by Mary Balogh
There was a rather lengthy silence, during which two gentlemen cleared their throats.
“It certainly looked like an embrace,” Codaire said.
“It was not,” Colin said curtly.
“Then my apologies,” Codaire said. “Though I daresay I am not the only one who saw it that way.”
Colin said nothing. He wondered if the Duke of Netherby and Lord Molenor had stepped into the room behind him. He did not turn his head to look.
There was another uncomfortable silence, during which the cheerful voices of new arrivals wafted in from beyond the door.
“It was Overfield who called her a slut,” Codaire said. “I was merely repeating what he said. He is deceased.”
Colin waited.
“I have never called her that myself,” Codaire added. “These gentlemen are my witness that I did not do so today. If I implied . . .”
He paused, but no one came to his rescue.
“I am sorry if I seemed to imply that I concurred in that description of the lady,” he said handsomely.
“Lady Overfield waltzed with me last evening because I asked in the hearing of her mother and other relatives,” Colin said. “We danced, we conversed, and we were a little slower than the other dancers clearing the floor because we had not quite finished our conversation. Are those the facts as you observed them, Codaire?”
“I believe—”
Colin held up a staying hand. “Are those the facts?” he asked.
“I suppose so,” Codaire said.
“You suppose?”
“Those are the facts,” Codaire said. “But—”
“But?”
“But nothing. I believe some of the gentlemen in this room are trying to read.”
“I am sure they will recount the details of this exchange accurately after they leave here,” Colin told him. “We all hear things, Codaire. Word gets around. If I should hear that you have spread any other untruths about last evening or about Lady Overfield herself, I shall find you. And next time I will not offer you the easy way out of making an apology. My advice to you would be to leave town for a while—perhaps for the rest of the Season. I shall not insist upon it, but I would not be pleased to encounter you personally during the next few months. I would be even less pleased to learn that you had encountered Lady Overfield.”
He turned to leave the room. Lord Molenor was standing in the doorway, nodding his approval when he caught Colin’s eye. Netherby was seated in one of the deep chairs not far inside the door, looking sleepy. He got to his feet and followed Colin out.
“I was very much hoping,” he said, “not to be named as your second, Hodges. One never knows quite what to wear to affairs of honor.”
“Well done,” Lord Molenor said meanwhile, closing his hand about Colin’s shoulder and squeezing. “Poor Elizabeth. She has had a very fortunate escape, but this is going to be a wretched disappointment for her. Mildred is huddled with her sisters this morning. They are discussing strategy. One always needs to keep one’s distance when women plot and plan. Come and have breakfast. I worked up an appetite just listening to you. Netherby? You will join us?”
Colin preceded them into the dining room even though he had worked up just the opposite of an appetite. “By God,” he said, “the man is a coward. He must outweigh me two to one, and he would have had the choice of weapons.”
“Ah,” the Duke of Netherby said softly, “but he is not a violent man, Hodges.”
* * *
• • •
The Westcott family, or at least that part of it that was in London, did what it did best. It gathered about its own in a time of crisis. It gathered to comfort and commiserate. And it gathered to consider the problem and offer a practical solution. It descended in a body upon the house on South Audley Street on the afternoon following the betrothal ball.
She might have expected it, Elizabeth thought when it was too late to escape to her room and lock herself in. Would she have done so if she had thought about it, though? It would have been very ungracious. And ungrateful. She knew very well that if it had been another member of the family who was in trouble, she would have been among the first to rally.
She was sitting in an armchair to one side of the fire in the drawing room when they arrived. And yes, the fire had been lit because the day beyond the windows looked appropriately gray and cold. It was only surprising it was not actually raining. She had been sitting there for some time, refusing the drinks and food both her mother and Wren had been trying to press upon her and assuring them that she was quite all right, thank you, that there was really nothing to fuss about, that she was actually looking forward to returning to Riddings Park tomorrow. For that was what she had decided to do. She had always been happy there. She would be happy again. No one need worry about her.
Inside she felt dead. Or at least too weary either to feel or to think. She did not want to be fussed over. She did not want sympathy. She did not want the concerned looks with which her family was regarding her. She just wanted to be left alone. If only she had the energy, she would screech just that message at them. If she had the energy, she would have gone up to her room and shut the door long before the rest of the family arrived.
But she had not found the energy and so she was trapped. It was her own fault. It served her right. She ought not to have thought of marrying again. Her life had been perfectly decent as it was. Now everything was ruined. Again. She ought not to have accepted the offer of a man she not only did not love but did not even like particularly well. It was shameful to admit that truth now. She had always found Sir Geoffrey Codaire a bit of a bore. She ought not to have waltzed with Colin. She ought to have ended that foolish arrangement as soon as she was betrothed. She ought not to have laughed with him and allowed him to twirl her about the ballroom with such lack of restraint. She ought not to have got involved in that wretched conversation. She still could not recall what it had been about. Something about . . . forgiveness? She ought not . . .
She ought not, she ought not, she ought not.
