Only Beloved

by Mary Balogh

  George’s son had not been his but the Earl of Eastham’s. The earl and the duchess had harbored an illicit passion for each other for many years. Their father had forced her into marriage with George in order to separate them. Had he known about her pregnancy? Perhaps. Probably, in fact. When had George discovered that the child was not his? Had he always known? Dear God, he had been only a boy at the time. What sort of permanent effect had that knowledge had upon him? But she was looking upon those effects, had been looking upon them for as long as she had known him. The almost perpetual kindness in his eyes also held a tinge of sadness. She had never quite identified that sadness until now. And there was his very private loneliness she had sensed but never been able to penetrate.

  His hand tightened about hers, and two tears spilled over and trickled down his cheeks.

  “I almost lost you,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, “I am not so easily misplaced.”

  Her mother went to open the door to whoever had just tapped on it and stepped aside to admit Dr. Dodd.

  * * *

  The physician was unable to detect any physical sign of the ordeal Dora had endured during the afternoon. There was no indication that a miscarriage might be imminent. She had suffered a dreadful shock, of course, and he could not predict how that might manifest itself in the hours and days ahead. But at present her pulse was steady and her color healthy and her mind clear. He strongly advised a few hours of bed rest. It was up to the duchess herself to decide if she would put in an appearance before her guests during the evening, but if she did, he advised that she not exert herself unduly and that she not participate in any vigorous dancing.

  Dora reluctantly agreed to remain in her apartments during dinner. She would decide later what to do about the ball.

  “Though I do hate to miss even the dinner,” she told George with a sigh. “And really, I feel fine and quite fraudulent lying here.”

  She was not willing for her mother to stay with her.

  “Though I do appreciate your concern, Mother,” she assured her, “I would not be able to sleep if you were in the room. I would want to talk so that you would not be bored.”

  Fourteen persons sat down to dinner an hour later. It was all a severe trial to George. The guests were polite, of course, but it was clear they were bursting with curiosity to know exactly what had happened during the afternoon that had somehow sent a dead man to the village to await an inquest and the duchess to her private apartments, where a physician had attended her. There was no point in being overly evasive, George had decided in consultation with Julian and Sir Everard and the ladies. Everyone already knew that the Earl of Eastham had once accused his brother-in-law of pushing the first duchess to her death and had more recently renewed that accusation at the duke’s wedding to the second duchess. He had been silenced on that occasion, but clearly he had been obsessed and perhaps even deranged by his conviction that his sister did not take her own life—even though it had been clear to all who knew her that she was beside herself with grief over the recent death of her only son. So George and Julian had agreed that the rest of the story should be explained, that Eastham had come to Cornwall, tricked the new duchess into walking with him along the headland at Penderris, and tried to push her and her unborn child to their death in the exact place where his sister had died. They did, however, refrain from mentioning Havell’s specific role.

  The story was exclaimed over and discussed among the guests almost to the exclusion of any other conversational topic. George was very glad Dora was not present to hear it. He hoped he could dissuade her from coming down later, though he would not forbid it. Everyone who came for the ball would be agog with whatever facts and rumors had reached their ears and would want to know the truth and to hear it from those who had been personally involved. Dora would be the star attraction if she were present.

  What had Eastham told Dora out there on the headland? A great deal that she had not known before, no doubt. A great deal that he ought to have told her himself. But there was little time for introspection or shock or self-blame. He was hosting a dinner. He smiled, answered questions from those seated closest to him, changed the subject, answered more questions, changed the subject again, and ate his dinner without tasting a thing or even noticing what was being served. His chef would weep if he knew.

  At last he was able to go back upstairs to see if Dora had slept and to try persuading her to stay in bed. She was in the private sitting room, he realized as soon as he entered the bedchamber. He could hear music coming from that direction. He went through his dressing room to find her.

  She was seated at her old pianoforte, playing something soft and sweet and totally absorbed in it. And she was dressed magnificently in a shimmering gown of fuchsia pink expertly styled to show the elegant, slim curves of her body. She was wearing his diamonds at her neck and in her ears. Her dark hair had been piled high in elegant curls with waved tendrils trailing over her neck and ears. And she was wearing the duchess’s diamond tiara that had been his grandmother’s and his mother’s but never Miriam’s. A pair of long silver gloves was draped along the top of the pianoforte. One soft silver slipper was wielding one of the pedals.

  She looked her age, George thought, but the very best a woman of her age could look. She was surely more beautiful now than she could possibly have been as a young girl. Every line of her body professed maturity, womanhood in its fullest bloom. And growing within her womb was their child. For a moment his knees threatened to give out from beneath him when he thought of that scene out on the cliffs earlier.

  She finished what she was playing and looked up with a smile. She must have sensed his presence in the doorway.

  “Are you going to a ball by any chance?” he asked her.

  “Indeed I am,” she said. “I am looking for an escort.”

  “Allow me the honor.” He made her an exaggeratedly courtly bow after proceeding a few steps into the room.

  She turned on the stool. “How was dinner?” she asked him.

