by Mary Balogh
“My dear Mrs. Penhallow,” Sir Clayton said, seating her in the box with courtly care and bowing to her before taking his own seat beside her, “how you do outshine all the other ladies present.”
She smiled at him. “It is a very splendid theater, is it not?” she said.
“I knew you would, of course,” he said, “but now I am sure of it. I must be the envy of every other gentleman present.”
“How kind of you to say so,” she murmured. “Have you seen this play before, sir? I have been assured that it is well worth watching.”
“I doubt I will be able to force my eyes to turn to the stage,” he said, “when there is something far more delightful to look at—or should I say someone?”
“I do hope Mr. Westhaven and his party will not miss the beginning of the performance,” she said.
“Do you have a long acquaintance with the gentleman, ma’am?” he asked. “And must I be jealous of him?”
“I have known him all my life,” she said. “He was a particular friend of my late husband’s. And mine, too.”
“Ah,” he said, smiling, “then I will not be jealous. For if you have known him all your life, ma’am, and he is still just a friend, I will suppose he can never be more to you or you to him.”
This speech was delivered with a great deal of smiling and bowing. Alice was glad she had brought a fan with her. She used it, though the theater was not yet overly hot. And she gazed about her with a deliberate interest. If Piers was much longer, she would throttle him. If he failed altogether to put in an appearance, she would borrow a dueling pistol and shoot him.
And of course, she thought, Sir Clayton’s final words ringing in her head, Piers would always be just a friend. Of course she would never mean more to him. She had known that from the time she had been fourteen, as thin and flat as a blade of grass, her hair still in long braids and herself almost totally invisible to the gentleman. She had feared it the following year when he and Web were coming home and she had finally persuaded her father to let her put her hair up and had looked with satisfaction at her newly developing figure in the glass. She had known it for sure as soon as they did come home and she saw the look of warm admiration in Webster Penhallow’s eyes and the look of appreciative amusement in Piers’.
She had known it during the two and a half years of Web’s courtship, while he waited for her to grow up and reach marriageable age. And on her wedding day when Piers had taken her waist between his hands and kissed her cheek and smiled with twinkling amusement at her blushing face and told her quite outrageously that he envied Web more than he could say for a wedding night to look forward to with an innocent and timid bride.
She had known it through nine years of marriage, when he had been more like a member of their family during the long spells when he was at home than just a very close and dear friend.
He and Web had always been like brothers. His relationship with her during those nine years had been light and teasing and comfortable, though he had cried with her over Nicholas and she with him over Harriet and the stillborn daughter she had been too long giving birth to. And when he had posted down from London after Web’s death, he had held her close for a full, silent hour, rocking her against him, soothing her numb pain, crying for both her and himself, though she herself had been unable to know the relief of tears.
Yes, Piers had always been a friend and always would be, she fervently hoped. For life would lose its final light if that friendship were ever withdrawn. And friendship was enough.
She enjoyed her freedom and independence. She wanted no more than friendship from any man.
“You have a classically beautiful profile,” Sir Clayton said. “I have been sitting silently here, admiring it, ma’am.”
Alice smiled and began a new round of small talk. Would Piers never get there?
***
Miss Cassandra Borden was late going to her room to dress for the evening at the theater, though her mother fretted at the lengthy delay. Mr. Bosley had been giving the girl advice on how to fix her interest with Mr. Westhaven.
“You must always wear your costliest frocks and jewels, Cassie,” he had said. “Tonight, of course, you will not have much choice of frock as most of your new rig-out has hot been delivered yet. But you must wear the rubies, for sure. I am glad I had the foresight to buy them and the garnets and emeralds yesterday. Wear the necklace, the bracelet, and the earrings. Oh, and the brooch, too, of course. And finger them, Cassie, as if you did not know you did so. Then he will look at them and know how costly they are.”
“Yes, Uncle,” she said.
“But a young girl cannot wear rubies, brother,” Lady Margam said, “It will be more proper for Cassandra to wear the pearls you sent her for her last birthday.”
“Mere baubles!” he said dismissively.
“Come along, Cassandra,” her mother said. “ It is time to get ready. It does not do to keep a gentleman waiting, you know.”
Mr. Bosley roared with laughter. “There is nothing better, “ he said. “Keep them hopping, Cassie. Keep them on their toes. Keep them anxious.”
“Yes, Uncle,” she said.
“And smile at him, Cass,” he said, “and flutter your eyelashes in that way you girls have. And look at him as if you thought he was the only gentleman worth looking at. He will be at your feet in a week.”
“Will he, Uncle?” she said.
“Come along, Cassandra,” her mother said.
And finally they went.
The ladies were not yet ready, Mr. Westhaven was informed when he stepped punctually from his carriage and was admitted to the house on Russell Square. But it probably would not have mattered if they had been. It seemed that his host had decided to entertain and impress him.
Mr. Westhaven accepted a chair in a tastelessly but expensively decorated sitting room, took a glass of port from Mr. Bosley, and prepared to be entertained.
He was not disappointed. Interspersed with comments on horses and politics and boxing mills were details of just how large a fortune was to be made in fish and just how eager an enormously wealthy and single and lonely gentleman was to settle a large portion of his fortune on an only niece.
