“I do love dogs,” Della said with a desperate smile. “Everybody knows of my fondness for the noble hound.”
“Your own sister professes to have no use for canines of any variety,” Effington rejoined, adjusting the lace of his cuff. “I hope you weren’t saving your supper waltz for me, my dear?”
The question had no good answer. No from Della would be an insult. Yes was an invitation for Effington to publicly reject her. In his present pique, his lordship would politely, publicly, inform Della she’d saved her waltz for nothing.
Will Dorning shouldered between Cam and Effington. “Casriel, weren’t you intent on sharing supper with Lady Della?” He passed Susannah and Della glasses of bright red punch, his manner simply friendly and curious.
“I certainly was,” Casriel said. “Then we went chasing off on the topic of noble hounds, running riot like a pack of puppies. If Effington has spoken for the lady’s waltz, then I must, of course, yield to an earlier claim.”
Effington’s regard for Della became subtly affectionate. He smiled slightly, his gaze warmed. Nothing effusive, but a relenting that allowed Susannah to breathe again.
“Lady Della must choose,” he said, bowing elaborately. “Much about a woman’s circumstances are beyond her control, but she can choose her partner for the waltz, as—happily—can we all.”
“I must accept such a prettily worded invitation,” Della said, giving Effington her hand, “and hope Lord Casriel will content himself with a dance at some other time.”
Casriel bowed his acquiescence. “May I pin my hopes on the good-night waltz?”
“I’ll save it for no other,” Della said. She couldn’t very well offer Casriel her hand, because Effington had yet to turn loose of it.
“And, Lady Susannah,” Will said, “will you allow me to lead you out for the supper waltz?”
Susannah was too relieved to assess Will’s motives, and too troubled. Something in Effington’s entire bearing was off. Had he implied that Della could not help having a sister who disliked dogs?
Or that Della could not help who her family was?
“I would be honored to stand up with you, Mr. Dorning, and thank you for the punch.” Susannah took a sip, though the drink was awful. Syrup of strawberries mixed with lemonade, probably, and any ice had long since lost the battle with the ballroom’s heat.
“We have another set before the supper waltz,” Will said. “Might you favor me with a turn on the terrace, Lady Susannah?”
Bless him. “Fresh air would be lovely.” She passed her punch to Ash Dorning and accepted Will’s proffered arm.
And still Effington remained beside Della, her hand trapped in his.
* * *
“I will find a muzzle that fits my brother Sycamore, and require him to wear it when we are in polite company,” Will said. “Though he made a valid point.”
Beside him Lady Susannah wore a pained smile. If she were a dog, Will would have suspected digestive upset, or the sort of bone weariness that came from being hunted too hard. In the park that morning, she’d looked at peace, and utterly absorbed in her book.
Also lovely. Will hadn’t disturbed her with so much as a greeting because she’d always been happiest when absorbed in her books.
“I do not know what exactly that conversation was about,” Lady Susannah said as they started down the corridor toward the terrace, “but Effington is offended.”
Effington was a strutting buffoon whose dogs were to be pitied.
“The viscount is enamored of Lady Della, nonetheless,” Will said. Casriel clearly liked the girl too, though not enough that Will’s hopes were stirred.
“Anybody should be charmed by Della.” Lady Susannah stopped six yards short of the terrace doors. Behind them, the orchestra had swung into a gavotte, a lively, loud, stomping dance. Ahead of them, raucous laughter came from the torch-lit terrace.
“My lady, are you well?”
She untangled their arms. “A headache has got hold of me, Mr. Dorning. Men will be smoking out on the terrace, and people will remark that you and I both walked together and then later danced the supper waltz. I should not have tasted that vile punch, and—”
“In here,” Will said, taking her by the hand. “The library is on the next floor up. This is the parlor set aside for Lord Holderby’s maiden aunts. They overfeed their dachshunds, but love the dogs dearly.”
The parlor was dark, so Will appropriated a lamp from the sconces in the corridor, lit a branch of candles, and replaced the lamp in the corridor.
