An Uncommon Courtship

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “Might I have the next dance?”

  Adelaide blinked out of her contemplation to find Mr. Givendale standing in front of her, and Trent gritting his teeth. Adelaide had enjoyed dancing with the man before—as much as she could enjoy dancing with anyone other than her husband, anyway—and would have accepted without much thought if it hadn’t been for Trent’s apparent dislike of the idea. Yes, the man had feigned a scheduled meeting with Trent, but she’d heard her father complain of men doing the same thing in an attempt to gain an audience, so was that really such an awful thing? Even with the card he’d been stopped at the door by Fenton. Was there more going on here than Adelaide realized?

  “I’m afraid I was planning to dance the next two with Lady Adelaide.”

  Beneath Adelaide’s fingers, Trent’s arm relaxed as they both turned to Griffith, who had come up behind them as Mr. Givendale spoke. It was obvious Mr. Givendale wanted to object, but there was nothing he could do except acquiesce. Having a duke in the family did have certain advantages.

  She let go of Trent’s arm a bit reluctantly but was happy to be going back to the dance floor, where she had at least some idea of what she was doing and could avoid a great deal of conversation if she wished to. Griffith’s wide chest expanded and released on a sigh as the music began, his expression almost grim as he took the first steps in the dance.

  “Thank you for dancing with me.” Adelaide knew singling her out to dance had gone a long way toward getting her accepted by people she still didn’t feel like she fit in with. She’d been in London mere weeks and already missed the freedom of the country. She supposed she should get used to it though. Trent lived year round in the city, only taking short trips to his country estates.

  “Has he been coming around?” Griffith whispered in her ear as they passed each other in the dance.

  Adelaide looked back to where she’d come from. Mr. Givendale was in a low conversation with Trent. With similar coloring and height, the two men made a handsome picture. Mr. Givendale’s hair was a touch darker, and his high cheekbones gave his face a bit more starkness, but there was no denying his good looks. The appealing picture stopped, however, when one looked closer at the men’s faces. Mr. Givendale looked almost smug, while Trent’s face remained as devoid of expression as she’d ever seen it. She came to Griffith’s side as they circled. “He’s been by to see Trent, though he obviously missed him.”

  Griffith nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. “Does Trent know?”

  “I believe Mr. Givendale left a message with Fenton yesterday afternoon, but I don’t know if Trent has received it yet.”

  Silence fell as they went through the next formation of the dance. They approached the end of the line of dancers before Griffith spoke again. “Trent has a tendency to assume the best of people. He’s never had a need to do otherwise.”

  Where was Griffith going with this? Adelaide didn’t for one moment believe that Griffith would share information like this without a reason. “I’ve noticed.”

  They stopped at the end of the line, facing each other while the next formation was executed. “Do you? Assume the best, I mean?”

  Did she? It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about. She never assumed the best of her mother—experience had taught her otherwise—but her father often got a bit more lenience from her. “I think it depends upon the person.”

  He nodded before letting all expression fall from his face as he saw something over her shoulder.

  The ballroom was crowded, and the line of dancers pushed up against the people milling around beside the dance floor, leaving them very accessible to anyone who wished to speak to them. For instance, someone like her mother.

  “You are such a dear, Duke,” she said from the edge of the dance floor. “I’m so thankful you’ve accepted our girl like a sister. We must have you to dinner next week in gratitude.”

  Adelaide counted the music, praying it would speed up so they could leave the edge of the group and move their way across the floor once more. How could her mother try to finagle her way into the duke’s inner circles like this? Very well, she knew how, but it was still a bit tiresome that Mother was trying to use her this way. Had Helena had this problem? Probably not. Helena had likely been just as bad.

  Griffith nodded. “The whole family has accepted her. She is one of our own.”

  Mother tittered. She actually tittered. “Of course, we’d love to have all of you, including the Duke of Marshington.”

  Griffith nodded again. Adelaide couldn’t believe he was actually agreeing to this. He was a duke. Politeness only had to go so far. “I’m sure he would be delighted, along with Lord and Lady Raebourne. Even though she’s married now, after her time as my ward, I still consider her family.”

  Adelaide looked to the side in time to see her mother turn pale. “Of . . . of course. I shouldn’t have disrupted your dance. We’ll discuss a date at a later time.”

  Griffith gave her one more nod before taking Adelaide’s arm and rejoining the dance.

  “She’s never going to have you to dinner now,” Adelaide whispered. “She simply cannot abide Lady Raebourne.”

  The grin Griffith sent her way made him look so much like Trent her heart turned over a bit. “I know.”

  Trent’s heart pounded in his chest, and his fingers relaxed their fists as he saw Lady Crampton slink away from the dance floor without taking Adelaide’s smile with her. Whatever Griffith was saying had actually drawn a laugh from his wife, something he’d thought impossible given her sullen mood in the carriage on the way to the ball.

  Though he’d never cared for Lady Crampton, the more he saw her interact with her daughter, the more baffled he became. It made him want to find his own mother and write sonnets to what a wonderful parent she’d been. Part of him wished there was a way to eradicate the countess from Adelaide’s life, but the woman was her mother. A certain amount of respect had to be granted to her because of that.

