by Mary Balogh
But miracles do not happen in a flash, she discovered a few minutes later, as she entered her lonely bedchamber, the imprint of a gentle kiss on the back of the hand that she held against her cheek.
CHAPTER 9
LORD TIMOTHY BOOTHBY and his lady were giving an evening party in honor of their five-and-twentieth wedding anniversary. They did not dignify the occasion by the title of "ball" because there were so few families in town to attend it. They were able to send out only one hundred and twenty invitations. Nevertheless, their ballroom was to be thrown open to their guests, and an orchestra hired to play background music if no one seemed inclined to dance, and a variety of country dances, quadrilles, and waltzes if anyone did.
Three of the invitations found their way to Middleton House, one for the Earl and Countess of Chartleigh, another for the dowager countess and her daughter, Lady Gloria Middleton, and the third for Lord Stanley Middleton. Georgiana danced around the morning room with delight when she opened hers. She could see the hand of Lord Beauchamp in this happy turn of events. She was even more gratified later in the day to find that her parents and Vera had also received invitations.
"You see?" she said to Vera. "He did not forget us. That proves that he is not an entirely selfish man. And he was kind enough to procure you an invitation too, Vera."
"I find the very fact that he acted so soon ominous," Vera replied calmly. "Do have a care, Georgie. That man is dangerous."
Georgiana prepared with special care for the evening. With the exception of the dinner party at Chartleigh, it was a positive age since she had been to any very glittering entertainment. Making one's debut during the Season really did spoil one, she reflected. One assumed that life for a girl past schoolroom age was always like that, a constant round of exciting activities.
She had her hair cropped and curled close to her head. She had a new gown of peach satin and lace made and spent a whole morning on Bond Street with Gloria choosing slippers and gloves and a fan. She was going to be quite dazzling, she decided, even if there were very few people to see her.
Ralph liked her new hairstyle. He looked a little dubious when he first saw it. She was in the drawing room drinking tea with his mother.
"Georgiana!" he said. "All your lovely hair is gone."
"Don't you like it?" she asked. "It is very fashionable, you know."
"Let me have a good look," he said, crossing the room to her and taking her chin in his hand. He spent several moments examining her head. "Yes," he said at last with a smile, "it does suit you, dear. I like it."
"I almost fainted dead away when I saw what she had done," his mother said from behind him. "Such a boyish look might be passable for a very young and foolish girl, but perhaps a countess should cultivate a more dignified image, would you not say, Ralph? Chartleigh would never have tolerated any unladylike appearance in me."
Georgiana kept her eyes on Ralph's. They smiled back at her. His hand was still beneath her chin.
"Boyish?" he said. "No, I think not, Mama. Elfin, perhaps. And very pretty. And remember that my wife is indeed very young, though not, I think, foolish. And this Chartleigh will not tolerate her being made to feel obliged to behave older than her years."
He spoke very pleasantly and quietly. Yet Georgiana's eyes widened in surprise. It was the closest she had ever heard him come to defying his mother. And he had done it in her defense. A few minutes later Ralph was obliged to ring for the dowager's maid to help her to her room. She had one of her frequent headaches.
Ralph came to her room when she was ready to leave for the party. She was turning in front of the pier glass, trying to see how the scalloped hem of her gown would look if she were twirling in the dance. She stopped in some confusion when he entered. She had not expected him. He rarely entered her room.
"You do look lovely," he said as she was appreciating his own appearance, quite resplendent in gold and brown. "I had hoped your gown would be a suitable color."
As Georgiana raised her eyebrows in inquiry, he drew a long box from behind his back and held it out to her.
"For me?" she asked.
"I bought it for you this afternoon," he said. "I do hope you like it."
Georgiana found a single strand of pearls inside the box. She looked up at the eager, boyish face close to her own. "They are lovely, Ralph," she said. "Thank you. Whatever made you think of buying them for me?"
