by Mary Balogh
“Courage, my love,” he murmured to her. “We will bring this thing off. I promise you.”
She let her true feelings for him shine through her eyes as she smiled back. Instinct told her that it was the right thing to do. She might have looked at him so even if it had been only an act.
Six years was both a long time and a short time. She read curiosity in many eyes but no recognition. She saw people—many of them—she had never seen before. But she saw both curiosity and dawning recognition in other eyes—in the eyes of people she herself recognized. And in some cases shock was clearly the third reaction to the sight of her.
Six years was a short time. An eternity was a short time with the ton, which never forgot the breach of its rules that had sent a former member into perpetual exile.
Her father was loudly and gruffly greeting acquaintances. Rex was doing the same thing in a quieter, more charming manner. Harry was smiling sweetly all about him, looking remarkably like an angel.
They were on the stairs, joining the line that would take them past their hosts into the ballroom. Would they get that far? Catherine wondered. Or would they be turned ignominiously away? Would anyone dare risk the public sort of scandal that would result from refusing admittance to the Earl of Paxton, Viscount Perry, and Viscount Rawleigh? Suddenly she felt like giggling and swallowed in some alarm. Her husband raised her hand to his smiling lips and replaced it on his sleeve.
By some stroke of good fortune Daphne and Clayton were just a few places ahead of them in the line. They left their place and came back to join the group. Clayton was quietly amiable, Daphne brightly voluble. She felt almost, Catherine thought, as if she was hedged about by a very comforting brick wall. Almost, but not quite.
And then finally the moment had come. It was almost anticlimactic. And of course—she might have known it—everyone was far too well-bred even to make a show of recognizing her. Lord Mindell probably did not do so at all, she decided. He looked at them all with vague boredom, as if to say that this had all been his wife’s idea and he was there on sufferance, and murmured some polite platitudes. Lady Mindell raised her eyebrows in momentary shock, became noticeably haughtier and more regal, and greeted them with icy good manners.
“Even the plumes in her hair seemed to stand more stiffly to attention once she looked at me,” Catherine found herself murmuring to her husband with the sort of humor that had taken her through numerous such meetings with Clarissa.
He chuckled and patted her hand.
But humor fled when she realized they were in the ballroom and facing much the ordeal they had encountered downstairs, but multiplied tenfold. It seemed to Catherine—and she did not believe she was mistaken—that the buzz of conversation faded for a moment and then launched itself into a newer, far more exciting topic.
She almost expected her guard to fall away from her to leave her exposed and isolated in the middle of a hostile mass. But of course, it was a foolish fear. Rex’s hand was still holding hers on his sleeve. Daphne linked arms with her on the other side and chattered almost without pause for breath. Her father hovered, a massive and strangely comforting presence a few feet from her. Clayton was making use of his quizzing glass and was suddenly looking like a formidable champion.
“I love it when Clay uses his glass,” Daphne said brightly. “It makes him look so delightfully toplofty. It was when I found it turned on me one evening that I first noticed him. I scolded him about it less than half an hour later. I was head over ears for him less than half an hour after that.” She laughed gaily and Catherine joined her.
Harry had left their group for a few minutes only to return with another young gentleman, whose carrot-red hair and exaggeratedly high shirt points and scarlet blush made him appear even younger than his friend. He was presented to the group.
“H-how do you d-do, Lady C-Catherine,” he said on being presented to Lady Rawleigh. “P-pleased to make your acquaintance. I was unaware that H-Harry had a sister, and such a lovely one, if I m-may make so b-bold.”
Catherine smiled in genuine amusement. Sir Cuthbert Smalley began to discuss the weather in clinical and tedious detail while Harry grinned and winked at her from behind his friend’s shoulder.
And then three other gentlemen made their appearance. Lord Pelham, Mr. Gascoigne, and the Earl of Haverford had just arrived together, it seemed. Each of them took her hand and bowed over it. Lord Haverford raised it to his lips. Each of them engaged her to dance a set later in the evening. Sir Cuthbert did likewise.
It was all contrived, of course. Rex had planned it and Harry had helped on his own account. But she felt deeply grateful. She was still not sure that when shock had worn off in the people about her there would not be some collective action to rid the company of her contaminating presence. But every moment that was becoming less likely. She was surrounded by a formidable bulwark of influential friends.
All of them were male with the exception of Daphne—until a pretty, plumpish, blond-haired lady dressed in a pale pink gown, which had the unfortunate effect of making her complexion look somewhat sallow, wormed her way between Clayton and Mr. Gascoigne, stared at Catherine, and then let out a sound resembling a shriek.
“Cathy!” she said. “It is you, Cathy! I thought you were dead!”
She launched herself at Catherine and they hugged and laughed together.
“I am not dead, Elsie,” Catherine said. “I assure you I am very much alive. How lovely it is to see you again.” And to know that at least the dearest bosom bow of her youth was not going to cut her.
“Good evening, Lady Withersford,” her husband said gravely.
