The Secret Mistress (37 page)

What
letter?

Lord Windrow flexed his jaw as Lord Heyward’s hold on his lapels relaxed slightly.

“I would be delighted to meet you whenever and wherever is convenient to you, Heyward,” Lord Windrow said, “but I would really rather it not be today, if it is all the same to you. I may already have a bruise to explain away to my mother, whose health is not of the soundest. She may well have a fit of the vapors if I appear before her with bulbous nose and bloodshot, blackening eye—or perhaps even
eyes
—and a missing tooth or two. Besides, there are ladies present.”

“A fact that did not seem to deter you last time,” Lord Heyward said from between his teeth. But he dropped his hands to his sides, and some of the fire went out of him. “I will
not
have you bothering Lady Angeline Dudley, Windrow, now or ever. Even if she
is
properly chaperoned. Is that understood?”

Lord Windrow brushed his hands over his lapels.

“I suppose,” he said, “you will not take a step back until I say
yes
, Heyward, will you? Yes it will have to be, then. I feel a certain discomfort with my nose a mere inch from yours.”

Lord Heyward took a step back and turned his head to glare at Angeline.

What had he meant by saying Lord Windrow must not bother
her
? What about
Miss Goddard
?

“I shall remove myself entirely from the lady’s presence,” Lord Windrow said. “Miss Goddard will doubtless hold me steady if my legs should decide to wobble. Miss Goddard?” He turned to offer her his arm.

She looked pointedly at him as though there were a thousand things she wished to say. But then she closed her eyes briefly and shook her head slightly, took his arm, and allowed him to lead her from the room.

Angeline swallowed.

“I have a confession to make,” she said. “I am so sorry. Not a word of that letter I wrote was true.”

“What letter?” Lord Heyward’s eyes narrowed.

“The one I left for you,” she said. “The one Cousin Rosalie’s butler was to give you at four.”

“There seems to have been a good deal of letter-writing going on,” he said. “Who gave the letter to the butler?”

“Miss Goddard,” she said.

“Ah,” he said. “I begin to understand that I no longer know Eunice to even the smallest degree.”

“But you love her,” she said. “And she loves you. This was all her idea, though admittedly it was I who originally suggested that you must be encouraged to acknowledge your feelings and the truth that you cannot live without her. What better way to realize that than through fear for her safety at the hands of a rake? And what better person to make you feel that way than Lord Windrow? I asked Rosalie to invite both him and Miss Goddard to Hallings so that I could arrange something—
and
make your family see that she is not vulgar at all, even if she is not strictly speaking a member of the
ton
. But I found I could not do it alone and so I took Miss Goddard into my confidence. She was both willing and eager to help implement my plan. But the first part did not work. Instead of going to rescue her from Lord Windrow when we were out walking yesterday, you insisted upon helping me get rid of the stone in my shoe instead, even though there was not really a stone in it at all. It was all a
ruse
. Miss Goddard said today that we needed more drastic action, and suggested
this
and the letter I left for you. And I did it, though I realize now I ought not to have, for there have been too many lies, and even apart from those I have been very unfair indeed to Lord Windrow, who has never treated either me or Miss Goddard with disrespect—well, except for that very first time. But no real harm was done then, was it? As soon as you pointed out his error to him, or
almost
as soon, he apologized—after you had insisted—and went on his way. And now I have caused him to get hurt. You hit him
very
hard. And it was all my fault. And nothing has worked as it ought, has it? Here you are talking to me instead of to Miss Goddard. Or, rather, here I am talking to
you
instead of sending you after her. Oh,
why
does nothing work?”

And when, during her lengthy, muddled speech, had he stepped closer to her—closer even than he had been to Lord Windrow?

“Perhaps,” he said softly, “because you have everything wrong, Angeline.”

No
Lady
before her name?

She swallowed and gazed into his very blue eyes. She had no choice, really. There was nowhere else to look unless she stepped back, and there was no way of doing that without tripping over her chair.

“Do I?” she said.

