by Mary Balogh
"David." Algernon prevented his cousin from escaping when the seemingly interminable dance came to an end. He had Rachel's arm tucked through his. "Do you want to hear the tragedy of the decade? It says volumes for Rachel's fortitude that she is still on her feet and still smiling." He was grinning teasingly down at her.
"Algie," she almost shrieked, "you would not dare! I have just come from the receiving line. That is the reason for it."
"Rache still has two empty spaces on her dance card," Algernon said. "Two, David. Not one, but two. Have you ever heard the like? Now, is it not one of your duties as vicar of this parish to alleviate the suffering of your parishioners? You really must insist on taking one of those dances off her hands, you know."
"Algie!" she said in an agony of embarrassment. "And I always thought you were my friend."
"It would be my pleasure," David said, wondering how the words could emerge from his mouth sounding quite so normal. "I may never have another such opportunity." He forced a grin to his face, though he noticed that she was by this time straightening her gloves and not looking at him at all. "May I?"
"You may have a dance after supper if you wish," she mumbled.
"And, Miss Barnes, if I have missed the chance to dance with you," Algernon said, "I shall be out of sorts for the rest of the evening. You were not in the ballroom when I was searching for you earlier."
"I too still have two free sets," Celia said quietly. "Do you wish for the waltz or the quadrille, my lord?"
"Oh, both, by all means," Algernon said.
Rachel laughed merrily. "This is an evening to remember," she said. "I do believe Algie is dancing every set. I never thought to live to see the day."
"Well, what do you expect when your papa has decided that there are not enough guests to make it wise to set up a card room?" Algernon grumbled. "One of the penalties of country living, Rache."
***
Algernon was feeling footsore by the time supper was at an end. It was not that he was normally an idle man. But cavorting around a ballroom floor in time to music, having to keep his mind on the necessity of not treading on his partner's toes and of not luring her to tread on his, was not exactly his idea of useful exercise. When he joined Celia for the quadrille, he suggested that they take a quiet turn on the balcony.
"Unless you will feel cheated if we do not dance, of course," he assured her.
"In truth, I would be glad of the fresh air, my lord," Celia admitted, "and of a temporary escape from all the noise of the music and voices."
"The noise is not much muted out here, is it?" Algernon observed a few minutes later as they strolled along the stone balcony that ran the length of the ballroom outside the French doors. "Let us step down into the garden. If you will trust to my escort, that is, ma'am."
He took her down onto the wide lawn that stretched as far as the stables to the west of the house. It was lit quite effectively by the candlelight spilling out through the open doors of the ballroom.
"Ah, that is better," Celia said. "Have you noticed how silence sounds quite loud to the ears when one has been in the midst of constant noise for a while? I can never understand those people who must be surrounded by noise at all times. Just as if they were afraid of silence."
"And so they are, I daresay," Algernon said. "Would it not be frightening to discover, for example, that one did not have even thoughts with which to fill the dreadful emptiness? Silence brings us very effectively face-to-face with ourselves, ma'am, and it is not always a pleasant experience to meet oneself."
"Perhaps it is because one knows that he cannot turn and walk away from himself if he does not like what he sees," Celia said, and they both laughed.
"I used to try to run from my own shadow when I was a lad," Algernon said. "I used to try to take it by surprise and loll against something quite lazily as if I had no intention of moving for an hour or more. Then I would leap away without any warning, hoping to catch my shadow napping and leave it relaxing against the wall. The longing to escape was especially strong when I saw myself in profile. I used to consider it most unfair that my father had been the one to sire me. My nose is inherited from him, you see."
Celia laughed. "Then I am very glad your father did sire you," she said. "You would look far less distinguished and handsome with just an ordinary nose, you know."
"Do I detect a compliment?" Algernon asked. "You may count on me to partner you in any dance at any ball you and I both attend, ma'am."
Celia stopped walking in order to sweep him a deep curtsy. "Thank you, my lord," she said. "What wonderful results a little flattery can accomplish!"
She came upright laughing. Algernon, about to offer his arm again, stopped, arrested. "Good Lord!" he said. "I had never noticed how pretty you are, Miss Barnes. You should laugh far more often."
Her smile faded instantly. She bit her lower lip and lowered her eyes.
Algernon thumped his forehead with one fist. "Lord!" he said. "What a thing to say. I meant it as a compliment, ma'am, but it did not sound quite like one, did it? Do please accept my apologies. Can't think what came over me. I should have been content to preserve that silence we were so glad of a moment ago."
"I am flattered," Celia said quietly, looking up seriously into his face. "No one has ever called me pretty. I am not, of course. But it is pleasant to be told so, and I know you meant what you said because you spoke in haste. It was no courtly compliment. Thank you."
"I say," Algernon said, offering his arm and resuming their stroll, "you are not an antidote, you know, Miss Barnes. I have seen since I first met you that you have great beauty of character. Some man is going to be fortunate to have you seeing to his welfare for a lifetime."
Celia laughed. "You have matrimony on your mind, my lord," she said, "and that is quite natural. Are you very happy? Rachel has told me that you are to become betrothed in the autumn."
