by Mary Balogh
“Joshua,” Constance said the next time they were close to each other. “Do something. Be firm. I am dreadfully afraid I will not be able to. And if she should succeed in getting us to dance together all night or induce me to admit in public that I am fond of you or some such thing, you will feel honor-bound . . . Oh, I will simply die.”
He grimaced.
“I'll think of something,” he said. “In the meantime I have at least promised the next set to someone else.”
“Thank heaven!” she said fervently.
He should run while he still had a chance, Joshua thought. His aunt could hardly maneuver him into a betrothal with Constance if he was not even here. But, dash it all, was he going to run from a mean, manipulative little slip of a thing?
It was very tempting, he had to admit. But first he must dance with Lady Freyja Bedwyn.
“The next set is to be a waltz,” his aunt said after he had led Constance back to her side. She beamed at the two of them and spoke rather loudly, somehow including a whole crowd of people standing within her orbit in the conversation. “Constance knows the steps, Joshua, and I am sure you must. Do dance it together as everyone can see you both wish to do. You make such a very striking couple, and under the happy circumstances of your recent reunion no one will object to your dancing two sets in a row together.”
Good Lord, Joshua thought. His cousin had not exaggerated.
“I beg your pardon, Constance, Aunt,” he said with a bow, “but I have already solicited the hand of Lady Freyja Bedwyn for the next dance.”
A waltz. That was interesting. He looked across the ballroom at Lady Freyja. She really did look very fetching indeed tonight. She looked quite regal, in fact, or at least every inch a duke's daughter. She was standing with Miss Holt-Barron, her chin lifted, her fan slowly cooling her face.
“That was kind of you, Joshua,” his aunt said, a sharp edge to her voice. She reduced the volume to a theatrical whisper. “She really is remarkably ugly.”
He bowed to Lady Freyja a few moments later and led her onto the floor, where other couples too were gathering.
“I was delighted to see,” he said, “that you were not a wallflower for the first set.”
“So was I,” she said. “Doubtless I would have gone home and put a bullet in my brain.”
He laughed and set his hand behind her waist as she set hers on his shoulder. He took her other hand in his. Except when he was with her, he always tended to forget how small she was. She was also very shapely.
“How clever of me, sweetheart,” he said, “to have chosen a waltz.”
“I just hope you can dance it well,” she said. “You can have no idea of the peril ladies put themselves in during this particular dance, when their slippers are in such close proximity to their partner's dancing shoes. And I am not your sweetheart.”
The orchestra began playing, and for a while he forgot everything but the sheer pleasure of moving with her through the lilting steps of the waltz. He was going to regret not seeing her again after tonight, not matching wits with her. Not kissing her.
She looked up at him and arched her eyebrows.
“No squashed toes yet,” she said.
“If I do anything so clumsy and unmannerly,” he said, “I will allow you to use your fist on my face without even trying to defend myself.”
She laughed.
“How is your courtship proceeding?” she asked him. “Your aunt looks very pleased with herself this evening.”
He grimaced. “Parson's mousetrap hovers,” he said. “According to Constance, who is about as eager for the match as I am, she is determined to throw us together tonight with such frequency that for very decency's sake we will be obliged to announce our engagement. It might be of interest to add that the woman's will has almost never been thwarted.”
“Nonsense!” she said. “I found her quite an unworthy foe when I spoke with her this morning.”
“Perhaps Connie and I should let you loose on her then, sweetheart,” he said. “I don't suppose you feel like entering into a fake betrothal with me for a day or two, do you?”
He grinned at her.
She stared at him, an arrested look on her face. Her eyebrows rose haughtily. He waited for the lash of her tongue.
“Actually,” she said, “it would be rather fun, would it not?”
They were still waltzing, he discovered with some surprise.
CHAPTER VIII
He was mad.
She was mad.
They grinned at each other like a pair of prize idiots.
