by Mary Balogh
“Last night was good, Sophie,” he said.
“Yes.” She nodded.
“It would certainly bear repeating.” He smiled at her.
“Yes.”
He felt a sudden and unexpected amusement. He laughed and she smiled her usual cheerful smile. “Sophie, you are a bold minx,” he said. “You are bent on corrupting me. Did you plan this?”
“Only as the words were coming from my mouth,” she said. “Have I forced you into something you may regret? Would you like to take time to consider?”
“Would you?” he asked her.
“No.” She shook her head.
He thought of Walter’s lovely and lively widow. And he thought of the woman who had lain beneath him last night, riding to the rhythm his own body had set. Sophie—lovely and lively. It was hard to believe that this enticing woman had been there all the time in the Peninsula, but he had seen her as only a friend. Perhaps it was just as well.
“I believe, Sophie,” he said, “I would be honored to be your lover.”
For one very brief moment she closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Then she looked about her, the old Sophie again. He noticed in the same moment that there were two people coming up behind them, still from some distance away.
“Gertrude’s house is just there,” she said, pointing a short way ahead of them.
They approached it without speaking again until he took his leave of her after knocking on the door for her and waiting for a servant to open it. He bowed over her hand and bade her a good morning.
“Thank you for your escort, Nathaniel,” she said, and disappeared inside the house.
He stood staring at the closed door for all of two minutes before moving on.
“Ah. You look very nice, Sophia,” Beatrice, Viscountess Houghton, said kindly. “It is the Carlton House gown, is it not?”
The Carlton House gown must be nationally famous by now, Sophia thought with wry humor. Beatrice looked extremely elegant in a new rose-red silk gown with matching turban. She was all ready for the ball. The carriage had just arrived at Portland Place, bringing Sophia—she had refused the invitation to dinner on the grounds that there would be enough excitement in the house without the added distraction of a dinner guest.
Sarah, of course, looked youthful and lovely in the obligatory white gown, which was all delicate simplicity, allowing the beauty of its wearer to speak for itself. Sophia recognized Beatrice’s guiding hand in the choice of design. Sarah danced around in a complete circle before hugging her aunt.
“What do you think, Aunt Sophie?” she asked artlessly. “Do you think I will be the loveliest lady at the ball? Papa says I will, but Lewis only snorts.”
Lewis, as blond and slender as his sister, but with an altogether more masculine effect, grinned. “If I found you the loveliest lady at the ball, Sare,” he said, “there would be something decidedly wrong with me. I did concede that you look pretty enough.”
Sarah tossed her glance ceilingward.
“Brothers,” Sophia said with a laugh, “have a way of being brutally honest. You look breathtakingly wonderful, dear. And you look very nice too, Sarah.”
Lewis roared with laughter and Sarah went off into fits of giggles and any incipient sibling quarrel was averted.
“The Carlton House gown always was elegant, Sophia,” her brother-in-law said, handing Beatrice her wrap and organizing everyone for departure. “But a new one would enable you to be in the forefront of fashion again. Bea and Sarah have spent days educating me on what is currently fashionable. Will you go with them the next time they visit the modiste? I would not notice the cost of one extra gown among all of theirs, I do assure you.”
“You would look lovely in a pale shade of blue, Sophia,” Beatrice said, “and in a lightweight fabric for summer. Oh, do come with us. It would be such fun, would it not, Sarah?”
Sophia smiled at them. “If we do not move toward the door soon,” she said, “Edwin is going to be bellowing at someone. I really do have all the gowns I need. And dark colors are so much more serviceable than pale. As for a lightweight fabric, Beatrice, why would I be so foolish when I live in an English climate?”
Lewis offered her his arm and she took it, noticing with approval the varying shades of dove gray and white in which he was dressed. There were going to be a dozen or more young ladies falling all over their slippers to secure an introduction to him. And Sarah’s theory was not true of her own brother. Although he was only one and twenty, there was not a single spot in evidence on his face.
