She shrugged. “I thought I might go down to Harcourt instead. And then I thought you would probably prefer the peace.”

  “How thoughtful. But on the contrary, I believe a ball would be quite appropriate. Do you have a theme in mind?”

  “No. As I told you, I lost interest in the scheme.”

  “Then might I suggest a masked ball? Perhaps that will revive your flagging enthusiasm. Masquerades were, I’m told, all the rage at the Congress of Vienna. Give my regards to Hope.” He bowed and left her without waiting for her opinion.

  He spent the next couple of hours catching up with estate business, then rewarded himself with a walk to White’s, where he had engaged to meet Leyton and a few other friends for a light luncheon.

  To his surprise, the first person he met in the coffee room was Lord Darblay. Grace’s father was an amiable hedonist. One knew all his faults but couldn’t help liking him. So when he encountered Darblay’s glare from the wing chair by the door, he smiled involuntarily, changed direction, and thrust out his hand.

  Darblay did not smile back. At least he reached up and took Wenning’s hand for the briefest of instants before he said. “Sit, if you can spare me a moment.”

  “Always.” Wenning took the chair nearest the viscount’s. The only other members present were on the other side of the room, and it crossed his mind that his supposedly irresponsible father-in-law had arranged it that way. Wenning was, he saw, in for a verbal battering.

  “Do I have to explain how you disappointed me?” Darblay asked abruptly.

  “No, sir. I behaved ill.”

  The quick admission seemed to disconcert Darblay, who blinked and scowled. “You did. You insulted my daughter, and therefore her family, to pursue the glory of your career. I never thought you dishonest, Wenning, but you proved me wrong.”

  Wenning felt a flush rise to his face, but he had always known how his actions would appear. “I never intended dishonesty. I married in good faith. The decision to go to China after all was a sudden one.”

  “With no thought for the consequences to anyone else. Do you know what your abandonment did to my daughter?”

  “No. That is my shame and our business to resolve. But I am glad to find her thriving.”

  “No thanks to you. Do you have any idea of the courage it must have taken to walk into Society when she should have been on her wedding trip? But she would not skulk in the country with us beyond two weeks because you had made her look like a guilty wife. She braved it all with a smile and a joke, made herself the rage, and then set about keeping your estates running smoothly.”

  She was a guilty wife! He would never speak the words to anyone, least of all to her father. In any case, they were an excuse, not a justification. Whatever she had done, what he had done was unforgivable. If he had not been so deeply in love, in pain, he would have been able to think more clearly and found a way to give the gossips less fodder.

  “I owe her a great deal,” he said steadily.

  “You do.” Darblay sat forward. “And if you ever hurt my daughter like that again, I promise I will come and thrash you myself. Tears of temper or hurt pride or even grief, I can deal with—ignore, if I’m honest, for they’re natural. But tears of such anguish? No, never again. I will not tolerate that. Do we understand each other, Wenning?”

  Wenning found his fingers dug into the arm of his chair and forced them to relax. His face felt suddenly cold, as though the blood had drained away to his feet.

  “No,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure we do. You are telling me I hurt more than her pride?”

  Darblay stared at him as though he were an imbecile. “What do you think? She loved you. Foolish chit imagined you loved her. Apparently, you told her so. Do you know what, Wenning? I think it would be best if you stayed away from her. You have an heir. You don’t need another.”

  Wenning’s heart beat hard against his ribs. Guilt and hope and loss swirled around him, disorienting him, pulling him from his last anchor.

  With an effort, he tried to hold himself in place. “Sir, are you aware of any friend of Grace’s called Anthony?”

  Darblay blinked. “Anthony? No, I don’t know any Anthony, except my cousin’s son, who’s twelve. Who do you mean?”

  Wenning shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I’ve never known.”

  Grace’s father gave a grunt of disgust, then rose and stalked away, leaving Wenning gazing into the empty fireplace.

  It was there Leyton found him five minutes later. “Wenning? What are you doing in here? We’re all waiting in the dining room.”