  “It was probably delicious,” he said. “I might have noticed if I had been paying attention to it. Our guests seemed well satisfied, though. Philippa took your place without fuss and with a quiet charm. She is a real gem, Dora. The tale of what happened this afternoon was told and retold. Nothing was withheld. Nothing was either exaggerated or dismissed. I wish I could say that now everyone is satisfied and prepared to enjoy the evening without further reference to what occurred, but of course most of the ball guests were not even at dinner. The story will have to be told again and yet again. I wish you would stay here.”

  She got to her feet and came toward him to make some minor adjustment to the folds of his neckcloth.

  “And waste this gown and these jewels and Maisie’s very best hairdressing effort?” she said. “Everyone will be agog to see me, knowing what almost happened this afternoon. It is human nature, George. If they do not see me tonight, then it will happen on another occasion, at church on Sunday, perhaps. I cannot hide away all my life. I would rather it be now. They would rather it be now. Besides, I have been looking forward to our ball immensely and am likely to have a tantrum if I am forced to miss it.”

  He gazed into her eyes and saw fathomless depths there. The story that had been told at dinner was a true and accurate one but not a complete one. Only she knew the rest of it. But she would never refer to it, he realized. She would never confront him with whatever Eastham had told her. She would leave him his privacy and the illusion of his secrets.

  It was perhaps at that moment that he realized fully how much he cared for her. How much he loved her. He loved her more than the air he breathed. He loved her with all the youthful passion he had packed away in some hidden inner vault immediately after his first marriage. He had long since thought he had lost the key. But somehow she had found it and fitted it into the lock and turned it.

  “We will talk,” h
e told her, taking her hands in his and raising them one at a time to kiss the base of each palm.

  “If you wish,” she said. He could see that she understood what he meant.

  “I wish.”

  He went to fetch her gloves from the pianoforte, waited while she drew them on, and offered his arm.

  Their ball guests would be starting to arrive very soon—and he doubted anyone would be late tonight.

  20

  Dora did not believe she had ever smiled so much in her life. And the strange thing was that much of the time it was with genuine happiness. And why not? She might have been dead, but was alive and unharmed—except, she suspected, emotionally. She had been saved by the combined efforts of her husband, her husband’s nephew, and her mother’s husband, whom she had despised for years and had only very recently grown to respect and even like.

  What was not to be happy about?

  And the evening she had dreamed about for weeks was happening all about her. She had missed the formal dinner, it was true, but the hours of the ball stretched ahead, and she could scarcely contain the excitement she felt at the sight of the flower-decked staircase and ballroom, of the chandeliers raised back to their place below the ceiling and blazing with candles and crystals, of the floor gleaming with polish, and—oh, and everything. The orchestra had arrived. Their instruments were propped on the dais at one end of the long ballroom. A violinist was tuning his strings at the pianoforte. Long tables in the adjoining salon were spread with crisp white tablecloths and adorned with vases of flowers and china and crystal glasses and silverware. The food and beverages would be carried out as soon as the guests began to arrive. The few who were already present, strolling about the perimeter of the room or seated on velvet-backed chairs, were gorgeously clad and coiffed for the occasion.

  And this was all her doing—though she smiled with genuine amusement when she thought of how little she had had to exert herself to bring it all about. She and George must have the world’s best servants.

  Oh, what was there not to be happy about?

  Well, for one thing there was her knowledge of the terrible unhappiness of much of George’s life, most of it still locked up inside himself. And then there was the knowledge that the Earl of Eastham had wanted to kill her this afternoon and had very nearly succeeded. He had assured her that it was nothing personal, but it had felt very personal. It was a dreadful thing to have encountered a murderous hatred like that. And there was the fact that he had died. It lay heavy upon her spirits to know that someone with whom she had walked and talked a mere few hours ago was now dead. She knew she would remember the sight of him tumbling past her and the sound of his scream for a long, long time. She wondered what had happened to him, or, rather, to his body.

  The first thing Dora did after stopping in the doorway to admire the ballroom was slip her arm free of George’s in order to make her way about the room, greeting the guests who were staying for the night and apologizing to them for not having been present to show them to their rooms earlier or to entertain them at dinner. It felt very good, she thought, to be able to do this alone without expiring from terror. Terror? There was nothing so very terrible about shaking hands with people who seemed kindly disposed toward her, about acknowledging curtsies and bows and hearing herself called “Your Grace” and making conversation. After this afternoon surely nothing could ever make her afraid again.

  She had come a long way in a few short months.

  Everyone, of course, assured her that there was nothing for which to apologize, and expressed their concern for her well-being, as well as commiserated with her on her dreadful ordeal. She must expect more of the same when the outside guests arrived, she realized. At least no one this evening would lack for a topic of conversation.

  But there were two other specific things she wished to do before the guests did arrive—and the earliest of them would surely be here any minute. She spotted Julian and Philippa over by the orchestra dais, just turning away from talking with the violinist.

