Indiscreet

by Mary Balogh

  “I believe it is called—frustration,” she said, restraining herself just in time from including the word sexual. She was not that ill-bred even with anger as an excuse.

  “I daresay you are right.” His eyes roamed her face. “Our chaperone has given us all of—what? Five minutes? She has deemed that quite sufficient.”

  Lady Baird was strolling back up the lawn. Toby was loping along at her side just as if they were lifelong friends.

  “Clarissa has agreed to some waltzes the evening after tomorrow,” he said. “I expect to claim the ones I have reserved with you, ma’am. If you are concerned about the progress of my noncourtship, I will explain that I reserved the opening set with Miss Hudson and was maneuvered into reserving the set after supper with her too.”

  His voice was haughty, commanding. Catherine could not remember ever agreeing to grant him those two sets. The thought of waltzing with him was unbearable. It made her feel as if someone had removed a few essential bones from her legs and as if some giant pump had sucked most of the air from the garden.

  “Charming,” Lady Baird said as she approached, looking from one to the other of them, though she did not explain what it was she found so charming. “We have taken enough of your time, Mrs. Winters. We must be going, must we not, Rex? I promised Clayton I would be gone for no longer than an hour. You will be at the ball? I so look forward to seeing you there.”

  Catherine smiled.

  She saw them to the front gate and raised a hand in farewell as they walked back along the street. Yes, she looked forward to it too. She ought not to do so. She should have refused her invitation. Even now she should send her excuses. But oh, to dance again. To feel young again. To dance with him.

  She knew she would not send her excuses.

  She stood inside the door a minute later, her back against it, her eyes closed.

  One dreads to think what you might be like with a child.

  She gave a little moan of distress. She remembered holding a child, a tiny, underdeveloped child. For such a very short time. Ah, so very short. He had survived his birth by a scant three hours, and for the first of those she had been too exhausted to hold him.

  She had blamed herself bitterly afterward. It had been all her fault. She had not wanted him at first. She had not nourished him well because she had been unable to find the will or the energy to nourish herself well. And she had cried a great deal. She had felt very sorry for herself in those days. The midwife had told her—too late—that it was important to keep up her spirits. And afterward . . . Perhaps she had wrapped him too warmly or not warmly enough. Perhaps she had held him too tightly or not tightly enough. Perhaps if she had held him for that first hour . . .

  He had died.

  One dreads to think what you might be like with a child.

  She spread her hands over her face and did what she very rarely did these days. She wept.

  Toby was nudging her leg with his nose and whining.

  • • •

  MRS. Adams had expended a great deal of energy on the preparations for the dinner and ball at Bodley House. It was a great deal more difficult to host a ball in the country than in town, she always found. In town one sent invitations to all the ton and trusted that enough would attend that the event would be proclaimed a squeeze. And enough people always did come. Claude was the brother and heir of Viscount Rawleigh, after all. In the country one sent invitations to almost everyone except the peasantry and hoped that enough would come that the event would not be proclaimed a disaster.

  And early spring was not the ideal time to hold a dinner and ball. There were not enough flowers in the gardens and only barely enough in the greenhouses. The head gardener had a long face when ordered to denude them so that the house could blossom for the space of one evening.

  But by late afternoon on the Friday, the ballroom and dining room looked festive enough for any ton event. The orchestra had arrived and set up their instruments. The extra hands in the kitchen had dinner and supper under control.

  All else had to be left to fate. At least it had stopped raining after yesterday’s all-day downpour and this morning’s dreary drizzle.

  Mrs. Adams sat at her dressing table while her maid put the finishing touches to her dress, clasping her diamonds about her neck and at her ears. She looked at her reflection with satisfaction and nodded a dismissal to the girl just as her husband entered the room from the door adjoining his own.

  “Ah, beautiful,” he said, coming to stand behind her and setting his hands on her bare shoulders. “You grow lovelier with every passing year, Clarissa. Nervous?” He kneaded the tense muscles in her shoulders.

