The Secret Mistress

Chapter 17

LORD WINDROW CAST a glance back over his shoulder after he had been walking for a few moments with Eunice.

“Ah,” he said, “as I suspected. Lady Angeline Dudley is not to be left to remove the rock from her shoe unassisted after all. Heyward has rushed to her rescue and is on one knee before her. It is an affecting scene and would not be without romantic appeal were he not such a dull fellow.”

“Edward is not dull,” Eunice said. “And of course you were quite right to suspect this would happen. Anyone would have predicted it—except Lady Angeline herself.”

“It was not, ah, planned, then?” he asked.

“The stone in the shoe?” she said. “Yes, that part was, or some such action anyway. But it was a quite different outcome that Lady Angeline planned. I really must tell you about it, for it is quite mad, and rather touching—and not at all honorable where you are concerned.”

“My dear Miss Goddard,” he said, touching his fingertips to her hand as it rested in his arm and dipping his head closer to hers—and turning with her so that they veered off the route to the lake and moved in the direction of a grove of trees a short distance away, “I am intrigued. And I am all ears.”

“Edward and I have known each other for a number of years,” she told him. “We are close friends. We even talked some years ago about marrying each other, but we spoke of it as a possible but by no means certain event comfortably far in the future. We did not consider ourselves betrothed. At the time he was an earnest young student and I was—well, an earnest young woman. If either of us had ever heard the word romance, it was in a purely academic context.”

“Ah,” he said, his fingertips lightly patting her hand. “You were merely a budding flower at that time, then, were you? I wish I had known you then, for academic learning ought always to be reinforced with practical action, you know.”

She slanted him a glance as they stepped between an ancient oak and a beech tree and walked on into the deeper shade of the grove.

“But when you were a student, Lord Windrow,” she said, “did you reinforce practical action with academic learning?”

“Ah, touchй,” he said. “You make a point. A rather barbed one, it is true, but a point nonetheless.”

“After Lady Angeline refused Edward’s marriage offer,” Eunice said, “she—”

“She did that?” he asked, sounding vastly amused. “You astonish me.”

“He could not assure her that he loved her,” Eunice explained.

“Ah,” Lord Windrow said. “Another word that has only academic meaning for Heyward? But did he not have sense enough to lie?”

“Afterward,” Eunice continued, “she befriended me and then she conceived the idea that Edward and I love each other passionately but are held back from marrying by his sense of duty and his family’s expectations that he marry well. She saw us—she sees us—as star-crossed lovers who must be helped to our happily-ever-after.”

Lord Windrow regarded her with laughing, lazy eyes.

“She is willing to give up the man for whom she pines to her new best friend?” he asked. “I assume she is pining. Her partiality for Heyward, mystifying as it is, is also as plain as the nose on your face. Which is a particularly fine specimen of nosehood, I must add.”

Eunice gave him a speaking glance.

“Lady Angeline is very sweet,” she said, “and very kind and very confused. I like her exceedingly well, you know. If you think to mock her in my hearing, think again.”

“Mock a lady?” he said, his free hand over his heart. “You do me an injustice, Miss Goddard. You have wounded me to the soul.”

“She gave me her blessing a while ago,” Eunice said, “but she believes that circumstances have contrived to keep us apart—Edward and me, that is. And so she has decided that she must lend an active hand. She arranged to have me invited to this house party.”

“I must remember,” he said, “to thank her.”

“And she arranged,” she said, “to have you invited here.”

Their footsteps had already slowed as they progressed deeper among the trees. Now they stopped walking altogether, and he released her arm in order to turn to face her. He regarded her with half-lowered eyelids, beneath which his eyes looked both keen and amused.

“Ah,” he said. “But this brain of mine is dense, Miss Goddard. Perhaps I ought to have given more of my attention to academic learning when I was a student after all. We both have Lady Angeline Dudley to thank for bringing us here and, presumably, for throwing us together this afternoon—I never did for a moment believe the boulder-in-the-shoe story—so that we may end up here in this secluded and, ah, romantic part of the park. And yet she is intent upon promoting a match between you and Heyward?”

