The Secret Heart, page 9
He cast her a quick look. “Much the same. Millie had a letter from my mother this morning.”
“She does not yet summon you home?”
“For his last great deathbed scene? No.” He stirred as though uncomfortable. “What pleasures await you this evening?”
“You must remember it is Millie’s musical soiree. The tenor?”
“Oh, Lord, is that tonight?”
“Yes, and she is expecting you.”
“Well, I shall try and look in for a little.”
She regarded him. “I suppose there is no use in my asking what keeps you so busy?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Then it is nothing to do with…my position?”
“Nothing. However, I will be out of town for a day or so from tomorrow. If I am not back to travel with you to Pennington Place, I shall see you there.”
The idea of him not being in London with her induced a moment of panic. He seemed to have become both her protection and her pleasure, though in truth, she was in need of neither and would hardly suffer for his absence. So, she forced herself to smile, and to part from him blithely when the carriage halted at Brook Street.
She found Millie standing by the drawing room door, gazing up the length of the room. “Do you suppose it’s big enough?” she asked vaguely.
“Well, we can’t make it any larger.”
“True. Once Alessandro has sung, we’ll clear the rows of seats, and if we can induce him to sing again, he may do informally by the pianoforte. Is that a good idea?”
“An excellent idea,” Lily assured her.
She had expected to find her hostess somewhat flustered, but in fact, she appeared to be going through the last-minute preparations for her party quite calmly. Perhaps because Lily had already made most of the arrangements. Between those and her jaunts with Lord Torbridge, her work on Millie’s correspondence had slowed, but tomorrow she hoped to pay the accounts she could and begin on the unanswered letters.
When Lily had changed into the pale blue evening gown, she joined the Mastertons for a light and early dinner.
Millie frowned at her. “That gown again? My dear, you must have more.”
“I don’t see why. I’ve been wearing them on alternate evenings, and I have the ballgown for Pennington Place.”
“We will be four nights at Pennington Place, and you have but two evening gowns. Tell her, George, she must have two more.”
“Nothing to do with me,” Sir George said hastily. “Take it up with Torbridge.”
“I will. Though I have to say, Lily, you do look charming in that shade of blue. Do you not think so, George?”
“I do, my dear. As do you in that dark pink.”
Millie’s cheeks flushed with unexpected pleasure. “Do I, George? Then I am not too mature for the shade?”
“Millie, you are one-and thirty, not sixty.”
Lily was delighted by the growing closeness she sensed between Millie and George. Whatever had gone wrong between them seemed to be gradually, haltingly, putting itself right again. She had the feeling some of this was to do with the absence of Lord Pennington from her life these last few days, which implied things might get difficult again during their stay at Pennington Place. She thrust that aside for worrying about later.
In fact, she had to consider it a little sooner, for among the first guests to arrive were the Pennington brothers. Millie was much too busy as hostess to pay anyone special attention, and Sir George was his usual urbane, slightly sardonic self. All the same, Lily detected a faint hardening of his demeanor, and her heart sank. She did not like his doubts about Millie, which must have been exacerbated by Pennington’s familiar, almost proprietorial greeting.
“But how charming to see you, Miss Darrow,” he added to Lily, “without the ubiquitous Torbridge at your side. I assure you, my brother has been seething.”
“Pay no attention to him,” Mr. Hill said. “I merely pined for your company—in which I now bask.”
Lily laughed. “I believe you both talk nonsense. I have been plaguing my poor cousin to show me all the sights of London. Cousin Millie despairs of me, and I suspect I have exhausted even Torbridge’s patience.”
“But you and Millie will be attending my mother’s party?” Pennington drawled. “I assume Torbridge will escort you.”
“Possibly. But Sir George certainly will.”
The faintest flicker of a frown was all that betrayed Pennington’s irritation. He did not want Sir George there. While Millie might merely be flirting, he seemed to be aiming at something rather more serious.
