Stanton looked up from the sheet. “Isn’t there always? Would you like me to pass it over?”
“Lord, no. I have a devilish headache this morning.”
Movement in the doorway caught Stanton’s attention. He turned to see Patience come in, looking as pure as new snow in a white-muslin morning gown. Her eyes caught his, and their gazes held for a long moment until she sat in the chair being held for her by one of the footmen. A light flush of pink suffused her cheeks, and he felt a rush of pleasure that she was affected by his presence.
“Good morning, Miss Wendover,” he said, just as if he had not already told her so.
“Good morning, Lord Stanton,” she said, a quiver of humor in her voice as she returned his greeting. She turned to the footman who was waiting beside her. “Scones and tea, please. Oh, and a three-minute egg.”
When the footman had stepped away, she turned to Stanton, her eyes twinkling merrily. “I find I am famished this morning.”
Lord Stanton smiled slightly, careful not to grin at her, as he handed the newspaper to a footman and motioned for another cup of coffee.
“Quite natural for such a healthy young miss,” Lord Fortescue said between bites. “You’re positively radiant, this morning. Yes, quite lovely.” He let his watery eyes rove over her in a way that once again made Stanton want to darken his daylights. Clearly the man was still not sober after his evening carousing. Had he even been to bed? He had changed his clothing, but that meant little.
The moment was interrupted when the Percy ladies came in. Miss Percy at once claimed the seat next to Patience and leaned to whisper in her friend’s ear, keeping her from eating the food that had now been placed before her.
Stanton knew he would not have an opportunity to speak with her again this morning. Feeling impatient with the world, he determined to go use up his restless energy shooting something. But then Lord Aston came in.
The man was clearly avoiding Stanton’s sharp eyes, but he smirked and greeted the ladies as he took the open seat next to Patience. Stanton watched her stiffen, and her eyes glanced frequently his way, though she kept her lashes lowered.
Then Aston leaned very close and said, “What charming company I find myself in. Did you sleep well, Miss Wendover?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Ah, for the blessed sleep of the innocent. I myself am cursed with restless nights and vivid dreams. Often, I do not even try to sleep.”
Patience blinked at him, obviously uncomfortable. “How horrid for you.”
“Not always, Miss Wendover,” he said in a silky voice.
Stanton swore beneath his breath. The man was vile, and Patience sat next to him with her brows pinched in confusion and her eyes wide. If he said one more word to her along those lines, Stanton was going to drag him out and dunk him in a horse pond. How had Lady Blakemore collected such a ramshackle group of gentlemen among her guests?
And when had he developed such a violent temperament?
Aston took a drink of the ale set before him and asked, “May we expect your cousin to join us?”
Patience tilted her head. “I have not spoken to her, but she doesn’t often come down for breakfast.”
Aston grinned. “A disappointment, though while her preference is difficult for a suitor, it would likely be appreciated by a husband.” He laughed. “Why, Miss Wendover. What have I said to shock you? Surely you know that gentlemen do not care for chatter over the breakfast table.”
Stanton eyed him coldly. “Though some gentlemen chatter more than is pleasing themselves.”
Aston swung his head around and glared at him.
Fortescue forestalled any comment Aston might have made, however, by asking, “Will you be joining us for the shoot, Aston?”
“I will.”
“Excellent,” Stanton said. “We shall see if your aim is any better when you’re shooting at grouse.”
“What do you mean by that, Stanton?”
Stanton stood and looked down at him. “Only that you have a tendency to shoot wide and hit targets you don’t intend. I’m left to wonder if you are too blind to see it or too arrogant to care.”
Then shifting his eyes to Patience, Stanton bowed slightly and left the room in search of his host.
***
More than anything, Patience longed to stand at the window and watch for the gentlemen returning from their hunt. She had heard the distant thunder of their guns earlier, but all had been quiet for some time know.
Would she be looking for Lord Aston’s elegant but careless saunter, or Lord Stanton’s direct, athletic stride? She felt as if a war was taking place within her heart.
And as it raged, she was forced to sit in a stuffy room and mind her stitches. Patience abhorred embroidery, but her aunt considered it the only proper activity for an unmarried girl. And so, she sat beside her cousin in the Green Salon, carefully stitching rosebuds on a handkerchief meant as a gift for her hostess.
Harriet sat across from them, reading from an improving book of manners that her mama had given her. She read each line with just enough dryness to keep Patience constantly on the verge of giggling.
After a time, Harriet glance across the room and said, “Oh good. They’re asleep.”
Following her gaze, Patience saw that Mrs. Wendover, Mrs. Percy, and the Countess Du’Breven were indeed all sound asleep. Mrs. Percy had gone so far as to drape a handkerchief over her face, and it fluttered over her mouth with each breath.
Harriet giggled and exchanged her book of manners for another. She read aloud:
“Oh, Verezzi,” exclaimed Matilda, casting herself at his feet, “I adore you to madness—I love you to distraction. If you have one spark of compassion, let me not sue in vain—reject not one who feels it impossible to overcome the fatal, resistless passion which consumes her.”
