Lady Carew smiled. “Why, my little feather. How do you do?”
Ready to sink, Henrietta inclined her head. “How do you do?”
As Lady Carew passed on, Henrietta looked wildly around for the Laceys. She needed to warn Matthew. However, he was not in her line of vision, and she could hardly charge up and down the gallery looking for him.
Instead, she murmured to Cecily. “Who is Lady Carew?”
“Sir Edward Carew’s wife, and not someone your mother would encourage you to be intimate with. Not before your marriage at least.” Cecily brought her too-perceptive gaze back to Henrietta. “But you seem to know her already.”
“I bumped into her once,” Henrietta admitted vaguely. “But I didn’t know her name.”
At that moment, everyone began to move toward the dining room. Lord Rudd materialized beside her, offering his arm. “I believe we are seated together.”
“What a coincidence,” Henrietta murmured, her mind still on Lady Carew as she laid her fingers on Rudd’s sleeve.
“Not really. I arranged it that way.”
“I don’t believe you,” Henrietta said baldly.
A light of amused challenge gleamed in his eyes. “You don’t believe I am capable of such arrangement?”
“Oh, I’m sure you are more than capable. I merely see no reason why you would bother.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I cannot quite work out whether that is maidenly modesty or a set-down.”
Henrietta smiled sweetly, and he laughed.
Only after they had sat down did she catch sight of Matthew, about to walk past behind her. Pretending to readjust her gown, she rose and exchanged smiles with him.
“That woman is here,” she breathed. “From Corzone House.”
His eyes widened, his gaze immediately darting around the table. Henrietta, her duty done, sat back down.
Rudd regarded her with sleepy curiosity. “Surely not your favored suitor?”
Henrietta laughed. “Hardly! We are old friends and neighbors. You probably know his sister, Miss Lacey.”
“I can’t think of her.”
Since Rudd had never been anything other than good company, dinner, which was excellent in terms of both quantity and quality, passed quite pleasantly. Henrietta conversed as much with the gentleman on her other side, but in any case, no one could have accused Rudd of trying to monopolize her. Either her mother was wrong about his intentions, Henrietta concluded, or it was a clever way of piquing her interest. It would probably have worked, too, when she had first gone to London, a naïve and rather silly young girl. A lot seemed to have changed in the last few months.
“I hope you will save the first dance for me,” Rudd said as the ladies began to depart in Lady Manson’s wake. “Better still, the waltz, since I believe there is to be one.”
“You may hope,” Henrietta said lightly. “But I cannot promise.”
Something predatory that she didn’t quite like flickered in his eyes as she left him to join her mother. Fortunately, Matthew again caught up with her at the stairs. “Second dance is a waltz,” he muttered. “We can talk best, then.”
Henrietta nodded. It was an excellent idea and had the added benefit of keeping Lord Rudd at bay.
She changed into her ball gown and patiently allowed her mother to swap jewelry around and let the maid re-pin her hair. She barely heard her mother’s latest advice and instruction, for a certain sense of unreality seemed to have gripped her, along with a restless impatience she was at a loss to account for.
I think I would rather be home with Eliza. The unprecedented wish took her by surprise, but even then, she knew it wasn’t quite true. Something would still be missing.
Obediently, she rose and accompanied her parents downstairs to the ballroom which had been built onto the back of the house. The air was oppressively warm, both because of the heat of the summer evening and the number of candles illuminating the Grecian style ballroom. It was also packed with people, not only those who had dined at the house, but many other guests, too.
Most were talking about the absence of the earl’s guest of honor, the promised heir. Some said it was only rumor that had made such a promise, not his lordship. Others were of the opinion that the lout—why lout, Henrietta wondered?—had let him down. Others, again, looked forward to his dramatic entry at some point in the evening.
For the first country dance, she stood up with the young man she had sat beside at dinner. Unfortunately, she had forgotten his name, and felt unable to ask, but at least it was an enjoyable experience, and she returned to her mother much more happily to rest and drink a glass of iced lemonade.
Matthew joined her almost immediately with all the informality of an old family friend. With equal informality, Henrietta felt able to more or less ignore him while she looked around the ballroom. Her gaze was caught by the blond, disgruntled looking young man who stood in line for the earldom, scowling across the floor. Quite suddenly, he looked around and caught her staring. Immediately, she looked away, but the damage was done. From the corner of her eye, she saw him seize Lady Mason’s arm and almost drag her in Henrietta’s direction.
“Might I present my cousin to you, Lady Overton?” said the flustered Lady Manson. “I believe he wishes to solicit your charming daughter for the waltz.”
Matthew’s head shot up. “Sorry, she’s already promised to me for the waltz,” he said abruptly. Everyone stared at him for his rudeness until he reddened up to his hair. “Well, she is,” he said defiantly. “Though I apologize for my rude interruption.”
“Be fair, Matthew,” Lady Overton said coldly. “You haven’t actually asked her.”
“Then I do so now,” the discontented young man said, looking more pleased by the conflict than anything else. “Miss Maybury—”
“We agreed after dinner,” Matthew interrupted once more.
