Unmasking the Hero, page 6
Rollo cast her a searching glance. “Did you, by God? Can I push his teeth down his throat yet?”
“Why, no, his return can make no difference to any of us.”
After a moment, Rollo’s lips twisted into a crooked smile. “That’s the way you want to play it? Fair enough. Should I stay?”
Even more touched by this offer of sacrifice, she patted his arm. “No, you have already suffered more than any brother should. Thank you for being here, but you had better escape before the tenor begins.”
Rollo grinned and made for the door to the main salon behind everyone else.
“Lady Wenning,” young Mr. Curtis greeted her eagerly, as though he couldn’t believe his luck to find her unattached to any other arm. “Are you coming to hear the tenor? May I escort you?”
“Thank you.” She laid her hand on his arm, and they walked together toward the door.
But on the other side lurked her husband, and she wasn’t quite ready to meet him yet.
“Save me a place, Mr. Curtis,” she said lightly, dropping her arm and turning back. “I will join you in a moment.”
He bowed without demur and carried on. But he would, she knew, keep a seat beside him free for her, and she fully intended to take it. A little young, a little serious, but very good looking, he was an excellent companion for the evening. And she needed one, if only to keep Wenning guessing.
She swerved to the window and stood looking out into the darkness. With the bright candlelight inside, she could see nothing outside, but the blackness was curiously soothing.
This was what she had been waiting for. She would not be intimidated or afraid just because he, too, had grown up and become a stranger. He had always been a stranger. The man who had left her on their wedding night with nothing but a curt note was not the man she had imagined only hours before.
The tenor had begun without her noticing. His voice was as fine as she remembered, and Honoria would receive almost equal adulation for finding him. She doubted her sister-in-law would reveal it was Grace who had actually done the finding. She had thrown his name to her in order to deflect a long and annoying scold about something that was none of Lady Trewthorpe’s business. It had worked, too, for a couple of days.
A shift in the air gave her a moment’s warning. An achingly remembered masculine scent of woodland and citrus mingled with something fainter, spicier like cinnamon, yet also elusively familiar. A man leaned in the window embrasure. She didn’t need to look to know who it was.
“You don’t care for Honoria’s tenor?” he murmured.
Not the opening she had expected, but she didn’t let it throw her. “I have heard him before. And I can hear him from here. Or at least I could.”
Somehow, she knew his lips twitched at this implied criticism. “I hope you will excuse my blundering interruption. I had not meant our reunion to be so public.”
At that, a genuine breath of laughter escaped her, but at least she kept the bitterness from her eyes and her smile as she looked at him at last.
Oh yes, he could take one’s breath away by his very presence. So unfamiliarly solid, so physical. And his intense, steady eyes offering…what? Peace? Truce? A new beginning?
It didn’t matter. This was not a battle that would be fought on his terms.
“Reunion, my lord?” she mocked. “For that, there would have had to be some kind of union in the first place.”
She turned from the window, inclining her head as if to a stranger—which he was. “You will excuse me while I renew my appreciation of Honoria’s tenor.”
“I remember a union,” he said softly as she began to walk away. “It was very sweet.”
There was no doubt what union he meant, the very physical one that had been their last encounter two years ago. She was annoyed that it stayed her step, if only for an instant before she walked on.
“You are mistaken. That was not a union. Not in any sense that matters.” She kept her voice light, amused, and didn’t turn back. She didn’t really expect him to follow her after such a sally, yet she could not help a spurt of disappointment. The old Oliver would not have left it there.
She slipped into the main salon, smiling and nodding in response to those acquaintances she encountered in her search for Mr. Curtis. Somehow, he had found two chairs for them to the side and a little behind the tenor, who was now singing his heart out in an operatic aria.
Mr. Curtis’s eyes lit up with flattering and half-surprised pleasure as she took the place beside him.
For several minutes after that, she ignored her sense of being watched. But it was not Wenning’s gaze that bored into her. It was Honoria’s. And that of her sister, Lady Barnton. They were gazing at her with the avidity of scientists examining a specimen for signs of reaction. She ignored them, and exchanged smiles with Mr. Curtis.
She did not see her husband reenter the main salon. But when the tenor had finished his performance, she caught sight of him near the passage door with Sir Ernest and Lord Barnton.
“I believe there is a buffet supper served through here,” Mr. Curtis said, indicating the third salon she had not yet investigated. “May I help you to a morsel?”
“Why not?” Grace said with a smile. Sir Nash Boothe was approaching, and she had no desire to speak to him.
Mr. Curtis was most attentive, choosing for her from the array of elegant dishes, but it was Grace who chose their seats by sitting down beside Bridget on one of two facing sofas. Mr. Curtis took the other beside Bridget’s escort.
“Well?” Bridget murmured. “How has it been? Have you spoken?”
“Barely. I did not see him until I came here.”
“You can’t avoid it, Grace,” Bridget warned.
“Well, that’s the thing, Biddy,” Grace said. “I am in the best possible position to do exactly as I like.”
“And if he claps you up in the country like an errant wife?”
“I like the country,” she drawled.
