by Edith Layton
As the dancers were at the moment beginning a very complex set, they waited by the sidelines for it to be ended. As much to pass the time as to divert his own attention from the lightly stepping, prettily swaying form of a familiar figure in glowing pink upon the dance floor, he casually asked the silent blond girl beside him.
“And do you enjoy your stay in London, Miss Greyling? I imagine as a recent arrival, you must find it filled with wonders.”
“Indeed, who would not?” she answered quickly. “But most of all, I enjoy the fact that there are so many booksellers convenient to my cousin’s house.”
“Ah, and are you a great reader, then?” he asked, not expecting more than a hesitant “Yes indeed” from her. So he was surprised, and not a little ashamed of himself, when she answered with more enthusiasm than she had so far shown.
“Yes, and what a joy it was to find that the viscount had such a full library. I am particularly fond of a set of Shakespeare that he has let me read. I know that there are a great many worthy new writers, but somehow I enjoy those works the most. How fortunate that my cousin likes to hear them read aloud on dull afternoons,” she said with great satisfaction.
They had something to talk about then, as the long courtly dance wove on around them. For as he confessed to her, he often frequented the booksellers as well as book auctions, as it was his pleasure and pastime to constantly add to his own library. And he was pleased as well to discover that once they were off the subject of her own life and onto the topic of Shakespeare, she was so clear-spoken, confident, and coherent of thought as to be almost a different person.
“Yes,” she concluded, noting the way he’d raised an eyebrow to something she had just said, while a small smile played about her lips in a manner that he suddenly discovered to be charmingly self-effacing, “I know it is odd to prefer Mercutio. But he is one of my favorites. I always weep for Mercutio, he’s such a lively, brave fellow. For he’s always so full of jest, and witty as well. ‘Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man,’ he says, even as he is dying. How flat the rest of the play always is for me when he is gone from it.” She ended her comments on a sigh as filled with emotion as though she had just seen brave Mercutio fall in front of her very eyes. He was amused and charmed by her perception and the depth of her sentiment.
“The Boydell edition, you say?” he asked with interest.
“Yes,” she said, coloring up and then giving him a roguish smile. “I know what you are about to say. It is a picture book for those of us who like to pretend to be adults. But the words are the match of any picture for beauty, and there are a great quantity of both, so I confess, it is my favorite.”
“Oh pray don’t apologize,” he said laughing. “We have a set at home as well. I particularly enjoy looking at the Fuseli engravings, and you?”
“Oh yes!” she said immediately, ducking her head in her old way again, but this time he found her gesture to be more explicable. Clearly, he thought in almost avuncular fashion, the chit was unused to the ways of gentlemen, and unused to being in society. But as this thought only led him again to wonder at how she was treated, he went on at once, as much to escape his own train of thought as to hear her response,
“Ah, you like illustrations then? But I have other delightful volumes at home with both words and pictures that match in their virtues. The particular ones I’m thinking of are rather odd little works, and I doubt that many people have read them, but I have always enjoyed the fellow’s poetry. He’s not so dashing as our Byron, there isn’t a corsair in sight, but then, the fellow illustrates his books as well as writes them, and I should like to see George attempt that He’s also not a bit as well known by half, I’m afraid, but have you read any of this fellow William Blake?” She gazed steadily and wordlessly at him, as though she were having some difficulty framing her answer. She paused, and looked around her as if in search of something. It was that hesitation that made him aware that the music had stopped and that new couples were coming to the dance floor. He smiled at how subtly she’d called that to his attention, and took her hand.
“Come then,” he said. “We’ll talk of Erato and her disciples later. Now’s the time to exercise the arts of her sister Terpsichore, just as you’ve promised me you would.” The dance that began as they took their places was a waltz. Even as he took Annabelle Greyling into his arms, he realized his error. Looking past her head, he could see Leonora searching for him in the crowd at the sidelines. He could not explain a thing to her, neither could he now lead Miss Greyling off the floor, especially since he noted, as if from a distance, that she came into his arms with an audible little sigh, like a happy child coming to some reward. So he stepped into the dance with her.
Two surprising things diverted him from his worries about how he’d explain his desertion to his hostess. They were both things he became aware that his present partner lacked: shyness and grace. He’d thought Miss Greyling might be so leery of him that she’d stand, as many a young miss might, at the furthest allowable perimeter of his circling arms. But he was astonished at how close she allowed herself to drift to him. As they moved, now and again he became aware that her breasts, or her hip, or some part of her torso often grazed against him. Then too, he also quickly realized that as she had little feeling for the dance and less knowledge of the steps, her inadvertent bumping against him must be just that.