Mr. Hill ushered her toward the rows of chairs. “Tell me about this tenor, Miss Darrow. Is he as wonderful as all that?”
“I have not heard him sing,” Lily admitted. “But Cousin Millie tells me his voice is divine, and he deserves every success.”
In fact, Alessandro was taking his place at the front of the room, and everyone was taking seats facing him. While Sir George leaned against the door, his wife wafted up to the tenor to exchange a few words.
Lily, taking her place between Jack Hill and a middle-aged lady she did not know, noticed chiefly that Lord Torbridge had not yet arrived. On either side of her, her neighbors were bowing to each other.
“Are you acquainted with Miss Darrow, ma’am?” Mr. Hill asked politely.
“No, I believe I have not yet had the pleasure.” The lady had a gentle if vague smile that distracted Lily by its underlying sadness.
“Miss Darrow is Lady Masterton’s cousin from Ireland. Miss Darrow, Mrs. Bradwell.”
“How do you do?” Lily murmured.
No further conversation was possible because Millie was introducing Alessandro, and polite applause was necessary.
Lily lacked the experience to know if Alessandro’s voice was indeed something out of the ordinary, but to her, it was certainly divine. Just as at the opera, she quickly lost herself in the beauty of the music. Rapt, she paid no attention to anyone else, and it was only as he paused between songs that she happened to glance at Mrs. Bradwell on her left. The lady’s gaze seemed to be fixed on her throat, which was odd enough, but when she raised it to Lily’s face, there was a haunting mixture of dread and hunger in her eyes. And her face was deadly pale.
“Ma’am?” Lily murmured. “Are you quite well?”
Mrs. Bradwell blinked. “I beg your… Yes, of course, quite well.”
Alessandro began to sing again, and Lily thought no more about the odd moment until the end of his performance when she noticed that Mrs. Bradwell no longer sat beside her. Perhaps she hadn’t been well, after all.
Since she was supposed to be Millie’s companion, Lily excused herself to Mr. Hill, and went to see if she could be useful to her “cousin” Millie, however, was far too busy introducing influential people to her protégé, and the servants clearly had everything else in hand. A footman circulated with trays of wine, while others were removing the rows of chairs and forming them into more elegant groupings with sofas, armchairs, and small tables.
“Well, was he worth all the fuss?” Lord Torbridge’s voice murmured beside her.
Turning, she greeted him with a delighted smile. “I thought so. Were you not in time to hear him?”
“I caught the tail end. There’s no point in trying to speak to Millie right now. You should sit down with a glass of wine and wait to be adored.”
Lily lowered her voice. “He sat beside me during the recital.”
“I know. But a little competition will keep you safe and cause him to try harder.”
“Are you the competition?” she asked with a quick smile, taking the chair he ushered her to.
“Lord, no,” he replied with unflattering speed. “Though my approaching inheritance is bringing me much more interest from the matchmaking mamas.” He was about to take the seat on the sofa next to her when he straightened again and bowed to the lady who had just stopped beside them.
“Ah, Lord Torbridge,” Mrs. Bradwell said pleasantly. “Your charming cousin and I listened to the exquisite singing together.”
Torbridge gave her the place nearest Lily and sat on her other side.
“That is a pretty trinket,” Mrs. Bradwell observed to Lily. “May I see?”
Obligingly, Lily lifted the pendant from the base of her throat and leaned forward to give Mrs. Bradwell a clearer view. As she did so, she was reminded of Torbridge’s interest in it when he had first seen it, his fingers brushing her skin, intimate and pleasurable.
“Quite unique,” Mrs. Bradwell murmured, lifting her gaze to Lily’s. “May I ask where you got it?”
“It was a gift,” Lily replied.
“Ah.” Mrs. Bradwell sat back and changed the subject. She had oddly haunting eyes, Lily thought. Or perhaps haunted. As other people joined them, Mrs. Bradwell drifted away, as did Lord Torbridge. But Lily found the woman’s gaze stayed with her, and when Alessandro gave them one more song, standing by his accompanist at the pianoforte, she went in search of Torbridge once more.
