Mary Balogh - The Secret Mistress

Angeline held her peace, but secretly she thought that she might try one of those books for herself the next time she went to the library.

The excitement of her day was not over after she had sent the Marquess of Exwich on his way later in the afternoon. Half an hour after that a note arrived from Cousin Rosalie to inform her that they had been invited to take tea the following afternoon with the Marquess and Marchioness of Beckingham. They were the Earl of Heyward’s maternal grandparents, the note explained. Lord Heyward was to be there too, and Angeline must be prepared to drive in the park with him afterward, weather permitting. It would be a positive step forward in a possible courtship, Rosalie had also added, for Hyde Park was where everyone of any consequence went during the afternoon to see and be seen.

Whose idea had all this been, Angeline wondered. His? His grandmother’s? She would wager it had not been his. But did it matter? She would see him again regardless. She would drive with him in the park, converse with him. Everyone would see them together.

Oh, she could scarcely wait.

She could make him fall in love with her, even if she did look like a swarthy gypsy.

Of course she could.

If only it did not rain.

IT DID NOT rain. And it would not. There had been scarcely a cloud in the sky all day.

The Earl of Heyward was the last to arrive for tea, but Angeline did not mind, as long as he did come. And he surely would. Half his family was there.

The Marchioness of Beckingham was a small, slender lady with regal bearing, very white hair, and a long-handled lorgnette, which she used more as a baton to be waved about than as something to see through. She settled into conversation with Cousin Rosalie and Mrs. Lynd, the earl’s sister, but not before looking Angeline over from head to toe and nodding.

“You look nothing like your mother,” she said almost as though it were a compliment. “Your face has character. And I have always envied tall ladies. I envy them even more now that I have started to sink in the opposite direction.”

She had not called Angeline either pretty or beautiful, but her words had felt like approval.

The marquess was tall and thin and slightly stooped and white-haired like his wife. After greeting Angeline and Rosalie, he returned to what appeared to be an engrossing discussion of politics with Mr. Lynd, who apparently was a government minister.

The widowed Countess of Heyward, Angeline noticed with interest, sat a little apart with Cousin Leonard. They had been something of an item five years ago when the countess had made her come-out, Rosalie had told her during the carriage ride here. Then the late Lord Heyward had come along to sweep her off her feet, and Leonard had not looked at a lady since. Not in the way of marriage, anyway, even though he was now close to thirty.

For five years Rosalie had not looked kindly upon the countess. But so many foolish young ladies fell for handsome rakes, she explained, married them, doubtless with the conviction that they could reform them, and then regretted it for the rest of their lives.

“I do hope, Angeline,” she had said, “you will prove to have better sense than to allow that to happen to you. I am very pleased that the Earl of Heyward has shown an interest in you, despite what Tresham says.”

The dowager countess and Viscount and Lady Overmyer, also Lord Heyward’s sister, engaged Angeline in conversation after the greetings were over, even though the viscount sat a little distance from them, having explained that he had a slight cold and did not wish to pass it on to either Lady Angeline or his mother-in-law. All three of them were flatteringly attentive to what she had to say, and all three of them complimented her on the success of her ball. The viscount expressed a hope that she had taken no permanent harm to her ankle and suggested that even now it might be wise if she kept her foot elevated whenever she was not forced to use it.

Lord Heyward had asked her last evening if she had been prodded into encouraging his courtship, Angeline remembered. Was he being pressured by three generations of his own family into courting her? It would hardly be surprising. He was in need of a bride, Rosalie had explained to her, as there was no heir of the direct line remaining, his brother having fathered only a daughter before his untimely death. And Angeline was perhaps the most eligible young lady on the market this year.

And then he arrived, looking wonderfully … neat in a form-fitting coat of dark green superfine, buff pantaloons, and high-topped Hessian boots, his short hair slightly tousled from his hat.

Angeline beamed at him as he bowed to all of them, and waited impatiently while he spoke to his sister-in-law and Cousin Leonard and then to his grandmother and Cousin Rosalie and—at slightly greater length—to his grandfather and Mr. Lynd. But finally he came toward her group and actually took a seat next to his sister.

“Communing with your own thoughts over there, are you, Christopher?” he asked the viscount.