Although she never let herself look for him, she was aware more than once during the evening of his gaze upon her. Once as she listened to the recitation of a Shakespearean sonnet, that for some reason reminded her of the note clasped into the returned bracelet. Once when she was the center of an admiring group that included Mr. Curtis, Sir Nash Boothe, and Phineas Harlaw, who had appeared halfway through the evening. And once when she made her thanks and farewells to Honoria.
“Thank you, Honoria,” she said civilly. “Such a lovely evening, with beautiful music and fine poetry.”
“You are leaving so soon?” Honoria said, clearly affronted, with a darting glance at her brother, who lounged over the back of a sofa talking with a group of old friends. His gaze drifted up toward them, then back to his companions.
“Well, it is nearly midnight,” Grace pointed out, “and I promised Lady Brocklehurst I would look in on her ball.”
“Perhaps Wenning will escort you,” Honoria suggested.
“I would not disturb his pleasant reunion. And I have two escorts.” She did, for Bridget and her husband and Mr. Curtis left with her.
*
It was after three o’clock in the morning before she reentered Wenning House and sent the sleepy porter to bed. In many ways, the ball had been as much torture as Honoria’s soiree. For she hadn’t truly wanted to be there, despite throwing herself into the event with almost hectic good spirits. She had danced every dance left, including a waltz with the faithful Mr. Curtis. And a more reckless one with Sir Nash Boothe, who had appeared just at the end.
“So, your husband is home,” he had said intensely, staring down at her. “That is why you made such a fuss about the wretched bracelet, why you now try to hold me at arm’s length.”
She had held his gaze but said nothing. He could make of that what he wished.
But an eager warmth had entered his eyes. “My dear,” he had said softly, “have you not yet realized that eluding the husband is half the charm?”
At the time, it had seemed exquisitely funny, largely because eluding her husband had not been exactly challenging over the last two years.
Sir Nash had looked encouraged. But it was Bridget’s carriage that had brought her home.
And now, exhausted, she wanted to sleep for a week. She took a candle from the table at the foot of the stairs, lit it from the covered wall sconce, and made her weary way upstairs.
On the first-floor landing, she almost dropped her candle when the flame flickered over a man standing in the drawing room doorway.
Oliver, without his coat and cravat, his waistcoat unbuttoned. He held a brandy glass in one hand. A picture of handsome, elegant decadence that made her mouth dry and her stomach tingle.
“I disagree,” he said.
“About what?” she managed.
“Union. As I recall, we both enjoyed it very much.”
She laughed, being too tired for subtlety. “Oh, that? There is a very different word for that.”
He moved aside, waving her into the almost dark drawing room. “Come in, explain it to me over a nightcap.”
A surge of panic took her by surprise. Even worse was the insidious temptation. Thank God for anger.
“I should not have to explain it,” she snapped. “Not to my husband, though you have never been that. Ask a friend or someone else who might care. Good night, my lord.” She carried on up the stairs, trying to enjoy her fierce satisfaction in his silence.
To be on the safe side, she locked the bedchamber door after Henley departed. Not that she expected an assault, but men could behave badly when their pride was attacked. And by law, she was still his wife.
Chapter Six
“Phineas,” Wenning greeted his cousin who strolled into the breakfast parlor the following morning. “You’re abroad early.”
“Always, dear boy. I’m a martyr to insomnia.”
“Well, help yourself.” Wenning waved his fork toward the dishes on the sideboard. “There’s a mountain here for a mere two people.”
“Oh, her ladyship won’t come down to breakfast,” Phineas informed him. “She always has a tray in her room.”
Wenning paused, then carried on eating. “How odd that you know my wife’s habits better than I.”
“Not so odd since you never lingered to find them out.”
“Touché. I have to thank you for keeping an eye on her.”
Phineas brought a heaped plate to the table and sat down. Wenning poured him a cup of coffee.
“I have always been available to escort her to parties or advise on the latest fashions, to warn about the more dangerous rakes and cover for her would-be scandals. She is, as you’ll have gathered, something of a dazzling social butterfly, but there is no vice in her. It is all a hectic, if an innocent pursuit of entertainment. And she has, of course, a huge circle of admirers who outdo each other in their efforts to escort her, amuse her, and win her favor. Honoria and Patience will have it she is not so innocent, but I have seen no evidence of guilt.”
“Nor has Leyton.”
“Ah. Well, Leyton is pretty much at her feet, too, if you must know. Nothing remotely improper, of course. It is Leyton, after all! But she is quite enchanting, and he is only human.”
“You misunderstand. I asked Leyton to look out for her, too.”
“What, even to Maida Gardens?”
Wenning’s gaze flew to his face. “Maida?”
Phineas sighed. “She was seen there on Tuesday evening. Nothing to worry you. She went with Rollo Darblay’s escort and returned with him, too. Not who I’d choose to protect a lady’s honor under most circumstances, but there, he is her brother! But, curiously enough, Leyton was also there.”
Wenning searched his face. “Were you?”
“Well, no, but I heard from a friend. She is not quite as discreet as she imagines.” Phineas smiled tolerantly. “I doubt she is quite as sophisticated as she thinks, either. The Maida fling is a one-off, I’m sure.”