  Almost surprised to see him, Wenning shook his head and stood. “Sorry. I was miles away.”

  “Is everything well?” Leyton asked uneasily.

  “No, I don’t know that it is,” Wenning replied. “I think I might have made an even bigger mistake than I was aware.” He smiled quickly and slapped his friend on the back. “But who knows? Maybe I can sort that out, too.”

  *

  After an entertaining few hours with her sister—hours blessedly free of anyone associated with the fashionable world—Grace allowed herself to be inveigled into Gunther’s for an ice.

  Only then did Hope ask the awkward question. “Are you glad he is home?”

  Hope had been there when she had flown from the south coast to Darblay Hall two years ago. Grace could not deny she had ever cared. So she said lightly, “I scarcely know. I have hardly seen him.”

  “Do you want to?”

  Grace shrugged. “No, not really.” I want him to see me. “To be honest, I don’t even want to talk about him.” She dipped her spoon into Hope’s ice, and her sister did the same to hers, thus averting any further difficult talk.

  After that, she returned Hope to their parents and went home to Wenning House to change in time for the fashionable promenade in the park.

  She drove herself, as she liked to, in her smart phaeton, pulled by matching chestnuts. She wanted to be seen not changing her habits in the slightest, by her husband as well as by the ton. Since she had honored Mr. Curtis with her favor yesterday evening, she merely smiled at him, pausing for the briefest instant to exchange a few words before letting the chestnuts move on. She chose the slightly more rakish Lord Effers to climb up beside her for a circuit. Since he was a friend of Rollo’s, and she had known him forever, she trusted him to keep the line of what was pleasing. He was, besides, an amusing gossip.

  She was rewarded five minutes later when, laughing quite naturally at one of Effers’s sallies, she caught sight of her husband sauntering along the grass beside her.

  “My lord,” she greeted him carelessly, pausing the horses once more.

  He took off his hat and bowed. His movements were always graceful, and she was glad he had to look up at her for once. He did not appear to mind. “What a very smart equipage. And such skilled driving.”

  “Oh, the chestnuts know their own way,” she said modestly. “I’d offer you a turn about the park, but I have only just taken up Lord Effers here. Sir, my husband, the Earl of Wenning.”

  Effers looked somewhat uneasy, although Wenning stretched up a lazy hand to shake.

  “How do you do?” Wenning said affably before turning back to his wife. “Phineas tells me you are promised to Lady Plumfield tonight.”

  Drat Phineas and his big mouth. She had quite other plans for tonight, and she didn’t want Wenning turning up at Lady Plumfield’s and seeing she wasn’t there. Not that she had any intention of altering her social calendar to please him, but a Maida Gardens masked ball might well be grounds for even the most casual husband to put his foot down.

  More than that, she wondered again if his mention this morning of holding a masked ball had any reference to her previous visit to Maida. Leyton could easily have recognized her and told him. Or either of Rollo’s friends could have blabbed.

  She managed to keep the polite smile on her lips. “Do you go to Lady Plumfield’s also?”

  “Alas, I have made other plans.”

  Thank God. “Then enjoy your evening, my lord. Forgive me if I move on. The horses are restive.”

  He smiled but was already turning away to greet another lady. In fact, as Grace glanced over her shoulder, she saw him take this woman’s hand and kiss her cheek. She even recognized her.

  Mrs. Fitzwalter. Once, more than two years ago, she had been the beautiful Miss Irwin, and the betting money had been on her marrying the Earl of Wenning before the end of the Season. She hadn’t. Wenning had married Grace instead.

  Why? she wondered for the millionth time. Miss Irwin had been more beautiful and bettered dowered. She would have made an excellent countess, a much more conventional and yet sophisticated one than Grace. But he had chosen the next-to-penniless daughter of an expensive and almost bankrupt viscount. Only to abandon her before they had been married a full day.

  It made no sense. Her original view of the earl made no sense. She had a more accurate opinion, now, and the fickle, faithless being that he truly was would pay for the anguish he had inflicted.