"I realized that I had not bought you a gift since our wedding," he said. "It was remiss of me. I am not used to pleasing a lady."
She held the box out to him and turned her back when he lifted the pearls from their satin resting place. He put the pearls around her neck and she bent her head for him to secure the clasp. He rested his hands on the bare skin of her shoulders after completing the task. Georgiana put up her own hands and patted his lightly. He put his arms right around her from behind and drew her against him.
Georgiana was touched by the gift. She felt a rush of warm affection for her husband. But she was on her way to a party with a new gown and a new hairstyle. She was. not at that moment thinking of love or passion or even the lamentably sexless state of her marriage.
"Oh, do have a care, Ralph," she said quite good-humoredly. "You will crease my sash, and I shall ruin that neckcloth your valet must have sweated over.for half an hour."
He let her go immediately and without a word. She examined her pearls eagerly in the mirror, fingering them in admiration, turned to pick up her wrap and her fan from a chair, and gave Ralph a smile bright with affection as she preceded him from the room. By that time he had erased his expression of deep hurt. She was quite unaware of the way he had winced as he released his hold on her.
***
The party turned out to be not nearly the squeeze that Georgiana was used to, but nevertheless she found herself flushed with enjoyment after the first hour. There was dancing, and Georgiana loved to dance. Ralph partnered her for the opening set of country dances, and she found as she had at Chartleigh that he was a graceful partner. She felt almost regretful when Stanley came to claim her for the second set.
Georgiana found her brother-in-law quite a trial. He was actually older than she by four months, but he seemed years younger. She did not doubt that in a few years' time he would be quite a gay young blade, but his attempts now to be worldly-wise were merely ludicrous. At least he no longer made a fool of himself by trying to flirt with her as he had at first. She had given the poor boy a freezing set-down four days after their return from Chartleigh and felt sorry for him all of an hour afterward.
She waited with some impatience for the arrival of Lord Beauchamp. She might have known that he would be fashionably late, she thought as she saw him finally, standing with languid grace in the doorway, surveying the gathering. And she noted with some glee that he put all the other men quite in the shade, except perhaps Ralph, his ice-blue satin coat and knee breeches and snowy white linen and lace in marked contrast to the darkness of his hair. Georgiana noticed these facts with almost clinical detachment. She did not feel a tremor. She was not at all interested in falling in love with the man.
He crossed the ballroom to talk to Ralph, who was in conversation with two other men, and then to the dowager, over whose hand he bowed with grace. Finally he approached Georgiana. She had been waiting impatiently. Another set was about to form, and she had been hoping that no one else would solicit her hand.
"Ah, " he said, bowing elegantly before her, "my cousin, the little countess. And easily the most lovely lady to grace this ballroon tonight."
Georgiana smiled dazzlingly. "You flatter, sir," she said. "Have you come to dance with me? I do hope so. I should hate to be a wallflower. And there is a shortage of men here. I fear the lure of cards has drawn some of them away."
"How could anyone be so ungallant and so blind to the charm they have abandoned?" Roger Beauchamp said. "May I have the honor, ma'am?"
Georgiana smiled and chattered and fluttered her eyelashes for the next twenty mi
nutes, until her husband's cousin danced with a half-smile on his face, a strange gleam in his eyes.
"La," Georgiana said, fanning her face vigorously as the music drew to a close, "I am as dry as a desert stream. I have not stopped dancing in an hour."
"May I have the honor of procuring a glass of lemonade for you?" Roger asked, the gleam deepening.
"I shall come with you," Georgiana declared, placing her hand on his arm unbidden. "Perhaps it will be cooler in the refreshment room."
They found an open alcove at one side of the ballroom in which she might drink her lemonade. They watched the dancers for a few minutes.
"And are you enjoying yourself, my dear Lady Chartleigh?" Roger asked.
"Oh yes," she said with enthusiasm, "and I do thank you, sir, for making someone aware that my husband's family is ready to go into society again. You may call me by my given name, you know. We are cousins of a sort, are we not?"
