And Then She Fell

by Stephanie Laurens

  James ambled beside Henrietta, and thus discovered that the room she’d been given lay down the corridor to the left of the main stairs, three doors along on the right. After seeing her to her door, he walked briskly back through the gallery and on to the room he’d been given toward the end of the opposite wing.

  While he washed and changed, he considered what they might make of the evening and decided they would have to play it by ear. While on the one hand he wanted to press ahead and secure Henrietta as his bride—and that compulsion had grown only more powerful in the aftermath of the incident that morning—simultaneously he was conscious of a fundamental desire to give her all and everything a young lady might wish for, including all she might wish for in a courtship.

  “We have two full days,” he muttered to himself, chin raised as he tied his cravat. Even though it was essential that they marry before the first of the coming month, he still had twenty-five days in hand. “She’ll want some time to enjoy our engagement before we face the altar, but . . . we can afford at least a few days wooing. No need to rush.” No need to shortchange her just because he was in a hurry and had an inflexible schedule.

  With that resolution firmly fixed in his mind, he descended the stairs and strode to the drawing room. It was inhabited only by males; no ladies had yet made an appearance. Joining Channing, Percy Smythe, and Giles Kendall, James was quickly drawn into a discussion of that perennial topic of male regard—horses.

  Five minutes later, Rafe Cunningham walked into the room. He glanced around, hesitated, then walked over to join James and the others.

  “What-ho, old boy!” Channing shook Rafe’s hand. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Rafe shrugged lightly. “Lady Ellsmere’s my godmother.” Rafe glanced at James and nodded. “Glossup.”

  James nodded back, wondering if he was correct in detecting a note of restrained animosity in Rafe’s deep voice . . . and if Miss Fotherby numbered among her ladyship’s guests. James hadn’t seen her earlier, but he hadn’t seen Rafe, either.

  Eventually the ladies started drifting in. James was rather pleased when, upon his leaving the group to join Henrietta, she met him halfway. They shared a private smile, then together turned to engage with other guests; standing side by side, they chatted with Miss Finlayson and Miss Moffat, and were soon joined by Channing and Violet.

  Miss Fotherby, James noted, joined the gathering a bare minute before they were due to dine. Even more telling, on stepping into the drawing room, Miss Fotherby looked swiftly around, saw Rafe Cunningham watching her from across the large room, and froze. For an instant, she looked like a deer poised to leap and race from a hunter, but then she stiffly looked away and, her features set and pale, walked across to speak with Lady Ellsmere.

  Henrietta had noticed Miss Fotherby, too. She glanced at James, arched a brow.

  Before he could reply, her ladyship’s butler appeared to announce that dinner was served. Lady Ellsmere commanded their attention and told them the seating would remain informal for the duration of their stay, and recommended they oblige her and find their own partners. Everyone laughed, very happy to do so—except for Miss Fotherby, but Robert Sinclair was standing beside her and offered his arm, and she quickly accepted his escort.

  With Henrietta on his arm, James dipped his head to whisper, “As she’s here, I believe it would be wise for me to tell Miss Fotherby of my decision regarding her . . . ah, application as soon as may be.”

  Watching the byplay between Miss Fotherby and Rafe Cunningham, even though both were partnered with others, Henrietta nodded. “Be that as it may, I think tomorrow morning will be the earliest you’ll be able to do so. If this event runs along customary lines, we’ll have music or charades after dinner tonight.”

  James inclined his head in acceptance.

  Once seated beside him at the long table, Henrietta found herself enjoying the gathering more than she’d anticipated—certainly more than she had previously enjoyed such events. She’d attended innumerable house parties through the years, but she had never before had . . . a focus. A locus for her attention, a pivot about which she could circle. That, she realized, with a swift glance at James, currently chatting with Violet on his other side, was what was different. James’s presence widened her experience of everything about her; the conversations, the sallies, the quick quips and repartee all seemed sharper, more engaging, when viewed through the expanded prism of his likely reactions as well as hers.

  In the sense of scope, he opened her eyes. Never before had she viewed the world about her and considered how it might appear to, or might impact on, another.