If he smiled while he danced with Miss Greyling, it was at the thought that this was becoming one of the few times in his life when he could totally sympathize with his sister’s tales about put-upon young females and their overbearing suitors. For all the while that he danced, his partner was treating him to all sorts of intimate contact that he devoutly wished would cease immediately. At last, he thought he could understand why it was that females so often complained about a fellow’s straying hands. Although he knew that nothing dire could possibly result from all the intimate contact he was experiencing, it was decidedly unpleasant to have that sort of contact visited upon oneself when one didn’t expect or request it. And since Miss Greyling’s hard, sharp little breasts and keen hipbones did not stir him in the least, it could be said that he suffered from their touch, as well as from the lively fear that she might, in some fashion, think it was he who engineered their constant jostling.
It was the ludicrous thought of Miss Greyling as some sort of notorious molester of innocent gentlemen that made the marquess grin widely. It was the wide grin that Lady Leonora first saw when she at last discovered where her promised partner was. And it was that lost, utterly desolate look upon her face that her cousin saw in that one moment before Leonora remembered who and where she was, and erased it, trying valiantly to replace it with an unconcerned expression.
When the dance was done, the marquess bowed and thanked Miss Greyling. She murmured the proper reply, and then, as he was about to take his leave of her, she did an improper thing. She put her hand upon his arm, and said in a hurried undervoice filled with all the old hesitation and fear, “Please, oh please, my lord. Tell my cousin that you danced with me out of pity. Oh pity me, please, and tell her that, won’t you? For I saw her face, and she is very angry with me. Very. Please?”
It was appalling to have her beg, but unthinkable for him to refuse. So he nodded, and when she dropped her hand from his arm, he turned to seek out her cousin. And saw her watching him and Miss Greyling with a hard, cold expression upon that damnably lovely face.
When he approached her, he was so very angry with her and yet so very attracted to her that he could find nothing to say but, “May I now have this dance, my lady?”
And she, her eyes glinting in the bright gas and candlelit room, only put up her head and gave him her hand and said, “Yes, of course,” when she knew that she ought to have said, “No, damn you for a liar and you may not.” They danced in silence, each filled with growing rage with each other, each finding respite in the motion and the music from the growing desire that seemed perversely to be fed from that
rage, motion, and music, just as all the moralists had warned when the wicked Vienna waltz had first swept society. Onlookers again murmured at their matched beauty and grace. The Duke and Duchess of Torquay glided by and nodded at the viscount, who was thoughtfully watching the couple. And Annabelle Greyling refused Sir Phillip a dance, all the while never taking her eyes from the pair.
When the music was ended, they simply stood and stared at each other until they noted that other dancers were forming for a set of country dances. Then the marquess led Lady Leonora to a corner, well away from the others. The company’s attention then focused on Lord Bigelow, who was partnering Miss Turnbell in the set, for there were wagers laid that he was, at last, actually going to offer for her hand this night So it was relatively simple for the marquess to draw Lady Leonora from the room, out the partially opened side doors, and to the darkened garden behind the house. It was a star-struck night, bright even in contrast to the glittering ballroom, h seemed to Leonora as if some black and mottled cloth had been hastily flung across the daytime sky, so much brilliant light escaped through the myriad random holes in the fabric of the night She noted, as though in a dream, that an unidentifiable intertwined couple started as they approached, and then seemed to melt away themselves into the deepest shadows, but she never hesitated as she went with him.
He still said nothing to her. Not even when they stopped and he looked down at her and took her head between his hands and gazed down through the star-struck darkness into her dark eyes. She did not speak as she searched his stern visage for some hint of his intentions, nor did she pull back when he lowered his head to hers, nor did she seek to escape his lips when they came to rest gently upon hers, and then less gently seemed to insist on some sort of answer to his next harsh unspoken demand. Though her heart thudded so loudly that she was sure it echoed throughout the garden, and pulsed so wildly that it galloped beneath his hand, still she sought to give him what he asked of her. So that when he was finally done, he held her closely, and they rested there against each other in a tense embrace that was never restful in any fashion.
When he spoke at last, it was in a low voice of shaken wonder. “Lord,” he said, as he strained her silky hair through his fingers. “I find that I want to take you with me into the bushes, and to the devil with all the conventions of civilization. And that, with all that I know of you. What is it that you do to me, Nell?”
And since there hadn’t been a word of affection, though she hadn’t really expected protestations of love, and since she discovered that she understood what he meant so entirely that it shocked her to her soul, she only said, with an anger that threatened either to cause her to strike him or to drag his lips down to her own again,
“I do nothing. What is it that you want of me?”
“I’ll swear that you know better than that, Nell,” he breathed against her ear.
It was her own desire that she struggled against as much as she did against his callous use of it. For she knew that if he had breathed one word, just one word, of warmth toward her, or of respect for her, or of fascination with her as a person, she would have gone with him anywhere on the face of the globe itself, no matter what the consequences.
But tonight he was different toward her. He approached her as though he knew how she burned at his touch and did not care, and used her as though he expected her absolute compliance, which, she realized with sorrow, she had given him entirely. Yet even as he angered her, he drew her as he always did.