"And so we are," he said, "Georgiana."
"All my friends call me 'Georgie'," she confided, looking archly at him over the top of her waving fan.
"Do they indeed?" he said. "And do I take it that I am being invited to join their ranks-Georgie?"
She smiled dazzlingly and leaned a little closer to him. "And will you return the compliment?" she asked. "Am I to call you 'Roger'?"
He grinned back at her and touched a finger to the tip of her nose. "I hope you will," he said. "But I tell you what, Georgie. I believe I have something of a reputation with the ladies. But I do not specialize in flirtations with married ladies, my dear, especially when they happen to be married to my favorite young cousin."
"Oh," she said, mortified, sitting quite upright again.
He laughed lightly. "Not that you are not an extremely tempting morsel, Georgie. I can see that Ralph is going to have his hands full. Is it no good, my dear?"
"Is what no good?" she asked stiffly.
"Your marriage," he said. "Is it not working out?"
"I think he is afraid of me," she almost whispered.
Roger schooled his features to remain serious. "Ralph?" he said. "Afraid of you? Do you bite?"
"Are you laughing at me?" she asked suspiciously. "I wish you would not. I am serious."
"What leads you to think he fears you, pray?" Roger asked, fascinated. He was waiting for this unusual little creature beside him to realize the glaring impropriety of this conversation and hoping that it would not be soon.
Georgiana shrugged. "I think he has not known a large number of women," she said. "I think he is afraid… I think he…"
Good God, Roger Beauchamp thought, fascinated, does she realize how much she is saying during the pauses in her speech? The full uncomfortable truth was glaringly obvious to him.
"Georgie," he said severely, "were you trying to flirt with me just now so that Ralph would feel honor-bound to challenge me and overcome his… er… fear by putting a bullet between my eyes?"
"Something like that," Georgiana admitted, spreading her fan in her lap and examining its design.
"I am honored beyond speech to think you would have chosen me for the sacrifice," he said.
"Oh," she assured him, looking up in some concern, "I did not imagine a duel or anything stupid like that. I merely thought that if Ralph saw another man interested in me, he might become angry and… and…"
He smiled at her. "You are quite out there, you know," he said. "I believe I know Ralph better than you do, Georgie. It would be much more like my noble cousin to offer you your freedom if he felt your feelings were engaged somewhere else."
"Yes," she said with a sigh, "he is very sweet and kind, is he not? And not at all selfish."
"Do I detect a note of affection for my young cousin, Georgie?" he asked.
"Oh," she said, sounding almost annoyed, "who could not feel affection for Ralph?"
"What we need is some plan," Roger said to her bowed head.
"We?" she asked, looking up sharply.
He ignored her query. He was looking thoughtful. "A flirtation won't do, though," he said. "I shall need to think. Give me a day or two. Now, if we are not inadvertently to be accused of that flirtation, I think I had better leave you, my dear little cousin. As it is, I have been sitting here through one whole set, and another is already beginning. May I convey you to anyone's side?"
"No," she said, "I shall stay here."
Roger favored her with a bow, looked assessingly around the floor, and crossed the room to repeat his bow before Vera, who was sitting with her mother and some other older ladies. She had not danced.
"Ah, the divine Miss Burton," he said. "And how are you this evening, ma'am?"
"I would feel very much better if I did not have to listen to ridiculous flattery, my lord," she replied quietly.
He looked somewhat taken aback, but the gleam was back in his eye. "Will you dance?" he asked. "It is a waltz and has only just started."
She looked as if she would refuse, but she seemed to realize that such refusal would serve only to draw attention to herself. She rose to her feet and placed her hand in his.
"You do not look to be the sort of female to have claws," he said thoughtfully as they began to waltz.
"I did not mean to be rude, my lord," she said, "but I hate hypocrisy."
"And do you consider yourself such an antidote that any man who expresses pleasure in the sight of you must be lying?" he asked, amusement in his voice.
