Griggs had received the book Stacie had ordered, Courvoisier’s Arrangements for Harp. She fell on it, eagerly turning the pages.
Along with Griggs, Frederick indulgently watched the joy and delight in her face.
When she finally looked up, blue eyes shining, and shut the book, Frederick reached for it. “May I?”
She smiled and slid the book to him, then turned to Griggs, exclaiming over the excellence of his contacts on the Continent and arranging for him to send her his bill, before settling to discuss another book.
Frederick studied her new tome. When, eventually, Stacie and Griggs glanced his way, Frederick looked up and met Stacie’s eyes. “If you would like, from this”—he lifted the book—“I could create piano accompaniments to these songs.”
Her eyes widened. “You could?” When he nodded, her face lit again. “Thank you—that would be wonderful!”
Smiling, Frederick set the book by her elbow and joined her and Griggs in a lengthy discussion of their shared obsession.
Thursday evening saw them at yet another major ball. The Season had commenced in earnest, and Lady Cartwright’s ballroom was packed. It seemed to be a night where many of those who had been present at Stacie’s musical evening just a week before sought out her and Frederick, to offer their congratulations in person and also to inquire as to their plans.
As many of those inquiring had every reason to expect to be invited to a wedding that would link two marquessates, Stacie and Frederick had to grin and bear with the incessant questions with what civility they could muster.
After one such encounter, Frederick met Stacie’s eyes and laconically arched an eyebrow. “I’ve said the same thing so often in recent days, the phrases just roll off my tongue.”
She pulled an expressive face. “Sadly, it’s only to be expected. As we effectively sprang the initial event on them, now, no one wants to be behindhand with our news.”
They continued to play their parts and circulated through the milling throng, occasionally being separated by the crowd and by connections of Frederick’s or Stacie’s wanting to privately bend their ears.
While both of them were experienced in ton ways and, however reluctantly, at home in this sphere, and both had grown sufficiently at ease with their situation to deal with any and all interrogations, Frederick noted that, when separated, more or less instinctively they gravitated back to the other’s side.
Not because either needed the support of the other but simply because they preferred each other’s company.
That was a somewhat surprising and rather refreshing realization.
Tonight, Stacie looked ravishing in a draped silk gown in a particular hue of magenta that rendered her dark hair and dramatic features even more eye-catching than usual, while the silk lovingly caressed her generous curves, in Frederick’s opinion drawing far too many male eyes.
Just how aware he was of that was another telltale realization.
Among the compliments showered upon her, he again heard the apparently perennial comment comparing her to her mother. Alert, he watched her exceedingly closely and, from the faint tightening about her eyes and luscious lips, judged his earlier supposition that she viewed such compliments in a negative light to be correct.
She hid her reaction, doubtless understanding that the ladies who so gushingly pressed the comparison on her intended to be kind. As they parted from the latest unintentionally offending lady and moved on through the crowd, he tried to put a name to the emotion he sensed such comments evoked in Stacie. It wasn’t offense, not really; it wasn’t resentment, either. She wasn’t angry or annoyed or sad.
He felt her reaction—understanding it—was important, that it might hold a clue to her stance on marriage, although he couldn’t see why being told she was “just like her mother” in a comparison based solely on physical resemblance should cause her to reject the married state.
While Stacie was aware that Frederick was studying her, she didn’t feel she had to shield herself from him; like her brothers, he was one of those men in whose company she felt entirely relaxed. At base, it came down to the fact that she trusted him. Indeed, she had from the first.
They continued to play the game they’d embarked on, deliberately deceiving the ton, and as they passed from one group of her ladyship’s guests to the next, Stacie inwardly and rather guiltily admitted she was actually enjoying her role.
Being Frederick’s fiancée… Essentially, she was savoring an experience she’d never thought to have, being the affianced bride of a thoroughly eligible nobleman. It was another piece of the silver lining of their situation; courtesy of Fate’s interference in their lives, she could experience this, and all in complete safety, both hers and Frederick’s.
