The Secret Mistress

by Mary Balogh

  “Your hats are distinctive, Lady Angeline,” he said. “This one is. The one you wore when you rode on Rotten Row the other morning was. Was that one of the fourteen?”

  “That one?” she said. “Oh, no. That was just an old thing I wore because I needed to keep my hair dry for my presentation to the queen. It is an old favorite.”

  “It drew comments,” he said. “This one will be talked about after today. I daresay the other thirteen will be too as you wear them, even the pink one, if the shade is anything similar to that of the dress you wore on the way to London.”

  “It is almost an exact match,” she said. She laughed. “Everyone will talk about what ghastly taste I have in hats. But I do not care. I like them.”

  He turned the curricle along a path that ran parallel to the waters of the Serpentine.

  “And that, ultimately,” he said, “is all that matters. You like them. And a strange thing will happen in time. Gradually your hats will come to be associated with you, and people will look eagerly for new ones. And some people will begin to admire them. Some will even envy them and emulate them because they will assume that it is the bonnets that give you the bright sparkle that characterizes you. They will be quite wrong, of course. The bonnet will lend nothing to their character. You must not retreat into what others deem fashionable and tasteful if you prefer something else. It is sometimes better to be a leader of fashion rather than an habitual follower.”

  Good Lord, did he really believe that? Or was he giving her appalling advice?

  “Even if no one follows my lead?” she asked, looking across at him with brightly smiling eyes.

  “Even then,” he said. “When the parade goes by, there will be no one to look at but you. But everyone will look. Everyone loves a parade.”

  Her smile had softened and she turned her face rather sharply to face front again. He had to keep his eyes on his horses and the path ahead—there was more traffic here. Even so, he had the distinct impression that the brightness of her eyes as she looked away did not have everything to do with laughter. And indeed, there was no laughter in her voice when she spoke again.

  “I shall remember what you have said all the rest of my life,” she said. “I shall lead fashion, even if no one follows behind me.”

  “Someone always will,” he said, and he knew he was right. It was the nature of leadership.

  They turned their heads at the same moment, and their eyes met. It was definitely tears that were in hers. They were not swimming there and they were not spilling over onto her cheeks, but they were there.

  And then, just before he looked back to the path ahead, there was a spark of mischief there too to brighten the tears.

  “You still have not answered my question,” she said. “Do you or do you not like my bonnet, Lord Heyward?”

  “I think it quite the most ghastly thing I have ever seen,” he said, “with the possible exception of the riding hat you wore the other morning.”

  She went off into peals of bright laughter, turning heads their way and causing him to smile.

  Good God, was he in danger of liking her?

  She was a walking, talking disaster. She was the very last woman that old sobersides, the Earl of Heyward, needed to become entangled with.

  His thoughts flashed to Eunice.

  Well, he did like her sense of humor—Lady Angeline’s, that was. He had to admit it yet again. There was really very little humor in his life. There had never seemed much room for it.

  He turned the curricle in the direction of Grosvenor Square and Dudley House. He had the uneasy feeling that he was getting into something he was going to find it very difficult to get himself out of.

  Even impossible?

  And did he mean was getting? Or did he mean had got?

  ———

  I JUST HOPE,” Cousin Rosalie said, “that she has learned her lesson this time. I am convinced her marriage was not a happy one.”

  “I believe,” Angeline said, “she is genuinely fond of him. She sat apart with him at Lady Beckingham’s this afternoon, and she appeared very happy when she drove with him in the park afterward.”

  They were talking about the Countess of Heyward, who had apparently broken Cousin Leonard’s heart five years ago by marrying the earl and was now being offered a second chance to get it right, according to Rosalie.

  “I dread to imagine,” she said, “what will become of him if she breaks his heart again.”

  Cousin Leonard was almost completely bald. He also had a nose that went on forever. Even so, he was a kindly, pleasant-looking gentleman, and Angeline thought that even the beautiful Countess of Heyward would be fortunate to have him. There was such a thing as family bias, of course.