Henrietta’s mother looked as if she was about to give Matthew the set-down of his life, when Lord Rudd suddenly materialized between them.
“The matter is easily resolved, ma’am,” he said smoothly. “In fact, Miss Maybury promised the waltz to me during dinner.”
The blond, young man glared at Rudd as more serious competition, presumably, than Matthew. Henrietta, overwhelmed by the ridiculousness of the situation, began to laugh.
“Henrietta,” her mother scolded.
Other people were looking across at them with amusement. Henrietta realized she was in danger of becoming a laughing stock and wondered if she cared. And then fingers lightly clasped her gloved hand and raised it.
She spun around to face the one person she had been sure she wouldn’t see there.
“Run,” he advised.
Chapter Seven
Captain Cromarty had no intention of going anywhere near Steynings, certainly not within the fortnight stipulated by his grandfather, let alone to attend the ball by which the old earl intended to force his hand.
And yet, he found himself in evening dress, riding over the land to which he was now heir. It seemed to be good land, and yet it could have been made better. There were also a few too many unattended repairs to cottages and barns, a few too many pinched and discontented faces among the villagers he passed.
I could do no better. I know nothing about farming or land management.
He told himself he was going in order to show his grandfather the contempt his lordship’s friends had for him, even when acknowledged by the earl himself. There may even have been an element of truth to that. But mostly, it was sheer curiosity, the same curiosity that had compelled him to visit Verne, as well as to see the patrimony he was ignoring. And the mischief which never quite left him wanted to see if he could gain entry to the ball at which he was, apparently, the guest of honor.
And so, he left his horse with a servant and, among a crowd of wealthy, fashionable guests, he simply sauntered into the massive pile he had seen previously only from a distance. No one asked for his card of invitation, which was still in
London. He followed the crowd into the overheated ballroom and propped his shoulder against a faux-Grecian pillar while he looked about.
His grandfather stood nearby, beside a woman who resembled him closely enough to be his sister. They were welcoming the new arrivals, although a country dance was already in progress.
Without approaching the earl, Cromarty strolled further into the room. No one paid him much attention, but he surveyed them, recognizing a good number of them from business and even from school.
He spotted Henrietta almost at once, and allowed himself a moment to watch her grace and her smiling, happy countenance. He should have known she would be there. Perhaps he had guessed it. Perhaps she was the real reason he had come. For she had been haunting him more than ever since he had run into her at Finsborough. Since he had flirted with her. He’d no real idea what had possessed him that day, except she was lovely and fun, and he’d wanted to beguile her and make her smile…
Restlessly, he moved on, picking out Lord and Lady Verne, Augusta Cromarty and Susannah Carew, among others. He discovered his cousin Gareth watching a card game in one of the ante-rooms. Rudd was there, too. Cromarty left as the music stopped and continued his circling of the room. Still, it seemed, no one had noticed him, let alone reported his presence to Lord Silford.
Henrietta now stood beside her mother, her cheeks pleasantly rosy as she drank a cooling glass of lemonade. Young Matthew Lacey was beside her. Cromarty leaned against another pillar and forced himself to look away. There was something about that girl…
Inevitably, his bored gaze returned to her as the orchestra struck up for a waltz. Idly, he wondered what she would say if he asked her. Would she pretend neither to see nor hear, as in the theater that first evening, once she had discovered he was not of her class? Or would friendship win?
Either way, he had no intention of forcing her to make such a choice, for the same reasons he had withdrawn from his luncheon invitation. He would never force his company on anyone by any means, and he could never use a person’s innate politeness to compel them to accept it. He could never bring any kind of harm on Henrietta.
Besides, he had not come to dance, let alone embarrass the only person there he seemed to care about.
In any case, she seemed to be spoiled for choice. His cousin Charles Cromarty and Matthew appeared to be arguing over the honor when Rudd joined them as if his very presence settled the matter. Those standing nearby cast looks of scandalized amusement at the scene. Lady Overton was frowning at Henrietta as though it were her fault, while Henrietta herself laughed and looked as if she would simply walk away from the whole parcel of them.
That she didn’t bothered Cromarty, until he realized she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t leave her mother’s side without permission and an escort. Well, he could supply the latter and cared nothing for the former. And he had no objection to putting Rudd’s or Cousin Charles’s contemptuous noses out of joint.
He walked up and took Henrietta’s hand. She swung on him with alarm, and then with pure relief that translated into a blinding smile. He could barely breathe.
Somehow, he managed to advise sardonically, “Run,” before he glanced at Lady Overton. “With your permission, ma’am.”
To avoid fuss and unwanted attention, of course, she was obliged to smile and nod – although her expression was glacial. Under the noses of the furious Charles and the narrow-eyed Rudd, Cromarty stole off with his prize.
“How very clever of you,” Henrietta said breathlessly. “And I am most definitely grateful! I should have taken Matthew’s arm at the outset, but I didn’t think fast enough. It is so frightfully hot in here.”
“It is,” Cromarty agreed. “Now, where would you like to go? To Lady Verne, perhaps?”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Why, don’t you want to dance?”
It would be as close as he ever came to holding her in his arms.
