by Mary Balogh
She laughed softly.
“You may rest easy on that score,” she said. “I have no designs upon Lord Merton’s freedom. I have known the kind of servitude marriage brings to a woman, and once was quite enough.”
They were very soon going to be within earshot of couples in every direction. The musicians had fallen silent and were ready to strike up the tune of the first country dance in the set.
“Shall we talk about the weather?” she suggested.
He chuckled deep in his throat.
“Thunderstorms and earthquakes and hurricanes?” he said. “They sound safe.”
17
STEPHEN could not make up his mind whether Cassandra’s gown was pure red or a bright burnt orange. It was somewhere between the two, he supposed. It shimmered in the light of the candles and was really quite magnificent. It dipped low in front to accentuate her bosom. Its soft folds, falling from a high waist, hugged her curves and outlined her long, shapely legs. Her bright hair was swept high on her head while wispy ringlets curled along her neck.
She always carried herself proudly. But tonight she looked almost happy. How very different she looked from the mysterious lady with the scandalous reputation who had boldly forced her way into Meg and Sherry’s ball last week and then looked about her as if she held everyone else gathered there in contempt.
She danced every set before the waltz—which was also the supper dance. She even danced once with Con and smiled at him and conversed with him whenever the figures of the dance brought them together.
Stephen danced every set before the waltz too. He danced with young ladies who were making their come-out this year and had been signaling their interest in him from the start. It was not a fact that made him in any way conceited. He was, after all, one of England’s most eligible bachelors. He conversed easily with them all and smiled at each partner in turn and focused his attention upon each.
But he was always aware of Cassandra.
He was beginning to wonder if his life would ever return to normal—whatever that was.
He looked forward to the supper dance and thought the time would never come.
He must be careful, though. He must not do anything impulsive that he might regret for the rest of his life.
He was not ready for matrimony. He was only twenty-five. He had told himself that he would not even give marriage serious thought until he was thirty. And even then he would take his time, choosing someone who could look beyond his title and wealth to like him. Perhaps even to love him. And someone he could genuinely like and admire and love.
The supper dance came at last, and he approached Cassandra to claim it. She was standing with her brother and a group of guests with whom Stephen did not have a close acquaintance. She turned to watch him approach.
“Lady Paget, ma’am,” he said, bowing, “this is my set, I believe.”
“And so it is, Lord Merton,” she agreed, using her velvet voice. And she reached out her hand to set on his sleeve.
Such formality. The picnic seemed like a dream. Strange that he should remember the picnic far more than he did the two nights he had spent in her bed.
“The supper dance is also the waltz,” he said as he led her away. “May I dance the last set of the evening with you too?”
“You may,” she said.
They faced each other on the floor as other couples assembled about them.
“Is there anything new to report in Miss Haytor’s budding romance?” he asked, grinning at her.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” she said, and told him about this afternoon’s outing and the upcoming birthday party in the country.
“With Golding’s family?” he said. “Can a marriage offer be far behind?”
“I think it very likely there will be one soon,” she said. “Perhaps even while they are still in Kent. And I believe she will be happy. She must have given up all hope of marrying years ago, must she not? Concern for me kept her incarcerated in the country all those years.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” he told her, not for the first time.
“You are quite right.” She laughed. “You will not let me feel guilty for all the world’s woes, will you?”
“Absolutely not,” he said.
He noticed the necklace she wore. It was the first time he had seen her wearing jewelry.
“Pretty,” he said, his eyes focused on it. The point at the bottom of the jeweled heart reached almost to her décolletage.
“It was my mother’s,” she said, fingering it with her gloved hand. “My father gave it to her when they married, and it was the one thing of value in our household that was never sold. Wesley gave it to me this evening.”
Her eyes became suspiciously bright.
“You are fully reconciled with your brother, then?” he asked.
“I think,” she said, “the memory of that incident in the park when he drove past pretending not to see me or know me must have gnawed at his conscience. Perhaps it disturbed his dreams. He came to see me yesterday.”
“And you do not bear a grudge?” he asked.
“Why would I?” she said. “He is my brother and I love him. He was sincerely sorry for being a coward and trying to ignore my existence. If I had refused to forgive him, who would suffer the more? And perhaps there is no simple answer to that question. Perhaps we would have suffered equally. And for what? To satisfy wounded pride or outraged righteousness? The thing is that he did feel remorse and he did come to set matters right with me. And now he is risking his own reputation by being seen in public with me and openly presenting me to his acquaintances as his sister.”
Young had not, then, mentioned Stephen’s visit to him in his rooms. Stephen was thankful for that. Even given the happy outcome he had had no right to interfere in her life, and she might well resent his having done so.
Not that he was sorry. Family quarrels were the saddest things.
The orchestra played a chord, and Stephen bowed while Cassandra curtsied. He smiled as he set his right arm about her waist and took her right hand in his. She smiled as she set her free hand on his shoulder.