Phineas drank his coffee, then returned to his ham and sausages. “Incidentally,” he added. “Young Curtis’s Christian name is Anthony.”
Anthony. The name still had the power to fill Wenning with rage. But last night’s serious young sprig with the devoted eyes did not fit his image of the mysterious first love who had seduced his wife and retained her affections. For one thing, Curtis could not be more than four and twenty summers now, which would have made him a mere two and twenty when Grace married.
Two and twenty. Three years older than Grace at the time.
Wenning himself had been only six and twenty. And behaved as though he had been ten years younger. Sheer hurt had driven him from her. And perhaps, the sop to his pride of ambition. But no matter that he had been allowed to accompany the embassy to China, after all, no matter what success had been attributed to him, he had not done right by his wife.
Leaving her as he had was an all but public insult. Perhaps justified by her dishonesty and infidelity. But he could not be proud that he had left a girl of nineteen years old to fend for herself amongst the avid gossip, the hostility of his family, and the unfamiliarity of her position as Countess of Wenning.
He had read his steward’s reports, as well as the letters of his friend and his cousin. He knew she had found her feet and run his estate with good sense and hard work—all the more remarkable considering her father’s poor example in this regard. She had Wenning’s people and the ton at her feet, and she had done it all without him.
Because he had behaved like a spoilt little boy rather than the earl, the husband he was supposed to be.
I could at least have talked to her. That so-often-repeated knowledge had been with him since before he had been two days out at sea. But by then, he could not turn back. He could not disembark and scamper home to her. He did not deserve to be taken seriously by either the government or his wife unless he proved himself now. And so he had, and imagined that when he came home, they could talk about everything, including Anthony.
But as he had grown up, so had she. She wasn’t even displeased to see him, except in so far, apparently, as he might interfere with the life she had made without him. He had become…irrelevant.
As both his sisters had been at pains to tell him yesterday before the ball. “She is positively fast, Oliver, as hedonistic as her father and even her unspeakable brother. She drags our family name through the dirt and is perfectly blatant about her lovers, even if Phineas insists they are mere admirers…”
Success in China had come at the expense of his marriage, and he had no one but himself to blame.
“So, what will you be doing with your day?” Phineas inquired genially. “Official business? Or relaxing with your countess, perhaps?”
“The beauty of my extended leave of absence,” Wenning said, “is that I need make no plans at all. What of you, Phin?”
“Oh, a long appointment with my tailor and perhaps an afternoon nap at my club. I am, you perceive, as busy as ever.”
Wenning regarded him with affectionate amusement. “You make a very good pretense of the idle man-about-town.”
“What makes you think it is pretense?”
“You have gone out of your way to help me,” Wenning said quietly. “To do what was my duty, not yours. I shall not forget that.”
Phineas smiled. “Then I’ll send you my tailor’s bill.”
“Please, no! Even I am not that wealthy.”
Phineas laughed and rose from the table. “You are right, as always. A man’s account with his tailor should remain sacred. I hope I will see you tonight at the Plumfields’? I believe Grace is going.”
“I have no plans as yet.”
“Well, I imagine it will be a dull affair. Enjoy your peace, Ollie! My tailor calls.”
Only his tailor, Wenning reflected with some amusement, could have got Phineas out of bed before midday, despite his claims of insomnia.
Thoughtfully, Wenning finished his coffee, then rose and strolled upstairs to his wife’s sitting room.
He was her husband. He owed her no warning knock. But he gave her one anyway before entering immediately.
Yes, this was the Grace he remembered. While the rest of Wenning House was kept immaculately tidy, with everything more or less as it had been when he left—apart from a little tasteful redecoration—she had made this room her own. Comfortable old furniture. Bookshelves. An elegant vase of roses, another of lowlier flowers. A book lay open on the chair by the fireplace. A clutter of miniature portraits on the table beneath one window. A harp stood by the other, with sheets of music littered around it.
He had forgotten she played the harp. And yet, that was what she had been doing when he had first laid eyes on her. It hadn’t been so much her beauty that had captivated him in that initial moment. It had been the intense focus she had brought to bear on the music, not on her surroundings, her audience, or the potential for catching a husband on the marriage mart.
A swishing sound from the inner door to the bedchamber drew him from his reverie to the present. His wife, dressed to go out in a very fetching walking gown and matching spencer, with a pretty hat whose feather curled over her face, swept into the room and stopped dead at the sight of him.
At last, it seemed, he had taken her by surprise. Startlement and then wariness flickered across her once so expressive face before the veils came down.
“My lord,” she drawled. “What a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe the honor?”
“You are going out,” he observed. “I shall escort you and explain at the same time.”
She was not even tempted. “That will not suit. My sister awaits me downstairs. We are browsing bookshops and museums.” She bit her lip as though she resented telling him even where she was going.
“And I should be de trop,” he said gravely. “I understand. In that case, allow me to ask now, have you planned to hold any parties here for the rest of the Season?”
“I had sent out invitations to a ball next week, but I mean to cancel it.”
“Why?”
