The Secret Mistress

Chapter 13

BETTY ARRIVED IN Angeline’s dressing room the following morning with watery eyes, a reddened nose, and a voice that a baritone might have envied if only there had been some volume to it. And she admitted when asked—it was self-evident really—that her head was pounding and she felt wretched.

Angeline promptly sent her back to bed with the command that she stay there all day and not even dream of getting up even tomorrow unless she was feeling well again. And then she sent a direction to the kitchen that her maid be dosed and coddled with anything and everything the cook could devise that might soothe a head cold and all its attendant ills.

Then she was left with a bit of a problem, for Rosalie was not coming until the afternoon, yet Angeline wanted to go out this morning. She could have taken one of the other maids, of course, but the housekeeper would look at her with long-suffering reproach if she suggested it. And she was certainly not going to ask Tresham himself to escort her, even supposing he was still at home. It would take too long to send for Ferdinand, even supposing he was home.

She would go out alone, then. She was not going far. No harm would come to her, and it was unlikely anyone she knew would see her and report the indiscretion to her brother.

She walked alone to Lady Sanford’s, then, and found to her great delight that that lady was from home but Miss Goddard was able to receive her. It was Miss Goddard she had come to see. She had conceived an idea during a night of restless, fitful sleep, and it had restored her spirits considerably.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” Miss Goddard said, getting to her feet as Angeline was shown into a small parlor.

“I hope it is a pleasure and not an imposition,” Angeline said, taking the seat Miss Goddard indicated and removing her gloves. “It is just that I realized last evening when I saw you hidden in the shadows of the ballroom that I had been hoping ever since first meeting you that we could be friends. Which is absurd, I know, when you are an intelligent, well-educated, well-read lady while I—”

She stopped abruptly.

“While you—?” Miss Goddard raised her eyebrows.

“I chatter,” Angeline said. “Constantly. About nothing at all. I cannot seem to help it. My governesses—all of them—told me I had nothing but fluff in my head and that it revealed itself whenever I opened my mouth. And I never made any particular effort to learn from them. I would sometimes try, but my mind would wander after a few moments. I hated poetry and drama in particular. Miss Pratt used to read a poem or a play out loud, giving very deliberate emphasis to every word, and she would stop after every few lines in order to point out all the literary and intellectual merits contained in them. By the time she got to the end of a poem or speech, I had no idea how it had started and was almost screaming with boredom.”

“So would I have been,” Miss Goddard surprised her by saying. “What a perfectly dreadful way to teach. I really do not believe I would have liked your Miss Pratt. I suppose she was a very worthy lady.”

There was a twinkle in her eye.

“Oh, very,” Angeline said. “There was not a fault to be found in her. Which made my behavior toward her that much more reprehensible. I played the most awful tricks on her. I put a huge daddy longlegs of a spider between her sheets one evening, and her screams when she went to bed must have woken everyone in the village a mile away. I felt ashamed of that one afterward, though, for I knew she had an unnatural fear of spiders.”

“It was probably not your finest moment,” Miss Goddard said. “But it does sound as if you were severely provoked. Learning ought to be exciting. Reading ought to be. How can one possibly enjoy it, though, when one is forced to stop every few lines to listen to someone else’s interpretation of what has been written? Especially the interpretation of someone worthy.”

Angeline laughed, and so did Miss Goddard. But she had expressed very similar ideas about learning to those Lord Heyward had expressed at Vauxhall. Could learning ever be exciting?

“Did you want to discuss Paradise Lost?” Miss Goddard asked. “It is some time since I read it, but it left a lasting impression upon me and I would be happy to share my thoughts with you.”

She would like it of all things, Angeline thought. She would really love to have a friend with whom she could talk about sensible, intelligent things. But it was not why she had made a point of coming here today. Today she had something else to say—something noble. Today she would do something for someone else, she would be unselfish, and then she would feel better. She needed to feel better. She had spent so many wakeful hours last night telling herself that she had enjoyed herself at the Hicks ball more than she had enjoyed herself on any other occasion in her life that her head had ached with all the happiness, and so had her heart. After this visit she could feel truly happy.

“I really came to talk about the Earl of Heyward,” she said, leaning slightly forward in her chair.

“Oh.” Miss Goddard sat slightly back in hers. “Are you regretting that you refused him?”

