The Wood Nymph

by Mary Balogh

  Helen looked up with an expressionless face. “I shall be happy with whatever you and Mama plan,” she said. “I am in no hurry, Papa.”

  The earl smiled and turned to the rest of his family. He rubbed his hands together. “I have made a few connections of my own today,” he said. “I spent a few hours at White’s.”

  “And whom did you meet there?” his wife asked. “Anyone I know, my dear?”

  “Yes, indeed,” he replied, “and I do not know whether to be pleased or not. I believe I might have cut the man, had he been alone.”

  “Whomever do you mean?” his wife asked, her interest piqued.

  “Mainwaring,” he said. “He is not in Scotland after all. He has been here for more than a week apparently and intends to stay for the winter.”

  “Mr. Mainwaring?” the countess said indignantly. “He would surely not have the gall to present himself here. We really have no need of the acquaintance of the likes of him in London.”

  “Papa?” Melissa had turned pale and clutched the skirt of her gown. “You surely have not invited him here, have you? I could not bear the humiliation of seeing him again.”

  “It seemed only mannerly to do so,” Claymore replied, “especially when his companion was so very civil. Hetherington, my love,” he added, turning to his wife.

  “The marquess?” she asked. “A very distinguished gentleman, I remember. How comes Mr. Mainwaring to know him, I wonder.”

  “This is young Hetherington,” the earl explained. “The father died a number of years ago, I gather, along with his elder son.”

  “And he is a marquess, Papa?” Emily asked sharply. “No less,” her father replied. “And he has agreed to call upon us with his wife, tomorrow afternoon, my love.” The earl beamed with triumph at his mate.

  The countess clasped her hands against her breast. “You see, Emily?” she said. “I told you it must be just a matter of time before we will be accepted into the very best society. The Marquess of Hetherington! But what a pity that he is married already.”

  Emily said nothing, but resumed the needlework that she had put down on her father’s arrival.

  Helen continued to sit in the window seat, as apparently listless as she had been since their arrival in London and, indeed, for some time before that. Inwardly she was in turmoil, the blood hammering in her head so that she was totally unaware of the movement and conversation taking place in the room. William was in London! She was in grave danger of meeting him again, especially if her family became acquainted with his friend the Marquess of Hetherington. She could not. It must not happen. It was bad enough that she could not banish him from her thoughts, that she knew him to have completely ruined her life. She could not see him again. She would die if she were forced to do so.

  She watched unseeing the hands that were clasped in her lap. How could she possibly avoid the meeting? Papa had said he was here for the. winter. So were they. And it was inevitable that they would move in much the same social circles. Helen had none of her sisters’ anxieties that perhaps they would be ignored by the ton. Her father was an earl, after all, and he and Mama had connections, neglected as they had been for several years. Sooner or later she would come face to face with William. It had been a sheer miracle that she had escaped him at home. She could not hope to do so for a whole winter here.

  He would know the truth. Not that that mattered any longer. She could even feel a sort of satisfaction in thinking of how surprised he would be and how uncomfortable to remember the summer. No, it did not bother her at all that the truth would be known. She felt too much contempt and hatred for Mr. William Mainwaring to be at all concerned about a little embarrassment. She could keep the anger and the deep dislike locked inside her as long as she did not see him again. But how could she come face to face with him, probably many times over the next few months, and not reveal to the whole world how strong her feelings about him were? And how could she face having to acknowledge again her own feelings of guilt and inadequacy?

  How would she ever be able to be in his presence without being constantly aware of the fact that there would always be that bond between them, unwanted now by either? Had she merely loved him, she might have turned defiantly from him and lived a full life despite him. But he had possessed her, he still possessed her, and she would forever be bound by what had happened between them. She would never be free, but she certainly did not need his physical presence to remind her constantly of how foolish and how deceitful she had been. She had given herself to a shallow, unfeeling man, a man she had surely deserved at the time, and now she would have to watch him mingle with the ton as if he had every moral right to do so. Perhaps he did. She was not at all sure that his behavior was unusual for one of his class.

  The Marquess and Marchioness of Hetherington did indeed make the promised visit the following afternoon. They were not accompanied by William Mainwaring, to the satisfaction or relief of most of the family of the Earl of Claymore. As they left, the regulation half-hour after their arrival, the marchioness placed in the hands of her hostess an invitation to a ball they were to hold the following week.

  “It is not to be a large affair, ma’am,” she said. “This is not the Season, and London is not as heavily populated as it will be then. But our mutual friend, Mr. Mainwaring, is newly arrived and we have planned the ball as a welcome to him. I am sure he would be delighted, as we would be, to see some of his neighbors there. I do hope you will be able to come.” She followed her husband from the room after smiling warmly at the countess.

  “Robert,” she said as she sank into the warm velvet upholstery of their coach and made room for him beside her, “I am so glad you suggested that we visit the earl and his family this afternoon. They seemed almost pathetically grateful to see us.”

