by Mary Balogh
“Perhaps,” Katherine said, clasping her hands to her bosom and batting her eyelids theatrically as she twirled once about, “he has heard of the Valentine’s ball and has come here to seek a bride.”
“Oh, Lord,” Stephen said. “Has Valentine’s Day turned you daft, Kate?”
He laughed and ducked away from the cushion she hurled at his head.
The parlor door opened again to admit Mrs. Thrush. She had Stephen’s best shirt over one arm.
“I have just ironed it, Mr. Stephen,” she told him as he thanked her and took it from her. “You take it up to your room immediately and lay it flat on your bed. I do not want to see it all creases again even before you put it on.”
“No, ma’am,” he said, winking at her. “I mean, yes, ma’am. I did not even realize it needed ironing.”
“No.” She clucked her tongue. “I don’t suppose you did. But if all the young girls are going to be swooning over you, as I daresay they will, you might as well be wearing a freshly ironed shirt. And not those boots. Phew! I’ll have you down scrubbing my floors with your own hands if you do not take them off and set them outside the door before you go upstairs.”
“The ironing was to be my next task,” Margaret said. “Thank you, Mrs. Thrush. Now I think it is time we all thought about getting ready for the assembly Nessie, it is certainly time you went home before Lady Dew sends out a search party. Stephen, do get those disgusting boots out of this parlor. Mrs. Thrush, please make yourself a cup of tea and put your feet up for a while. You have been busy all day.”
“And you have been sitting around doing nothing, I suppose,” Mrs. Thrush retorted. “Oh, I must tell you all. Mrs. Harris knocked on the back door not five minutes since. There is a viscount staying at the inn. Sir Humphrey went to call on him there and has invited him to the assembly as his particular guest. What do you think of that?”
She looked a little surprised when they all burst out laughing, but then she joined them.
“Poor man,” she said. “He probably didn’t have any choice with Sir Humphrey And I suppose it is just as well if he does go to the dance. The inn would be pretty noisy for anyone trying to get some rest.”
“There you are, Kate,” Stephen said. “If he has come looking for a bride, this is your chance.”
“Or Miss Margaret’s,” Mrs. Thrush said. “She is as pretty as a picture. It is time her prince came riding by.”
Margaret laughed.
“But this man is only a viscount,” she said, “and I absolutely insist upon waiting for a prince to ride by. Now move, everyone, or we are going to be late.”
She hugged Vanessa as her sister prepared to leave the room.
“Don’t change your mind about this evening,” she said. “Come, Nessie. Indeed, if you do not, I may well have to leave the inn and come to get you. It is time for you to enjoy life again.”
Vanessa walked alone back to Rundle Park, having refused Stephen’s offer to escort her. She was definitely going to the assembly, she thought, though she had not been quite sure about it even when she had arrived at the cottage. She was going. And despite herself— despite lingering grief for Hedley and a certain guilt over even thinking of enjoying herself again—she was looking forward to the evening with some eagerness. Dancing had always been one of her favorite activities, yet she had not danced for more than two years.
Was it selfish, heartless, to want to live again?
Her mother-in-law wanted her to go. So did her sisters-in-law. And Sir Humphrey—Hedley’s father— had even told her she must dance.
Would anyone offer to partner her, though?
Surely someone would.
She would dance if someone asked her.
Perhaps the viscount…
She chuckled aloud at the absurd thought as she turned onto the footpath that was a shortcut to the house.
Perhaps the viscount was ninety years old and bald and toothless.
And married.
3
“I WISH,“ Louisa Rotherhyde said as she stood with Vanessa in the assembly rooms watching all the late arrivals and nodding and smiling in greeting at any acquaintance—at everyone, in other words—who passed close to them, “Viscount Lyngate would turn out to be tall, blond, and handsome and no more than twenty-five years old and charming and amiable and not at all high in the instep. And I wish he would turn out to like dumpy, mousy-haired females of very modest fortunes—well, no fortune at all, in fact—and marginally agreeable manners and years to match his own. I suppose I need not wish that he were rich. Doubtless he is.”
