The Secret Mistress

Chapter 4

ANGELINE’S PRESENTATION TO the queen had passed without incident. There had been no embarrassing encounters with the train of her gown, and she had met and chatted with other young ladies who were also making their come-out this year. She had high hopes of making friends of some of them.

She had never had a close friend, which seemed like an abject admission to make, even to herself, though she had never felt dreadfully deprived. Her two brothers had been her playmates—and her adored heroes—when she was a child. When she was a girl, she had known all her neighbors at Acton, including those of her own age, and had been on amiable terms with all of them. But of course they all stood slightly in awe of her because she was the daughter and later the sister of the Duke of Tresham, with the result that she had never had a bosom bow, someone with whom to chat and giggle and in whom to confide all the deepest, darkest secrets of her young heart.

Now, among her peers, perhaps she would find such young friends.

And beaux.

All the men in the vicinity of Acton, from the age of fifteen to eighty, were far too much in awe of her. Perhaps they all knew Tresham’s reputation too well and chose to safeguard their teeth rather than appear too friendly toward his sister.

Oh, she was glad, glad, glad that she was here in London at last, that she had made her curtsy to the queen, and that she was dressing for her come-out ball. She could hardly contain her exuberance.

She was already dressed, in fact, and Betty had just put the finishing touches to her very elaborate coiffure. She would not have thought it possible to arrange so many curls and ringlets on her head in such a pleasing arrangement. And she was confident that they would remain where they were. She shook her head gingerly and experimentally, but they did not cascade down about her shoulders. There was, of course, a whole arsenal of pins hidden away under them.

Angeline got to her feet and looked at herself critically in the pier glass. She looked, she supposed, as well as she possibly could look considering two massive and unavoidable facts: first that she was compelled to wear white, and second that she was a great dark beanpole of a girl. She had had the misfortune to take after her father rather than her mother in looks, as had both her brothers. But that fact was fine for them. They were men.

Nothing was going to dampen her spirits tonight, though.

Nothing.

She took the ivory fan Betty was holding out to her, opened it, and fluttered it before her face.

“Will I do?” she asked.

“You look ever so lovely, my lady,” Betty said. She was not being obsequious. She was just as likely to say the opposite if that was what she thought. Betty often did not approve of what her mistress chose to wear.

Angeline gazed into her own reflected eyes.

Who was he?

Her heart had performed a triple somersault when she had spotted him this morning as she went thundering past him up Rotten Row.

There he was.

At last.

Looking neat and lithe in the saddle, and just a little mud-spattered.

She had been about to call out to him. But, just as he had done at that inn, he had inclined his head to her, showing that at least he recognized her, and had ridden away without a word.

His behavior had been perfectly correct, of course. They still had not been formally presented. He had saved her from the horrible faux pas of calling out to a stranger in a very public place. Tresham would have had her head if he had ever heard about it. Even Ferdinand would have been annoyed, though by that time Ferdie was almost at the other end of the Row in a race with his friends. None of them were close enough to answer the question that had burned in her mind.

Who was he?

Angeline fanned her face a little faster before snapping the fan shut.

Would she see him again?

Would he be here tonight?

She turned from the pier glass as a brisk knock sounded at the door. Betty answered it. Tresham and Ferdinand were standing out there, both tall and gorgeous in their black evening clothes with crisp white linen.

Ferdinand was grinning.

“We argued over who should come up for you, Angie,” he said, “and we ended up both coming. You look as fine as fivepence.”

His eyes swept over her in what looked like genuine appreciation.

“Thank you, Ferdie,” she said. “So do you.”

He was twenty-one, one year down from Oxford, and well on his way to being as dedicated a rakehell as their brother—or so rumor had it, and Angeline did not doubt it. Neither did she doubt that he was wildly attractive to every female who set eyes upon him, and that he knew it.

Tresham looked his habitual bored, handsome self.

“Is this really our sister, Ferdinand,” he asked, probably rhetorically, “looking quite tame and civilized and, yes, very fine indeed?”

One might wait a decade in vain for a compliment from Tresham. One ought to cherish one when it did come one’s way, then. But Angeline bristled instead.

“Tame?” she said. “Civilized? Does that imply that I am usually wild and uncivilized? What do you know about me, Tresham? Before I came to town, I saw you on precisely two occasions after you were sixteen and I was eleven. And I would hardly misbehave during either Papa’s funeral or Mama’s, would I? You abandoned me when you left home so suddenly. All you knew about me afterward, presumably, was what you learned in the reports sent you by the various governesses you imposed upon me. And they all disapproved of me because I was not a perfect mouse of a young lady. What did they expect? What did you expect? I am a Dudley, after all. But I am not wild for all that. Or uncivilized.”

