by Farr, Diane
Her thoughts were so filled with Lord Rival that she forgot to tell Gil that she had promised him the first waltz at Lady Bartlett’s ball. In fact, it was only after her arrival at the ball, when her eyes fell on Jack Crawley, that she remembered. Since she and Tish had been escorted by one Mr. Choate, an inoffensive gentleman who was some sort of Dalrymple connection, she had no real expectation that Gil would even be present. She knew he loathed balls, and he did not seem to have enjoyed the Alverstoke affair nearly as much as she had.
"Oh, dear," she murmured, clutching the printed programme the hostess had given her guests, listing the dances. Well, this would teach her not to tell deliberate falsehoods! She was going to look extraordinarily foolish, maintaining that she had promised a waltz to a man who was conspicuously absent.
Mr. Crawley approached, all enthusiasm, and greeted the party punctiliously. "The third waltz, Miss Littlefield!" he reminded her, beaming.
She glanced at her card and discovered that there would be, in fact, a third waltz near the end of the evening. She dutifully assured him it was his, and jotted his name next to it with the little pencil cunningly tied to the card with a bit of ribbon. It would not harm her to dance one waltz with an unattractive man, she reminded herself stoically. But the first waltz was slated to follow the opening quadrille. Since she was obliged by her ill-advised evasive maneuver in Hyde Park to keep that waltz open for Gil, she found herself without a partner as the orchestra struck up for it.
She feared she looked as ridiculous as she felt. Her color somewhat heightened, she pressed herself as inconspicuously as possible against the wall and tried to hide behind a potted fern. It was not as if she lacked for partners; the result of the hostess’s clever program-and-pencil idea was that all the men had rushed about at the start of the evening, cajoling the young women to write their names next to the dances, and she had been pleasantly surprised by the number of gentlemen who had good-naturedly surrounded her at the start of the evening. Her objection to dancing with strangers had been rendered moot by the fact that she was now acquainted with them all. In fact, all the rest of her dances were spoken for. But that was small comfort at the moment.
With a pang, she saw Lord Rival leading Tish to the floor. He was the handsomest man in the room. Watching them together, she could not hoax herself into thinking she had succeeded in drawing his attention away from her friend. His demeanor toward Tish was as attentive, as charming, and as seductive as ever.
And she ought to have known she could not escape Jack Crawley so easily. Sure enough, he spied her behind the fern and advanced delightedly toward her. Chloe flushed scarlet with shame. Why had she snubbed this inoffensive and well-meaning young man, merely because he had the misfortune to be ugly? One of Gil’s friends, too! She deserved this mortification.
While he greeted her with every appearance of goodwill, she grasped her fan, took a deep breath, and addressed the third button on his waistcoat. "Mr. Crawley, I’m afraid I owe you an apology," she began.
"What’s that? What’s that? Oh, nonsense!" he assured her, laughing amiably. "What you owe me, Miss Littlefield, is a waltz."
Feeling absurdly relieved, she obediently followed him onto the floor. "It’s very good of you not to take offense," she told him shyly.
His eyes twinkled kindly down at her. "Not at all. Can’t blame you for preferring Gil to me, you know. But if Gil’s fool enough to stay at home, you may as well dance with me—eh?"
He proved so droll and friendly that she found herself warming to him, and felt perfectly at ease by the time their dance ended and he had led her in a gentle promenade to a row of chairs. She was looking about for Tish, fanning herself, when she spotted Gil near the entrance of the room. Her heart gave a joyous leap. "Gil is here!" she cried.
Jack’s eyes followed hers. "Well, that’s lucky," he remarked. "Fancy him arriving after the first waltz! I’m inclined to believe it’s an omen, Miss Littlefield. What do you think?"
But Chloe was not attending. "Pray take me to him, Mr. Crawl—oh! He has seen us."
Gil strolled up to them. "Hallo, Clo. Hallo, Jack. What a row those violins make! Every dog for miles about must be howling."
"Gil, why have you come so late?" demanded Chloe.
He gazed at her in mild surprise. "Am I so very late? Never tell me Lady Bartlett started the ball on time!"