Algernon was quiet for a moment. "Rache has told you that?" he said. "It is not at all settled, you know. I am not quite sure that by the autumn she will not have decided that she wants a more glittering marriage after all. But yes, she is very dear to me, you know. Always has been."
Neither seemed quite aware of the fact that they had stopped walking. He looked at her, saying nothing for a while.
"Well, I suppose we should stroll back to the house again," he said at last with a half-smile, "reluctant as I am to do so. I am afraid such social entertainments are not quite my cup of tea, especially when I am expected to dance. Thank you for walking with me, Miss Barnes. You are a peaceful companion. One can speak his thoughts with you without any effort at all to make elegant conversation. Now, does that sound like compliment or insult? I assure you I meant it as the highest praise."
"And so it was taken, my lord," Celia said, smiling up at him.
They both stood a few moments longer before he offered his arm and they moved in the direction of the ballroom.
Chapter 7
rachel had promised the same set to david Gower. She had dreaded it all evening and in fact had a good excuse to avoid it altogether when the time came. Lord Morrison had been standing beside her as she rose from the chair on which she had seated herself to talk to one of the older ladies. Neither of them had noticed until they heard the loud tearing sound that he was standing on the hem of her gown. She was forced to withdraw to her room after listening to his exclamations of dismay and stammered words of apology. By the time her maid had made hasty repairs to the hem and she had returned downstairs, the orchestra had already started to play and the quadrille was in progress. She could see David standing at the opposite side of the room, close to the French doors, his hands clasped behind his back.
The temptation to leave him there and perhaps approach him later with an apology for having had to be absent during their dance was quite powerful. But she could not do so. He might already have seen her. Besides, of greater importance than that, she would find it more difficult to look him in the eye later and lie than to approa
ch him now and dance the remainder of the set with him.
He smiled and held out a hand for hers as she approached. "I saw your mishap occur," he said. "I hope your gown has not been ruined. It is very pretty."
She would not succumb to the gentleness and charm of that smile, Rachel decided. She placed her hand in his and smiled dazzlingly. "It was a small matter," she said. "I am sorry to be late, sir. I think it is too late to join a set."
"Is it?" he said. "Shall we take a seat, then? Or walk on the balcony?"
Rachel hesitated. Taking a seat would mean sitting among the older women and chaperones. Their every word would be overheard. She would find such a situation embarrassing. "The walk, I think," she said, and took his proffered arm.
There was one other couple on the terrace, standing leaning against the stone balustrade and looking out into the garden. Mr. Robertson and Clara Higgins, Rachel saw.
"The evening is going well," David said. "You must be pleased, Lady Rachel. And very happy, I would guess."
"I always enjoy parties," Rachel said gaily. "They are my reason for living, I declare."
"Are they?" he asked gently. "You certainly shine in such a setting."
Silence fell between them. Rachel was feeling very conscious of her two acquaintances still standing there, not themselves talking. They would hear almost every word she exchanged with David if they continued to walk up and down. She drew to a halt as they reached the end of the balcony and leaned her arms along the balustrade. She looked out into the darkness and breathed in the smell of summer flowers.
"Have you settled in at the vicarage?" she asked as her companion stopped beside her. "Do you find that you have enough to occupy your time?"
He laughed softly. "The vicarage is a comfortable home," he said, "and I have Mrs. Saunders to fuss over me like a mother hen. And I find that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all I wish to do."
She looked up at him with raised eyebrows and then turned hastily away again. "What do you find to do?" she asked. "Both Algie and Papa have expressed surprise that you have not come visiting each day."
"I have been trying to become personally acquainted with each of my parishioners," he said. "I believe that I am succeeding, though it is a time-consuming task. Most old people especially love to talk, and the children too love to prattle and tell all their innermost secrets. Once one has penetrated their natural reserve, that is. Even the working men and women become surprisingly talkative once they know that one has not come merely for cakes and ale and social chatter or moralizing."
Rachel frowned into the darkness. "I would not have expected you to make all that effort," she said. "Vicar Ferney did not do it. I thought a vicar's duties consisted of sick-visiting, saying matins and evensong, and writing Sunday sermons."
"I am afraid I demand a great deal more of myself," he said with a laugh. "Being vicar here is not a job to me, you know, though of course I must work in order to earn my living. It is a way of life. My very life itself."
Rachel looked at him, forgetting for the moment both her distrust of the man and her embarrassment. "You mean you enjoy spending your time with the lower classes?" she asked. "It is most unusual to do so. You have been brought up to a different social class entirely."
His eyes were smiling. She must not look at his eyes, she told herself. She dropped her gaze to his mouth, curved at the corners. "I am a servant," he said. "And I can do no better than my Master. I remember explaining to you once before that Jesus spent by far the greater part of His time with the poor."
"That was different," Rachel said. "He grew up as one of them."
"That is true," he said. "But it makes no real difference. I have been happy during the past week, you see."
"Have you?" Rachel forgot her resolve and looked up into his eyes again. "And you are not happy here tonight, are you? And you were not comfortable in London."
