The Secret Mistress (10 page)

But even if he was right, was that
all
that could be said of her? Surely not. There was all that part of herself that was … Well, that was
herself
. All those things about her that were too muddled or confusing or, well, simply too
deep
to be put into words. She was not even sure she knew them all herself. Sometimes she believed she did not know herself at all. But she did know that she was not
just
a thoughtless, garrulous hoyden.

And then, of course, there was her appearance. How could she possibly compete with the likes of Martha Hamelin? She could not. She could only be herself.

Oh, goodness, she could not think of all this
now
.

And her fan was whipping up a veritable hurricane.

“You do not approve of me,” she said, which was probably a gross understatement. It was also a depressing realization when she was head over ears in love with him. And then she had a sudden thought, which came from nowhere, a sudden memory of the way he had looked in Hyde Park. “Did I splash you with mud in the park this morning? I went there for a gallop because I have done nothing but shop for
weeks
before today and had simply
oceans
of energy pent up inside. And I was feeling really quite nervous at the thought of meeting the queen and perhaps tripping over the train of my court gown. Even now I turn cold at the very thought, though fortunately it did not happen. I went to the park to find Tresham, but he had
gone somewhere else to ride, provoking man. It was very fortunate indeed that Ferdinand was there. I would have been obliged to ride directly home if he had not been, and Marsh would have known that Tresham had not really arranged to meet me. He would have looked reproachfully at me, and I would have felt three inches high.
Did
I splash you?”

“It was of no moment,” he said, which, of course, was merely a polite, roundabout way of saying yes. “Mud brushes off clothes once it has dried. And I hope I have not been ill-mannered enough to give the impression that I dislike you, Lady Angeline. I would not presume to pass judgment upon any lady.”

She fanned her face and smiled ruefully at him.

“If you did
not
dislike me,” she said, “you would have denied doing so quite vehemently instead of merely saying
I would not presume to pass judgment on a lady
. I shall persuade you to alter your opinion of me. I am out now. My hoydenish youth is over, and today I have become a lady—elegant, refined, discreet, quiet, and everything else a lady ought to be. I shall be the
perfect
lady for the rest of the spring—indeed, for the rest of my life. Beginning this evening. Well, at this moment of this evening, anyway.”

He looked at her, and suddenly his lips curved upward slightly at the corners and his eyes twinkled with amusement—and a small dimple made its appearance in his right cheek, close to his mouth. It was an absolutely devastating smile—or
almost
smile. If Angeline had not already been seated, her knees would surely have buckled under her.

“Well,” she said, “perhaps I ought not to be
too
rash. I shall be
almost
perfect, and you will be forced to admit that you misjudged me at the start.”

“I hope, Lady Angeline,” he said, “I will never misjudge you or, indeed, judge you at all.”

“How wretchedly unsporting of you,” she said. “That would mean you do not care at all.”

The almost smile was gone without a trace.

There had been a suggested intimacy in her words. And why
should he wish for any sort of intimacy with her? She looked like a dark beanpole, she had been rashly alone in that taproom, she had splashed him with mud this morning while galloping and whooping along Rotten Row, she had made a spectacle of herself on the dance floor just now, and she had told him the story of the bull and her own foolish behavior. And she looked like a swarthy beanpole. Had she already listed that one? And, if she might add something else, he was doubtless wealthy enough and well placed enough socially—good heavens, he was an
earl
—not to care a tuppenny toss that she was the enormously rich daughter of a duke.

Her prospects suddenly looked rather gloomy.

No, they looked
challenging
.

But at the moment she was horribly embarrassed, for he did not respond to her unwary words. Neither did he look away from her.

She was saved by a flicker of movement over by the ballroom doors, to one side of the line of dancers. New arrivals. Apparently there were always people who arrived hopelessly late for a ball. The receiving line had broken up ages ago.

The new arrivals were three gentlemen, all of them quite young and quite presentable. There would be three more partners for all the young ladies present, then, Angeline thought. It had not escaped her notice that there were more young ladies here than there were young gentlemen. It was always thus, Cousin Rosalie had told her when she had remarked upon it earlier, though the situation would probably improve as the evening went along. This is what Rosalie must have meant.

And then Angeline’s eyes widened, and her closed fan came down with a thump on the Earl of Heyward’s sleeve. One of the three gentlemen, the tallest and most handsome, had dark red hair and—though he was not close enough for her to see them clearly from where she sat—eyes that were hooded beneath slightly drooped eyelids.

“Well, will you look at
that
,” she said. “The
nerve
of the man.”

He turned his head to look in the direction of the ballroom doors.

“Windrow?” he said. “I daresay he does not know who you are, Lady Angeline, any more than I did until an hour ago. Perhaps he will be embarrassed when he
does
know. Though perhaps not.”

“Windrow?” she said.

“
Lord
Windrow,” he said. “I believe you will discover that he is one of your brother’s friends.”

“
Which
brother?” she asked.

“The Duke of Tresham,” he said, turning back to her. “But friends are required to treat one’s sister with the proper respect. If you wish to see him punished, I daresay a word in Tresham’s ear will secure your wishes.”

She lifted her fan from his arm and focused her attention back on him.

