Mary Balogh - The Secret Mistress

“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.

DURING THE TWO weeks following his disastrous proposals to both Eunice and Lady Angeline Dudley, Edward was so mortally depressed that more than once he was on the verge of announcing that he was going to return to Wimsbury Abbey until next spring. Why should he not postpone marrying, after all? He was only twenty-four, he felt perfectly healthy, and he was neither a reckless driver nor a dueler. He did not indulge in any activities, in fact, that might put a sudden period to his existence. Barring some unforeseen accident, it would be quite safe to wait another year or so before settling down. Though all accidents were unforeseen, he supposed, or they would not be accidents. And really, what was the point of waiting? The deed must be done eventually, and why not now so that he could put the whole business behind him and start making the best of married life and fatherhood?

At the end of the two weeks there was a distraction. Fenner came to call late one afternoon, but instead of asking for Lorraine as he often did in order to drive her in the park, he asked to speak privately with Edward.

This was mystifying, Edward thought. He was neither Lorraine’s father nor her brother. He was no blood relation at all, in fact.

“The Countess of Heyward’s father is not in town,” Fenner explained when the two of them were alone in a downstairs salon. “I shall be writing to him, of course. But the countess has requested that I speak with you, Heyward. She feels responsible to the family of her late husband, especially so soon after his passing. She is exceedingly fond of you all and claims to have received nothing but kindness and affection from you since her marriage. Indeed, she feels as though you are her family, and of course you really are her daughter’s family. You share the guardianship with the countess, I believe. The countess is very afraid of offending you, even hurting you.”

It had been perfectly clear, of course, that a serious romance was brewing between Fenner and Lorraine. Edward had not realized it had reached such a critical stage already, but it was not really surprising, was it? They were both mature adults and both were free. It was a perfectly eligible connection. With his head Edward could even be happy for them—Maurice had not been a good husband. But with his heart? Well, Maurice had been his brother. Now it felt as though he were being consigned to the grave all over again. His mother would feel it too. So would Alma and Juliana. But theirs had been a blood connection with Maurice. Lorraine’s had not. And there was a difference. And they had all taken Lorraine to their hearts when she married into their family. She felt in many ways more like a sister than a sister-in-law.