  That, she supposed, smiling and shifting so she could better hear something Miss Hendricks wished to impart to her, was what forming a relationship was all about; learning and empathizing with the feelings of one’s other. Presumably that was what the affectionate tag “the other half” implied.

  She was glad they’d agreed to include the Ellsmeres’ house party on their schedule of useful events. Even though their quest might have been superseded, this was the perfect setting for her and James to spend time together, to get to know each other better out of the hothouse environment of the ton’s ballrooms. Here, they would have time to ramble and talk without constraint or reserve, or the ever-present threat of interruption. As the covers were drawn and the company all rose, she realized she was looking forward to the next days with unalloyed expectation.

  As she’d foreseen, at Lady Ellsmere’s direction the entire company repaired to the large music room on the other side of the old mansion. There, they passed an enjoyable few hours entertaining each other with ballads and song. Miss Fotherby was one of the first to take her seat at the pianoforte; she sang a ballad in a piercingly sweet voice. A few performances later, Rafe Cunningham sang, accompanied by Miss Findlayson; his baritone was rich and powerful, and held them all spellbound. Then Giles Kendall joined Rafe, singing tenor to Rafe’s baritone, in what was quite certainly the most riveting performance of the evening. Somewhat later, Henrietta played the pianoforte and sang a sweet country song, followed by a duet with James, then Violet and Channing joined them for a rousing rendition of an old shepherd’s song, a long and repetitive, subtly jocular composition of chorus and verses of extraordinary length.

  She was out of breath, and so were the other three, by the time she played the last resounding chord. The audience gave them a standing ovation, then Lady Ellsmere called for tea.

  Finally the evening ended, and in loose groups, the guests made their way down the corridors and up the stairs. Ascending the stairs beside James, Henrietta smiled at him and murmured, “I’d completely forgotten the brouhaha of this morning.”

  His eyes met hers. “No lingering effects?”

  She shook her head. “None. I’m quite recovered, and this evening has been . . . the right sort of distraction.”

  “Good.” They stepped into the gallery at the top of the stairs. James hesitated. The ladies were wandering off in twos and threes down the corridor to the left, while all the males had been housed in the opposite wing. Reaching for Henrietta’s hand, trapping her gaze, he raised her fingers to his lips and lightly kissed. “In that case, I’ll wish you a good night’s rest. Sleep well.”

  She smiled brilliantly, lightly gripped his fingers, then drew her hand free. “You, too.” She held his gaze for an instant, then inclined her head and turned away. “Good night.”

  He watched her walk away, then followed the other gentlemen down the corridor into the other wing. Just before he reached his door, he sensed someone watching him, felt the weight of their gaze on his back. Halting before his door, grasping the knob, he glanced up the corridor.

  Rafe Cunningham stood in a doorway back along the corridor, watching him.

  The light was too dim to make out Rafe’s expression, but if James had to guess, he would have said that confusion dominated. Rafe, he realized, must have seen him part from Henrietta.

  Opening his door,
James went in and shut it. He paused, wondering if he should speak with Rafe now and put the poor devil out of his misery, at least with respect to James’s intentions toward Miss Fotherby, which, from Rafe’s reactions, Rafe at least partly knew, or rather, thought he did.

  James considered, but the certainty of what Henrietta would say if he asked whether he should speak with Rafe decided the matter. She would say he should speak with Miss Fotherby first, then leave it to Millicent to decide what to tell Rafe.

  Shrugging off his coat, James thought through the likely scenarios and decided that, after he’d told Millicent, if Rafe asked him directly he would tell Rafe, too. Rafe had the devil of a right hook. Explaining a black eye to Lady Ellsmere, let alone Henrietta, wasn’t a scenario he wished to face.

  As he slid beneath the sheets, his comprehension of and empathy for Rafe’s situation shifted into a review of his own. On the one hand he wanted to give Henrietta all he could by way of courtship. She was twenty-nine; to his mind, she’d waited for him to come along, and he was abjectly grateful that she had, so it was only fair that he do his level best to woo her properly.