Eunice sighed.

“Edward bristles at the mere mention of your name, you know,” she said. “You represent for him all that is most depraved in the ranks of bored aristocrats. He considers you a rake of the first order. And his opinion has some justification, you must confess. I know what happened at that inn outside Reading, and it was not well done of you.”

“Alas,” he said, one hand over his heart again, “I was guilty of a colossal error of judgment on that occasion, Miss Goddard. It was not my finest moment. Lady Angeline Dudley was alone in the taproom, her back to me, and she was dressed—well, loudly. I mistook her for something she most certainly was not, and I reacted as almost any red-blooded male would, who had no ties of marriage or like commitments to hold him back.”

“Edward did not,” she said.

His eyes laughed.

“Not all of us can be saints, Miss Goddard,” he said. “Some of us are sinners, sad to say. But even sinners are capable of redemption. Be gentle with me.”

She shook her head and smiled.

“What was supposed to have happened,” she said, “at least, what Lady Angeline expected to happen, was that Edward would come rushing to my rescue as soon as he saw us alone together and wrest me from your evil clutches and bear me off—well, here, I suppose, or somewhere just like it. Somewhere secluded and—romantic.”

“And you were a party to this scheme, Miss Goddard?” he asked.

“Since this morning,” she admitted. “She feared that all her careful scheming would come to naught if I did not know that I was to lure you off when my cue came, so that Edward could come and rescue me.”

“But instead,” he said, “he rescued her. One only wonders if he is capable of taking advantage of opportunity when it comes knocking at his door.”

“Edward is not the dull, unimaginative man you take him for,” she said. “He grew up in the shadow of a charismatic wastrel of a brother, and he has spent his life trying to compensate for the careless neglect with which the late earl treated those nearest and dearest to him. He takes duty seriously. He takes life seriously. But I have always known that he is capable of deep feeling and deep passion. And now he is in love, poor Edward, and thoroughly bewildered, especially over the fact that the object of his love is totally the opposite in every conceivable way of the sort of lady he would expect to choose for a bride. He has not yet understood, of course, that that is what makes her so perfect for him.”

“Ah,” Lord Windrow said, “what an excellent person you are, Miss Goddard. You are not only intelligent, but you have a female’s logic too.”

“I am female,” she said.

He looked her over lazily from head to foot—from her unadorned straw bonnet and the smooth brown hair beneath it, over her plain but serviceable muslin dress of pale green, on down to her sensible brown walking shoes.

“Yes,” he said before lifting his eyes to hers, “I had noticed.”

“Well,” Eunice said after swallowing, “thank goodness for that.”

“And so Heyward is supposed to believe that I am having my wicked way with you in the forest, is he?” he asked.

“He is.” She smiled at him. “He knows better, though. He trusts my good sense.”

“Does he indeed?” His lazy eyes searched her face. “But does he trust me?”

“He trusts my ability to handle you,” she said.

He took one step forward, and she took a half-step back in order to steady her back against the sturdy trunk of a tree.

“That sounds fascinating,” he said. “How would you handle me, Miss Goddard?”

“Since I have no experience,” she said, “and therefore cannot answer your question directly, Lord Windrow, I can only suggest that I answer it with—how did you phrase it?—with practical action.”

“Ah,” he said, taking another step forward, so that his body, from shoulders to thighs, brushed against hers, “take your time, Miss Goddard. There is no hurry at all for your answer. And do feel free to handle me to your heart’s content.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I will.”

And he brought his mouth down, open, across hers.

“And now,” he said several minutes later, his lips still brushing hers, “you have no need to answer my question. Sometimes action speaks far louder than words. And that pearl of wisdom is the academic portion of your lesson for today. Heyward would be shocked at how misplaced his trust in you is.” His lips moved down to her throat. “Although if his trust was merely in your ability to handle me, then it could be argued just as forcefully that his trust was well placed.”

“Yes,” she said. “But poor Lady Angeline. She will doubtless believe she has failed and will wish to try again.”

