Encounter with Venus (7 page)

“Of course,” George said.

“No, no, it’s really not necessary,” Elaine said in an agony of frustration. “Let’s not make a fuss. I’ll just go and change.” And she ran from the room.

When the others in the room returned their attentions to their former conversations, Felicia turned to her brother with a glare. “You did that on purpose!” she accused.

He gave her an innocent look. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I was watching. You were trying to get away from her, weren’t you?”

George shrugged. “Not an easy task, I assure you. I was a bit desperate, but it was a clumsy ruse, I admit.”

Felicia sighed. “I know. She’s a more determined creature than I imagined her to be. You were right, Georgie, about my friends being—how did you put it?— flirtatiously aggressive.”

“Not all of them,” George said, turning his eyes toward the love seat where Livy was still sitting.

Felicia followed his glance. “No, no one can call my Livy flirtatious.”

“But your Livy seems to have put herself out this evening. Primped herself in fine shape. Good old Horace must have made quite an impression on her.”

“Don’t be a chinch,” his sister sneered. “Livy has no interest in that peacocky bag-pudding.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” George said, noting that Livy had turned toward Horace and was listening to him attentively. “She doesn’t seem to find him a bag-pudding. Besides, why else would she have taken her hair down and dressed up in red?”

“It wasn’t Horace she dressed up for, you bubblehead,” Felicia said in the pitying tone one uses for a slow-witted child. “It was for you!”

“For me?” He gave a snort of disbelief. “Why on earth would she—?”

“Because she realized you thought of her as a fusty old maid whom I’d invited out of kindness. And she wanted to disabuse you of the notion.”

George’s jaw dropped. “But I never said such a thing!”

“You didn’t have to say it. It was in your face. Even Leyton saw it.”

“Good God!”

“Yes, quite!” Felicia said sternly.

George was speechless for a moment. That he could have so cruelly offended the object of his youthful infatuation discomposed him. He did not like to think of himself as unkind. True, his treatment of Elaine might be considered unkind, but that was not the same thing. After all, the immodest chit had brought it on herself. But Miss Olivia Henshaw had done nothing to deserve an insult. She’d only grown older. “Felicia,” he muttered, grasping her hands in his, “you must tell her that I never... that it’s not at all what she...” He stopped, realizing that it was a situation he could not explain. “You must apologize for me,” he concluded lamely, dropping his hold on her hands.

“I certainly must not,” his sister snapped. “You must do it yourself. And right now. Come!”

She pulled him by his arm across the room to the love seat where Livy and her two companions still sat. They stopped speaking and looked up in surprise at the intruders. “Excuse me, Livy dear, for interrupting, but I must take Leyton from you,” Felicia explained. “He must help me to persuade Lady Stoneham to play something on the pianoforte for dancing.”

“Ah, are we to have some dancing?” Horace asked, rising. “How delightful.”

Leyton rose also. “I’m at your service, my love,” he assured Felicia, “although you are tearing me away from charming company.”

“I’m sorry, Livy, to steal away half your company,” Felicia said to her friend, “but I’ve brought you my brother as a replacement.”

“A poor replacement, I’m afraid,” George said, bowing.

“Perhaps,” Livy said with a smile, “but do sit down, my lord, and we shall see,”

Felicia gave her brother a meaningful nudge and went off with her husband. George sat down beside Livy. “If there will be dancing,” he said, “I hope you’ll stand up with me for the first one.”

“I say, Frobisher,” Horace cried, “that’s a bit cheeky of you! I should have that honor, having been here beside the lady far longer than—”

“Right you are, Horace,” came a voice from behind them, and with a trilling laugh, Elaine came floating round from behind the love seat to reveal herself newly bedecked in a flowing gown of lilac brocade. “If anyone deserves her hand, it’s you.”

Livy’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think, Miss Whitmore, that I’m incapable of deciding for myself who deserves my hand?”