“Elsie,” Catherine said, clasping her friend’s hands and laughing at her. “Lady Withersford?”
“Yes, well,” Elsie said, flushing a shade of red that clashed horribly with her gown, “I discovered that I did not hate Rudy quite as much as I thought I did, Cathy. In fact—but no matter. I married him five years ago. We have two sons.”
And there, sure enough, was Lord Withersford, whom Catherine and Elsie had used to giggle over as girls and call—it had been Elsie’s unkind description—the chinless wonder. He had always had a dignified sort of presence, though, to counter his lack of a chin. He bowed now, generally to the whole group. But he did not, as he might have done, take his wife’s arm and propel her firmly away to another part of the ballroom. He struck up a conversation with Clayton and Lord Pelham that sounded to be on the topic of Tattersall’s. It was impossible to hear clearly—Elsie and Daphne were vying with each other to see who could chatter most.
And finally the dancing began. The opening set was a quadrille, which Catherine danced with her husband. Daphne and Clayton, Elsie and Lord Withersford were part of the same set. None of the other members of the set withdrew to another when Catherine joined it. No one silenced the orchestra in order to announce that she must leave the floor and the ballroom and the house.
It seemed that they had brought it off, as Rex had put it earlier. She fixed her eyes on his and smiled—and noticed consciously for the first time that the look in his was one of admiration, rather as he had always looked at her at Bodley, and something more than admiration. It looked like love. It was a look he had put there for their audience, of course, just as he often called her “my love” when other people could hear him. But it was a look that warmed her nonetheless.
And perhaps it was not entirely a false look. There had been no audience to last night’s lovemaking, after all. And last night’s lovemaking had taken on a new dimension. He had loved her not only with the usual expertise and consideration for her own pleasure as well as his own. He had loved her with tenderness. She was sure of it even though he had loved her in silence and she had fallen asleep so soon afterward that there had been no chance for words to be exchanged.
He was not entirely without feeling for her. He had married her reluctantly and had been carried f
orward, first by duty and then by guilt. But he had come, she believed, to like her a little more than he had at first. It was something. If only they could carry off this evening’s daring and audacious business, perhaps their marriage could survive to be at least a working relationship. The thought was sweet.
He danced well. And she forgot the other members of the set and felt as if she danced only with him. There were memories of the ball at Bodley House, when she had waltzed with him twice, once in the ballroom and once in the music room. Aching memories of sweetness and the beginning of bitterness. He looked so wonderfully handsome tonight, dressed in shades of brown and dull gold to complement her gown of gold satin.
She deliberately relaxed and deliberately gave herself up to an enjoyment of the ball.
• • •
HE gradually felt himself relaxing. For tonight, at least, he believed, there would be no great unpleasantness. The moments at which it might have happened—when they entered the house, when they passed the receiving line, when they entered the ballroom—had passed. No one was going to make a scene now.
He wondered if Catherine had sensed his fear. It had been only partly a fear that she would crumble under the strain. If she had done so, then it would be something from which she might never recover. But he had not really expected it. He could remember her quiet dignity under even more trying circumstances at Bodley. His real fear had been of some very public unpleasantness, something from which he would have been unable to shield her. He would never have forgiven himself if that had happened. And again, it would have been something insurmountable, something that would have blighted the whole of her future, and his, and their children’s.
All was not assured even yet, of course. Good breeding might prevent a public scene tonight, but tomorrow might plunge the two of them into a deep freeze. There might possibly be no further invitations. From tomorrow on they might be invisible or unrecognizable at the theater or in the park or in the fashionable shops of Bond Street or Oxford Street. Only tomorrow would bring the answers.
But her family and his, and his friends, and perhaps Lord and Lady Withersford would continue to rally to the cause, he believed. Perhaps they would succeed in edging Catherine back into Society. He would keep her here for a few weeks, anyway, and see what could be done. Though if he had his way, he would take her back to Stratton tomorrow and proceed to live happily ever after with her there. He was going to try—he was going to try his damnedest—to make her fall in love with him. He thought there was a slim chance it might be done. Her tenderness last night had made him almost delirious with hope.
He felt an eagerness he had not found in himself since his engagement to Horatia to begin the rest of his life—to trust love and to make a lifelong commitment to that love. He wanted to start his children in her. He wanted to be family with her even if there were no children.
And so he danced the quadrille with his wife, seeing only her, relaxing past the tension that had held him together for a week, allowing himself at last to enjoy the ball.
He really had not looked about him a great deal since their arrival. But when the set was over and he had led his wife off the floor and her brother was preparing to dance the following set of country dances with her, Lord Rawleigh looked about him with some curiosity. He wanted to see if attention was as riveted on his group as it had been at the start. He wanted to assess the nature of what attention was still on them.
It was only then that he became aware of the presence of two people in particular—though one of those two was only then entering the ballroom and could not therefore have been noticed before.