Vanessa fanned her face and laughed.
“You are not dumpy,” she assured her friend. “And your hair is a pretty shade of light brown. Your manners are very agreeable indeed, and your character is your fortune. And you have a lovely smile. Hedley used to say so.”
“Bless his heart,” Louisa said. “But the viscount has a friend with him. Perhaps he will see fit to become passionately attached to me—if he should happen to be personable, that is. And it would help if he were in possession of a sizable fortune too. It is all very well, Nessie, to have dances and assemblies and dinners and parties and picnics galore, but one always sees exactly the same faces at every entertainment. Do you never wish for London and a Season and beaux and … Ah, but of course you do not. You had Hedley He was beautiful.”
“Yes, he was,” Vanessa agreed.
“Did Sir Humphrey describe Viscount Lyngate to you?” Louisa asked hopefully.
“He described him as an agreeable young gentleman,” Vanessa said. “But to Father-in-law anyone below the age of his own sixty-four years is young, and almost everyone is agreeable. He sees his own good nature in everyone. And no, Louisa, he did not describe the viscount’s looks. Gentlemen do not, you know I do believe we are about to find out for ourselves, however.”
Her father-in-law had entered the assembly rooms, looking important in his genial way, his chest thrust out with pride, his palms rubbing together, his complexion ruddy with pleasure. Behind him were two gentlemen, and there was no doubting who they were. There were very rarely any strangers in Throckbridge. Of the few there had been in living memory, none—not a single one—had ever attended a dance at the assembly rooms and precious few had ever been to the annual summer ball at Rundle Park.
These two were strangers—and they were at the assembly.
And one of them, of course, was a viscount.
The one who stepped into the room first behind Sir Humphrey was of medium height and build, though there was perhaps a suggestion of portliness about his middle. He had brown hair that was short and neatly combed, and a face that was saved from ordinariness by the open, pleasing amiability with which he observed the scene about him. He looked as if he were genuinely glad to be here. He was conservatively dressed in a dark blue coat with gray breeches and white linen. While probably past the age of twenty-five, he certainly still qualified for the epithet young.
Louisa plied her fan and sighed audibly. So did a number of the other ladies present.
But Vanessa’s eyes had moved to the other gentleman, and she knew immediately that it was he who had provoked the sigh. She did not participate in it. Her mouth had turned suddenly dry, and for a few timeless moments she lost all awareness of her surroundings.
He was about the same age as the other gentleman, but there all similarities ended. He was tall and slim without being in any way thin. Indeed, his shoulders and chest were solidly built while his waist and hips were slender. His legs were long and muscled in all the right places. He had very dark hair, almost black, in fact, and it was thick and shining and cut expertly to look both tidy and disheveled at the same time. His face was bronzed and classically handsome with an aquiline nose, well-defined cheekbones, and the hint of a cleft in his chin. He had a firmly set mouth. He looked slightly foreign, as if perhaps he had some Italian or Spanish blood.
He looked gorgeous.
He looked perfect.
She m
ight have fallen headlong in love with him, along with at least half the other ladies present, if she had not noticed something else about him. Two things, in fact.
He looked insufferably arrogant.
And he looked bored.
His eyelids were half drooped over his eyes. He held a quizzing glass in his hand, though he did not raise it to his eye. He looked about the room as if he could not quite believe the shabbiness of his surroundings.
There was not even the faintest suggestion of a smile on his lips. Instead, there was a hint of disdain as if he could not wait to get back downstairs to his room. Or, better yet, far away from Throckbridge.
He looked as if this were the last place on earth he wanted to be.
And so she did not fall in love with him, magnificent and godlike as he undoubtedly was to the eyes. He had stepped into her world, into the world of her family and friends, uninvited, and found it inferior and undesirable. How dared he! Instead of brightening her evening, as the presence of any stranger ought to have done— especially a handsome gentleman—he was actually threatening to spoil it.