“No, not at all,” Angeline said, her heart plummeting nevertheless to take up residence in the soles of her shoes. “I want to ask you a question. You must not feel obliged to answer, for of course it is impertinent of me and absolutely none of my concern. But all this business of ton alliances and marriages is horridly complicated, you know. Everyone wants to marry well, which means choosing and setting one’s cap at the most eligible … other. I will not say man, because it works both ways, though that did not really occur to me until after I had come to town and made my come-out. I had always thought that it was only we ladies who would be hoping to find the perfect husband, but of course that was shortsighted of me because men have to marry too, for a variety of reasons, and they also want to marry the very best candidate. And the very best, for both men and women, is not necessarily the person they like best. It is often whom their family likes best, or who society suggests is best, or who has the most illustrious title and lineage or the most money, provided it has not been acquired in business or commerce, of course, for then it is tainted by vulgarity, just as if money were not simply money. No one even thinks about love or the fact that the two people have to live together after they marry and make the best of what often turns out to be not a very great bargain at all even if it pleases all the rest of the world. People can be terribly foolish, can they not?”

“Far too frequently,” Miss Goddard agreed. “What is your question, Lady Angeline?”

“Well, it is very impertinent,” Angeline said. “But I shall ask it anyway since it is what I came here to do. Do you love Lord Heyward, Miss Goddard? I mean, do you love him in a way that makes you ache here when you think that perhaps you will never have him?” She tapped a closed fist over her heart.

Miss Goddard sat farther back in her chair and set her arms along the armrests. She looked perfectly relaxed—except that the fore- and middle fingers of her right hand were beating out a fast little tattoo.

“Why would you ask such a question?” she asked. “We are friends. We have been for years.”

“But would you marry him if he asked?” Angeline asked her.

Miss Goddard opened her mouth once to speak but closed it again. She started once more after a short silence.

“We once had an agreement,” she said, “that we would marry each other at some time in the distant future if nothing happened in the meanwhile to change our minds. Neither of us felt drawn to marriage at the time, though we both recognized that eventually we might see the advisability or the necessity of entering the marital state rather than remaining single. We were seekers of knowledge at the time, two earnest young people who had not yet felt the pull of the world beyond the pages of a book or the learned confines of Cambridge or the exciting workings of our own minds. Something did happen to change our minds, of course. Edward’s brother died and he became the earl in his place. It made all the difference, you know. Not to who he is, but to what. And the what is important in the real world.”

“But why?” Angeline asked her. “He does not need to marry money. At least, I do not believe he does, or Tresham would not even have allowed him to speak to me yesterday. He does not need to marry position. All society really demands of him is that he marry respectably. You are eminently respectable, Miss Goddard. You are a lady, and you are refined and sensible and intelligent. And you are his friend.”

Miss Goddard smiled.

“Lady Angeline,” she said, “you refused Edward yesterday. Are you trying to matchmake for him today?”

Angeline looked down at her hands. It was precisely what she was doing. Though not so much for him as for her new friend, whom she liked exceedingly well. She dearly loved Martha and Maria and hoped they would remain her close friends for the rest of her life, but Miss Goddard was the friend she had always yearned to have. She could not understand quite why it was so. It just was. And it hurt her heart to see her friend a wallflower at balls, unseen and unappreciated when she was the equal of anyone and the superior of most. She was Angeline’s superior.

“It just struck me,” she said, “that in all likelihood you love him and he loves you and yet he was forced into offering for me. Not literally forced, I suppose, but definitely maneuvered by what society expects of him. And by his family too, even though they are very pleasant people. I believe they actually like me and genuinely believed that I would be the best possible wife for him. But it is you he ought to marry. It is you he must marry. When he strolled about the ballroom with you last evening after supper—after you danced with Lord Windrow—you looked very right together. As if you belonged with each other.”

“He certainly thought you looked very happy,” Miss Goddard said.

“Oh,” Angeline said. “I was happy. Quite blissfully so. I have never enjoyed an evening so well in my life.”

She looked down at her hands again. And instead of picking up the conversation, Miss Goddard let it rest. The silence stretched. Angeline looked up again after what must have been a full minute.