Tresham regarded her steadily from his very dark, unreadable eyes.

“That is better,” he said. “Now you have some color in your cheeks, Angeline, and are not unrelieved white from head to toe. Are you ready to go down? Or do you plan to make an entrance to your own ball after everyone else has arrived?”

Ferdinand grinned and winked and offered his arm.

Oh, she adored both brothers, Angeline thought as she took an arm of each and descended the staircase for the all-important duty of greeting the ball guests in the receiving line. She adored them even though she was constantly exasperated by them. She had heard much about them even though she had not seen a great deal of them during the past seven years—though Ferdinand had come home almost every school or university holiday, even if only for a few days. She had heard about the dangerous, reckless races, the fistfights, the mistresses, the duels, though that last applied only to Tresham. She had heard of two separate duels fought with pistols, in both of which Tresham’s opponent had shot first and missed before Tresham shot contemptuously in the air. And both duels had been over the other man’s wife, with whom Tresham was dallying. Fortunately, both duels were long over before Angeline heard about them. She was very disapproving of the cause, very proud that her brother had shot into the air rather than directly at a wronged husband, and very convinced that every nerve in her body had been shattered by the news and would never function properly again.

Cousin Rosalie was waiting in the hall below and smiled at Angeline with approval and encouragement.

“You really do look very distinguished, Angeline,” she said. “Other girls are swallowed up by white. You … command it.”

Whatever that meant, Angeline thought ruefully. And she had noticed that Rosalie called her distinguished rather than pretty.

She wondered suddenly how her mother would have described her tonight. Would she have called her fine, as Tresham and Ferdinand had done? Or distinguished, as Rosalie had done? Or lovely, as Betty had done? Or pretty? Or would she have frowned, as she had done in the past, at her daughter’s gangly height or at the extreme darkness of her hair and the indelicacy of her complexion? Or, as she had done once when Angeline was thirteen, at the fact that her eyebrows did not arch elegantly above her eyes?

She had been in the middle of one of her increasingly rare stays at Acton Park at the time, even though Papa was already dead and therefore no longer to be avoided. Angeline had spent the whole of the subsequent week peering into mirrors, trying to arch her eyebrows the way Mama did. But when she had tried the new expression on her mother, Mama had told her she looked like a startled hare and warned her that she would have furrows in her brow before she was thirty if she was not careful.

Perhaps her mother would have approved of her in white, Angeline thought. It was what she had almost always worn herself. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she would have seen more clearly than ever that Angeline in no way resembled herself and would have been unable to disguise her disappointment and her conviction that Angeline would never be the daughter she must have dreamed of. Although Angeline was no longer gangly, she was even taller than she had been at the age of thirteen. And her eyebrows would still not arch.

But she was not going to grow maudlin over the hopelessness of her looks on this of all nights. She smiled dazzlingly at Rosalie without releasing her brothers’ arms, and they all made their way to the ballroom together.

Its long length looked like an indoor garden, a luscious indoor garden, laden down as it was with white flowers—lilies, roses, daisies, chrysanthemums, among others—and green leaves and ferns. They were in banks about the perimeter of the room and circling the pillars. They hung in exuberant profusion from baskets on the walls. They were reflected in mirrors. The room was filled with their combined scents.

The three large chandeliers had been on the floor for the past several days while every piece of silver and crystal had been polished and shined and dozens of new candles had been fitted in place. The candles had been lit now and the chandeliers hoisted up close to the gilded ceiling, which was painted with scenes from Greek mythology. The wall sconces had been filled with candles, which were also alight.

The wood floor gleamed. The French windows along one long wall had been opened back so that guests could stroll on the lamp-lit terrace beyond. The orchestra members had already arranged their instruments on the dais at one end of the room. At the other end, the doors to the adjoining salon were open so that guests could help themselves to drinks and other refreshments from tables covered with crisp white cloths.

It was all … overwhelming.

Angeline had only ever attended informal dances in the drawing rooms of the more prosperous of her neighbors at home and a couple of assemblies at the village inn.

She stepped alone into the ballroom and stood there, her hands clasped to her bosom, trying with all her might to resist the urge to weep.

This was it. This was what she had longed for throughout the lonely years of her girlhood.

Suddenly she felt lonelier than she had ever felt.

