by Jo Beverley
Since the implication was clear, Gwen had to stiffen her spine and her voice. "No one can be fortunate in everything, I fear."
"We shall have to see, won't we, Gwen?" A confidence in his eyes sent a shiver of alarm down her spine. He had reason to be confident, she realized. Despite his appalling behavior, she still longed for him, was drawn to him like moth to flame. Could a man detect such a thing?
He turned back to the duchess. "You must excuse me, your grace. I am with the Baracloughs. If I may, I will call."
The duchess gave him carte blanche to visit whenever he pleased, but as he strolled back across the room she said, "Soldiers, my dear. We must excuse them much, but a wise young lady does not go apart with them."
So Gwen hadn't imagined his insulting manner.
She watched numbly as he returned to a plump lady and a pretty brunette. The girl, presumably Miss Baraclough, flicked Gwen a suspicious, searching glance. Gwen tried hard not to do the same. Or rather, not to show her sick sense of defeat.
"Especially," the duchess added, "when the man has his eye on an heiress."
"Miss Baraclough is an heiress?" Gwen asked, watching the way the young woman looked at Drew and not surprised by the hunger there.
"Only child. Sacks full of money. Tin mines." The latter was said with some disdain.
Almost as bad as trade, but a pretty lady with riches would be irresistible.
So much for her dream encounter in the tent. Faery had created that illusion and adding reddened skin and a silk ribbon was not beyond them, but the truth was before her.
Sir Andrew Elphinson did not consider Gwen Forsythe worthy for the position of wife, though he'd probably set her up as his mistress for a while if she was amenable.
She might even be tempted, but that situation wouldn't serve Faery at all.
Chapter Eight
"First he as good as cut me," Gwen declared to Betsy Raisley as soon as she was home. "If the duchess hadn't made a point of it, he wouldn't have spoken to me at all!" Gwen was trying hard to show anger instead of tears, but her eyes stung with them.
Even Betsy, a cheerful, easy-going young woman, frowned. "That's not like Master Drew, Miss."
"Sir Andrew Elphinson is nothing like Master Drew. He's grown too grand for his family and friends from back home. He as good as pinched my bottom and asked me to meet him behind the bushes!"
"Nay, I'll not believe that!"
"And," said Gwen, ripping her ridiculous bonnet off her beautifully-arranged hair and throwing it onto the bed, "he's paying gentlemanly attentions to a little twit called Miss Baraclough!"
"Nay!" And now Gwen really had Betsy's attention. "We can't have that."
Gwen had never forgotten the Lady's words, that Betsy knew all about potions and such. She'd never spoken to her maid about that dream-encounter, but she'd noticed that on this trip to London, Betsy had taken more of a hand in her mistress's affairs than was normal.
During the choice of fabrics and designs for new dresses, Betsy always had advice to offer, insistent advice in favor of this color rather than that, of this trim over another. Gwen told herself that her maid just had good taste, but she feared it was Faery at work.
Betsy had always made scented soaps for Gwen, and prepared all manner of lotions and creams. Now Gwen regarded them with suspicion. They seemed merely cosmetic, but it was true that the Raisleys were known throughout Derbyshire for potions that were more than cosmetic. Gwen's success thus far in London had been outstanding, but every time young men gathered around her begging for a smile or a dance, she wondered just what was causing their attraction.
Betsy was frowning now in fierce concentration. "What can have come over the man?"
"A pretty girl with a vast fortune from tin mines..." Gwen trailed off, thinking for the first time of Dark Earth and mines. Surely not.
"An Elphinson has no need to marry money," Betsy scoffed as she began to unbutton Gwen's dress. "You say he pinched your bottom, Miss?"
"No, no. It was just the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice. It made me feel dirty."
Betsy patted her shoulder. "Perhaps you just mistook him, Miss. Men are funny creatures. Now, you lie down a while, to be ready for tonight. It's Lady Wraybourne's soirée, isn't it? Perhaps you'll see him there."
