The Secret Mistress (36 page)

Windrow was going home for the night—apparently it was only ten miles away. It was his mother’s birthday. A little while ago, Edward would have been delighted. Indeed, he would have hoped that Windrow would fail to return. He had got over that, though—as long as Windrow did nothing to threaten Lady Angeline’s safety or peace of mind.

And then, late in the afternoon, that was
just
what happened.

The butler waylaid him as he was passing through the hall, and placed a folded and sealed piece of paper in his hands.

“I was asked to deliver this to you personally at four o’clock, my lord,” he said with a bow.

Edward looked down at it. His name was written on one side in a neat, precise feminine hand. Eunice’s. He raised his eyebrows. A letter? Rather than a word to him in person?

“Thank you,” he said, and he went up to his room to read it in private.

Lord Windrow had invited Lady Angeline Dudley and her to accompany him to Norton Park as a special birthday treat for his mother, Eunice had written. Edward would know about that—he did
not
. It had all been arranged quite properly, of course. Both Lady Palmer and the Duke of Tresham had given their permission.

“But, Edward,” Eunice had continued, “I know that I have been invited only because permission would
not
have been granted for Lady Angeline to go alone. I am foolish perhaps to feel anxious. I am not normally given to groundless anxieties, as you know. But I
am
uneasy. How can I be certain that Lady Windrow is at Norton? Perhaps she is not. And how can I be certain that somehow I will not be spirited away somewhere, leaving Lord Windrow and Lady Angeline alone? Oh, these concerns
must
be groundless, must they not? I
must
be doing Lord Windrow an injustice. He is a gentleman, after all, despite what you witnessed on the road to London. But, Edward, he has mentioned an inn on the way to Norton, where he says we will stop for refreshments and a change of horses. But the whole distance is only ten miles. We ought not to
need
to stop, ought we? Forgive this letter. It is unlike me, I know. But Lady Angeline is such an innocent. I fear for her. And Lord Windrow is such a determined flirt—or maybe worse. Do ignore these meanderings if you will—or come in pursuit. I did mention to Lady Palmer when Lord Windrow was not listening that you might follow us over to Norton, and she even seemed pleased. I believe she still has hopes for you and Lady Angeline. Oh, please—it is time to go. Please come. Your ever devoted friend, Eunice.”

Edward had turned cold.

It
was
unlike Eunice to panic. She was the most sensible person,
of either gender, that he knew. If she was uneasy, there was something to be uneasy about.

And that villain, Windrow …

Edward flexed his hands. His fingers itched to be about the man’s throat. His knuckles ached to make contact with his jawbone.

This
time, Windrow would not need to waste his breath issuing a challenge. He could save it to defend his life, of all but an inch of which he was going to be deprived before the day was over.

Lady Palmer was in the drawing room with Edward’s grandmother and mother, the Reverend Martin, and Mr. Briden. It took all of Edward’s willpower to smile and greet everyone and wait for an end to the discussion on the merits of remaining in the country all year as opposed to spending parts of it in London or at one of the spas. It took all of his willpower to speak quietly to Lady Palmer.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I will be riding over to Norton Park, if the absence of yet another of your guests will not seem a great discourtesy. I did not want to crowd Windrow’s carriage, but I did say I might follow after it.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know that, Lord Heyward. And I am happy for you young people to have an excursion you will enjoy. I am even secretly happy that you
have
decided to go too, for my numbers are now even again and the dining table this evening will not look sadly lopsided.”

She laughed, as did everyone else in the room. His grandmother, Edward noted, waved her lorgnette in his direction and actually winked at him.

“Lady Windrow will be
so
pleased to have company,” Lady Palmer said. “She suffers with rather delicate health and rarely leaves Norton. But she loves to have visitors. Let me not delay you, though. It is a longish ride.”

So Windrow’s mother
was
at Norton, Edward thought as he hurried from the room and upstairs to change into riding clothes. Perhaps Eunice’s fears were quite ungrounded, then. But there was still that matter of a stop at an inn on the way, and Edward certainly did not trust Windrow at inns. He was going. And let Windrow just
try
something. Edward almost hoped he would. His long-held conviction that a gentleman did not need to resort to violence to make a point was all very well on occasion, perhaps even on most occasions.

But this was not any occasion, or even most.

This concerned Lady Angeline Dudley. Whom Edward loved. How had Alma phrased it? Without whom he could not contemplate living. That was it, or something very like it. And what else had she said?

You must
do
something very decisive to convince her
.

Right.

Right!

Ten minutes later, having saddled a horse himself, he was moving away from the stables at a gallop.

M
ISS
G
ODDARD AND
Lord Windrow were engaged in a spirited discussion of Mr. Richardson’s
Pamela
, which Angeline had never read, partly because it had always looked disconcertingly long and partly because she had never found its subtitle,
Or Virtue Rewarded
, even the smallest little bit enticing. Miss Goddard was of the opinion that the hero was the most worthless villain in all of literature—and that
included
Iago in Shakespeare’s
Othello
—while Lord Windrow argued that a reformed rake made the most steadfast and worthy of heroes for the rest of his life.

Since Lord Windrow expressed himself with lazy wit and Miss Goddard’s earnest opinions were frequently punctuated with bursts of laughter, Angeline felt she really ought to enjoy just listening. She ought indeed to offer an opinion of her own, even if she had not read the book. After all, she did have something to say on the subject of rakes and the possibility—or impossibility—of their ever being reformed.

But she could not concentrate.