Catching at straws to save herself, she thought of how he’d deliberately sought to take her down a peg. He’d promised the first waltz to her, and even as she had waited for him, she’d seen him blissfully clutching poor, frail, foolish Annabelle to his breast. What manner of man was it that she’d lost her reason to? So she said at once, out of hurt, and out of great fright for what she continued to feel even though she was hurt,
‘I know only that if I am not available, little Annabelle will do as well for you, won’t she?”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?” he asked incredulously. “You seriously compare yourself with that innocent little creature?”
Into that one sentence she read contempt for herself and the ease with which she had returned his embraces.
“You seriously think that I believe you either know or care about the difference between us?” she cried.
Into her reply he read the scorn she felt for her cousin’s lowly position, as well as what she thought of the morals of gentlemen who had thrown over their legally wedded wives.
They stood and glowered at each other wordlessly. Until he pulled her into his arms and kissed her angrily and thoroughly even as she clung to him with the same furious despairing desire. When they parted, she put a hand to her lips and only stared at him. He stood and waited for her to offer him some sort of reaction, as though there was a thing which he was waiting to utter but could not just yet trust himself to say to her.
It was Annabelle’s hesitant voice which cut into the loud silence that had fallen between them.
“Cousin?” she called in a wavering little voice as she came groping out into the darkened garden like a woman blinded by the starlight “Cousin Leonora?”
“Oh lord help me,” Leonora said through clenched teeth, “what does she want now? Or did you promise her an interlude in the moonlight as well?” she asked him.
Whatever he had been about to say died on his lips. He gave Leonora one long, expressionless look, and then led her to her cousin. Then, bowing, he left her.
But he did not leave the party. In fact, it was noted and much commented upon that the Marquess of Severne danced with the obscure Miss Greyling once again after he had taken her in to dinner, and that he lingered over her hand for a very long time before he left the Talwins’ ball.
TEN
“Kind of you to stop in to say good-bye,” the viscount commented as he filled his visitor’s glass once again.
But his guest put up one white hand as he was proffered the drink, “No, thank you,” he said in his husky, whispering voice. “Since my duchess will have my head when I come late to tea, I shudder to think what other parts of my adorable person she would revenge herself upon if I came to her merry with drink as well.”
The viscount had to turn his head as if he were wondering where to replace the glass in order to conceal his smile. Those few who knew the Duke of Torquay well were constantly amused at how often it pleased him still to say “my duchess,” as though he were only lately wed, as though there were some special magic and merit in that proud possessive phrase. But he soon sobered, remembering how few of his own friends and acquaintances derived any sort of similar pleasure from mention of their own marriages. That thought quite naturally led him to the business at hand again.
“The invitation was kind,” he said gruffly, “and unexpected. I hope it’s not too much for you. I know how seldom you and your delightful duchess entertain.”
The duke’s lucent blue eyes lit up at that, as though he well knew how much his phraseology had amused his host, but he only said softly, wonderingly.
“You shock me, Talwin, you do. It’s very bad ton, you know, to chide a fellow for inviting you to his home even as you accept his invitation. And we are not precisely hermits, you know, my duchess and I. No, no,” he went on, ignoring the viscount’s attempts to explain himself, “never think it is all for you. It isn’t a bit of it, you know. We want to go home, you see. It’s time. In the past weeks, we’ve seen every outstanding new piece of theater and heard every fresh scrap of enthralling gossip, and have managed to be noted by every person of unimportance in London and have doubtless contributed to half a hundred delectable new scurrilous tales ourselves. But we have to be careful of our reputations, you know, lest familiarity take the shine out of them. Well, even a circus must eventually move on. So the ton will just have to soldier on without us for a space, I fear. But perhaps Boney will take up the slack and liven things up for them by invading this summer,” he
mused.
“Surely you don’t believe that Johnny-come-lately can replace you?” the viscount asked dryly.
“Jacques-come-lately actually, and no, though it’s kind of you to fret over it,” the duke answered agreeably. “But we must go anyway. Still, though we’re headed home, we do hate to part company with our closest friends. So we hit upon the happy idea of having a festive week at Grace Hall for a few of our intimates. It’s warm enough for picnic parties, and water parties, and riding parties—we can make ourselves dizzy with our revelries.”
“Just what you most wished,” the viscount said quietly.
After a pause, the golden-haired duke shifted in his chair and went on thoughtfully, “Well, you did mention that you could scarcely give another ball, and I don’t wonder that Lord Benjamin and his good Sybil balk at it. It looks mightily odd for the Talwins and the Benjamins to suddenly become such demons for society. And then too, my duchess and I worry over Joss. We have few friends, perhaps that’s why we take such undue care with those we do have. He’s a very good man, and deserves better than he’s gotten, and far better than what he appears to be going after. And though we don’t understand or approve of what he seems to be doing at the moment, we’re enormously fond of him. As we are of you. And of your delightful daughter, although we don’t know her too well.”