  The trouble was, none of her cavaliers seemed to worry him. She needed someone more…substantial. More constant.

  Chapter Seven

  “So,” Bridget’s husband said on the journey, “we’re going to Maida Gardens, dressed up like figures of fun in domino cloaks and masks, so that Lady Wenning can say thank you to a stranger who found and returned a bracelet, which she managed to lose on her previous visit to the gardens?”

  “More or less,” Grace answered. She tried a winning smile. “And I’m very grateful to you and Bridget for coming with me.”

  “You are welcome,” Lord Arpington said politely. Although not a particularly handsome man, he was both kind and humorous, and Grace liked him a great deal. “Providing you don’t lose anything else that compels me to wear such garments again.”

  “I’m afraid I must ask you to do worse,” Grace said. “Wenning has taken it into his head that our party must be a masked ball, so I thought it would be much more fun if we also dress up as historical figures.”

  Bridget giggled.

  Her husband said, “You are torturing me.”

  “Nonsense. You would make a splendid Sir Walter Raleigh, would he not, Grace?”

  “And you could be Queen Elizabeth,” Grace told her friend with enthusiasm.

  “Then who would you be?”

  “I had this idea of being Mary, Queen of Scots, with a cloak buttoned right over my head and carrying a head-shaped object under my arm.”

  It won an involuntary laugh from Lord Arpington, who said, “I am almost resigned to coming if I can see that.”

  “Good man,” Grace said encouragingly. “And this is Maida Gardens. Masks, my friends!”

  Lord Arpington instructed the carriage to return at a quarter before midnight, and, with a lady on either arm, walked up the lantern-lit path that had become familiar to Grace. She was glad, for the sake of her companions, not to hear too many giggling noises coming from the undergrowth tonight, although a vulgarly loud party led by a matron in puce with a squealing laugh, did cause Lord Arpington’s aristocratic lip to curl.

  “I begin to wish I told the coachman just to wait,” he murmured. “Half an hour is more than time to thank your friend.”

  “But not time enough for you to dance with us both,” Bridget pointed out.

  “I can’t dance with either of you,” Arpington said grimly, bowing them into the pavilion. “If I did, it would leave the other unprotected.”

  Bridget frowned. “Drat, I never thought of that. We should have brought another gentleman. Perhaps your brother will be here, Grace.”

  “If he is, I doubt he’ll be glad to see me,” Grace said. “I’m sure I cramped his style enough the last time. Where shall we sit?”

  Lord Arpington led them to a discreet table in the corner, and while they settled and he ordered wine, Grace scoured the ballroom for a figure lounging against a pillar. Her own eagerness surprised her, as did the realization of butterflies in her stomach. He intrigued her too much, this foreign stranger who had somehow found her lost bracelet and promised to show her something. And quoted mysterious poetry.

  Most of her cavaliers quoted poetry to her. One even penned it himself and delivered it in a scroll tied with a rose. Such admiration had once been balm to her wounded pride. Now, it was an accessory to fashion, like a matching reticule or a head dress. And at least some of those admirers regarded her the same way. It was fashionable to be at the Countess of Wenning’s feet, and so they were.

  No wonder Wenning did not take them seriously. She needed a lover of standing, a man different enough and handsome enough to intrigue her. A man with just a hint of danger, of risk, distant, perhaps, from the world of the ton, who would not care about creating scandal. A genuine threat to her heart and Wenning’s complacency. A believable lover that might easily sweep her off her feet.

  Her gaze stopped at a pillar opposite the main door. A tall man in an unusual black and silver domino with matching mask stood there, not quite dallying with a daringly dressed lady in yellow.

  Her heart gave a funny little lurch.

  He would be perfect.

  Only how could Wenning get to know about him? Her breath caught, and she laughed aloud.

  “You’re right, of course,” Bridget agreed, clearly following the direction of her gaze. “That jonquil is hideous.”