“When she see fit to marry, of course, sir,” a genial Mr. Bosley said, beaming at his guest. “I would not consider it wise or good business to let my hard-earned pounds rest in the palm of a mere female. Cass’s home would probably be full to overflowing with bonnets and feathers and fans.”
Mr. Westhaven joined in the hearty laughter. No, that would not be wise at all, he assured his host. Better far to entrust the fortune to the girl’s husband.
“When she sees fit to marry, of course,” he added, and laughed with his host again.
He was vastly entertained. He could not remember when he had been more diverted. It was a pity he would have to wait until the next day to share his amusement with Allie. Doubtless he would not be able to have a single private word with her that evening, what with his responsibility to entertain Miss Borden and her mama and Allie’s preoccupation with this fellow from Bath, who had better not turn out to be a fortune hunter after all, if he knew what was good for him.
His amusement was complete when a servant opened the door to admit the two ladies. He rose to his feet and bowed. Lady Margam looked all that was proper for the occasion. And so did Miss Borden, by Jove! Piers thought. She looked quite exquisitely pretty in white satin and lace, her hair in masses of auburn ringlets, her eyes lowered, her cheeks becomingly flushed. She wore a single strand of pearls at her throat, doubtless the mother’s influence. He had half expected to find her loaded to the ground with costly and vulgar jewels of the fond uncle’s choosing.
But it was as much amusement as admiration he felt as he helped the girl on with her wrap and ushered both ladies out to his waiting carriage. Amusement that he found himself in such a situation, about to appear before the ton with a blushing member of the infantry, and singled out quite markedly by her uncle as an eligibl
e husband. Mr. Bosley must be well aware of the baron’s title that was so close to being his, he thought. Perhaps he was not as well aware of the fact that the present baron was in his early sixties and hale and hearty enough to live to be a hundred. And perhaps he did not know that Mr. Westhaven need not fall all over himself for that fishy fortune, being a very wealthy man in his own right.
Good Lord, he thought, taking his seat in the carriage opposite the two ladies, he did not even know what color the girl’s eyes were. He pursed his lips and concentrated on not laughing aloud. He began to talk, using only the surface of his mind to do so. He had a feeling that what he had said to Allie about cooing to the girl most of the time was probably not a gross exaggeration. The mother was reasonably sensible; the girl was mute.
Thank goodness Allie was at the theater before him, he thought fifteen minutes later. Of course, it would be strange if she were not, since there were barely five minutes left before the start of the performance. He grinned at her behind the backs of his ladies and exchanged bows with her escort. The introductions were made.
Sir Clayton Lansing was a handsome enough man, he supposed after a brief penetrating glance before he seated first Lady Margam and then Miss Borden. He took his own seat next to the latter and asked her if she was in any draft from the door. He did so merely for the amusement and pleasure of seeing her eyes peep up at him from beneath those lowered lashes and of hearing her whispered, “No, I thank you, sir. You are very kind.”
Lansing was well enough for those females who liked long, thin males with long, thin faces and hair that had been plastered to the head for neatness after being parted with ruthless symmetry down one side. Perhaps it was Allie he should have been asking about drafts. But not from doorways. The man was leaning close enough to be sending drafts down her gown to her toes.
She looked remarkably handsome in a dark green gown with Web’s diamonds at her throat. But then Allie always did look handsome, he thought. No matter what time of day he had walked in on her and Web— and he had walked in at all hours—she had always been neat and elegant.
It was strange to see her with another man. A man who was not Web, that was. They had been a devoted couple. Theirs had been everyone’s dream of the perfect marriage. For the last several years before his friend’s death he had ceased to think of them as separate individuals. They had been Web-and-Allie, his dearest friends.
Strange, really, when he and Web had been almost inseparable as boys and as young men. She had been Alice Carpenter, the rector’s daughter, an awkward child during one visit home, an alluring young woman the next. She might have come between them, Web and him. But she had not. It had been so very obvious from the start that she loved his friend. She had made his short life a very happy one indeed. Piers had been quite unable to resent her—or Web.
It was strange to see her now with someone else. Strange to think of her with anyone else. She belonged to Web. He felt a quite unreasonable instinct to stride across the box, pick up the baronet and his chair both together, and set them down three feet farther from Allie than they now were.
The thought amused him so much that he had to purse his lips again. And he caught Alice’s eye across the box and winked. She smiled back.
If he had expected to have to entertain his young guest with coos during the interval, Mr. Westhaven was agreeably surprised.
Three young gentleman with whom he remembered to have only the most passing acquaintance had decided that they were his boon companions and called upon him in his box. It was very civil and sporting of them, as he remarked to Alice before the play resumed, when he had the chance to exchange a few words with her. He could not imagine what he had done to earn such cordial treatment.
All three young men exhibited identical surprise that their friend, Mr. Westhaven, was escorting a pretty young lady. They had not noticed her from the pit when they spotted their friend and decided to pay him their respects. But they all swallowed their disappointment at not being allowed ten minutes of the pleasure of his conversation, and set themselves to charming the little beauty.
