Elizabeth Mansfield (10 page)

She couldn't find an answer—her wishes interfered with her judgment. As soon as she told herself that the man was a rake and his kiss meant nothing, another part of her mind answered that he was too straightforward and sincere in his manner to her to be playing games. After permitting her thoughts to race round and round in this manner for a long time, she heard a distant clock strike two.
Two?
she asked herself in surprise.
How many hours have I been kneeling here?
In all this time she'd come to no conclusion.
I
may as well give it up and go to bed,
she told herself.

She rose and unbuttoned her gown.
How annoying,
she thought,
that this insipid gown should be the one I was wearing for my first meaningful kiss!

She was just slipping her nightdress over her head when she heard a hurried tapping on her door. "Kate, please, wake up!" came a voice in an urgent undertone. "I need to talk to you." It was Deirdre.

Deirdre? At this hour?
Startled, Kate ran to the door at once and threw it open. One look told her that all was not well. The girl stood in the doorway in stockinged feet, partially undressed, clutching a robe over her stays and under-drawers. With her hair half-unpinned and her eyes wide with alarm, she seemed to Kate to have suffered some sort of fright right in the midst of undressing. "Deirdre!" she cried, stepping aside to let the girl in.

Deirdre shut the door behind her and threw herself in Kate's arms. "Oh, Kate, I'm in dreadful trouble."

"My dear, what
is
it?" Kate put an arm about the trembling girl and led her to the bed. "What could have happened to so upset you so?"

Deirdre sank down and pulled Kate down beside her. "You've got to help me out of this muddle," she begged. "I don't know what to do!"

"Of course I'll help you if I can," Kate murmured soothingly, smoothing back Deirdre's tousled hair. "But, dearest, when I last saw you, not more than a few hours ago, you were glowing with happiness. The shining star of the ball. Surely nothing occurred in so short a time to spoil the occasion for you?"

Deirdre shook her head. "No, no, the ball was wonderful! Absolutely wonderful. It was only later that I realized..."

"Realized what?"

"That I—" She shuddered and dropped her head in her hands. "Oh, dear! How can I say it?" "Good heavens, is it as bad as all that?"
 

"Worse!"

"Then just say it, Deirdre," Kate pleaded, "for you're beginning to frighten me to death!"

The girl looked up with fearful eyes. "Please, Kate, don't think too badly of me when I tell you—"

"Of course I won't think badly of you. Just tell me."

Deirdre took a deep breath. "It's so... awkward. You see, when I got into bed tonight and went over in my mind all that's happened in the last few days, I began to realize, that I... that I..."

"Yes?"

"That I don't wish to wed Leonard after all."

"Deirdre!" Kate was shocked, of course, but she also felt a decided relief. Deirdre's "muddle" was probably no more serious than a case of the vapors. "That's just nonsense," she said, taking the younger woman by the shoulders and looking directly into her eyes. "What you're feeling is anticlimax. A comedown after all the excitement of the betrothal dinner and the ball."

Deirdre shook her head. "No, that's not it. Not at all."

"Prenuptial fidgets, then. Everyone has them, I hear, though perhaps not quite so soon after the announcement. But that's all this is, I'm sure of it."

"I wish it were so," Deirdre sighed. "I would be the happiest girl in the world if I thought this was only the fidgets. But it isn't true. What I feel is something else ... something much more troublesome."

"Then what
is
it, my love?
Tell
me!"

"I don't love Leonard. That's the terrible thing I've discovered."

Kate gaped at her. "You don't
love
him? After gazing at him starry-eyed only this evening?"

"I only
imagined
I loved him. I didn't know what love really was. But now I do."

"Now
you do?" Kate asked in confusion. "How can that be?"

"I've fallen in love with someone else."

"Someone else?" Kate was utterly bemused. "You can't be serious, Deirdre! You can't have fallen in love with someone else in a mere ... what?... two hours?"

"Sometimes love happens that way," Deirdre said in a voice of awe. "All at once. Like being struck with a bolt of lightning."

"Yes, and just as unlikely." Kate couldn't help expressing her skepticism; Deirdre's words sounded so maggoty. She got up from the bed and frowned down at her troubled little cousin. "I'm sorry, Deirdre, but this all sounds too sudden and too fanciful to be real. Who on earth
is
it that you—?" But no sooner had the question left her tongue than she knew the answer.
Harry!