And so excited she could scarcely breathe.

Tresham stepped up beside her, drew her arm through his again, set his free hand lightly over hers, and said not a word.

She had never loved him more.

NO ONE HAD cheered wildly over Edward’s maiden speech in the House of Lords, but no one had jeered either. And he had not noticed anyone nodding off to sleep during its delivery. Several members had even shaken his hand afterward. One elderly duke, who carried a hearing trumpet with him but had not used it all afternoon as far as Edward had noticed, had even commented that the speech had been a fine piece of oratory. At which a younger peer had slapped him on the shoulder, winked at Edward, and observed that His Grace had said the same thing of every maiden speech that had been delivered during the past fifty years.

Edward had joined in a general burst of laughter. It had been, actually, the best moment. He had felt accepted.

Anyway, it was a huge relief to have that ordeal behind him.

It would have been pleasant to relax at home for the rest of the day or else to have gone to the theater or White’s Club or somewhere else where he could be a passive observer rather than an active doer. But there was this infernal ball of Tresham’s to attend. And, if that was not bad enough, there was the opening set to dance with Tresham’s sister.

At least Eunice would be there. He would reserve the second set with her and hope she was content to sit it out with him. Then at last he would be comfortable and could relax in the knowledge that this long-dreaded day was effectively at an end.

He arrived at Dudley House with his mother and Lorraine. He was happy to see them both in higher spirits than they had been for a long time. They were both out of mourning. His mother had become reacquainted with some of her numerous friends in the ton and seemed determined to put memories of her elder son to rest and concentrate her attentions upon her second son. Lorraine had put on some weight and looked the better for it. The color was back in her cheeks and the gloss in her hair. The weight, the color, and the gloss had disappeared even before Maurice’s death. Now she looked her age again. She was still only twenty-three, one year younger than Edward himself. She was a vivid beauty once more.

Edward wished her well. He had always been fond of her and she of him. She had sometimes, though not often, confided her misery to him while Maurice lived. A few times he had tried to talk to his brother but had merely ended up being called a pompous ass for his pains.

Edward made his way up the staircase inside Dudley House, a lady on each arm. This was one of the first grand balls of the Season. He doubted there was a person invited who was not here already or else in the long line of carriages outside the doors. The staircase was crowded as guests awaited their turn to pass along the receiving line.

It still felt strange, Edward thought as they reached the doorway to the ballroom and the majordomo announced their names, to be treated with such deference. Mr. Edward Ailsbury had been able to slip into—and out of—any social event he chose without anyone particularly noticing. The Earl of Heyward was someone, even if he was also just an ordinary man or a pompous ass, depending upon who was describing him.

“There is Lady Palmer,” Lorraine said, smiling. “She informed me that her brother will be here this evening—Lord Fenner, that is. I wonder if he has arrived yet.”

Edward looked down at her with interest. He wondered if there was any significance in her mentioning Fenner, whom he knew as a pleasant enough man, a few years his senior.

“It may take you an hour or two to find out even after passing along the receiving line,” he said. “It looks as if this ball is going to be a squeeze to end squeezes.”

“Well, of course it is,” she said. “Who could resist an invitation to a ball at Dudley House? The Duke of Tresham never hosts balls.”

Except tonight, Edward thought ruefully, for his sister, with whom Edward was going to have to dance. He wished suddenly that he had thought of persuading his mother to sit at the pianoforte in the drawing room at home while he practiced steps with Lorraine or one of his sisters. But being rusty on the steps of all the most common dances was not his problem. Having two left feet was, and no amount of practice could rectify that.

The receiving line was short. Lady Palmer was at the near side of it with Tresham next to her. The young lady beyond him was presumably Lady Angeline Dudley, but Edward could not see her clearly, partly because Tresham stood in the way, and partly because almost every lady ahead of him had nodding plumes in her hair.

He bowed to Lady Palmer and agreed that yes, indeed, they were fortunate to have such a fine evening for the ball considering the rain that had fallen fitfully all morning. His mother smiled and nodded and made a few polite comments of her own, and Lorraine smiled warmly and congratulated Lady Palmer on what already showed the unmistakable promise of being a grand success of an evening.

Edward inclined his head more stiffly to Tresham, who returned the gesture and spoke briefly and courteously to the two ladies. Amazingly, neither Edward’s mother nor Lorraine seemed to harbor any particular grudge against the man with whom Maurice had been racing when he died. And perhaps they were right. If it had not been Tresham, it would have been someone else. And Tresham had not directly caused the upset. He had overtaken Maurice just before a sharp bend in the road a moment or two earlier and had been safely around the bend and the obstacle beyond it before that obstacle—a large hay cart—and Maurice’s curricle met right on the blindest part of the curve.

