She had taken the carriage to the ball after all. She might not have wanted to accept such a thing, but it could be difficult to find a hack not already engaged, and she hadn’t liked the thought of sending out a servant to locate one for her whenever she wished to leave the house.
The carriage was quite comfortable, done up elegantly in a magnificent burgundy lacquer with black trim, and velvet curtains shielding the windows. The seats were plush, and it had come equipped with foot-warming pan that would get little use for another month or so at least while the weather remained fair, and a couple of thick traveling rugs stashed in the boxes hidden below the seats. And with no ducal crest emblazoned upon it, she could almost pretend that it hadn’t come from James at all.
The Everleigh ball was not quite what Jilly would have described as a crush. The residence was somewhat small by Mayfair standards, necessitating perhaps one hundred guests at the most. Still, Lady Everleigh had done her best to ensure that the space looked inviting. Mirrored panels wreathed the walls of the ballroom to give the illusion that the space was bigger than it really was.
Jilly felt eyes on her as she entered, but she lifted her chin and took a steadying breath. It was nothing new, she reminded herself. She had grown quite used to being made an object of much speculation.
And still there was a sliver of guilt as she caught sight of Nora and Robert lingering at the edge of the ballroom, near the refreshment table. She had not expected them at this particular ball—it was a good deal smaller than those Nora preferred. Somehow it hurt to see them together. They were quite the happiest couple she had ever known. She had never envied them before, in the long years where she had not let herself dream, but she did now, and it made her feel small and petty.
Just lately, she had become someone she didn’t recognize.
The room was not overly warm. The terrace doors had been thrown open to admit a pleasantly cool breeze inside, and the reduced number of guests had seen to it that the temperature within stayed moderate. She felt flushed anyway. She would have felt flushed if the ballroom had been located in the middle of the Siberian tundra in deep winter.
The crowd, as it was, parted for her. There were those who stared in confusion, doubtless wondering where she had misplaced her husband. There were those who looked on in rapt delight as if steadying themselves to catch any hint of scandal. There were those who tittered to those nearest them, presumably reacquainting themselves with tidbits of old gossip and rumors.
And there was Nora, watching her from across the room. She wore the strangest expression, a curious blend of sympathy and pity, and Jilly’s heart lurched in her chest as her stomach did a bizarre little flip, nausea climbing in her throat.
She knew. Somehow, Nora knew—and if Nora knew, then so did Robert, and Jilly just…she simply couldn’t bear the thought of them knowing what a fool she’d been, how easily she had been deceived.
How she had been so desperate for the tiniest specks of affection that she had so carelessly tossed away her reputation, her morals, any claim she had had to being a lady.
By sheer dint of will she forced herself to continue into the ballroom, accepting with rigid dignity the nods of acknowledgment she received from those she passed.
Though it was the duty of the guest to present oneself to the hostess, Lady Everleigh had cast tradition aside to intercept her. She was perhaps ten years Jilly’s senior, the wife of an earl, and a generally pleasant woman who prided herself on her ability to make people welcome. In the past, Jilly had been presented to her, but this time the woman gave an elaborate curtsey and said, “I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is that you accepted our invitation, Your Grace.”
“Please. I prefer Lady Jillian.” She might not lay claim to the title she had gained through her ill-fated marriage, but she had put forth every effort to gird herself in the armor of a duchess at least—her blue gown was positively glacial, and she held herself as rigidly as an icicle, cool and remote and utterly untouchable, unless one desired a fatal case of frostnip.
“Of course. Lady Jillian.” There wasn’t an ounce of malice in the woman’s face, not a bit of calculating cunning. She seemed to be, in all honesty, simply pleased that Jilly had chosen her ball to attend. Lady Everleigh smoothed at her pale gold skirts, and gestured with a sunny smile. “Do allow me to conduct you to the refreshment table.”
