Only Beloved

by Mary Balogh

  Ann and James Cox-Hampton arrived with their two eldest daughters, who would not have been deemed old enough for a London ball but were very welcome at this one. James wrung George’s hand wordlessly while Ann hugged Dora for several seconds.

  “You look beautiful,” she said, “and very poised after your dreadful ordeal. If it were only genteel for a lady to make a wager, I would have just won a fortune from James. He bet you would not make an appearance tonight.”

  “But then, my love,” James said, “I would have had to live off my wife’s fortune for the rest of my days, and you would have lost all respect for me. I am glad you are keeping a stiff upper lip, Dora.”

  Barbara Newman also hugged Dora tightly when she arrived with the vicar.

  “I very rarely pay much credence to gossip,” she said. “It is almost always either grossly exaggerated or entirely untrue. But the Earl of Eastham is dead, so I suppose your life really was in grave danger.”

  “But I have survived,” Dora said. “Do enjoy the ball, Barbara. I shall find some time later to tell you all about it, when you are not dancing.”

  And finally it seemed that everyone had arrived. Since country entertainments tended to end earlier than London ones, there were never many latecomers. The phrase fashionably late was scarcely known in the country.

  And now George was drawing her arm through his and looking closely at her. “You are glowing,” he said, “and I am dazzled. But are the smiles and the sparkling eyes hiding fatigue, Dora?”

  “They are not,” she assured him. “But I will keep my promise not to dance even though Dr. Dodd mentioned only the more strenuous ones. It will be enough to watch and enjoy the fruits of everyone’s labors except my own.”

  He laughed. “But the ball was your idea,” he said, “and that is what counts. Allow me to take you to Ann. She has been busy seeing to it that her girls have respectable partners for the opening set and seems to have no intention of dancing herself.”

  He did not need to take her anywhere. She was the Duchess of Stanbrook. Goodness, she was even wearing her tiara. And she was hostess of the ball. But she allowed him to lead her to her friend’s side before going to open the dancing with Philippa. During that set of vigorous country dances she told Ann everything that had happened—omitting only some of the details the earl had revealed to her. It was, she discovered, a relief to unburden herself to someone who had not been involved. She would probably do the same with Barbara later, but not with anyone else. Let other people tell the story.

  More than anything else tonight, Dora wanted to enjoy herself. There was so much to celebrate—her marriage, her pregnancy, her reconciliation with her mother, friendship.

  Life itself.

  She spent the evening circulating among her guests, as she had always intended to do. She had never meant to do much dancing. She spoke with everyone, occasionally answering questions about the afternoon but talking on a number of other topics too. She found partners for all the younger people who clearly did want to dance but were too shy to make themselves noticed—and that applied to young gentlemen as well as to young ladies. Indeed it applied more so to them, for the girls had mothers to help them find partners while the boys were expected to fend for themselves. She fetched plates of food for a few elderly people who could not move easily among crowds, although there were servants constantly circulating with trays. She deliberately stood with Mr. and Mrs. Clark between two sets and made them laugh with stories from her music-teaching days. She went up to the high gallery that ran along one end of the ballroom when she spotted the two young children of a couple of her houseguests up there with their nurse. And she delighted them by fetching them a plate of sweetmeats from the refreshment room after obtaining the nurse’s permission.

  Oh, yes, she did indeed enjoy herself. How could she not? For the ball was clearly a success. She had been a little afraid that the fact of a man’s having died on Penderris land earlier today might put a damper upon the festivities, but it had not done so. George spent much of the evening dancing and the rest moving among the guests, as Dora was doing. He looked happy and at ease.

  But oh, she thought treacherously a couple of times during the course of the evening, how she wished she could dance at least once. Not all the dances were strenuous ones. But she had promised . . .

  The second of the two waltzes planned for the evening was after supper. George had danced the first with her mother, who was as light on her feet as she had been when Dora was a girl. Dora had watched rather wistfully until she had spotted those children up in the gallery and distracted herself by going up to them.

  Now the guests were instructed to take their partners for the second waltz. Dora, standing with Barbara, whose attention had been taken for a moment by someone on her other side, cooled her face with her fan until it was taken from her hand.

  “You are overwarm?” George asked, continuing to ply the fan. “You have been exerting yourself too much?”

  “I have not exerted myself at all,” she assured him. “But is it not the loveliest ball you have ever attended, George? And do feel free to lie.”

  “Ah, but I can speak only the truth,” he said. “It is by far the loveliest ball I have ever attended, perhaps because the loveliest lady I have ever known is here.”

  “I will not ask who she is,” she said. “I might be mortified by your answer.”

  “But I can speak only the truth, remember,” he said. “She is you.”

  She laughed and his smile deepened. It had surprised and delighted her since their wedding to discover that they could occasionally exchange silly banter and share laughter.