“Some people,” Edwin said as he escorted his wife and daughter into the hall and nodded to the servant on duty there to open the outer door, “are as stubborn as the proverbial mule.”
“And some people,” Sophia said cheerfully as Lewis handed her into the carriage, “will be eternally grateful that they have the means with which to live independently.” She smiled at Edwin as he settled on the seat opposite to show him that she meant no offense by her words.
Though she wished she had not spoken them just then. They only served to remind her of how very precarious her independence was. She had paid off the newest debt—why was she never willing simply to call a spade a spade, even in her mind? She had dealt with the latest round of blackmail —there, she had verbalized it in her mind at last. But she had left herself panting for breath and trying desperately to hide the fact from her family. She had given in to blackmail three separate times now and knew she was merely getting herself deeper and deeper into a black hole from which there would be no escape. However would she cope with the next demand? There was no money left....
One day at a time.
“Will anyone wish to dance with me?” Sarah asked suddenly, panic in her voice. “What if no one does, Mama?”
“Young Withingsford is to lead you into the opening set,” Edwin reminded her.
But Sarah only pulled a face. Young Withingsford, Sophia understood, was merely a neighbor and so scarcely counted as a conquest in Sarah’s mind. Perhaps the poor lad even had spots.
“Invitations have been pouring in at flattering speed,” Beatrice said. “Everyone will know, Sarah, that you are Uncle Walter’s niece. Aunt Sophie is with us.”
Sarah’s eyes focused on her aunt. “Do you suppose, Aunt Sophie,” she asked, “that Lord Pelham and Sir Nathaniel Gascoigne will ask me to dance? They are sure to come and pay their respects to you, are they not? And then they will remember that they have been presented to me. Will they dance with me?”
“Sarah talked of no one else all day after that walk in the park,” Edwin said with a chuckle. “They are both eligible, Sophia? I will not ask if they are respectable. I am sure they are if you claim an acquaintance with them and if you judged it proper to present them to Sarah.”
“They are both unmarried, if that is what you mean,” Sophia said, “and both wealthy, I believe. And handsome, of course. I am sure Sarah did not fail to mention that detail.”
“The most handsome men in London,” Lewis muttered. “Or was it in all England, Sare? Or all of Europe? Or the world?”
“I believe I said merely that they are handsome,” Sarah said, on her dignity. “There is no need to snicker at everything I say, Lewis.”
“And are they young, Sophia?” Beatrice asked.
“They are probably both about thirty,” she replied.
“A good age,” Edwin said.
Beatrice smiled. “One can only hope that they are at the ball now that we have ascertained that they are eligible in every way,” she said. “You will present them to Edwin and me, Sophia?”
“Of course,” Sophia said, “if they are there tonight.” She knew they were going to be there.
“Well,” Edwin said with a chuckle. “After tonight we will have Sarah happily settled and you and I may retire to the greater comfort of the country again, my love.”
“Papa!” Sarah, who rarely recognized a joke when it was subtly made, looked alarmed. “Nothing will be settled in on
e evening. We cannot go home yet.”
Beatrice laughed and patted her hand.
Nathaniel was going to be at the ball with his sister and his cousin, Sophia thought. Perhaps he would not wish to bring them anywhere near her. Not now that she was his—no, she was not. Absolutely not. She would not even begin to think of herself in that demeaning way. But even so, he might feel awkward about presenting her to his relatives or asking her to present him to hers. She really did not know how such affairs were conducted. But of course he had already met Sarah. Would he dance with her? Would Edwin and Beatrice try to net him for their daughter?
The thought was absurd—and horrifying. Nathaniel was far too old in both years and experience for Sarah. Besides, he had no wish to marry. And even if he did, he would not have the poor taste to choose the niece of his lover.