Suddenly weary, Gwen didn't resist being tucked into bed with the blinds drawn. At home she was full of energy morn till night, but here in London she tired so easily. It must be the late nights followed by rising at noon. She certainly missed the freshness of the morning, but the few times she'd tried to rise with the dawn, she'd been exhausted at midnight with a ball only half way through.
She longed to be back in the simple life of the dale.
She couldn't sleep now, though. Her mind was too full of Drew and his behavior.
It had been agony to stand by him pretending they were mere acquaintances. And it hadn't been old friendship she'd been feeling, either. It had been desire. She'd wanted a lover's permission to look, to touch, if even only the permitted touch of hand to hand.
She'd needed a hint from him that he felt the same.
She suddenly sat up in bed. Perhaps he had shared the dream and now assumed she was no better than she should be! She collapsed back on the bed, hands over her face. But how on earth was she ever to explain her wanton behavior that night? She'd have to try. When he came to call, she would find an opportunity to speak to him alone and try.
Gwen waited anxiously for Drew to call, determined -- despite dread -- to have that private discussion. She worried her mother by staying home day after day, terrified of missing him.
He never came.
Nor did she encounter him at social occasions, though three times she caught sight of him at a distance -- once at the theater, once in the park, and once at a lecture at the Royal Institution. Each time he was accompanied by the simpering Miss Baraclough, and at the Royal Institution they were alone together. An ominous sign.
Gwen was shocked by just how uncharitably she could think about the tin heiress. She prayed to heaven that she didn't have any faery powers, or the young woman would probably wake up as a toad!
When Gwen arrived home from the lecture on the remarkable properties of magnetism, she paced her sumptuous boudoir deluging her poor maid with a stream of complaints. Then she stopped to ask, "Betsy, what should I do?"
It was an honest question. The thought that she could never have Drew was like torture, but she could bear it. It was the faery plan that tormented her. Was it her duty to do something about all this? And if so, what?
Betsy seemed to have overcome her distress at the situation. She was replacing a flounce on Gwen's cream walking dress, and her nimble fingers never paused. "Dress in your finest and smile, Miss."
"Smile? He never comes close enough to notice!"
"Oh," said the maid with a teasing flick of the eyes, "I'll go odds he notices."
Gwen sat opposite Betsy, willing to be convinced. "How can you think that?"
The maid fixed her needle and looked up. "Think about it, Miss Gwen. He'd have no need to avoid you if he didn't notice, now would he?"
Gwen slowly absorbed that, hope growing. "But then, why?"
"Who's to tell with men? Sometimes we have to take a hand and straighten them out."
"How?" Gwen thought uneasily of potions and magic.
"We'll have to think about that. Let's see. Tonight is the Duchess of Arran's ball, ain't it?"
"Yes," said Gwen without enthusiasm.
"From what I hear, it's just the sort of event Miss Baraclough will attend, and she'll want her admirer with her."
"I suppose so."
"You just leave the rest to me, Miss Gwen."
That worried Gwen for she still revolted at the thought of tricking Drew into anything. But a weak part of her would do anything to draw him back to her, even if just as friend.
As she prepared for the evening, she tried to be noble. "Perhaps I should let him marry Miss Baraclou
gh if that is his wish."
"Now, you don't want to think like that, Miss Gwen," said Betsy as she tied the stay laces. It was a plain command.
"Why not?"
Betsy turned to pick up the silk gown. "If not for other reasons, because they wouldn't suit. She sounds like a ninny."
And that was true. Gwen might not have encountered Drew in a week, but she'd met Miss Baraclough a couple of times. The girl had no thought in her head other than the latest hair fashions, and no interest in anything outside of London parties. Drew would be bored to tears before the honeymoon was over.
"What other reasons could there be?" Gwen asked Betsy.
The maid dropped the pale green silk gown over Gwen's shoulders, and started to fasten the tiny buttons in the back. "Because it wouldn't be right, Miss. You two are meant to be, and be together back in the dale. Can you imagine Miss Baraclough happy to stay in the dale?"