“Rise, Signora,” returned Verezzi—“rise; this discourse is improper—"
“Most improper,” broke in Amelia. “Please do not read anymore.”
“But isn’t it scandalous?” Harriet asked, an impish smile on her face. She laughed again. “Can you imagine Lord Adlington’s face if I should cast myself at his feet and confess to a resistless passion that consumed me?”
Despite herself, Patience chuckled at the thought. “Harriet, you’re incorrigible. I thought your mama burned your copy of Zastrossi.”
“Oh, she did, but it was easy enough to acquire another.”
Patience shook her head. “Your mama may be glad she will shortly be relieved of the task of keeping you in check. I wonder if Lord Adlington knows what awaits him.”
With great surprise, Patience saw a satisfied smile on Harriet’s face. “Oh, I suspect he knows. Indeed, I believe he is growing impatient for it.”
Despite knowing Harriet well, Patience gasped slightly at her daring. “You haven’t been…kissing him, have you?”
Harriet looked askance at her. “Well, of course I have. And it’s quite wonderful, let me tell you. When Lord Adlington first began courting me, though, I admit I wasn’t above half-interested.”
“Why not?” Amelia asked. “He has a title, besides being wealthy and quite good looking.”
“He always behaved so properly toward me. What was there to admire in a man who was sure to behave circumspectly in any situation when certain other gentlemen were more likely to steal you away to a hidden corner and plunder kisses from your trembling lips?”
Patience chuckled but found herself in sympathy with this perspective, which was so near to her own. “What made you change your mind?”
Now Harriet laughed. “The discovery that Adlington was not nearly so circumspect after all. At least, not once Mama left us alone so he could propose and I demanded he kiss me so I could make up my mind.”
“Well, I should find kisses distasteful,” Amelia said, her nose in the air.
“Not if the gentleman was as good of a kisser as Adlington,” Harriet retorted in a sing-song voice. “Besides, you just say tha
t because no one has ever wanted to kiss you.”
Patience stared at the two girls with wide eyes, glancing across the room to see if their mothers were still asleep.
“That proves how little you know,” Amelia said. “Lord Aston has tried to kiss me several times, and I daresay he is an expert at kissing. But I would have nothing to do with it.”
Patience stared at her as a lance of pain shot through her. Lord Aston had been trying to kiss Amelia? But when? Surely it was before he had sent her the note. Amelia was a year older than Patience and had been out a season longer. Perhaps that was when it had happened.
“I don’t believe it,” Harriet said.
Amelia got a sly look on her face that Patience knew all too well. “No? Well, perhaps I will prove it to you by letting him kiss me. I’d only need to crook my finger at him, and he’d come running.”
“Yes, prove it then. On the balcony tonight, after supper. Patience and I will hide there to watch.
Patience wanted to argue that she would have nothing to do with the scheme. The last thing she wanted to do was watch Lord Aston kiss Amelia, but she also wanted to know if it was true. Her heart had been acting strangely, and perhaps this might serve to help her make sense of things.
Chapter Twelve
Returning from a successful shoot, Stanton saw that a traveling carriage had drawn up in front of the house, and trunks were still being unloaded from it by an army of servants. He did not much concern himself with the new arrivals until he remembered that the only guests still missing from the party were the Emerys. He very nearly turned right about again to escape.
However, unless he left the Blakemore’s, he would have to face them sooner or later. And so, he went inside and exchanged polite greetings with Mr. and Mrs. Emery and their two pretty daughters. If only he did not know himself to be high on Mrs. Emery’s list of prospective husbands for her Madeline and Eleanor, he might have been more at ease around them.
Fortunately, society was well-accustomed to his reserved and quiet personality, so he was able to retreat to the edge of the hall while Lady Blakemore stood issuing orders to the servants for the distribution of her visitors’ belongings. When two footmen came in carrying a large trunk and passed in front of him, he felt for the doorknob behind him and slipped into the blue salon.
Closing the door softly and quickly behind him, he looked around, knowing that along this side of the house stretched a series of salons and drawing rooms with interconnecting doors, all leading eventually to the ball room. From there, he could exit at the other end of the house and use a back staircase. As he strode to the door that would lead him in the direction he wanted to go, he paused, hearing for the first time the distant strains of a pianoforte.
Intrigued, he went quickly through the rooms, the notes growing louder as he went, until at last, he stepped into the ballroom and found the source of the music. Patience sat at the Broadwood grand piano, playing a haunting, moody piece that was so completely unlike the music usually played for drawing-room entertainment that it caught him by surprise. He had never heard such music and was instantly captivated.
Glancing about the room, he saw there were two maids listening with mouths agape, polishing cloths in their hands while the candelabras they should have been polishing stood untouched. He smiled a bit, as he thought about what a marvelous opportunity it was for them to hear such opulent music. But when they saw him, they hurried back to work.
Careful to step lightly in order to avoid catching Patience’s attention—she had only to look up to see him—he settled in a chair and let the rich bass chords and clear treble notes floating on top surround him. His eyes were no less fascinated as they drifted over the slender column of her neck and her dark curls gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the window behind her. The normal sweetness of her expression had given way to one of deep concentration, her lips turned down at the corners, her brows drawn slightly together.
