The Secret Mistress tmt-3

by Mary Balogh

  “Allow me to go instead,” he said, getting to his feet and directing an apologetic glance in Eunice’s direction.

  Lady Palmer did indeed express her delight at his offer to escort Lady Angeline out onto the terrace, and Lorraine beamed her approval.

  This was not good, Edward thought a couple of minutes later as he led Lady Angeline out of the supper room. He had danced the opening set of her come-out ball with her. He had sat with her at a small table for supper. Now he was leading her out before many people had even returned to the ballroom and it would soon become obvious to anyone who was interested—almost everyone, in other words—that he had taken her outside and was keeping her there through the upcoming set.

  And both his sister-in-law and her chaperon looked thoroughly delighted, as though everything was proceeding according to some preordained plan.

  It all seemed very much like the beginning of a courtship, he thought uneasily. And how easy it would be to get caught in a trap and find himself unable to extricate himself.

  THE LADY IN blue was Miss Goddard. The Earl of Heyward called her Eunice. She called him Edward. And she looked like—and talked like—a very sensible lady. She was also rather pretty.

  Angeline had expected to dislike her heartily. But she did not.

  “I hope,” Lord Heyward said as they walked across the empty ballroom floor in the direction of the French windows, “Windrow did not insult you again, Lady Angeline.”

  “Oh,” she said, “he was just being silly. Though I do think he ought to have stayed away from me this evening and then sought me out more privately to offer a proper apology. I suppose it would have been worth very little, however, for he would not apologize if I were not who I am and if I were not Tresham’s sister, would he? Not that he apologized anyway. Though he did after a fashion at that inn when you blocked the doorway. That was very brave of you.”

  His arm was as solid and warm as it had been earlier. He was a few inches taller than she was. He had a handsome profile. His very straight nose showed to advantage from a side view. She could smell his musky cologne again.

  The air out on the terrace was deliciously cool, though not at all cold.

  He had not really wanted to bring her out here, she thought. Who would have expected that she would turn out to be flirtatious? She had never had any chance to practice flirtation, or even to think of it. It was not one of the lessons Miss Pratt had taught, after all. Yet she had all but asked him to bring her here, and then, when he would have brought her just for five minutes or so until Cousin Rosalie had accepted another partner for her, she had wheedled him into offering to keep her out here for the whole of the next set—plus the five minutes or so before it started.

  Oh, dear. Conscience smote her.

  “You did not wish to bring me out here, did you?” she asked.

  He turned his head to look at her as they began to stroll along the length of the terrace. The lighting out here was dimmer than it was in the ballroom. More romantic. It also hid her blushes. It did not hide his slight frown.

  “How can I possibly answer that question?” he asked.

  “You might have said a resounding of course I did,” she said. “But you would not have meant it and I would have known.”

  “I am delighted to have rescued you from Windrow, at least,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “it is your destiny in life to save me from Lord Windrow. Someone can write it on your tomb after you die, among all the other accolades: He repeatedly saved Lady Angeline Dudley from the evil clutches of a rake.”

  Oh, and it happened again. He looked sidelong at her and his dimple appeared. Though it was more a slight crease in his cheek than a dimple. It was more manly than a dimple. And the corner of his mouth lifted.

  Angeline laughed.

  “I think it is a little unfair to describe Lord Windrow as evil, however,” she said. “Most rakes are not, are they? They are just overgrown boys who have not yet grown up. And yet they think themselves so manly and so irresistible to the ladies. They are silly but harmless, and one cannot help feeling rather fond of them. Not that I am fond of Lord Windrow, though I suppose I would be if he were my brother or my cousin. I adore my own brothers, but I have no illusions about them. Tresham is particularly wild, but of course he was the eldest of us, and he left home when he was sixteen after a quarrel with Papa, though neither of them would ever tell us what it was all about. He has fought two duels that I know of, both over ladies, and both times he shot into the air after being shot at. That was very noble of him, since he was almost certainly in the wrong. I was very proud of him when I heard, though it was a good thing I was far away when both duels were fought. I would have killed him if my nerves had held together long enough.”

  Oh, dear, she thought, listening to her voice rattling on at a rapidly accelerating pace as though it were someone else’s, she was actually feeling nervous in an excited sort of way.

  Whatever had happened to her plan to talk about books?

  The orchestra members were tuning their instruments inside the ballroom again. There was a swell of voices as people returned and took their partners for the next set. Angeline would dearly have liked to be dancing it too, but given the choice she would far prefer to be where she was. More particularly, she preferred being with whom she was, even if he was making her feel nervously excited.

  And even if he was silent. He had not been silent when he was out here earlier with Miss Goddard. She would wager they had been talking about some deeply intellectual subject. The trouble was that Angeline did not know of any such subjects, deep or otherwise.

  “Are you going to marry Miss Goddard?” she asked abruptly.

  “Marry her?” he said in astonishment. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “You call her Eunice,” she said. “She calls you Edward. I do not call you that. You do not call me Angeline.”

  “I have known her for a number of years,” he said. “Her father tutored me and befriended me at Cambridge. I spent many hours at their house. She is a … a dear friend.”

  A dear friend. What on earth did that mean? What would it feel like to be a man’s dear friend? To be Lord Heyward’s dear friend? To call him Edward?

  She really ought to dislike Miss Goddard after all, Angeline thought.

  The music began in earnest, the dancing began, and a few other couples appeared on the terrace.

  “Tresham has had lamps strung from some of the trees in the garden,” she said. “It is lovely down there. Would you like to see?”

  He hesitated.

  “Are you sure you ought to go so far away from your chaperon?” he asked.

  She almost laughed out loud.

  “You brought me out here with her blessing,” she reminded him. “This is my own home.”

  Perhaps he was wondering what Miss Goddard would say. But he made no further objection, and they descended the stone steps to the garden with its lawns and trees and winding paths and ornamental pool and fountain. It was not a large garden. The house was in the middle of London, after all. But it had been carefully and pleasingly set out to give the impression of space and rural quiet.

  She had brushed off his bereavement earlier in order to talk about her own and what had happened to her the year after her mother died. But the loss of his brother must have had a huge impact on his life even apart from the fact that he was now obliged to attend balls and actually dance. She knew almost nothing about him.

  “What happened to your brother?” she asked.

  He remained silent for a moment. Perhaps he did not want to talk about it. But he did.

  “He was in a curricle race,” he said. “Such sports are always inadvisable, but when they are engaged in, then all proper caution should be exercised. Maurice raced around a bend in the road with reckless incaution because Tr—, because his opponent had just overtaken him and he was determined to gain back the advantage. At least, this is what I presume was his thinking. I do not know.
He died before I could ask. He collided with a large hay cart coming in the opposite direction. It is fortunate that the carter escaped without injury, considering the fact that he was entirely innocent. Maurice’s curricle was overturned and he was tossed from it. He broke his neck.”

  “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.