowhere to be seen, each having gone out for a walk independently that morning. Since it was such a large estate, there was no need to panic about a chaperone; and besides, the grounds were quite private.
Though, as it happened, some of their party would perhaps have been more vigilant if they had known what the two of them were truly up to.
For, that morning, John Woode and Mary Westerholme walked into the sitting room together after their walk – at the same time – and both were strangely flushed, as if with excitement.
“Mother,” John said smartly. “Your Grace; Lady Juliana. I have an announcement to make. Or, I might say, we have an announcement to make.”
Every eye in the room snapped towards them – including that of the maid who had been delivering a fresh pot of tea to the Baroness.
Mary stepped forward then to be by his side, and John reached out and took her hand, folding it into the crook of his elbow.
Juliana watched with a kind of incredulity, not quite yet caught up to the events that had transpired: she was wondering when they had become so familiar.
“John,” the Baroness began warningly, but she was ignored.
“I am happy to inform you all that this morning, not fifteen minutes ago, I have asked Lady Mary to be my wife. Moreover, she has accepted my proposal. We are now betrothed.”
The reactions in the room were as disparate as they were intense. The Baroness dropped her teacup, leaving it to shatter on the floor into tiny porcelain shards while the tea slopped over the carpet.
Juliana, turning to look, saw that her face had transformed into a mask of horror, made all the more pronounced by her grey hair and the thick lines in her skin.
The Duke had half-started to rise from his chair, and then stopped; he seemed frozen in the midst of the action, unsure as to whether he should finish standing or sit back down again.
His face had gone a curious shade of red that almost verged on the purple, and a vein near his temple appeared to be almost bulging out of place.
The maid, who was quite young and evidently had not been with the family a long time, stifled a surprised giggle; then she dropped to her knees hastily and began to gather up the broken cup.
Juliana turned back in her chair to look at them again. For her part, she was having difficulty in parsing how it was that she felt.
There was a curious mixture in her: a joy a being saved from her fate of having to marry John herself, but a worry and fear that Mary was doing a noble thing for her sake only; a revulsion that anyone should wish to marry John out of their own free will; a sudden spike of grief that she would lose her best friend; a joy that said best friend would now, in fact, be loosely related to her.
These things and more perhaps passed over her features before she was aware of it.
At last, she mastered herself and remembered how she was supposed to act.
She stood stiffly, knowing full well that Mary would see into her eyes and know the play for what it was: acting merely, and not at all the deepest feelings of her heart.
“I wish you both every happiness,” she said, in a tone that was intended to convey forced politeness, covering up a deep well of hurt.
She swept out of the room with an injured grace. By happy coincidence, the layout of the house was such that the staircase leading to her chamber was close by to the door of the sitting room.
Leaping upon this opportunity, Juliana climbed the stairs only until she was mostly out of sight, then sat down and leaned her head forward so that she might see between the banisters and hear the words coming from the room.
“This is preposterous!” the Duke, evidently the first one amongst them to regain his voice, was saying.
“How can such a thing have come to pass? The two of you are barely acquainted – and you, sir, I believe have not even met Lady Mary’s father!”
“I wrote him some weeks ago,” John explained calmly.
For all his faults, Juliana thought, his docile personality was at least something that allowed him to remain mild and well-mannered at a time like this.
“I expressed my sentiments regarding his daughter, and he wrote back with his permission. I expect we shall visit them anon.”
“But what a match!” the Duke continued. His rage did not seem to have reduced; rather, his voice was louder still. “She has not a tenth of your position!”
“I think the gap rather smaller than that,” John replied in his same mild way.
“I believe she is only one step removed from that of your daughter’s own position, Your Grace. If it were not so, they would not have been allowed to become friends.”
The Duke had nothing to say to that, but Juliana heard him spluttering, searching for words to express his outrage.
“Your mind is made up on this matter?” the Baroness questioned.
She seemed to have regained her composure somewhat, for her voice was as sharp and measured as ever, if perhaps just the slightest point higher in pitch.
“It is, Mother,” John said. “I have loved Mary since the first moment we met. I am aware that your designs lay elsewhere, and I am sorry for that.
“We have no doubt caused some great troubling by falling for one another like this, but in truth, it has been going on for some time.”
“You betray your friend like this?” the Duke demanded, this time evidently of Mary. Juliana clutched the loose fabric of her dress involuntarily, wishing she could intervene on her friend’s behalf.
“I did not intend it to be so,” Mary said, quietly and with a slight tremor in her voice. Juliana strained to hear, even through the open door.
“I merely came to accompany Juliana on her walks and rides, and to ensure that she always had a confidante.
“But during all of those times when Lord Ascot rode with her, he rode also with me. When he conversed with her, he conversed also with me. So my affections rose, though I did not dare to believe they might be reciprocated.”
“That is where I came in,” John said, with unmistakable pride in his voice.
“I had the temerity to speak to Mary privately of my feelings, and I was blessed to find them returned. But we knew we must not proceed until the proper channels had been addressed, namely, speaking to her father and ensuring that all was well.”
“All is not well,” the Duke snapped, his voice and footsteps coming closer towards the door. “All is not well at all.”
Juliana leaped to her feet in a rustle of silk, and only just managed to dart inside her room before the Duke came up the stairs, retreating to the quarters he had been loaned.
It was only a short time later than Mary came up to find her, and the pair closed the door to their shared room so that they could talk properly.
The first thing that Juliana did was to embrace her friend warmly, and then pull back to look her square in the face.
“I am not at all angry with you,” she said. “I hope you could see that.”
“Of course,” Mary laughed. “I am not forgetful. I know that you find John dull; you have told me so each day since we first met him.”
“And are you truly happy?” Juliana asked.
“Yes, I am,” Mary said, and her beam showed that her words were no lie. “I have made a far better match than I imagined would be possible. My father is ecstatic,
my mother too. I cannot wait to be wed.”
“Do you truly love him?” Juliana asked, guiding her friend over to sit on the side of the bed.
Mary looked to the floor before she answered, apparently giving it careful thought. “I am happy to be with him,” she answered.
“He is not a handsome man, and nor am I seeing some secretly exciting side of him that you do not. But he is a stable man and a patient one, and I do not believe he will ever be unkind to me.
“Beyond that, we will share a comfortable life together. For that, I am very happy.”