  “No,” she said decisively. “There are to be forty for dinner. That is definite. As many more have been invited to the ball. Of course they will come. An invitation to Bodley is a coveted thing.”

  He grinned at her reflection. “That is the spirit,” he said. “You look good enough to eat. I suppose I am not allowed a few nibbles yet?” He lowered his head to kiss the back of her neck.

  “I wish,” she said, “there had been a polite way of not inviting Mrs. Winters.”

  He lifted his head and looked closely at her reflection. “Mrs. Winters?” he said. “What has she done to offend you, Clarissa? Apart from having been born beautiful, that is.”

  “She is getting above herself,” she said sharply. “She is putting on airs. She is looking too high.”

  “Doubtless,” he said quietly, “you intend to continue.”

  “Rawleigh is interested in Ellen,” she said. “That is plain for all to see. And they are a perfect match. But Mrs. Winters is flirting with him. She had him alone in the music room last week. And when I called yesterday to inquire after Mrs. Downes’s health, Miss Downes came out to the carriage and happened to mention that Mrs. Winters was at their house when Daphne and Rawleigh called the day before. And then they escorted her home and went inside with her.”

  “I am sure, my dear,” Mr. Adams said, “that with Daphne present all was proper. Indeed, it was probably all her suggestion. Are you imagining something that is just not happening? You know my opinion of the so-called courtship between Rex and Ellen.”

  “I planned this evening for a purpose,” she said. “I thought it would be the perfect occasion for an announcement, Claude. Or at the very least for everyone to see what was in the wind. I will not have it ruined.”

  “Clarissa,” he said, a note of firmness in his voice, “Rex is not our puppet. Neither is Ellen. Or Mrs. Winters. I am sure all of them will behave with perfect good breeding tonight. We cannot demand more than that. We cannot orchestrate a courtship for which the participants feel no enthusiasm. And we cannot forbid Rex and Mrs. Winters to look at each other. Or even to dance with each other if they feel so inclined.”

  She got to her feet and turned to look at him. “I will not have it,” she said. “I will not have that woman smiling at him and batting her eyelids at him and distracting him. We do not know who she is, Claude, or what she is. For all we know—”

  “We know,” he said sternly, “that she has leased a cottage from me in the village and that for the past five years she has conducted herself in exemplary fashion. We know that her every word and action have proclaimed her to be a lady. We also know that she is to be an invited guest in our home this evening. She will be accorded as much courtesy as any other guest, Clarissa.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I hate it when you set your jaw like that and allow your eyes to turn hard. You look more like Rawleigh than ever. Don’t, Claude. You know how anxious I am—”

  He set his arms about her and drew her against him. “Yes, I know,” he said. “You are anxious about tonight and anxious about your sister’s future. All will be well with both if you will just relax. Why not enjoy the evening? And save the first waltz for me. I insist. Husband’s privilege and all that. I do not care i
f it is not the fashion for a husband and wife to be seen together when they are hosting an entertainment. You will dance with me.”

  She sighed. “You are crushing me, Claude,” she said. “Oh, I wish I could dance every set with you. You smell good. A new cologne?”

  “Purchased with my wife in mind,” he said, “and worn with the lecherous hope that there will be enough of the night left when this is all over for me to put it to good use.”

  “As if you need cologne for that,” she said. “Rawleigh has asked Ellen for the first set. That is promising, is it not?”

  He chuckled. “It means that neither of them will be wallflowers at the start at least,” he said, drawing her arm through his and turning toward the door. “Time to go down to greet our dinner guests, my love.”

  Mrs. Adams wished again, though silently this time, that Catherine Winters was not one of their number.

  • • •

  LORD Pelham and Mr. Gascoigne were planning to leave next week. They would not wish to outstay their welcome, they had explained. They were not quite sure where they would go or even if they would spend the spring and summer together. Only London seemed off-limits to both of them. They might go down to Dunbarton in Cornwall, the Earl of Haverford’s country seat. He had been there since before Christmas and it would be good to see him again.

