by Nicole Byrd
Louisa watched her friend closely, trying to see past the somewhat set smile. “She looks happy,” she muttered to Colin. “I think. Doesn’t she?”
Her new husband pulled her a little closer into his arms as they swayed to the music. “It will be well, Louisa. Do not look anxious—it will not help her case.”
Louisa nodded, lifting the corners of her lips whether she wished to or not. True, on one hand, she was in the midst of a glittering social scene such as she had long aspired to join. On the other, she knew full well the social jury was still out, and neither the fickle mood of the Ton, nor their own fates, had yet been determined.
One minute at a time, Louisa told herself. She had her husband beside her. With his love and support, she could withstand any storm. So they danced, gliding to the rise and fall of the melody, and when the music died, she looked up at him and saw the glimmer of love, of desire, that always lingered in his eyes when he looked her way. Louisa smiled, with no effort at all.
But then she saw Gemma and Lord Gabriel making their way off the dance floor. She and Colin lingered until the other couple approached, and Gemma paused long enough to reach out and squeeze Louisa’s hand.
Gemma’s fingers were cold, as if she were in shock, but this time Louisa could see that her friend smiled easily, and her expression was almost giddy.
It was all right, then. When Louisa had heard the name Gemma Sinclair—Lady Gemma Sinclair—announced by the footman, she had almost squealed in surprise. Only Colin’s warning touch on her arm had stilled her expression of awed delight.
Now Gemma released her hand and turned to make introductions. “Lord Gabriel, these are my friends Lieutenant and Mrs. Colin McGregor. Louisa, whom I believe you have met, has been very dear to me and very kind.”
“Then I am in your debt. Louisa, so good to see you again.” Lord Gabriel made a graceful bow, and they returned the greeting. “McGregor, my wife and I will look forward to knowing you better.”
Lord Gabriel and Gemma moved on to respond to some of the other guests trying to waylay them. Watching them go, Colin chuckled beneath his breath. “To think I bothered to create an on-dit for the Ton’s rumormongers, in order to overshadow any other possible scandal! Gemma has done that much more effectively. I should not have worried.”
“But if you had not come up with that ridiculous plot, we would not have eloped.” Louisa flashed him a smile. “I would change nothing.”
He pressed her hand, and the wicked glint in his hazel eyes made her blush. She hurried to say, keeping her voice low, “What happiness for Gemma, to be acknowledged at last. I suppose now—”
But she paused, and for a moment a band seemed to constrict her heart. A familiar matronly form, elegant in puce, swept up to them.
“Lady Jersey.” Colin bowed. “How lovely to see you. Have you met my wife, Louisa McGregor?”
“So I hear! What is this, my dear lieutenant?” the countess demanded, her tone arch. “First you desert me for weeks on end, and then I hear you are suddenly married. Did you at last find a fortune big enough to entice you into matrimony?”
Louisa glanced at Colin, who merely raised his brows. She had no idea what to reply, so she held her tongue.
The unpredictable countess shook her head, and the ostrich plumes that adorned her headdress trembled. “No, I observed you two on the floor just now. I do believe your heart has been captured at last, despite all your talk of mercenary matches. Good for you, my girl. May I dare to take him away for one tune? There is no one else who dances quite as well as he, and I shall miss his partnering exceedingly!”
Louisa felt a childish impulse to hold tight to her husband’s hand. This was the woman whom Colin had flirted with and squired about London. Instead, she released him and bestowed a calm smile on them both. “Of course.”
She watched Colin escort Lady Jersey toward the dance floor, chatting easily, bestowing his charming smile on the older woman. But then he glanced back toward Louisa, and the look in his eyes changed, grew intimate. Even from a distance she could easily see that when he smiled at her, it was so much more, and his glance held a different warmth, a depth of feeling that no one else evoked from him. He would always display the easy charm that drew people, women especially, to him, but Louisa had more.
The constriction around her heart loosened, and Louisa put aside her last fear about her impulsive marriage.
She sighed. And then two more figures approached, and she felt a moment of alarm. It was the two young ladies from the theater who had snubbed her so unmercifully, and whom she and Gemma had ignored at the park.