  Dora held her hands out to Philippa and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “I have it on the best authority,” she said, “that you are a real gem, Philippa, and acquitted your duties as hostess during dinner with your usual quiet charm. But I did not need to be told. Thank you, my dear.”

  “I cannot believe,” Philippa said, “that I allowed that man to buy lemonade for me this afternoon and that I would have told you of his request to speak with you myself if Lady Havell had not assured me that she would tell you so that I could run on up to the nursery. I am so very sorry, Aunt Dora.”

  “Don’t be,” Dora said. “As George observed earlier, we must all stop blaming ourselves. There was only one man to blame.” She turned to Julian, set both hands on his shoulders, and kissed him too on both cheeks. “It was you who distracted him sufficiently to allow me to break free. Thank you, Julian.”

  He grinned at her and patted her hands on his shoulders. “I had to do something to protect the future heir,” he said, “since Philippa and I have decided that it would be far better that he be Uncle George’s son rather than his nephew.”

  “Well,” Dora said, “the heir may still be the nephew, you know, if this child should turn out to be a daughter. George and I will be equally happy either way.”

  They all chuckled, and the laughter felt good. But Dora had spotted her mother just coming through the French windows with Sir Everard. They must have stepped outside onto the balcony for some air.

  “Oh, do excuse me, if you will,” she said, and hurried toward them.

  Her mother’s face lit up with pleasure. “How beautiful you look, Dora,” she said. “Pink always was a good color for you, though you used to protest that it was better for blondes. But are you sure you should be down here? You will not overexert yourself?”

  “I promise I will not,” Dora assured her. “I have already had the lecture from George.”

  Her mother too looked rather magnificent in a silver-blue gown that was of classic rather than fashionable design and that Dora suspected she had made herself. Her mother had always been a skilled needlewoman. Her silver hair was elegantly styled. The extra weight she had gained since her youth actually suited her, Dora thought, as did the soft smile that brought back so many memories of the mama she had adored.

  “I approve of His Grace,” her mother said.

  “Oh, so do I.” Dora laughed and turned to Sir Everard. She held out her hands to him, but when he took them, she drew them free impulsively, wrapped her arms about his neck, and kissed his cheek. She blinked back tears. “I owe you my life, Sir Everard. And really, I do not believe there is anyone to whom I would rather owe it. You have been good to Mama. You stood by her when you might easily have abandoned her. I am sorry I snubbed you when we called on you in Kensington. I did not understand then how good you had been or how good you are. And I thank you for my life.”

  “My dear Dora.” He possessed himself of her hands again and looked rather embarrassed, though Dora’s mother was gazing at him with a beaming smile. “I was there this afternoon and had to do something vaguely heroic. I am only glad that somehow you survived intact. And as for your mother—well, I suppose I loved her even before she was unjustly shamed and forced to flee her home. I would never have admitted it, even to myself, if circumstances had not presented me with the greatest gift of my life. I love her, my dear. Remaining at her side has never been any sacrifice. Quite the contrary.”

  Oh, she liked him, Dora thought. For of course he had sacrificed a great deal when he had stood by an older woman with whom he had been enjoying what had probably been no more than a light flirtation. She had been ostracized by society when she had left Papa and he had divorced her. And though the man in such situations usually fared rather better, nevertheless his own social life must have been severely curtailed and his chances of making a more advantageous marriage totally lost. It
was clear that although he was not impoverished, neither was he a wealthy man.

  But he was a loyal and affectionate man. And a dignified man. He was, she thought disloyally, more worthy of her regard than her own father was.

  “I believe the guests are arriving,” she said. “I must join George.”

  The Penderris ball would not have qualified for that prized appellation of “sad squeeze” if it had been taking place in London, Dora thought over the next half hour or so. Even before some of the guests, mostly the older ones, drifted off to the card room and a number of others wandered into the salon to look over the refreshments, there was room to breathe in the ballroom. Nevertheless, to her eyes it seemed a dazzlingly crowded event, for everyone who had been invited had come.

  Even the Clarks came, both of them looking stiff and rather drawn. They came, Dora guessed, partly out of curiosity, and partly so that their absence would not suggest they had somehow conspired with the Earl of Eastham in a murder plot. George smiled and bowed politely to them. Dora smiled too and assured Mr. Clark when he asked that she was feeling quite well after resting for a couple of hours on the physician’s advice.

  Mrs. Parkinson came a little later with Mr. and Mrs. Yarby, smiling and gracious and eager to inform Dora that she had received a letter that very morning from her dearest Gwen and could only feel sorry that dear Lady Trentham was less loyal to an old friendship than she was and wrote only one short letter for every three long ones Mrs. Parkinson herself wrote.

  “Though I do make allowances, Your Grace,” she added, “for the fact that she has a young child and I am not at all sure Lord Trentham has hired a superior nurse to assume the full care of it—or that he understands a lady’s obligation to spend her mornings dealing with her correspondence. His father was in business, you know. My poor, dearest Gwen.”

  She must remember to share that little tidbit, Dora thought, the next time she wrote to Gwen.