“It is not
Eunice
I love,” he said.

“Oh?”

She dared not hope. Oh, she
dared
not. Perhaps he only meant that he did not love anyone. Not in
that
way, anyway. Perhaps he had not changed. Perhaps he never would.

She sank her teeth into her lower lip.

“It is
you
I love,” he said.

Oh.

Ohhh!

It was precisely at that moment that they both heard the unmistakable clopping of horses’ hooves, and the rumbling of carriage wheels over the cobbles of the inn yard and out onto the street and along it until the sounds gradually faded into the distance.

I
AM NOT
at all sure,” Eunice said from within Lord Windrow’s carriage, “that we are doing the right thing. Indeed, I am rather sure we are doing the
wrong
thing. For I did not notice another carriage, did you? Edward must have ridden here, a complication I did not foresee.”

Lord Windrow, seated across one corner of the carriage, his foot
braced on the seat opposite, his arms crossed over his chest, regarded her with amused eyes from beneath drooped eyelids.

“My dear Miss Goddard,” he said, “would a man about to race in pursuit of his lady love, whom he feared was being abducted by a black-hearted villain, stop to call out his carriage?”

“You knew, then,” she said, “even when we devised this scheme? But what are they to do now?”

“Ride together on the same horse,” he said. “A means of locomotion that is vastly romantic in theory, deucedly uncomfortable in practice. Hire a carriage. I daresay the Peacock has some rickety old thing that would serve the purpose. It would, however, and beyond all doubt, be deucedly uncomfortable in both theory and practice. Stay where they are until we return for them. That option has the potential for all sorts of comfort. They have at least three clear choices, then, as you can see.”

“We
will
return for them?” she said. “Soon?”

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “after we have breakfasted at Norton and taken leave of my mother.”

“But what if there
is
no carriage for hire?” she asked, frowning.

“Then their choices will be reduced to two,” he said. “There will be less cause for dithering.”

She turned her head to gaze at him.

“You do not really
believe
they will remain at the Peacock, do you?” she asked. “Edward would be the perfect gentleman, of course, and I daresay there are enough rooms for the two of them. It did not look a crowded place, did it? But even so, Lady Angeline would be
ruined
. We did not even leave her my maid.”

He smiled lazily.

“I have distinct hopes for Heyward,” he said. “That punch he threw—in front of
ladies
—hurt like Hades. I can
still
feel it. I do believe he may not act the gentleman at all tonight. I would not wager upon it, however. He has never been known to set a foot wrong in all of human history to date, and now he has already done it once today. He will either decide that that is quite enough adventure for the next millennium or two, or he will discover in himself a taste for
anarchy. One can only hope. As my favorite groom in all the world liked to remark with great wisdom and no originality whatsoever when I was a child, one may lead a horse to water, but one cannot make him drink. And as for your maid, you have need of her yourself. My mother would have a fit of the vapors if you were to arrive unchaperoned, and she would scold me for a month after regaining consciousness. Besides, it may not have escaped your attention that your maid is quite happy to ride up on the box with my coachman and that he is quite happy to have her there. It would have been cruel to them both to have left her behind at the Peacock.”

Eunice sighed.

“I never ought to have agreed to this perfectly mad scheme,” she said. “For Lady Angeline
will
be ruined whether she comes to Norton unchaperoned later today or returns to Hallings unchaperoned tonight or—heaven forbid—remains at the Peacock until our return tomorrow morning. And I will blame myself for the rest of my life. Whatever was I thinking?”

Lord Windrow reached out and took her hand in his.

“
You
were thinking of bringing your two friends together in a match made in heaven,” he said, “since they did not seem to possess the good sense to do it for themselves.
I
was thinking of a way to get you to myself again for a while.”

She looked down at their hands for a moment before curling her fingers about his and sighing again.

“I ought not to encourage you,” she said. “You
are
a rake.”

