by Vanessa Gray
Phrynie returned to her room, and Nell proceeded to put on her ball gown. She wore her new white lace and fastened her mother’s pearls around her. How virginal she looked! she told herself. An omen of some significance, more than likely.
A tap on the door heralded another caller, this one more than unwelcome. “Tom, I am surprised to see you,” Nell told him, frost edging her words. “When I saw you last, you could not escape quickly enough.”
“I am sorry, Nell. But I must tell you —”
“Nothing I wish to hear, I am sure.”
“Quite likely.” She saw that his lips were set in an unaccustomed grimace. Clearly his message was not expected to be a popular one. “Nell, I’m not giving my approval for you to wed Foxhall.”
She gaped at him. “But you already did!”
“I will rescind it. Nell, you cannot be happy with that windbag.”
Irritation turned to full-fledged anger. “I suppose you are doing what you think is best for me? My dear brother, I beg leave to take exception to your misguided authority. It is entirely your fault that we came here to Vienna. If you had been where you were supposed to be, you could have made your decision at once, instead of weeks later, after that odious journey! You could have brought the parcel yourself to Vienna, and I would now be preparing for the Christmas holidays in Essex. And I would not have made myself a complete idiot, for you must know that Rowland has explained to me the contents of that parcel I guarded with my very life!”
Tom’s mouth dropped open. He was stunned by the fury of her onslaught. He caught hold of only one of the accusations hurled at him. “But you thought Foxhall wouldn’t believe you, without that parcel for an excuse!”
“That doesn’t matter. He offered for me.”
“He did?” Tom’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Then I shall have to seek him out, to tell him —”
“Oh, tell him nothing!” she raged. “I have turned him down. You may call me ape-leader, for you will never call me Lady Foxhall!”
For once, and wisely, Tom held his tongue. He was rewarded by his sister throwing herself in his arms and sobbing violently on his shoulder. For perhaps the first time, he felt some sympathy with Foxhall. He had a shrewd idea that the man was just as bewildered by Nell’s about-face as he was himself. Women!
*
The Archduke Josef Salvator’s ball was a huge success. Everyone said so. The Duchess of Netwick screwed up her malicious little face, cast a significant glance at Phrynie, and remarked that the archduke was coming out of mourning, wasn’t he?
Penelope Freeland entered, triumphantly smiling, on the arm of Lord Foxhall. Nell, her dress as innocent as the one she wore when her aunt presented her to society last April, was escorted by her brother, to whom she seemed to have little to say.
The evening seemed to her to have no relation to time. She could not tell how many sets she danced, how many partners she had, for they all flew by in a blur. At length, when Tom came to her, perhaps an hour after they arrived, she was dizzy with the noise and the insufferable heat, more suitable to a conservatory than a ballroom. The Austrians knew how to keep warm, without doubt.
“Tom, please, let us not dance. I have the headache, and I am so thirsty.”
Relieved, he said, “Let me get you something to drink. Not alcoholic, of course, but I expect they have lemon squash.”
The small room to which he led her was a quiet haven. The door stood open, of course, but the insistent hum of many voices receded, like the distant hum of bees in the meadows in high summer at Aspinall Hall. Would she had never left it!
Her brother had been gone a very long time, so it seemed. She could hear voices outside now, someone sounding very much like Rowland, saying deferentially, “Your Grace —”
The door opened, not to admit Rowland. Instead a man dressed in a colonel’s uniform, resplendent with medals, came in and closed the door behind him. He advanced to her and bowed low over her hand. “Miss Aspinall,” he said, “I hope I see you in good health?”
“Reeves! What are you doing here? Where did you get that uniform?”
“I admit,” he said looking down at it, “it is not the precise fit that Weston would furnish. I did have to borrow it.”
“Borrow! Stole, more likely. Reeves, Rowland is coming back in a moment. You’ve got to leave!”
His hazel eyes quizzed her. “You want Foxhall?”
“No, no, but you will be caught! You’ll be in jail!”
“I think not.” He still held her hand tightly in his.
“There is nothing amusing about being in jail!”
“I have been imprisoned before,” he said. “Does that make a difference to you?”
“That was when you were in the war. And it wouldn’t make any difference anyway!” Her fear for him loosened her tongue and swept away discretion. “I’ll get Fulke. He must be nearby. He’ll help you get out of the palace.”
His smile was odd. He pulled her to him and held her close. He bent to touch her lips gently with his. She moaned in frustration, and some real irritation.
“My dear, I do not wish to leave the palace. I came here purposely to see you.”
“Very well, I’ll go with you. It’s not safe to be here.”
He seemed heedless of any danger to himself. Instead, he seized upon her remark. “You will go with me? How far?”
“Out of the palace —”
“How far are you prepared to go, to be with me?” he persisted.
She was shaken. He was demanding of her more than she could give. She could not see herself as a coachman’s wife, or even the wife of a man who had behaved so badly that he had to wander through Europe, picking up employment where he could.
But, to be quite honest with herself, she could surely see herself as the wife of this man with the hazel eyes, usually so full of amusement.