  But simultaneously he wanted to speak; for him, the fright of the morning hadn’t subsided but rather had transmogrified, adding to an unexpected compulsion to say something aloud, to stake a verbal claim. Even though he knew it was too early for a full-scale declaration, for some unfathomable reason his wolfish instincts had turned on him and were hotly urging him to make, at the very least, a statement of intent.

  Why it was so important to his inner self that he tell Henrietta in plain English that he wanted her for his bride he didn’t know. Settling to sleep, he closed his eyes—and wondered for how long he could stand against his surging inner tide.

  Breakfast the next morning was a leisurely affair. Guests drifted downstairs and into the dining room from eight o’clock onward. The sideboard along one wall played host to an array of silver platters and chafing dishes offering everything from boiled eggs and bacon, to sausages, kedgeree, and a dish of boiled mutton, ham, and celery said to be a local delicacy.

  James arrived reasonably early, helped himself to a selection of viands, then pulled out a chair midway down the long table. Settling next to Channing, he joined the discussion already raging between Percy Smythe and Dickie Arbiter over which company made the best pistols in this modern age. Dickie was all for the latest American guns, while Percy expounded the virtues of the English makers.

  When appealed to, James admitted to the attraction of the new American mechanisms but, on balance, gave his vote to the English makers, “Purely on aesthetics.” He looked at Dickie. “Have you seen one of their guns?”

  Percy chuckled, while Channing erupted with his usual barking laugh.

  Others arrived, and then Henrietta appeared, along with Miss Hendricks and Violet. They were the first of the female contingent to arrive, but other ladies quickly followed, and with their higher-pitched voices, the conversations changed in sound, tone, and subject.

  James kept his eye on Henrietta as she progressed along the sideboard; in a golden-yellow walking gown she looked like summer sunshine to him. When she turned to the table, he immediately rose and drew out the chair beside him. With a smile, she accepted the unvoiced invitation and let him seat her. Channing had also risen and held the chair on his other side for Violet, while on the opposite side of the table Percy performed the same service for Miss Hendricks.

  The ladies settled, and the talk turned to the one subject in which they all had an interest, namely what had been planned for the rest of the day.

  “We’d thought to have a morning around the house—a croquet competition for those up to the challenge, with billiards for those gentlemen who would prefer it, and there’s the library or the gardens for the ladies should they not wish to join those on the croquet lawn.” As daughter of the house, Violet had been intimately involved in formulating the schedule. “And after lunch, we thought a ramble through the woods to the ruins would be nice.”

  “Ruins?” Both Miss Hendricks and Dickie Arbiter spoke the word simultaneously. They shared an arrested glance, then looked at Violet for further edification.

  “They’re the ruins of the original priory that the grange was attached to,” Violet explained. “They’re very old—no one knows how old, but old enough that they’re half-buried. Not that we have to go into caves, or anything difficult—what we call the ruins are the walls and columns and altars and so forth that are exposed on the side of a hill. Goodness knows how much more of the original buildings are still buried beneath the hillside, but many of the walls are covered with moss and have ivy trailing over them.” Violet smiled at Miss Hendricks. “Very atmospheric.”

  “The woods are old, too,” Channing put in. “Huge old oak trees, that sort of thing. Easy to walk beneath, and the path to the ruins is relatively flat.” He glanced up the table to where Lady Ellsmere and several friends of her generation sat breaking their fast and gossiping. “Even the older ladies would have no great difficulty reaching it, but it is a few miles away—it’ll take us half an hour to stroll there, and another half hour back, so I’m not sure they’ll want to waste the time.”

  Miss Hendricks looked positively enthused. “It sounds like a delightful excursion.”

  “Hmm.” Dickie caught Miss Hendricks’s eye. “I’m rather fond of old places. I, for one, will join the party for the ruins.”

  All their group voiced their intention to join the ramble, then Violet went on, “And this evening, as I’m sure you’ve all anticipated, there’s to be a ball. Not a massive affair—we want to keep it a touch more relaxed. We’re not in London, after all. But there will be musicians, so lots of dancing, and a few of our neighbors will be joining us, so there’ll be several more people to meet.”