  I could hardly say no, my love,” the marquess said, turning to her with a grin, “when the man himself suggested it at White’s yesterday. William had a previous engagement but I had none. But you are right. They have rusticated so long, I believe, that London is like a foreign city to them. You see the dangers of staying in the country for too long, Elizabeth?”

  “Oh, well and good,” she said, “but you know that once John is past babyhood I wish to spend most of our time in the country, Robert.”

  He leaned across and kissed her lightly on the lips. “And you will hear no argument from me,” he said. “There I shall have you more to myself.”

  “Robert,” she said seriously, a frown creasing her brow, “is it possible to help William become attached to any female? He seems to have been quite impervious to the charms of any of the ladies he has met in the past week or so.”

  The Marquess of Hetherington laughed and took her hand. “Elizabeth, I quite forbid this train of thought,” he said. “William is a grown man, you know, older than either you or I. Let us leave him to manage his own life.”

  “But he cannot be happy, Robert,” she persisted. “There must be someone worthy of him. Do you think he became well-acquainted with any of the earl’s daughters during the summer?”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “I don’t think any of them is quite William’s type. The oldest one is too haughty for her own good. The middle one is shallow, if I may judge on such short acquaintance. And the youngest one . . . well, what did you think of the youngest one?” Elizabeth looked at him. “Oh, Robert,” she said, “I do hate to be unkind. But was she not dreadful? No looks. No manners. No personality. I feel quite sorry for the girl.”

  “I found her quite fascinating,” Hetherington replied, and he grinned as his wife looked at him, eyebrows raised. “I do believe this afternoon was the first time I have ever seen you fail miserably to draw someone into conversation. Did she actually growl at you, my love, or did it merely appear that way from across the room?”

  “She certainly scowled when I tried to commend her on her embroidery,” Elizabeth said.

  Hetherington leaned toward her until their shoulders touched. “I do not know why we are wasting
time on such topics,” he said, “when we are all alone together in such a setting, Elizabeth.”

  “Oh, do behave yourself,” she said with a most unladylike giggle. “We are in the streets of London, Robert, not far out on an empty highway.”

  He sighed. “Even there, you always seem to be terrified that a highwayman or someone will poke his head through the window at some intimate moment,” he said. “Not that that ever particularly deterred me, did it, love? It is still my theory that John was conceived on the road to Devonshire.”

  “Robert!” she said, her face and neck almost crimson. “You know I do not like you to say so. And I am sure it is not true. Oh, do stop it.” She slapped ineffectually at his hand, which had already undone the ribbons of her bonnet and was pushing it back from her head. “Have you no shame?”

  “None whatsoever, my love,” he said, and he grinned down into her flushed face before lowering his mouth to hers.

  CHAPTER 9

  W illiam Mainwaring propped one foot with its silver-buckled dancing pump against the cushions of the seat opposite him. He had drawn the velvet curtains across the carriage windows. Although there was always plenty of light in the main streets of London even at night, he had no particular interest in viewing other partygoers. He rested an elbow on a satin-clad knee and smiled. Really, he marveled, he felt happier than he had felt in a long while.

  He knew the reason for this ball, of course, as he had known the reason for the two informal dinner parties that the Hetheringtons had held in the two weeks and more since his arrival in London. Elizabeth was trying to matchmake. Robert had even admitted as much a few mornings before, when the two men were riding alone in the park. He had expected to feel more anguish at the realization. He had even gone home after the ride instead of accompanying his friend to Tattersall’s, so that he might examine his bruised heart in private.

  And it was there, quite alone, that he had discovered that there was no very painful bruise, only amusement that a woman several years his junior, a woman who had once agreed to marry him, had taken it upon herself to find him a wife. He did not love Elizabeth any longer! That is, he had been hasty to remind himself, he loved her a great deal. None of his admiration for her serenity and her intelligent good sense, and none of his appreciation of her beauty had faded. He still felt his heart lift in her presence as he always had. He still considered her one of the closest friends he had ever known. But he no longer felt about her as a lover feels.

  The knowledge had come as a great shock to him. He had taken for granted that that type of love could never die. When he had first met her again—dreadful afternoon—all the pain of his brief courtship and of its abrupt end had flooded back and the wound had been as raw and as painful as it had ever been. She was more beautiful than she had been, if that were possible. Now there was an addition to the serenity that he had always loved. Now there was a radiance, and it did not take much imagination to know that it was Robert who had wrought the change. If he had ever doubted the true feelings of those two for each other, he could doubt no longer after seeing them together. They did not display their love in public, but they did not need to. They glowed.

  His unhappiness had been made even worse when Robert, after disappearing for a few minutes, had returned to the drawing room with their son, a blond, blue-eyed replica of himself. Mainwaring had witnessed the look that husband and wife exchanged over the baby’s head. It was not a particularly private look or a demonstrative one, but it had told him more clearly than any words could have done that the child was the greatest bond of love between them. He had felt the bottom fall out of his world.

