Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) (6 page)

*   *   *

FOR
a while on the day of the ball Moira had hopes of avoiding it after all. First there was the letter that arrived for Sir Edwin
Baillie from the eldest of his sisters. She wrote to congratulate her brother on his betrothal and to express the pleasure she and her mama and sisters felt at the prospect of welcoming Miss Hayes as a far closer relative than she had been before. She wrote to wish her brother and his betrothed—and Lady Hayes, of course—the compliments of the season. And
she
wrote rather than her mama because Mama was feeling slightly under the weather, having still not quite shaken the chill that had threatened when dear Edwin left. But he was not to feel alarmed. Christobel was confident that another day or two of quiet rest would restore her mother to full health once more.

Sir Edwin was beside himself with anxiety. His mother must be very sick indeed if she found herself unable even to write a letter to her son and her soon-to-be daughter-in-law—if Miss Hayes would pardon such a familiar reference to herself. It was inexpressibly kind of Lady Hayes to try comforting him with the assurance that his sister would surely inform him of any serious decline in his mother’s health, but he knew how tenderhearted his sisters were and how stouthearted his mother was. None of them would wish to drag him unnecessarily from the felicity of basking in the happiness of the early days of his betrothal.

He must return home without delay, he decided at one moment. He would have his bags packed and have his carriage prepared. Indeed, he would not even wait for his bags to be packed. But the next moment he decided that he must remain for at least one more day. He could not possibly disappoint Miss Hayes and Lady Hayes by being unavailable to escort them to Dunbarton in the coming evening. And if he could not escort
them, then who would? They would be doomed to remain at home. Besides—and perhaps of more importance when he remembered to set personal inclinations aside—he could not possibly disappoint his lordship, the Earl of Haverford, who had forgiven the Hayes family and himself as head of that family, albeit he bore a different name, and who would be eager to demonstrate the generosity of his restored friendship for all his family and neighbors to behold.

Moira reminded him that Lady Hayes had decided not to attend the ball and assured him that for her part, she would prefer to see him relieve his anxieties by returning home to his mother. Besides, she was not a girl to crave the pleasure of a mere ball.

For which hopeful little speech she was rewarded by having both her hands seized in a fierce clasp. Such generosity of spirit in Miss Hayes, such selfless concern for the health of her future mother-in-law, such tender concern for his own sensibilities, such a willingness to be deprived of a treat left him speechless indeed. How could he respond to such gentle devotion except by demonstrating a matching selflessness? He would escort Miss Hayes to the ball, he would make merry there just as if his heart were not heavy within him, and he would postpone his return home until tomorrow.

Moira smiled and thanked him.

But hope was not entirely dead. Christmas Day had been a cloudy, gloomy day. The clouds seemed even lower and grayer on the morning of the ball, and before noon thin flakes of snow began to float downward, enough to powder the dry ground and the grass and raise Moira’s hopes. If it thickened and fell more heavily, travel could become difficult and dangerous, perhaps quite
impossible. The ball would have to be canceled or at least confined to a mere dance for the houseguests at Dunbarton.

But the snow stopped altogether soon after noon and did not resume even though Moira paced frequently to the window to peer outward and upward and will the clouds to drop their heavy load. It seemed that she was doomed to attend a grand ball. And to waltz at it with the Earl of Haverford.

And so she dressed later in a new peach-colored evening gown, its sheer muslin overdress revealing the sheen of satin beneath. It was not a remarkably fussy dress. She was six-and-twenty after all. The hem was simply ruched and there were no ruffles. The high waist was caught beneath her bosom with a silk sash. The neckline was low but certainly not as low as fashion allowed. The sleeves were short and puffed. She had her hair dressed in curls and ringlets but would allow nothing too elaborate. She chose not to wear either a turban or plumes. She had always valued simplicity in dress.

“You look very well, dear,” her mother said before she left her dressing room.

“The color is not too bright?” Moira asked somewhat anxiously. They had only recently left off their mourning for her father. Her eyes had become attuned to black and gray. “I do not look too girlish, Mama?”

“You look like the beautiful woman you are,” her mother said.

