Only a Promise (28 page)

The poor king had been generally unpopular when he was merely the Prince Regent, irreverently known as Prinny, prior to his father’s death. He was no more popular now. Nevertheless, he
was
the King of England, and it was a huge coup to have one’s entertainment graced with his company.

Despite herself, Chloe’s knees felt decidedly unsteady as she made her way downstairs on Ralph’s arm.

The king was a huge man, blown up by excessive eating and drinking and self-importance and vanity. He was also, Chloe thought after she had sunk into a deep curtsy and he had taken one of her hands in both of his and patted it and commended her on her looks and her home and her husband, capable of a boyish charm that made him irresistibly likable.

He escorted her upstairs, wheezing every slow step of the way, stood inside the ballroom with her hand on his, acknowledging the homage of his subjects as he inclined his head in all directions and gentlemen bowed and ladies sank into curtsies, commented that the ballroom
looked like a particularly lovely garden, declined the glass of wine Ralph offered him, gestured to the orchestra to resume its playing, and took his leave, his whole entourage turning with him.

It was all over in ten minutes. By the time Chloe and Ralph arrived back in the ballroom, having bowed and curtsied the royal procession on its way, the dancing was in progress again and someone had thrown all the French windows open.

“Well, that,” Ralph said, laughing down into her eyes, “is an event with which we may inspire awe and admiration in our grandchildren when we describe it in minute detail every time they come to visit us.”

She laughed back up at him, and something wordless and warm and wonderful passed between them. And this, surely, she thought just a moment before she looked beyond his shoulder, was beyond all doubt the happiest night of her life.

What she saw beyond his shoulder was a group of very late arrivals, all gentlemen, all but one of them invited guests.

The exception was Lord Cornell.

*   *   *

Ralph noticed Cornell a few minutes later after Chloe had gone off to introduce a thin, pimply young man to a plump, mousy young lady whose mother was too busy gossiping with a group of older ladies. The banns for those two would probably be being called within a month, he thought in some amusement as he watched the young man blush and the young lady make herself look quite pretty by smiling in obvious relief. And Chloe could claim all the credit.

Then he spotted Cornell and raised his quizzing glass. The man looked inebriated, though he was not making a spectacle of himself. He was merely laughing rather too loudly with his all-male group. He ought to be asked to leave, since Ralph had personally vetoed his name from the prospective guest list Lloyd had drawn up. However, one hated to make a scene in such a public setting. It might do more harm than good. He would keep an eye on Cornell, though, and make sure he did not get close enough to Chloe to upset her. Damn his impudence!

The one person Ralph did not think of keeping an eye upon, however, was Lucy Nelson.

During the supper hour everyone had feasted sumptuously and lingered for a few speeches and toasts since the ball was in the nature of being a wedding reception too. Most people were moving back to the ballroom, and the members of the orchestra were tuning their instruments, when Ralph became aware of a muffled scream coming from the direction of the French windows.

By the time he reached the balcony, a few other people had gathered there and Hugo and the Duke of Bewcastle were on their way down the steps to the garden below. Someone down there—someone female—sounded very cross. It was Lucy, Ralph soon realized as he followed the other two men down.

“The lady,” a male voice was saying, “appears to be afraid of the dark.”

The garden was not in total darkness. A few lamps had been lit for the convenience of anyone who wished to escape the heat of the ballroom for a few minutes.

“I came down here when the speeches began,” Lucy said, addressing herself rather tearfully to the new
arrivals. “It has been the most wonderful, most exciting night of my life, and I needed a few minutes just to catch my breath. But then
he
came down after me and tried to make me to do some very improper things.”

“The lady misunderstood.” It was Cornell’s voice, sounding amused. “I was strolling here too. She must not have seen me in the dark and was startled when I bade her a good evening.”

“
And
he said horrid things in the park one day when Chloe was with me,” Lucy said, looking at Ralph now. “He called her the delectable duchess and me the scandalous sister. And he accused Chloe of getting you to marry her by doing what M-Mama did with the M-Marquess of Hitching. He is . . . He is not
nice
.”

