“I wouldn’t dream of denying you,” James said with a wry smile.
Nora turned and looked at William, but he was looking past her and her brothers in the direction of the balcony.
“There!” he said, a smile spreading quickly across his face. “I knew the old boy would be here before us.”
Nora turned and caught sight of Lord Colbourne leaning against the bannister, caught up in conversation with three young ladies.
Chapter 4
Gerard smiled stiffly in the room full of merrymakers, a familiar weariness creeping over him. This subtle exhaustion was one of the many consequences of his father’s death a year ago, one of the symptoms of having to carry a crumbling estate, the management of a new title, and the emotional stress of coping with the death of a man he had loved and treasured more than anyone in the world. He stood now in a corner of the dance room, feeling stiff and formal in his high collar and stylish cravat, all things that his mother, Lady Beth Colbourne, had chosen for him at the tailor to make him seem more approachable.
“You must go to the Emersleys’,” she’d said only yesterday on the coach. “I know how you are about social engagements, and while my love for you might overlook a multitude of sins, I must say that society’s will not.”
“I think,” he’d retorted as politely as he could manage, “that society might be made to understand that I’ve suffered a recent loss and therefore do not feel ready to be parading about a dance floor.”
“Recent.” His mother had laid a hand on his arm. “It’s been a year, and while we will not forget your father’s legacy, people are beginning to wonder if you’re thinking to keep the title of baron to yourself forever.”
He knew her implication as surely then as he did now, surveying the crowd. She wanted him to be married to a woman of higher nobility, or at least a woman with a sizeable dowry who could infuse the estate with cash and strengthen their connections. Gerard had always been confused about that, even as a lad; how all the games and all the circles seemed to be swirling around the formation of these strained marriages where people fit well in the eyes of society and then, once trapped into a commitment they could never escape, were left to fend for themselves with a stranger. His father hadn’t ever pressured him to such a marriage, but then, when his father was alive, the estate was in a better place.
With rising taxes and a particularly wet harvest, the Derbyshire residence had been struggling just to keep the tenants housed and fed, much less have extra to put into healthy investments or better the family name.
Gerard felt strange, watching the couples turning in circles around the floor, watching all the laughter and light-hearted behaviour. He wondered if he was the only one facing difficult times, or if all these beautiful people were also only pretending to enjoy themselves. He wondered who else on the floor was really there because they had to find a wife or a husband, if they were all missing each other’s true nature in search of the material things that really counted in society.
He shook his head as though to clear it. Whimsy had taken hold again, and at the root of his thinking, Gerard did not often indulge in any such romanticism. He understood why his mother wanted him to be married. If something happened to him, Lady Colbourne and his little sister Diana would be left with nothing but a shell to live in, the whole of the estate, crumbling though it was, passing on to the next male relative. He owed it to them to marry well and find a way to pad their fortunes and bring them both peace of mind.
“Lord Colbourne, is it?” a voice asked at his side, accompanied by two light titters of laughter. He knew even before he turned to inspect the owner of the voice that it would be one of the daughters of the landed gentry who always seemed to flock about him – pretty, wealthy girls with curls and intention, eager to make an impression on the young baron.
He tried to remember to be kind, that they were trapped in the same cycle he had been lamenting a moment ago, and he turned to the young lady. She was familiar to him, actually. He couldn’t quite place it, but he thought those dark eyes and the black hair had danced across from him at some point. He bowed carefully over her hand, feeling uncomfortable with her two friends flanking her like guards.
“My lady,” he said, still fumbling for her name.
“It’s so good to see you again,” the girl said with a smile, blushing all the way up to her cheeks. “After we parted at the Assembly Rooms I wondered if our paths would cross again.”
Assembly Rooms. Yes, now Gerard remembered. The dark-haired lass from Bath. “I don’t think it too astonishing that I should encounter Miss Eleanor again so early in the London season,” he said smoothly. “After all, your father often does business during this time of year, does he not?” Her father was a trading tycoon who had made his fortune with the East India Trading Company.
She waved her hand in a coy manner, showing off a delicate lace glove that he knew must have come from some exotic location. “Oh, Papa is always here and there, but if I let my schedule be determined by his I’d be in Scotland in the summer and the Indies in the winter. There’s no accounting for a man’s finicky ways.”
“Well, I’m sure his travelling has afforded you with a fine living,” Gerard said, a little more sharply then he’d intended. The lady’s face iced over.
“If you’re implying that I’m ungrateful –”
Gerard sighed. “No, I was only making conversation.”
“You were a hand better at conversation in Bath.”
“We only had to dance in Bath.”
Gerard was saved at this uncomfortable juncture by the greeting of a familiar and desperately welcome voice at his elbow.
