Dancing with Clara

by Mary Balogh

“I am a little tired,” she said. “I think I will stay here, Freddie.”

  But he scooped her up into his arms. “The decision of whether you try to walk or not is yours, ma’am,” he said. “The decision of whether you retain your health or not is mine. You will not become an invalid. That I will not allow.”

  It was like a declaration of war, she thought, setting an arm about his neck. Could she ever walk? Could it really be possible? Could she one day walk beside him? Ride beside him? Dance with him? It was too enticing a possibility to be believed in. She sighed and watched his lips tighten into a stubborn line.

  Perhaps one day too she would learn to curb the tendency she had not known she possessed to lash out at someone in self-defense when she herself felt hurt or bewildered or threatened. And yet it had only ever happened with Freddie. Perhaps because she felt so very inferior to him.

  She sighed again as he opened the drawing room door and then forced a smile at the sight of a visitor.

  Chapter 10

  Harriet was alone in the drawing room when the visitor was announced. She hesitated as the butler waited for a response. There was no telling how long Mr. Sullivan would be before bringing Clara downstairs. But both at Ebury Court and in Bath she often received visitors herself. Besides, she knew Lord Archibald Vinney. He had been at Clara’s wedding—the tall, aristocratic looking gentleman who had made free use of his quizzing glass in order to intimidate and had stared at her when Mr. Lesley Sullivan had presented him to her with such a direct gaze that she had been quite convinced that from the front he could see the hair on the back of her head. From silver eyes. She would swear his eyes were silver.

  “Show his lordship in, please,” she told the butler now, getting to her feet and trying to look as regal as a young girl of impoverished family, who was forced to work for a living as a lady’s companion, possibly could.

  Lord Archibald Vinney was an extremely attractive man, she remembered. She could remember feeling wistful at the interest he had shown in her. But Harriet’s feet were ever planted firmly on the ground. She understood the nature of that interest very well. Hence the wistfulness. If she were Miss Pope of Something Park in Something-shire, with ten thousand a year, it would be a different matter perhaps. But she was not.

  He strode into the drawing room now, stopped with studied surprise, fingered the handle of his quizzing glass, and bowed with great elegance. “Ah, Miss Pope,” he said. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

  She curtsied. She had been right to remember him as attractive, she thought. He was not as obviously handsome as Mr. Sullivan, but he was ten times more attractive. In Harriet’s opinion, anyway. He was dressed with fashionable elegance in green coat, buff pantaloons, and shining, white-topped Hessians, and yet there was an air of carelessness about his appearance, as if he had thrown his clothes on with little care and they had just happened to fall into perfect place.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan will be down soon, my lord,” she said. “They have been detained abovestairs.”

  “Really?” he said, raising both eyebrows and lifting his quizzing glass almost to his eye. “How delightful for them. I can almost envy my friend.”

  “Will you have a seat, my lord?” Harriet said, indicating a chair. The meaning of his words struck her only when she had seated herself too and had raised her eyes to his, ready to make polite conversation. She felt her cheeks grow hot and could not for the moment remember what the weather was like in order to comment on it.

  Lord Archibald raised his glass all the way to his eye. “How delightfully you blush, Miss Pope,” he said. “Some ladies cannot do so without also displaying red patches on their necks and, ah, bosoms. You are not one of their number. I congratulate you.”

  She caught herself only just in time before saying thank you. “Is it not a pleasant day, my lord?” she said. “The air is fresh and invigorating.”

  “The wind is chill,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” she said earnestly, “but the sunshine is pleasant.”

  “Except when the clouds are overhead,” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “It is not so pleasant a day then.” She raised her eyes from his cravat to his eyes to find them observing the hair at the back of her head again. Oh, dear, she thought she had fallen into that trap very easily. He was making fun of her. The little provincial nobody. She straightened her back.

  “I trust you left your aunt well in Bath, my lord?” she said.