Her expression changed to one of contrition. “Or don’t you dance?”
“I have done,” he said gravely. “And I am quite at your disposal. Only think of your reputation.”
“I have thought of nothing else for months,” she said with odd grimness, all but tugging him toward the dancers.
“Apart from visiting the Hart in disguise,” he reminded her, as he encircled her waist with his arm and swung her into the dance.
“Oh, I have to tell you, that lady—your Lady Carew—is here!”
“I know. I saw her.”
“Really? Wouldn’t you rather dance with her? There is only to be one waltz, I believe.”
“Yes. No. And I am happy to have the honor. Although you are now in the unenviable position of explaining me to your parents.”
“Oh, I shall tell them you helped me with Minnie at the theater. Providing Matthew doesn’t come up with some silly whopper in the meantime. I am delighted to see you, of course, but what are you doing here? It surely is nothing to do with Lord Steynings’s brandy.”
A laugh escaped him. “No, not exactly. I wandered in to see if I could and no one stopped me.”
Her eyes sparkled. “You see, this is what my wager with Matthew was all about. Men can do more or less as they like. While I cannot even decide for myself who I wish or don’t wish to dance with! But won’t Lord Silford’s people throw you out when he realizes no one knows you?”
“No, I don’t believe he will.”
“I suppose it would look bad for him,” she said.
“My aim is to see how long it is before he notices me.”
“You might make it through the whole ball, for there must be lots of people here he doesn’t know personally. He did not know me, for example, before dinner. And lots more people have come since then.”
He only smiled. She made him want to smile all the time. Graceful, soft, and yielding in his hold, she was utter, innocent pleasure. At least, the innocence lay on her side, not on his.
“Why do you dance with me?” he asked abruptly. “Are you still apologizing for the theater?”
Her eyebrows flew up. “I’d forgotten about that.” She smiled. “You are too generous to bear a grudge.”
He scowled. “No, I’m not. You would not credit the size of some of the grudges I bear.”
“Then I must not be important enough to count,” she said.
“Or it’s the other way round.”
“But that would be silly,” she objected. “Who could bear a grudge about something that was not important to them?”
He searched her face, absently swinging her around to avoid an oncoming couple. “That is a very good point.”
“Is it?” she asked.
“I’m beginning to think you have wisdom beyond your years while mine is considerably less.”
A faint frown tugged at her brow. “I don’t know why you would think so, but if you tell me your trouble, I’ll be happy to give you my opinion and help if I can.”
“Why should you imagine I have troubles?”
“A man with such massive grudges? Of course you have.”
He smiled. “Perhaps I will tell you one day.”
“What is wrong with this day?”
“It’s a party. You’re meant to be enjoying yourself.”
“I am,” she said, and immediately flushed slightly. “I like dancing with you. You waltz more naturally than any other partner I’ve had.”
“I thought I was being restrained. The English waltz is so stuffy. One day, I’ll show you how they waltz in Europe.”
“Truly? I would like that. Where in Europe have you danced? In wartime!”
“That too, I will tell you—”
“—one day,” she finished. “You have so much to say and do on that day, what on earth is there left for now?”
“You are an impudent baggage and I’m very tempted to show you.”
She laughed. “I dare you.”
If her eyes had not danced in that particular way, he would never have done it. But she was the embodiment of e
very desire and sweetness and fun all rolled into one. He was reckless, and the French doors at either end of the ballroom had been flung open to cool the room. He danced her straight out the one at the top. Finding the terrace empty, he bent his head and held her close into him, still dancing.
She gasped, her eyes wide and sparkling, her tremulous lips parting in astonishment. She had pretty lips, rosy and shapely.
“Still daring me?” he asked, low.
“Yes,” she whispered.
And he closed the distance, taking her mouth with slow, tender sensuality. She tasted divine. Her shy response almost undid him. Her feet stumbled. He had to force his own to keep dancing, his arms to loosen and hold her more decorously as he raised his head and danced her back through the French door at the bottom of the ballroom.
“Still having fun?” he flung at her, suddenly angry, not with her but with himself.
She smiled, a dazzling, happy smile that almost had him dragging her back outside. “Yes,” she whispered.
Dear God, what have I done?
*
No one had ever kissed Henrietta like that. Nor had she ever been as close to any man that she felt all the contours of his body. Unbearably sweet and wildly exciting, the experience overwhelmed her so completely that if he had not been holding her, she doubted she could have remained upright. For the first time in her life, her feet stumbled in the waltz as he danced her back into the room.
The whole interlude could have lasted only seconds, and yet she knew her life had changed forever. He had seemed angry, or perhaps just afraid that she would be. And so, she’d smiled with her heart in her eyes, for there had never been such intense happiness as this and she wanted him to know it.
“Oh, Henrie, Henrie, what am I to do about you?” he murmured ruefully.
“Why, am I in trouble?” She cast a quick glance around the ballroom. “Is my mother glaring daggers at me and everyone staring at us?”
“No,” he admitted. “If anyone noticed our brief departure, it will be considered a merely eccentric taking of the air.”
“But it wasn’t.”
The Unmarriageable Collection (Books 1–3) Page 51