“The lady takes a little teasing humor too literally,” Cornell said.

Hugo rumbled. It was the only word to describe the sound he made in his throat.

“Hugo,” Ralph said, his eyes on Cornell, whom he could see quite clearly despite the dimness of the light down here, “escort my sister-in-law back to the ballroom, if you will be so good.”

But Bewcastle was already speaking to her, his voice sounding almost bored, though it was slightly raised to carry quite clearly to those ball guests who had gathered on the balcony above.

“It was a particularly large spider, I suppose, Mrs., ah, Nelson?” he said. “No, you need not feel foolish. I would not have enjoyed an encounter with it myself. Perhaps you will allow me to escort you back indoors and will do me the honor of dancing the next set with me.”

“Oh.” Her voice sounded breathless. “You are the
Duke of Bewcastle. Oh. Yes. Thank you. I
am
a bit afraid of spiders, especially the really big ones with long legs.”

Bewcastle led her away.

“You have outstayed your welcome, Cornell,” Ralph said, “in my home and in my life. And most certainly in the lives of my wife and my sister-in-law.”

“It was all a misunderstanding, Worthingham,” Cornell said.

“Yes, so you have suggested more than once,” Ralph said. “I was not responsible for my wife’s honor six years ago, Cornell, or even last year. I was prepared to allow your mistreatment of her then to go unavenged provided you kept your distance this year and every year in the future. It seems you have
not
kept your distance, either from my wife or from Mrs. Nelson.”

Cornell laughed. “You want satisfaction, Worthingham?” he asked. “You wish to name your seconds?”

“You can count on me, Ralph,” Hugo said from behind him.

“But I fight only with gentlemen, Hugo,” Ralph said. “On the other hand, I
punish
vermin.”

“No, you don’t,” another voice said, and Ralph very briefly closed his eyes. Graham Muirhead! He had come to throw himself between the combatants and urge them to kiss and make up, no doubt.

“Stay out of this, Graham,” Ralph said.

“Not a chance.” Graham strode past him. “The ladies are
my sisters
, and I protect what is my own.”

With which words, worthy of Freddie Nelson for bad theatrics, he knocked Cornell down with a blow to the chin that would surely have felled an oak.

“Neatly done, lad.” Hugo’s voice was full of admiration.

Ralph looked at his brother-in-law in some astonishment. He could not see his face clearly in the darkness, but his voice sounded a bit sheepish when he spoke again.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose that answers
one
question. Did I kill him?”

Ralph looked down at Cornell.

“I do not believe dead men moan,” he said. “But it was not for lack of trying, Gray. I should resent you. I wanted the satisfaction of doing that for myself.”

“You had better return to your guests, Ralph, and put to rest any nasty speculation that is going on,” Hugo said. “Though I do not imagine anyone would care to contradict Bewcastle’s explanation about spiders. Have you ever noticed his eyes? Pure silver and straight out of the wilderness. I doubt anyone has
ever
contradicted him. You go on up too, Muirhead. You do not want murder on your conscience. Not when you are a clergyman. Come on, then, lad. You cannot moan down there all night. Show some backbone. Take my hand and I’ll help you up. I’ll show you off the premises. There will be a door here somewhere, I daresay, leading straight out to the street. It will save you some embarrassment.”

“A word of advice, Cornell,” Ralph said before following Hugo’s advice. “Stay far away from both the Duchess of Worthingham and Mrs. Nelson for the rest of your natural lifetime. I am not sure I will be able to keep the Reverend Muirhead on his leash if you do not.”

Freddie Nelson, he discovered a short time later, was still in the supper room, talking with great animation and flamboyant arm gestures to a small group of captives
who looked as though they would far rather be in the ballroom.

Lucy was dancing with Bewcastle and managing to look both triumphant and terrified. Chloe was dancing with George and was smiling brightly and looking across the room at
him
with anxious eyes.

Ralph winked at her and grinned—and suddenly her smile was so dazzling that it almost knocked him off his feet.

*   *   *

“Graham did?” Chloe stared at Ralph in disbelief.
“Graham?”