Tresham turned to his right, and Edward and the two ladies turned to their left and an avenue of sight opened up.

“May I present my sister, Lady Angeline Dudley?” Tresham said.

Oh, good Lord!

Edward’s eyes had alit upon her and hers upon him long before her brother had completed the brief introductions.

She was looking perfectly respectable tonight. She was dressed in a white gown of simple, modest design, which nevertheless hugged her tall, shapely frame in a thoroughly becoming manner. She was standing upright, with perfectly correct posture. She was smiling politely—and then with heightened color in her cheeks and an extra sparkle in her dark eyes.

She looked more beautiful than ever, though there was nothing delicate about either her features or her coloring.

Edward was appalled.

He bowed to her, and she curtsied to all three of them, though she was looking at him—quite fixedly.

“Lady Angeline,” he murmured.

Do not say it, he implored her silently.

Perhaps she needed no urging, though she had definitely been about to speak to him both at the Rose and Crown and in Hyde Park this morning.

“Lord Heyward.”

But of course, he thought. He had passed Tresham ten minutes away from that inn. Tresham in a carriage, which must be rare indeed. Tresham headed away from London just when everyone else was headed toward it. Tresham on the way to meet his sister at the Rose and Crown. The evidence had been there staring him in the face, including the fact that brother and sister looked remarkably alike. He had not made the connection.

Now he was doomed to dance with her, a lady who did not know how to behave. A Dudley, in fact.

She was smiling at his mother now and talking with her. The line was stalling behind them. It was time to move into the ballroom.

“I shall look forward to leading you into the first set, Lady Angeline,” he said.

Her smile was dazzling. She had perfect teeth.

“Oh,” she said, “and I shall look forward to it too, Lord Heyward.”

“It is a pity,” his mother said as they stepped into the ballroom, “that she favors her father’s side of the family rather than her mother’s.”

“Maybe not, Mother,” Lorraine said. “Looking as she does, she is less likely to find herself compared with the late Duchess of Tresham. That can only be to her advantage, even if the duchess was a rare beauty. And she is not unhandsome. What do you think, Edward?”

“I think she is the most beautiful creature I have ever set eyes upon,” he said and then felt remarkably foolish and chagrined. He had not meant the words the way they had sounded. He did not feel any admiration for the girl. Quite the contrary. It had been a quite objective remark, which had come out making him sound like a lovestruck mooncalf.

Both ladies were looking at him with interest.

“She certainly is striking,” his mother said. “And charming. She has a vitality not always apparent in girls new to the ton. And she was obviously pleased to meet you, Edward. She could scarcely keep her eyes off you. You are looking remarkably distinguished this evening. Is he not, Lorraine?”

“Edward always looks distinguished,” Lorraine said, smiling fondly at him.

Edward sighed inwardly. One hour. One hour from now the ball would have begun and the first set would be over. Then he could relax.

Why did one hour seem like an eternity?

THE NEXT HALF hour, Angeline thought as the long line of guests gradually became a trickle and finally stopped altogether. The orchestra members on the dais were beginning to tune their instruments as though they fully intended to use them soon. The next half hour was going to be the most fateful, the most wonderful of her entire life. It was, in fact, going to be the beginning of the rest of her life.

The blissful beginning.

When Tresham had turned sideways in the line and the two ladies had done likewise and Angeline had been able to see the gentleman who was with them …

Well. There were simply no words.

And when she had heard the echo of the names the majordomo had recited a moment before and she had realized that this was the Earl of Heyward, with whom she was to dance the opening set …

Well.

There were simply no thoughts.

Except that suddenly she had had one—a thought, that was—and had almost suffered a heart attack as a result.

“The Countess of Heyward?” she had asked Tresham, a hint of a squeak in her voice just before he turned back to greet the next guests in line. “I am to dance the opening set of my come-out ball with a married man?”

The possibility that he was married had never once crossed her mind.

“The countess is his sister-in-law,” he had explained. “She was married to his brother, the late Heyward and one devil of a fine fellow.”

Of course. She had known that. Rosalie had arranged the opening set with the widowed Countess of Heyward.

Then another thought had struck her.

A dry old stick?

But Tresham was greeting someone else and was about to introduce her. Oh, goodness, there were so many new faces to memorize and so many names to put with those faces. She stopped even trying.