"Lord Ainsworth," the girl said simply, staring down at the hands lying limply in her lap.

"Ainsworth?" Kate cried as if in disbelief, although she believed it rightly enough. "You can't mean it!"

Deirdre looked up at her with huge, pleading eyes. "I know it's a sudden change of heart. But I can't help it. Something came over me when he spoke to me so thrillingly in the library tonight"

"In the library?
Tonight?
"

"Yes, I wandered in to catch my breath after waltzing with your friend, Sir Percy, and there was Harry, sitting on the hearth staring into the fire. I sat down beside him, and we just talked and talked. I don't even know about what, though I know some of it was about love. But when I left, I felt as if I were floating on air. I came up to my room and began to undress when, suddenly, it burst on me! I was feeling love, real love, for the very first time! And I knew that I was in the deepest sort of trouble."

"Oh, Deirdre!" Kate murmured helplessly.

Deirdre heard the dismay in her voice. "You don't approve," she said. "Why? Don't you like him? He may not be as handsome as Leonard, and he's quite a bit older—past thirty, I believe—but he's so very clever and has so much charm and wit, don't you think so? And, oh, my dear, he has a way of smiling that makes a girl want to run up and embrace him on the spot!"

Kate, at a loss for words, turned away and crossed the room to the window. She was sick at heart. The image of Harry, flirting with Deirdre—for what else could it have been if he'd made her think she was in love with him?—was enough to make her feel ill. But that he could do it right after he'd kissed
her
so passionately was even worse! What sort of conscienceless wretch was he?

She leaned her forehead against the windowpane. A tree branch brushed against it. She could see glimmers of moonshine flickering behind the leaves as they rustled in the wind. She had a sudden desire to be outside, running along a moonlit lane, running swiftly away from this place, running .... running ... to where the air was clean and pure, like her white nightdress that would be fluttering behind her...

"Kate?" Her cousin's voice cut into her reverie. "What are you thinking?"

Kate turned round. "I'm wondering if Ainsworth has been encouraging these feelings in you," she said bluntly.

"No, of course not. He's not a bounder. But I can tell that he likes me."
 

"How can you tell?"

Deirdre shrugged. "I don't know. The things he said. And something in his eyes, I suppose. Or that smile. And he's always making jokes about the difficulties of marriage, as if he didn't want me to do it."

Kate came back and sat down beside her. "Has he kissed you?"

Deirdre was shocked. "Kissed me? Of course not! What do you take him for?"

"I take him for the rake he is," Kate said.

"Rake?" Deirdre was shocked. "Do you think he's a rake?"

"Mama says he has that reputation. She mentioned two ladies at least whose hearts he broke."

"I won't believe that sort of gossip."

Kate rubbed the bridge of her nose with fingers that shook. It was probable that Deirdre was merely suffering from a girlish infatuation, but the timing of it was unfortunate. So close on the heels of the celebrations, a termination of the betrothal would be an emotional disaster, not only for Leonard but for both families. It was necessary to make Deirdre face the problem with some degree of sense. "Look here, Deirdre," she said, squaring her shoulders and speaking firmly, "if you believe you truly love Lord Ainsworth, and that he has a
tendre
for you, what are you going to do about your betrothal?"

"That's just it!" Deirdre moaned. "I don't know what to do. I don't wish to hurt Leonard. After all, he's so very sweet and kind. But I ought to be honest with him, oughtn't I? I owe it to him to tell him the truth."

"Tell him what truth?"

"That I love another."

Kate eyed her with reproach. “That you love his best friend?"

Deirdre winced. "Y-yes."

"I mink that would cause him a great deal of pain, don't you?"
 

"Yes, but—"

"And for what? Your feelings toward Ainsworth are too new for you to be absolutely sure. And you can't be sure of his feelings for you, either."

"I'm sure of mine."

"Listen to me, my love," Kate said gently, "even if you believe at this moment that your feelings are real and are returned, the fact that you've changed so abruptly proves that these matters can be unstable. Is there any harm in waiting? Given time, these questions may be resolved on their own. If you do anything now, just think of the chaos that will result. The hue and cry set up by Leonard's family ... by your parents ... and the house full of guests ..."