“I think,” she said, “the waltz is the loveliest of dances. I have been looking forward to this one all evening. You lead so well. And your shoulder and hand are firm and strong, and you smell divine.”
He did not remove his eyes from hers. She laughed.
“And here I am,” she said, “being as outrageous as I was at your sister’s ball last week. I should be behaving with a fashionable ennui instead. I should make it appear as if it is as much as I can do to drag myself about the ballroom floor with you.”
He laughed.
But their eyes held and hers were sparkling with merriment and sheer enjoyment. He swung her in a circle and continued to do so as they danced so that everything about them became a swirl of color and light with her as the vivid center of it all.
Cassandra.
Cass.
She was still smiling, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly parted, her spine arched so that she kept the correct distance between them. It did not matter. He could feel her body heat anyway. He could smell it and her—a mingling of soft perfume and woman.
A smell of pure enticement.
They paused for a moment between tunes, neither speaking nor looking away from each other, and then continued to waltz to a slower, hauntingly lovely melody.
He liked her, he had told Vanessa.
Ah, it was a euphemism indeed.
Her flush deepened and he began to feel uncomfortably warm. The heavy smell of the flowers began to seem oppressive. Even the music suddenly seemed overloud.
He waltzed her past one set of French windows, which were thrown back to admit the cool air of the night. There was another set just ahead. When they reached them, Stephen twirled Cassandra through them, out onto a wide balcony, which was blessedly deserted.
And even more blessedly cool.
They continued to dance, but without the twirls. Their steps gr
adually slowed, and he turned her hand in his to set it palm-in against his coat, over his heart. Her other hand slid off his shoulder to twine about his neck, and then he drew her closer so that her bosom was against his chest and her cheek against his.
He did not spare a thought to reality or decorum or any of the social graces that usually came as second nature to him.
When the music ended, they stopped dancing but did not move away from each other. They stood close for several silent moments, their eyes closed—at least, his were.
And then he drew his head back from hers, and she drew hers back from his, and they gazed deeply into each other’s eyes in the light of a lamp flickering at one corner of the balcony.
They kissed each other.
It was not a deeply passionate kiss, but it was several degrees warmer than the ones they had shared at the picnic. It was a kiss that spoke volumes without any necessity for words.
He was in no hurry to end it. Once it was ended, words would be necessary, and he really did not know what he would say. Or what she would say.
He drew back his head eventually and smiled down at her. She smiled back.
And they both became aware—at the same moment, it seemed—that they had an audience. A few people must have decided to make their escape into the fresh air after the dance ended. A few others must have looked toward the French windows and seen what was framed in one of them, backlit by the balcony lamp. Others had probably been drawn by curiosity to see what was taking the attention of the first two groups.
However it was, the audience was an embarrassingly large one, and it was perfectly clear that they had all witnessed that kiss. It had not been a thoroughly improper kiss, it was true, except that any public embrace was improper, especially between two people who had no business kissing each other under any circumstances.
They were not married.
They were not betrothed.
Stephen became aware of three things—four if he counted Cassandra’s sharp intake of breath. He became aware of Elliott somewhere inside the ballroom, his eyes fixed upon Stephen, his eyebrows raised, his expression grim. He became aware of Con, one eyebrow lofted, his expression inscrutable. And he became aware of Wesley Young elbowing his way through the crowd, his look murderous.
And he realized in a flash that he had ruined everything for Cassandra after working hard for the past several days to restore her to respectability, to see to it that she was accepted back into the ton, where she belonged.
“Oh, goodness,” he said, taking her hand in his and lacing their fingers while raking the fingers of his free hand through his hair. “This was not quite the way we planned to make the announcement, but it seems our hand has been forced by my own impulsive behavior. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Lady Paget to you as my betrothed? She has just agreed to honor me with her hand, and I am afraid I allowed my enthusiasm to overcome good breeding.”
He squeezed her hand slowly.
And he shamelessly smiled his most charming smile.
Cassandra could feel only a frozen sort of dismay.
She had been about to raise her eyebrows, don her most haughty expression, and sweep past everyone on her way to the dining room for supper. She had brazened out worse than that kiss. She could do it again.
Except that there were such things as last straws, and this might very well be it.
Before she could make any move, however, Stephen had taken matters into his own hands and made his announcement.
And now what?
He released his grip on her fingers only to draw her hand through his arm and hold it close to his side.
When all else failed, Cassandra thought, one smiled.
She smiled.
And then Wesley was out on the balcony, having pushed his way past everyone else, and he stood in front of them, fury turning to an almost comic bewilderment.
“Cassie,” he said, “is this true?”
What else could she do but lie?
“It is true, Wes,” she said, and realized as she spoke that she could not after all have simply walked away from that very public kiss and so have averted disaster. Wesley had just rediscovered her. He had just atoned for his own cowardice in ignoring her when she needed him most, and now he had taken on the role of her self-appointed protector. There would have been a nasty and very public scene if Stephen had not spoken up as he had. Wesley would probably have punched him in the nose or slapped a glove in his face—or both.
