A Lady Unrivaled

by Roseanna M. White

  The pleasant little flip of his stomach faltered and turned to a lump of lead when he spotted another head of hair beside Lady Ella’s, one far closer to the auburn she claimed to be.

  Norton cleared his throat and boomed out, “The Right Honorable James Earl of Cayton.”

  A pox upon them. All of them. Ignoring the murmurs and the faces that turned his way, he managed half a pivot before a familiar, treacherous hand landed square on his back and propelled him into the room. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Hardly caring what the region thought, he scowled at Stafford. “You lying, manipulative—”

  “Friend. And cousin. Who only wants the best for you.” Stafford somehow managed to look perfectly at ease as he forced him another step inside the door, out of the way of the next couple to be announced. “You haven’t spoken to her for two years, Cayton. This has to stop.”

  “Your meddling in my life? Yes, I’d definitely agree that it has to stop.”

  Stafford speared him with a quick glare before directing his ducal smile back over the crowd. “You’re not any longer the man you were two years ago. It’s time to prove it. Go, talk to her and get it over with.”

  He’d rather slip out the door, charge up the stairs and to the nursery where Tabby and Addie would be, gather his daughter into his arms, and go home.

  Melissa and Ella had both spotted him. He didn’t care to put a name to the myriad of emotions that flitted through both sets of eyes. If he looked closely enough, he would surely discern disapproval in them both, even from this distance.

  But if he slipped away, they’d both call him a coward and worse.

  He stood up a bit straighter and promised himself he’d punish his traitor of a cousin on the tennis court tomorrow. “I can’t believe you lied to me.”

  “You mean as you did to me two years ago, when you said you’d spoken to her before your engagement announcement appeared in the papers? You have no idea the fight Brook and I had that day, all sparked by you forcing me blind into a dratted uncomfortable situation. Turnabout, my friend. Turnabout.”

  What happened to not being that man any longer? Cayton grunted. “I don’t much like you, you know.”

  Stafford chuckled. “You’re welcome. Now go on.”

  Now? He would much rather head to the opposite side of the room first. Perhaps exchange a few insults with Brook, whose disdain was at least comfortable, and glossed over a bit with shared grief. Maybe then he could manage a few moments with Lady Ella for some fortifying sunshine before he faced the dragon.

  He took another step into the room when his cousin gave him a helpful prod. Melissa would devise some clever torture for him if she ever heard him call her a dragon. Like catch him in her claws and breathe fire in his face.

  And she was, of course, never one to wait for the hapless knight to come to her. No, she strode across the ballroom with glinting eyes, wielding her fan like a sword. Or, no, talons. He had better keep his metaphors straight.

  Stafford passed in front of him, angled toward his wife. “Just remember who you are—not who you were.” With that bit of wisdom, he melted into the crowd.

  Perhaps that would be easier if Cayton weren’t still working that out. But he had changed enough to know where his own strength failed, and so he breathed a silent prayer for the Lord’s strength to sustain him. For His wisdom to settle in his heart. And on his tongue.

  Lady Melissa Harrington halted a step in front of him and made no attempt to smile. She was still as beautiful as she had been two years ago, when he had realized with no small amount of torment that she couldn’t become his wife, or they’d end up destitute. Her warm brown hair was perfectly arranged, her dress the height of fashion.

  But her eyes showed the truth. Deep brown, they sparked with long-banked fury and steely determination. And under it all, what had kept him at home, a coward, two years ago—pain. She lifted her chin. “I believe you owe me a promenade, Lord Cayton.”

  The man you are—not the man you were. He straightened his shoulders and offered his arm. “The garden? There is some warmth and light yet in the day.”

  “Fine.” There was nothing soft nor gentle about her movements as she put her hand in the crook of his elbow. Her gaze remained straight ahead of them as he led her toward and out one of the doors that opened onto a stone terrace teeming with guests.

  He wanted to look over his shoulder, to see if Lady Ella watched them go. He didn’t.