Whose turn was it now to be slain with a cold look, she wondered, trying not to giggle, not sure whether to be frightened or amused.
But this time, both ladies smiled upon her with undisguised eagerness. “You are to be congratulated, dear Mrs. McGregor,” Miss Hargrave said, her thin lips curving into a wide smile. “A married lady and the Season hardly begun. What fun.”
“And you are acquainted with Lady Gemma Sinclair? You must introduce us,” Miss Simpson added. “Everyone is abuzz. No one knew Lord Gabriel, such a dashing, handsome man, had a sister! You must tell us all you know about their secrets.”
“I know very little, I fear,” Louisa said, her voice calm. “And I’d love to chat, but I fear I see a friend I must speak to. Excuse me.”
And with almost no guilt at all at her atrocious behavior, Louisa swept away without a backward glance. It was quite true. She had, in fact, glimpsed a young lady whose face was familiar, sitting at the edge of the big room among the older ladies and looking bereft.
The young woman looked up in surprise as Louisa approached. “Miss Marriman? I believe we were introduced last year, when I was visiting my aunt in London.”
Miss Marriman, a shy-looking brunette, flushed in apparent pleasure. “Of course I remember. You are as lovely as ever, Miss—I mean—Mrs. McGregor. How nice to see you again. My felicitations upon your marriage.”
Louisa sat down beside her and chatted. Presently, Gemma came up to them, evading a couple of determined-looking matrons who seemed to wish to cut her off, and was introduced.
“How are you?” she said to the young lady, and to Louisa she added, with a different intonation, “How are you?”
Louisa followed her glance toward the dance floor, where Lady Jersey circled in Colin’s loose embrace. “Perfectly at ease,” she said, and meant it.
Gemma smiled, and the three of them talked until the tune ended and Colin escorted the countess back to their side.
Louisa performed introductions once more and hinted to her husband that he might wish to escort Miss Marriman through the next round dance. The young lady turned bright red in delight.
Colin agreed with his usual charm, although he said over his shoulder as he led his partner away, “Mind you, the next one is for the two of us, wife o’ mine, so do not promise it to anyone else.”
Left alone with the countess, Louisa tried to think of a polite remark. The woman still made her nervous. But Lady Jersey could fill a silence with no effort at all. In fact, Louisa remembered her aunt commenting that Silence was the lady’s nickname, a title awarded her by certain irreverent wits, although never spoken in her presence, of course. Just now, she looked from Louisa to Gemma, regarding them with shrewd eyes. “So you are intimates, are you? At least someone has known where you have been hiding. Lord Gabriel has had his secrets before, but this is beyond anything! My dear Lady Gemma, you must divulge more about your amazing absence from Society. I’m sure there is more here than your brother is telling us.”
“Nothing of interest,” Gemma said firmly, though she tempered her remark with a smile.
“Nonetheless, I shall expect some juicy tidbits, though not here, perhaps. The ball is a sad crush, is it not? Although Sally Forsythe does give the best parties, she has invited too many people, as usual, even for a house this size,” the countess declared. “I know, I shall speak to one of the other patronesses
and send you around vouchers for Almack’s, shall I? Lord Gabriel’s sister could not be excluded, and besides, we can have a nice quiet chat there.”
Louisa stiffened. But to her surprise, Gemma smiled brightly and tucked her arm through Louisa’s. “How very kind of you. Louisa and I should love that, Lady Jersey.”
Lady Jersey glanced back at Louisa. “Of course, my dear lieutenant’s wife must have vouchers as well. With so many tales of romance and mystery to unravel, I think we shall have a lively Season at Almack’s this year.”
Louisa managed to stutter her thanks, and the three of them chatted briefly. When the matron marched away, Louisa drew a deep breath. After the countess was safely out of earshot, she said, “Gemma! You are a marvel.”
Gemma laughed a little under her breath. “You have no idea how much my presence is suddenly in demand. It is ridiculous. As Lady Sealey would say—oh, she is here tonight and spoke to me very kindly, although in this mob, you may not have seen her as yet, and I also found our hostess, who says you and I and Colin and Lord and Lady Gabriel are to sit at her table at supper—Lady Sealey would say that I am the same person I have been all along.”