"Well, she did, and you are quite out. I saved the first waltz for you, too."
Gil appeared genuinely moved by this news. "Did you, Chloe? I say, that’s splendid!"
"Yes, but it’s already been danced."
Jack guffawed at the expression on Gil’s face. "I took it!" he said gleefully. "Couldn’t let Miss Littlefield stand out."
"Jack, you’re a dog," said Gil, resigned. "Put me down for the second, Clo."
Faint color tinged Chloe’s cheeks. She looked away. "It is promised to someone else," she said primly.
Jack snorted with laughter again. "And the third, too. Aye, you may well stare! But you told everyone at the outset she was a taking little thing. Well, she is! What the deuce d’you mean by leaving her alone at a ball? It’ll be a lesson to you, Gil, old chap!" He dug a playful elbow into his friend’s ribs.
Gil snatched at the programme hanging from Chloe’s wrist and held it up to the light, turning a little pale. "You haven’t left me a single dance!"
"Well, good gracious, you weren’t here to claim them!"
"The devil! What am I to do with myself all night?"
"Here comes Lady Bartlett," remarked Jack. "I daresay she’ll find partners enough for you. Plenty of wallflowers lining the room."
Gil turned round, his eyes nearly starting from his head in horror. True to Jack’s prediction, Lady Bartlett soon bore him inexorably off to be introduced to the awkward and unattractive females who still lacked partners. Chloe could not help giggling as she watched Gil bowing to a bony and freckle-faced girl in puce. They joined the same set as Chloe and her partner, the shy but sartorially magnificent Mr. Wivenhoe. Good manners forbade anything more than a speaking glance as she and Gil briefly joined in the figures of the dance, but it was all Chloe could do to keep a straight face as she watched Gil’s silent sufferings.
For her own part, Chloe was having a marvelous time. She enjoyed dancing, the orchestra was excellent, and there were distinct advantages attached to everyone believing she was engaged to Gil. None of the gentlemen who danced with her was anything other than friendly, and Mr. Crawley was the only man who attempted to dance with her more than once. Since she ascribed this gallantry to his friendship for Gil, she felt quite comfortable.
Once, between sets, Gil found her and brought her a cup of negus. He looked very hot, and Chloe burst out laughing when she saw his hunted expression.
He eyed her glumly. "I’m glad you find it amusing. One of us ought to salvage some enjoyment from this ghastly evening."
Chloe’s eyes danced as she took the cup from him. "Poor Gil! But you knew you would have to dance at a ball. Why did you come?"
"I came to dance with you!"
Believing that this statement represented a heroic sacrifice on Gil’s part, Chloe was touched. "Thank you, Gil," she said warmly. "You are the best friend anyone ever had."
He did not seem overly gratified by the compliment. "Your last partner was not so very bad," she offered.
"It’s not that I mind standing up with every ape-leader in the room. After all, someone has to do it! But I don’t enjoy making conversation with a great crowd of females I don’t know and don’t care to know. I was never so thankful in my life to be ineligible! I’ll tell you something Chloe: if it weren’t for this betrothal of ours, I believe that tallow-faced chit would have set her cap at me." Gil shivered.
"It is very comfortable to be engaged," agreed Chloe, sipping her negus contentedly. "Tish was right about that, if nothing else."
"By the by, where is Tish?"
"I don’t know." Chloe glanced around the room, troubled. When
was the last time she had seen her? Then she remembered: Tish had been waltzing with Lord Rival. Suddenly some of the pleasure went out of Chloe’s evening. She frowned. "I hope she is not off somewhere with Geor—with Lord Rival."
Gil looked very hard at Chloe. "Did you say George?"
"No! I said Lord Rival." She felt a blush stealing up her neck, and inwardly railed at her wretchedly fair skin.
"You started to say George."