I might as well enjoy it to the full.
She could see no reason why she shouldn’t, so she lowered her guard another inch and actively embraced the moment.
She’d slipped into the withdrawing room and was behind one of the screens when she heard several ladies—at least three—gossiping about her. About the engagement. Unable to help herself, she paused where she was and listened.
“Ah, but the source of tension won’t be the Cavanaughs or the Bramptons, my dear. I note Lady Halbertson hasn’t shown her face tonight. Understandable, but telling, don’t you think?”
Stacie frowned. Lady Halbertson?
“I met her yesterday at Mrs. Phillips’s luncheon,” a second lady put in, “and she certainly put on an excellent show of not being concerned in the least by the announcement.”
“I’d heard she and he had parted some months ago,” a third lady said.
“Be that as it may,” the first speaker intoned, “it must have been particularly galling for her ladyship to see him going from her bed to Lady Eustacia’s, so to speak, and all within a few months. I find it difficult to credit that a widow in her situation wouldn’t have entertained some degree of hope of snaring a catch like Albury.”
“I daresay you’re right,” the second speaker said. “She must at least have had her nose put out of joint.”
“No matter how well she’s hiding that,” the first speaker stated.
The ladies’ voices shifted and grew slightly muffled. Stacie held her breath and peered around the edge of the screen. Five other screens were erected around the room, but the center of the room presently held only a maid.
Stacie walked quickly to the door and let herself out.
In the corridor, she paused. Was she surprised that Frederick had had a mistress? Hardly. And it seemed they’d broken off the liaison months ago—long before she’d approached Frederick. And according to his mother, he’d been hiding in Surrey for months before that.
Of course, if he drove up to town to visit his mistress, he was hardly likely to inform his mother.
Not that Frederick’s love life, past or future, was any real concern of hers, yet she had to admit to being curious about what sort of woman Lady Halbertson was—about what sort of lady had caught Frederick’s eye.
According to the three anonymous ladies, Stacie wasn’t going to find out that night. She returned to Frederick’s side just as the musicians started the prelude to a waltz. Smiling, she reached for his hand. “Come, my lord, and sweep me off my feet again.”
He arched his brows at her, but readily acquiesced. He twisted his hand, and his fingers closed firmly about hers, and he led her onto the floor.
She sighed and smiled up at him as she turned in to his arms and he set them elegantly twirling. “This,” she announced, “is one definite benefit to being engaged—being able to waltz with you many more times than twice without creating a scandal.”
His answering smile was pleased, arrogantly proud, but cloaked an underlying intensity she hadn’t expected.
In an attempt to tease out his thoughts, she tilted her head and said, “I confess I’m enjoying the role of your fiancée far more than I’d anticipated.”
The sense of him considering something—weigh
ing something—only grew.
When he said nothing, she finally arched a brow at him. “What is it?”
He searched her eyes, her face, then, still smiling, said, “I’m glad that being my fiancée isn’t beyond your skills.”
She almost snorted. “When it comes to being arrogant—and do remember I have Ryder with whom to compare you—I hereby declare that you take the cake.”
He laughed and swept her into a vigorous, perfectly gauged turn, reducing her to laughter, too.
Chapter 10
The following day, they’d agreed to attend an alfresco luncheon at Lady Waltham’s estate by the river at Twickenham.
Frederick drove them down in his curricle. Most of the other guests were there before them; they walked onto her ladyship’s lawns and, as they’d expected, found only the crème de la crème of the haut ton present—one of the reasons they’d chosen that event after two evenings enduring ton crushes, and with two balls to attend that evening, neither of which they could avoid.
As they paused to chat to the first group of guests they came upon, Frederick glanced at Stacie; lips curved, eyes bright, features dramatically alive, she truly had relaxed into the role of his fiancée. His campaign was progressing very much as he wished, and this outing—recommended by Mary—held the promise of allowing them to ease just that little bit closer. Despite the select guest list, the lawns were a trifle crowded, encouraging couples to wander between beds and borders that, in this season, were bountiful and lush, creating avenues that, along some stretches, were effectively private.