Stanton wondered if her emotions influenced the interpretation of her playing. He was not a musician, yet he knew the distinction between a technically proficient performance and one in which the notes were endowed with meaning by the way they were played. In Patience, he appreciated the combination of the two. So why, in a long season of social events where young ladies performed in overheated drawing rooms to wilting audiences, had he never heard her play like this?
All too soon, the last chord of the piece died away. Stanton stood and clapped with slow deliberation as he walked toward her. She let out a startled gasp of surprise and bent her head.
“Lord Stanton…you surprised me.”
“No, Miss Wendover, you have surprised me.”
“I know it is not quite the thing to be playing this time of day, but Lady Blakemore assured me that I might do so without giving annoyance, as the ballroom is so far removed from the rest of the house. And indeed, I confess I was thrilled with the opportunity to play such a fine instrument.”
She ran her bare fingers over the polished and gilded wood with a look of admiration he wished she might someday bestow on him. The same look had been in her eye when she first beheld Tempest.
He stepped back a pace to look it over. Square-framed pianofortes were much more common, and indeed, was the instrument that held a place of prominence in the drawing room here at Oakcrest. But this grand piano was a beautiful example of its kind, and he was very aware that Patience was unlikely to have played one before.
“It has five and a half octaves, as you see,” she said, her fingers running in scales across them, the notes rich and clear. “And listen to the tone. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Very. What is the piece you were just playing?”
“John Field’s Nocturne No. 2. It was the last music my father bought me before he died. It was so newly published that he joked with me to be careful not to smudge the ink. It is a bit melancholy, but it will be forever linked to him in my mind, so I’m afraid I may make it even more so when I play.”
Pulling up a chair so that he might sit with her, he said, “It is strange to find a lady who is such an expert at horsemanship and the pianoforte—two very disparate pastimes.”
“Especially taken to the extreme,” she said. Her simple statement held a hint of question, as though she was wary of the direction of their conversation. “And I must confess I do, but they are my only accomplishments and bring me great...comfort. Nothing else makes me feel so alive or stirs my emotions in such a way. I was always grateful my father encouraged me in my passions.”
“Most fathers would not have taken an interest in such matters.”
“Perhaps not, but I was his only child. My mother said he felt the lack of a son, but I knew he loved me for myself.”
Patience gave him a small wistful smile. She began playing again, another piece he was unfamiliar with, but which she obviously knew by heart, since she did not have any sheet music before her.
Tempted as he was to listen to her, he could not resist the opportunity to learn more about her situation. “How came you to be in your aunt’s care for the season? You’ll pardon me for saying so, but it seems the height of folly for her to invite such a pretty young niece, one whom—if you’ll forgive me—she appears to have no affection for, when her own daughter is still unmarried.”
“My uncle is forcing her to. And I am twenty, you know. Once I was out of mourning for my father, I had lost the first blush of youth.”
She continued to play, and his eyes were drawn to the strong, confident movements of her lithe fingers. “What rubbish. Your kind of beauty doesn’t fade.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see what a life married to Sir George will do to my beauty.”
Appalled and sickened by this revelation, he dropped his hand onto hers, stilling them with a clash of notes. “What is this?”
She did not look at him. “It was made very clear to me last night that such is my aunt’s intention. And from the way he couldn’t keep his eyes from me, it is his as well.”
She met his eyes then, and he saw that they had welled with tears. “I assure you she could. I cannot believe I am confiding in you, but I couldn’t help myself. The terror is enough to choke me.”
He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Listen to me; you have nothing to fear from your aunt. Do you understand? You will do precisely as you wish for your future and have whatever happiness you choose. I will see to it.”
“But how can you?”
“It may feel like your aunt has a great deal of power over you at the moment, but she has not yet come against such a foe as I can be.” He pressed his handkerchief into her hands. “Now, dry your eyes.”
When she had done so and given him back his handkerchief, he lifted her fingers from the keys and brought them to his lips. He pressed a kiss there and then held her palm to his cheek, closing his eyes briefly at the silk of her skin against his. When he opened them, the fierce wonder in her eyes very nearly undid the moorings of his restraint.
“Will you play like this for the company tonight?” he asked.
She shook her head immediately, not even pausing to consider it. “Oh, no. How can I?”
“Quite easily, I imagine. If you will only allow others to see you for who you really are.”
Chapter Thirteen
Patience smoothed her hand down her evening gown of cream gauze over an underdress of orange-blossom satin and frowned at Dora. Her maid had informed her, while dressing her hair, that the Emery family had arrived, and that knowledge had led Patience to changing her choice of dress for the evening, as she was certain Dora had intended.
“I shouldn’t have worn this,” she said aloud, annoyed with herself. The simple blue silk would have been more appropriate; there really was no need for the more extravagant gown.
“Oh, but you do look lovely, miss—if I may say so.”
“But why am I wasting it on tonight?”
“Now you know as well as I do that those Emery girls will have their eye on Lord Stanton. And they’ll be as pretty as two kittens tonight, mark my words.”
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