“The cooler air is lovely,” Lady Susannah said when Will returned. “How do you know Lord Holderby’s aunts?”
Will closed the door, lest they be discovered and her ladyship forced to accept the addresses of a man who could barely support her.
“I’m not sure whether the heat or the noise is the greater challenge in a crowded ballroom,” Will said, though the greatest challenge was keeping his brothers from trouble. “I know Henrietta and Helen Holderby because I gave them their dogs. Castor and Pollux were not faring well in the badger pits.” The badgers, of course, fared far worse, but clearly those two dogs had not been raised to anticipate violence from any quarter.
The baiter, fortunately, had been one of the ones with a backward sort of conscience, at least as far as the dogs were concerned. He’d accepted coin for the dachshunds, though only after assurances from Will of utter discretion regarding the transaction.
Lady Susannah sank onto a sofa beneath the window. “Your brother Sycamore reminded me of a cornered badger. He’s very fierce.”
Will came down beside her, hoping they were past the more extreme demands of manners.
“He’s young, but, yes, fierce as well. I owe you an apology, my lady.”
Susannah rubbed her fingers across her brow. “For your brothers’ behavior? They were simply trying to be gallant. I cannot fathom what queer start plagues Effington. He seems taken with Della, but last night, when she was on the verge of becoming a pariah, Effington was nowhere to be found.”
Will had made inquiries on that very point. Effington had been in the card room, with a clear view of the ballroom’s dance floor.
Now was not the time to cast aspersion on Lady Della’s lone suitor. “The apology I owe you, my lady, is for my behavior as we walked home last evening. I presumed, and though a gentleman might mean well, when his words and actions—”
Two gloved fingers pressed against Will’s lips. “Hush, Mr. Dorning. It was a simple kiss. I rather enjoyed it.”
Will grasped those fingers in his own—drat all evening gloves to the dung heap.
“I wasn’t apologizing for the kiss, simple though it might have been.” His feelings for Susannah Haddonfield were not simple—longing, respect, desire, protectiveness, resentment, and sheer weariness blended to create a persistent sense of unrest.
Her ladyship retrieved her hand and rubbed her fingers across her brow again. “Your kiss was simple and enjoyable, which is apparently of no moment. If you’re not apologizing for that kiss, then what does that leave?”
Should Will be heartened, that his marital unavailability had made no impression on a woman he couldn’t stop thinking about?
Moonlight shone through the garden’s trees to make shadow patterns on the carpet. As the breeze stirred the leaves, the patterns shifted silently. Will would have enjoyed watching those soft, shifting patterns while holding Lady Susannah’s hand.
“Rubbing your ears helps,” Will said.
“Mr. Dorning, have you had too much punch?”
Will’s problem was a lack of kisses, not a surfeit of punch. “You have a headache,” he said, tugging off his gloves. “Rubbing your ears… Hold still.”
He knelt before Lady Susannah and gently grasped both of her ears between his thumbs and forefingers.
“Relax, my lady, and if you’re offended two minutes from now, I will add this to the list of items I must apologize for.”
He gently pressed
her forehead to his shoulder, and tugged her on ears, moving his grasp outward, then repeating at a slightly different angle. Dogs were calmed by this particular caress provided it was done slowly and smoothly. For the first week in Will’s care, Samson had refused to fall asleep unless Will had been stroking his ears.
“That is most…odd,” Lady Susannah said. “But…soothing.”
To them both, though Will still wanted to kiss her. “If you’re ever around a nervous dog, try this. They’ll love you for it. Just don’t pinch too hard or move too quickly. The idea is to ease the worry away, to tug it free, not demand surrender of it.”
A few more silent, peculiar moments passed. The thumping, stomping gavotte ended, thank the heavenly bodies, and beyond the door, people moved from the ballroom to the terrace.
Lady Susannah’s gloved hands grasped Will’s wrists. “You can stop now. I do feel better.”
While Will felt like howling at the moon. He ceased his devotions to her ears, but cradled the back of her head against his palm.