  “She is too bad-tempered to fail ill,” he said, “and far too stubborn to die even though she is eighty. Or is it ninety? I am never quite sure. She will outlive her whole generation and mine, Miss Pope, and survive to plague the next generation but one or two.”

  “Oh,” Harriet said. It seemed a very disrespectful way of talking about an aunt. She did not know quite what to say. “I am glad she is well.”

  When his eyes bored through to the back of her skull, she thought suddenly, he was hiding amusement. She amused him. He was playing with her as with a toy. She raised her chin.

  “We have exhausted the weather,” he said, “and touched upon the subject of health. What is left, Miss Pope? Fashion?”

  “I am afraid I know little about it,” she said, “having lived all my life far from town.” And never having had the money to allow her to be fashionable.

  His silver eyes moved down her body though he did not, she was relieved to find, raise his quizzing glass. “I think it an unarguable fact, Miss Pope,” he said, “that beauty supersedes fashion. Some ladies do not need to be fashionable.”

  Harriet blushed again. The compliment had not been a direct one, but his eyes both laughed at and caressed her. She needed a chaperon, she thought suddenly. She ought not to have admitted him on the assumption that Clara and Mr. Sullivan would be there soon. Of course, she was a mere companion and companions did not need chaperons.

  “And so you are to play odd man out to a couple about to resume their honeymoon,” Lord Archibald said. “An awkward third in a pas de deux.”

  “I will be no such thing, my lord,” she said indignantly. “My job is to give Mrs. Sullivan my company when she needs it.”

  “As she does not at the moment,” he said, “while she is, ah, delayed abovestairs with her husband. She has poor taste, Miss Pope. You are far prettier than Freddie.”

  Certain comments were not conducive to conversation. They were unanswerable. Harriet did not answer.

  “Four is a far more felicitous number,” he said. “I shall have to offer myself as a fourth on occasion, Miss Pope, to save you from being an ignominious third.”

  Sometimes it was hard to know what he was talking about. Was he offering himself as her escort in London? The thought had its definite appeal even though she did not like the way he laughed at her secretly and made her feel like a gauche provincial. But she longed to see something of London, something of the fashionable life she had only been able to dream of until now. To be able to see it with such an escort... A lord, no less. The heir to a duke, no less.

  Harriet got to her feet. “I shall ring for tea, my lord,” she said. “Would you like me to go up and inform Mr. Sullivan of your arrival?” She took a few steps toward the door.

  He got to his feet too, and raised his quizzing glass to his eye. “Perhaps you had better, Miss Pope,” he said. “I have a reputation for devouring unattended females after ten minutes alone with them, you know. Especially pretty ones.”

  What a strange man, she thought, blushing yet again. What he undoubtedly did have a reputation for was causing unattended ladies to blush at regular five-minute intervals. He was not really a perfect gentleman. She turned to the door again and was vastly relieved when it opened from the other side and her employers came into the room.

  She rang the bell for tea while greetings were being exchanged, and took a seat a little farther away from their visitor than the one she had occupied before.

  Frederick left the house with Lord Archibald after tea. They dined at
White’s with a group of acquaintances and sat on for several hours, conversing and drinking—Frederick drank water and coffee. It was thoroughly pleasant, he thought, to be with male companions again, to be able to relax in the sort of atmosphere he was familiar with and enjoyed. One could be stifled by female company. Though he had been only two days in his wife’s, he realized when he thought about it.

  It had been a mistake. He should have left things as they were. Clara had obviously been happy with her seemingly dull life at Ebury Court, and he had been happy with the bachelor life that had always suited him. It had been a mistake to think that perhaps he could do her a kindness. She wanted no such kindness. He had done it to ease his guilt, she had said, infuriating him. He did not believe he had done it for that reason, but how was he to know? Perhaps she was right.

  To hell with it, he thought, joining in the uproarious laughter that followed a bawdy joke told by one of their number and launching into one of his own. To hell with it, whatever “it” was, and to hell with her.

  He took Lord Archibald to Annette’s much later. They walked there.