“Gerard, old chap! Am I glad to see you? Do you know that my foxes have grown comfortable in their dens since you were last there with your dogs?”
He turned and saw William Pembroke, his two brothers and his little sister Nora all standing in a group close at hand. He hoped his relief didn’t show too obviously on his face.
“Well, we can’t allow your foxes to grow comfortable,” he said with a smile. “I don’t know if you’re acquainted with Miss Eleanor here. Her father is the trading merchant Frank Ellis.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” William said, bowing over the lady’s hand. She blushed and looked from one Pembroke to the other, clearly reassuring herself that if all continued to be strained between her and the gentleman at her side, there was hope for her yet.
“I’m sure I could never be caught dead at a fox hunt,” she said with a slight giggle that grated dreadfully on Gerard’s nerves. “It’s all so terrifying and exciting. Far too much for a lady, I’m sure.”
“Well, it’s not you that’s to be caught dead. It’s the fox.” This statement came from Nora Pembroke, who had been standing a little behind her brothers with her hands folded and her face set in a demure expression. It took Gerard by surprise, actually. Nora had always been a fixture in William’s life, and so he had grown up alongside her. But when he looked again at her to respond to her answer, he found himself starting a little inwardly at how much she had changed since the last time he had really noticed her.
She was still very slight and petite, but her blue eyes against the pale yellow of her gown seemed to pierce directly through him. Her hair was soft and brown and framed her features beautifully. And there was something about her lips that spoke of intelligence and wit as well as physical loveliness.
He smiled at her response, clearly meant in a teasing way, but just as quickly saw that Eleanor had taken offense again. She snapped open a fan. “I know what a fox hunt is,” she said sharply. Then she turned her attention to Gerard. “Perhaps a dance later, Lord Colbourne?”
He strove for a response, taken aback that she had asked him rather than the other way around, and in the end came up with only a nod and a bow. She swept away followed by her retinue, her skirts a cloud of silk all about her. When she’d gone, William turned to Nora with a mischievous smile.
“Must you torment poor
young ladies you’ve never met?”
“Oh, I’ve met Eleanor. We stayed near her family when we would vacation in Bath, if you remember correctly,” Nora said innocently, that same smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “And I don’t believe any torment I put her through just now compares with the time when we were children and she took my shoes from the beach while I was wading. Mother had my head when she found out I’d been so scandalous, and there was no way to hide it when I had to walk through town without so much as a stocking.”
Gerard blinked, taken aback again. There was that arch tone again, the mocking about the eyes. Nora Pembroke was clearly as clever and bright and adventurous as her brothers. But speaking openly of stockings, even childhood mishaps regarding them, in a room full of London’s finest society, was more than Gerard could understand. He cleared his throat and looked over at William.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he said with a smile. “Unlike your sister here, I’m afraid I don’t recognise the faces I see all around me, and I feel that after only a year’s separation from society I am being forced to start again as though I’d never been in it.”
The first strains of a waltz began, and James and David melted away to take two young ladies to the floor. William gave a little bow.
“I promised Mother a turn about the floor,” he said with a smile, “and I know she won’t do anything but a waltz the whole evening long. Save a place for me in the conversation.” He turned and made his way from the crowd, leaving Gerard suddenly, uncomfortably, alone with Nora. He couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw a light tinge of pink climb into her restrained cheeks. She gave a weak smile.
“You like to waltz, Lord Colbourne?”
“I do, on occasion.” He wasn’t sure if she was asking for dance, but it felt odd to offer one. After all, the lovely lady before him was still Nora Pembroke, the girl who had once lain in wait in the hedge bushes and then leapt out to shower him and William with a bucket of thistles she’d gathered at the lake.
“As do I,” she was saying. “But I’m just as pleased to stand and watch the revelry.” She turned and looked out on the gathered crowd. “Don’t they look like wildflowers out there, spinning around just as they ought?”
Gerard wasn’t certain how to answer, and so he merely nodded as though he understood her meaning. Clearly unperturbed by his confusion, Nora pressed on. “I only mean to say that there are so many colours and varieties out there, and yet they all move together as though a single wind were blowing them from one side of the room to another.”
Gerard watched the dance for a moment, noticing what she was saying for the first time. He turned and looked at her in mild appreciation, but her face was still turned towards the dancers. She seemed genuinely comfortable sitting there, not dancing, just talking. He felt suddenly uncomfortable, as though his mother were standing on one side of him pushing him toward Nora and, reminded thusly of his responsibility towards marriage, he no longer felt at ease in the girl’s presence.
“Are you enjoying the ball?” she asked, clearly making an attempt to bridge the silence.
Gerard searched for an answer that would be truthful without being insulting. “I find that affairs like this are not really to my liking,” he said at last.
“Too many people?” she asked.
“Too many duties and responsibilities.”