  They were bored at Bodley, Lord Rawleigh knew. He could hardly blame them. Clarissa’s guest list could more accurately be called a gathering of friends and relatives than a house party. Certainly there was not much to hold the attention of single and healthy gentlemen. He had fleetingly considered leaving with them. Leaving would be one way of convincing Clarissa that she was backing the wrong horse entirely where her sister was concerned. And he believed that Ellen Hudson herself would be relieved if he took himself off.

  But he could not bring himself to leave. Not just yet. Not until he was convinced beyond any reasonable doubt . . .

  His pursuit of a handsome widow to fill the temporary position of mistress had been conducted with alarming indiscretion, of course. Daphne was the latest person to have become aware of his interest. Not that she was at all alarmed. Quite the contrary. She heartily approved. She did not know, of course, the nature of his interest, as Catherine Winters herself had put it. Daphne thought he was beginning a courtship of the woman.

  “If you wish to come riding with Clayton and me tomorrow,” she said to him when they were walking back from Catherine’s cottage, “we will take pity on your lone state and call to see if Mrs. Winters will join us, Rex. But she does not have a horse. Hmm. A walk, then. All the better. You can fall a short distance behind us as you did a few afternoons ago, when I first noticed the way you have of looking at her.”

  But yesterday it had rained, and though Daphne and Clayton had gone trudging off for destinations unknown, he had declined accompanying them. He would probably have done so anyway. Good Lord, he was not going to court a mistress under the indulgent—and uncomprehending—eye of his sister.

  But tonight was the night of the ball. He dressed with care, choosing a black coat and knee breeches with white linen and lace. Black was becoming perhaps a little too commonplace in town, it was true, but it was still rarely seen in the country. He placed a diamond pin, his only adornment, in the center of his neckcloth. He scorned dandyism as a rule. Tonight he would have avoided it at all costs. He would not look more gorgeous than his lady.

  He was glad of his forethought when he saw her—from a distance across the drawing room before dinner. She was dressed as she had been at dinner when she had been a guest there. She wore her simply styled green dress with only a string of pearls at her throat. There were no plumes or other adornments in her hair.

  As on that occasion, she outshone all the other ladies present, including Clarissa, who was sparkling in the diamonds that had been a wedding present from Claude. Catherine was smiling and talking with Mrs. Lipton, an unknown couple, and a man Lord Rawleigh recognized as the tenant he and Claude had called upon a week or so ago. A single man and not a day over thirty-five at the outside. Damn his eyes, which he had better learn to keep to himself if he knew what was good for him.

  She caught his eye across the room and half smiled at him. He wondered if she had mistaken him for Claude again. But it was not a bright smile. Perhaps a quarter smile would be a more accurate description. He was going to dance with her tonight, he thought. He hoped she had no plan to avoid the two waltzes he had reserved with her. He was going to steal a kiss tonight too, by hook or by crook. The one on the bridge could hardly be described as a kiss, but it had awoken a hunger in him that had to be satisfied. Even if she was not to be bedded, she was going to be kissed, by God. She was not going to deny him that.

  “I have not seen you gaze even at the enemy with such burning zeal, old chap,” Lord Pelham said, moving into his line of vision. “She continues obdurate?”

  “Perhaps you and Nat will change your plans to leave after tonight,” the viscount said, looking about him with his customary mixture of hauteur and boredom. “Clarissa seems to have turned out a number of passably pretty females for the occasion.”

  “Nat already has his eye on the redhead,” Lord Pelham said, nodding his head in the direction of the far corner of the room, where a pretty young girl stood in a group, looking about her with wide and interested eyes. “But he is understandably nervous, Rex. He is trying to ascertain how many parents and cousins and uncles etcetera—you know the old litany—are present and likely to converge on him to demand his intentions if he should happen to so much as smile at the girl.”