"Yes," Deirdre said with a sob. "I've thought of nothing else."

"But if you wait," Kate pursued, "your feelings will become clearer. They'll either grow or fade. And Ainsworth's, too, may become more plain. Then, if the circumstances call for it, you can withdraw from your attachment to Leonard slowly, giving him a less-shocking blow. You needn't rush into anything, you know. You're only nineteen, after all. You've plenty of time ahead of you."

Deirdre sat silently for a few moments, digesting what Kate had said. Then she lifted her head. "You're right, Kate. I won't say anything for a while. I can hold back for a few days, until the guests leave and things quiet down. As you say, I've plenty of time." She threw her arms about her older cousin. "Thank you, Kate. You're such a dear. I feel a great deal better now."

But Kate did not feel better. If anything, she felt a great deal worse. Later, lying sleepless in her bed, she heard Deirdre's last words ringing in her ears:
I
can hold back for a few days.
Kate had hoped she'd hold back a few
months.
If a family crisis had been averted, it was only temporarily.

And as for her personal crisis, that hadn't been averted at all. She could still feel Harry's kiss in the tingle of her lips and the pounding of her pulse. She kept asking herself what it all meant What was the fellow up to? Was he purposely stirring up trouble?

Did he truly care for Deirdre, as she seemed to believe? And if he
did
care for her, what was he doing kissing someone else in the library in such a libertinish fashion? Whatever his answers might be, however, they could not change what she wanted most at this moment—to wring the blasted bounder's neck!

EIGHTEEN

Blast you, Kate, I'd like to wring your neck!" were the very words with which Harry greeted her the next day.

She couldn't believe her ears. That the urge toward neck-wringing was completely mutual made her want to laugh. Or to explode in fury. She didn't know which reaction would be more satisfying.

It had been a strange morning. An atmosphere of confusion permeated the household. Things seemed to be at sixes and sevens. The remains of the celebration had not yet been completely cleared away, but the staff was overburdened with more urgent tasks. Because many of the celebrants of the night before were sleeping late while others were taking their leave, the servants were required to supply breakfast to some, to assist others with their baggage, and to run upstairs and down carrying pails of hot water or freshly ironed clothes or chamber pots for the rest.

When Kate had come downstairs for breakfast still distressed from the revelations of the night before, she'd found several things to distress her even further. For one, she was handed a note from Percy that amusing though it was, she found quite irritating. It read:

My dear Kate, I write only to say au revoir. I've been invited to stay in London with the family of the young lady with whom you urged me to dance last night. I accepted the invitation, because said young lady showed more pleasure in my company than you ever do.

I remain, although not as ever yours, 
P. Greenway, Esq.

Even more distressing, she found her mother sitting in a corner of the small drawing room with her embroidery frame in front of her and her needle in her hand. It was the first time since their arrival that her mother had resorted to needlework. Something must have upset the happy state of mind her mother had shown only yesterday. "What's wrong, Mama?" she'd asked.

"Nothing at all," her mother had answered, not looking up but continuing to jab her needle into the fabric with vicious precision.

"Where is Sir Edward?" Kate persisted.

"Why do you ask me?" was the tart reply. "Am I the old fool's keeper?"

Old fool,
was he? That description did not bode well for what Kate had hoped was a budding romance. She felt a sharp disappointment. She liked Sir Edward, even with his antiquated manners and his powdered hair. It was too bad her mother didn't. "Why do you call him an old fool?" she asked.

Isabel looked up from her needlework only long enough to indicate by a forbidding frown that she would brook no further inquiries. Kate, heartsick at this ending to what had seemed so promising, had no choice but to drop the matter and leave the room.

In the breakfast room, she'd brightened up a bit when she found Leonard and Deirdre sitting together at the breakfast table. Behind them, the pale November sunshine filtered in from the tall windows and painted them in glowing silhouette. They made a lovely sight. Kate threw Deirdre a happy, questioning look, but the expression in Deirdre's answering glance said as clearly as words that, although she was here with her betrothed, she hadn't changed the feelings she'd expressed the night before. Kate's heart sank again. She could only be thankful that Deirdre had apparently done nothing drastic ... yet.