  Yet, over the days, when he saw both Robert and Elizabeth frequently, the pain had receded again and he had found himself genuinely relaxed in their presence. They were a warm and a charming couple, radiating friendliness and happiness. Without realizing it was happening, Mainwaring found that more and more he thought of them as a pair who belonged together. There was no doubt about it; they had been born to find each other. He thought of them less and less as separate persons. But it was not until that morning after the ride in the park that he had realized fully what had happened to him. Elizabeth was Robert’s wife and it was right that she should be. She could never have belonged to him. He could not have made her happy, and consequently he would not have been happy himself. He finally, and with grateful relief, let go of her with his mind. Henceforth he could relax in her friendship.

  The coach lurched to a stop and Mainwaring grabbed the leather strap beside his head to prevent himself from being hurled to the seat opposite. He drew back the curtain and peered out, but let it fall into place again hastily when he heard angry voices raised outside. Let his coachman argue the matter out. He had no wish to become involved in a street brawl.

  Strangely, it had been only that morning that he realized the implications of his freedom from loving Elizabeth. Two of his trunks, those that contained his less-than-essential belongings, had finally arrived the afternoon before. The servants had unpacked them, but he had instructed that the books be piled in the library, as he wanted to put them on the shelves himself. He had declined the usual morning ride with Robert in order to perform the task. And, of course, among the books was his copy of Lyrical Ballads. Nell. He had smiled ruefully and placed the book on a shelf. And then it had struck him.

  He was free of Elizabeth. His heart was whole again. It was possible that he could love again. He had found himself thinking of his little wood nymph all day. She had never really been out of his mind since summer, in fact. But always he had assumed that he could never love her. He had concluded long ago that his feelings for her were mostly physical, that his longing for her was occasioned by the fact that she was the first, and only, woman he had ever possessed. He knew there was more to his feelings than that. He liked the girl, too. She had an interesting and original mind, even if she was uneducated. He was attracted to her as a person.

  But he had never even considered labeling those feelings as love. He loved Elizabeth, and he had always assumed that one loved only once in a lifetime. For almost the whole day the possibility that he loved Nell haunted him. He tried to tell himself that he could not possibly love a girl of such vastly different background and station in life from himself. He tried to tell himself that he was behaving with naivete to so exaggerate such a brief episode in his life. The chances were that Nell had forgotten him already. It was quite possible that she had wed some village lad by now.

  The carriage jerked into motion again. Mainwaring was not particularly in the mood for dancing. Not that he ever was. But he smiled again, remembering why Elizabeth had arranged the evening. She had probably invited every eligible female between the ages of eighteen and thirty in the hope that one of them would catch his fancy. Dear Elizabeth. He must waltz with her. She was lovely to dance with. The very first time he had talked to her had been during a waltz. She had been so surprised that he had asked her, a mere governess and chaperon at the time, to dance.

  What would she say tonight, he wondered, if he were to tell her that he was seriously considering returning to Yorkshire to ask for the hand of a little waif of a girl who did not even possess a pair of shoes? She would think he had taken leave of his senses. He smiled again. He had taken leave of his senses. He was going to do it!

  Mainwaring was one of the first to arrive at the ball. It seemed only right that he be early when he knew that the entertainment was unofficially in his honor. He walked about in the sparsely populated ballroom, bowing to distant acquaintances, talking with others. Really he was becoming quite adept at participating in light social chitchat, he thought. He was held up for quite a time by one dowager whose granddaughter was newly arrived in town. The girl was with her, a tall, thin girl who hid her fright behind a facade of boredom. But Mainwaring knew from her eyes that she felt self-conscious almost to the point of panic. He had experienced the feeling too recently himself to have forgotten. He signed the girl’s card for two sets and made an
effort to draw her into conversation, while the dowager looked on with satisfaction.

  The trouble with such situations, he found, was that it was difficult to know when and how one might "excuse oneself and move away. Why did such behavior come perfectly naturally to such people as Robert Denning? He was almost relieved to see the Earl and Countess of Claymore enter the ballroom. He had forgotten that Elizabeth had invited them. He had not felt particularly comfortable with the knowledge; he still had a suspicion that he might have behaved a little less than honorably toward their daughter. He had promised to take Lady Melissa riding one morning. He should have found the time to keep the appointment before leaving for Scotland.

  However, under the circumstances he was quite relieved to make his excuses to his present companions and to cross the room to greet his neighbors.

  Mainwaring felt quite relieved a few minutes later, the greetings over with. As with his meeting with Elizabeth a few weeks before, it had turned out that the actual encounter was not nearly as bad as it had been in imagination. The earl was all affability and the countess was civil despite the fact that she seemed to have decided to act the part of the dignified and aloof grand lady. The eldest daughter had favored him with a gracious nod of the head, and Lady Melissa had curtsied stiffly, her face unsmiling. Clearly she was indicating disapproval. But at least the proprieties had been observed and the next meeting would hold no embarrassment at all. He turned to ask Lady Melissa if he might claim a set with her later in the evening.

  “Where is Helen?” the earl asked. “Never tell me the child has taken herself off alone already.”

  “A maid is sewing up the hem of her gown, Papa,” Emily explained. “Someone trod on it on the staircase, it seems.”