The Secret Mistress (13 page)

“This is Lord Windrow, Eunice,” Edward said as she seated herself. “Miss Goddard, Windrow, Lady Sanford’s niece.”

“And now,” Lady Angeline said, smiling brightly, “I will not suffer the embarrassment of having to cover the fact that I do not remember your name, Miss Goddard. I was introduced to dozens of people this evening, almost all of them strangers, and their names went in one ear and out the other, I am afraid.
Not
that I am deliberately careless of other people’s identities. Miss Pratt, the last of my governesses—I had six in all—taught me that one of the essential attributes of a true lady is that she never forget a face or the name that goes with it. Even the faces and names of servants. She stressed that last point, perhaps because she was in the nature of being a servant herself and knew how often people looked at her without really seeing her at all. Her words were very wise, I am sure. But I am equally
certain she never attended a ball of this size and found herself expected to remember everyone and greet them all by name the next time she saw them. So do forgive me for not remembering your name at first. I will know it now for all time.”

The woman could certainly talk, Edward thought as he seated himself. Her silence at the Rose and Crown Inn obviously had not been typical of her at all.

“Your governess’s advice was sound, Lady Angeline,” Eunice said. “But of course it is impossible to know everyone in the
ton
after a single brief introduction, and no one would realistically expect it of you. The important thing is always to do one’s best. It is all that is required of one in this life.”

Windrow had glanced from Eunice’s face to Edward’s and back again while she spoke. The gleam of amusement in his eyes had deepened if that were possible.

“But not in the next, Miss Goddard?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?” She looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“In the next life,” he said, “we may relax and do somewhat less than our best?”

“In the next life, Lord Windrow,” she said, “if there
is
a next life, which I seriously doubt, we are presumably rewarded for having done our best here.”

“Or not,” he said. “For not having done it.”

“I beg your pardon?” she said again.

“Or we are
not
rewarded,” he said, “because we have not done our best. We are sent to the other place.”

“Hell?” she said. “I have
very
serious doubts about
its
existence.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, “doubts are not certainties, are they? I believe, Lady Angeline, you must continue earnestly memorizing names during the coming days so that you may avoid the risk of ending up in hell when you die.”

Lady Angeline laughed.

“How utterly absurd,” she said. “But I thank you, Miss Goddard, and I shall remember your wise words
—the important thing is always to do one’s best
. My best was never good enough for Miss Pratt—or any
of my other governesses—with the result that I often quite deliberately did considerably less than my best. I suppose I was not an ideal pupil.”

“And they were not ideal governesses,” Eunice said. “The primary goal of any governess ought to be to encourage and inspire her pupil, not to discourage and dishearten her. Expecting and even demanding perfection is quite dangerously
wrong
. None of us is capable of perfection.”

“Hence the need for heaven,” Windrow said. “To reward those who at least do their best.”

“Exactly,” Eunice said, looking steadily into his mocking eyes with their drooped eyelids and refusing to be cowed by them. “Though it is all perhaps wishful thinking on our part.”

“If you could but prove that to me, Miss Goddard,” he said, “I should never again feel the need to try my best.”

Plates laden with appetizing foods of all descriptions, some savory, some sweet, were brought to the table at that point. And another servant came to pour their tea.

Edward looked around quickly and met his sister Alma’s eyes. She nodded approvingly at him.

Then he looked at Lady Angeline. She was gazing back at him, her eyes bright with laughter.

“And what about
you
, Lord Heyward?” she asked as she took a lobster patty from the plate he offered. “Is it important to you always to do your best?”

She had called him stuffy. Did she want further evidence that she was correct?

“It would depend,” he said, “upon what I was doing. If it were something I knew I ought to do, then of course I would do it to the best of my ability. If it were not, then even my best might not be good enough. If, for example, someone at a social gathering asked me to sing, I might agree and try my very best. But I would succeed only in murdering the ears of a roomful of unsuspecting guests. It would be far better in that case, then,
not
to try my best. Not to try at all, in fact.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Are you that bad?”