  “I am speaking the truth,” he assured her. “I remember your telling me soon after you agreed to marry me at St. George’s that you had always dreamed of waltzing at a London ball. We will do it one day, but will our own ball here at Penderris serve the purpose for now? Will you waltz with me?”

  Oh. She felt a great surge of yearning. “But I promised a certain tyrant that I would not dance at all.”

  “The certain tyrant recalls, though, that only strenuous dancing was prohibited,” he said. “He also had a word with the orchestra leader after supper and specifically asked for a slower, more sedate version of the waltz than the one that was played earlier.” He looked deeply into her eyes. “Will you waltz with me, Dora?”

  She took her fan from his hand and closed it. “It would make the evening perfect,” she said.

  He offered his arm, and she placed her hand on his cuff.

  She had waltzed once, at a local assembly in Inglebrook, with a gentleman farmer who must have practiced the steps while prancing away from a frisky bull. It had not been a particularly enjoyable experience, though she had always felt that it could be. It was surely the most romantic dance ever invented—when danced with the right partner.

  She was sure she had the right partner tonight.

  He set a hand at the back of her waist and took her hand in a warm clasp. She rested her other hand on his shoulder—so warm and firm and dependable. She had time only to notice a few of the other couples who had taken the floor about them—her mother with Sir Everard, Ann and James, Philippa and Julian. And then the music began.

  Any fear she might have had that she would not know the steps well enough was soon dispelled. They moved about the ballroom as though one, and it felt, Dora thought, like being right inside the music and creating it with one’s whole body instead of just with one’s fingers upon a keyboard. It felt like a creation of all the senses instead of just sound. There were the crystal chandeliers and the candlelight to see overhead and the flowers and greenery below. There were the perfumes of the plants and of various colognes—and even of coffee. There were the sounds of music and feet moving rhythmically on the floor and voices and laughter. There was the aftertaste of wine and cake. And there was the feel of an evening coat beneath her one hand,
of a larger hand in her other, of body heat. There were people enjoying themselves. And nothing was static, as nothing ever was with music—or life. Everything swirled about her with light and color, and she swirled in its midst.

  All was life and joy.

  But there was the one constant at the center of it all—the man who held her and waltzed with her. Sturdy and elegant, stoic and kind, aristocratic and very human, complex and vulnerable—her companion and friend, her husband, her lover. Creating the music of life with her.

  It was strange how such an uplift of euphoria could follow so closely upon life-threatening terror. The two extremes of life. Or perhaps not so strange.

  She remembered his saying that he had carried her up to the house from partway down that rock face. The reality of that fact had not impressed itself fully upon her consciousness until now. He had carried her.

  But thought drifted away as they waltzed and only sensation remained.

  She felt a trifle bereft when the music finally drew to a close. But George held her a little longer while the other dancers moved off the floor.

  “I would like you to go up to bed now,” he said. “Will you? I will make your excuses, and everyone will understand. There is to be one more set, I believe. And then there will be all the bustle of everyone’s leaving.”

  She was suddenly weary and nodded.

  “Come,” he said. “I will escort you up.”

  He left her outside her dressing room, having given instructions downstairs that Maisie was to be sent up without delay. He took both her hands in his and kissed the backs of them.

  “Good night, Dora,” he said, and for a brief moment she thought she saw something unguarded in his eyes—some unhappiness, some deep-seated suffering. But the light was dim and she might have been mistaken. He had not brought a branch of candles up with them. There were only the candles flickering in the wall sconces.

  He turned away and strode back along the corridor.

  We will talk, he had said earlier. But she wondered if they ever would.

  * * *

  George was glad he had persuaded Dora to go to bed. He had never hosted a grand ball, though of course this was a country affair and therefore not quite the squeeze he might have expected in London. Nevertheless, he knew something about all the chaos of the ending of a ball, when people suddenly wished to talk with one another as though they had not had a chance to do so all evening, and when carriages jostled for position at the door and then, when successful, had to wait for their owners to take a protracted leave of their hosts and every friend and acquaintance they had ever had. Even when the final carriage had disappeared along the driveway, there were still the houseguests, who wished to talk about how wonderful the evening had been before going off to bed.

  Well over an hour had passed since the ending of the ball before George let himself quietly into his dressing room so as not to wake Dora in the adjoining bedchamber. But, just as had happened earlier, like déjà vu, he could hear soft music coming from the sitting room.

  Why had he expected that she would be asleep, exhausted as she must be?

  He undressed without the assistance of his valet, whom he had instructed to go to bed, and donned a nightshirt and dressing gown before letting himself into the sitting room.

  She stopped playing and looked up at him with a smile. She too was dressed for bed. Her hair was loose and had been brushed to a shine. She looked very weary.

  “I take it,” she said, “no one left early.”

  “No one even left late,” he said. “Everyone left very late. A sign of the great success of your ball. It will be talked about for a decade.”

  “We must entertain more often,” she said, “even if not always on such a large scale.”

  “We must,” he agreed, walking closer to her. “But not tomorrow, if you do not mind, Dora, or the day after. You could not sleep?”