“I just want to be your friend,” she said, “if that does not strike you as being too utterly absurd. I thought we might walk together in the park occasionally or go to the library together or spend a little while in each other’s company if we are attending the same entertainment. But I also want you to know that I will not find it awkward if you wish to encourage Lord Heyward’s suit. I will not feel you are somehow betraying me—if you accept my friendship, that is. Indeed, I would be very happy for you. I—Oh, dear, I have no right to be saying any of this. And the very idea that you would wish to be my friend—”

“Lady Angeline.” Miss Goddard leaned forward suddenly and reached out a hand in Angeline’s direction. “I grew up in Cambridge with my father and my brother—my mother died when I was six. I grew up surrounded by men. In many ways it was a wonderful upbringing. I was allowed to read anything I wanted and to listen to endlessly stimulating conversations and drink in knowledge to my heart’s content. I knew no girls of my own age—I never went to school. Now I am here with my aunt, too old to mingle easily with girls of your age, too young to settle into a resigned spinsterhood. I am not poor or of lowly birth, but neither am I really a member of the ton except as the niece of Lady Sanford. I have never had a come-out. I do not have a bright and sparkling personality to be noticed when I do mingle in society. I do not wish to paint an abject picture of myself. I have always been very content with my lot in life. I have been privileged in many ways. Although I did not have governesses or go to school, I believe my own education to have been an excellent one. It was certainly one that always excited me. But Lady Angeline, I believe I have always longed for a female friend.”

“Even one with a head full of fluff?” Angeline asked her.

“Your governesses ought to have been boiled in oil,” Miss Goddard said.

They both laughed.

“I like you exceedingly well,” Miss Goddard said. “If I wish to consort with intellectual giants I will return to my father’s home and consort to my heart’s content. I would like to have a friend, even if we must discuss Paradise Lost.”

And they both laughed again—at just the moment the parlor door opened and the Earl of Heyward was ushered in by a servant careless enough not to have come first to see if Miss Goddard was home.

He stood arrested in the doorway.

Angeline’s heart leapt up into her throat and then dived again for the soles of her shoes. It was a most disconcerting feeling. She stood up—as did Miss Goddard, who crossed the room toward him, both hands extended.

“Edward,” she said, “I have been enjoying a conversation with Lady Angeline Dudley, as you can see. We have both been agreeing that the Hicks ball last evening was a splendid event. Indeed, Lady Angeline believes that she has never enjoyed herself more in her life.”

Angeline smiled brightly.

“It was indeed a fine squeeze,” he said stiffly, keeping his eyes upon Miss Goddard. “I am sorry, Eunice. If I had known you had company, I would have gone away. I will do so now and come back another time.”

“No,” Angeline said, “I was just leaving. You must sit down, Lord Heyward. Not that it is my place to offer you a seat in Miss Goddard’s house—well, Lady Sanford’s house, but she is from home at the moment and so it is Miss Goddard’s place to tell guests where they may sit and if they may sit. But you must not feel obliged to curtail your visit just because I am here. I have stayed far too long already, and I daresay Miss Goddard is wishing me to perdition. I shall … go.”

“Lady Angeline came alone,” Miss Goddard said, looking only at the earl. “Her maid is indisposed. I shall send my own maid with her.”

“Oh, no—” Angeline began.

Lord Heyward fixed her with his very blue gaze. It looked ever so slightly hostile.

“Lady Angeline,” he said, “it will be my pleasure to escort you home. I am surprised that the Duke of Tresham and Lady Palmer allowed you to leave Dudley House alone.”

“Oh, they did not know,” she said, “and I have no intention of telling them. They would scold for a fortnight. I am quite capable of walking alone, however. I have not noticed footpads lurking on every corner, have you?”

His stare became icy.

“I will escort you home, Lady Angeline,” he said.

He had no business. He had absolutely no business. He was not her father or her brother or her husband or … or her betrothed. He was nothing whatsoever. And it was not even an offer this time. It was a categorical statement, and his glance did not even waver as she gave him the full force of her haughty glare.

“I do think that would be good of you, Edward,” Miss Goddard said.

And Angeline was the first to look away—in order to glance reproachfully at her new friend, who could have used this visit, her aunt being absent, to further her own courtship with the Earl of Heyward. And to save her new friend from a blatant instance of male domineering.

“Very well, Lord Heyward,” she said, looking back at him. But she would … Yes, she would. She would be damned before she would thank him.

There! She felt marginally better at the shocking language even if it did not find its way past her lips.

Miss Goddard smiled placidly at her.

Traitor! Judas!———

EDWARD WAS NOT in a good mood.

He had not been even before he arrived at Lady Sanford’s, but at least he had expected a nice quiet, sensible conversation with Eunice. He had expected his visit to feel like balm to the soul. Perhaps she would even consent to take a short walk with him again since it was a sunny, pleasantly warm day.