  “Excellent!” Percy beamed. “Sounds like my sort of day.”

  As Percy was an acknowledged social gadabout, everyone laughed and agreed.

  They’d all finished their breakfasts. Together, they rose, the ladies gliding to the doors that opened to the sunlight terrace, the gentlemen sauntering behind.

  Pausing to let Violet lead the way onto the terrace, Henrietta glanced at those still seated about the table. Miss Fotherby was sitting with Miss Findlayson and Miss Moffat, both of whom were gaily chattering, but Miss Fortherby had a hunted air. As Henrietta watched, Miss Fotherby darted a glance down the table to where Rafe Cunningham sat beside Giles Kendall. Rafe wasn’t even pretending to listen to Giles or Robert Sinclair, seated opposite; he was watching Miss Fotherby.

  As James joined her, Henrietta flashed him a smile, turned, and walked out onto the terrace. She hadn’t been surprised to discover Rafe among the guests; she’d known of the connection with the Ellsmeres. Miss Fotherby, however, had looked shocked, almost stricken to discover Rafe there. From what Henrietta had gathered, Miss Fotherby’s aunt, who had been among the older ladies seated with Lady Ellsmere, was an old friend of her ladyship’s . . . which suggested that Miss Fotherby had been inveigled to attend, and both her aunt and Lady Ellsmere were playing matchmaker.

  Which suggested that neither older lady knew of Miss Fotherby’s offer to James.

  They’d fallen into a loose group, strolling together in the mild morning sunshine. Reaching the steps leading down to a small parterre, Channing offered Violet his arm. She took it and they descended. James promptly offered Henrietta his arm. Placing her hand on his sleeve, she accepted his support down the steep steps.

  And wondered if she should ask him what he planned regarding Miss Fotherby.

  Courtesy of the incident with Marie, she and he hadn’t talked—hadn’t yet shared their thoughts on how each saw what was evolving between them. But clearly Miss Fotherby needed an answer—she had even requested one within a few days—and was there any reason, any justification, not to tell her how matters now stood?

  Henrietta pondered that as they ambled along, into the rose garden and out again; she breathed in the fresh air,
smiled and laughed with the others, and eventually decided she wouldn’t yet prod. James knew how matters stood, and only he could give Miss Fotherby her answer.

  They eventually found their way to the croquet lawn. The sun had risen enough to dry the grass, and they quickly set out the hoops and pegs, and distributed the mallets. Then came the matter of deciding teams and the terms of the competition. In the end, they agreed to play in couples, in a round-robin style of tournament. No one really cared whether or not they had time to complete the rounds, or, indeed, who won; it was all about fun and their enjoyment of the play.

  Nearly an hour had passed, and most of the younger ladies and gentlemen had gravitated to the croquet lawn and joined the competition, and the older ladies had come out to sit on garden chairs in the shade of the nearby trees to watch and smile approvingly, when James, standing to one side with Henrietta, waiting for their next match, saw Miss Fotherby—whom Rafe had earlier attempted to solicit as his partner, but who had all but seized Giles Kendall instead—walking swiftly along the edge of the lawn, head down, coming his and Henrietta’s way.

  James waited until Miss Fotherby neared, then said, “Miss Fotherby?” When, startled, she halted and looked up, he smiled easily. “I wonder if I might have a word?” He glanced around, drawing her attention to the fact that, at that moment, the three of them were out of earshot of everyone else.

  Miss Fotherby drew in a tight breath and nodded. “Yes. Of course.” But her expression remained haunted; she glanced constantly around and appeared thoroughly distracted.

  James inwardly frowned; he sensed that Henrietta, standing beside him with her hands crossed over the handle of her mallet, was also puzzled by Miss Fotherby’s response. “About the suggestion you made on Lady Hollingworth’s terrace.”

  Miss Fotherby’s head swung his way and she stared—as if only just remembering. As if the matter had slipped entirely from her mind. “Oh—ah, yes.” She colored faintly. “That is . . .”