The Secret Mistress (9 page)

A
NGELINE HAD ALWAYS
been impulsive. She had always had a tendency to act before she thought, usually with less than desirable results. Her governesses had habitually, and unsuccessfully, attempted to teach her the wisdom of a lady’s always pausing to consider what she was about to say or do before actually saying or doing whatever it was.

She had done it again.
Acted
, that was, before thinking of the consequences of what she was about to do.

Her ankle was not damaged. It was a little sore, perhaps, but only with the sort of pain that diminished to nothing at all within minutes and was really not worth the bother of fussing over. But …

Well, this was her come-out ball. Worse, this was the opening set of her come-out ball. All eyes were upon her. That seemed to include even the eyes of her fellow dancers.
And
of the orchestra members. She had turned her ankle, though
not
the ankle belonging to the leg she had broken last year, and she had stumbled awkwardly, and she had gasped with pain, and …

Well, and the world gasped with her and converged upon her from all corners of the globe. The music stopped abruptly, and dancers and spectators came dashing, all presumably in the hope of catching her before she hit the floor.

The Earl of Heyward reached her first and wrapped an arm about her waist and held her firmly upright so that she could not
possibly tumble to the floor even if that had been her intention, which it had not.

It was a distracting moment, or fraction of a moment. For he was all firm, muscled masculinity, and Angeline would have liked nothing better than to revel for at least a short while in the unfamiliar delight of being held in a man’s arms—well, almost in his arms, anyway. And not just any man’s arms. And what was that absolutely
wonderful
cologne that clung about his person?

But voices all about her were raised in alarm or concern or puzzlement.

“Lady Angeline!”

“You have hurt yourself.”

“She has hurt herself.”

“Set her down on the floor. Don’t try moving her.”

“Carry her over to the French windows for some air.”

“What happened?”

“Hand me my vinaigrette.”

“Send a servant to fetch a physician.”

“Did she faint?”

“The music was too fast. I
said
it was, did I not?”

“The floor is too highly polished.”

“Have you sprained your ankle?”

“Has she broken her ankle?”

“How dreadfully unfortunate.”

“Oh, the poor dear.”

“What
happened
?”

“Trip over your own toes, did you, Angie?” This last in the cheerful voice of Ferdinand.

And those were only a sampling of the myriad exclamations and comments Angeline heard. This, she thought, had
not
been one of the best ideas she had ever conceived.

“Oh, dear,” she said, feeling the heat of a very genuine blush rise in her cheeks, “how very clumsy of me.”

“Not at all. Are you hurt?” Lord Heyward asked her with flattering concern.

“Hardly at all,” she said, laughing lightly.

But
that
was no answer, especially for a large audience, all of whose members were now hushed in an attempt to hear what she had to say. She winced as she set her foot back on the floor, and the guests winced with her.

“Well, perhaps just a little,” she said. “We had better sit out what remains of this set so that I will be able to dance for the rest of the evening. I am so sorry for causing such a fuss. Please ignore me.”

She smiled about at the gathered masses and rather wished it were possible to be sucked at will into a great hole.

“Thank you, Heyward. I shall take Angeline to a withdrawing room to rest for a while. The dancing may resume.”

It was Tresham, cool and black-eyed. In control. Taking charge.

Lord Heyward’s arm loosened about her waist but did not entirely drop away.

“Lady Angeline is my partner,” he said, sounding as cool as Tresham. “I shall help her to that love seat over there and sit with her, as is her wish. She may then decide if she is fit to dance the next set or if she would prefer to withdraw for a spell.”

It was an exchange that did not even
nearly
qualify as a confrontation, Angeline thought, looking with interest from her brother’s face to Lord Heyward’s. And yet … And yet there was
something
there, some ever so minor clash of wills. And, just as he had at the Rose and Crown, the earl won the day with quiet courtesy. Tresham stared back at him for a fraction of a second longer than was strictly necessary, raised his eyebrows, and turned to nod at the leader of the orchestra.

The whole incident had lasted for a maximum of two minutes, probably less. The earl offered his arm this time rather than just the back of his hand, Angeline linked hers through it and leaned upon him with just enough of her weight to look convincing, and he led her to the love seat he had indicated, which was wedged in next to the orchestra dais and was therefore somewhat isolated from the other seats in the ballroom.

The orchestra struck up its lively tune again and the dancers
danced. Angeline glanced at them a little wistfully while Lord Heyward rescued a brocaded stool from half under the dais and set it before her to support her injured foot. She rested it on the stool and sighed.

“Ah,” she said, “that is better. Thank you, my lord.”

He inclined his head to her and seated himself beside her.
Close
beside her since the seat was narrow. Even so, he kept a very correct sliver of air between their two bodies.

“I adore dancing,” she said as she opened her fan and plied it slowly before her face. “I daresay you do too. I do apologize for depriving you of the pleasure of participating any further until the next set.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Besides, I do
not
enjoy dancing.”

She could feel the heat from his body and smell that very enticing cologne again. She would not mind at all, she thought quite scandalously, if he accidentally touched her arm or kissed her hand. Or her lips, for that matter. She had never been kissed. She had
wanted
to be for some time now. And who better …

The ballroom was surely exceedingly warm.

“I suppose,” she said because she did not want him to suspect that she had guessed the truth, poor man, “you have been dancing for so many years that you have become quite jaded.”

“Not at all,” he said again. “I have always been clumsy at it. I have been able to avoid dancing until this year. I was insignificantly positioned as the younger brother of an earl who was married and beginning to set up his nursery. When he died last year, my life changed.”

Ah, an honest man. One who was willing to admit that he was a clumsy dancer. There were not many honest people in this world, Angeline suspected, especially on the subject of their own defects.

“And now you are expected to dance all the time,” she said, smiling at him. “You were forced to dance with me.”