  “I daresay she will not,” Angeline said.

  They were in the carriage returning from an evening at the theater, where Cousin Leonard had invited them to join him in his box. It had been a thoroughly pleasant evening, even apart from the novelty of seeing a play acted out live upon a stage instead of just being read from the pages of a book, which Angeline had always found remarkably tedious and Miss Pratt had always insisted was the only way to appreciate good drama.

  The theater was packed with people, and Angeline was able to gaze her fill—and be gazed upon. Several people had come to the box during the interval to pay their compliments to one or another of them. Lord Windrow had cocked one mobile eyebrow at her from across the theater and inclined his head in an exaggeratedly deferential bow. The Earl of Heyward was not present. Martha Hamelin was, and they were able to flutter their fans at each other from a distance and smile brightly.

  What had made the evening particularly special, though, was the fact that Cousin Leonard had issued yet another invitation before they left. He was organizing a party to spend an evening at Vauxhall Gardens, and he hoped they would be his guests there. The idea had occurred to him while he was driving in Hyde Park earlier in the afternoon and Lady Heyward had informed him that it must be three years at the very least since she was last there but she longed to go again.

  Vauxhall Gardens!

  The thought of going there was sufficient to send Angeline into transports of delight. It was the most famous pleasure grounds in the world. Well, in Britain anyway. She was not sure about the world. There was a pavilion and there were private boxes and sumptuous food. There were music and dancing and fireworks and broad avenues and shadier paths. There were lanterns in the trees and a boat to take one across the river.

  But the fact that she was going there was not all.

  The evening was being arranged for Lady Heyward’s benefit. But Lady Heyward had apparently shown some unease over any impression of carelessness or heartlessness she was giving her late husband’s family, so Leonard was going to make it a family party—or a two-family party, to be more accurate. Perhaps, he said, Tresham and Ferdinand would come.

  The Earl of Heyward was sure to be there too, then, Angeline thought while she stared dreamily into the darkness beyond the carriage windows as they drove home. The earl and Vauxhall all in one evening.

  “I daresay,” Rosalie said from the seat beside her, just as if she had read Angeline’s thoughts, “the Earl of Heyward will accept Leonard’s invitation to Vauxhall. Do you like him, Angeline? Did you enjoy your drive in the park with him this afternoon?”

  He had given her permission to continue wearing the bonnets she liked. Not that she needed his permission or anyone else’s. But he had made her feel that it was the right thing to continue wearing them, that it would be the wrong thing to bow to popular opinion.

  He had said something else too. Angeline thought a moment, bringing the exact words to mind again in his own voice.

  Some will even envy them and emulate them because they will assume that it is the bonnets that give you the bright sparkle that characterizes you.

  … the bright sparkle that characterizes you.

  No one else had ever said anything even half as lovely to her.


  And he had advised her to set fashion rather than follow it—even if no one followed her.

  But the loveliest memory of all from this afternoon—oh, by far the loveliest—had come when he had joked with her. And it had been a joke, not an insult as it was when Tresham or Ferdinand said similar things.

  I think it quite the most ghastly thing I have ever seen, he had said when she had pressed him for an opinion on her gorgeous green and orange bonnet, with the possible exception of the riding hat you wore the other morning.

  And then, while she had laughed with genuine amusement because the words were so unexpected, he had smiled. He really had. A full-on smile that had set his blue eyes dancing and had shown his teeth and creased his cheek on the right side.

  “Oh, I did,” she said in answer to Rosalie’s question. “It is the loveliest place in the world to be on a sunny afternoon. Though I daresay Vauxhall at night will be even lovelier.”

  She gazed out at a streetlamp that broke up the darkness for a moment.

  “And yes,” she said. “I like the Earl of Heyward well enough.”