Was there nothing she ought to have done? Or ought to do? Just because she wanted to, perhaps? She wanted to scream and have a massive tantrum, but she did not have the energy. Perhaps that was fortunate for everyone who would have been at the receiving end of it.
It was not only the Westcotts who came. The Radleys arrived too—Uncle Richard, her mother’s brother, and Aunt Lilian; Susan and Sidney, her cousins; and Alvin Cole, Susan’s husband.
Only last week they had all gathered here upon the announcement of her betrothal. They had discussed how it and her wedding were to be celebrated. She had been amused at the time and content to let them talk and have their way. She had not wanted a betrothal ball but had allowed one to be arranged—with disastrous consequences. She had not wanted a grand wedding at St. George’s, but she had acquiesced in the plan. She had felt the warmth of family, the joy of it then. Now her betrothal had ended, there was to be no wedding, and they had come to discuss how they were to prevent her from being destroyed by scandal. They had come because they cared.
It was burdensome to be cared about.
If only she cared too.
But why was there a scandal?
She had done nothing wrong. Neither had Colin.
That made no difference to anything, of course. She had been an adult member of the ton long enough to understand that a person could be destroyed by gossip even when there was little or no truth to any of it. Was there truth to any of this? Had she somehow dishonored Geoffrey with her behavior? Had his outburst been in any way justified? But even if it had been . . .
Oh, she was too weary either to assume any of the blame or to repudiate it.
She just wanted to go home—as she had wanted to go home after that last beating by Desmond and her accidental fall down the stairs and the dreadful aftermath of it all. Had no
thing changed in her life? Had she made no progress?
“We need to discuss what is to be done,” Cousin Eugenia, the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, announced after she had settled herself in the armchair on the opposite side of the hearth from Elizabeth’s and everyone else was variously disposed about the room. “Elizabeth is clearly incapable of deciding anything for herself. She looks quite dazed and pale, poor dear. And Althea and Alexander and Wren are too distressed for her sake to have been able to offer much practical advice, I daresay. So the rest of us will have to do it for them.”
“Quite right, Mama,” Cousin Louise, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby, said. “I daresay Elizabeth is wanting to withdraw to Riddings Park and is planning to do it without delay. Am I right, Althea? It would, of course, be exactly the wrong thing to do.”
“Then what is . . .”
Elizabeth stopped listening. She gazed into the fire while her mother perched on the arm of her chair and patted her back as if by so doing she could make everything better.
* * *
• • •
By the time Colin arrived at the Earl of Riverdale’s house on South Audley Street, it was the middle of the afternoon and the weather was threatening to turn nastier than it already was. Gray clouds hung low and billowed across the sky at the mercy of a wind that was unseasonably chilly and was using the street as a funnel. It was almost but not quite raining.
There were no fewer than three carriages drawn up before the house, a sure sign that the Westcotts were rallying around one of their own. He did not hesitate anyway. If he did not call now, he never would, and he would forever have to live with a guilt he knew he had no need to be feeling. Unfortunately, one could not always control guilt. It took up house at the very center of one’s being and simply refused to budge even when one informed it that it had chosen to occupy the wrong host.
They were all there in the drawing room—all the ones who were currently in town, anyway. The Dowager Countess of Riverdale sat to one side of the fire that had been lit against the chill of the day with Lady Matilda Westcott predictably hovering over her, a bottle of something in her hand—probably smelling salts held at the ready should her mother do something as uncharacteristic as succumb to a fit of the vapors. Lord and Lady Molenor sat side by side on a love seat. The Dowager Duchess of Netherby occupied a sofa, Lady Jessica Archer on one side of her, Wren on the other. The Duchess of Netherby was seated on a chair beside them, the duke on a chair in the far corner of the room. Alexander stood with his back to the fire, his feet slightly apart, his hands at his back. Elizabeth was sitting on the chair across the hearth from the dowager countess with her mother perched on the arm, one of her hands patting her daughter’s back. And some of Mrs. Westcott’s family were there too—her brother and sister-in-law, their son, and their daughter with her husband.
Colin could not have felt more like an outsider if he had tried after he had been announced and had stepped into the room. And he was not at all sure anyone was glad to see him, except perhaps Wren, who got immediately to her feet and came toward him, both hands outstretched.
“Colin,” she said, taking his hands and kissing his cheek. “It is so good of you to have come. The weather is turning wretched, is it not?”
“It is probably going to start raining at any moment,” he said, squeezing her hands before releasing them. Elizabeth, after one brief incurious glance, was not looking at him or at anyone else for that matter. She was sitting with straight spine, not quite touching the back of her chair, her hands clasped in her lap. She was dressed simply and neatly. So was her hair. She was pale, her face expressionless.
“I am sorry—” he began, but his words were met with a chorus of protests.
“You were one of the victims of that shocking episode last evening, Lord Hodges,” the dowager duchess said. “You have nothing for which to apologize.”
“We were all agreed upon that long before you came,” her sister, Lady Molenor, said. “You did nothing amiss.”
“But it was indeed good of you to come today, Lord Hodges,” Lady Matilda added. “I said you would. Mark my words, I said, Lord Hodges will do the correct and courteous thing.”