Instead, here he was out walking with Lady Angeline Dudley of all people the day after she had refused his formal marriage offer. She had refused to take his arm, which made walking really quite awkward. And she had dared to give him that same haughty, regal look she had given Windrow during that infamous scene just outside Reading. As if he was the one behaving with deliberate lack of discretion. No proper young lady set foot outdoors without a chaperon or trustworthy companion.

I have not noticed footpads lurking on every corner, have you? As if they advertised the fact upon large boards carried about their necks. And as if footpads were the only danger. Had she learned nothing from her experience at the Rose and Crown?

He was feeling downright irritable. And somehow, grossly unfairly, in the wrong, as though he owed her some sort of apology. He had not told her he loved her—as if those words meant anything. Why should one feel guilty for telling the truth? The world had turned all topsy-turvy. It had been a far simpler place when he was merely Mr. Edward Ailsbury.

“Does Tresham employ no other servants than your own personal maid?” he said, breaking the silence between them even though he had sworn to himself that he would not. “And is this the same personal maid who was conspicuously absent from the taproom at the Rose and Crown Inn a month or so ago? Is she often indisposed?”

His voice sounded as irritated as he felt.

“If this is a veiled comment upon my behavior, Lord Heyward,” she said, “I must inform you that it is none of your business. I am none of your business.”

“For which I am very thankful indeed.”

“For which I will always be eternally grateful.”

They spoke simultaneously.

“At least we are agreed upon something,” he said.

“We are,” she said as they crossed a main road and he tossed a coin to the young crossing sweeper who had cleared a steaming pile of manure out of their path.

“I am delighted,” he said, “that you had such a very happy evening. It was obvious at the time, of course, without Eunice’s having to tell me so.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I was merely being civil.”

“You sounded spiteful,” she said. “I had a wonderful time. I had wonderful partners.”

“Including Windrow, I suppose,” he said. “You looked as if you were enjoying his company.”

“I was,” she said. “Enormously. He is charming and amusing.”

“If I remember correctly,” he said, “you told me just two nights ago at Vauxhall that it was the most wonderful evening of your life. Must every evening exceed the one before it in the pleasure it brings you? Will you not soon run out of superlatives? Or will wonderful suffice for all?”

“I was merely being civil at Vauxhall,” she said. “I thought you might be offended, even hurt, if I did not say I had enjoyed what happened there.”

Good God, he thought, they were scrapping like a couple of petulant children.

Why?

He had offered her marriage yesterday because he considered that he had compromised her at Vauxhall and because everyone seemed agreed that she was the most eligible candidate to be his countess. She had refused. Everything was in order. The story was at an end.

Much to his relief.

She was not at all the sort of woman of whom he could ever approve. She had no idea how to behave.

What the devil had she been doing calling upon Eunice? Poor Eunice!

“Do you like my bonnet?” she asked.

It was striped, the two colors being red and orange. Actually, garish as it was, it was also rather attractive. Its small, stiff brim framed her face becomingly, and its tall crown gave it a slightly military air. Certainly she was not trying to downplay her height.

“Must you always maneuver people into being either rude or untruthful?” he asked, his irritation returning—if it had ever left.

When he turned his head, it was to discover that she was smiling.

“You told the truth once,” she said, “and I laughed and you smiled. It was a good moment.”

“Then it is overbright and those colors should never be seen together upon the same person, not to mention the same garment,” he said. “And it actually suits you perfectly. It suits your character.”

Her smile deepened though she kept her gaze on the pavement ahead.

“I shall lie awake tonight,” she said, “trying to decide if that was a compliment or an insult, Lord Heyward.”

“It was a bit of both,” he said curtly. And he would lie awake tonight wondering why his manners seemed to desert him when he was with Lady Angeline Dudley. But she would try the patience of a saint.

She laughed. One could not help but like her laugh. It was not a ladylike titter or an unladylike bellow. It always sounded purely merry. And it was infectious, though he did not laugh with her.

They were nearing Dudley House, he was happy to see. They walked the remaining distance in silence and he came to a stop at the bottom of the steps in order to watch her safely inside. She stopped too and turned to look up at him.

“I am not going to thank you,” she said. “I am not grateful.”

“I do not expect you to be,” he told her. “I did not insist upon escorting you in order to incur your gratitude. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”

Good Lord, he thought, he had kissed those lips just two evenings ago and held that body close to his own. He had burned with desire for her.

Had he been insane?

And then she smiled again, and there was a flutter of something dashed uncomfortable somewhere in his chest area.

“That is precisely what I so liked about you the first time I met you,” she said. “Now you are becoming a little tiresome.”