  The Duke of Stafford employed a skillful staff, trained under his and Cayton’s firm-handed grandfather. Young men in livery stood at all the various entrances to the various gardens, trays of champagne and lemonade in hand. Some to the side of the entrance, a clear sign that all might wander that way freely. Some in front of the entrance, stating just as clearly that guests weren’t welcome that direction.

  Cayton headed toward one of the obstructed entrances, and the footman slid aside without a word. Yes, well trained indeed, and no doubt prepared by the duke for this, given that it had always been Cayton’s favorite path. The hedges and trees blocked it from the rest of the garden, and soon a rainbow of blooms would spill their color into the world.

  He waited until the babble of the crowd had muted before glancing down at Melissa, opening his mouth.

  “Why did you do it?”

  She never was one to wait for him to speak first. He took the time to draw in a deep breath, pray another prayer. “Do you mean marry her . . . or fail to talk to you about it first?”

  “Everyone knows why you married her—money, pure and simple.”

  Money, yes. Simple . . . in a way. But pure his motives had certainly not been. He tilted his head up, tracing with his gaze the contour of the clouds still edged in purple and rose. “I’m sorry, Melissa. I chose the easy way, the one that shied from a painful confrontation.”

  “Would it have been painful for you?” She drew him to a halt and stepped in front of him, those dark eyes flashing . . . and troubled.

  He reached up and rubbed at his neck, wishing . . . He didn’t even know what to wish for anymore. Perhaps that the thing he had so easily labeled love had been strong enough to overcome monetary considerations. But had he even known the meaning of the word back then? “I was sincere. I intended to marry you. I was planning on proposing the morning after your debut, had a flowery speech all planned out. . . . Then my steward died, and I looked, really looked, at all the accounts and . . .”

  “And I wasn’t enough anymore.” She folded her arms over her middle. It should have made her look sad, defeated. Strangely, it didn’t. She merely looked as if she were fending off the cold his presence brought her. “I was a second daughter with a second daughter’s dowry—not enough to shore up your estates.”

  The truth, plain and unvarnished. He wished he could deny it. Spreading his arms, his hands palm up, he could only say, “I’m sorry. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I saw no other way. Your mother and brother would never have permitted a match if they’d known the state of my affairs, and I . . . I took the coward’s way out. And was too much of one to tell you what I was doing, because I knew well you’d look at me and beg me not to do it, and I’d—”

  She was in his arms—or he was in hers, more accurately. Her cheek was pressed to his chest, her arms tight about him, his still hovering there in the air. Afraid to wrap around her, but habit tried to pull them down. How many times had he held her like this, when she’d sneaked away from Whitby Park to meet him in Eden Dale?

  But he wasn’t that man anymore. There was no spark of pleasure, no thought of the future. Just that cold wonder that he had ever thought it enough to build a lifetime on. “Lissa . . .”

  “I didn’t know what to believe, Cay. I thought I knew you, but then . . . I began to wonder if you were more like Pratt than I thought, quite willing to woo one young lady for your own pleasure when you were courting another the whole time.”

  A better blow she couldn’t have aimed. “I am not like Pratt. Wasn’t
even then.” But he had been too willing to believe Pratt was all talk. Too willing to turn a blind eye to the truth of his friend—and too happy to hide his own true nature behind what he deemed a fashionable facade.

  “No, I know. I didn’t mean . . .” She tilted her face up, and the setting sun caught a light of something dangerous in her eyes. Hope. “I know you tried with her. I was always plying Brook for information, trying to force myself to forget you. You tried, and you were a good husband. But you never loved her, did you?”

  The conscience he’d silenced so effectively a few years ago screamed at him now. It hadn’t been right, then, to hold Melissa and whisper about a love he didn’t understand. And it wouldn’t be right now either, when he knew without doubt he didn’t love her. What did it matter if she said she loved him, when she didn’t really know him? He put his hands on her shoulders and urged her gently away. “Much to my shame, no. I didn’t love her. But—”

  “And I know you’ve mourned her. I see that, and I realize you may yet need more time. But you are free again and—”

  “Stop, Lissa. Please.” He let go her shoulders but turned halfway away so she couldn’t just put her arms around him again. “There is no going back.”