  She shook her head. “I was afraid to try.”

  “Afraid of nightmares?”

  She turned on the stool so that her knees touched his own. She nodded, and he rested one hand against the top of her head and smoothed it over her hair.

  “There were only maybe two more steps between me and a vast emptiness,” she said. “And I knew that nothing was going to change his mind. Nothing I said, nothing you said.”

  They were both silent for a while until she leaned forward to wrap her arms about his waist and bury her face against his chest. And she wept with great heaving sobs.

  He held her, his eyes shut tight, and wondered what the insanity would have felt like afterward if . . .

  She wept until the front of his dressing gown and the nightshirt beneath it were soggy, and then she raised her face to his so that he could dry it with his handkerchief. She took it from his hand and blew her nose.

  “I want to go there tomorrow,” she told him, setting the handkerchief down on the bench behind her. “I want to walk along the headland path, and I want to go down onto the beach. This is my home, and if I do not do it tomorrow, I never will. Come with me?”

  He was horrified.

  “Of course.” And it struck him, even as his knees felt weak beneath him, that she was quite right—and incredibly brave. “But it is very late and we must sleep. I will hold you against the nightmares, Dora. I will not let anyone or anything harm you.” Foolish words in light of his utter helplessness this afternoon. One could not always protect what was one’s own. “We will talk, I assure you, but not tonight.” He hesitated a moment. “Allow me to show you something tonight, though.”

  She got to her feet and set her hand in his. He took her into their bedchamber and opened the top drawer of the rarely used bureau there. He took out an object wrapped in a soft cloth and unwrapped it. He picked up the nearest candle and held it aloft while he handed her the framed painting.

  “It was originally a sketch that Ann made at a picnic one day,” he said. “I asked for it, and she offered to make a proper oil portrait out of it. She made it a little bigger than a miniature. It is a good likeness.”

  She gazed at it for a long time. “Brendan?”

  “My son, yes,” he said. “I loved him.”

  She lifted her eyes to his. “Of course you did,” she said. “He was your son.”

  He could see from her eyes that she knew the truth. But she spoke the truth too. Brendan was his son.

  “Did you keep it displayed,” she asked him, “before you married me?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “It is not for the gallery, though it will probably end up there eventually. It is not for the sight of any servant who steps in here. It is for my eyes alone. And now yours.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  He wrapped the portrait carefully and put it away.

  “Come and sleep,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  21

  Dora woke up to the sound of rain lashing against the window. It was full daylight. George was sitting at the bureau in his shirtsleeves, writing. Amazingly, she had slept deeply and apparently dreamlessly.

  She turned quietly onto her side and gazed at him. He did not usually write his letters up here. Indeed, she had never before seen the bureau actually being put to use. But she guessed that he had not wanted to leave her to awaken alone. He dipped his quill pen in the inkpot and continued to write, his head bent over his work.

  Her eyes strayed to the top drawer, and she felt tears prick them though she blinked firmly. She had been enough of a watering pot yesterday. There would be no more of that today.

  There had been such tenderness in his hands as he had folded back the linen that covered the picture, and such tenderness in his eyes as he had looked briefly at the painting before handing it to her. And tenderness had been in his voice when he spoke. My son, yes. I loved him.

  The boy must have been about fourteen or fifte
en when the sketch was made and then painted in oils, a plain-faced, plumpish boy, his fair hair somewhat tousled by the outdoors, the shy suggestion of a smile lending him both vulnerability and charm. He looked as unlike George as it was possible for a boy to be.

  It is a good likeness.

  I loved him.

  It is for my eyes only. And now yours.

  There was no family portrait in the gallery. But there was this, a very private, prized possession. A portrait of a boy who had not been his own flesh.

  My son, yes.

  She must have made some sound. Or perhaps he was just keeping an eye on her every few minutes. He turned his head and then smiled and—oh, she loved him.

  “Good morning,” he said softly.

  “Good morning.” She had thought yesterday only of herself, of the fact that she might have died. This morning she thought of him. What would it have been like for him now, at this moment, if she had died? She did not believe he felt any great romantic passion for her, but she did know he was dearly fond of her and content with his marriage.

  Ah, Dora. My belovèd. My only belovèd.

  Had she really heard those words? Or had it been part of some dream into which she had sunk when she lost consciousness?

  “No nightmares?” he asked.

  “None,” she said. “You?”

  But she knew the answer even before he shook his head. He had not slept at all. There were dark smudges beneath his eyes, and the creases that extended from his nostrils past his mouth to his chin were more pronounced than usual. There was little color in his face.

  “There was a letter from Imogen this morning addressed to both of us,” he said, “and one for you from your sister.” He tapped an unopened letter on the surface beside him.

  “What does Imogen have to say?” she asked.

  “You must read it for yourself,” he said, “but I will play spoiler and tell you her main item of news. We Survivors are all being admirably prolific in ensuring the survival of the human race.”