“You speak of duties and it makes me question whether or not you understand the purpose of a ball.”
Gerard shifted to the other foot. He found that he no longer wanted to continue the conversation, feeling the weariness descend again in response to her enthusiasm. “Perhaps the spoken purpose of a ball is not the real intended purpose.” He thought about all the people out there dancing and mentally considering whether or not their partner would be appropriate for marriage. It was the worst possible sort of function, he thought suddenly, in which to meet one’s future spouse. How could you know what they really thought when all you had were momentary sentences and fragments of conversation in a noisy, posturing room of perfect people?
He turned and looked at Nora. She did not answer him, but instead had a tiny frown wrinkling her forehead.
Chapter 5
Nora felt the strain descending on their conversation and try as she might she could not drive it away. It was as though, left alone with her for only a few moments, Gerard had grown distant and cold to make a point to her, and the only point she could possibly imagine he would have to make was a painful one about the way that he saw her. What did he mean, saying that the spoken purpose of the ball was not its intention? She opened her mouth, trying to formulate an answer, and then shut it again just as quickly. William was always saying that she ought to try silence more and explanations less, that that was the way to make sure one didn’t sound like a fool.
She curtsied and turned aside. “I think I’m going to retrieve some punch. Would you like any?”
She had to turn around to see Gerard shake his head. He was so handsome standing there that it nearly took her breath away: tall, with dark hair and grey eyes. She wondered if he knew exactly what effect his silence, composure, and stature had on women, the way that he looked at you and seemed to really see you. But as attractive as he was, his rejection seemed to hurt all the more.
She accepted it, turning and walking to the punch table, and ladled herself out a generous serving. It was good but bitter and left her more thirsty than before. She drank two more glassfuls and then danced a round with a young man she didn’t know and returned to the side afterwards feeling slightly better, or, she thought dizzily, at least not any worse. In fact, she felt a little light-headed and giddy again as she had before the sobering conversation with Gerard; before her girlish dreams had been put back in their proper place. Her brothers were off the dance floor again, and Gerard was still standing by that lonely banister. David caught her by the elbow and spun her in a circle.
“You’re looking a bit flushed, Nora,” he commented with a wide smile. “Has some gentleman made you fall madly in love with him this evening?”
She bit back the disappointment and smiled as she always did, making light of the situation. “None will have me, I’m afraid,” she said lightly, hoping that her voice was quiet enough to escape Gerard’s notice. “But I can see that you are enjoying the dance floor immensely. Will you tell me if one of these ladies is to be the future Mrs David Pembroke, or shall I guess for myself which one it will be?”
David, usually difficult to embarrass, blushed a little. “Nora, you oughtn’t to give me airs around these girls. If I give the game away too quickly the fight will be ill won.”
Nora nodded soberly, but just at that moment, before she could fully regain her equilibrium, another tall man came up to her and bowed appropriately, extending his hand in greeting. “Miss Pembroke. A delight to see you again.”
She recognised him from an excursion she’d made to a fine overlook in the neighbouring county but remembered vaguely that he had not been from the county in question. He had been from the city, if she remembered correctly, or was that his friend? “A delight to see you as well,” she said, smiling broadly. “I so enjoyed our excursion and the picnicking hour. Did you ever imagine that sitting atop such a small undulation you could see so very far? I thought I could pick out the sheep in the long grass three counties over.”
The young man smiled, his eyes twinkling. Yes, she decided, he had to have been the visitor from London. “It is new for me to see the countryside in any sphere, so attached as I am to the city, and this city in particular,” he said. “My friend and I both enjoyed our stay immensely.”
“Do you still see your friend often?” she asked, smiling a little at one particular memory from their outing.
“Not as much as we used to, but we live in different cities, and I could hardly expect us to maintain the same level of camaraderie over such a difference. Regrettably, he is traveling abroad for much of the season this year and I doubt we shall cross pa
ths with him. You shall have to content yourself with my company in his stead.”
Nora smiled kindly. “Do not fear, good sir. Your company will be more than adequate. In truth, I was not so very fond of your friend, and I enjoyed you much more. I know it was four years ago now since our little excursion, but I still remember quite clearly that your friend seemed more interested in wooing the ladies than in looking at the sights, and a dreadful lot of his wooing time was spent discussing the races at Tattersall’s, which I’m sure a gentleman such as yourself would understand do not in any way interest a lady who is denied entrance to such an establishment.” Nora thought absently that she felt comfortable talking to this young man, far more comfortable than she would usually expect to feel under the circumstances. “That is odd, isn’t it? Men always want to ramble on to ladies about politics and racehorses and business ventures, and yet we are considered bluestocking if we give even the slightest response. I don’t believe it’s entirely fair.”
A Baron Worth Loving: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 3