Absolutely not. Gwen wished she could talk to Betsy about Faery, but it was a subject better not mentioned.
"There, Miss Gwen," said Betsy, directing Gwen's attention to the mirror.
Gwen looked and saw that indeed she was at her finest yet, and this gown, she remembered, was one that Betsy had virtually designed. She'd chosen the filmy, floating silk sprigged with green ferns and seed pearls. She'd insisted that the bodice be cut noticeably low, and with the stays pushing up Gwen's breasts the effect was dramatic.
Rather too much so!
Gwen covered herself with her hand. "Betsy, I'm not sure..."
Betsy pulled her hand down. "It's decent. But it'll draw the men like nectar draws bees."
"I already draw the men to an embarrassing degree! It's only Drew I want to attract, and if he sees this..."
"He'll not be able to take his eyes off you." The maid tugged on the gown to adjust the lie of it. "Perhaps he'll not be able to keep his hands off you, either, Miss."
"Betsy!"
"And they do say that if a gentleman forgets himself with a lady, he has to marry her."
"Betsy, I couldn't!"
And Betsy chuckled as she reached for a vial of perfume. "I'll go odds you could, Miss. Nature has its ways."
Gwen sniffed at the perfume her maid was dabbing around her, trying desperately to detect faery glamour. It seemed simply a light perfume smelling of greenery and spring flowers. There was a distinct note of lavender, though, that carried her back to that wall in the garden.
The one she and Drew had loved to sit on for their evening chats.
Oh, stop it. That young man has gone for ever, worn down by education and toughened by war.
"Sit you down, Miss Gwen," said Betsy, pushing her toward the bench in front of the dressing table. "Your mother will be here in a moment and we've your headdress to put on."
Gwen's long blond curls had been gathered on the top of her head and now the maid crowned it with a silk toque wreathed with delicate ferns and small white flowers. A few tiny butterflies trembled on wires, seeming alive.
Gwen turned, intending to beg Betsy not to go too far, but Mrs. Forsythe trotted in, happily elegant in crimson silk. The one good thing about all this was that her mother was truly enjoying her London season.
"How pretty you are tonight, dear," she said. "I think that ensemble is perhaps your most becoming. And look what just arrived by messenger." She opened a small box to show a lustrous pendant pearl-drop on a gold chain. It was the size of a robin's egg.
"How lovely! Who sent it?" Gwen's heart quivered, waiting for the answer, "Andrew."
"It came from a lawyer but the note said it was from your father's family." Mrs. Forsythe frowned. "I did think your Uncle Graham was the only close relative, and he's as clutch-fisted as they come. But there, he must be showing a little family feeling. I will write and ask." She clasped the pearl around Gwen's neck. "I must say, it looks remarkably fine. Quite riveting." Her brows rose. "It does tend to draw the eye to your bosom, dear."
Gwen, hopes dashed, looked down at the pearl nestling near the swell of her breasts and knew that that the pearl hadn't come from her Uncle Graham.
"It looks lovely, Ma'am," said Betsy firmly, and came forward to drape a long silvery shawl around Gwen's shoulders. Then she picked up the vial and quickly dabbed a bit more perfume around Gwen. For all its spring lightness, Gwen feared it reeked of magic.
She knew with despair that Drew didn't have a chance.
Chapter Nine
The duchess took her party through a rout and a soirée before descending upon the main attraction of the night. The glittering ballroom was crowded when they arrived and Gwen had a terror that her faery glamour would stop the throng dead. She created only the usual amount of stir, however, as her admirers rushed toward her.
Truly, she disliked it. She longed to move through a room without being stared at. She would love to be friends with some of the young ladies rather than an object of jealousy.
Then she saw Drew, in elegant black, part of a small circle of men and women including, of course, Cecily Baraclough.
He was the most handsome man in the room, she thought, and then immediately wondered whether she were under some kind of spell herself. He was handsome, yes, but nothing out of the ordinary. She flicked glances at him, trying to compare his looks to others.