Moira smiled and hugged her. It was an exaggeration, of course. She had never been beautiful, even as a girl. But she
felt
good and she felt in an almost festive mood despite her dashed hopes earlier in the day. Would he think she looked beautiful or at least well enough? Would he think that she dressed too brightly
or too girlishly? Would he look at her with admiration? With scorn? Or with no interest at all?

“I am sure Sir Edwin will be very pleased indeed,” Lady Hayes said.

Moira’s eyes widened. Sir Edwin? Yes, of course, Sir Edwin. It was he she had been thinking of. Of course it was he she had meant. Some of her exhilaration disappeared.

“He has a good heart, Moira,” her mother said. “He means well.”

“Yes,” Moira said, smiling cheerfully. “I am fully sensible of my good fortune, Mama.”

Her mother’s smile was rather rueful—and warm with affection.

*   *   *

THE
ballroom at Dunbarton Hall, though rather small in comparison with some of the grander ballrooms that entertained the
ton
during the Season in London, was nevertheless splendidly decorated with gold leaf and paintings and chandeliers, and its size had been artfully enhanced by a coved ceiling and by huge mirrors along one long wall.

For the Christmas ball it had been festively decked out with holly and ivy and pine boughs, and with bells and red silk ribbons and bows. An orchestra had been hired at great expense, and the earl’s cook, with extra hired help from Tawmouth, had succeeded in preparing a veritable banquet to fill one anteroom for the whole of the evening and the dining room for supper. Almost everyone who had been invited, neighbors from miles around, had accepted their invitations.

The ballroom would be filled, Kenneth thought, surveying the empty room while most of the ladies were still abovestairs putting the finishing touches to their toilettes and most of the gentlemen were in the drawing room fortifying themselves for the ordeal ahead with the earl’s brandy or port. He was tempted to join them there. But the orchestra members came upstairs from the kitchen, where they had been eating their dinner, and he spent some time discussing with their leader the evening’s program. And then footmen and maids were bringing up the food and the punch bowls for the anteroom, and he strolled inside to observe the effects of their work. But his presence was not needed. His butler was supervising with cool competence.

In spite of himself he found that he was looking forward to the evening. It was not every day one had the chance to host a grand ball for one’s family, friends, and neighbors. He was becoming fond of them all. He was beginning to enjoy his position. Life as it had been lived for the past eight years was beginning to recede into memory.

And then his mother, looking magnificently regal in a purple silk gown with a matching plumed turban, appeared in the ballroom to announce that the first of the guests were approaching along the driveway, and Helen and Ainsleigh were not far behind her with several of the other houseguests. They had come, Kenneth guessed, so that they might be on hand to observe each new arrival. These first guests were early.

Kenneth took up his position outside the ballroom doors with his mother and waited for the guests to appear on the staircase. They were Sir Edwin Baillie and Moira Hayes. He felt his mother
stiffen and wished that they had not been the first to arrive. Later, they might have blended more easily with other guests.

She was looking quite beautiful, he thought unwillingly. Her peach-colored gown looked stunning with her dark hair and eyes, and she had had the good sense to allow simplicity to state its own case. Most of the ladies already in the ballroom—including Juliana Wishart—seemed almost to be in competition with one another to see who could deck themselves out in the most frills and bows and ruffles and curls and ringlets. Moira Hayes was also quite noticeably—and unashamedly, it seemed—taller than her escort.

Lady Hayes sent her regrets, Sir Edwin explained after bowing over Lady Haverford’s hand and congratulating himself on being a close neighbor and—dared he be so familiar?—friend of her son. Lady Hayes was too recently out of mourning for the late Sir Basil Hayes to feel easy about partaking of such enjoyment as she felt convinced the evening’s entertainment would offer. She hoped that she might call upon her ladyship in the near future.

Lady Hayes, Kenneth thought even before glancing at Moira’s face, had doubtless expressed no such hope, and his mother’s marble expression was discouraging, to say the least. She made no verbal reply, but merely inclined her head graciously. Sir Edwin appeared not to notice anything amiss. He thanked her profusely.

Moira Hayes curtsied to Lady Haverford. She kept her chin up as she did so and her expression bland. His mother, Kenneth noticed, though she nodded again, did not acknowledge her guest in words or look directly into her face. The feud was not over, as far as she was concerned—or as far as Lady Hayes was concerned,
apparently. It was an awkward moment, smoothed over by the good manners of both ladies.