  “I am delighted to hear it,” Rosalie said briskly. “Though there are plenty of other gentlemen worthy of your consideration if it turns out on further acquaintance that you do not like him quite well enough. I am not the sort of chaperon, I hope, who expects her charge to marry the first gentleman presented for her inspection.”

  “I know,” Angeline said. “I am very fortunate to have you, Cousin Rosalie. More than fortunate. I am happy.”

  Happier than she would be if it were her own mother presenting her to society and the marriage mart? But she made no attempt to answer the question, which was pointless anyway. Mama was dead.

  Cousin Rosalie reached out and patted her hand.

  I think it quite the most ghastly thing I have ever seen, with the possible exception of the riding hat you wore the other morning.

  Angeline smiled secretly into the darkness.

  DAMNATION, EDWARD THOUGHT the following morning when he opened the invitation Lorraine had warned him would be coming.

  Vauxhall!

  It was famous for its glitter, its vulgarity, its artificiality. He had never been there. He had never wanted to go. He still did not. He could not think of many places he would less like to go.

  But go he must.

  Lorraine had been close to tears in the drawing room before dinner last evening when she had spoken of the planned visit to Vauxhall. Both he and his mother had been present as well as Alma and Augustine.

  “It has been only a little over a year since Maurice’s passing,” she had said. “I would not offend any of you or appear uncaring or … or fast by engaging in too many social pleasures too soon or giving the appearance that perhaps I have a … a beau. Will you all please come too to Vauxhall, and persuade Juliana and Christopher to come, so that it will be in the nature of a family outing?”

  “I doubt if Christopher will risk the dangers of night air and the smoke of fireworks clogging his lungs,” Augustine had said, looking at Edward with a twinkle in his eye. “Unless Juliana persuades him that it is safe, of course, or that going to Vauxhall is essential for her good health. That would do it. He is soft in the head where she is concerned.”

  Edward’s mother had got to her feet and hugged Lorraine tightly.

  “Lorraine,” she had said, “no one could have been a better wife to my son, and no one could be a better mother to my granddaughter. But Maurice is dead and you are alive. You must not be ruled by guilt or the fear that we will think you somehow unfaithful to his memory. I assure you we will not. But Vauxhall? My dear! It is for young people. I will certainly not go there with you. But Alma and Augustine surely will, and I daresay Juliana and Christopher will too. And Edward, of course.”

  Of course. Of course he would and of course he must. Not just because his mother had given him little choice, but because he was fond of his sister-in-law and could see that she already had a genuine regard for Fenner—and he for her. And Fenner was a steady character. He was not just another Maurice.

  Duty called, then. Oh, and affection too. Duty did not preclude love. Indeed, it could hardly exist without love to impel it onward.

  So he would go. To Vauxhall of all the undesirable places. With the near certainty that Lady Angeline Dudley would be a fellow guest. If Fenner was inviting all of Lorraine’s family, it stood to reason that he would invite all of his too. And devil take it, that included the Duke of Tresham as well as his sister.

  “Send an acceptance of this one,” he told his secretary, waving the invitation in one hand before setting it down on the desk.

  She would love Vauxhall. She would bubble over with exuberance. He could picture it already in his mind. Lady Angeline Dudley, that was, not Lorraine. Lorraine’s enjoyment would be altogether quieter, more dignified, more decorous.

  Chapter 10

  ANGELINE WAS SITTING very upright in a small boat on the River Thames, wishing that somehow she could open up her senses even wider than they already were and will them to take in every sensation of sight, sound, smell, and touch and commit them to memory for all time.

  Not that she would have trouble remembering anyway.

  It was evening and darkness had fallen. But the world—her world—had not been deprived of light. Rather, the darkness enhanced the glory of dozens of colored lanterns at Vauxhall on the opposite bank and their long reflections shivering across the water. The water lapped the sides of the boat in time with the boatmen’s oars. There were the sounds of water and distant voices. She was on her way to Vauxhall—at last. The hours of the day had seemed to drag by. The air was cool on her arms. It was a little shivery cool actually, but it was more shivers of excitement she felt than of cold. She held her shawl about her shoulders with both hands.

