The Secret Mistress (22 page)

She could not to save her life read this page today, though.

She could not
wait
for this evening to come. Would he somehow contrive to kiss her again? Could she somehow maneuver matters—

The drawing room door opened, and she looked up to smile at Tresham. He was not smiling back. He was looking horridly bored. It was a growingly familiar look.

Oh, no, she thought with an inward sigh. Who was it this time?

“You had better go down to the library, Angeline,” he said. “Another eligible hopeful anxiously awaits his fate.”

She closed her book after placing her bookmark to mark her page.

“Must I?” she said. But it was a pointless question. Yes, of course she must. “Who is it this time?”

He almost grinned. Certainly he looked amused.

“The dry old stick,” he said.

“The Earl of Heyward?”
Her voice rose to a squeak.

“None other,” he said, and now he definitely was grinning. “Contain your passion, Angeline, and go on down there. The man is desperate for a wife, I hear, but he might at least be realistic in his choice. I almost said no on your behalf, but I could not deny you the pleasure.”

She was already on her feet, she realized when she went to get up. She stared at him, speechless.

The
Earl of Heyward
had come to offer her
marriage
?

Already?

She did a panicked mental review of her appearance. She had changed into a day dress after returning home from shopping with her friends, though she had not had Betty redo her hair. What was the point when it would have to be done yet again this evening and she was not going anywhere or seeing anyone before then? And it had not looked too badly flattened from her bonnet, not after she
had fluffed it up with her hands, anyway. Her dress was the old sunshine yellow one with the colored stripes about the hem that she so liked. It was just the thing for such a gloomy day, she had thought.

Was she looking good enough to face a
marriage proposal from the Earl of Heyward
? But if she suggested going up to her room to change and have her hair done first, Tresham would look at her as if she had suddenly sprouted an extra head.

“I shall go down,” she said meekly, though she thought her heart might well beat its way through either her chest or her eardrums or both at any moment.

“There is no need to look so tragic,” her brother said, holding the door open for her. “It will all be over in five minutes. And tomorrow it will be someone else.”

She made her way downstairs, wondering if her legs would hold her up. How could one body, even if it
was
unnaturally tall, contain such happiness?

The butler himself was waiting outside the library to open the door for her. He closed it behind her after she had stepped inside.

He was standing in front of the desk, all neat and smart and unostentatious in his dark green coat with buff-colored pantaloons and immaculately shining Hessian boots and white linen. His hair was neatly combed. She could tell he was freshly shaved. He had probably used that lovely cologne again, though she could not smell it from here.

He had had the advantage of her. He had known about this proposal and had been able to dress and groom himself accordingly.

She felt almost suffocated with love for him.

He was not smiling. Of course, he would not be. This was a solemn occasion. He would not smile at their wedding either. She would wager on it, though of course she had been told innumerable times that a lady
never
wagered. Everyone was agreed, though, that the few coins a lady bet at card games did
not
constitute wagering.

She smiled at him even though she knew he would not smile back.

And she remembered last night and that kiss. Was it possible that
this was the same man? That passion in private moments could so transform a person?

“Lord Heyward,” she said.

He came hurrying across the room toward her, all earnest attention.

“Lady Angeline,” he said, reaching out a hand for hers and closing his fingers warmly about it when she put it in his.

And then—oh,
and then
.

He went down on one knee before her in a gesture that was absolutely unnecessary and did not at all suit his character but was nonetheless hopelessly romantic.

She gazed down at him with parted lips and shining eyes.

“Lady Angeline,” he said, “will you do me the great honor of marrying me?”

Yes, yes, yes. Oh, yes, yes, Y-E-S!

But something happened in the moment before the words could spill past her lips. Or perhaps in a fraction of that moment.

It was something that took her forever to put into words in her head when she looked back later, but took the merest fraction of a second to dash into her consciousness now and drown the words that were about to be spoken.

He had said nothing about love or happiness or her making him the happiest of men. It was as if he were down on one knee because he had been told by someone that that was the way a marriage proposal was done.

He had
never
said anything about love—not about loving her, anyway. Quite the contrary, in fact. He had said
just last evening
that he believed in marital fidelity but not in romance or
falling
in love.

When she had told him later, after their kiss, that it had been the loveliest evening of her life, he had replied that it had been a lovely evening—and that was
after
she had said her memories would be ruined if he regretted kissing her. Really it had been the most lukewarm of responses after the volcanic eruption of their embrace.

And volcanic eruptions of that nature did not
have
to proceed from love, did they, despite what she had thought at the time. Not
for men, especially. Men were always taking mistresses, and presumably it was not so that they could sit beside them on couches and hold their hands and kiss them chastely on the cheek once in a while and be comfortable.

Passion could mean lust as easily as it could mean love.

Lord Heyward could not possibly
love
her anyway. She had done nothing but embarrass and disgust him from the moment of their first encounter. She was not at all the sort of woman with whom he must dream of spending the rest of his life. If there was such a woman, she was surely Miss Goddard. She was serious and dignified and intelligent and pretty, and they were already such close friends that they used each other’s given name. Indeed, probably the only reason he was not at Lady Sanford’s now proposing marriage to Miss Goddard was that according to his strict code of gentlemanly conduct he had compromised
her
last night and so was here instead. And his family probably disapproved of Miss Goddard because she was not as dazzlingly eligible as Angeline was.