  Viscount Rawleigh chuckled.

  9

  SHE had had pleasant dinner companions, Mr. Lipton on one side and Sir Clayton Baird on the other. Although Mrs. Adams’s greeting had been noticeably cool, everyone else had been courteous and even amiable. She pushed to the back of her mind the knowledge that she looked far plainer than any other lady present. She wore the same green gown she had worn to every evening entertainment for the past two years. And her mother’s pearls. She rarely wore those now except on very special occasions.

  It did not matter that she was plainly and unfashionably dressed. She had not come in order to be noticed. Merely to enjoy an evening in company. And of course when they adjourned to the ballroom and were joined there by other guests, who had not been invited to dinner, she found that she was no more plainly dressed than several of the wives and daughters of tenant farmers.

  She danced the first set of country dances with one of the tenants. She smiled at him and set herself to enjoy the evening. She had always loved a ball with all the rich sounds of an orchestra and all the perfumes of flowers and colognes and all the swirling splendor of colored silks and satins and the glitter of jewels in the candlelight.

  She hoped Viscount Rawleigh would change his mind about the two waltzes he had said he would claim. Surely he would. It would be a very public setting in which to single her out for any dance, much less a waltz. And twice? Surely he would not. He had made no move to approach her in the drawing room before dinner. He had been seated almost as far from her at table as he possibly could be. He had not approached her in the ballroom. He was dancing now with Ellen Hudson in a different set from her own.

  He had said that he was to dance the opening set with Miss Hudson. What if he meant to keep to his other plan too? Catherine’s breath quickened.

  There was no mistaking him tonight for his twin. Mr. Adams looked extremely handsome in varying shades of blue. Lord Rawleigh looked suffocatingly elegant and—satanic in black and white.

  Mr. Gascoigne asked her for the next set, a quadrille. He set himself to charm her and succeeded. She liked his smiling eyes and handsome figure and wondered again why it was that one man could be quite as handsome as another and far more charming and easy in his manners and yet could stir her to no spark of anything beyond warm liking. Whereas the other . . .<
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  Well, perhaps it was just in her nature to be attracted to the wrong men. The two gentlemen who had offered for her during the past three years had both been perfectly eligible and would have been good to her. But she had never been willing to marry for anything less than love.

  Never. That had been half the trouble. . . .

  Lord Pelham danced another set of country dances with her.

  “After all, Mrs. Winters,” he said, bowing to her before the set began and favoring her with the full force of his very blue eyes, “why should Nat be allowed to get away with being the one to dance with the loveliest girl in the room?”

  “Ah,” she said, smiling at him, “a flatterer. A man after my own heart, my lord.”

  He was easy to talk with and laugh with. Not that there was a great deal of time or breath for talk or laughter—it was a vigorous dance.

  “I do believe there is to be a waltz next,” he said conversationally as he returned her to her place at the end of the set. “I am happy that Mrs. Adams is enlightened enough to bring it to the country. There is no dance for which I prefer taking the floor. Do you know the steps, Mrs. Winters?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “It is a lovely dance. Romantic.”

  But her heart was pounding and she wished she was carrying a fan. Suddenly the room seemed very hot and airless. Perhaps, she thought in foolish panic, she should hurry away to the ladies’ withdrawing room and hide there until the set was in progress. He had danced only with Miss Hudson, Mrs. Adams, and Lady Baird. It would seem very strange for him to dance the first waltz with someone who was not even one of the house party.

  But then, he probably did not intend to dance it with her at all. Perhaps that was part of her reason for wanting to run away and hide. There would be some humiliation in watching him lead someone else onto the floor.

  And then Sir Clayton Baird was at her side and it was too late to run. He talked with her for a minute or two before asking her for the waltz. Oh, dear. But yes, at least this would cover the humiliation. She opened her mouth to reply and half lifted her hand to place in his.