It was a wild, mad suggestion. Surely he had not been serious. But the chance of getting even for this morning's insults in the Pump Room was irresistible to Freyja. Besides, she had been in the mopes all day because of that infernal letter—or rather, because of that one brief infernal paragraph in the letter. And this really did sound like fun.
A mock betrothal! Just what she had suspected Kit of last year, some part of her mind told her. She pushed the thought firmly aside. She was sick to death of Kit Butler, Viscount Ravensberg.
She had always been a madcap. Those many governesses she had plagued had been forever trying to explain to her that if she only learned to think before she acted instead of dashing impulsively onward with every scheme that presented itself to her vivid imagination, she would land herself in trouble far less often.
Freyja had always rather enjoyed trouble.
She found herself suddenly, irrationally, and quite inappropriately happy.
“By all means,” she said to the marquess. “Let us do it. Tonight. Now. We can break it off tomorrow. It is doubtless what people will expect of us anyway.”
She had always loved performing the energetic, slightly scandalous waltz. She had been particularly enjoying this one. But she was quite happy to abandon it before it ended. The marquess waited until they were close to the doorway leading to the tearoom, then waltzed her through it before releasing his hold on her, taking her by the elbow, and going in search of the master of ceremonies, who was absent from the ballroom.
Mr. King was in the tearoom, circulating among the tables there, conversing with their occupants. He beamed genially at them, rubbing his hands together as he did so.
“My lord,” he said. “I am delighted to have such illustrious guests at the assembly as you and Lady Freyja Bedwyn—and the marchioness, your aunt, and her daughter, of course. A table for two, my lord?”
“No, thank you,” the marquess said, smiling amiably. “Perhaps you would be willing to make a public announcement at the end of the waltz, King. I wish all my friends and acquaintances in Bath to share my joy. Lady Freyja Bedwyn has just made me the happiest of men by accepting my marriage proposal.”
Mr. King looked almost speechless with wonder for a few moments. But it did not take him long to recover himself and puff out his chest with importance. He beamed with delight.
“It will give me the greatest pleasure, my lord,” he declared, taking one of the marquess's hands between both his own and pumping it up and down. He made Freyja a deferential bow. “My lady. I cannot tell you how gratified and honored I am.”
They left him as he called for the attention of everyone in the tearoom and informed them that if they proceeded to the ballroom when the music ended, they would hear a happy announcement indeed.
“You have just saved me from a situation akin to walking on eggs, sweetheart,” the marquess murmured as he led Freyja back to the ballroom. “Perhaps I can repay you in some way one day.”
“You may depend upon it,” she said. “Though I do believe that just the look on your aunt's face is going to be reward enough for now. Indeed, I would not miss it for worlds.”
The waltz was ending. The marquess offered Freyja his arm and led her to where Lady Holt-Barron was sitting. Very properly he bowed before returning to his own party, but his eyes were dancing with merriment, Freyja noticed, unfurling her fan and cooling her hot face with it.
She school
ed her features to their customary hauteur. What on earth had she done now? Wulf would freeze her solid with a glance if he ever heard about it. How soon tomorrow could they end the joke?
But she could not deny that her heart was dancing with merriment. This was just what she needed to pick herself out of the mopes.
People were coming into the ballroom from the tearoom and the card room. They were buzzing with heightened interest, and soon their mood conveyed itself to the ballroom crowd too. Bath society thrived upon news and gossip—as did society everywhere. But rarely was there something really new to titillate their spirits and enliven their conversation. Mr. King did not need to clap his hands for attention when he mounted the orchestra dais, though he did so anyway.
The Marchioness of Hallmere, Freyja saw, looking frail and sickly in black, was nevertheless smiling graciously as she rested one arm upon the marquess's sleeve and had the other tucked through Lady Constance's arm. She clearly thought she had the evening well in hand.
Lady Constance was looking tense and unhappy. The marquess was looking nonchalant. But he caught Freyja's eye across the room and depressed one eyelid in that slow wink of his.