“That would be lovely,” Jilly said, and surprised herself by meaning the words. A bit of the tension that had coiled so tightly in her chest eased. There might have been whispers that followed them, but they were overshadowed by Lady Everleigh’s delighted chatter. With each moment that passed, she felt just a tiny bit stronger. The hardest part had been in coming, and that was over—whatever followed, she could bear it.
“Shall you take some champagne?” Lady Everleigh asked. “Or perhaps a glass of ratafia?”
Jilly gave a slow shake of her head. Neither the bubbles from the champagne nor the sickly sweet ratafia sounded even the least palatable. For a stomach already too delicate, all she truly wanted was—
A maid appeared at her side, a single champagne flute resting upon the silver salver she carried. “For you, my lady,” the girl said, managing a simple curtsey even whilst balancing the tray on one hand.
Jilly took the glass with a touch of confusion. There were already so many champagne flutes resting upon the table. That a servant had elected to bring her one already filled was odd indeed.
“Oh, dear,” Lady Everleigh sighed. “That champagne’s gone quite flat. Let me fetch you another.”
Jilly gave the flute a subtle sniff. The scent of lemons rose to meet her. “Oh, no,” she said. “This is perfect.” And she took a sip. Lemonade, not champagne—and not a hint of bubbles, nor overly sweet. It was crisp and cool, and she knew it had been muddled with sprigs of mint. Just as she had taken it at Windclere. Her roiling stomach calmed itself at the advent of the minty cool drink, settling to merely obnoxious rather than potentially humiliating. She could only imagine what might be said of her had she cast up her accounts in the middle of Lady Everleigh’s ballroom.
But a skitter of unease trembled down her spine. James—the duke—was here somewhere. She had not seen him, but he must have seen her. Who else would have known to offer her mint lemonade instead of champagne? She resisted the unpleasant urge to cast her gaze about in search of him.
“Oh, I think I see Lady Ravenhurst coming,” Lady Everleigh said. “Do forgive me, but I must leave you. The next set is about to begin.” With a vaguely maternal pat on Jilly’s arm, Lady Everleigh took her leave, and Jilly was left amidst a cluster of people who lingered as close as they dared.
But it seemed as though the frosty elegance in which she had draped herself might just be enough to hold them at bay.
Except for Nora, of course. Nora knew her too well to be intimidated by the carefully indifferent expression she wore, by the firm and unbending set of her shoulders, or even by the haughty and faintly disapproving tilt of her chin. And as Nora arrived before her, the compassion in her dark eyes hit Jilly like a blow to the gut.
“Take a turn on the terrace with me, dearest,” Nora said, tucking her arm through Jilly’s.
And, really, it was either that or risk embarrassing herself in a ballroom positively dripping with London’s finest. Just one foot before the other. It was that simple, or so had several governesses and Aunt Marcheline instructed her so many years ago. Of course it had taken many months to stamp the country girl out of her, to quell the impulse to hike up her skirts and run rather than to take delicate mincing steps designed to make one’s gown appear to float across the floor.
Still, Jilly peered at the terrace doors before them as if they were a gauntlet of swords. Once beyond them, Nora’s prudent silence would fall, and then—
And then—
God help her. She had asked so little of life. Was it too much simply to be let alone?
“Oh, Jilly,” Nora sighed as they slipped out into the
cool night, and the sounds of the ballroom became muted to a dull rumble. “I wish you had received me. Robert and I have been so—”
“Don’t, I beg you,” Jilly interrupted. The words had escaped on a raw hiss of pain. “Had I wished to speak of it, I assure you I would have done.”
“But to shut yourself away—”
“I have grown fond of my own company. I am a”—God save her—“married woman now, and I may do precisely as I wish.” It was the one saving grace to this whole unpleasantness, as she had come to think of it.
For a moment Nora said nothing, but her arm tightened in Jilly’s as though she feared Jilly might slip away if she risked loosening her grip. And perhaps she might. How lovely it would be to simply drift away from it all, freed of the moorings of societal expectations and conventions.
Perhaps she ought to leave England after all.