  “You are scowling, Freddie,” Lord Archibald commented. “You have been scowling all evening.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Frederick asked irritably. “Wear a beatific and asinine smile wherever I go, Archie?”

  Lord Archibald laughed. “It appears that confrontation is having no greater success than denial,” he said. “How long are you planning to keep her here, Freddie? Long enough for me to improve my acquaintance with the little companion, it is to be hoped. She is the most charming blusher it has ever been my delight to provoke into blushes. Is she ripe for the picking, do you think?”

  “Over my dead body,” Frederick said.

  Lord Archibald toyed with the handle of his quizzing glass but did not raise it. “Interested yourself, old boy?” he asked.

  Frederick stopped abruptly. “If you want a poke in the nose, Archie,” he said, “you are going the right way about it. I thought I had made myself clear on that point before.”

  “Ah, but opinions do sometimes change,” Lord Archibald said. “If you want my opinion, Freddie, my lad, as I am certain you do not, I would have to say that you are developing some unwilling feelings for Mrs. Sullivan. I believe we happy bachelors are about to lose—”

  “You are right,” Frederick said, his voice testy, “I do not want your opinion, Archie. Ask for Caroline when we reach Annette’s. She is the best. Though they are all good. Carefully chosen and thoroughly well trained, you know.”

  “You would sacrifice the best to me?” Lord Archibald asked. “You are a true friend, Freddie.”

  Truth to tell, Frederick was not in the mood for visiting a brothel, even one with such skilled girls as Annette’s. But he did not want to go home either just in order to pace his room wondering if he should spend the rest of the night in his wife’s. There was something distinctly humiliating about thinking of asserting one’s conjugal rights with a woman who despised one. Even if she enjoyed it. It made him think uncomfortably of gigolos.

  Caroline had a free hour and was borne off by Lord Archibald. So did Lizzie. She was well-endowed in every way, Frederick thought, escorting her to her room. In five years’ time, if she did not watch herself, or if Annette did not do the watching, she was going to be fat. He often asked for her. She was marvelously skilled in a languorous sort of way.

  He sat at the foot of the bed and scowled while Lizzie looked at him a little uncertainly, waiting for the instructions that did not come, and then began to undress, one enticing garment at a time. Frederick’s scowl deepened. He spoke finally when she came to her piece de resistance, the removal of a flimsy chemise, her last remaining garment.

  “You had better get dressed again, Liz,” he said. “I seem to have caught something and would hate to infect you.”

  She dressed with a little more speed than she had undressed and came to sit beside him on the bed and run her fingers through his hair. “Never mind, love,” she said soothingly. “A doctor can fix you up in no time and you can come back.”

  He had burned his bridges in this particular establishment, he thought gloomily. Lizzie would dutifully pass along the very pertinent information to Annette and he would be politely but firmly denied admittance for the rest of his natural lifetime. He sighed.

  She kissed his jaw. “It’s a pity,” she said. “I was looking forward to an hour of fun. You are my favorite.”

  “Yes, well, Liz,” he said, “I couldn’t do that to you, could I? You would lose your place here and suffer into the bargain.”

  “You are a kind gentleman, sir,” she said, kissing his cheek. “You have paid your fee. Can I please you in any way?”

  “Talk to me,” he said. There was almost an hour to be filled in before he could expect Archie to emerge from Caroline’s clutches. “Tell me about your home and your family, Liz. How did you come to this particular point in your life?”

  “Oh, my,” she said. “It is forbidden, sir.”

  He turned his head, kissed her on the lips, and looked at her steadily from beneath lowered lids. It was a look that never failed with women.

  “But you will break the rules for me, Liz,” he said.

  And so he spent his last expensive hour at Annette’s listening and learning that a whore could also be a person, that she had had a childhood and a girlhood, complete with hopes and dreams, just like anyone else. It was an interesting and somewhat disturbing lesson. It was easier to think of them merely as bodies whose sole function in life was to provide pleasure for men.