Louisa laughed, and they chatted as the musicians played a sprightly tune. Louisa felt her feet wanting to tap, and she could hardly wait for her turn to dance. She felt gay, suddenly, as her long-held tension faded. What a wonderful ball this was! Could it all truly work out so well?
Then she hesitated, as another familiar face appeared at the edge of the crowd. It was Lucas, and he gazed at her, his expression difficult to read.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
Gemma had seen him, too; she glanced back at her. “Do I stay or go?”
“I suppose I should talk to him,” Louisa said. “Alone, please.”
Gemma slipped away, and Lucas approached her. “I heard the footman announce your married state. Quite a shock, Louisa—you might have sent me a note! I didn’t really think you were serious about ending our engagement.”
She met his gaze. He looked affronted and very much on his dignity, but she saw no sign of a broken heart. And as for herself, Louisa realized that the happiness she had found in her marriage had dissipated the anger and disappointment she had felt over her former fiancé’s betrayal. “Lucas, I was perfectly serious. Most women do care what their fiancés and husbands do, whether with ladies or—otherwise, you know.”
“Smythy says that all men—”
She interrupted him gently. “As an old friend—we have known each other since we were both in short skirts—I would advise you to seek out a more worthy source of information than Mr. Harris-Smythe.”
Lucas frowned for a moment, then his expression relaxed a little. “I would have made you a perfectly amiable husband, Louisa.”
“I don’t dispute that,” she told him. “But really, I think our feelings had faded into friendship some time ago, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps so. I thought—I thought that was how it always went, a few weeks of excitement, and then, well . . . It’s more complicated than I thought, perhaps. I don’t think I shall marry.”
Not until you find a woman with whom the excitement doesn’t fade, she thought, a woman you actually want to be loyal to, but perhaps it was too soon to tell him that.
“But we are still friends?” he suggested.
“Of course,” Louisa said. She gave him her hand, and he bowed over it.
“You have my felicitations,” he told her. “Not the fellow I would have thought you’d prefer, but I wish you the best, anyhow.”
“Thank you,” she said and bit back the impulse to offer a defense of her husband, who needed none. Lucas still nursed his wounded dignity, she thought, and even though he had brought it on himself, she could afford to be magnanimous.
Lucas walked away just before Colin returned to reclaim his bride. He threw a dark look toward the younger man.
“Is he distressing you? Should I say something? Wring his silly neck?”
“No,” she answered. “He is part of my childhood, part of my past.”
“You don’t regret his going?”
The question sounded serious, and she looked at him in surprise. “Of course not,” Louisa said. “You are my future, my love.”
Colin pressed her hand, and as she smiled up at him, escorted her to the dance floor.
Gemma had run into entanglements of her own. After chatting briefly with two determined matrons wanting to gossip, she escaped them only to see the square form of Arnold Cuthbertson appear before her.
“Mr. Cuthbertson,” Gemma said, her voice weak. “You did manage to solicit an invitation, then. Did you not receive my note?”
“Didn’t have time to read it. I had an appointment this afternoon with a wool merchant,” he explained. “But it would have been remiss of me not to attend your first ball. Mrs. Forsythe was most kind when I apprised her of our prior relationship. I would not step forward earlier, of course, until you had your chance to be presented to Society. And I must say, your brother came through swimmingly for you. Lady Gemma. Good lord, my mother will never credit it!”
Gemma felt a strange stirring inside her. She regarded him with a cool glance. “And if the Ton had not accepted me? What if my brother had not acknowledged me as his kin? Would the plain, orphaned Miss Smith still not have been worth your while? Would you have walked away and ignored me?” His attitude had made a kind of cynical, worldly wise sense, once, when she’d believed so little in herself. Now, his attitude seemed cold-hearted.
“Now, Gemma,” the squire’s son said in his usual ponderous manner. “You’re overwrought, not your fault, a female thing, I know. You recall my parents’ concerns. My father may not have a title, but his lineage goes back for generations. I must think about my family’s reputation, too, as well as my own.”
“Of course,” she said, knowing that her tone was still icy.
But he didn’t seem to notice. “Knew you’d be sensible. Always was a sensible girl, one of the things I liked about you.”