He was the Earl of Heyward.

Single.

And she was going to dance off into the rest of her life with him.

Into happily-ever-after, even though she had never believed in such a ridiculous notion.

Suddenly she did.

And the next half hour was to be all hers.

All theirs.

He came striding toward her as soon as she stepped inside the ballroom, Tresham on her right, Cousin Rosalie on her left, a look of firm purpose on his face as though this was a very serious moment. As though it was something that mattered to him.

As perhaps it was.

Angeline stopped herself only just in time from clasping her hands to her bosom. It had not escaped her attention, focused though she was on the Earl of Heyward, that simply everyone in the ballroom was looking at her. Of course everyone was. It was not even conceited to believe so. This was her ball, and she would lead off the first set. Besides, she was the most eligible young lady in London this year. She was the sister of the Duke of Tresham.

The Earl of Heyward stopped in front of her, inclined his head to both Rosalie and Tresham, and then fixed his eyes upon her. His beautifully blue eyes.

“This is my set, I believe, Lady Angeline,” he said.

He was holding out a hand toward her, palm down.

She felt as though she must just have run five miles against a stiff wind. She smiled and decided not to open her fan. The last thing she needed was more breeze.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you, my lord.”

And she placed her hand on the back of his—it was firm and warm—and stepped out onto the empty dance floor with him.

Their very first touch.

There was a sigh of something from the spectators, and the orchestra ceased its tuning.

Angeline’s stomach felt as though it was suddenly inhabited by a whole swarm of fluttering butterflies. Of nervousness? Of excitement? Both?

He led her to a spot close to the orchestra dais and left her there while he took his place a short distance away.

It was the signal for other couples to come and join them, to form the long lines of dancers for the first set, the ladies on one side, the gentlemen on the other.

Angeline gazed across at Lord Heyward, and he looked steadily back.

He was neatly, fashionably dressed. But there was no excess—no high shirt points threatening to pierce his eyeballs, no creaking corsets, no profusion of fobs and chains, no elaborately embroidered waistcoat, no haircut with its own name, like a Brutus, for example.

And no smile.

Meeting her, dancing with her, was serious business to him, then.

He was not a frivolous man.

He was probably the polar opposite of Tresham. And of Ferdinand. And her father. All of whom she loved, or had loved, to distraction. But none of them would ever be her husband. Neither would any man remotely like them. She had some sense of self-preservation.

She was going to marry someone like the Earl of Heyward.

No, correction.

She was going to marry the Earl of Heyward.

He might not know it yet, but he would.

They were a little too far apart to converse comfortably. And she did not wish to shout inanities across at him, though several couples beyond them were doing just that.

He held his peace too.

And then the orchestra played a decisive chord and the chatter died. The butterflies in her stomach did not, but fluttered to renewed life. She curtsied in the line of ladies. He bowed in the line of gentlemen. And the music began and they were off, performing the intricate steps of a lively country dance. Before she knew it, Angeline found that it was their turn—they were the lead couple, after all—to twirl down the set between the lines of clapping dancers.

The butterflies had disappeared without a trace.

She was so happy she thought she might well burst.

But awareness returned soon enough. And with it came a realization that first amazed her and then touched her.

Lord Heyward danced with careful precision and rather wooden grace. Actually, the grace was quite minimal. Even nonexistent. His timing was a little off, as though he waited to see what everyone else was doing before he did it himself. And occasionally there was a definite hesitation.

The poor man could not dance. Or rather, he could, but dancing was not something that came naturally to him or gave him any enjoyment whatsoever. His face was blank of expression, but there was a certain tension behind the blankness, and Angeline guessed that he was concentrating hard upon not disgracing himself.

And yet as the lead couple they were the ones most on display to the many guests who were not themselves dancing but were only watching—and storing tidbits of gossip to share in tomorrow’s drawing rooms.

Oh, poor Lord Heyward. He was not enjoying himself at all.

This was not the way to begin their … Their what? Relationship? Courtship? Happily-ever-after?

It was not the way to begin it, anyway, whatever it was.

The first dance of the set came to an end, and there was a brief pause before the second began. As soon as it did, Angeline realized that the rhythm was even faster than it had been before. Lord Heyward looked like a man who had been climbing the steps to the gallows until now but had suddenly emerged onto the flat platform and the trapdoor and noose itself.

There was really nothing else she could do, Angeline decided, except what she proceeded to do.

She turned her ankle and stumbled awkwardly.