She felt a little sick, if the truth were known. They had been here at the Peacock Inn far longer than they needed to be just to change the horses on Lord Windrow’s carriage and partake of tea in the private parlor. They had all had two cups of tea, and what remained in the pot must be cold. They had eaten all the cakes on the plate.

And still Lord Heyward had not come.

Angeline had given her letter—it had turned into something longer than a note after the second paragraph—to Miss Goddard, who had gone off to hand it to the butler with clear instructions to put it into Lord Heyward’s hands and no other’s at four o’clock. Lord Heyward could not have mistaken the danger she had described. She had felt when she had finished composing it, in fact, that she really ought to write a Gothic novel. She certainly appeared to have the talent for lurid hyperbole. He
must
be consumed with anxiety for Miss Goddard.

But he had not come yet.

She had mentioned the inn in the letter, though she had not known its name at the time. But surely he would not have driven right on past. It was a small inn with a small inn yard. And the gates were open wide. Even if he had not known about the possible stop here, he surely could not have missed seeing the carriage in the yard as he passed.

She just hoped that when he came—
if
he came—Miss Goddard would not be laughing. And if she, Angeline, could only have some advance warning of his arrival, she would slip off to use the necessary so that he would find Miss Goddard and Lord Windrow alone together—Miss Goddard’s maid was taking refreshments in the kitchen.

Oh, would he
never
come? This was like waiting for Tresham at the Rose and Crown all over again. Except that then she had been excited and exuberant in anticipation of her come-out and the Season and beaux and marriage and happiness, while now she was mortally depressed. For if he came, it would be because he loved Miss Goddard, and it would be such an extravagant gesture that there would be no going back from it.

Nothing could make Angeline happier.

She felt as if
every part
of her—even her eyelids when she blinked—were made of lead.

Waltzing under the stars ought to be outlawed. It really ought. And so should rolling down hills. And so should … Well,
everything
ought to be outlawed.

“Ah, fair one,” Lord Windrow said, addressing her directly, “you simply must speak up in defense of rakes. In
my
defense, that is. I am a man who visits his
mother
on her
birthday
. Would a heartless villain do that?”

Despite herself Angeline laughed. And oh, goodness, she had depicted him as just that—a heartless villain—in the letter she had left behind. Yet she could not help liking him. Conscience smote her, as it ought to have done much sooner. She really ought not to have used him in such a dastardly way to arouse Lord Heyward’s jealousy, for his behavior toward Miss Goddard had never been improper. And even to herself it had been improper only that once.

As if she needed
guilt
to be added to all her other burdens.

She hoped Lord Heyward would
not
come. Perhaps Cousin Rosalie’s butler had forgotten to deliver the letter. Perhaps he had not read it. Or perhaps he had merely laughed at it and dismissed its contents as the ravings of someone who had read too many Gothic novels.

“I believe the word
rake
needs to be defined,” she said. “Or at least it needs to be established what a rake is
not
. As I understand it from what the two of you have been saying, the hero of
Pamela
is not a rake at all, for it seems he tried on a number of occasions to take Pamela’s virtue by force and quite against her will. That man is an out-and-out villain, who ought not to be dignified with the name of
rake
. A rake, though capable of all sorts of wild, debauched,
silly
behavior, is still first and foremost a gentleman. And a gentleman never
ever
deprives a woman—and I speak not just of
ladies
—of her virtue against her will.”

“Oh, bravo,” Lord Windrow said.

“Wonderfully well expressed,” Miss Goddard said.

“A rake may never be reformed,” Angeline said, “for most men believe it is a
manly
thing to be and something to which their gender entitles them. But they are not
villainous
for all that. Or, if they are, then they have put themselves beyond the pale of mere rakishness.”

Lord Windrow and Miss Goddard both smiled at her—just as
the door of the private sitting room crashed back against the wall and then slammed shut again.

Between the two swift, deafening actions the Earl of Heyward appeared in the room.

Angeline clasped her hands to her bosom. Miss Goddard spread hers on the table. Lord Windrow, who had been sitting with his back to the door, got to his feet and turned.

“Ah, Heyward,” he said. “Come to join us, have—”

Lord Heyward punched him right on the point of the chin. His head snapped back and he would have tumbled backward if the table had not been in the way. As it was, his back bounced off the lid of the teapot, sending it rolling across the table and clattering to the floor. The teapot tipped and spilled its contents over the cloth.

“Edward.”
Miss Goddard clutched two fistfuls of the tablecloth.

“Lord Heyward.”
Angeline lifted her clasped hands to her mouth and bit into one knuckle.

“You!”
Lord Heyward, eyes blazing, grasped the lapels of Lord Windrow’s coat and hoisted him upright. “Outside! Now! I have had enough of you.”

“I rather thought that might be it, old chap,” Lord Windrow said, touching his jaw rather gingerly with his fingertips. “It is one of those occasions when fists have already spoken louder than words.”

“Lord Heyward!” Angeline cried, jumping to her feet. “I was
wrong
.”

Oh, she was going to do a terrible disservice to Miss Goddard, whose idea this had been. She was going to have to confess all, Angeline decided. She really had not expected that
fisticuffs
would be the result of her deception.

“Edward, no!” Miss Goddard was also on her feet. “Oh, Lord Windrow, I had no idea
this
would happen. How foolish of me not to have foreseen it. Edward, all is proper, as you can see. I am with Lady Angeline as a chaperon, and my maid is traveling with us too. We are indeed going to Norton Park to dine with Lady Windrow. I
really, really ought not to have written that letter. Oh, now I know why deception is so very wrong. I am dreadfully sorry.”