It hardly bore thinking about.
Wesley smiled abruptly. Perhaps he too had realized the necessity of acting out this charade. He drew her into a hug.
“I misunderstood at first, Merton, I must confess,” he said. “But I am delighted by the truth even if it seems to me you might have consulted me first. Dash it all, though, Cassie is of age.”
He stretched out his right hand, and Stephen shook it.
The audience did not disperse quickly despite the fact that supper awaited everyone. There was a buzz of conversation, most of it sounding pleased, even congratulatory—or so it seemed to Cassandra, though she did not doubt there were plenty among the spectators who would be horrified to learn that the very eligible and beautiful Earl of Merton had allied himself with an axe murderer.
Many young ladies would be inconsolable tonight, she did not doubt.
Stephen’s sisters all converged on him from various directions, and all hugged first him and then Cassandra with apparently warm delight. Their husbands shook his hand and bowed over hers. So did Mr. Huxtable, though it seemed to Cassandra that his very dark eyes penetrated through to the back of her skull as he did so.
It was hard to know how pleased his family really was. They could not be pleased, surely, but they were polite and gracious people—and they were being forced to deal with the shock of such an announcement under the interested gaze of half the beau monde.
They really had little choice but to appear delighted.
“My love,” Stephen said, smiling down at her and drawing her hand through his arm again, “we must speak with Lord and Lady Compton-Haig.”
“Of course.” She smiled back at him.
Must they? Why? For the moment she could not even remember who those people were.
Most of the other guests had either lost interest at last or, more likely, chose to discuss the whole salacious incident over supper. The crowd had thinned. Lady Compton-Haig was standing with her husband at the ballroom doors, and Cassandra recalled that—of course!—they were the hosts of this ball.
“Yes, of course,” she said again.
They had been kind enough to send her an invitation—her first apart from the verbal invitation to attend Lady Carling’s at-home last week.
“Ma’am.” Stephen took the lady’s hand in his after they had crossed the room, bowed over it, and raised it to his lips. “I do beg your pardon for using your ball as the forum for my announcement without even consulting you first. I did not intend it to be tonight, though the beauty of your ballroom and the loveliness of the music did prompt me into making my offer this evening. Then, when Lady Paget accepted, I—well, I lost my head, I am afraid, and then had no choice but to explain to everyone exactly why I was kissing her out on your balcony.”
Viscount Compton-Haig pursed his lips. His wife smiled warmly.
“But you must not apologize, Lord Merton,” she said, “for making the announcement tonight. I am vastly pleased and honored that you did. We have no children of our own, you know, though Alastair does have two sons from his first marriage, of course. I never expected to have such an announcement made in my own home. I intend to make the most of it. Come, Lady Paget.”
And she linked her arm through Cassandra’s and led her off in the direction of the dining room, nodding and smiling about her as she went. She seated Cassandra at the head table, next to herself. Stephen, who had come along behind with the viscount, sat beside her on the other side.
Most of the guests seemed intent upon their
supper and their own conversations, Cassandra noted in some relief. It did seem, though, that the buzz of conversation had a higher, more animated tone than usual. And there were a number of people who looked their way and smiled or nodded or simply stared. On the whole, the atmosphere did not seem unduly hostile, though the mood of the ton might well grow more ugly tomorrow when everyone had had time to digest the news and realize that a widow who was still something of a pariah—she had received only this one invitation, after all—was about to walk off with one of the most eligible, most coveted matrimonial prizes in all England.
The funny thing was that since that kiss, she and Stephen had scarcely glanced at each other. They had not exchanged one private word. Although they were sitting next to each other at supper, they were each kept busy talking with other people. And smiling—eternally smiling.
He was going to have to suffer some acute embarrassment for a while when no notice of their betrothal appeared in the papers and when it became clear to everyone that they were not in fact engaged at all.
But men recovered easily from such embarrassments. And the female half of the human race would rejoice and quickly forgive him.
Oh, she wished she had not come tonight. Or agreed to dance the waltz with him. Or allowed him to twirl her out onto the balcony. Or allowed him to kiss her there.
Though that was unfair. She had not allowed anything. She had been a full and willing participant.
But not in the announcement he had then felt obliged to make.
Though honesty forced her to admit that he had had very little choice but to do exactly what he had done.
She hoped the lawyer had not exaggerated when he had said two weeks.
Lord Compton-Haig, at the prompting of his wife, rose to propose a toast to the newly betrothed couple, and everyone rose and clinked glasses and drank before heading back to the ballroom and a resumption of the dancing. Stephen led out the Duchess of Moreland, his sister, and Cassandra danced with the duke. Fortunately it was a rather intricate country dance and did not allow for much private conversation. From the sober look on Moreland’s face, Cassandra guessed that he would have had a great deal to say to her if he had had the opportunity.