“I am attempting to keep my cold to myself, Edward,” his brother-in-law explained. “Ill health is my cross to bear in this life, as you know, but I try to bear it with patience and protect my fellow humans, the ladies in particular, from having to share it with me.”

“That is admirable of you,” Lord Heyward said good-naturedly while Lady Overmyer poured him a cup of tea. “Thank you, Juliana.”

He scarcely looked Angeline’s way for the next half hour, though he participated in the general conversation. But she did not mind. There were still no clouds in the sky.

Finally the countess got to her feet, swiftly followed by Cousin Leonard.

“Mother,” she said, addressing the dowager, “Lord Fenner has brought an open barouche and has invited me to drive in the park with him. Will you mind dreadfully returning home in the carriage alone?”

“Unless you would care to come with us, ma’am?” Cousin Leonard asked politely.

“One can be exposed to too much sunshine in an open carriage,” the dowager said, smiling graciously from one to the other of them, “and I did not bring a parasol with me. Thank you, Lord Fenner, but I will return home in the comfort of my own carriage. Edward was kind enough to bring it to London for me from Wimsbury Abbey. You go and enjoy yourself, Lorraine.”

It was the Earl of Heyward’s cue, it seemed.

“Lady Angeline,” he said, getting to his feet and looking directly at her at last, “would you give me the pleasure of driving you too in the park? I have the curricle with me.”

A curricle. Angeline had never ridden in one, since they were not vehicles much used in the country. But she thought them quite the most dashing of vehicles even if they could kill people who did not drive them with the proper care and attention. She would wager Lord Heyward was far from being a careless or inattentive driver.

She smiled brightly.

“What a splendid idea,” she said. “Thank you, Lord Heyward. I would like it of all things. May I, Cousin Rosalie?”

Rosalie inclined her head.

“You must be careful not to drive too fast, Edward,” Viscount Overmyer said, “even if the air does appear to be warm today. It is not warm when one is traveling at any speed. And you would not wish to cause Lady Angeline a chill.”

“Thank you, Christopher,” Lord Heyward said. “I shall keep that advice in mind if I should feel the sudden urge to spring the horses.”

Angeline almost laughed aloud. But she might hurt the feelings of the viscount, who had spoken in earnest and was concerned for her health.

“Thank you, Lord Overmyer,” she said, smiling at him. “But I trust Lord Heyward to keep my best interests at heart at every moment.”

“It is one of Edward’s most admirable traits,” his sister said. “He is utterly trustworthy, Lady Angeline.”

“We will leave now,” Lord Heyward said, “before I am elevated to sainthood.”

And he bent to kiss his grandmother’s cheek.

HE FELT THAT he was making a grand public statement, Edward thought uneasily.

Engage a lady for two sets at her come-out ball, including the first, sit with her at supper, and then, two days later, on a perfect spring afternoon when absolutely everyone would be out, drive her in the park—on the high seat of a spanking new curricle.

Add a large, wide-brimmed bonnet in varying shades of green and orange—and not subtle shades at that—laden with artificial fruit and flowers and ribbons and bows and Lord knew what other bells and whistles, and a dazzlingly smiling face below it, and a mobile mouth, and a hand that waved to everyone and his dog—yes, she did indeed wave to a little fluff of a mutt, which was prancing along the pedestrian path with its mistress, its stub of a tail adorned with a blue ribbon bow.

He might as well be done with the whole business and put an engagement notice in tomorrow’s papers. He might as well get the wedding invitations made up and sent out. He might as well book St. George’s on Hanover Square for the ceremony and plan the wedding breakfast. He might as well start fitting out his nursery.

“Is this not all absolutely wonderful?” Lady Angeline Dudley said as he drove through the crowd of carriages and horses that made the fashionable afternoon loop in Hyde Park.

Or drove with the crowd would be a more accurate description. It was impossible to move at a faster pace than the slowest of the vehicles ahead of him, and that was very slow indeed. Speed was not the purpose of an afternoon drive in the park, of course. Neither was getting somewhere—hence the circular nature of the drive. One came to be sociable, to mingle with one’s peers, to hear the newest gossip, to pass along something even newer if one was fortunate enough to have heard anything suitably salacious. One came to see who was with whom and, sometimes, who was not with whom.