But eligible was not the same thing as
suitable
. Miss Goddard was far more suited to him.
She
, on the other hand, was as unsuitable as she could be. She was tall and dark and ugly. She could not even arch her eyebrows without wrinkling her forehead horribly and looking like a startled hare. She was loud and stupid and indiscreet. She prattled on about trivialities just as though there was nothing between her ears except fluff. She had no dress sense whatsoever—just consider her
hats
, which everyone thought so hideous. Just consider
this dress
. All she had ever read were lurid Gothic novels and six and a half books of
Paradise Lost
—not even quite a half. And she could not even read
that
intelligently. She too thought Satan a splendid character and God a great yawn.
And
her mind could be distracted merely at the thought of another ball to attend.

She was hopeless.

She was unlovable.

Their developing romance had been
entirely
in her own head.

“Lord Heyward,” she said, gazing into his eyes, willing him to assure her that every bad thing she had ever been told about
herself—even though she
knew
every one of them was true—was so much nonsense, and that even if it was not he did not care a tuppenny toss for any of it because he loved her to distraction, “is this because you kissed me last night?”

And the horrible thing was that he stared back at her and did not immediately rush to deny it.

“I compromised you,” he said. “I have come to make amends.”

Oh, Tresham had been right all along, she thought. He was a dry, dry stick that had been baking out in the desert for a hundred years. Except that he had every right to feel reluctant to marry her. Any man would. Men only flocked here to propose to her because she was the
Duke of Tresham’s
sister and had an almost indecently large dowry. No man could have any other reason.

“You do not love me?”

And why had she whispered the words? Perhaps because she ought not to have uttered them at all. She could not possibly have sounded more abject if she had tried.

He got to his feet though he still retained hold of her hand—in both his own.

“I am fond of you,” he said, “and I do not doubt affection will deepen between us as time goes on. I hope I did not give the impression I have come here today
only
because I kissed you last evening. I—”

He seemed lost for further words.

“I am the most eligible of prospective brides,” she said. “And you need a bride. I need a husband, and you are the most eligible of prospective grooms. It
does
rather sound like a match made in heaven, does it not?”

He was frowning.

“It is not quite like that,” he said. “I-I
want
to marry you. Dash it all, Lady Angeline, this is the first marriage proposal I have ever made. I hope it will be the last. I have made a mess of it, have I not? Do forgive me. What can I say to put it right?”

But there was nothing. She had asked him right out if he loved
her, and he had answered—
I am fond of you, and I do not doubt affection will deepen between us as time goes on
.

She would have been far more cheered if he had said a definite no, he did not love her at all, in fact he hated her.

There was
passion
in hatred.

There was none whatsoever in
I am fond of you, and … affection will deepen between us
.

Angeline slid her hand out from between his and looked down at it, forlorn and cold and on its own again.

“I do thank you for your flattering offer, Lord Heyward,” she said, “and for your concern to make all right after last evening. But there was no need to be concerned, you see. No one knew and no one will ever know. Not unless
you
tell. I let you kiss me, and I kissed you back because I
wanted
to, because I had never been kissed before and I am nineteen years old and it is a little ridiculous and pathetic never to have been kissed. Now I have been, and I thank you for the experience. It was really very pleasant, and next time I will know far better what to expect and how to behave. And I will not expect everyone whom I will allow to kiss me to rush here the next day to offer me the respectability of marriage. Not that I will allow
everyone
, or even many men, to kiss me. I’ll probably allow very few, in fact. Of course, you are a gentleman, which not many men are despite what their birth and upbringing may lead them to call themselves. I am sure you do not make a habit of slinking off into the bushes with every girl who has never been kissed just so that you can show them how it is done. That would not be at all honorable, and you are always unfailingly honorable. Besides, you would be forever dashing off to propose marriage the day after, and
one
of them might say yes and you would be miserable forever after. Unless you
loved
that particular one, of course, except that—”

I am babbling
.

She stopped doing it and turned her hand over so that she could examine her palm with as much attention as she had been giving the back of her hand.

There was a short silence.

“I am sorry,” he said then.

His voice was quiet, flat.

And that was all. There was another silence, a rather lengthy one this time, and then she was aware of him bowing rather abruptly to her. He left without another word. She heard the door open quietly and then close just as quietly. There was no passion even in his exit.

The long line that curved around her palm from just below her forefinger and disappeared into the folds of her wrist was her lifeline, was it not? It looked as if she was going to live at least a hundred years. That meant she still had eighty-one left.

Eighty-one years of heartbreak. Would it fade by about the seventieth of those years? The seventy-fifth?

The door opened again, much more forcefully.

“Well?” Tresham asked.

“Oh.” She looked up. “I said no and sent him on his way.”

“Good girl,” he said briskly. “Am I supposed to escort you to the Hicks ball tonight, or is Rosalie coming by here?”

You
, she was going to say. But she was not sure she could get even the one more word past her lips without its wobbling all out of control and making her feel like a prize idiot.

She yanked the door open and fled out into the hall and up the stairs, leaving someone else to close the door behind her.

The Duke of Tresham stared after her, his brows almost meeting above his nose.

“What the devil?” he asked of the empty room. “All I asked was whether I am to escort her to this infernal ball tonight.”

And then he scratched his chin and looked thoughtful.