“I truly don’t wish to speak of it,” she said, gratified that her voice had come out clear and steady. “I don’t wish to think of it, even.”
“Dearest, it is clear that you are unhappy,” Nora said, her voice sliding into a sickly sweet cadence better suited to a nursery than to a stroll about the garden.
“I never expected to be happy,” Jilly said. “Even before, I never expected to be.” But she had expected a peaceful life, and that, too, had been taken from her. Idly, as if the question mattered not, she inquired, “How did you learn of it?”
Nora gave an awkward little shrug of what might have constituted shame. “When it became clear that you would not see us,” she said, “Robert and I prevailed upon the duke for an explanation.”
A chill swept over her so biting in its intensity that she would have been unsurprised to find icicles clinging to the frost-hued silk of her gown in truth. She took a deep breath. Lady Everleigh’s garden was lovely, spotted with silky pink hydrangeas and frilly blue stalks of hyacinth. Drawing their decadent perfume into her lungs, she tried for a light laugh, but it came out brittle, with a sharp edge to it. “I suppose he painted it up pretty,” she said.
“No,” Nora said, in a fierce little voice, her hand tightening on Jilly’s arm as if she had grown claws. “I rather think he endeavored to make us hate him.”
Had she been another sort of woman, she might have stumbled. Instead she continued on, effortlessly matching her steps to Nora’s. “I can’t imagine why,” she said at last.
“Robert suggested to me later that perhaps the duke hates himself,” Nora replied, “and so he seeks to make himself contemptible in turn.”
“What rubbish,” Jilly said. But she did not care to think of it, and so she cast the thought from her mind and said, too, “I should like to be alone for a moment.”
“Oh, Jilly.” The ache in Nora’s voice had Jilly turning away. Very gently Nora embraced her, as if she suspected that anything but the lightest pressure would cause Jilly to snap in her arms. “I’ll call again tomorrow,” she said. “Would it be too much to hope that you might receive me?”
Alas, without waiting for an answer, lest it be one she did not wish to hear, Nora turned and wound her way across the terrace and disappeared back into the ballroom once more.
Jilly drew a soft, shuddering breath, and took a sip of her lemonade, the tart sweetness calling her mind back to those halcyon days at Windclere, before her life had been shattered. For a moment she considered casting the glass to the terrace simply to be rid of it, but that would hardly be polite to Lady Everleigh.
Instead she meandered across the terrace and into the garden, to the secluded little arbor that had been tucked away in the corner, sheltered beneath the dangling bows of a wisteria. It would have been the perfect place for a romantic tryst, with its stone benches draped in clinging shadows. Any occupant within would be difficult to see.
And there was someone within. She heard a muffled curse, and saw, finally, the shadows uncoil themselves from one another, and a man rose from where he had been seated on a bench, silent and still.
And she froze, her breath catching in her throat, as the shadowy form moved toward her, and the silky glow of the moon, once hindered by the thick fall of wisteria, at last revealed her husband’s face.
Chapter Thirty Four
Of course it was him. Of course if she had to stumble across a gentleman lingering in a deserted garden, it would be the only man in the world whose company she could not abide. She didn’t know why she had expected differently. It seemed to be her lot in life to collect disappointed hopes the way that some collected figurines or other knickknacks.
She had managed to school her face into placid indifference, but her feet…her feet had stuck to the grass as if she had grown roots.
“Lady Everleigh neglected to mention you were in attendance, Your Grace,” she heard herself say, subverting the profound silence. He might’ve flinched at her deliberate application of his title, but in the darkness she could not say for certain whether or not she had imagined it.
“Ah,” he said. “I’m afraid I presumed upon her good manners and came without an invitation.”
But why? How had he known—Lord Clifton. Of course. The man hadn’t simply been flirting with her cook; he’d been wheedling information out of the woman.
“I would prefer it,” she said, “if you would refrain from sending spies into my household.”