“Miss Hayes.” Kenneth took her gloved hand in his and raised it to his lips. It was the first time he had touched her in longer than eight years. He did not, as he half expected, feel currents of awareness sizzle along his arm to lodge in his heart. He merely had a sudden and quite unwelcome image of Baillie touching her—in bed. He wondered if the man would make a speech as he bedded her for the first time but could draw no real amusement from the conviction that the answer was surely yes.

“My lord,” she said, and her eyes traveled all along her arm to his lips and up to his eyes. In any other woman he would have called it a practiced and coquettish look. But her eyes were cool and very direct on his. There was not even a suggestion of fluttering eyelids. There never had been. Moira had never been a flirt.

“I trust, Miss Hayes,” he said, “that you will remember you are to waltz with me?”

“Thank you, my lord,” she said.

And since no other guest had yet arrived, he strolled into the ballroom with her and Baillie to walk about the room with them, introducing them to his houseguests. Although he offered his own arm, he noticed that she took Baillie’s even before that gentleman offered it. He half smiled. Ah, but she would waltz with him.

He was surprised by the satisfaction that came with the thought. An almost vengeful satisfaction.

A
FEW
of Kenneth’s closer relatives raised their eyebrows when Moira’s name was mentioned, but all were polite. None lived close enough to have ever been personally involved in the feud. There was certainly no lack of conversation with Sir Edwin Baillie only too eager to inform everyone that he was the baronet of Penwith Manor, they were to understand, only three miles distant from Dunbarton, and he might feel disgruntled at being outranked by so close a neighbor—he smiled about each group so that everyone might realize that he was having his little joke—were that neighbor not also a friend.

Somehow, Kenneth discovered, before they had completed the circle of the room and before the arrival of any other guest had necessitated his return to his duties at the door, he had become escort to Juliana Wishart, who desired to promenade about the
room, one of his aunts informed him in that young lady’s blushing hearing, but could persuade no other lady to accompany her. He had bowed and responded with the obvious gallantry, of course. His aunt had looked charmed.

And then they came to his sister, who had her back to them as they approached.

“Helen? Michael?” he said. “May I present Miss Moira Hayes and Sir Edwin Baillie? Sir Edwin has inherited Penwith Manor. My sister and brother-in-law, Viscount and Viscountess Ainsleigh,” he added for the benefit of his guests.

Sir Edwin bowed low and launched into speech while Moira curtsied and Ainsleigh smiled. Helen, disdain in her face, focused her gaze upon Juliana.

“My dear Miss Wishart,” she said, cutting off Sir Edwin in the middle of a sentence, “how ravishingly elegant you look this evening. You must tell me who your modiste is. It is so difficult to find one these days worthy of one’s patronage. Of course, you are so exquisitely small. I do so admire ladies of small stature. Will you take a turn about the room with me? The air is stuffy in here, I do declare.”

And she took Juliana’s arm and made off with her, commenting quite distinctly as she went that she also much admired Juliana’s blond hair and blue eyes. “I truly pity
dark
women,” she said. “Blond women are so much more delicate and feminine.”

Sir Edwin picked up his sentence where he had left it off, and Ainsleigh, after looking somewhat startled, smiled more charmingly and drew Moira into the conversation as soon as he was able.

Kenneth reflected with some chagrin that his sister had reacted
as his mother had but with lamentably worse manners. It was remarkably unfair of Helen to take out her bitterness on Moira, he thought. It would make more sense for her to turn it against him. But Moira had the misfortune to be Sean Hayes’s sister. He had learned one thing already this evening, though, even if he had not understood it before the invitations were sent out. It would be as well to keep his distance from the family at Penwith, at least while his mother and sister were at Dunbarton. And it would suit him admirably to do so, after this evening. This evening he owed Moira Hayes the courtesy of a host.

A glance at the doorway showed him that more guests were arriving. He excused himself and hurried in the direction of the ballroom doors.

*   *   *

MOIRA
had never before attended a ball for which a whole orchestra had been engaged. And she had never before attended one in surroundings more splendid than the rather austere Tawmouth assembly rooms. She had never before been at a ball when more than ten couples at a time could take to the floor.