“No one argued with you, Matilda,” her mother said sharply. “I suppose, young man, you have been blaming yourself for waltzing with Elizabeth. Such a shocking thing to do at a ball. I just wish someone had invented the dance when I was a girl.”
“Codaire behaved very badly, Hodges,” Mr. Radley, Elizabeth’s maternal uncle, told him. “And I do not hesitate to say so aloud in Lizzie’s hearing since she has broken off her engagement to him and doubtless agrees with me. And Molenor has been telling us what happened at White’s Club this morning. Well done.”
“We all agree with you, Papa,” Radley’s daughter assured him. “But poor Lizzie is suffering anyway. We have been discussing what is to be done for her, Lord Hodges. She is determined to go back home to Kent, to Riddings Park. But we are united in believing that it is quite the worst thing she could do, almost like an admission that she has committed some unpardonable offense, whereas in reality she is the wronged party as anyone with any sense must see. She would do far better to remain in town and go about as usual with her head held high. It is not as though she will be forced to do it alone. We will all stand by her. Both sides of her family.”
“Not all of us are in full agreement on the solution, Susan,” Mrs. Westcott said. “I can understand Lizzie’s desire to go home for a while. It is not because of the scandal, which of course is not her fault in the slightest, but because her heart has been bruised.”
“Come and sit here, Lord Hodges,” the Duchess of Netherby said to Colin as she got to her feet. “I shall move over with Avery. You really must not blame yourself, you know, though I am sure you have been doing just that. You are Wren’s brother, and what could be more natural than that you should dance with Elizabeth during her betrothal ball? No one in their right mind would think you guilty of anything other than a very proper familial courtesy.”
“Come,” Wren said, slipping an arm through Colin’s to draw him toward the chair the duchess had vacated.
“No,” he said. “Thank you. I am not staying. I came to ask Lady Overfield if she would take a walk in the park with me. Will you, Elizabeth?”
“It would be most unwise. It is going to rain at any moment,” Lady Molenor said.
“And it is blowing a gale out there,” the dowager duchess added.
“You would need a closed carriage to venture into the park with any comfort today, Lord Hodges,” Mrs. Radley said. “I believe you must have come on foot? No one heard a carriage stop outside.”
“You would catch your death of cold, Elizabeth,” Lady Matilda warned her. “If you did not already do so last night, that is. You are not looking at all the thing today. Not that you can be expected to do so under the circumstances.”
“Lizzie needs a rest, Lord Hodges,” her mother said kindly, patting her shoulder. “All this attention is proving too much for her, much as she appreciates everyone’s having come to show their sympathy and support. I am going to take her upstairs—”
“It seems to me,” the Duke of Netherby said softly, and everyone fell silent to hear what he had to say, “that the question was directed at Elizabeth.”
“And Elizabeth’s family has a perfect right to answer for her when she is not up to answering for herself, Avery,” the dowager countess told him. “Yes, Althea, do go on up with her. We will excuse you both.”
“Thank you, Lord Hodges.” Elizabeth had raised her eyes to look at Colin, still without any expression on her face. “I shall go and fetch my outdoor things.”
“Elizabeth,” Lady Matilda protested, “do you really think you ought?”
“My love—” Mrs. Westcott said.
“Take an umbrella,” Alexander advised.
Thirteen
Th
ey walked the short distance to Hyde Park in silence, though Elizabeth did take Colin’s arm when he offered it. She had been very tempted to allow her family to manage her life, at least for this afternoon, and have herself hustled off to bed to be tucked in warm and safe. As though she were still a child. Sometimes she wished she were. But they planned to go home to Kent tomorrow or the next day, she and her mother, and if she had her way, they would never leave there again. Or she would not, at least. It seemed only fair, then, to allow Colin to have a private word with her since he had been horribly and unfairly involved in what had happened last evening. He had been decent and courageous enough to come inside the house today even though it must have been obvious to him as he came along the street that he was not the only visitor. It could not have been easy.
The wind was behind them while they walked along the street. It smote them from the side as they crossed the road and turned to enter the park. It was what her father had used to describe as a lazy wind—too lazy to go around a person, it blew right through clothing and skin and bones instead until it came out the other side. It was a saying of his that had always amused her. Not today, though. It was a gray and cheerless day, a perfect match for her mood.
The park looked almost deserted when they entered it, unlike the day when they had strolled by the Serpentine and she had told him about her miscarriages and they had seen his mother’s carriage pass by. Today there was not another pedestrian in sight and most of the vehicles on the main driveway were closed carriages. Rain threatened, though it had not yet begun actually to fall. They turned off the road to walk diagonally across the grass toward a distant line of trees.
“Elizabeth,” he said, speaking to her at last, “I am so sorry—”
“No.” She cut him off. “You did nothing wrong, Colin. Nothing. I will not have you blame yourself. And if part of your concern is over the fact that I will not after all be marrying Sir Geoffrey Codaire, then it is misplaced. I am only thankful that I discovered a pertinent truth about him while I was still engaged to him, not after we married. He is not the man I thought he was. I am not at all sorry Alex knocked him down.”