Having attained the status of acceptably engaged couple, he and Stacie were able to wander freely, with no need to remain within sight of any others. They were some way from the lawns when they turned down a long avenue with deep borders on either side. Prompted by he knew not what, nonchalantly, he reached out and twined the fingers of one hand with hers—and she accepted the touch without protest, as if she found nothing overly remarkable in him claiming her hand.
As if she’d grown accustomed to feeling his fingers around hers. He looked ahead and fought to keep a too-wide smile from his face.
Surveying the colorful flowers, she paused to examine the nodding heads, then, as they strolled on, without prompting, launched into a tale of the exploits of her brothers in disrupting a long-ago garden party.
He listened to her words and watched her face, tracing the changing expressions that flowed across her vivid features. Warmth of a sort he’d never felt before bloomed in his chest and spread. Under its heady influence, he was tempted—so tempted—to use his hold on her hand to draw her to a halt and claim a kiss—a proper kiss—there, in the privacy of the colorful avenue.
But he didn’t dare.
Not yet. She was not at all blind and, intellectually at least, nowhere near innocent. Stealing a real kiss without some sound external reason to act as an excuse would alert her to his change of direction, and like an untamed filly, she would spook and shy away.
Despite the subtle yet real changes between them—in the ballrooms as well as in venues such as this—and, he hoped, in her view of them and, thus, in the potential for making their engagement real, he seriously doubted she was yet ready to hear the proposition he was determined to lay before her.
He had to play a careful game, advancing step by inexorable step without her noticing how close he was getting, and how much closer she was getting to him, physically as well as emotionally. Unfortunately, as they ambled down the avenue, with the sunshine warm upon them and the bucolic surroundings creating a landscape of color and movement, she responded to that, her pleasure clear in her expression, and forcing himself to toe the line he knew he must grew more difficult with every step.
On reaching the end of the avenue, he turned them onto the path that would lead them back to the lawns and the other guests.
Stacie glanced at him, faintly surprised, for she’d realized some time ago that he liked crowds even less than she did. But then the lawns opened before them, and the first person her eyes fell on was a tall, willowy, blond-haired lady, stylishly gowned and exuding an aura of self-confidence that, combined with her cool beauty, was arresting. Facing to their right, the lady was standing with a circle of others with whom she was conversing.
The group were the nearest knot of guests; Stacie sensed Frederick hesitate and looked up to see him contemplating the group, as if taking stock, then smoothly, he looped her arm in his, and together, he and she strolled toward the group.
Several in the circle saw them coming; their faces lit, and they eagerly shuffled to make space for Stacie and Frederick to join them.
The lovely lady turned, saw Frederick, and smiled.
The quality of that smile warned Stacie as to whom, exactly, the willowy lady was. She also realized she’d met the woman previously, over the years at various ton functions.
At his urbane best, Frederick nodded to the group, all of whom were known to Stacie. He and she exchanged the usual greetings until, at last, they reached the beautiful blonde.
Stacie smiled easily. “I believe we’ve met before.”
The lady returned her smile with what appeared to be genuine interest and dipped in a regulation curtsy. “Indeed, Lady Eustacia, but it was years ago. I’m Lady Halbertson. I’m delighted to meet you.”
“And I you, Lady Halbertson.” Politely, Stacie held out her hand.
Frances Halbertson lightly touched fingers, and Stacie told herself not to leap to judgment.
She shot a swift glance at Frederick, but detected not the slightest sign of any anticipation of awkwardness in his perennially coolly arrogant demeanor. If she hadn’t grown up in her mother’s household, keeping her own awareness of the erstwhile connection between him and Lady Halbertson from her expression would have been impossible. As it was, she pretended to listen to the chatter of the others in the group, noting that none seemed aware of any source of potential friction.