Her blush was betraying her. "Oh, very well! What of it?" she said, as airily as she could. When he did not immediately reply, she stole a glance at his face. What she saw there made her instinctively place her hand on his arm. "Oh, Gil, it is nothing. Pray—do not look so! Remember, I am trying to draw him away from Tish. He said I ought to call him George, and —"
But Gil shook her hand off, roughly. "I must dance with Miss Endicott. I will speak to you later," he said, in a queer, flat voice Chloe had never heard him use. She stared after him as he moved off, stunned and frightened by his strange reaction. She had to quell an impulse to run after him. It was a dreadful, lonely feeling to stand here in this press of people and watch the person she loved best in the world walk away from her in anger.
Her partner for the next country-dance approached, and Chloe had, perforce, to summon a smile and move through the figures. As she and her partner promenaded up the set between the other couples, a movement at the edge of the room caught her eye. A flash of cherry-colored silk. Tish. She turned to look, and saw Lord Rival escorting her friend back into the room.
Where had they been? Had they been gone a few minutes only, or half an hour, or an hour? She saw them for the briefest of moments before she had to return her attention to the dance, but in that moment she saw Tish’s gloved hand reach up and lightly smooth the edge of Lord Rival’s lapel. The tiny gesture was somehow intimate, possessive. Chloe felt a surge of wrath at the sight. She’d been behaving like a perfect idiot for days, making a complete fool of herself—acting very much like Tish, in fact!—and for what?
She no longer knew what portion of her anger was due to her protective love for Tish, what portion to her sense of humiliation over throwing herself at a man whose interest was plainly elsewhere, and what portion to jealousy. She knew only that she was furious.
And the next dance was the waltz! The waltz she had promised to that snake, that toad, that scoundrel.
She bade farewell to her current partner and stood tensely, eyes glittering, as Lord Rival approached her leisurely through the crowd. There came a moment when he accurately interpreted her expression. Up went the eyebrow, down went the mouth, in his incomparably mocking smile. She lifted her chin and tried to stare him down.
In vain, of course. No mere female could penetrate that wall of arrogance. He arrived before her and bowed smoothly, one hand on his heart. "My dear Miss Littlefield." His eyes gleamed. "What have I done to incur your displeasure?"
With an effort, Chloe choked back her anger and somehow managed a rather ghastly smile. "La, sir, nothing in the world!" she simpered, curtseying.
The eyebrow flew upward again, but he said nothing. Instead, he swept her into his arms and compelled her resistless body into the graceful sweep of the waltz. Chloe felt her instinctive response to his touch and hated herself for it. If only he weren’t so wickedly handsome!
"How well you waltz, Lord Rival," she cooed, fluttering her eyelashes bashfully. "I vow, you are the best dancer in the room."
"You overwhelm me, my dear," he said dryly.
"Oh, George!" she breathed daringly. "If only I could!"
He muttered some exclamation under his breath. "This is too much," he said aloud, and, to her astonishment, pulled her out of the dance.
"Wh-where are we going?" she stammered, as he propelled her firmly toward a door.
"Somewhere where we can talk," he informed her. His eyes were still lit with amusement, but there was a grim set to his mouth.
Chloe accompanied him, willy-nilly, out the door and onto the coolness of Lady Bartlett’s back terrace. Blinking in the sudden darkness, she clung to his overly-muscled arm and stumbled along beside him as he led her into the garden, away from the light and away from the other couples strolling and conversing on the pavement. He did not halt until he had drawn her down a side path where dense foliage hid them from the house.
"Now," he said firmly, grasping her by the shoulders and turning her to face him, "suppose you tell me what the devil your game is?"
"M-my game?" she faltered.
Her eyes were adjusting to the dimness. He loomed over her, formidably tall and powerful, his shirt front gleaming white in the moonlight. She could not quite read his face.
"I am tired of fencing in the dark. You’re a gently-born, respectable female. Why are you behaving like an opera-dancer?"
"Oh!" gasped Chloe, scarlet-faced in the darkness. "How dare you? I have no idea how a—how an opera-dancer behaves!"
"Well, I do. And your behavior toward me would put the most shameless lightskirt to the blush! You were angry with me a moment ago, but you still tried to empty the butter boat over me. What the deuce do you mean by it?"
Chloe was trembling with angry mortification. "I don’t mean anything by it! You’re wicked, and vulgar, and hateful, and I wish—"
"Go on," he prompted her. "You wish?"
