Mary Balogh - The Secret Mistress

Angeline had been looking out for her since that day in the library but had not seen her anywhere.

Her partner—goodness, she could not even remember his name, which was shockingly careless of her and not at all fair to him—returned her to Cousin Rosalie’s side when the set was at an end. Angeline spoke quickly before another crowd could gather.

“I am going to speak with Miss Goddard for a moment,” she said to Rosalie. “She is sitting over there.”

“Miss who?” Rosalie asked, but Angeline was already on her way.

She fanned her face and smiled brightly as she approached, and Miss Goddard, seeing her coming, smiled back.

“Lady Angeline,” she said in her quiet, serious voice. “How do you do?”

“I have borrowed Mr. Milton’s Paradise Lost from the library,” Angeline said. “I have read six of the books and have started the seventh. I am loving it. I cannot wait to find out what happens.”

“Oh.” Miss Goddard looked a little taken aback. “Well done. I read it when I was a girl. I have always meant to read Paradise Regained but have not yet brought myself around to it.”

“The Earl of Heyward called at Dudley House this afternoon,” Angeline said. “He offered me marriage, but I said no.”

There was a short silence, during which Miss Goddard stared at her without expression.

“I am surprised,” she said. “And sorry. Surprised and sorry that you said no, that is.”

“He does not love me,” Angeline said. “I asked and he said no. Well, he did not say an out-and-out no. That would have been ungentlemanly, and Lord Heyward is always a gentleman. He talked about fondness and affection and other things that all meant the same thing. But he could not say he loved me.”

“No,” Miss Goddard said quietly, “he would not. He ought to have lied because he would have been devoted to you for the rest of his life, you know. He could not possibly not be. It is not in his nature. But he finds it difficult, if not impossible, to lie, even if only for the sake of diplomacy.”

“He once said that my riding hat was the most atrocious thing he had ever seen in his life,” Angeline said.

Miss Goddard was startled into laughter.

“No!” she said. “Edward said that?”

“But he smiled as he said it,” Angeline said, “and I laughed too. He has a lovely smile.”

“Yes.” Miss Goddard looked arrested. “Pardon me, how very rude I am being. Lady Angeline, may I present my aunt, Lady Sanford? Lady Angeline Dudley, Aunt Charlotte.”

Angeline sat on an empty chair facing the ladies, her back to the dance floor, and chatted for a while. She looked around again only when Miss Goddard fixed her eyes upon something or someone beyond and above Angeline’s shoulder and opened her fan, though she held it in her lap.

Lord Windrow was approaching, all lazy smiles and mocking charm.

Angeline jumped to her feet and smiled brightly again. She fluttered her fan before her face. He was just what she needed this evening—or whom she needed, perhaps. He must have just arrived, which would be typical of him. Certainly she had not seen him before this moment, and she surely would have done if he had arrived earlier.

He feigned a look of surprise.

“Ah, fair one,” he said, bowing elegantly. “And the delectable Miss Goddard, whose stimulating conversation I have sought but not found, alas, since a certain memorable evening that is regrettably long in the past.”

Angeline set her closed fan on his sleeve. The next dance was to be a waltz, was it not? And it was the supper dance. This was perfect. And she actually liked Lord Windrow, she realized, in much the way she liked her own brothers. He was a rake and a rogue, but at least he was an interesting one. An amusing one. And she was not in any danger whatsoever of being taken in by his charm. She would be able to relax and enjoy herself thoroughly with him. No matter that he had made some very improper advances to her at that inn and never apologized adequately for them. What gentleman would not have tried to take advantage of her under similar circumstances?

The Earl of Heyward would not, Miss Pratt’s voice answered very clearly and promptly in her head. Angeline ignored it.

“This is to be a waltz,” she said, “and I am happy to be able to say that I am allowed to dance it. And I am free.” She smiled at him with deliberately exaggerated coquetry.

“My heart would have been smitten with dreadfully negative emotions if you had not been either or both,” he said, his eyelids drooped over his eyes in their customary way—though his eyes were keen enough beneath them. And they were laughing. “I would have felt obliged to challenge every patroness of Almack’s to … ah, not pistols at dawn. That would have been unsporting. Fans at dawn? I hear they can do dreadful damage when slapped across a man’s wrist, and the ladies would have an advantage over me in that I have never practiced dueling with a fan. However, it is now unnecessary for me to put my life and wrists at risk. You will waltz with me, Lady Angeline?”

“Oh, I will,” she said. “It is my favorite dance in the whole world, you know.”

“And Miss Goddard,” he said, looking beyond Angeline as he offered his hand. “May I prevail upon you to reserve the first set after supper for me? I shall be devastated beyond all hope of resuscitation if I must return home tonight without having danced with the two loveliest ladies in the room.”

Angeline turned her head and smiled with genuine amusement at Miss Goddard. Would she say yes? Angeline hoped so, absurd as Lord Windrow was. It was really too, too bad that she had sat here all evening without partners. Did gentlemen not have eyes in their heads? Even if the blue of her gown would be far more effective if it were brighter?

“Thank you, Lord Windrow,” Miss Goddard said. “That would be delightful.”

She spoke with cool courtesy. It was impossible to know if she really was delighted or not. Perhaps she liked being a spectator at a ball rather than a participant, though it was hard to imagine.

Oh, Angeline thought as she was led away onto the floor, she had wanted to have a good talk with Miss Goddard. She had wanted to pour her heart out to her. She wanted to be Miss Goddard’s friend, though she had no idea why. They were as different as night and day. Miss Goddard must think her horribly giddy and empty-headed. She wanted to prove her wrong if she could. She wanted to learn from her. She wanted …

She wanted actually to find some dark, remote corner and bawl her eyes out. But that would be pure foolishness and would make her all red-eyed and ugly.

There was no sign of the Earl of Heyward. Yes, there was. He was sitting on a love seat close to the supper room doors in conversation with Lady Winifred Wragge, who had the brightest red hair Angeline had ever seen, together with green eyes that slanted upward slightly at the outer corners and a complexion that reminded one of peaches and cream. She was also—of course—small and dainty. He was bending slightly toward her, giving her the whole of his attention, as he always did with a partner, and she was giving him all of hers in return.

Well.

Angeline turned the full force of her very happiest smile upon Lord Windrow, who was looking lazily back, apparently more amused than ever.

“Is this not an absolutely wonderful evening?” she asked.

“It is so wonderful, my fair one,” he said, “that I am lost for a word that is more wonderful than wonderful.”

She laughed.

“I do tend to exaggerate,” she admitted.

“I do not,” he assured her, giving her the full benefit of his bedroom eyes. Well, perhaps not the full effect. They were still filled with amusement.

She laughed again.

He waltzed divinely. And that was no exaggeration at all.

She could not have been happier.

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.