“I had no idea that Nick had gone to visit you,” he replied. “Not until he’d come to see me afterward.” He remained in his place, his hands curled at his sides. Of course he could not move until she did, and she could not seem to make herself do so.
In the uncomfortable quiet that followed, he made an awkward sound in his throat and continued, “I suppose since I’m to be condemned anyway, I might as well confess that I shared your plans to attend with the Ravenhursts.”
“Why?” The question leapt from her throat before she could stop it.
“I thought you could use a friend. I didn’t want you to be alone.”
“I like being alone. I’m not lonely,” she protested, though of course she was. “I’m quite accustomed to it.” She was good at it, proficient enough in doing for herself, in being by herself.
“Jilly—”
“No,” she snapped, at once incensed. Finally she induced her frozen feet to move, to skitter backward a step as if she suspected he might reach for her, though his arms remained, determinedly, at his sides. “Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that.”
For an instant something very like despair flickered in his eyes, and it called up her own hurt, which was promptly drowned out by fury. Fury that despite his perfidy, he could still make her hurt for him, even as he was the cause of her own. It was all so very unfair.
“Nick said that you fear that I will take our child from you,” he said softly, and her heart gave a vicious beat in her chest to have it out in the open.
“Of course,” she heard herself say in a tone that cut between them like a knife, “every man wants his heir. I assume you will have little interest in a daughter.” She had been praying for that, for a tiny little girl who would be wholly hers. A scrap of humanity that would love her at last, unreservedly. Someone to belong to, someone who would belong to her.
“I have no particular preference,” he said. “Only…I would like to see him. Or her. From time to time, if it is acceptable to you.” He made a sound that might have been a sigh. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he said. “Above all else, I felt I should relieve your mind of that.”
“You didn’t have to run me aground at a ball,” she said, rather pettishly. “You could have sent round a note.”
“And you would have read a note, had I sent one?”
Her silence spoke for itself.
“As it happens,” he continued, “I did not intend to run you aground, as it were. I had no intention of letting you catch sight of me. It was just bad luck that you came this way. I thought if I were very still and very quiet, you might miss me altogether.”
“Then why come at all
?” she inquired shortly.
“Selfishly, I wanted to see you.”
Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass to the point of pain, and she was reminded again that he had had it sent to her. “Don’t,” she said in a deadened tone. “Don’t say things like that. Don’t do things like this.” She brandished the glass, and the liquid sloshed over, wetting her glove. “Don’t be kind to me. Don’t send notes or carriages. Don’t send your friends with letters, or—or prevail upon mine.”
“If that is your wish.” He said it softly, without inflection. “If you will excuse me, then.”
She backed up a few more steps, and he carefully skirted around her as if she were a skittish mare that might take a fright and kick out at him. Within moments he had left the garden, and she gave herself a few brisk breaths to recover her composure before she, too, headed back toward the ballroom.
She arrived at the terrace doors as he was wending his way through the crowd, toward the exit. His eyes were fixed very deliberately ahead of him, and he made not the slightest turn of his head in either direction.
A curious jolt speared her as she realized just how correct Lord Clifton had been. Lady Everleigh’s ballroom was, after all, wreathed in mirrors.
And her husband could not make himself meet them.
∞∞∞
He sent flowers instead. Jilly supposed she ought to have expected it. She had forbidden notes and letters, but she had not expressly forbidden flowers, and they did have a language of their own.
And so he spoke to her in the only means he could. Asters, for devotion. Chrysanthemums for fidelity. Marigolds for sadness, snowdrops for consolation. Zinnias, for an absence mourned.
Where he had found a flower shop willing to sling together such wild combinations, she had no idea. But they continued to arrive, day after day, speaking to her through silky petals of his regret and remorse, of hope and faithfulness and love enduring.
She had tossed the first few bouquets with barely a twinge of conscience. But Lord Clifton had arrived directly on the heels of a fresh bouquet the very next day, and when she had asked him the name of the flower shop so that she could put a stop to the bouquets, he had merely drawn his brows in confusion.
His Favorite Mistake Page 26