“A plan I thoroughly applaud,” he said, stepping back and looking with keen approval at her flushed face and rosy, just-kissed lips. “Can you persuade her to try again this evening?”

He grinned.

“Oh,” she said, “I will do no such thing. I would not have agreed to this afternoon if I had not felt that Lady Angeline needed a nudge in Edward’s direction. I knew he would not come after me, but I hoped he might spend some time with her and that the two of them might come to their senses. Whether it has worked or not, I do not know. But I was not cut out for intrigue. I shall tell her later that I have no romantic interest at all in Edward or he in me and that she must put aside her schemes. I daresay she will be relieved, for of course she loves him herself and must be heartbroken over her conviction that he belongs to me. She really is a very sweet girl and my first female friend ever. I value her friendship and will not toy with it any longer.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” he said. “I am cut out for intrigue, you see, and I believe it would be perfectly splendid to play Lady Angeline Dudley at her own game and at the same time accelerate her into the arms of her dull swain, who you insist is not dull at all. I have been used, Miss Goddard, and I am deeply offended. I am entitled, it would seem, to revenge in kind.”

“Oh.” Eunice looked at him with sharp interest. “What did you have in mind?”

He smiled slowly.

DINNER THAT EVENING was an elaborate affair in official celebration of Lorraine and Fenner’s betrothal. The meal consisted of twelve courses and was followed by speeches and toasts and dancing in the drawing room afterward to music provided by a small group—pianist, violinist, and flautist—from the village nearby.

It was a happy and merry occasion, for which Edward was glad. It might have been rather melancholy for his own family to see Maurice’s widow move on in her life with a different partner. But they had all taken her so thoroughly to their hearts from the moment of her marriage to Maurice that she felt like one of their own, and they were happy for her, despite the fact that Edward noticed his mother wipe a tear from her eye when she thought herself unobserved.

For himself, he was distracted. The events of the afternoon had shaken him quite considerably, for he had discovered himself quite unexpectedly and not altogether happily in love. Yes, it really was the only term he could use to describe his feelings, but it was not at all the sort of silly, shallow, wishful-thinking feeling he had expected it to be.

He was in love with Lady Angeline Dudley. He was enchanted by her and invigorated by her. And it was not just a sexual feeling, though it certainly was that too. It was more a longing for … well, he did not have the language for a sensation he had always despised and distrusted and really not believed in at all as a serious emotion.

It was a longing for her. For her as a part of himself. For … No, there was no way of expressing it in words. Happily-ever-after was not it at all, though it was the only phrase that came close. It all sounded so very trivial in words.

It was very serious.

Perhaps what he had learned most about himself during the afternoon was that he had surely always wanted simply to have fun, to let go and enjoy himself, to laugh. To laugh with someone else, to enjoy himself with someone else. He kept reliving that run down the hill. It had been mad—the slope was far too long and steep to be negotiated safely—and he never did mad things. It was one of the most wonderfully free things he had done in his life—running and falling and rolling and laughing. And kissing. And feeling grass all around them, and smelling it, and seeing blue sky above and the branches of trees and her yellow, blue, and pink bonnet wedged in an upper branch, its ribbons fluttering gaily in the breeze.

Feeling young.

Not that the afternoon had been all carefree enjoyment. It had not. She had spilled out her soul to him up on the battlements of that folly. Or that was how it had felt anyway, and he had understood all the loneliness of her girlhood and all the surprising insecurities that had been instilled in her by a vain, insensitive mother and dull, insensitive governesses. She was not at all the sort of woman she appeared to be. Well, she was. The exuberance, the boldness often amounting to indiscretion, the sheer zest for life were all real. But there was more than just that aspect of her person. Far more. Even the bold colors she liked to wear and the extravagant, garish hats made more sense now. She could never get her appearance and fashions right, she thought, so why not get them defiantly wrong?

