by Sophia James
Her eyes were worried and tear filled, leaving them in no doubt of her sincerity.
‘It is of course such a shame that no one else now will see the talent of your cousin and be able to procure a portrait. But perhaps in time Mr Rutherford might return—?
Maria broke her off. ‘No, Frederick is adamant he will never set foot on England’s soil within his lifetime again and he is stubborn to a fault. I should never expect him back.’
‘Those words were almost exactly Lord Winterton’s, were they not, Caroline? He, too, was most certain Mr Rutherford would not be back. He saw the lad take sail apparently, in the dead of night on a rising tide. The Viscount said he barely took a thing with him, save his paints, of course, and one small leather case.’
Flora’s heart had begun to beat quite violently at the name. Was it Winter himself who had started the gossip about Mr Frederick Rutherford? They had been hearing various versions of the same thing since they had returned to Kent and a further thread of their family’s unusual outlook had been attached to that. Could Viscount Winterton possibly be trying to help them from afar?
Was this new development of invitations to the Heron ball his doing, too? Had he wangled the whole thing using his particular kind of cunning and deceit? She smiled, rather thinking he just might have.
* * *
When their visitors finally left two hours later Maria sat down next to Flora on the sofa and began to laugh.
‘My goodness, Flora. Could it possibly be this easy to both be rid of Frederick Rutherford and reintroduce you to society?
‘I don’t know. Mrs Heron said that it was her husband who was most insistent on the help.’
‘Can we trust them, do you think?’
‘Do we have any choice?’
‘Well, if we want this scandal associated with your name gone, I do not think so.’
* * *
Away from the prying eyes of others later that night Florentia allowed the tears fall.
Marry me, then.
Winterton’s words came back, echoing as they had done in her mind every night since he had said them.
Yet he had not called in to see how it was she fared or even sent a note. Every time there was the sound of a carriage on the driveway she tensed up, but Winterton had stayed away, lost to her somehow, as if finally all the problems that seemed so attached to her name had scared him off and made him reconsider.
He knew that she had masqueraded as Frederick Rutherford, so the newest rumour of the artist relocating to the Americas was fortuitous and opportune, the protections winding around her in a way that was ingenious.
Spies operated in netherworlds and hidden places, shrewd resourcefulness a part of their code.
But if it was he who had circulated these new theories, then why had he been absent for nearly all of two weeks?
The answer came without doubt. He did not care and he would not come. Perhaps it was only guilt that led him along the path of atonement and reparation. A tit for tat, so to speak, and then his duty to her would be over. Having reintroduced her into society, he would leave her again in the same position as he had found her six years before, older perhaps and undoubtedly wiser, but still able to live a life and function.
‘Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.’ The words of Voltaire echoed in her mind.
The kiss they had shared still sent a shiver down her spine every time she thought about it, thrills of want bursting unbidden. If he hadn’t kissed her she might have been able to move on with more ease, to relegate what she hoped for into the impossible. But the desperate way in which they had come together suggested other things, headier yearnings and different anticipations.
Crossing to her wardrobe, Florentia hauled out the painting she had done of him all those years before and leaned it against a chair in the candlelight.
James Waverley watched her from within the canvas, his clear green eyes suggesting both pain and faith. His lips were full and sensual and the dimple in his chin was deep. She had fashioned his mouth in a way that she recognised.
Passion and lust had a certain ripeness that was unmistakable and distinct. When she ran her fingers across the thickness of paint it was almost as if she could feel the warm and living man beneath.
Winter. Even his name held a hint of mystery within.
‘Come back,’ she whispered to the likeness. ‘Please come back and find me.’
The tears fell across her cheeks and she shook her head firmly. Life was not a fairy tale and she was not the sort of woman Lord Winterton would wear his heart on his sleeve for. Yet, she felt a bond with him that had nothing to do with guilt or shame. He had not betrayed her when he had discovered her charade. Indeed, if gossip was to be believed, all he had tried to do was help her become reinstated in the society she had been banished from.
Another chance. A further choice. Because of him.
* * *
Everything she wore was beautiful, so beautiful she felt like a stranger inside such finery as she stepped down from the conveyance and made her way into the Heron ball with her sister and Roy by her side.
The interior of the Heron town house was more opulent than she remembered, the world of the ton on show in a way it seldom was. English society tended to err away from showiness, but Benjamin Heron’s wife was of German heritage and obviously held firm with the notion of excess and surfeit. The Heron sisters greeted them warmly as they made their way into the huge reception.
‘You look lovely in that colour, Florentia. Yellow suits your hair.’ Julia Heron took her hand and tucked it under her arm. ‘Papa is most insistent that this should be a wonderful night for you and your family.’
‘Thank you.’ The turnaround of attitude in the Heron sisters was still as surprising as it was welcomed, but in a room like this Florentia knew she needed as many allies as she could muster.