Suddenly the words tumbled out of Chloe in a rush. "I wish you would leave my friend alone!"
"Ah." His head tilted consideringly. Even in the uncertain moonlight, she could feel his eyes boring into hers. "Your friend. The delectable Mrs. Dalrymple. You would like me to remove myself from her—er—circle of admirers."
"Yes, I would."
"Why?" he asked simply.
Confused, Chloe took a step backward. His hands left her shoulders and slid behind her, and she unconsciously leaned back against the circle of his arms, blinking puzzledly up at him. "Why?"
"Yes. There must be a score of men who buzz round Tish like so many bees. Why single me out?"
Chloe waved a hand impatiently. "The rest are just a lot of silly boys. You are different."
His shoulders shook with silent laughter. "I am glad to discover that you think so."
She clasped her gloved hands pleadingly. "Sir, will you not heed me? Be a little less particular in your attentions, I beseech you. You do more damage than you know—and I do not think you care for her. To you, it is all sport."
"Certainly it is sport. And what do you think it is to Tish? I am as much her toy as she is mine."
Chloe shook her head vehemently. "You do not know her as I do. Tish was ever one who followed her heart, not her head. And she does not realize —she does not think how it must appear to others, this—this fascination with you."
"So I am harming her reputation."
"Yes, my lord. As you are well aware!"
"And you would save her from me by turning my attention to your own sweet self?" Amusement quivered in his voice. "What a noble creature you are, Miss Littlefield."
Mortified, Chloe covered her face with her hands. Honesty was not the best policy when dealing with a heartless rake! Had she no common sense at all?
"I don’t know why I am even speaking to you in this way," she exclaimed despairingly. "I must be daft."
She moved to free herself from his hold, but he tightened it a little, the laughter still shaking in his voice. "Do not go. I assure you, if you wish to divert my amorous attentions away from poor Tish, you are making better progress here in the garden than when you were smirking and winking at me in the ballroom."
Chloe blushed again in the darkness. "Was I smirking and winking?"
"I’m afraid so."
"I—I’m not very good at prevarication. Of any sort," she confessed.
"No. I see that."
"It was difficult for me, trying to flirt with you when I had actually taken you in dislike." The instant the words left her lips, she realized how extremely uncivil they were, and was thrown even deeper into confusio
n. "Oh, I’m so sorry! I hope—I hope I have not hurt your feelings?" She peered anxiously into the dark face looming above hers.
Chloe did not know whether to feel reassured or offended when he suddenly burst out laughing. "No," he finally managed to say, "no, you have not hurt my feelings. I know just what you mean."
Chloe sighed with relief. "I am glad."
His teeth gleamed white as he grinned down at her. "It has been written all over your face, my dear. Half the time, you wish that Tish had never seen me."
"Yes," she admitted.
He lifted one hand and gently tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. "But the other half of the time," he told her softly, "you merely wish that you had seen me first."
Instantly, there was a subtle change in the tension running between them. Chloe stared into his face, stunned by the recognition of this truth. Part of her did, in fact, wish that she had seen him first!
Heat seemed to flash between them. It shot through her, swamping her senses. Closing her eyes against a confusing rush of unfamiliar feelings, she waited for—she knew not what.
And then he was kissing her. His kiss was forceful, as commanding and unyielding as he himself was. Her own response seemed completely irrelevant, although she felt the primitive shock of it clear down to her toes. There was nothing for her to do, she had only to cling to him, dizzy and startled, and experience it. Like a match to gunpowder, his kiss ignited the fierce attraction she had sternly repressed; it burst immediately into all-consuming flame. She pressed against him, trembling with longings she did not understand.
He lifted his mouth from hers eventually and held her at arms’ length. She swayed limply in his grasp, demoralized and shaken. And utterly bewildered.
"Oh, Chloe," he whispered hoarsely. A wicked grin split his features. "I think you do like me a little."
Dazed, she lifted one hand to her mouth. Dear God in Heaven. She had let him kiss her. Reality suddenly struck her like a fist. With a gasp, she broke free of him and ran, stumbling, back toward the house. Her ears rang with the mocking laughter that followed her.