But examining her feelings, Sophia recognized that there were both jealousy and possessiveness there. And a huge lack of confidence in her ability to hold his interest. She hatedher lack of self-esteem. It had not used to be there, but though she knew there was no real need to doubt herself, damage had been done when she was young and impressionable. It was difficult to recover belief in oneself once it had been lost—or robbed.
Last night was good, Sophie.
It would certainly bear repeating.
He had meant the words. She must believe them. She had as much to offer their relationship as he did. She must believe that. She would believe it.
“Perhaps, Aunt Sophie,” Sarah was saying, “Lord Pelham and Sir Nathaniel will dance with you. It would not be surprising, I am sure.”
“You are indeed very famous, Sophia,” Edwin said, a twinkle in his eye.
Sophia laughed. “And well past my dancing years,” she said. “I shall be perfectly content to find a quiet comer in which to sit and watch Sarah’s triumphs. And Lewis’s too.”
In all the regimental balls throughout the war years she had never sat out a single set. It was not a matter for conceit. It had happened, of course, because the gentlemen had always far outnumbered the ladies. None of the ladies had ever sat out a set. But each of the Four Horsemen had always danced with her. They had not always danced with the other ladies. She had felt young on those occasions and attractive and exhilarated—but they had been very rare.
How wonderful it would be tonight if... But probably not with Nathaniel. Doubtless they would keep well away from each other. And even the faint chance of being able to dance with one or more of the others did not quite make up for the fact that the two of them would probably treat each other like strangers. She hoped she would not find herself in the awkward position of having to present him to Edwin and Beatrice. Oh dear, she thought, and they had convinced themselves that there need no longer be any awkwardness between them. She dreaded seeing him again in public.
Would he come to her later tonight? she wondered. Or tomorrow? Or never? Last night it had happened without planning. This morning an affair had seemed possible. This evening it did not. It was something that would somehow never be spoken of between them again, she was suddenly sure—especially as the carriage had slowed and then stopped behind a long line of carriages and she could see far ahead all the glitter of the other guests getting down from their carriages.
All she had really done this morning, she thought—though perhaps last night had made it inevitable—was lose a friend. One of the dearest friends a woman ever had, even if she had not seen him for three years before this week and had had only that one precious letter from him.
Sarah was chattering nervously and the others were all checking their appearance preparatory to making their public appearance at the door of the Shelby mansion. The carriage inched forward.
Georgina looked quite perfectly turned out for her first London ball. Or so her brother thought fondly as she sat beside him in his carriage. She was dressed in white satin and lace, as was proper, she had white ribbons threaded through her fair and elaborately styled curls, and she was glowing with pleasurable anticipation. There was the suggestion of a tremble in the hand that rested lightly on his sleeve.
Georgina was his favorite sister, though he would not have admitted to any living soul that he had favorites. He wished fervently for her success tonight and during the coming weeks. He felt almost as nervous as he knew she was. Her next words confirmed his suspicion.
“Nathaniel,” she asked, almost in a whisper, perhaps in the vain hope that Margaret and Lavinia would not hear her from the seat opposite, “are you quite sure my appearance is not just a little vulgar?”
Apparently she had found herself in a tussle with Margaret and the modiste over the low-cut bosom of tonight’s ballgown. Margaret and the modiste had won after insisting that her gown, far from being vulgar, was in extreme danger of being too conservative.
Lavinia, Nathaniel saw in the semidarkness, was engaged in the characteristic gesture of tossing her glance at the roof of the carriage. Margaret drew breath to speak, but he held up his free hand.
“I am quite, quite sure, Georgie,” he said. “You look extremely beautiful. If Margaret has to exert herself even slightly in an effort to find you partners tonight, I will be very surprised indeed.”
“Lord Pelham is to dance the opening set with me,” she said. “But that is because you asked him to, of course.”
“I most certainly did not,” he assured her. It had been all Eden’s idea to meet the girls during the afternoon and to reserve a set at tonight’s ball with each of them. His notice could do them nothing but good. Eden was a baron, after all, and both well-known and popular with the beau monde.