Mr and Mrs Heron were equally as effusive as they bade her welcome.
‘It is seldom we have the company of such lovely young women, Ana,’ Heron remarked, his wife’s smile showing an edge of strain as she looked at her own daughters.
Perhaps it actually could be this very easy? Perhaps with influential people like the Herons supporting her entry back into society anyone who dared to have it different would be silenced.
Roy and Maria made it a point to stand on each side of her as they walked into the main salon and as the seconds progressed into minutes and then to an hour Florentia allowed herself the luxury of relaxing. Maria must have been thinking along exactly the same lines as she leaned in to whisper her encouragement.
‘Your dance card must be full by now?’
She nodded, for indeed it was. Every few moments since being here another one of Roy’s acquaintances had stepped forward to inveigle a dance so when Timothy Calderwood came over she smiled at him.
‘I could not believe you were here, Lady Florentia, and it is so very good to see you again.’
His voice was exactly as she had remembered it, a kind and friendly man whom she had immediately liked. Once.
‘Is your wife here, too, my lord?’
A shadow fell over his eyes. ‘My wife unfortunately caught a chill and passed away early last year. I am surprised you had not heard of it?’
Horror filled her. ‘No, I am afraid I had not and—’
He stopped her. ‘Celia was...fragile even before her sickness. She found life difficult, if you will, almost unbearable.’
Was he saying his wife had had problems? She was surprised when he reached for her hand and spoke with real feeling.
‘I am sorry to have cried off all those years ago. I should never have been so cowardly, but I have paid the price for my intransigence.’
‘You are forgiven, my lord.’ She could think of no other words as she pulled her fing
ers away from his grasp and looked around. Maria was watching her.
‘If you would honour me with a dance tonight, I would be very relieved.
‘Of course.’ She wrote in his name beside a quadrille and was answered with a delighted smile.
‘I see most of your card is filled and you are the talk of the ton this evening.’
‘I hope not.’
He laughed and as she turned to look at him she caught sight of Lord Winterton across his shoulder observing her from further away in the room.
The Viscount was finally here? She had been looking for him ever since she arrived, but had seen no sign at all of him. Her heart fluttered and the blush that rose on her cheeks made Timothy Calderwood braver.
‘I was hoping I might have the pleasure of a dance tonight for I had heard that you were coming.’
Winterton had turned now, making his way further down the room, another man beside him who was almost as tall as he was, and the disappointment that welled was painful.
‘Perhaps we might even be able to resume our relationship where we left off?’
‘Left off?’ She could not quite get the gist of what Calderwood meant.
‘I would be most grateful if you might let me call upon you at the Warrenden town house. Tomorrow, shall we say?’
Understanding dawned. ‘Tomorrow would be fine.’ She would instruct Roy to warn Calderwood off gently.
The first strains of a dance were beginning to be heard, an orchestra to one side of the floor tuning their instruments in readiness for the entertainment to follow, and as a young man stepped forward to claim the dance Florentia thanked him as he led her across the floor.
* * *
When Winter had first seen her a good half an hour ago he had been astonished all over again at how beautiful Florentia Hale-Burton truly was. But beyond that she looked happy, her golden hair knotted at her crown and falling in long ringlets down her back. He remembered the colour, all the wheat and gold and flaxen. He remembered her face, too, the dimples in both cheeks even when she frowned and the startling blue of her eyes. He kept his glance well away from her lips.
A myriad of young swains had stepped forward to petition her to place their names on her card and he thought that this was how she must have been once, lauded and fêted and admired, a golden girl of the ton before his ill-thought-out actions had ruined her reputation and any chance of a marriage. He was glad to see the Herons placing their weight into her re-introduction.
Smiling grimly, he caught her form as she was whisked past him in the company of Lord Alton Gower.
The man was a lecherous cad and Winter could not imagine what had made her agree to a dance with him in the first place. He was even more amazed that she was laughing at something he said, her dimples deep in the light of the chandeliers above. All about the dance floor other men watched her, a beauty without guile or pretence.
The pale peaked visage of Frederick Rutherford had been weary and cautious and in his persona she had seldom laughed or allowed her feelings to show.
What must it feel like to be suddenly free of all criticism, to be able to hold your head up in a society you had once belonged to and been a part of, before censure had torn you away from it?
The anger in him escalated until he wondered if it might be seen there on his face, in the burning fury and in the regret. The air he took felt restricted and when he realised his hands were tight fists at his side he made a concerted effort to relax them.
‘You look...dangerous, Winter. Dangerous and beautiful.’ The voice was Lady Elizabeth Hilliard, one of the most handsome women in the room. Years ago he had kept her company for quite a time until he realised that she wanted all of the things he could never give her. His love. His name and his loyalty.
‘And if it is the Hale-Burton daughter you have your eye upon I might warn you that you have competition. Calderwood gives the impression of a decided interest given the loss of his wife and the history between them.’