He had poured out his heart to her too—almost deliberately, to start with. He had wanted her to feel less embarrassed about her disclosures by sharing some of his own. But real pain had surfaced—and she had understood and comforted him. She had confirmed what he had always known, of course—that he had been in no way responsible for Maurice’s accident and death.

And yet …

And yet she had made it very clear after their kiss that she did not want to marry him. She would refuse if he asked, she had told him. And then she had got definitely upset. She had been cross and crying.

Why?

She had admitted that she had kissed him as much as he had kissed her. And … what else had she said?

Sometimes I wish you were not such a gentleman, though the fact that you are was precisely why I liked you so much the very first time I saw you.

What the devil did that mean?

She wished he were not such a gentleman? But he had kissed her, had he not? That was not a very gentlemanly thing to do when they were not even betrothed. If he offered for her now, she meant, it would be only because a gentleman offers marriage to the woman whose virtue he compromises. Just as he had done last time.

Did that mean she did not love him?

Or did it mean that she loved him too much to accept an offer from him only because he felt duty-bound to make it?

Was that why she had refused him last time? Not so much because he had neglected to tell her that he loved her, but because she did love him?

Past tense?

Present tense?

He was such a novice at all this. And part of him was still wary. How could he be in love? And how the devil could he be in love with Lady Angeline Dudley? He deliberately brought to mind his first two encounters with her—at the Rose and Crown and on Rotten Row—and looked along the dining table to where she was seated between Sir Webster Jordan and Christopher. She was talking with great animation to the former, and he was smiling back at her.

She was a young, warmhearted, exuberant girl, full of dreams and hopes and charm and quite, quite unconscious of her own vivid beauty. Her mother would still have disapproved of her, he thought. The competition would have been too stiff.

She lifted her eyes and caught him looking at her. And for a moment—it was so brief that he might have imagined it—she gazed wistfully back. Then she smiled more brightly and lowered her eyes while she listened to what Jordan was saying.

He was not going to take her at her word. He was not going to forget about marrying her. If there was one thing he had learned about women, limited as his experience was, it was that they did not always say what they meant or mean what they said. Dealing with women was not an easy thing. But like all skills worth acquiring, it needed to be worked upon.

It was to be an evening of dancing. It was not the best situation in which to begin some determined wooing, but perhaps not the worst either. This was no London squeeze after all, and the musicians were no professionals. He danced an energetic hop with Miss Marianne Briden and a slightly more stately one with Alma. They all watched as Lorraine and Fenner waltzed together.

And then Lady Palmer asked the musicians to play a whole set of waltzes and there was a buzz of approval from the guests.

Edward drew a deep breath, but he dared not hesitate.

“Lady Angeline.” He stepped up to where she was standing, talking with Eunice and the Reverend Martin. “Would you care to waltz?”

Her lips formed a soundless O, and she glanced at Eunice and even made a small gesture toward her with one hand. But then she smiled.

“Thank you, Lord Heyward,” she said and set her hand on his sleeve as he led her farther onto the floor of the drawing room, from which the Persian carpet had been rolled back earlier in the evening.

His grandmother was beaming at him, Edward could see. Alma, who was with her, was smiling and nodding in his direction. His mother was looking hopefully at him. So, actually, was Lady Palmer. And for the first time he could feel encouraged rather than trapped by their obvious approval of this match. If only it were not a waltz! Or any dance at all for that matter.

“Perhaps,” Lady Angeline said, “you would prefer to sit and talk, Lord Heyward. Or perhaps you would like to stroll outside.”

The French windows were open though there was no one outside.

“Shall we compromise,” he suggested, “and dance outside?”

Perhaps his legs would feel more like legs—one left and one right—if he waltzed in the darkness without any critical eyes upon him.

“Oh,” she said. “Very well. But I am surprised you did not ask Miss Goddard. She is your friend, and I am sure you would not wish to see her be a wallflower. Your mother and sisters would understand if you danced with her.”

“A wallflower?” he said as he led her through the doors and out onto the cool terrace, which was illuminated only by the candles within the drawing room. “Eunice has had a partner for every dance so far. She is going to dance this one with Windrow.”