“Really.”
“But now that it’s all square about your parentage, we can puff it off, you know. Announce our betrothal in the papers, I mean. And you can likely buy your bride clothes before we return to Yorkshire in a week or two. I expect your brother will come through with a handsome dowry for you, eh? Any idea how much? At the least, a few hundred pounds, no doubt. I can buy another pair of prize rams, and that pasture on the north side of Father’s holdings I’ve had my eye on for some time.”
She stared at him. “Arnold, that is, Mr. Cuthbertson, as tempting as the idea of prize rams may be, you must remember that you have never proposed to me! And I have certainly not accepted you.”
“Perhaps not in so many words, but it was understood, don’t you know?” he protested. “I only waited to find out about your name and your family ties.”
“To determine if I was good enough for you,” Gemma suggested.
“Well, I wouldn’t say—”
“I wouldn’t say that you could possibly be good enough for this lady,” someone interjected.
She knew the voice, and the coldness inside her melted. She looked up to see the tall form of Matthew Fallon, looking amazingly urbane in a black evening coat and buff-colored pantaloons, his evening shoes gleaming, his neckcloth in perfect form. Beside him, poor Mr. Cuthbertson looked as shaggy and countrified as one of his Yorkshire rams.
Arnold Cuthbertson gazed at this newcomer with patent astonishment. “I say, you must have mistaken me, or the lady, for someone else. We have an understanding, don’t you know?”
“No, Mr. Cuthbertson, we do not,” Gemma told him, her voice firm. She felt as if a weight had fallen from her shoulders. “I fear you have assumed too much. You must give my regards to your sister when you return home. I shall always value her friendship, and I will write her again soon. But you and I have no announcement to make.”
“I say, really, all this—this attention—has all gone to
your head,” he sputtered. “When you have calmed down—”
“That is no way to speak to Miss Smith,” Fallon interrupted. The captain’s gray eyes glinted, and the line of his mouth was grim. “And unless you wish to be taught better manners, I would advise amending your tone.”
The squire’s son flushed, and his mouth dropped open for a moment. Then he drew himself up, gave them both a stiff and offended bow, and stalked away.
Gemma thought she must be smiling much too broadly. “Captain Fallon, I wasn’t sure you would attend the ball, with so much on your mind. And the shawl is lovely, thank you so much.”
He smiled at her. “I’m told Miss Crookshank—Mrs. McGregor, I should say—went to great trouble to procure my invitation. And anyhow—”
He paused, and she waited, her heart beating.
“Anyhow, amid all the strangers here, I wanted to be sure you had someone nearby who cared for you,” he said, his tone very low. “And by the by, who was that lout who seemed determined to insult you?”
She tried not to laugh; it was unfair. “I will explain later. But I must tell you that I am not Miss Smith any longer.”
She told him quickly about Lord Gabriel’s acknowledgment, and how suddenly her background had altered.
“I am glad for you,” Captain Fallon told her.
But he gazed at her just the way he always had, Gemma thought, with the same mixture of strength and restraint and just-leashed passion, not at all like Mr. Cuthbertson’s awestruck relish at his luck in nabbing a potentially wealthy, suddenly socially acceptable bride.
“I believe there is one dance yet before we go into supper,” she amazed herself by suggesting.
“May I have the honor?” He met her gaze, and Gemma knew she saw her true self reflected in the depths of his steel gray eyes.
Had she promised this dance earlier to any of the young men who had thronged around her, now that she had a name, a class? She couldn’t remember, and she didn’t care. She held out her hand, and he took it, and with more strokes of magic, the musicians were playing another waltz. It might be considered a bit fast for a young lady to waltz at her first ball, but Gemma didn’t care about that, either. To have Matthew take her hand, pull her so close, to see the pulse beating in his temple and the way his fair hair almost shone beneath the light of the glimmering chandeliers, and to glide across the floor under his sure guidance—she had never been so happy in her life. Her heart thudded in her ears, and the music was sweeter than any she had heard before. She found it a little hard to breath. And the captain, was he breathing quickly, too? She thought of their kiss last night. It was too bad they could not do it again, but too many people circled around them. So she was left to wish that the dance stretch endlessly on.