The Secret Mistress

But she stopped to think—a rare occurrence—and plied her fan slowly as she did so.

She might indeed have died if that tree had not been in that particular spot in the meadow or if she had indeed fallen on her head instead of her left leg. Or if the bull had come back. That handsome red-haired gentleman might have done her considerable harm in the inn taproom if there had been no one there to speak up for her—though she did not think she would have been in any real danger. Or, if the man had refused to apologize to her, Lord Heyward might have been beaten to a pulp out in the yard—though she did not think so. But even if he had sustained just a black eye, it would have been at least partly her fault. She ought not to have been where she was.

She must seem like a careless, unladylike, frivolous chatterbox to Lord Heyward. And a hoyden to boot.

Was he wrong?

Miss Pratt would agree wholeheartedly with him.

But even if he was right, was that all that could be said of her? Surely not. There was all that part of herself that was … Well, that was herself. All those things about her that were too muddled or confusing or, well, simply too deep to be put into words. She was not even sure she knew them all herself. Sometimes she believed she did not know herself at all. But she did know that she was not just a thoughtless, garrulous hoyden.

And then, of course, there was her appearance. How could she possibly compete with the likes of Martha Hamelin? She could not. She could only be herself.

Oh, goodness, she could not think of all this now.

And her fan was whipping up a veritable hurricane.

“You do not approve of me,” she said, which was probably a gross understatement. It was also a depressing realization when she was head over ears in love with him. And then she had a sudden thought, which came from nowhere, a sudden memory of the way he had looked in Hyde Park. “Did I splash you with mud in the park this morning? I went there for a gallop because I have done nothing but shop for weeks before today and had simply oceans of energy pent up inside. And I was feeling really quite nervous at the thought of meeting the queen and perhaps tripping over the train of my court gown. Even now I turn cold at the very thought, though fortunately it did not happen. I went to the park to find Tresham, but he had gone somewhere else to ride, provoking man. It was very fortunate indeed that Ferdinand was there. I would have been obliged to ride directly home if he had not been, and Marsh would have known that Tresham had not really arranged to meet me. He would have looked reproachfully at me, and I would have felt three inches high. Did I splash you?”

“It was of no moment,” he said, which, of course, was merely a polite, roundabout way of saying yes. “Mud brushes off clothes once it has dried. And I hope I have not been ill-mannered enough to give the impression that I dislike you, Lady Angeline. I would not presume to pass judgment upon any lady.”

She fanned her face and smiled ruefully at him.

“If you did not dislike me,” she said, “you would have denied doing so quite vehemently instead of merely saying I would not presume to pass judgment on a lady. I shall persuade you to alter your opinion of me. I am out now. My hoydenish youth is over, and today I have become a lady—elegant, refined, discreet, quiet, and everything else a lady ought to be. I shall be the perfect lady for the rest of the spring—indeed, for the rest of my life. Beginning this evening. Well, at this moment of this evening, anyway.”

He looked at her, and suddenly his lips curved upward slightly at the corners and his eyes twinkled with amusement—and a small dimple made its appearance in his right cheek, close to his mouth. It was an absolutely devastating smile—or almost smile. If Angeline had not already been seated, her knees would surely have buckled under her.

“Well,” she said, “perhaps I ought not to be too rash. I shall be almost perfect, and you will be forced to admit that you misjudged me at the start.”

“I hope, Lady Angeline,” he said, “I will never misjudge you or, indeed, judge you at all.”

“How wretchedly unsporting of you,” she said. “That would mean you do not care at all.”

The almost smile was gone without a trace.

There had been a suggested intimacy in her words. And why should he wish for any sort of intimacy with her? She looked like a dark beanpole, she had been rashly alone in that taproom, she had splashed him with mud this morning while galloping and whooping along Rotten Row, she had made a spectacle of herself on the dance floor just now, and she had told him the story of the bull and her own foolish behavior. And she looked like a swarthy beanpole. Had she already listed that one? And, if she might add something else, he was doubtless wealthy enough and well placed enough socially—good heavens, he was an earl—not to care a tuppenny toss that she was the enormously rich daughter of a duke.

Her prospects suddenly looked rather gloomy.

No, they looked challenging.

But at the moment she was horribly embarrassed, for he did not respond to her unwary words. Neither did he look away from her.

She was saved by a flicker of movement over by the ballroom doors, to one side of the line of dancers. New arrivals. Apparently there were always people who arrived hopelessly late for a ball. The receiving line had broken up ages ago.

The new arrivals were three gentlemen, all of them quite young and quite presentable. There would be three more partners for all the young ladies present, then, Angeline thought. It had not escaped her notice that there were more young ladies here than there were young gentlemen. It was always thus, Cousin Rosalie had told her when she had remarked upon it earlier, though the situation would probably improve as the evening went along. This is what Rosalie must have meant.

And then Angeline’s eyes widened, and her closed fan came down with a thump on the Earl of Heyward’s sleeve. One of the three gentlemen, the tallest and most handsome, had dark red hair and—though he was not close enough for her to see them clearly from where she sat—eyes that were hooded beneath slightly drooped eyelids.

“Well, will you look at that,” she said. “The nerve of the man.”

He turned his head to look in the direction of the ballroom doors.

“Windrow?” he said. “I daresay he does not know who you are, Lady Angeline, any more than I did until an hour ago. Perhaps he will be embarrassed when he does know. Though perhaps not.”

“Windrow?” she said.

“Lord Windrow,” he said. “I believe you will discover that he is one of your brother’s friends.”

“Which brother?” she asked.

“The Duke of Tresham,” he said, turning back to her. “But friends are required to treat one’s sister with the proper respect. If you wish to see him punished, I daresay a word in Tresham’s ear will secure your wishes.”

She lifted her fan from his arm and focused her attention back on him.

“Punished?” she said. “He was very effectively punished at the time, I believe. He would have enjoyed a fight, even if he had lost, which I daresay he might have done as he surely made a grave error in judging you a weakling and a coward. He would still have felt like a man. But you challenged him as a gentleman, and you forced him to apologize. I daresay he felt thoroughly humiliated by the time he left despite the bravado