  Respect, yes, but not free access. He could respectfully limit their interaction if he was clever. There hadn’t been much cause for him to be deliberately clever in his life. Charming, yes, but never clever. He could only hope he was up to the challenge.

  As the dance ended, Lady Crampton found the couple again, all but dragging Adelaide off with her, disappearing into the crush. Trent worked his way around the ballroom until he found them again, only to wish he hadn’t. The two women were talking to Mr. Givendale. What was the man up to?

  There was nothing he could do about it in the middle of a ballroom, though. Neither his wife nor his mother would thank him for making a scene. Especially simply on the basis of not liking the way the man smiled at Trent’s wife.

  He tore himself away from the torture of watching Adelaide speak to Mr. Givendale. Amelia was still standing near him though her husband had rejoined their little group. “I don’t suppose you’d like to move into my house for a while?” he asked.

  Anthony frowned. “You mean the one you aren’t even living in at the moment?”

  The marquis jerked as his wife nudged him with her elbow without a thought to being gentle about it. “Keep your voice down. And I don’t think he was talking to you.”

  “Well, you’re certainly not living anywhere without me.”

  Trent wished he could go back and change things so that he’d never asked the question in the first place. It was rather ridiculous. He needed other options. “Who other than your wife does Lady Crampton avoid?”

  Anthony frowned. “You’re asking the wrong man. I make a point of not noticing anything Lady Crampton does. Lord Crampton too, if I can manage it.” Anthony took Amelia’s arm, preparing to escort her to the floor for the next dance. “Georgina’s on the floor now, which means Colin is around here somewhere. If anyone would know, it would be him.”

  Trent glanced over the dancers, and sure enough there was Georgina. Despite being married, she still dressed in white, though it was broken by a wide emerald-green sash and cov
ered with so many embroidered flowers the white was more of a suggestion than an actual color on the dress. But Georgina never attended an event like this without her husband. Trent and Colin had met at the club for billiards earlier this week but hadn’t really talked about how Trent had ended up married. Still, the man knew everything about everyone in London. If anyone could suggest who Trent needed to use to make this plan work, it would be Colin.

  Once the dance was over, he followed Georgina to a nearby window where he not only found the Scotsman, but Lady Blackstone as well. He greeted his mother before turning to Colin. “I need information.”

  Colin took a sip of lemonade and leaned one shoulder against the window casing. “The price of corn has gone down now that the war is over. You’re better off investing in oats.”

  “You handle my investments, so I trust that’s already been taken care of.” Trent shifted to lean against the wall next to Colin, trying to keep the conversation looking casual. “Who does Lady Crampton avoid?”

  “Why would I know that?” Colin coughed on the lemonade he’d sucked in on his surprised gasp.

  “Because you always know who doesn’t like each other.”

  “Only as it applies to business, and Lady Crampton’s inclinations don’t have all that much to do with Lord Crampton’s.” Colin looked toward the ceiling as he thought. “Now, he tends to avoid Anthony and Amelia and never seems to have much to do with Mr. Burges. Oh, and he refuses to have anything to do with Spindlewood.”

  Georgina shook her head in surprise. “As in the Duke of?”

  Colin nodded.

  Trent’s mother flicked her fan open. “That is hardly surprising.”

  Trent, Colin, and Georgina all looked at her with wide eyes. Mother never indulged in malicious gossip, but it sounded as if she was about to jump right into something London would think was rather significant.

  When she didn’t say anything else, Georgina finally let out an exasperated “Why?”

  Mother looked at them as if she simply expected them to know, but Trent couldn’t think of a thing he’d ever heard about Spindlewood. Other than the fact that the man’s mustache was most unfortunately shaped, the old man didn’t do much of anything interesting.

  “The Duke of Spindlewood has a son.”

  “Three, if we’re being particular,” Colin murmured.

  Mother waved her fan in Colin’s direction as if brushing off his words. “Only one who will one day be the duke. And Isabel very much wanted to one day be his duchess.”

  Trent felt himself pulled into the drama of the short tale. Lady Crampton was a countess, so it was sometimes difficult to remember that she’d started off aiming higher than that. “What happened? Obviously she’s not waiting to become a duchess right now.”

  “The Duke accused her of being after the money and the title and threatened to cut his son off from anything that wasn’t entailed unless he married someone other than Isabel. Embarrassed her thoroughly by bringing forward one of her friends, who verified all the times the woman had plotted and planned to encounter Spindlewood’s heir. She then tried to trap the son in a compromising position so they would be forced to marry—only she ended up snaring the old duke instead of the son. She couldn’t show her face in a ballroom for the rest of the year.”

  Trent gave a low whistle. Was that why Adelaide requested an introduction to him at the Ferrington ball? That scandal would certainly be enough to make a woman such as Lady Crampton avoid a man for the rest of his life. It was rather amazing that she’d been able to land an earl after the scandal that had probably ensued from seemingly propositioning a married duke.

  After thanking his family profusely, Trent went off in search of his wife, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t find her in Givendale’s arms on the dance floor. As he went he kept an eye out for the Duke of Spindlewood.