  “But the man with her is the one who found my bracelet.”

  “It seems he will be finding someone else’s this evening,” Bridget observed, just as the stranger smiled, stepped back, and bowed to the lady in yellow before walking away. Straight toward Grace’s table.

  So he had seen her entrance. He must have been waiting for her. Exciting thought…

  Nonsense. He had asked her to come, after all, and he could not have known she would not be alone. Did that bother him?

  It didn’t seem to. He bowed to Grace, the fascinating half-smile she remembered playing on his lips beneath the line of the mask. “Madam.”

  She inclined her head. “Sir.” She turned to her friends. “This is the kind gentleman who retrieved my bracelet. Sir, these are my good friends.”

  He bowed again, and it struck her that there was something different about him tonight. In fact, her stomach clenched with the sudden suspicion that it was not even the same man, and she had just blurted out that she had lost her bracelet here. Did it matter? Hadn’t she just decided that she wanted news of her visits to Maida to reach her husband?

  But, no, even here in one of the dimmer corners of the ballroom, she could see he was the same height and build she remembered. He had the same smile, and when he murmured greetings to the Arpingtons, he had the same soft, low voice with its slightly foreign inflection.

  It was his hair, she realized with relief. He had cut his hair into a fashionably short style.

  “Join us in a glass of wine,” Arpington invited, in something of the same tones a father might use toward a suitor he doubted was an acceptable son-in-law.

  “Gladly, at another time.” His eyes strayed back to Grace. “I was hoping Madame would dance with me.”

  Grace blinked. “It is the middle of a dance.”

  He smiled. “Are there rules governing such in your world? There are none here.”

  “Except manners,” Arpington muttered below his breath.

  Hastily, Grace stood. It was why she had come here, after all. “Take the opportunity,” she advised her friends. “Dance. I won’t tell.”

  “Why would they care?” the stranger asked, leading her onto the dance floor.

  “Because it is not fashionable to dance with a mere husband.”

  His smile flickered, and he turned, taking her gracefully into his hold. Butterflies gamboled in her stomach. She supposed he would not be such a perfect solution if there was not some danger to her heart.

  “Is that your wife?” she asked hurriedly. “The lady in yellow?”

  “No. Let us not talk of wives or husbands, just of you.”

  “That will be dull, but what do you want to know?”

  He danced with more…verve than the English, spinning her among the other dancers with skill, elegance, and a sheer enjoyment that was catching.

  “Everything,” he replied. “Your favorite color, your first memory, your ambition.”

  “It depends on my mood, but often red. Waddling about with a large, hairy dog in a field and him licking my nose when I fell over. And I don’t think I’m going to tell you my ambition just yet. What are yours?”

  “Black and silver, clearly. Being thrashed for something I didn’t do. And I won’t tell you mine yet, either. Your turn.”

  “Where did you learn to waltz?”

  “In a room full of other boys all laughing and falling over each other. And dancing with each other.”

  She laughed, enjoying the comical image.

  “And you?” he prompted.

  “Merely in my own home with a dancing master. I told you my life was dull. What is your name?”

  His eyes searched hers, unblinking. “Rudolf. What is yours?”

  She hesitated, but it was a common enough name, and in any case, he would need to know if she carried out her plan. “Grace.”

  He smiled. “It suits you perfectly. My turn. Who do you love most in the world?”

  Her answering smile died on her lips.

  “It was not meant to be a sad question,” he said gently.

  “Oh, it isn’t,” she assured him. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Bridget and her husband were indeed dancing. “Once there would have been an easy answer. Now I can only say I love my family. Perhaps my little sister the most since she, at least, needs me a little. What of you?”

  He shrugged without losing his grace or the rhythm of the waltz. “Like you, I no longer have a simple answer. Once, it was my wife. Perhaps it still is.”

  “And yet here you are dancing—and flirting—with me. To say nothing of the lady in yellow.”

  “I neither danced nor flirted with the lady in yellow. Though she might have flirted with me.”

  “Do you have children?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24