There was Lord Randal Ashby, for example, generally considered a very handsome man -- blond, blue-eyed, fine featured. Drew's brown hair was less remarkable than gold, but his eyes were a finer blue. His features went together very well, but...
And there was Lord Saxonhurst. Perhaps, to an objective eyes, he was the more handsome but he did not interest Gwen one jot, whereas Drew was like a magnet to her.
Oh, how could anyone say what made one person special and another not? She would surely go mad if she saw faery fingers in every pie.
Given her way, Gwen would have kept away, but her mother headed over to her foster-son without any concern at all. "Andrew, my dear boy. How naughty you are not to have called. But there, I suppose you have been busy with your friends."
Introductions were made. Gwen waited for Drew to be smitten by lust -- half hoping for it, half fearing it -- but as before, his only attention to her was a rather insulting visual assessment of her charms before he smiled at her mother.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Amelia. It's as you say, and I've been caught up in the social whirl. I will try to do better. Are you enjoying Town?"
The first set struck up as they were talking, and Gwen's mother said, "Oh good. You can partner Gwen for this one, Drew."
Gwen wished for a hole to open and swallow her. Drew was too polite to look furious, but a tightening of his jaw showed how he felt. Miss Baraclough was less controlled and flashed an angry glance at both Forsythes. Lord Pasgrove kindly led her out, and Drew had no choice but to ask Gwen.
He might think her worthy of ogling, but as far as proper attentions went, she was apparently not even worthy of a country dance. Part of her was pleased that all the trickery was failing, but at the same time her heart ached. If he was immune to her at her best, there really was no hope, and remembering the Lady, she feared the consequences.
As they joined the set, she thought he was going to be distant, but then he turned to her, that disturbing glint in his eye. "I need not ask how your time in London goes, Gwennie, need I? Every male is at your feet."
The dance began, and they bowed and curtsied.
Gwen decided to go on the attack. "Every man but you, Drew."
"Oh," he said, as they danced forward and back, "my aspirations are higher than your feet, my lovely. Somewhere up beyond your garters in fact."
Gwen could only fire him a look of hurt and retreat into silence. He flushed, too, so perhaps he felt a little ashamed of treating her like a doxy.
The dance swirled them from partner to partner and Gwen managed to smile and even chat as she went. She noticed him doing the same. But sometimes their eyes would clash, and she'd look away to smile even more brilliantly at her partner of the mome
nt.
How could he? How could he?
And how could she? It had been bad enough to think of inveigling her childhood friend into marriage. How could she bind herself to this stranger, this man who saw her as a mere lightskirt?
Yet if she didn't, how would Faery react?
Then the dance forced them back together for a while, dancing down the middle, hand in hand.
"I'm sorry," he said, staring over her shoulder. "I was ill-mannered."
She couldn't resist this, for it came close to the old Drew. Her friend. "You certainly were. Why?"
"I don't know. Fear, I think." He was staring at the pearl. "I suddenly felt under attack." His eyes met hers, superficially charming and rueful. "Can I ask you to forgive a rude soldier?"
"Of course."
They came to the end of the line and stood facing one another, clapping hands in time to the rhythm. No wonder he sensed danger. He was under attack, and his trace of faery blood must mean that he could detect the glamour all around her, especially the power of the pearl. He kept glancing at it. No, his eyes were drawn to it.
She wanted nothing more than to protect him, to save him from the snare, but she must capture him, for all their sakes, but particularly for her own. They came together again, following the steps of the dance.
You're mine, Drew Elphinson. Destined from birth. Neither of us can fight it.
The words in her mind were like a chant, like another person speaking but with her voice, and from her soul. She almost missed a step, and as she collected herself she gazed at him in despair.
When the set finished they had to stroll around the room together. Gwen took the lead. "Drew, do you not like me anymore?"
"Like you?" He turned to her in surprise, then seemed caught like a fly in amber. "Of course I like you, Gwennie."
"I'm not a little girl anymore, Drew. I'd rather you called me Gwen."
His eyes flickered away but came right back. Trapped. "Gwen, then."
"Do we embarrass you, your country cousins?"