She had had no opportunity for the last hour to ask him what had happened, though clearly
something
had. It had been whispered about the ballroom that Lord Cornell had insulted Lucy in the garden. But the whisperings had not grown into full-blown gossip and perhaps would not. The Duke of Bewcastle, who had escorted Lucy back to the ballroom and then danced with her, had confronted those who were gathered on the balcony with his exquisitely jeweled quizzing glass half raised to his eye, and apparently that glass wielded by that particular nobleman was considered one of the most lethal weapons in the
ton
. Or so Gwen had whispered in Chloe’s ear, and Chloe could believe it. How the sunny-natured duchess could live with him, Chloe did not know. One well-placed glance from those silver eyes was surely capable of freezing grapes on the vine. Though he
had
gone to Lucy’s rescue and made up a story about a spider. He was holding one of the duchess’s hands in both his own at the moment, his head bent toward hers while she smiled and talked.

“It was as neat and deadly a blow as I have ever seen,” Ralph said in answer to Chloe’s question. “It was a privilege to witness it, though I must confess I would rather have dealt it myself. Hugo escorted Cornell off the premises. I do not believe he will be troubling either you or your sister again.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But
Graham
?”

He grinned at her. “Have I told you how lovely you are looking?”

“Am I?” she asked him. “I am not . . . too vivid? Some people might believe I ought to be still in black.”

“My mother is not,” he said, “or my sisters. And you are wearing this particularly bright shade of green at the specific request of my grandmother. I must compliment her on her good taste, by the way. It is perfect. And as for your hair . . . Well, it would seem you are stuck with that color and I am stuck with having to look at it until you turn old and gray.”

“Ouch,” she said.

“I look forward to growing old with you, Chloe,” he said. “In the fullness of time, that is. I look forward to being young with you first and then middle-aged. I look forward to living all my life with you. Promise not to die before me?”

She did not know whether to laugh or cry.

“Only if
you
promise not to die before
me,
” she said.

He laughed softly. “We will do all things together, then, will we?” he asked and raised his head to look about the ballroom.

It was very late—or very early, depending upon one’s perspective. Grandmama and Great-Aunt Mary had gone home after supper, and a number of the more
elderly guests had left at the same time. But most remained. There was one set left—a waltz. There had been two others during the evening. Chloe had danced the first with Lord Easterly, her uncle, and the second with Viscount Gilly, who had been perfectly agreeable without making any further reference to the relationship between them. And she had watched Ralph dance the first waltz with the Marchioness of Attingsborough and the second with Lucy.

There was one set left.

One waltz.

Then they would see all their guests on their way, send all the servants off to bed rather than insist that they clear up first, pronounce their ball to have been a resounding success despite the unpleasantness with Lord Cornell, and go up to bed themselves. And tomorrow their normal, everyday lives would resume. Ralph had received his Letter of Summons from the Lord Chancellor’s office and would take his seat in the House of Lords next week. At the end of the Season they would go back home to Manville Court and . . .

But she was too weary to think beyond that point. And she was feeling unexpectedly and unaccountably depressed. She was tired, she supposed.

A gentleman whose name had slipped her memory stopped in front of them, exchanged a few remarks with Ralph, and then asked Chloe if she would honor him with her hand for the waltz. Couples were already gathering on the floor.

“Too late, Fotheringham,” Ralph said. “I have already laid claim to the duchess’s hand myself and am not to be persuaded to relinquish it.”

Chloe turned her head to smile at him, her tiredness and her low spirits—and Lord Fotheringham—forgotten.

“The last waltz,” she said.

“At last.” He looked back at her with half-closed eyes. “It is the very devil to be the host of a ball, Chloe, when there is only one lady present with whom one wishes to dance and she happens to be one’s wife. Am I fated to become a dull dog, uninterested in any female company except that of my duchess? It is enough to give anyone the shudders.”

“
Are
you?” She licked her lips. She was unaccustomed to him in this mood.

“I fear I am.” He smiled slowly at her. “And I fear I will find the last waltz at an end if I do not stop babbling. Come.”