“Last night, when I said I couldn’t marry you, I presumed you’d want to marry me. That was arrogance on my part. I put you in an awkward position, and I’m sorry.”
They were very close, Will kneeling before her ladyship, her hands on his wrists, her forehead resting on his shoulder. She smelled of good old English lavender, a country scent that made Will homesick for Dorset.
“We needn’t speak of it again, Mr. Dorning,” she said, straightening. “Your apology is accepted, though entirely unnecessary. Any woman would count herself fortunate to merit your addresses. I have put myself in an awkward position, however, and you might be the only person who can get me out of it.”
* * *
“Bloody big bugger to be hiding him under the very noses of the nobs,” the first man observed.
“Bloody mean bugger,” the second fellow muttered, using a rake to nudge the water pail closer to the door of the stall. “If ’e takes to barkin’ again, don’t expect me to put a muzzle on ’im.”
In a maneuver the men had coordinated over the past several days, the first handler tossed food into one corner, and while the dog was devouring every scrap, the second quickly changed out pails of water. The stall reeked of soiled straw and dog urine, but more significantly of canine rage.
“Don’t expect me to walk him down to Knightsbridge,” the first fellow said as the dog snapped up the last of his food. Kitchen scraps weren’t enough to keep a big animal like this fed, but they’d keep him mean.
“The baiters are used to dealing with the mean ones,” his companion replied, double-latching the stall door. “They like ’em mean. The meaner the better.”
“He’s mean enough. He’ll bring a pretty penny.”
They fed the other dogs, none as large or as loud as the black mastiff, but then, the other dogs had been penned up longer. They all grew resigned eventually, even the big, mean ones.
“I’m for a pint,” the first man said, “and then we’ll get the nets and go for a walk. Come along, Horace. There’s always a few strays about, and some of ’em are bound to be suitable for our purposes.”
The new mastiff, the biggest and meanest of the lot, was already growling and pacing again before the men had even left the dingy, smelly stable.
* * *
Susannah had on occasion studied her facial features in a mirror. They were adequate for their assigned tasks. Her eyes were blue, evenly spaced, where eyes were supposed to be. Nose in the middle, a fine place for a nose, even if that nose was a trifle more prominent than strictly necessary. Chin also in the middle, also a shade more pronounced than a lady’s chin ought to be.
Mouth between nose and chin in the expected location, and of the expected size and particulars.
But her ears? Her ears? Her ears had been content to remain unnoticed for her entire life. They were simply ears, doing what ears did…until Will Dorning had grasped them gently and firmly, and…stroked them.
Susannah’s ears apparently had a mysterious connection to her heart, which beat slowly and heavily against her ribs. Her ears also affected her body temperature, for she was abruptly warm all over. Her ears could control her intellect, which was having difficulty holding on to coherent thoughts.
Maybe that explained why she’d kept her hands around Will Dorning’s wrists. Without anchoring herself to him, Susannah might have floated off on the moon shadows when she needed, for the first time in her life, to enlist a man’s aid.
“I am at your service, my lady.” Will sat back on his heels and dropped his hands from Susannah’s shoulders. “Though I cannot imagine any great difficulty has found you. You’re a surpassingly sensible woman.”
He’d meant it as a compliment, the daft man. Sensible women became sensible spinsters, which Susannah had only recently settled on as an ideal fate.
“I am a determined woman. Will you sit with me for a moment, Mr. Dorning?”
He shifted and was beside her, just like that. No careful choosing of his spot, no ensuring a foot of space remained between them.
Susannah resisted the urge to put her head on his shoulder. “Do you know the play As You Like It, Mr. Dorning?”
“Of course. A lot of running about in the forest, silliness, and speechifying about the meaning of life. Death, for once, plays little part in the entertainment.”
Reality played little part in the entertainment. “I was reading As You Like It in the park this morning, natural sunlight being the best for reading, and it occurred to me: In what forest is the sun always shining? Orlando and Rosalind go cavorting and flirting and carrying on in the depths of an enormous forest, and all is bright days and soft air. In what forest does the cold or damp never make an appearance? In what forest does the sun shine relentlessly?”