  “No, but there is going forward. We can—”

  “No.” He squeezed his eyes shut, ready to string up Stafford and Brook for forcing him to this. “We can’t. I tried to love her, Lissa, as you said. I tried, but I certainly couldn’t do it with another woman in my heart. I had to purge myself of my feelings for you. I had to. It would have been unfair to her to be dreaming of you while she was my wife.”

  Opening his eyes, he faced her again. He had to grant her that, this time. The right to look in his eyes and see him for what he was—a broken, weak, rather pathetic excuse for a man, who had nothing left to offer her. Who couldn’t look at her without regret and guilt. Who didn’t know how to show her who he really was. Who had broken her heart once for selfish reasons and would break it again, if he had to, for her own good. Because he couldn’t be—or pretend to be—the man she’d loved.

  That dragon’s fury lit her eyes again. “And it was that easy for you? You could just . . . forget me?”

  Sighing, he shook his head. “I’m sorry to hurt you, Lissa—sorry for doing it then and sorry if I do it again now. But I can’t . . . I can’t. And you deserve someone who can. Who can love you wholeheartedly.”

  For a long moment, she said nothing. Just watched him, her gaze unwavering. Then she made a curt nod. “So be it, then. I’ll accept Kensington’s proposal.”

  Was she trying to spark jealousy? Part of him wished he felt some—or felt something, anyway, other than relief at the thought of her married.

  Well, there was something else. More guilt. “Kensington?”

  She waved a hand. “An American, from New York. You wouldn’t know him, but he’s been in London all winter. Wanted to find a wife with proper breeding, he said, but one who could stand up to New York society.” She lifted her chin, and a bit of a smile curled her lips. “I daresay I can put any of those uppity Yanks in their places—don’t you think?”

  “Melissa . . .” He had been half afraid she would wed long before now, seizing the first proposal to come along just to spite him. Afraid he would bear the guilt of her terrible marriage on top of his own awkward one. And yet he had hoped to hear the news that she had fallen head over heels for some perfect fellow who could give her a good life. His brows knit. “I want you to be happy. Do you love this Kensington?”

  Not so much as a twitch in her countenance. “I like him quite well. And could love him quite easily, I think, if I let myself. But I . . . We’d so much between us, Cayton. I couldn’t take that step until I knew.”

  Relief eclipsed grief. “Well then, now you can. I wish you all the best the world has to offer, Melissa.”

  Lips pressed together, she nodded and spun back toward the house. Though she went only two steps before she spun back.

  He’d been expecting as much. No dragon was ever deflected so easily as that, and she came at him with a finger ready to drill its way into his shoulder.

  “How?” A mere poke apparently not being enough, she shoved. “How can you say that so calmly and just let me walk away? Into another man’s arms? Does it honestly, seriously, truly not bother you in the least to think of me marrying someone else?”

  Gracious, he was tired. And the ball had only just begun. He lifted his shoulders, let them fall. “Honestly, Lissa . . . the thought of you finding happiness with someone only makes me glad. As I said—you deserve it, and you won’t find it with me.”

  She took a step back, shaking her head. But the fury had simmered down somewhat, and nothing so terrifying as tears replaced it. “I just . . . I don’t understand you. Not anymore, though I thought I did once. What are you doing, Cayton? Hiding from life, from all the things you once loved, closeting yourself away in a nursery. Your friends have scarcely seen you. You’ve not attended a single ball or fête aside from the ones your cousin forces you to at his home. You’re wasting your life, and for what? Adelaide Rosten?”

  His head was shaking long before she finished. Fire burning long before she spat out nursery in the way she had done. Proving his epiphanies right. She’d never known him. He’d never let her. And now he really was no longer the man that even wanted to be what he’d shown her. “You think I’m wasting my life now? It was then that I did so. Wasting my time with Pratt and Rushworth and their ilk, at the races, the clubs, the gaming hells. What did it ever gain me but too many memories I wish I could escape and debt that nearly ruined me?”