  It was a day of disasters, he thought, thoroughly out of sorts, when his hour was finally over. He had not felt so depressed since he did not know when. And to crown it all, when Archie joined him downstairs, he was wearing that beatific and asinine smile Frederick had described earlier.

  “Divine,” he said as they walked away from the brothel. “It must have been a sacrifice beyond the call of duty and friendship to leave her to me, Freddie. My heartfelt thanks, old chap.”

  “Lizzie is better,” Frederick said, his voice a growl.

  Lord Archibald was ready to go home. An hour at Annette’s could do that to a man, Frederick thought irritably. He was not ready to go home. He would go and see if there were any interesting games in progress at any of his clubs, he decided. He was not going to play. He had sworn off gambling with the last round of debts, fortunately more modest than the ones that had precipitated him into marriage. He would just watch, fill in the tedious hours of a night that he wanted over.

  He watched for an hour and played for two, going home only when everyone else decided to play no longer. His pockets were slightly better lined than they had been when he had arrived, but his mood had not improved. He had said he was not going to play, had he not? What if he had lost badly?

  Sometimes it seemed that he was not in full control of his own actions. As if his mind and will had become divorced from his body. A foolish thought, of course. Once he had spent a week or so taking Clara dutifully about London as he had promised, he would be able to take her back to Ebury Court, where she would be happier again, and he would be able to take up his bachelor existence once more, his conscience clear. He had tried to be kind to her. He had shown her the way to a better life of greater freedom, and she had rejected it. So be it. It was up to her, as the doctor had said and as he had explained to her.

  If she wished to wallow in an unnecessary misery, then she would be left free to wallow. To hell with her. He fell into bed finally when dawn was already graying the windows of his bedchamber.

  “And so that is how it is,” Clara said. “Can you believe it, Harriet? I could have been walking all these years back in England instead of sitting forever in chairs and having to be wheeled or carried from place to place. I could walk for the rest of my life.” She and her companion were in her private sitting room.

  “But it is wonderful news.” Harriet had her hands clasped to her bosom. “Clara? It
is glorious.”

  “But I don’t believe it,” Clara said. “I can’t. When I fell out of bed this morning—” Fortunately a maid had been in her dressing room, bringing a jug of steaming water, and had heard the thump and come running. Clara, though hurt and frightened, had pretended to be waking up from sleep. “I did not fall out. I tried to stand. My legs were quite, quite useless.”

  “But of course they were,” Harriet said. “Gracious, you might have hurt yourself badly. You cannot expect just to get up and walk because you have been told that it is possible for you to do so, Clara. You have not walked for years.”

  “For twenty,” Clara said.

  Harriet tutted. “And you thought to step out of bed this morning and walk down to breakfast,” she said. “How foolish.”

  “It was rather, was it not?” Clara felt sheepish. “Though I do not think I was quite so unrealistic, Harriet. I would have been happy just to stand there for a few moments.”

  “Did you not just say that Mr. Sullivan told you it would be a slow, frustrating process?” Harriet asked.

  “Yes,” Clara said, sighing. “I have always been renowned for my patience, Harriet. People tell me how wonderfully patient I am in adversity. I am not sure I have enough for this. I want to walk now. I want to run yesterday. I want to dance the day before. I just don’t think I can do it. How can I begin to hope now when I have developed this legendary patience, and perhaps have my hopes dashed? Better not to have hoped at all.”

  “But you are doing just that,” Harriet said. “And I know you well enough, Clara, to feel sure that you will be quite unable just to close your eyes to this chance.”

  Clara sighed again. Of course Harriet was right. She had lain in bed the night before trying to move her toes. She could feel them. She could even feel them moving, though she doubted that their movement would be perceptible to the eye. They were so very weak, and so far from her brain that the message she was trying desperately to send seemed not to be reaching them. Frustration? Oh, yes, she had wept with it just the night before. If her toes would not obey her will, how was she to command her whole legs?