Horatia Eckert was standing with her mother and her elder sister some distance away. She was fanning herself and not looking at him, though he was given the impression that she was very aware of both his presence and his glance. Beautiful, dainty little Horatia with her bright auburn hair and her large dark eyes—he felt a pang of regret for all the ugly unpleasantness that had replaced love with hatred in his heart. He had called her a coldhearted coquette in his reply to her letter breaking off their engagement, and afterward when he was back in England and when she was alone again, her flirtation at an end, he had spurned the tentative overtures she had somehow managed to make. He had felt nothing but rage for her presumption. Of course, there had been a year or so when she had not dared appear in town. The beau monde did not look kindly upon those who broke publicly announced betrothals. She was fortunate to have avoided total ostracism.
He did not look at her for longer than a few seconds. He knew that he was very much on public display tonight, and his connection with Horatia would not have been forgotten by the ton. But as his eyes swept in the opposite direction, to the doors, he saw the gentleman who had entered alone and looked about him with a cynical gaze.
Lord Rawleigh had known he was in town, though they had not run into each other during the week. It seemed that Sir Howard Copley moved very much on the fringes of Society these days. His debts were said to be astronomical, and he was not much welcomed at the clubs or even at the gaming halls. Over the years he had used his charm and his looks—now beginning to be marred by clear signs of dissipation—on so many heiresses, without success, that his reputation was too sullied to allow him any further chances. Young ladies of fortune, and even those without, were guarded from Sir Howard Copley as they would be guarded against ravening wolves.
Being a gentleman, however, he was not quite beyond the pale and still found entrée to some of the larger entertainments of the ton. And sometimes he put in an appearance as much from the desire to show his contempt for Society’s sticklers, it was thought, as from any thought of enjoying himself.
Lord Rawleigh, looking across the ballroom at the man who had destroyed his first betrothal and had debauched and impregnated and ruined his wife, felt a curious elation gather in his stomach like a lump of ice.
Yes. Oh, yes, indeed, he thought.
The music had not yet begun for the second set. There was another of those curious lulls in the general conversation, followed by a renewed rush of sound. The arrival of Sir Howard Copley and all its implications had been noted, then.
The viscount’s eyes met Copley’s across the ballroom and deliberately held them. Copley looked back for a moment, and his look of cynicism deepened as he raised one eyebrow. He would be remembering Horatia, the viscount thought, and the fact that the rejected fiancé had not called him to account.
And then Copley’s glance moved to Catherine, whom he would be able to see in profile. It held there a moment and then moved back to Lord Rawleigh. There was something unreadable now in the cynical eyes—until he half smiled and turned unhurriedly to leave the ballroom he had entered only a few minutes before.
The ball of ice in Lord Rawleigh’s stomach expanded to freeze his heart. And still there was the feeling of elation.
Catherine was laughing at something her brother had said and had taken his arm to be led into the next set. They looked bright and innocent, the two of them.
22
SHE felt strangely exhilarated. She knew enough about life and Society, of course, to realize that all was not quite settled yet. It was true that no one had made a scene and that no one had even been subtly rude to her. But then, very few people had been openly welcoming or friendly, either. Elsie and Lord Withersford had and Harry’s friend Sir Cuthbert, and Lord Cox had solicited her hand for a set after supper—he had been one of her admirers six years before.
She knew that tomorrow she might find herself quite firmly locked out of Society again. There would be no nastiness, no vulgarity, merely a loud and frozen silence. It was certainly a possibility despite the presence with her tonight of so many titled and influential people of the ton, her father included.
But tonight she refused to think of tomorrow. Tonight she was at a London ball again, wearing a new gown and a new coiffure, newly married to the most handsome gentleman in t
he ballroom, to the man with whom she had fallen in love. She had danced the opening set with him and was to dance the supper waltz with him. In the meanwhile she had had a partner for each set and was waltzing now with her father of all people. In the year of her come-out her father had never even ventured inside a ballroom.
“I did not know you could dance, Papa,” she said, smiling at him.
He was frowning and merely grunted in reply.
“Where did you learn to waltz?” she asked him.
“A gentleman must do what a gentleman must do,” he said.
“Including this?” she asked him. “Appearing with me here? Is it a terrible embarrassment to you, Papa?” She was not sorry if it was. It was time he was embarrassed for her sake. But though he had not given her the support she had needed six years ago, she could not hate him. He was her father and she loved him.
His eyes met hers as he continued to dance the steps of the waltz correctly but without flair.
“You have been fortunate, Catherine,” he said. “Why he would be willing to marry you under the circumstances I do not know. Of course, you are in good looks and he is a young man with eyes in his head. But however it was, he did the right thing to bring you here, I must admit. Life would be insupportable to him with a disgraced wife, and it would be impossible for his children.”
Nothing about her own feelings or about her children. She smiled.
“He knows, I suppose,” he said, “that it was Copley?”
“Yes,” she said, and realized suddenly another reason for the exhilaration she was feeling. She had feared that he might be at the ball. She did not believe she could bear to see him again—and to remember that he had been Bruce’s father. She preferred to think of Bruce as her son, a son without a father and without the ugliness that had been his conception.