He was not amused now. His eyes seemed to bore into hers, to pull out of her the truth she did not wish to admit. “I cannot tell,” she said at last, in a pitifully forlorn tone. “I do not know how to do so many things that you would need. I cannot sew or cook, and you would soon detest me…”
“You intend then,” he said harshly, “to marry Foxhall for the advantages he can give you?”
Incensed, she drew back. She lifted her open hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist.
“Shall I bring him back?”
“No. I have turned him down. I cannot marry him.”
The moment was tense. He waited, silently demanding, and she could not answer him for a bit. Finally she looked away. When she spoke, he had to bend to hear her. “Without you, I will go sadly all the rest of my life.”
“Then?” He was still, waiting for her.
“I should not like to be forward. Do you want me?”
His answer was swift and wordless. Gone for the moment was the gentle touch, the sweet tenderness she had known once before. Now his embrace was the exultant expression of a man who had been given his heart’s desire. “Do I want you!”
He released her at last. She caught her breath tremulously and smiled up at him through teary eyes. “I don’t know what will happen, Reeves,” she said, “but I don’t care, if you are with me.”
The door opened with a bang. She would have sprung away from his embrace, but he would not let her go. “Here is your glass of squash,” said Tom. He surveyed them both, grinning. “I thought you had the headache, Nell.”
She looked from one to the other. She had an impulse to stand between her aunt’s coachman in his stolen uniform and retribution in the person of Lord Foxhall. The coachman glared at the intruder. “Tom, I thought I told you to stay out.”
“Doesn’t Nell want her drink? She is thirsty.”
“Are you, my love?” said Reeves, laughing at her appalled expression.
“Tom…” she said faintly.
“It’s no good, Nell,” said her brother, unaccountably chuckling. “No need to ask me to approve this marriage. With what I have just seen
—”
“If you had obeyed my instructions, you would have been spared such a sight,” retorted the other.
“Duke,” said Tom, smothering his amusement, “do you wish to ask me something?”
“Very well. I shall ask for your sister’s hand in marriage, you rogue. And I do not scruple to tell you that a refusal will result in your head-first immersion in the nearest horse trough.”
Nell chose this moment to interrupt. “I do not know quite what you two are talking about. Schoolroom japery, no doubt. I have not agreed to marry anyone in this room. Tom, I shall ask for your escort back to our aunt.”
“Now wait, Nell…” began Tom. Upon a gesture from the other man, he slid through the door and closed it firmly behind him.
“Now then,” said Reeves, “my little love, what is amiss?”
“I collect that you and my brother have combined once again to show me up as the fool that I am.” The tears in her voice strangled her. She put her hands to her face. He came to her, but she shrugged away from him.
“If you were willing to come with me into what you supposed to be a life of exile, then I cannot understand why you are unwilling to be my love in a civilized life.” He laughed a little. “I cannot help it, my dear, that I succeeded to the title. It was no part of my plans to become the Duke of Whern.” She whirled in astonishment. “The Duke of Whern?”
“You did not guess? I fear I was not a very convincing coachman. Does it truly matter what I am?”
She could not answer. Shock held her in its grip so that she could not move, or even speak. She could only look at the floor. After what seemed to be a long time, she heard him say, in a dreary tone, “Very well, my dear.” She heard his footsteps retreating to the door. She must not let him go!
She called out, “Reeves — I mean, Your Grace…”
He turned back to see an expression he would never forget on her face. Her eyes brilliant with tears, a pinkly radiant flush on her cheeks, her hands out in an arrested gesture of appeal — he reached her in two strides. “My love, my dearest, my beloved …”
The rest of his words were lost in her hair.
She drew away at last. Shakily she whispered, “Reeves? Truly I do not know what to call you.”
“John will do. If I may make a suggestion?”
“Oh, yes.”
“John darling would suit.”
She repeated it prettily. “I shall be easier with it,” she added, sweetly shy, “as I become accustomed to it.”
“You will have every opportunity to practice,” he said, and kissed her again, even more thoroughly.
*
Phrynie, having been brought au courant by her nephew, was consumed by impatience. Imagine, the Duke of Whern her coachman! And she had thought him a product of Newgate prison!
She placed herself now in a position to watch the door behind which momentous events were taking place. While she watched, Tom had gone in and soon emerged, winking at her before he moved away.
Her little Nell a duchess! It was quite beyond belief.
But as the time wore on, Phrynie began to wonder whether it would all turn out right in the end. Always one to turn first to the last page of a novel to see how it came out, now her impatience prodded her unmercifully.
On tiptoe she crossed the carpeted hall and put her hand on the latch. She glanced about. There was no one in sight, since all dear Josef’s guests had gone in to supper. She put her ear to the door and listened. There was no sound. Not even a murmur.
She could no more have resisted her next move than she could have waltzed on the rooftop. She pressed the latch and silently opened the door.
What she saw within the room caused her to retreat at once, entirely satisfied. Now she could look forward to her own concerns. The Emperor was giving a ball on the weekend, and Josef planned at that time to seek permission of the head of his family to marry. If he played his cards right, he had confided in her, there might even be an ambassadorship to London sent his way, and he could take his bride back to her homeland in style.
Coming to Vienna had been the most superb idea, and she was most pleased with herself for thinking of it. She must remember to point out to Nell how well things had turned out after all.
She smiled to herself. She was quite sure that Nell already knew that.
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