“Utterly tone-deaf,” he said.

She laughed.

“But Lord Heyward was devoted to his studies at Cambridge, where my father is a don,” Eunice said. “And he has been devoted to his position as Earl of Heyward during the past year. Duty always comes first with him. He will never fritter away his time and resources in rakish pursuits, which many gentlemen in his position deem almost obligatory, I believe.”

Oh, Lord, Edward thought, she was trying to court Lady Angeline for him and scold Windrow all at the same time. He picked up the plate of cakes and handed it around.

“Rakish pursuits?” Windrow said with a shudder. “
Are
there such gentlemen? Point out one to me, Miss Goddard, and I shall challenge him to pistols at dawn.”

“Rakish pursuits,” she said, looking steadily at him, “
and
the frivolous pursuit of violence. When duty and courtesy and kindness could be embraced instead.”

“Miss Goddard,” Lady Angeline said, “you and I think very much alike. Men can be so
silly
, can they not? Perhaps they impress each other when their first reaction to anything even remotely suggestive of an insult is to issue a challenge. But they do not impress
us
.”

Edward met Windrow’s eyes across the table, and the man lofted one eyebrow.

Edward was feeling like a very dull dog indeed, since he obviously did not fit into the category of those who indulged in rakish pursuits—or of those who pursued frivolous violence as an answer to insult.

Eunice and Lady Angeline Dudley, he thought, were as different from each other as day and night. Lady Angeline was gorgeously dressed and coiffed, her face vividly alive with smiles and sparkling dark eyes. She was a chatterbox. She was bold and indiscreet. She often dressed in garish colors. She was frivolous. Eunice was neatly dressed and coiffed, her manner restrained and refined, her conversation
intelligent. She was serious-minded. Yet strangely the two had found common ground upon which to converse.

“Miss Goddard,” Windrow was saying, “I am crushed by your disapproval of my offer to rid your world of at least one rakish gentleman. And stunned by your superior insight into the essential difference between the sexes. You simply must grant me an opportunity to redeem myself in your eyes. You must dance the next set with me.”

Eunice looked coolly at him.

“Must I, my lord?” she asked.

He sighed, one hand over his heart.

“Ah, Heyward,” he said, “we have much to learn of the fair sex. Miss Goddard, would you do me the great honor of allowing me to lead you into the next set? Or ought I to apply to Lady Sanford?”

“I am of age, my lord,” she said. “And thank you. That would be pleasant. Edward, would you please pass the plate of savories? The shrimp tarts are quite delicious.”

Well, Edward thought. Poor Eunice. She had come here in order to rescue Lady Angeline from the clutches of a rake only to find herself caught up in those clutches instead. But she might have said no. And she was perfectly capable of looking after herself.

“I saw that you were out on the terrace during the last set, Lord Heyward,” Lady Angeline said. “I was quite envious. The ballroom is really quite stuffy, is it not? So is the dining room. It is because there are so many people here, I suppose. Was it pleasant outdoors?”

He could not quite understand this lady, Edward thought. She had made it perfectly clear earlier that she disapproved of him, that she found him
stuffy
, and she had gone to great lengths not to have to dance with him, yet at the end of the set she had told him that she would not enjoy any other set even half as much as she had enjoyed theirs. And now she was blatantly hinting …

“Very,” he said. “Would you care to stroll there before your next partner comes to claim you?”

“There is no next partner,” she said. “Not yet, anyway, though I suppose there
will
be if I am still free when the dancing resumes.”

“Then perhaps,” he said, “you would care to grant the set to me and stroll with me for a full half hour.”

“That sounds like heaven,” she said. “You are kind. I must first go and tell Cousin Rosalie, though. Not that she will mind. Indeed, she will be delighted. You see? She is sitting with Lady Heyward, your sister-in-law, and Lord Fenner, Cousin Leonard, Rosalie’s brother. And they are all nodding in this direction as if they are feeling very satisfied indeed with life.”

“Allow me to go instead,” he said, getting to his feet and directing an apologetic glance in Eunice’s direction.