The Dunbarton ball was undoubtedly the most glittering entertainment she had ever attended or would ever attend. She did not lack for partners since Sir Edwin led her into the opening set, Viscount Ainsleigh had asked for the second, and various neighbors were as gallant as they usually were at the assemblies and made sure that she did not have to sit out a single set.

She wished she were anywhere else on earth but where she actually was. She had never in her life felt more acutely uncomfortable.
She might have coped with the embarrassment of being in company with Sir Edwin both during the long stretch of time between their almost indecently early arrival and the beginning of the dancing and between each set—he was not evil, after all, and not quite vulgar. And being in company with him, both in public and in private, was something to which she was going to have to accustom herself. It was something that required a little fortitude and a great deal of a sense of the ridiculous. But it was far more difficult to disregard the well-bred snub the Countess of Haverford had dealt her or the open and quite ill-bred one given her by Helen.

Helen had once fancied herself in love with Sean. Perhaps she really had been. But her plans to elope with him had been thwarted; she had been hurt and embarrassed and disgraced, even if not publicly. And so, hatred for the Hayes family had become a personal thing with her. Or so it seemed to Moira. She had not seen Helen since it all happened. She did not even know if Helen had ended up hating Sean.

Sir Edwin soon had an explanation for Viscountess Ainsleigh’s unmannerly cutting of their acquaintance. He observed with a knowing smirk that his host led out the Honorable Miss Juliana Wishart into the opening set.

“It is as I suspected as soon as we were presented to Lord and Lady Hockingsford and the Honorable Miss Wishart, my dear Miss Hayes,” he said. “A match is being arranged between Miss Wishart and the Earl of Haverford—mark my words. An eminently eligible match, if I may make so bold as to say so—and I
shall
say so to his lordship in the capacity of a neighbor and friend as soon as I have the opportunity to do so in confidence. Lady Ainsleigh’s
preference for the young lady is perfectly well explained now that I have realized that they are to be closely related. You would do well to cultivate Miss Wishart’s acquaintance too, Miss Hayes, since it seems very likely that you will be neighbors. It is desirable that you be friends too. As Mama always says, when two families are neighbors, it is strongly to be desired that they be friends also. And you are very nearly of an equality in rank with Miss Wishart, though marriage to his lordship will elevate her, of course. As marriage with me will elevate you.”

Yes, Miss Wishart surely would suit him admirably, Moira thought. She was very young and wide-eyed and innocent. Doubtless she would be easily dominated. The top of her head did not quite reach his shoulder.

He was looking quite intimidatingly handsome and elegant this evening. He wore a black tailed coat and knee breeches with a silver embroidered waistcoat and white linen and lace. All her neighbors had exclaimed with mingled admiration and surprise at the somberness of the colors, but Sir Edwin had assured them all that his lordship was dressed in the very height of fashion. Any other gentleman might have looked dull in such clothes, Moira thought, but the Earl of Haverford, with his superior height, his splendid physique, and his very blond hair, looked nothing short of stunning.

It disturbed Moira to have to admit as much. But he always had been handsome. It would be childish to deny the truth, to try to find fault with his appearance. There was no fault there.

She wished she had not agreed to waltz with him. If she had not done so, she could somehow have kept Sir Edwin within the sphere of her neighbors and friends and she might have ignored
the nasty embarrassment of the evening’s beginning. But she had agreed, and he had reminded her of the promised waltz on her arrival. And when the time came, he was at her side before anyone else had gone out onto the floor and was bowing over her hand. Harriet Lincoln and Mrs. Meeson gazed at her in some shock and some envy, and every eye in the ballroom, it seemed, gazed on her when he led her out to the middle of the empty floor. It was the first waltz. There was more hesitation about performing it than there had been to participate in the country dance, the quadrille, and the minuet that had preceded it.

“I trust, Miss Hayes,” he said before the music began, “that you are enjoying yourself.”

“Thank you, yes, my lord,” she said. He was the first partner of hers tonight, she thought, at whom she had had to look up. She wondered if Helen had realized how much her remark to Miss Wishart about height had hurt.