“Lord Pelham was kind enough to ask Lavinia for the second set,” Margaret said, “and she refused.”
As if any of them needed reminding!
“I was there when it happened, Marg,” Nathaniel said ominously. “It was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. I have explained to Lavinia that one does not refuse a dancing partner unless there is a very good reason for doing so—”
“There was,” Lavinia said, interrupting him mid-sentence. “I told you so at the time, Nat, when you took me aside in order to favor me with a tongue-lashing.”
“—such as not having been formally presented to the gentleman in question or like not having a free spot on one’s card,” he continued as if she had not spoken. His voice was rising, he noticed, as it so often did with his cousin. “You had been presented to Lord Pelham, one of my closest friends, by me, Lavinia, in my own drawing room, and every spot on your card was free.”
“I informed him that I was not a charity case,” she said, looking at his sister just as if Nathaniel did not exist. “He was so condescending, Margaret. One could see at a glance that he had decided as a favor to Nat that he would ask these awkward little country bumpkins to dance—they would doubtless swoon quite away at the honor being accorded them. He has the bluest eyes, Margaret—have you met him?—and clearly expects every female at whom he deigns to direct them to fall into a mindless dither.”
“I have met Lord Pelham,” Margaret said. “He is a handsome, dashing, charming gentleman. And very eligible, of course.”
“Then I certainly did not play my cards right,” Lavinia said. “Had I known he was eligible, Margaret, I would have danced with him and he would have come tomorrow to see Nat and offer for me, and all Nat’s troubles would be at an end. I, of course, would have lived happily ever after.” Being Lavinia, instead of looking flushed and irritable after delivering this tirade of sarcasm, she merely smiled dazzlingly at Nathaniel.
He raised his eyebrows and absently patted Georgina’s hand. This was not going to be easy—but had he ever expected that it would be? And Lavinia’s gown was a bright turquoise, most unsuitable for an unmarried young lady who was making her come-out. White, yes. A pale pastel shade, perhaps. But bright turquoise? Even the combined forces of Margaret and the modiste had not been able to prevail upon Lavinia to conform. She was four andtwenty, she had been quite unembarrassed t
o remind them. The best they had been able to do was dissuade her from choosing a scarlet satin for tonight’s all-important first appearance before the beau monde.
“Now, that other chit,” Eden had said this afternoon when he was leaving—he had just complimented Nathaniel on the prettiness and sweetness of his sister, “should have been taken over someone’s knee years ago, Nat—preferably someone with a large, heavy paw—and given a sound walloping. I suppose you feel it is too late now. One cannot imagine you spanking a full-grown woman. I pity the poor fellow who is going to have to face that sharp tongue across the breakfast table for the rest of his life.”
Nathaniel had sighed. “I fear it might be me, Ede,” he had said. “Who in his right mind would have her even if she were not loudly declaring that no one ever will?”
“You could not lock her up in a convent?” Eden had suggested. “No, wrong historical era. A pity.”
But Lavinia was not beyond showing the occasional sign of being almost normally human. The carriage at first slowed and then came to a full halt at the back of a long line of carriages waiting to draw up before the carpeted pavement and steps leading to the Shelby mansion on Gros venor Square. Lavinia lifted her fan to her face and plied it quite vigorously despite the fact that it was not a particularly warm night.
She was nervous. Good. It would serve her right if she had not a single partner all night, Nathaniel thought un-charitably. But he would, of course, dance the opening set with her himself. And he would present some of the friends and acquaintances she had not already met to her as partners and hope fervently that she would not repeat her ridiculous statement about being treated as a charity case. If she did, that was that. She was going home tomorrow to stay at the rectory with Edwina, his second eldest sister, until he returned home. She would hate it. She considered the Reverend Valentine Scott, Edwina’s husband, to be the dullest, most pompous man on earth, and Valentine considered that she should spend altogether more of her time in pious reflection and in the performance of good works.