Discovering him leaning against the mantelpiece, she said abruptly, “Who is Mrs. Bradwell?”
“The Earl of Fenmore’s daughter, once Lady Alicia Dauntry, now the wife of Gerald Bradwell, a most respectable country gentleman from Suffolk. Why?”
“Do you know everyone’s background so well?” she asked, distracted.
“Most people’s. Most of the ton has similar knowledge. It’s a small and exclusive world. My question stands.”
“I’m not sure. She was interested in my necklace.”
“It’s very pretty. And it’s simplicity suits you very well.”
“Thank you,” she said, blushing with pleasure at the compliment. “She has sad eyes. And I’m sure she was gazing at it during the performance.”
“Everyone carries their own sadness with them, secretly or otherwise. Especially women.”
She thought about that. “What is her sadness?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps she was blighted in love. Or discovered her husband, who is not quite the rank she could have aspired to, is not the sheer delight she expected him to be.”
“You are not taking me seriously, are you?”
“I always take you seriously,” he protested.
“Ha! I shall ask Millie instead.”
“Good luck,” he murmured and nodded to someone obviously approaching behind her. “Pennington.”
“Torbridge,” Pennington returned. “Your attentiveness to your cousin is most commendable. You do know you are making my poor brother quite green with envy.”
“I’m sure he has cousins of his own,” Torbridge said wryly.
“They do not intrigue him as yours does. In fact, I have to hand it to you, Torbridge. Though I’ve no idea how, you have a most intriguing family. I am so looking forward to entertaining your sister at Pennington Place.”
It could have meant nothing. It could have been verbal clumsiness, but Lily knew it was not. Pennington looked right at Torbridge as he said it, smiling as though baiting an imbecile who would not understand or a weakling who could not or would not object. A bully’s trick. Lily did not know how Millie could bear this man.
Torbridge met his gaze, his expression still amiable, although he had gone very still. “I would hope such a notable host, as you claim to be, looks forward to entertaining all his guests. I know your mama does.”
It was the faintest of insults, the subtlest accusation of ill-manners, but Lily saw the blink of surprise in Pennington’s eyes. And then the dismissal, as though he couldn’t quite believe Torbridge capable of such understanding or such wit.
“And I would hope such a notable…figure as you, Torbridge, would be aware of his own limitations.”
“One never really knows one’s own—or anyone else’s—limitations, until they are tried,” Torbridge said vaguely. “One should, at least, never be too smug to look. If I were you, I would look very carefully at my brother-in-law before you speak of my sister again. Do you know, I think she is right, Lily? I really do believe that fellow’s voice is quite out of the ordinary…”
They moved away from Pennington, closer to the pianoforte.
Lily let out a breath of relief. “I thought you would knock him down,” she murmured.
“I can’t, can I?” he said with such suppressed violence that the words almost hissed out between his teeth. “I’m ineffectual, proper Torbridge.”
Lily had never thought that of him. She had always known there was more. She just hadn’t appreciated what it cost him to maintain the fiction. Perhaps neither had he.
“I said too much as it is,” he said ruefully, under cover of the applause that had broken out for Alessandro.
Lily touched his hand. “No. I’m sure he’ll have convinced himself already that you didn’t really mean what he thought you did and that he is still the cleverest man in the room. In any room. He is not your major concern, remember?”
His eyes softened. “I’m glad you are here.”
She wished beyond anything that it was true. “So am I.”
Chapter Nine
It was at breakfast the following morning that Lily remembered to ask Millie about Mrs. Bradwell.
“Alicia Bradwell?” Millie said. “She comes up to London for a few weeks now and again, to stay with her brother, Lord Fenmore.”
“What is Mr. Bradwell like?”
Millie shrugged. “I don’t believe I ever met him. He prefers life in the country, by all accounts. Why, what is your interest in the family?”
“None, really. I just thought she looked sad and being curious, I wanted to know why. Does she have children?”