“I do not like that,” she said. “And you ought not. He is not a man to be trusted.”

“Not even in a drawing room full of fellow guests at a house party?” he asked her.

“But if they should venture beyond the sight of everyone else,” she said, “I do believe you ought to be concerned.”

He had been given the strange impression both yesterday and today that Windrow was actually interested in Eunice—perhaps because she was no easy victim to his charms. Nothing would come of it, of course. Eunice was far too sensible to encourage him, even if she appeared to be enjoying his company right now. She was laughing at something he had said. Eunice should laugh more often. She looked younger and lovelier than he remembered her looking at any time since he had known her.

And then the music began and he forgot about Eunice and Windrow and everyone else in the drawing room. He set a hand behind Lady Angeline’s slender waist and took her right hand in his left. He felt her other hand come to rest on his shoulder. Her eyes were large in the darkness. They were looking directly into his.

He even forgot that he could not dance, or, rather, that he did so with extreme awkwardness. And that the musicians were not particularly skilled.

He had been wrong about the candlelight. The sky was clear overhead. The moon was waxing toward the full. A million stars twinkled with varying degrees of brightness. The air was cool but not cold. They moved into the steps of the waltz.

It was the only time ever he had enjoyed dancing. Perhaps because he did not even realize that was what he was doing. They moved as one, in and out of the beams of light cast by the drawing room candles, and they twirled beneath the stars until it seemed that it was they that were whirling in bands of light while the two people beneath them stood still.

Her body was warm and supple, her hand clasped in his. She wore a perfume—or perhaps it was soap—so faint that it seemed more the fragrance of her. It wrapped about him like a soft shawl, warming him against the cool of the evening.

They did not speak. It did not occur to him that they might. It did not even occur to him that they were not conversing. The silence was eloquent enough with its background of music and voices and laughter.

And when it was over, they stood a foot apart—less—and gazed at each other.

“Lady Angeline—” he said softly.

“Thank you,” she said brightly as he began to speak. She smiled dazzlingly. “That was very pleasant, Lord Heyward. It is chilly out here, is it not? I shall be glad to get back inside.”

And the spell was broken.

Was it possible that it had been one-sided, that only he had felt it? Had she been feeling chilly all the time they danced and anxious for the music to end so that she could go back indoors?

He did not believe so.

But she was edgy. She did not trust him, perhaps, to be more than the dull, plodding suitor who had acted out all the platitudes and clichйs of a marriage proposal a month ago and had admitted, when pressed, that he was proposing only because he had kissed and compromised her the night before.

What an insufferable ass he had been—as well as an utter simpleton.

It was no wonder she did not trust him now.

The only question was, was it too late to redeem himself? Had his cold manner then killed all her love for him? If she had loved him, that was. But she had loved him this afternoon. He had no experience by which to judge such things, but one did not need experience. He had felt her kiss and her arms about him. He had gazed into her eyes.

“Yes,” he said now and offered her his arm.

Five minutes later she was dancing with Windrow and sparkling and laughing up at him, and Edward felt that he could cheerfully kill the man. But he was dancing with Eunice, and he determinedly gave her his full attention.

“Are you enjoying the house party, Eunice?” he asked.

“Oh, of all things,” she said, which seemed an extravagantly girlish thing for Eunice to say. “I have never before been to a house party, you know. And I am twenty-three years old.”

Ah, he thought as he smiled fondly at her, the butterfly was emerging from the cocoon, was it? The solemn, bookish girl was suddenly realizing that there was life to be lived and that it must be done now because time moved inexorably onward. He just hoped she had not pinned all her hopes for happiness upon Windrow, though he did not believe she would be so foolish. He was not about to utter any advice, however. Eunice was quite mature and sensible enough to order her own life.

“And you,” she said. “Are you enjoying yourself, Edward?”

“I am,” he said and smiled.

“You see?” she said softly. “I was quite right, was I not?”

He was not really sure what she meant, though he thought he knew.

“Yes,” he said. “You were.”

She smiled warmly back at him.