“Punished?” she said. “He was very effectively punished at the time, I believe. He would have enjoyed a fight, even if he had lost, which I daresay he might have done as he surely made a grave error in judging you a weakling and a coward. He would still have felt like a
man
. But you challenged him as a
gentleman
, and you forced him to
apologize
. I daresay he felt thoroughly humiliated by the time he left despite the bravado of his final words.”

And his wink.

The set was drawing to an end. So was Angeline’s precious half hour with the Earl of Heyward. She did not doubt that it would be the last with him for this evening anyway. What a shame. How sad.

Except that the whole of the rest of the most exciting evening of her life stretched ahead. And she had the rest of her life to secure the earl’s interest and his courtship and his proposal of marriage.

“I shall return you to Lady Palmer’s side,” he said, getting to his feet and extending a hand for hers—a hand rather than an arm this time. “You will wish to be at her side for your next partner to claim you. I daresay you are eager to dance again—with someone who
can
dance, that is. You may set your
left
foot back on the floor if you wish. I suppose it is well rested by now. One hopes your
right
foot is feeling better.”

Oh, he
had
noticed. How mortifying! And he knew what she
had done. But had he misunderstood her motive? Did he believe she had feigned a stumble in order to avoid having to dance with such a clumsy, wooden fellow? She could hardly ask him, could she?

“I will surely dance all evening,” she told him as she got to her feet and took his offered arm. “I shall do so because a number of gentlemen have already expressed an interest in dancing with me. And because I adore dancing, of course. But I can assure you, Lord Heyward, that I will not enjoy any other set even half as much as I have enjoyed this one.”

And how was
that
for blatant flirtation?

“I am delighted to have been of service to you, Lady Angeline,” he said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Ah, he
had
misunderstood. And now he thought she was lying.

His hand was warm and steady beneath hers.

His cologne wrapped about her senses.

Being in love was an altogether pleasant sensation, she thought, even if bringing it to a happy conclusion was going to be the biggest challenge of her life.

Was something worth having, though, if it did
not
present a challenge?

“I
DO HOPE
Lady Angeline did not seriously hurt her ankle,” Edward’s mother said after their set was over. “But she was very brave and dignified about it and very eager to remove herself from the floor so that the dancing could resume. Most young ladies would have made much of the moment and wailed and swooned and made quite a fuss before demanding to be carried off the dance floor.”

“And she is not silent and insipid as so many girls are these days, is she?” Alma added. “She engaged you in what appeared to be a lively conversation, Edward. It is important for the wife of an important man to be able to converse sensibly.”

Sensibly?

“She is beautifully tall,” Lorraine said with a sigh. “I am envious to the point of jealousy. She is actually prettier than I thought at first. I think it is in the expression more than in the features alone. She fairly sparkles. She is going to be besieged by suitors and not
just
because she is the sister of the Duke of Tresham.”

“Edward,” Juliana said, tapping his arm with her fan, “Mrs. Smith-Benn is making her way toward us with her daughter. The mother is the daughter of Lord Blacklock, you know.”

His life had indeed changed, Edward realized before the ball was even an hour old. Freedom and relaxation did
not
come as he had hoped once the opening set was at an end. For of course, he was now very eligible indeed, and this was the great marriage mart. And anyone who did not make a move
now
, when it was early in the Season,
might find later that all the best prizes had already been snapped up. Or so he had been warned. And it worked in both directions, of course. Men were not the only ones seeking spouses.

His mother and sisters and sister-in-law did not even have to make any effort to seek other partners for him. He did not have to look dutifully about him to choose some for himself. He did not have a chance to find Eunice. Or to slink off to the card room. Young ladies, escorted by their mamas, came to court
him
. They came usually and apparently to speak to his female relatives, who then introduced them to him, and he did what was expected of him—he asked the young lady to dance. It was all rather alarmingly easy.

He danced the second set with Miss Smith-Benn, who was a blond, blue-eyed, delicate little beauty, the third with Miss Cartwright, a handsome brunette with slightly protruding teeth, and the fourth with Lady Fiona Robson, who smiled a great deal and was passably pretty despite the fact that she had freckles. He acquitted himself well enough on the dance floor, even if that meant only that he did not make an utter idiot of himself. And each of the three was polite enough not to feign injury in order to avoid dancing with him. None of them chattered on about charging bulls or called him
stuffy
when he failed to be amused at irresponsible stupidity.

Really … 
stuffy
.

Lord Heyward, are you perhaps just a little bit stuffy?

The fact that she was
right
did not excuse her breach of good manners. Especially when she had preceded it with a fake injury that she could not even disguise well enough to remember
which
ankle she was supposed to have sprained.

It was, then, the supper dance before Edward could maneuver matters more to his own liking and find time to seek out Eunice. He did it by returning Lady Fiona to her mother’s side and then neglecting to return immediately to his family’s side. He had done his duty for long enough. He needed a break. And no one would be
able to fault him. He was still in the ballroom. He was still taking a partner.

He had seen Eunice dance once. But she had spent most of the evening sitting with her aunt and conversing with a group of older ladies, all gorgeously decked out and plumed and sparkling with jewels. They all turned identical gratified expressions toward him when he approached.

“What a fine evening this is, Lord Heyward,” Lady Sanford said. “It is quite a triumph for the Duke of Tresham, who has never been known to host a ball here before, you know, despite the splendor of his ballroom. Such a waste! And Lady Angeline Dudley appears to be taking very well indeed even though she is unfortunately tall, poor lady.”