“I have been honored with the privilege of making an important and happy announcement,” Mr. King told his avidly attentive audience. “It is a betrothal between two of the most illustrious members, not only of Bath society, but of the whole of English polite society. It is a dazzling match by any standards.”
Freyja plied her fan a little faster. The marchioness turned her gracious attention to her daughter, clearly having decided that the announcement had nothing of interest to offer her.
“The Marquess of Hallmere has asked me,” Mr. King said, beaming about him with pride and pleasure, “to announce his betrothal to Lady Freyja Bedwyn, who, as you all know, is the sister of the Duke of Bewcastle.”
The marchioness jerked about to look up at her nephew, saucer-eyed. Lady Constance looked at him too, her eyes shining with happiness.
And then Freyja became aware of the swell of sound around her and the exclamations of surprise and delight coming from both Lady Holt-Barron and Charlotte. She became aware that the Marquess of Hallmere was striding across the ballroom toward her, his charming smile firmly in place, one arm outstretched. Freyja took a few steps forward and met him on a stretch of empty dance floor. He took her hand in his, bowed over it with courtly elegance, and raised it to his lips.
The crowd sighed with pleasure and then applauded enthusiastically.
It was all very horribly theatrical.
And very alarmingly real.
Freyja quelled a horrifying urge to relieve her feelings by throwing back her head and bellowing with laughter, and smiled instead.
The marquess raised his head, still holding her hand, and smiled into her eyes. Behind the charming, radiant smile, far back inside his eyes, he laughed.
“Now we have got ourselves into a famous scrape, sweetheart,” he murmured.
It was the last private word they were to have for some time to come. Numerous people—almost everyone in attendance, in fact—wished to shake them by the hand or bow and curtsy to them and wish them well. A few even claimed to have predicted such an outcome immediately after the fracas in the Pump Room. Lady Holt-Barron was weeping delicately into her handkerchief and smiling at the same time. Charlotte hugged Freyja tightly and whispered that she had never been happier in her life—except when her own betrothal had been announced. The Earl of Willett looked sadly stricken. Lady Potford kissed Freyja on the cheek, turned to her grandson, and tapped him sharply on the sleeve with her fan before accusing him of being a rogue for keeping such a delightful secret from her. Mrs. Lumbard fawned all over them, reminding them and everyone else within earshot that they would be neighbors when the marquess and his new marchioness came home to Penhallow to live.
Mr. King clapped his hands for silence again after a good ten minutes of noise and congratulations, and announced that the program for the evening would be modified slightly in order to include another short waltz, to be danced by the newly betrothed couple. Everyone stayed to watch before the cardplayers drifted back to their room and the tea drinkers to theirs.
It was all remarkably ridiculous—and shamefully exhilarating.
“There is going to be an even greater stir tomorrow,” Freyja remarked as their own private waltz was drawing to an end, “when we break off the engagement.”
“Ah, not tomorrow, sweetheart,” he said. “If it is all the same to you, we will remain betrothed until my aunt has returned home. I daresay she will not remain above a day or two now that her will has been thwarted. She will return home in high dudgeon.”
“The moment she leaves, then,” Freyja said, “we will have the announcement made.” Actually, she did not mind prolonging this amusing farce for a day or two.
“There is no we in it,” the marquess said. “You will break the betrothal. It is something a gentleman never does.”
“Wonderful!” she said tartly. “It would serve you right if I neglected to do so and you were forced to marry me.”
“Better you than Constance, my charmer,” he said.
“I shall lull myself to sleep tonight with the memory of those ardent words of devotion from my betrothed,” she said.
He grinned and then acknowledged the smattering of applause from the spectators with a more appropriate smile.
“Shall we go and discover what my aunt has to say?” he suggested.