‘History?’ he could not help but ask.
‘They were all but betrothed once, it was rumoured. Lady Florentia’s unfortunate incident put paid to that, of course. But now...she is risen from her shame and supported by some of the richest families in society. Who would dare mention her dark days in the face of such adulation? And true beauty has its own triumph after all, do you not think?’
Her laughter was harsh but not unkind and as her fingers threaded through his he allowed her to pull him towards the floor and into the first strains of a waltz.
‘It is my favourite dance, Winter, and if I were to have the choice of any partner I am glad that it is you.’
‘You were always a flirt, Elizabeth,’ he answered.
‘But I could never catch the only man who matched me,’ she returned and pushed her body into his, the pure sensuality of the movement surprising him. ‘We are each of us lost in some past tragedy, I think, something that stops us from living for this moment. You could have your pick of any woman here yet you do not stake a claim, and I suppose I am exactly the same.’
‘Your philosophy is flawed. I have no interest in any of the ladies present and nor do they have any disposition towards me.’
‘You see, Winter, that is what makes you so...appealing, this complete disregard for your allure and beauty. If you were a woman it might almost be seen as a practised vanity, but in a man...’ Her laugh was merry and sweet even as the pressure of her fingers increased against his own. ‘In a man such a lack of ego is overpoweringly sensual.’
Such nonsense annoyed him and he was glad when the music finished and he could lead her back to her friends. He moved away even as Elizabeth tried to detain him.
* * *
He was alone and he was drinking, a darkness in his eyes Florentia had seen before as they had travelled together. She wished he might ask her to dance or glance her way or nod his head in kinship and memory. Even friendship might do.
But he did not look towards her and as the night aged and each and every dance partner gave her the words that once she might have longed to hear, all she could feel was a growing disconnection.
She had kept one dance free just in case Winterton might cross the room and ask her, the empty space on her card taking on a greater importance than all of the others put together.
Yet still he did not come.
As she saw him move off in the direction of the balcony something in her suddenly set her own feet in motion. She intercepted him before he reached the double doors leading out into the night.
‘My Lord Winterton.’
‘Lady Florentia.’ Careful, polite and distant. He looked as though he would have given anything at all to be able to avoid this meeting. He looked at her as though he had forgotten their kiss altogether.
‘You are well?’ Her words. She wanted to take them back as soon as she had uttered them.
‘I am.’ The silence between them howled with the awkward unsaid.
‘And the portrait?’
‘Is hung.’
‘In the place above the mantel?’
He nodded and a muscle on one side of his jaw ground into movement.
‘I am sorry.’ She could not think how else to express all that had happened between them. Her hands bunched the golden silk of her skirt into tight fists. ‘For this. For the lies.’
‘You made a good-looking boy, but you are a beautiful woman. There is nothing at all to be sorry for.’
She had not expected such a compliment and felt a blush rise from her chest and travel in a bright heat across every part of her face.
The card was in her hand before she knew it and the pencil there poised above the one last space. ‘Would you dance with me tonight?’
He looked down, his eyes dark and guarded.
‘I saved it.’ Another t
ruth that she should never have confessed and just for a moment she imagined he might refuse. But he did not. A quick nod and then he was gone, back into the melee of the crowded room, away from her neediness and her desperation.
Had he agreed to the dance or not? Had he seen which number on the list it was she had kept for him and would he remember to come to claim her?
Maria was there then, her hand outstretched and a deep frown crossing her forehead.
‘Winter is not a man to be played with, Flora. He is dangerous and hard.’
‘You think that is what I am doing? Playing with him?’
‘To ask a man like him for a dance is close to lunacy. Did you not see Lady Elizabeth Hilliard all but throwing herself at him not half an hour ago? He incites something in women here that is not...safe. Play with fire and you will be burned.’
Again.
The sound of her father’s gun, the blood, the ache of flesh ripped open. The grasp of his fingers in her own. Holding on. Shaking. Every second falling into memory.
Sometimes she wondered why time had not softened the horror of that moment, had not melded it into the history of the past where it could no longer hurt her.
‘What is Lord Winterton to you, Flora? What makes you seek him out like you do?’ Her sister’s query was whispered and urgent.
‘I painted his portrait. There is a connection.’
‘Well, if you keep this interest up he most certainly will recognise you as the artist Frederick Rutherford, and if that happens no amount of cajoling on your behalf shall save your reputation.’
Flora felt the dance card in her hand, the edge of it cutting into flesh as she closed her fingers hard. He had promised her a waltz.
She swallowed and smiled, taking a glass of wine off the silver platter of a passing footman. If Lord Winterton came she would dance with him. If he took her hand she would follow.
Timothy Calderwood was there now, beside her.
‘I think this is my promised dance, Lady Florentia.’