“I didn’t mean that at all,” Elaine explained with self-assured nonchalance. “I only meant that his lordship couldn’t have expected me to change so quickly. If he’d known I’d be here so soon, I’m sure he would have asked
me
for the first dance, wouldn’t you, Georgie?”

Helplessly trapped, George pulled himself to his feet. “Undoubtedly,” he said, his mouth tight.

Livy looked up at him with a slightly ironic smile of sympathy. “Then of course,
Georgie,
your invitation to me must be rescinded.”

“I suppose it must,” George said, uncomfortably aware that she was laughing at him. “I’m so very sorry to have caused this... this imbroglio—”

“You needn’t be,” Livy assured him, “for after all, I’m thus spared the embarrassment of having to choose between two requests.”

“Then I can only say thank you for excusing me,” George said, and with another bow, walked off with Elaine on his arm.

He did not look at his companion until they’d crossed the room to the pianoforte, where Lady Stoneham was riffling through music sheets. Then he glanced down at the girl on his arm. She was looking quite lovely in her lilac gown, and she was smiling up at him with a glow of triumph. “If you’re too gentlemanly to thank me, Georgie, you might at least smile at me,” she prompted.

“In the first place, ma’am, I cannot smile when you call me Georgie. Only my sister has that right. And in the second place, for what am I to thank you?”

“For saving you from the necessity of dancing with that sharp-tongued Miss Henshaw, of course. Don’t I deserve even a little smile for that?”

It would be gentlemanly, he supposed, to give her that smile she was begging for, but he had no stomach for gentlemanliness at this moment. It took all his strength to keep from wringing her neck.

TEN

Lady Stoneham played the piano and her husband turned her pages, but everyone else participated in the dancing—a quadrille and three lively country dances. By the end of the last—an animated exercise called Horatio’s Fancy—most of the dancers were happy to sit down and catch their breaths. Not so Horace, who went up to Lady Stoneham and asked if she would offer them a waltz.

“If you’re going to waltz, Horace,” Livy spoke up, “I hope you’ll excuse me. I’m quite done in. In fact, with your permission, Felicia, I’m for bed.”

George watched her leave with a feeling of desperation. He’d not managed a moment alone with her all evening. But desperation often gives birth to inspiration. “I say, Horace,” he said, his eyes lighting up, “if you’re set on waltzing, why don’t you stand up with Elaine? I’m certain she’s up-to-the-mark at waltzing, and we would all take great pleasure in watching you.”

The others applauded in agreement. Horace promptly opened his arms to Elaine, who, blushing with pleasure at being the center of attention for something more admirable than a stained dress, stepped into them. As soon as the music started and all eyes were on the dancers, George tiptoed out of the room, dashed across the hallway to the stairs, and caught up with Livy at the second landing. “I say, Miss Henshaw,” he said breathlessly, “can you spare me a moment?”

She looked round, her expression changing from surprise to suspicion. “Is it urgent? I am rather tired.”

“It’s urgent to me.” He threw her a pleading look. “We could sit down right here on the stairs—”

“What? Here?” she asked, laughing. “Like a couple of children?”

“Yes, why not?”

“Very well, my lord.” She gathered up her skirts, sat down on the top step, and looked up at him bright-eyed, like a little girl waiting for a bedtime story.

He perched on the step below. “Must you keep calling me ‘my lord’?” he asked.

“What else shall I call you? Surely you don’t wish me to call you Georgie, as so many others do.”

“Not so many others. Only Felicia. It’s a carryover from childhood.”

“I’ve heard another call you that,” she reminded him.

“You mean Miss Whitmore. Yes, but I’ve put a stop to that.” He looked up at her with boyish appeal. “Can’t you manage a plain George?”

“Very well, plain George,” she responded with a twinkle. “Now, what is the urgent business you wish to talk to me about?”

He hesitated. “This isn’t easy. I don’t quite know how to start.”

“You’d better find a way. I don’t intend to sit here hugging my knees for very long.”