“Absolutely,” she told him, setting her hand along the sleeve of his offered arm. It had not escaped her notice that the marchioness was one of the few guests who had not come to congratulate them before their waltz.
The lady had recovered from what must have been a very nasty shock indeed. She was looking frail and sweet and about half her usual size—it was an impressive performance. She extended both hands to Freyja as they approached, clasped them unnecessarily tightly—Freyja countered by clasping hers more tightly still—kissed the air first at Freyja's left cheek and then at her right, and smiled warmly and graciously.
“What a delightful surprise, Lady Freyja,” she said rather loudly, for the benefit of those around them. “I can think of no one I would more gladly welcome into the bosom of my family. I have always thought of dear Joshua as a son, you know.” Her eyes were doing that needlepoint glare into Freyja's again.
“Thank you, ma'am,” Freyja said. “I knew you would be happy for us.”
“And my dear Joshua.” The marchioness transferred her attention and her hands to her nephew. “What a naughty surprise, indeed. You would not confide in either your grandmother or your aunt?”
“I plucked up the courage to make Lady Freyja an offer during the waltz, Aunt,” he said, “and she said yes. We were both so bubbling over with joy that we wanted everyone to share our happiness without any further delay. I thought you and Grandmama would appreciate the happy surprise.”
The marchioness's smile did not falter. “Of course, dear,” she said.
Mr. Darwin was bowing to Freyja then and requesting the next set of country dances with her. They were, after all, she realized, only two sets into the ball. There was much of the evening remaining. She smiled as she set her hand on his sleeve, remembering her resolve to cheer herself up by flirting with the Marquess of Hallmere tonight.
Well, she had done a great deal better than flirting. She had entered into a mock betrothal with him. Just for the sheer fun of it.
She was, she discovered, looking forward to the next few days with more exhilaration than she had looked forward to any day since she did not know when. At least they would take her mind off Alvesley and Kit's new son and the dreary state of her own life.
Joshua walked up to Lady Holt-Barron's house on the Circus late the following morning. He had avoided the Pump Room, especially as his grandmother had expressed her intention of remaining at home after the late night. But he had not succeeded in avoiding the issue that had kept him awake much of t
he night, alternately chuckling and breaking into a cold sweat.
His aunt had invited herself and Constance to breakfast, and she had joined enthusiastically in his grandmother's plan to host a large betrothal party at Great Pulteney Street one week hence.
“I cannot tell you how delighted I am, Joshua,” his aunt had said, “that you have decided to settle down at last. Though I daresay you will wish to take your bride traveling on the Continent for a year or two after the nuptials, now that the wars are over.”
“I sensed Lady Freyja was the right woman for you from the first moment,” his grandmother had agreed before laughing. “Well, from almost the first moment. You will never find life dull with her, Joshua.”
Constance had found a moment to have a private word with him.
“Thank you, Joshua,” she had said. “How quickly you thought and acted! But I do hope you did not offer for Lady Freyja Bedwyn only to thwart Mama. It would be unfair, would it not? I do not think she is ugly. I think she is distinguished and handsome. But, even so, she must have feelings to be hurt.”
“Lady Freyja and I understand each other perfectly well,” he had assured her. “We share the same enjoyment of a good lark.”
“Ah,” she had said. “It is not a real betrothal, then. I suspected as much. But I am rather sorry. I cannot help thinking, as your grandmother does, that she is perfect for you.”
His aunt was planning to stay for at least another week, then, he thought ruefully as he strode up the steep incline of Gay Street. He had not expected her to stay so long. Neither had he expected his grandmother to insist upon a grand party. This betrothal business might yet prove a deuced embarrassment—and perhaps fun too, he admitted. That was the word she had used, was it not?
He knocked on the door of the house on the Circus, was admitted by a smirking housekeeper who had clearly heard the news—had anyone in Bath not?—and was taken up immediately to a sitting room where the ladies were gathered, mother and daughter looking as if they had just recently returned from an outing.