  Tresham had insisted upon the boat, though there was a bridge close by that would have taken the carriage across in perfect comfort. Angeline was very glad he had insisted. And she was still surprised he had accepted his invitation from Cousin Leonard. She knew he had been about to refuse it, but then he had heard that Belinda, Lady Eagan, Leonard and Rosalie’s cousin on their mother’s side, having arrived unexpectedly in town just last week, was also to be of the party. Lady Eagan’s husband had run off to America with her maid a year or so ago, and Angeline could hardly wait to meet her. She hoped she was not gaunt and abjectly grieving, however. That would be distressing.

  Tresham was reclining indolently beside Angeline, one long-fingered hand trailing in the water alongside the boat. He was looking at her rather than at the lights.

  “You do not have a fashionable air, Angeline,” he said. “You are fairly bursting with enthusiasm. Have you not heard of ennui? Fashionable ennui? Of looking bored and jaded as though you were a hundred years old and had already seen and experienced all there is to be seen and experienced?”

  Of course she had heard of it—and seen it in action. Many people, both men and women, seemed to believe that behaving with languid world-weariness lent them an air of maturity and sophistication, whereas in reality it merely made them look silly. Tresham did it to a certain extent, but he was saved from silliness by the air of dark danger that always seemed to lurk about him.

  “I have no interest in following fashion,” she said. “I would prefer to set it.”

  “Even if no one follows your lead?” he asked her.

  “Even then,” she said.

  “Good girl,” he said, a rare note of approval in his voice. “Dudleys never follow the crowd, Angeline. They let the crowd follow them if it chooses. Or not, as the case may be.”

  Remarkable, she thought. Absolutely remarkable. Tresham and the Earl of Heyward agreed upon something. Tresham would expire of horror if she told him.

  “You know why you have been invited this evening, I suppose,” he said.

  “Because Leonard is our cousin?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the lights, which were becoming more dazzling and more magical by the
minute. They looked even more glorious if she squinted her eyes.

  “Because Lady Heyward and her family have singled you out as the most eligible bride for Heyward,” he said. “And for some reason that eludes my understanding, Rosalie seems just as eager to promote the match. I was always under the impression that she was a sensible woman, but matchmaking does have a tendency to distort female judgment quite atrociously. You had better watch your step, Angeline, or it will be the earl himself who will be turning up at Dudley House next to petition for your hand. And you know how much you love having to confront and reject unwanted suitors.”

  There had been two more since the Marquess of Exwich. And the embarrassing thing with the second of the two had been that when Tresham had come to the drawing room to inform her that Sir Dunstan Lang was waiting in the library to propose marriage to her, she had been unable even to put a face to the name. And when she had gone down and had a faint memory of dancing the evening before with the young gentleman standing there looking as though his neckcloth had been tied by a ruthlessly sadistic valet, she had no longer been able to recall his name.

  Embarrassed was not a strong enough word for how she had felt.

  “I will be careful,” she promised.

  “It would be an almighty yawn to have the man as a brother-in-law,” he said. “I can only imagine what it would be like to have him for a husband. No, actually, I cannot imagine it and have no intention of trying.”

  “Why do you dislike him so much?” she asked.

  “Dislike?” he said. “There is nothing either to like or to dislike in the man. He is just a giant bore. You ought to have known his brother, Angeline. Now, there was a man worth knowing. Though I daresay I would not have wanted you to know him—not before his marriage anyway. He might have been the devil of a fine fellow, but he was not the sort to whom one would want to expose one’s sister.”

  It was odd, Angeline thought, that he did not want her to marry anyone like himself, and yet at the same time he did not want her to marry someone altogether more worthy, like Lord Heyward. She wondered if she would feel similarly when it came time for him to choose a bride. Would no lady be good enough for him in her eyes?