“Their kindness is overwhelming,” Mr. Westhaven said to Alice. And bending closer to whisper in her ear, he added, “Do you think they have heard of the fishy fortune?”
“Piers!” she said, and hid her explosion of laughter in a cough.
“All three of them are notoriously light in the pocket,” he said.
There was time to say no more. His three newly acquired friends were taking their leave and Miss Borden was feeling faint.
“I shall take you outside into the corridor, my love,” her mother was saying.
“Allow me, ma’am,” Mr. Westhaven said, extending his arm to the girl. “Do lean on me, Miss Borden. I shall promenade you outside in the corridor and you will be feeling more the thing in a moment.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at him for a fleeting moment to reveal to his interested gaze a pair of fine green eyes. “I am being so foolish.”
“Not at all,” he said. “The theater is almost stuffy enough to give me the vapors, too. Indeed, if you had not needed my supporting arm just when you did, I believe 1 would have needed yours.”
“Oh,” she said, favoring him with an uncomprehending look from those eyes. Whoever had selected her gown, Mr. Westhaven thought with decided interest, had done so with the full knowledge that she had the bosom to do it justice.
“This is your first visit to a London theater, Miss Borden?” he asked conversationally. “And how are you enjoying it?”
“Oh, it is quite splendid!” she said breathlessly. “I thank you, sir. I just wish...”
He bent his head closer to hers. Her dark lashes had a most interesting way of fanning across her cheeks. And those cheeks were flushed again. She was one of those fortunate females whose necks did not become blotchy when they blushed.
“What is it you wish?” he asked.
“I just wish Mama and Uncle would not...” she said in a voice so small that he had to lower his head even closer to hers. “But I am sorry. Please forgive me.”
“You are forgiven, “ he said promptly. “But what, pray, was the fault? What do you wish your mother and your uncle would not?”
She looked full into his eyes for a moment, her own large and troubled and trusting. Then she lowered them again.
“Try to marry me to you,” she said.
Mr. Westhaven resisted the urge to shout with laughter. It would not, no, it certainly would not do, he thought. The child was a troubled infant. “And is that what they are trying to do?” he asked.
“Because you are to be Lord Berringer one day,” she said in a breathless rush, “and because you are fashionable. And it is said you are in search of a wife.”
“I see,” he said. “But of course, your uncle and your mama will be eager to see to it that you make a suitable match now that you are of marriageable age. And so very lovely, too. I daresay they have not fixed their choice irrevocably on me. Soon you will be going to balls and routs and whatnot, and the young bucks will be killing each other for the favor of one of your smiles.”
But there was no drawing a smile from her.
“Uncle says it must be you,” she said.
“Does he?” Mr. Westhaven said, pursing his lips. “And you have no wish to marry someone in doddering old age? It is quite understandable, ma’am. I shall solve the problem by not offering for you, shall I?”
“It is not that,” she said. “But I did not think it fair to you, sir. You would certainly not wish to be associated with my family, Uncle being not quite respectable, though I love him dearly, of course. He has always shown nothing but kindness to me.”
Mr. Westhaven raised his eyebrows. “I have yet to be persuaded that being in trade makes a man less than respectable,” he said.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I wish I had not spoken. Indeed, I do.”
“I do not,” he said. “Shall we be friends, Miss Borden? And later, much, much later, we wi
ll both decide whether or not we wish to be something else? Come, that would be a comfortable arrangement, don’t you agree?” He smiled at her, forcing amusement back and kindness to the fore. The poor infant. She must have been frightened out of her wits by two overbearing adults who between them were trying to take away all her freedom of choice.
“I would like that,” she said, peeping up at him once more. “You are kind, sir.”
“Not at all,” he said, patting her hand in an avuncular manner and feeling the full amusement of his unaccustomed role. “Shall we return to my box? I believe the play is resuming.”
A sweet and thoroughly delightful little infant, he thought a couple of minutes later as he turned his eyes toward the stage, his lips pursed. He could have shared his merriment, but his attention was soon caught by the action on stage. He did not feel Alice’s eyes on him.
***
Alice felt justly punished for upsetting Phoebe and her brother by insisting on keeping her theater engagement rather than sitting with Mary and Richard. She had not had a pleasant evening.
She dismissed her maid later that night and climbed gratefully into bed. For the rest of her time in London—perhaps she would be able to get away in another week or so—she would content herself with the tedium of a sickroom that had no business being a sickroom any longer, Richard in particular should have been outdoors and using up some of his pent-up energy.
She had had some agreeable conversation with Lady Margam, who remembered Web, though he had not been such a particular friend of Lord Margam’s as Piers had been. But on the whole the evening had been thoroughly disagreeable. There had been all the expenditure of energy on turning aside Sir Clayton’s compliments and keeping the conversation light and inane. And there had been all the annoyance of seeing Piers dancing attendance on a shallow little girl, and knowing that there was every likelihood that he would end up marrying her or someone just like her.
Harriet had been just like her. Alice and Web had been horrified when he had returned to Westhaven Park after one of his absences, bringing with him a bride. Harriet had been very pretty and very sweet and very, very empty-headed. It had been painful to try to keep a conversation going with her.