Millie thought. “Two sons that I know of. Not that they come to London, for they don’t, but I believe Gilbert, my younger brother, was at school with one of them.”
“Hmm. Did she and Mr. Bradwell have a passionate love affair and defy her father to marry?”
Millie stared at her. “Lily, what books have you been reading? Of course not!”
Sir George folded his newspaper and laid it down beside his empty plate. “In fact, I believe there was a captain of the Royal Navy she was engaged to. He died. What do you have planned for today?”
“The dressmaker’s,” Millie said with satisfaction.
The outing to the dressmaker’s proved very successful. Not only did Millie order an evening dress and a walking dress for Lily, but a new ballgown for herself. She hadn’t intended the latter, but she fell in love with a gorgeous, cream silk embroidered with red rosebuds.
Lily hoped it was not to impress Lord Pennington.
“Do you know what will look delightful with the new gown?” Millie said abruptly on their way home. “The Hay rubies. They’re at Hay House—the London residence. I shall ask Torbridge to bring them round.”
“He said he would be away today,” Lily told her. “And might not be back in town before we leave for Pennington Place.”
“Drat the man,” Millie muttered. “Why does he never stay still? I suppose I could ask him simply to bring them to me there. If he remembers.”
The evening’s entertainment was a card party at Lady Gantry’s house with a few select guests. “You are coming with us, aren’t you?” Millie flung at her husband over dinner.
“I’ll escort you there if you wish,” Sir George said without enthusiasm, “but I won’t stay. I have another engagement.”
A frown flickered across Millie’s face and vanished. “Whatever you prefer. If you’re too busy, I’ll send for my cousin Hartford. Or I daresay, Pennington would oblige me.”
Lily tried not to groan. Sir George didn’t even look up from his soup. “I have said I will take you.”
To Lily’s relief, Pennington was not even among the guests at Lady Gantry’s party. His brother was there, though. His eyes lit up on seeing Lily, and she felt guilty all over again. His partiality for her company was becoming noticeable. But even if he was innocent, even if she had really been born a lady, she could not consider marrying him, for one very good reason.
In twenty years, she thought, she, too, might have hauntingly sad eyes, just like Mrs. Bradwell’s.
Sir George left almost immediately, abandoning his wife to the whist table. Lily sat at her shoulder, watching. In truth, she found it a rather dull way to spend an evening, as she confided to Mr. Hill when he approached her.
“I don’t find it dull,” he replied. “though it’s proving dashed expensive.”
“Didn’t you win?” she asked sympathetically.
In this strange world, gaming debts were considered debts of honor and had to be paid immediately, while tradesmen’s bills could be stuffed in a drawer and ignored for months. Like Millie’s. Lily saw little honor in gambling, but if Hill lost, he would have to find a way of paying. Betraying his country was hardly honorable, either, but at least it was done in secret.
“Perhaps you will bring me luck,” he said lightly.
“I don’t think I’ve brought my cousin much!”
Keeping half an eye on Hill’s game, she saw him win and then lose again.
“Does Mr. Hill always lose?” she murmured to Millie when they found themselves briefly alone.
Millie shrugged. “No more than most. I suppose Pennington bales him out when necessary. But you mustn’t go thinking fortunes change hand at little parties like this where the stakes are so little. It’s the gentleman’s clubs, and the less respectable gaming hells is where the real dangers lie.”
“Does Mr. Hill frequent such places?”
Millie stared at her. “I have no idea.” She lowered her voice even further. “Lily, you are not actually considering him as a husband, are you? Because, really, it would not do.”
Lily laughed. “Of course not.” I will only marry your brother, and that is even less possible…
For the first time, she began to doubt her wisdom in coming to London with Lord Torbridge, for being so much in his company had turned a sweet attraction into something greater, something dangerously like love. And that could never be.
“Pennington isn’t here either,” Millie said restlessly.
Lily glanced at her. “Does it matter?”