“Ah,” he said, “but even Lady Angeline Dudley admits that rakes may sometimes be reformed. It is certainly within the bounds of possibility that I may be one of their number. Not probability, perhaps—she did speak of it rather as if it resembled a Forlorn Hope, did she not? But definitely a
possibility.
”

“I am the daughter of a Cambridge don,” Eunice said apropos of nothing.

“I daresay,” he said, “he is fiendishly intelligent and bookish.”

“He is,” she agreed.

“Both of which traits he has passed on to you,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Though perhaps not the
fiendishly
part.”

He lifted her hand and set the back of it briefly against his lips.

“May intelligent, bookish ladies sometimes be reformed?” he asked her.

She thought about it.

“I suppose it may be within the bounds of possibility,” she said, “even if not of probability.”

“Under what circumstances might it?” he asked.

“I have discovered within myself in the last while,” she said, “a desire to …”

“Yes?” he prompted her when she fell silent.

“To
enjoy
life,” she said.

“And you cannot enjoy being intelligent and bookish?” he asked.

“I can
appreciate
both,” she said. “I always have and always will. I certainly have no wish to renounce either. I just want to … to have some
fun
.”

“Ah.” He returned their hands to the seat between them. “I like the sound of this.”

“Edward and I thought we would suit admirably when we made that agreement four years ago,” she said. “We were and are alike in many ways. But when I saw him again earlier this spring in London after not seeing him for well over a year, I knew immediately that it was impossible, and not only because by then he was the Earl of Heyward and more was expected of him than to marry someone like me. I also knew that he needed someone to brighten his life, to lift the load of duty and responsibility that he shouldered without complaint after his brother died. I could not do that. I cannot be … merry unless someone draws merriment out of me. I have no experience of my own. And then, at the Tresham ball, when you danced with Lady Angeline and Edward and I came to sit at your table during supper, I could see immediately that she admired him and that he was unaccountably concerned about her safety even while he was irritated by her. And I knew that she was
just
the wife he needed. As I got to know her better, I could see too that he was
just
the husband for her. She needs steadiness and he needs … joy. And I knew too that I felt a little depressed at the loss of what for four years I had thought I wanted. But I did not want that dream back, or Edward, dearly as I love him. For I realized that I would like some joy too. Or at least a little fun.”

“Have you had fun with me, Eunice?” he asked softly.

She looked sharply at him but let his use of her given name go.

“I have,” she said. “You
are
fun—intelligent and sharp-minded and witty and irreverent.”

“I sound like a dreadfully dull dog,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, “and you are handsome and
 … attractive
and you kiss well. Not that I have anything with which to compare that kiss, but I would be very surprised if even the most experienced of courtesans would not agree with me. There! Is your vanity satisfied?”

He grinned slowly at her.

“We are here,” he said. “Come and meet my mother. We will warn her, by the way, that she may expect two more guests, though they have been unfortunately delayed at the Peacock by carriage troubles and may well decide to return to Hallings once the carriage is roadworthy again.”

“Oh,” Eunice said with a sigh. “I have told more lies in the last few days than I have in my whole life before. After today there will be no more.”

And then he escorted her into the grand house of Norton Park and up the winding staircase to the drawing room, where Lady Windrow was waiting to greet them, a warm smile on her fragile face.

“Charles,” she said as he enclosed her in his arms and kissed her cheek and wished her a happy birthday. “I told you when you went to Hallings that you must not dream of coming all the way back here just for my birthday. Ten miles is a long way.”

“How could I
not
come for such an occasion, Mama?” he said. “Have I ever missed being with you on your birthday?”

He turned, one arm about her waist, and her eyes rested upon Eunice, who curtsied.

“Besides,” he said, “I had another reason for coming, one that will delight you, I believe, as you have been pestering me for years. I wanted you to meet Miss Goddard, the lady I plan one day soon, when the setting and the atmosphere are quite perfect, to ask to marry me. It is time, you see, to do that most dreaded of all things to men, though suddenly it does not seem so dreadful after all. Indeed, it seems infinitely desirable. It is time to settle down.”