“Do you liken the comedic forest to Mayfair ballrooms?” Will asked. “False illumination, false and flowery sentiments, pretty music and petty conceits, while outside the windows, the poor gather to gape at the spectacle?”
That very thought had held Susannah’s attention until she’d become oblivious to her surroundings.
“If I put that analogy into a letter,” she said, “and send it off to Professor Gillingham at Oxford, I’ll see my fanciful notion expanded into a learned article in the next quarterly publication of the Bodleian Crier, which injustice has nothing to say to anything. I’m having trouble asking directly for your assistance, Mr. Dorning, and wandering off into my own preferred forest instead.”
Susannah hadn’t had to ask for Will Dorning’s help the first time. She’d been so distraught that, simply by sitting beside her on a garden bench and proffering his handkerchief, he’d inspired her to a teary recitation of all the ills endured by one rather plain girl facing a rather boring come-out.
Petty tragedies for that girl, though, until Will Dorning had stepped in. Perhaps he could step in again.
“How may I be of service, my lady?”
Thank you. “I have offended Viscount Effington,” Susannah said, tugging off her long evening gloves. “I made a comment in your absence, about some ladies having no liking for dogs, and he took that to mean I have no liking for dogs, which is true enough. He will hold my dislike for dogs against Della, whose fortunes will be decided on Effington’s whim, whether he offers for her or not.”
“His lordship does seem to command the notice of many gossips,” Will said. “I’ve warned my brothers not to tangle with him, which was ill-advised on my part.”
“Sycamore will now take his lordship into dislike?” Younger siblings engendered an odd blend of affection, protectiveness, and exasperation known only to older siblings, something Susannah shared with Will Dorning.
“Sycamore will make it his mission in life to torment Effington,” Mr. Dorning said, “though I don’t think the boy is up to his lordship’s weight in nastiness.”
When had Susannah taken Will Dorning’s hand? Or had he taken hers? In any case, the contact was comforting.
“Ef
fington is not nasty,” Susannah said. “He’s sophisticated and doesn’t countenance fools. He’s ideally placed to protect Della from the gossips, but I have antagonized him.”
“He’s easily antagonized.”
Susannah’s headache wanted to come back. She wished she could rest her forehead against Will Dorning’s shoulder and have him stroke her ears again.
“I know Effington isn’t the most pleasant fellow,” she said, “but he’s shown marked attention to Della, and he can’t be all bad if his dogs like him, can he?”
Will’s thumb brushed over Susannah’s knuckles, a small, distracting caress. “What are you asking of me, my lady?”
Don’t stop touching me. His hands were magic, bringing calm and quiet with them. No wonder the dogs, cats, and horses loved him.
“You’re being gentlemanly,” Susannah said, letting her eyes drift closed. “You dislike Effington.”
“I’ve only seen him with the one dog, the little pug, and that fellow does not trust his owner. Watch carefully the next time Effington lifts a hand to pat the dog’s head. The dog will never take his eyes off Effington, and will cringe away any time Effington raises his hand, even to pat the dog.”
Some dogs were simply shy. Susannah was shy, though apparently not with Will Dorning.
“A detail, Mr. Dorning. How can I convince Lord Effington that I like dogs?”
Will patted her knuckles and withdrew his hand. “Isn’t it more important that your sister like the viscount? If she doesn’t care for him, what’s all this posturing and running around in the forest in aid of?”
Della’s position had become precarious, and Susannah’s careless comment was at least partly to blame, a far weightier matter than simply running about in the forest of Mayfair spouting clever verse.
“Mr. Dorning, Lord Effington can ruin my sister or assure she’s comfortably settled for life. I would do anything to see Della well situated. If I must pretend to like dogs, I will pretend to like dogs. If I must dance with Lyle Mannering while he sneezes on my bodice, I will dance with Lyle Mannering all night. I’ll swill that horrible punch, smile, and look gracious until hell freezes—”
Will's True Wish Page 8