And then all observations and all stiff and meaningless attempts at polite conversation vanished as the orchestra began to play and he took her hand in one of his and rested his other firmly at the back of her waist. She touched his shoulder and was aware, for all the lightness of her touch, of its hard-muscled breadth. She was aware of
him:
of his height, of his body heat, of his cologne, of his eyes on hers. Her abdominal muscles clenched involuntarily and all memory of the steps of the waltz vanished. She almost stumbled over the first of them.

“The steps are easy,” he said. “You merely have to relax and follow my lead.”

It was a veiled and well-bred reproof for her clumsiness. She
looked coolly into his eyes. “I shall not disgrace you, my lord,” she said. “I shall not tread all over your feet or—worse for your self-esteem—contrive to get my feet beneath yours.”

“I believe,” he said, “I have a little too much skill than to allow that to happen.”

She had remembered the steps and picked up the rhythm of the music and felt the guidance of his lead. They twirled about the dance floor and she lost her awareness of everything but the exhilaration and the wonder of the dance. And of the man, tall and solid and graceful, who danced it with her. It was sheer magic as she had always known it would be, she thought, though the thought was not fully conscious. It was a time for feeling more than for thought. She abandoned herself to feeling.

It was a long time before she came back to herself and was once more aware that she was in the ballroom at Dunbarton, waltzing with the Earl of Haverford. Smiling with sheer pleasure into his unsmiling eyes. She sobered and saw people and red bows and mirrors and candles—and him. How naive he must think her, to be transported to another world by a mere dance.

“Moira,” he said, his voice sounding strained, almost harsh, “you cannot possibly
wish
to marry him, surely?”

“Sir Edwin?” she said, her eyes widening.

“He is a pompous bore,” he said. “He will drive you insane within a month.”

The spell had been utterly shattered. “I believe, my lord,” she said, “that my betrothal and my future marriage are my concern. As well as my feelings for Sir Edwin Baillie.”

“You have accepted his offer because you feel you have no
alternative?” he asked. “Would you be quite destitute if you declined? Would he turn you and your mother out?”

“Perhaps you should ask him that final question,” she said. “He is, after all, your neighbor and friend, is he not? I am neither, even if by some unhappy chance I happen to live three miles from here. Your questions are impertinent, my lord.”

“The waltz is ending,” he said after gazing at her quite expressionlessly for several moments. He took a step back from her and then bowed to her and offered her his arm. “And your temper is frayed. Allow me to escort you to the refreshment room, where you may recover it in some privacy.”

She wondered if it was the waltz that had prompted him to speak so rashly. But then, he had asked her on the beach why she walked alone. Perhaps he felt that his position as Earl of Haverford gave him the right to probe into the lives of his inferior neighbors. How dared he! But her nerves
were
jangling and she dreaded returning to Sir Edwin just to hear yet again what an honor had been accorded both her and himself during the past half hour. She took the offered arm.

“You waltz gracefully,” the earl said, leading her to the anteroom where drinks and other refreshments had been set out for those who could not wait until suppertime. “It is a novel and rather pleasing experience to dance it with someone who is at least close to my own height.”

Yes, she thought unwillingly. Oh, yes, it had felt very good indeed to dance with a man taller than herself. Why had he had to spoil it? It had been one of those magical experiences of her life, one she would long remember.

Having caught herself in that thought, she assured herself that it was as well he had spoiled it. Magical memories involving Kenneth, of all people, were not what she wished to take forward into the marriage she would soon contract.

*   *   *

HE
had been very indiscreet. He was host of this ball and was very aware of the fact that much attention had been focused upon him all evening. It was understandable, of course. He was newly returned from the wars against Napoleon Bonaparte, newly returned to Dunbarton Hall. Although his father had been dead for seven years and he had borne the title since then, even it was in a sense new, at least for the relatives who were guests in his home and for the people who lived close to Dunbarton. Of course he was the focus of attention.

If one added to those facts the interest that had been aroused over the presence of Juliana Wishart in his home and the attention he had somehow been forced into paying her, then one must expect even more that eyes would follow him about. And when he had claimed his waltz with Moira Hayes, then a different form of curiosity drew attention on him. For he and Moira Hayes, to the knowledge of anyone present except perhaps his mother and Helen, had never had any dealings with each other until very recently, although they had lived only three miles apart during their growing years.