“If you would learn to behave with greater discretion,” he said stiffly, “you would be given no opportunity to find me tiresome or otherwise, Lady Angeline, and I am sure we would both be happier for it.”

The smile remained on her face as she tipped her head a little to one side, though it looked almost wistful now.

“Yes,” she said. “We would. Good day, Lord Heyward.”

And she whisked about and half ran up the steps and through the door, which a footman was already holding open. The door closed behind her.

And now the morning had been ruined.

It was ruined even further when he returned to Lady Sanford’s and was shown again into the small parlor where Eunice sat alone.

“Ah,” she said, “I wondered if you would come back. You look like thunder. Poor Edward, were you very annoyed with her?”

“She has no idea how to go on,” he said. “I offered her marriage yesterday, you know. I did not mention it to you last evening, but I did. She refused. I have never been more relieved in my life. Did she come here to tell you? To gloat?”

“Why would she do that?” she asked him, indicating the same chair Lady Angeline had been sitting on when he entered the parlor earlier. “It would suggest a meanness of spirit of which I think her quite incapable.”

Yes, he agreed with that at least. It was his own comment that had been mean. Lady Angeline Dudley did not bring out the best in him.

“She came,” Eunice said, “to ask me to be her friend and to assure me that she would not mind in the least if I married you, since it is obvious to her that you and I love each other dearly.”

“She what?” he asked, frowning.

“There is something just a little … sad about her,” she said, “though I am not at all sure that is the right word. Wistful would perhaps be better. And of course she is wrong about us. Not wrong in believing that we love each other dearly. I believe we do. But wrong in assuming that it is a romantic love that we share.”

He was still frowning.

“I wish you would change your mind about marrying me, Eunice,” he said. “Life would suddenly become so tranquil.”

“And dull,” she said softly.

He looked keenly at her.

“Am I too dull a dog even for you, then?” he asked.

“Oh, no.” She sighed. “You are not a dull dog at all, Edward, though you often behave like one and actually seem to believe you are one. You are not. You just have not … oh, learned who you are yet.”

His brows snapped together again.

“At the age of twenty-four I do not know who I am?” he said. “I would say that I, more than most men, have self-knowledge.”

“Then you are wrong,” she said. “But I will not belabor the point. Edward, she loves you quite passionately, you know.”

“Lady Angeline Dudley?” he exclaimed. “Nonsense, Eunice. And talk about someone who does not know herself!”

“Oh,” she said, “I agree that there is much confusion in her mind. She has had a sheltered, rather restrictive, and loveless upbringing, and now she has been thrown upon the ton to cope with a Season and the flood of admirers who wish to court her and marry her. She is excited by it all and repelled by it and really quite … well, confused. But she has seen someone who is a rock of stability in a sea of just the opposite, and she wants it very badly and very passionately.”

“Me?” he said. “If you will remember, Eunice, she refused me just yesterday.”

“You could not assure her that you love her,” she said.

“She told you that, I suppose?” he asked, wrath replacing amazement. “Was I expected to lie?”

“No, not at all,” she said. “You were probably quite right to say what you did, since it was the truth. And she was quite right to refuse you, though I believe she broke her own heart when she did so.”

“She was having a rollicking good time last evening,” he said.

“Oh, Edward,” she said, “of course she was.”

In some ways, he thought, Eunice was no different from other women after all. She spoke in riddles.

“I think you would be wise,” she said, “to look upon yesterday, Edward, not as the end of the courtship, but simply as the closing lines of the opening act. The rest of the drama is yet to be written. There is nothing more unsatisfactory than an unfinished drama.”

He would have liked to let loose with a string of profanities. But he could not do so, of course. Not until he was alone, anyway.

“I take it, then,” he said, “that I really must let go of my hopes with regard to you, Eunice?”

“Oh, you really must,” she said gently. “We would not suit, Edward, believe me. One day, I trust that you will know the truth of that as well as I do. We were meant to be friends, not lovers.”

He swallowed and got to his feet.

“I will not keep you any longer, then,” he said.

“Oh, and now you have pokered up,” she said. “We have had disagreements before, you know, and you have always assured me that you have been stimulated by them rather than annoyed. Don’t be annoyed with me now. And write the rest of that drama.”

Drama be damned, he thought as he bowed to her and left the room, the final dregs of his hopes dashed.

A few minutes later he was striding down the street, muttering some of those profanities—a string of them actually—though he did check first to make sure that no one was within earshot.

He did not feel a whole lot better when he was finished.