For everyone, of course, would fawn over him. No one would behave naturally No one would relax and enjoy the dancing. And no one would talk of anyone else but him for days —or more likely weeks—to come.
As if some god had favored them by dropping into their midst.
And yet it seemed clear to her that he despised them all—or that at the very least he found them all a colossal bore.
She wished he had come tomorrow—or not at all.
He was dressed all in black and white, a fashion she had heard was all the crack in London. When she had heard it, she had thought how very dull, how very unattractive.
She had been wrong, of course.
He looked sleek, elegant, and perfect.
He looked like every woman’s ideal of a romantic hero. Like that Adonis they all dreamed of, especially on St. Valentine’s Day, come to sweep them off their feet and onto his prancing white courser and away to a happily-forever-after in his castle in the clouds—white, fluffy ones, not damp, gray, English ones.
But Vanessa deeply resented him. If he despised them and their offered entertainment so much, he could at least have had the decency to look like a gargoyle.
She heard the echo of the sigh that had wafted about the assembly rooms like a breeze and fervently hoped she had not shared in it.
“Which one do you suppose is Viscount Lyngate?” Louisa asked in a whisper—necessary in the hush that had fallen over the room—as she leaned closer to Vanessa’s right ear.
“The handsome one, without a doubt,” Vanessa said. “I would wager on it.”
“Ah,” Louisa said, regret in her voice. “I think so too. He is impossibly gorgeous even if he is not blond, but he does not look as if he would be bowled over by my charms, does he?”
No, he certainly did not. Or by anyone else’s from this humble, obscure corner of the world. His whole bearing suggested a man with an enormous sense of his own consequence. He was probably only ever bowled over by his own charms.
What on earth was he doing in Throckbridge? Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere?
The gentlemen did not remain long in the doorway. Sir Humphrey led them about, a broad smile of satisfaction on his face as if he were solely responsible for bringing them to the village on this of all days. He presented them to almost everyone present, beginning with Mrs. Hardy at the pianoforte, Jamie Latimer on the flute, and Mr. Rigg on the violin. Soon after, the gentlemen were bowing to Margaret and Katherine. And a few moments after that, they were nodding to Stephen and Melinda and Henrietta Dew, Vanessa’s sister-in-law, and the group of other very young people gathered with them.
“I do think everyone ought to start talking again in more than whispers,” Vanessa whispered.
The shorter gentleman exchanged a few words with everyone, she noticed. And he smiled and looked interested. The other gentleman—undoubtedly Viscount Lyngate—remained virtually silent and totally intimidated everyone. Vanessa suspected that it was quite deliberate. His eyebrows rose when he was introduced to Stephen, giving him a look of great aristocratic hauteur.
And of course Melinda was giggling.
“Why is he here?” Louisa asked, still in a whisper. “In Throckbridge, that is. Did Sir Humphrey say?”
“They told him they were here on business,” Vanessa said. “They must not have explained what it was or Father-in-law would not have been able to resist telling us.”
“Business?” Louisa sounded both puzzled and amazed. “In Throckbridge? “Whatever can it be?”
Vanessa had, of course, been wondering the same thing ever since Katherine had brought word of his arrival this afternoon. How could she not? How could anyone not? Whatever business could anyone have in a sleepy backwater like Throckbridge, picturesque as it was, especially in the summer, and dear as it was to her?
What business could a viscount have here?
And what business did he have looking down upon them all as if they were mere worms beneath his expensive dancing shoes?
She did not know the answers and perhaps never would. But there was no time for further speculation— not now anyway Her father-in-law was bringing the two gentlemen their way Vanessa wished he would not, but she realized that it was inevitable.
Sir Humphrey smiled jovially from Vanessa to Louisa.
“And this is the eldest Miss Rotherhyde,” he announced, and added, with a lamentable lack of tact and questionable truth, “and the beauty of the family.”