Lady Palmer did indeed express her delight at his offer to escort Lady Angeline out onto the terrace, and Lorraine beamed her approval.

This was
not
good, Edward thought a couple of minutes later as he led Lady Angeline out of the supper room. He had danced the opening set of her come-out ball with her. He had sat with her at a small table for supper. Now he was leading her out before many people had even returned to the ballroom and it would soon become obvious to anyone who was interested—almost everyone, in other words—that he had taken her outside and was keeping her there through the upcoming set.

And both his sister-in-law and her chaperon looked thoroughly delighted, as though everything was proceeding according to some preordained plan.

It all seemed very much like the beginning of a courtship, he thought uneasily. And how easy it would be to get caught in a trap and find himself unable to extricate himself.

T
HE LADY IN
blue was Miss Goddard. The Earl of Heyward called her
Eunice
. She called him
Edward
. And she looked like—and talked like—a very sensible lady. She was also rather pretty.

Angeline had expected to dislike her heartily. But she did not.

“I hope,” Lord Heyward said as they walked across the empty
ballroom floor in the direction of the French windows, “Windrow did not insult you again, Lady Angeline.”

“Oh,” she said, “he was just being silly. Though I do think he ought to have stayed away from me this evening and then sought me out more privately to offer a proper apology. I suppose it would have been worth very little, however, for he would not apologize if I were not who I am and if I were not Tresham’s sister, would he? Not that he apologized anyway. Though he
did
after a fashion at that inn when you blocked the doorway. That was very brave of you.”

His arm was as solid and warm as it had been earlier. He was a few inches taller than she was. He had a handsome profile. His very straight nose showed to advantage from a side view. She could smell his musky cologne again.

The air out on the terrace was deliciously cool, though not at all cold.

He had not really wanted to bring her out here, she thought. Who would have expected that she would turn out to be
flirtatious
? She had never had any chance to practice flirtation, or even to
think
of it. It was not one of the lessons Miss Pratt had taught, after all. Yet she had all but asked him to bring her here, and then, when he would have brought her just for five minutes or so until Cousin Rosalie had accepted another partner for her, she had wheedled him into offering to keep her out here for the whole of the next set—plus the five minutes or so before it started.

Oh, dear. Conscience smote her.

“You did not wish to bring me out here, did you?” she asked.

He turned his head to look at her as they began to stroll along the length of the terrace. The lighting out here was dimmer than it was in the ballroom. More romantic. It also hid her blushes. It did not hide his slight frown.

“How can I possibly answer that question?” he asked.

“You might have said a resounding
of course I did
,” she said. “But you would not have meant it and I would have known.”

“I am delighted to have rescued you from Windrow, at least,” he said.

“Perhaps,” she said, “it is your destiny in life to save me from Lord Windrow. Someone can write it on your tomb after you die, among all the other accolades:
He repeatedly saved Lady Angeline Dudley from the evil clutches of a rake.
”

Oh, and it happened again. He looked sidelong at her and his dimple appeared. Though it was more a slight crease in his cheek than a dimple. It was more
manly
than a dimple. And the corner of his mouth lifted.

Angeline laughed.

“I think it is a little unfair to describe Lord Windrow as
evil
, however,” she said. “Most rakes are not, are they? They are just overgrown boys who have not yet grown up. And yet they think themselves
so
manly and
so
irresistible to the ladies. They are silly but harmless, and one cannot help feeling rather fond of them.
Not
that I am fond of Lord Windrow, though I suppose I would be if he were my brother or my cousin. I adore my own brothers, but I have no illusions about them. Tresham is particularly wild, but of course he was the eldest of us, and he left home when he was sixteen after a quarrel with Papa, though neither of them would ever tell us what it was all about. He has fought two duels that I know of, both over ladies, and both times he shot into the air after being shot at. That was very noble of him, since he was almost certainly in the wrong. I was very proud of him when I heard, though it was a good thing I was far away when both duels were fought. I would have
killed
him if my nerves had held together long enough.”