  Melissa didn’t look inspired by his change of heart. Exasperated, rather. “You were a typical young lord doing what they all do—you would have outgrown it, but that hardly means you have to spend all your time shut up in your house now, turning into a recluse like Uncle Whit.”

  His chin lifted a notch. “Would that I could emulate him. Lord Whitby has been one of the few men to whom I could turn this last year. He and Stafford.”

  “You never even liked Stafford!”

  At least she had the good sense to keep the screech at a low volume, despite her slashing hand. The last thing he needed was the whole countryside murmuring about some dispute between its leading cousins.

  He rubbed at his neck again—and realized he’d still missed a bit of paint. He could feel it there in his hairline. “We are family. Perhaps we weren’t always friends, but that has changed. It has had to.”

  She breathed an unamused laugh and, shaking her head, backed up a step. “I never thought I’d see the day when the Earl of Cayton announced he preferred my uncle’s reclusive ways to a life of society and friends.”

  Not a life she had ever shown any interest in—no, she was the type to respond to heartache by throwing herself with renewed fury into every crowd she could find. He had once tried to convince himself he was similarly disposed.

  He could no longer. With pain came the need for quiet to soothe it. Quiet, color, and perhaps a few beautiful words. But he had never admitted to Melissa his painting habit. It hadn’t fit the image of himself he’d worked so hard to craft as a young man. The image she had inexplicably fallen for.

  They would have always been doomed, regardless of his marriage to Adelaide. He slid his hands into his pockets. “It seems we have exhausted all there is to say. For though you cannot understand me now, I cannot fathom going back to the man I once was. He holds no allure for me anymore.”

  The fire in her eyes died down, leaving her cold as stone when she crossed her arms over her chest. “So it would seem. Well then. I imagine my mother will send you an invitation for the wedding—if you don’t come, I’ll know it’s not because you’re full of regret.”

  She took a step away. He didn’t follow. And he rather hoped she didn’t turn back to see his smile.

  Melissa turned down the path that would lead her from this secluded alcove, glancing only once more over her shoulder. “G
ood-bye, then, Cayton.”

  “Good-bye.” A farewell long overdue . . . but he wasn’t quite ready to thank Stafford for providing it. Drawing in a deep breath and letting it seep back out, he sank onto the cool wrought iron behind him.

  Birdsong drifted his way on the breeze, along with the indistinguishable babble of crowds of people, and the first strains from the orchestra. His cousin would be opening the floor with Brook, both of them looking regal and blissful and gracious. He had sketched them so last year after their first ball as duke and duchess, trying to capture the smiles on their faces, the love in their eyes.

  They were happy, and he was glad of it. Glad Addie would have their example to look to as she grew up.

  “I would say I just happened upon you, just happened to overhear a bit . . .” Lady Ella’s voice brought his head back up, around, to find her entering the alcove from the rear path. Her smile looked a bit abashed . . . but still there, pulling up the corners of her mouth as it always did. And now it grew a bit more mischievous. “But it would be a blatant lie. I was too curious, and no doubt now it will make you think less of me.”

  Were it anyone else, he would have been more than a bit annoyed. But for some reason, finding Ella had followed him just made a strange warmth grow in his chest. Chuckling, he stood and turned to her, held out a hand toward the bench in invitation, if she chose to accept it. “I am only surprised Brook and Stafford are not hiding there with you.”

  Relief in her eyes and her smile giving way to a grin, she sat, looking perfectly comfortable on the cold metal. “Brook may have offered me her new hat if I could report the encounter with accuracy. Though I daresay she didn’t actually expect me to deliver.”

  “More the fool, her. May I?” He motioned to the spot beside her on the bench.

  “Please.” She scooted a fraction of an inch in the guise of giving him room, though she had nowhere to go . . . and Cayton didn’t much mind the close proximity.

  Though he should. He sat with a sigh and tilted his head up to watch the clouds dim. He had made such a mess of his life. Already he had hurt two fine young ladies—what made him think he’d ever deserve a chance with a third?