“I was not
forced
, Lady Angeline.” His eyebrows rose, and she noticed that they arched very nicely indeed above his eyes without unduly creasing his brow. “It was my pleasure.”

Ah, not always honest. Her smile deepened.

“You were in mourning all last year, then, were you?” she asked him. “I have been in mourning too, though not last year. It was the year before. For my mother. I ought to have made my come-out last year. Is that not strange? If I
had
, I would not have encountered you at that inn outside Reading or in Hyde Park this morning. And I would have had a different partner with whom to dance the opening set of my come-out ball. You would have been away somewhere mourning for your brother. How random a thing fate is.”

Perhaps he did not see their meetings as fate. Or not as a happy one, anyway. If he did, he had nothing to say on the subject. And when she glanced at him, she could see that his lips were rather tightly set.

It really was a fast and vigorous dance, she thought as her eyes strayed beyond his shoulder. Tresham was dancing with the widowed Countess of Heyward and Ferdinand with the small, blond-haired, very pretty Lady Martha Hamelin, with whom Angeline had chatted at great length at St. James’s Palace this morning. Trust Ferdie to single out the loveliest girl in the room.

She really hoped Lady Martha would be one of those close friends she craved.

“I
ought
to have made my come-out last year,” she said again, resuming her story, “but I broke my leg.”

She glanced down at it. Her foot was reclining on the brocaded stool. Her
left
foot. It was the right foot she had turned on the dance floor a short while ago. Oh, dear. It was too late now, though, to make the correction. He would surely notice. So, perhaps, would half of those gathered in the ballroom. She was not unaware of the fact that many eyes were turned their way.

“You are accident prone, Lady Angeline?” he asked.

“I fell out of a tree,” she said. “I was crossing the bull’s meadow because I was late and needed to return home quickly and because there was no sign of the bull. I
did
look, for one does not wish to come face-to-face with two tons of annoyed bull in the middle of a meadow, does one? I still do not know where he could possibly have
been hiding, but he was there right enough. He was hiding deliberately, I daresay, lying in wait for just such an opportunity as that with which I presented him. I went up the tree like a monkey when he came charging after me, and I sat up there for what seemed like an hour, though I daresay it was no longer than ten minutes or so, while he prowled about down below trying to devise a way of getting at me. I have never been more thankful for the limited attention of bulls. I might have been up there for a
week
. He lost interest eventually and wandered away, and I was so relieved and so frantic to get away before he returned
and
because I had invited visitors and it was becoming more and more probable that they would be at the house before me, that I did not pay the descent of the tree my full attention and missed my footing on a lower branch and fell to the ground. I landed on my left leg and actually heard it crack. I was very vexed with myself, but it might have been worse. I might have landed on my head. And by some miracle the bull did not return while I moved to the fence and scrambled beneath it as quickly as I could on my bot—Well.” She fanned her face briskly.

He was looking fully at her and it struck her foolishly that she could well drown in his blue eyes if she gazed into them for long enough.

“I hope,” he said, “you learned to be more punctual for appointments, Lady Angeline, so that in future you need not be tempted to cross forbidden and dangerous meadows.”

She tipped her head to one side and regarded him thoughtfully.

“I told the story to make you smile,” she said. “Other men slap their thighs when I tell it and roar with mirth. Ladies titter behind their fans and look merry.”

“I wonder,” he said, “if they would all laugh so hard if it were Tresham telling the story about his
deceased
sister.”

“Lord Heyward,” she said, “are you perhaps just a little bit stuffy?”

And there, she had done it again. Words before thought. But it was too late to recall them.

His nostrils flared slightly. She had annoyed him, which was really hardly surprising.

But she had not meant her observation to be an insult or even a criticism. She did not mind in the least if he was a little stuffy. Not under the circumstances. It had probably never occurred to anyone else whose ears she had regaled with that particular story that it might just as easily have been a
tragic
one.

Perhaps she ought to have used the words
serious-minded
rather than
stuffy
. They had a more positive connotation.

“According to your definition of the word, Lady Angeline,” he said, “no doubt I am. I do not find stories of charging bulls amusing. Or stories of unescorted ladies being accosted by impudent fellows in inn taprooms, though I daresay such incidents could be made to sound uproariously amusing. Or stories of daredevils racing their curricles along a narrow road used by other innocent and unsuspecting travelers, though I daresay such incidents have entertained many a gathering of men who admire sheer daredevilry. I make no apology for being
stuffy
. Life is too serious a business for idle persons to endanger themselves and others by being hoydens or rakehells.”

Angeline gazed at him.

And had a thought.

Had his brother died in a curricle race? Had he been a daredevil?

Did he blame
her
for what had happened at the Rose and Crown, even though he had defended her so gallantly? Because she ought to have been chaperoned or not there at all?

He certainly blamed her for the bull incident. Because she had been
late
for an appointment.

She might have bristled with anger at the implied criticism, as she undoubtedly would have done if it had been Tresham delivering the scold, or Ferdinand. Or Miss Pratt.

But she stopped to think—a rare occurrence—and plied her fan slowly as she did so.

She might indeed have died if that tree had not been in that particular spot in the meadow or if she had indeed fallen on her head
instead of her left leg. Or if the bull had come back. That handsome red-haired gentleman might have done her considerable harm in the inn taproom if there had been no one there to speak up for her—though she did not
think
she would have been in any real danger. Or, if the man had refused to apologize to her, Lord Heyward might have been beaten to a pulp out in the yard—though she did not
think
so. But even if he had sustained just a black eye, it would have been at least partly her fault. She ought not to have been where she was.

She must seem like a careless, unladylike, frivolous chatterbox to Lord Heyward. And a hoyden to boot.

Was he wrong?

Miss Pratt would agree wholeheartedly with him.