Louisa hung her head in obvious mortification and curtsied low.
“And Mrs. Hedley Dew, my dear daughter-in-law,” Sir Humphrey added, beaming at Vanessa. “She was married to my son until his unfortunate demise over a year ago. Viscount Lyngate, ladies, and Mr. Bowen.”
Vanessa had made the right identification, then. But she had never doubted it. She curtsied.
“Ma’am,” Mr. Bowen said, bowing and addressing her with a charming but sympathetic smile, “my deepest commiserations.”
“Thank you,” she said while she was aware of Viscount Lyngate’s eyes fixed on her. She had worn her lavender gown after all as a slight salve to her conscience for deciding to come to enjoy herself—though she knew Hedley would have urged her to wear the green. It was not a vibrant lavender, and it had never fit quite right. She knew it was a dreary garment that did not become her at all.
She hated herself at that moment for minding, for wishing she had chosen the green after all.
“I insisted that she come to the assembly tonight,” Sir Humphrey explained. “She is far too young and pretty to mourn forever, as I am sure you would agree, gentlemen. She was good to my boy while he lived, and that is what counts. I have insisted that she must dance too. Has anyone solicited your hand for the first set, Nessie?”
She had grimaced inwardly at his opening words. She could have sunk through the floor at his last. She knew what he was going to say next.
“No, Papa,” she said hastily before it occurred to her that she might have lied. “But—”
“Then I do not doubt one of these gentlemen would be delighted to lead you into the opening set,” he said, rubbing his hands together and beaming at her.
There was a tiny silence while Vanessa fervently wished she could join poor Hedley in the grave.
“Perhaps, Mrs. Dew,” the viscount said—his voice was deep and velvet-toned, to add to his other physical perfections, “you would do me the honor?”
She was being asked to dance with a viscount. With this viscount, this most glorious of male creatures. This arrogant… popinjay But sometimes her sense of the ridiculous came close to being her undoing. Whatever must the viscount be thinking? She almost laughed aloud and dared not glance Margaret’s way But mortification quickly outpaced any amusement she was feeling. How absolutely awful that the assembly should begin this way.
Was it her imagination that the whole room hung upon her response?
> Of course it was not.
Oh, goodness gracious. She really ought to have insisted upon remaining at home with a book and her memories.
“Thank you.” She curtsied again and regarded the hand stretched out for hers with some fascination. It was as fine and as well manicured as any lady’s. And yet there was nothing remotely effeminate about it.
Or about him, of course. Close up, he looked even taller and more solid and powerful than he had from across the room. She could smell a subtle masculine cologne. She could feel the heat of his aura.
And there was one other thing about his face, she noticed as she set her hand on his and looked up at him. His eyes were not dark, as his hair and complexion had led her to expect, but were of the deepest, clearest blue. They looked back at her keenly from beneath those still-drooped lids.
His hand was solid and warm.
Well, she thought as he led her toward the lines that were forming and Mr. Rigg played a nervous little trill on his fiddle, this was an evening she was not going to forget in a hurry. She was to dance with a handsome, proud viscount—and the opening set, no less. She wished she could go home afterward and share the fun with Hedley.
“Nessie?” Viscount Lyngate said as he settled her in the line of ladies and prepared to depart for the gentlemen’s line opposite. His eyebrows were raised again. He was not addressing her. He was asking a question.
“Vanessa,” she explained, and then wished she had not said it in such an apologetic way.
She did not hear clearly what he said in response as he stepped into the line opposite her own, but she thought it was “Thank God!”
Had he really said it?
She looked keenly at him, but he did not repeat the words, whatever they had been.
She had never liked the shortened form of her name. Nessie Dew sounded like such a … plain woman. But even so, it was none of his business what her family and friends chose to call her.
The men on either side of Viscount Lyngate looked awed and slightly uncomfortable. So would the ladies on either side of her if she turned her head to look, Vanessa guessed.