"When I was younger," he said, "I was bitter in the knowledge that I would have to go out and earn my own way in the world. I thought I would be happy if I only had the money to give me an independence. I thought my restlessness was due to my unfortunate circumstances. And then I found that that was not true at all. My restlessness was due to the fact that I had found no meaning or useful purpose to my life. But I am one of the most fortunate of men. I have found both at a relatively early age."
"I have not," Rachel said, her eyes looking troubled as they gazed into his. She looked abruptly away again. "I should say I had not. I believe I am going to marry Algie soon, and then I shall have a reason for living. He will keep me safe."
David hesitated. "Algie is a good man," he said. "He will make you a kind husband."
"I know that!" Rachel turned on him, suddenly fierce. "I know he is a good man. Do you mean that I am not worthy of him? I know that too."
David winced as if she had slapped him. "I did not mean that at all," he said. "I… I wish for your happiness. I cannot forget what happened between us little more than a week ago, and my mind is weighted down by guilt."
"It need not be!" Rachel said tartly. "It was nonsense, sir. I have forgotten it already."
"No," he said quietly, "I think you have not. I hope you have not because forgetfulness of such an incident would denote a careless heart and an undeveloped conscience. But I hope you can forgive both yourself and me. What is most on my conscience is the fact that I lied to you. Yet we all have the right to know the truth in matters that concern us. I told you that when I embraced you I had been merely wanting…" He drew a somewhat unsteady breath. "I said that it had been a purely physical thing. It was not. It was more than that."
"What do you mean by 'more than that'?" Rachel's eyes were huge as she stared up at him.
"You are a beautiful and a vibrant woman," he said carefully, "and you add to both qualities an awareness of the mystery of life and a yearning to do more than merely exist. It is difficult not to be attracted to your character. And I would not wish to deny that attraction. Unfortunately, the circumstances under which we met that night invited a physical response, which was quite inappropriate to what I felt. Forgive me, please, and forgive yourself for what I am sure you must be seeing as indecorous and quite impulsive behavior. I am not at all the man you should be feeling any attraction for."
"I want to hate you," she whispered. "It is safer to hate you."
"No." His eyes smiled back into hers. "You do not hate me, I think. You are afraid merely, as I am, because we like and respect each other and because we understand each other. We both demand a great deal of life and of ourselves. We both demand meaning. But it is never good to hide from ourselves or to lie to ourselves, Rachel. Safe, perhaps, but not good. We have to risk loving. You and I are afraid to love each other because we might end up loving in the wrong way. But you love Algie, I believe, in the way a wife should love her husband. And I hope that soon I will have a wife whom I can love in the same way. You and I must not hate each other. We must love, and have faith that ours will be the love of deep friendship."
"David…" she whispered, and she closed her eyes and lowered her head. "David, I cannot take the risk. I cannot. It is far too late already."
"No, it is not," he said, laying a hand lightly over hers where it rested on the balustrade. "I have seen you and Algie together, Rachel. I have seen you tonight, sparkling when he is in your sight. You could not feign that response. You must trust your feelings for him. I am a latecomer, someone who came across you on two occasions when you were alone and relaxed and dreaming. I am only a part of your daydreams. In reality I am a dull, impoverished clergyman, my dear, who has pledged his life and all his energies to the poor. I am not the sort of man who could aspire to the hand of Lady Rachel Palmer."
Rachel said nothing. She kept her eyes tightly closed and her head lowered. His hand burned through the flesh of hers. He lifted his hand after a while and put it beneath her chin to lift her face.
"Oh, don't cry," he said, his voice suddenly distressed. "Don't
cry, Rachel." He brushed at a tear with his thumb. "I cannot even take you into my arms to comfort you. We are in an appallingly public place. Rachel. Please."
Rachel swallowed, every nerve in her body tensed to try to control the humiliation of her tears. She wanted to cast herself into his arms and bury her face against his chest and howl out her misery. But there were light, noise, and music coming from the open French doors a few feet away. Someone might step through them at any moment. Her mind vaguely registered the fact that Mr. Robertson and Clara had left the balcony.
"I can't bear to see you cry," David said. "You were made for happiness and laughter. Don't cry." He had taken a linen handkerchief from his pocket and was dabbing gently at her cheeks.
Rachel laughed shakily. "What a goose I am," she said, taking the handkerchief from him and blotting her face resolutely. "You should have stayed away from me tonight, David, and let me continue avoiding you. I was quite happy doing so, you know. I don't like taking risks. And that was the theme of your sermon last Sunday, was it not? We have to risk giving of ourselves, you said. It is not enough to give alms or to give help or to give of our time and talents. We have to give ourselves. I don't think I can do it. I have to keep some of me for myself. Your idea is terrifying. But, there. Perhaps it is as well we have spoken this evening. It is embarrassing to avoid someone one has to meet frequently, is it not? We will not have to avoid each other now, will we? We will be friends?"
"Friends," he agreed. "And I am amazed that you heard any of my sermon. You did not raise your eyes from your psalter all through the service, I swear. Give me the handkerchief. Yes, I know it is wet, but I have a pocket, you see, and you do not. Now, let us talk about trivialities for a few minutes so that your eyes can recover before we have to return to the ballroom. What are you planning to do with your guests for the remainder of their stay?"