"I know I am no beauty, my lord," she said firmly, "and I am not fishing for a compliment."
"Let me see," he said, holding her a little farther away from him and surveying her with lazy eyes. "Yes, you are right. You are not as shapely as your sister. Of course, you are taller than she and could achieve a slender grace. Your hair is unfortunately neither brown nor blond. But it is thick and shiny and would look quite delightful if you allowed it to frame your face instead of scooping it back as if you meant to drag it from its roots. Your cheeks lack some bloom but your features are good and your face would be more than attractive if you relaxed and smiled more. Indeed, now I look more closely, I find that your annoyance has added some quite becoming color to your cheeks. Your eyes, of course, could not be improved upon. I am sure you keep them lowered only because you know very well what effect they might have on a notorious rake like me.”
Those eyes flew upward to meet his. "Sir, you are impertinent," Vera said.
"Very," he agreed. "But you are the one who drew swords. Can you blame me for retaliating? And you would be advised to lower those eyes, ma'am, especially when they are flashing as they are now. They are doing alarming things to my heartbeat and making me notice that your mouth is by no means your worst feature either. Decidedly kissable, in fact."
Vera's eyes continued to glare. Her nostrils flared. Her cheeks flushed an even deeper shade with hot indignation. All of which reactions caused Lord Beauchamp to smile broadly.
"Are you contented now that you have succeeded in giving me a thorough set-down?" she asked icily.
"Quite contented," he agreed, "for the present, Miss Burton. The transformation in your appearance over the last minute has been worth witnessing."
***
When Ralph returned home the following afternoon, it was to find his mother sitting alone in the drawing room, sewing."
"How do you do, Mama?" he said, crossing the room and kissing her on the cheek. "Where are Georgians and Gloria?"
"Your wife is in her apartments, as far as I know," the dowager replied, not lifting her eyes from her work, "and Gloria is in the morning room writing a letter to the Reverend Boscome. If she is following my advice, she is suggesting to him that their nuptials be postponed until the summer. It would be a shame for her to miss the Season, when she was forced to miss the last."
"And what does Gloria think of the suggestion?" Ralph asked.
"Oh, the foolish girl believes that she would prefer life in a village vicarage to the pleasures of town," his mother replied. "Will she never meet a more
suitable husband? The daughter of my dear Chartleigh to be thrown away on a mere vicar, a younger son, Ralph. The prospect is intolerable."
"Mama." Ralph seated himself on a chair close to his mother's. "Gloria is six-and-twenty. She is old enough to make her own choice. Indeed, she is already well past the usual age of marriage. Do you not think that after six years of constancy to David Boscome she has proved that she has a lasting attachment to him?"
"Attachment!" the dowager said contemptuously. "What has that to say to anything? The girl is just too obstinate to consider someone more eligible, that is all. She has had any number of chances to fix the interest of more suitable gentlemen."
Ralph was silent for a minute while he watched his mother make angry stabs at her work with the needle. "I shall go to Gloria," he said quietly then, "and urge her most strongly to obey the dictates of her own heart. She has considered the feelings of others for too long. It is time she pleased herself."
"Ralph!" His mother looked up at him at last, in shocked disbelief. "Have you taken leave of your senses, my boy? Since when have you spoken to your own mother with such disrespect? Chartleigh would never have allowed such impertinence. You can be thankful that he is no longer here to deal with you."
Ralph turned very pale, but he did not flinch from his mother's wrath. "Mama," he said, "I am Chartleigh now. I am head of the family. I love you deeply and I respect you for the firmness with which you have brought us up to know our duty. But I must assume the responsibilities of my position. At the moment the happiness of my sister needs to be assured, and I shall do all I can to see that it is done."
His mother looked down again and began to sew furiously. "I might have known that marriage would do you no good," she said. "You are too young and too impressionable, Ralph. I should have taken you in hand for another few years. You are becoming as wild and as headstrong as your wife."