  With any luck, the old man was feeling chatty this evening and Trent and Adelaide could spend the next half hour at his side.

  Chapter 25

  Adelaide climbed into the carriage with a small sigh of relief. Had an evening ever been so exhausting? She’d done her best to make everyone happy, but what was she supposed to do when they wanted different things from her? Her mother obviously wanted Adelaide to be vivacious and personable, and she had truly tried to be those things. While she had absolutely no intention of following through on her mother’s less-than-veiled suggestions that, with just the slightest bit of effort and coercion, Adelaide could use her new status as a member of the Hawthorne family to improve her mother’s and sister’s social positions, there didn’t seem to be a reason not to at least try to be nice to the people Mother introduced her to.

  That was until she saw Trent waiting for her to come off the dance floor after sharing a quadrille with Mr. Givendale. Her husband hadn’t frowned or even looked unhappy, but he’d been stiff as he took her arm. Adelaide let her head fall back on the carriage seat and roll to the side so she could watch Trent adjust his coat and situate himself on the seat beside her. Had a man ever spent so much effort on a woman?

  After collecting her from Mr. Givendale, Trent had spent the rest of the evening at her side, engaging them in conversation with the Duke of Spindlewood and his grandson and sharing dance formations with Lord and Lady Raebourne. He was obviously trying to keep her away from her mother and having a great deal of success in doing so.

  Which meant no matter what she did, one of them was going to be disappointed. Never before had Adelaide been faced with such a decision. Her parents rarely had strong opinions about the same thing, so it was easy enough to please both of them. And Helena was happy as long as everything in the room revolved around her. But now there was a battle going on for Adelaide’s attention and someone was going to have to lose.

  As Trent’s laugh rolled softly across her ears, Adelaide was afraid that the loser was going to have to be her mother. And she was more than a little afraid of what the repercussions would be when that happened.

  If Trent’s objective with this courtship had been to make her feel like someone worth winning, he was succeeding. What she’d thought would be a dreadful evening had turned into one of the most delightful nights she’d ever had in her life. And it was all due to the man beside her.

  What did that leave her with? Gratitude? Certainly. He was an answer to a prayer she hadn’t known how to phrase. Love? Maybe. She still wasn’t certain she knew what love was, but if it meant wanting to spend the rest of her life making someone else’s life better, then yes, she loved him.

  The horses broke free from the crush in front of the house and trotted easily though Mayfair, leaving the two of them snug in the darkness of the carriage. It had become a habit to take the long way home, knowing their time would be limited once they got there.

  Trent reached through the darkness and took her hand. “Did you enjoy this evening?”

  It was his standard question, and she’d never thought to wonder why before. Was he concerned? Did he feel responsible for her? Was it possible he was coming to view her happiness as essential as she was coming to view his? Or was it a safe inquiry, relying on the commonality of a shared event to start a conversation? Rather like his discussions on food. The questions and uncertainty swam through her head and made her dizzy. “It was a very pleasant evening. Did you win your fencing match today?”

  He settled closer to her until their shoulders brushed and began talking to her about the fencing club. He had won his match, but he found plenty else to tell her about as well. The other people he’d talked to, a funny story about the lady’s dog that had run into the club leaving his mistress shrieking on the pavement outside.

  Adelaide listened, but she also wondered why she felt so unsettled. They’d spent several evenings this way now, and it was always nice, but it bothered her too. They were married, yet they weren’t, courting but not. She didn’t know wifely things such as household budgets and where they got their tea, or even what he liked for breakfast, but she knew what
his kiss tasted like. Their courtship lacked the restraints a normal relationship would have, allowing them to do things such as ride through Mayfair in a darkened carriage to spend half an hour alone in a dimly lit hall. But their marriage lacked the security that normally came with the institution. She didn’t know where he spent his days or even his nights. There was a constant need to look her best whenever he saw her, despite the fact that she’d somehow managed to end this evening without her fan.

  She had so many questions about him but no answers. If he enjoyed physical activity so much, why wasn’t he taking a more particular interest in his estates? Why was he sketching plans for pineapples and then stuffing them into a drawer? Why did he treat her like the most precious thing in the world when they went out together and then drop her at their doorstep? Which Trent was she really married to?

  A public marriage in name only wasn’t going to be enough for her much longer. The better she got to know Trent the more she wanted to make this marriage work, only she didn’t know what to do next.

  “Have you ever had a dog?” Trent asked as the carriage pulled up in front of their house.

  “Once. One of the foxhounds had puppies, and the smallest one wasn’t doing well. So I cared for it, and soon it was following me all over the house.” Adelaide gathered up her skirts.

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got older and stronger. And one day we were out for a walk and he saw the other dogs training. I didn’t have the heart to keep him with me all the time after that. I still visited him every now and then. He turned into a decent hunting dog.”

  She took his hand and let him help her out of the carriage. She hadn’t thought about Milkweed in years. It had been a ridiculous name for a dog, but she’d been a lonely six-year-old girl, and sometimes six-years-olds were ridiculous. The truth hadn’t gone quite like Adelaide had told Trent and the look of near pity on his face told her he guessed at the truth.