He took a deep breath. “Very well, here goes. It seems that, at our first meeting, I offended you. I’d like to explain that I—”

Livy’s whole body stiffened, and her expression darkened. “Is that your urgent business?”

“Well, yes. I wanted to apologize—”

“To apologize for what, exactly?” she asked, her voice as cold as the look in her eyes.

“For the way I... er ... reacted when I first saw you.”

“You want to apologize for that?”

“Yes, I do. I believe my reaction was offensive to you.”

She shook her head in disagreement. “But your reaction was spontaneous, was it not?”

He blinked at her, puzzled. “Spontaneous?”

“Yes. It was instinctive, wasn’t it? Unguarded? An impulsive response?”

“Yes, of course it was.”

“You did not
mean
to hurt me, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what reason have you to apologize?”

He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of helplessness. “But I
did
hurt you.”

She shook her head. “That isn’t the point. Your reaction was spontaneous and therefore honest. One must not apologize for an honest act. If I was hurt by it, you are not to blame.”

He stared at her for a moment, unsatisfied by the manner in which this conversation was proceeding. His apology had not had the effect he wished for; her cold manner showed she’d not been soothed by it. He wondered if she would be better served by the truth—or something close to the truth. Perhaps he should simply say,
I
saw you once, years ago. In my memory you remained young. I was foolishly startled that you had not stayed the same.
Would saying that she’d aged—for that’s what his excuse amounted to—be more effective?

Not at all sure this approach would be any better than the other, he nevertheless decided to try. “I don’t think you understood my reaction. It was not what you thought.”

She glared at him. “Please, my lord, do not repeat—”

“Please,
George,”
he corrected.

She waved away the interruption. “Please, my lord, do not repeat the nonsense about having expected me to be someone else. It was a lame excuse then, and it is now.”

Yes, it was a lame excuse,
he thought.
And telling her she’d aged would probably not be any better.
“Then all I can say is that I am sorry to have caused you pain, even accidentally,” he said in defeat. “I hope you can forgive me.”

She stood up. “I thought I made it clear that there was nothing to forgive, as far as that incident is concerned. It was, after all, a trivial matter that I soon was able to find amusing. But that you should make so great an effort to apologize gives the incident greater significance. It means that you assume
I
was cut to the quick by a mere look!
To think of me as so ... so pathetic—
that,
my lord, is offensive. And that I will not forgive. Good night, my lord.”

She turned away from him and walked up the stairs, her head proudly high. Speechless, he watched her go, although every instinct urged him to call her back... to say something—anything!—that would make up for his blunder. But what was there to say?
How could you believe I thought of you as pathetic? You were my Venus!
Even if he could say those words, they wouldn’t help. They’d only make
him
seem pathetic.

There was nothing else to be done, except to go to bed. He’d get up early and take his leave of this place. He’d had enough—enough of Elaine Whitmore’s advances, of Olivia Henshaw’s rejections, of his sister’s useless advice, and of his own guilt at having behaved like a cad. To be back in London, in plenty of time for Bernard’s ball, was just what he needed. Once he’d returned to his proper life, he could forget this entire weekend. In fact he could put his blasted Venus image out of his mind forever.

Strengthened by this new feeling of determination, he got to his feet. “Venus, ha!” he snorted aloud. And he stomped up the stairs to his bedroom and slammed the door.

ELEVEN

After a restless hour of tossing about, George fell into a troubled sleep, his dreams taking him back to a dimly remembered battlefield in Spain. He found himself scrambling up the slope of a ravine as the sound of bullets exploded about his ears. He could sense the enemy right behind him. It seemed urgent that he reach the top of the slope, but hard as he tried, he kept slipping back. After a time, he became aware that a mysterious force was pressing on his shoulder. It seemed intent on pushing him back, no matter how urgently he struggled against it. The pressure grew stronger and stronger until it woke him up. He realized with some relief that he was not on a battlefield but in a bed. The dream faded at once, but, strangely, the pressure on his shoulder did not. Someone was shaking him. Hard. “Georgie, wake up!”