Then one of the group made a comment about Kean’s performance as Hamlet at Drury Lane.
“Magnificent!” Lord Jeffries boomed in reply. “I would say his Hamlet outstrips even his father’s.” His lordship focused on Stacie. “Saw you in Albury’s box that night, Lady Eustacia—what did you think of Kean, heh?”
She could hardly say that she’d been too caught up in thinking of other things and had barely noticed the great actor. “I expect his delivery might best be described as outstanding. It patently satisfied the audience.”
“I’m not at all certain,” Mrs. Jellicoe sapiently remarked, “that the majority of the audience were watching the stage.”
Others chimed in with their views, some chiding, others agreeing, and a lengthy discussion on the true role of the theater in the lives of the haut ton ensued.
Throughout, Stacie kept a surreptitious eye on Lady Halbertson, but although her ladyship stood on Frederick’s other side, she never once attempted to capture his gaze or even his attention.
Yet the pair had been lovers; of that, Stacie was now absolutely certain.
Eventually, she and Frederick moved on; again, Stacie watched like a hawk, but Frederick didn’t so much as glance back at her ladyship, and Lady Halbertson’s gaze didn’t follow him.
Instead, her ladyship watched Stacie as she and Frederick strolled about the knots of guests.
That, Stacie had to admit, was a trifle unsettling, even if she’d sensed no overt jealousy or, indeed, any negative sentiment from Lady Halbertson. To be observed in that manner by one’s intended’s recently retired mistress was off-putting; she couldn’t imagine what was going through Frances Halbertson’s head.
Clearly, from Frederick’s perspective—and apparently, that of the members of the ton who knew of it—the affair was over and done with. Given both he and her ladyship belonged to the very upper strata of society, as did Stacie, crossing each other’s paths at events such as this was impossible to avoid.
Stacie told herself that what lay—or had lain—between her ladyshi
p and Frederick was none of her business, yet she couldn’t help thinking that if she was standing in Lady Halbertson’s pumps, she might just resent the lady, not that much younger and of similar birth, who, shortly after Frederick had broken off their liaison—and she had little doubt it had been he who had ended it—had caught his eye to the point of him offering marriage.
She cut a glance at Frederick’s face, but his debonair mask was firmly in place, and nothing of his thoughts, much less his feelings, showed.
Shortly after that, luncheon was announced. Lady Waltham’s notion of a picnic was to serve food designed to be eaten with one’s fingers, served on silver platters her footmen ferried between the guests, who sat at wrought-iron tables and chairs scattered about the south lawn. Couples tended to play musical tables, moving from one table to another as others did the same and openings appeared.
Stacie happily followed Frederick’s direction, and by availing themselves of the option of constantly moving, they managed to keep their tempers from being frayed by the many older ladies who remained intent on interrogating them.
She had to admit it was extremely handy to be on the arm of a nobleman who, when moved to it, could look down his nose and turn cool aloofness into chilly dismissal in less time than it took to blink.
Even the older grandes dames took note and—albeit reluctantly—drew in their horns.
She and Frederick remained a part of the larger company until the copious quantities of champagne served with the meal had their inevitable effect, and many of the older guests grew somnolent and inattentive.
Then Frederick seized a moment while they were moving between groups to tug her sideways, onto another of the gently twisting garden paths.
This one, she soon discovered, led to the ornamental lake. Although several other couples were strolling the path around the lake’s shore, all were sufficiently distant to allow her and Frederick to converse without fear of being overheard.
She couldn’t resist seizing the moment to say, “Earlier, you asked me what my reasons for rejecting marriage were in order not to step on my toes unnecessarily.” She caught his gaze as it swung, sharp and intent, to her face. “Mentioning that Lady Halbertson had, until recently, been your mistress could be said to fall under the same category, albeit in reverse.”
The Beguilement of Lady Eustacia Cavanagh: The Cavanaughs Volume 3 Page 20