The Secret Mistress

Perhaps she would have a chance to redeem herself somewhat in his eyes. She must think in advance of some sensible subject upon which she could converse with him. Had she read any good books lately? At all? She could tell him that she was going to take out a subscription at the library tomorrow because she was feeling starved of good reading material and could he recommend anything that she might not already have read?

And then a double disappointment set in, though actually one of them was more in the way of being an outrage than a disappointment. First she watched Lord Heyward return his last partner to her mama’s side and then begin his journey about the perimeter of the ballroom in her direction. He stopped along the way, though, to talk to a group of ladies, and when he moved away from them a minute or so later, he had one of them—the youngest—on his arm and proceeded to lead her out onto the terrace.

Angeline did not know the lady, though she did remember greeting her in the receiving line. It was impossible to remember every name that had been announced, or even most. Or even some, for that matter. She had remembered Maria Smith-Benn’s name and Lady Martha Hamelin’s because she had met and liked both at the palace earlier. And she had remembered the names of the Earl of Heyward, of course, and the Countess of Heyward and the dowager. And Cousin Leonard, Lord Fenner, because he was Rosalie’s brother and Angeline must have met him at Rosalie’s wedding all those years ago. And there were a couple of Ferdinand’s friends who had been riding with him this morning and whose names she had recalled this evening without prompting. And that was about it. She must make more of an effort in the coming days. She must try to memorize one name each day. No, better make that ten names.

Was it possible?

And then came the other great disappointment hot on the heels of the first—or, rather, the outrage. It came sauntering along in company with Tresham and stopped before her, and there was Lord Windrow, smiling warmly as if he had never in his life set eyes upon her until this evening and had never suggested that she sit on his lap and share a meat pasty and a glass of ale with him.

He had the impressive physique she remembered and the dark red hair, which now gleamed like copper in the candlelight, and the handsome face and, yes, the green eyes that were slightly hooded beneath lazy eyelids. Someone had once mentioned in Angeline’s hearing the evocative term bedroom eyes. This is what that person, whoever it was, must have meant.

Lord Windrow had bedroom eyes. Doubtless he thought of them as lady-killer eyes. Men could be very silly.

“Rosalie, Angeline,” Tresham said, “may I present Lord Windrow, who has asked for the introduction? My cousin, Lady Palmer, Windrow, and my sister, Lady Angeline Dudley.”

Angeline would have burst with indignation if she could while he fawned over Rosalie and kissed her hand. And then he turned to Angeline and bowed very correctly and smiled again with just the right amount of deference a man ought to show to the young sister of his friend. He made no attempt to kiss her hand.

“With your permission, ma’am, and if I am not already too late,” he said, addressing Rosalie oh so correctly, “I shall lead Lady Angeline Dudley into the next set. I will consider it a great honor. Tresham is a particular friend of mine.”

Which was hardly surprising, Angeline thought nastily. It did not take a great stretch of the imagination to picture her brother offering to take a lady onto his lap to share refreshments if he were ever to encounter one standing alone in an inn taproom. She contemplated an outright refusal to Lord Windrow. Except that he had not addressed the offer to her. He had talked of her as though she did not exist in her own right.

Rosalie had been growing increasingly agitated. The dancing was about to resume, and Angeline had been steadfastly refusing all evening to reserve the supper dance for anyone who had asked for it. By this time, Rosalie had just been saying, most gentlemen would assume that she already had a prospective partner, and she was in grave danger of being a wallflower at her own come-out ball. At the supper dance, no less. There could, apparently, be no worse social disaster for any young lady. Angeline, of course, had been hoping desperately that the Earl of Heyward would come along to request the set.

“I am certain Lady Angeline will be delighted,” Rosalie said with a nod of approval and no doubt a huge inward sigh of relief.

Tresham wandered off to seek his own partner. He had danced every set so far, a strict attention to duty that must be simply killing him while at the same time sending his chosen partners and their mamas into transports of joy.

Angeline was not delighted at all. But what was she to do short of making a scene? She had already done that once this evening when she had turned her ankle. She would be the talk of London drawing rooms for the next decade instead of just the next week if she snubbed Lord Windrow in front of all her brother’s gathered guests.

She set her hand on his sleeve and contented herself for the moment with assuming a cold, haughty demeanor, similar to the one she had turned on him at that inn.

“Ah, fair one,” he murmured to her as he led her onto the floor, and he had the effrontery to move his head a little closer to hers. “I said it would be a pleasure to renew my acquaintance with you, but I had no idea just how great a pleasure it would be. Tresham’s sister.”

“He would flatten your nose and knock all your teeth down your throat and blacken both your eyes if he knew what you said to me at that inn,” she said.

“Oh, goodness me, yes,” he agreed. “And shatter every rib in my body. If he succeeded in hobbling both my legs and securing both my hands behind my back and tethering me to a post before he commenced, that is. And if he blindfolded me.”

Men and their silly boasts!

“I did not know,” he said abjectly. “I mistook you for a lesser mortal.”

She looked at him with cold hauteur, and he chuckled.

“I must,” he said, “have been blind in both eyes. Which perhaps makes it just as well that that sniveling coward was there to apprise me of my error.”

“Lord Heyward is not a coward,” she said. “Nothing compelled him to confront you or to defend me. He did not know my identity any more than you did. And when you would have left, nothing compelled him to block your way and insist that you apologize.”

He grinned at her.

“Perhaps he is an idiot,” he said, “as well as a sniveling coward.”

She pursed her lips as though she had just swallowed a particularly sour grape. She was not going to engage in any argument with him. She had said her piece.

“You were sitting with him when I entered the ballroom, regrettably late,” he said. “I was told that you sprained your ankle partway into the opening set and were forced to sit out the rest of it. I am delighted that you have recovered so soon and so completely. Or was the injury, ah, convenient? I have noticed that the fellow dances rather as though he has two wooden legs.”

“I was sitting with Lord Heyward because I wished to do so,” she told him.

The music rescued her from even more severe annoyance, and they moved off into the set. Fortunately, the figures of the dance kept them apart for much of the time and there was little chance of conversation. When he was able to talk to her without being overheard, he larded her with extravagant compliments, though they were far more deliberately amusing than the Marquess of Exwich’s had been earlier.

He was trying to make her laugh. He could not try to make her smile because she was already doing it by the time the dance began. It would not do for the spectators to notice that there was something wrong. The rumor mill would jump at the opportunity to concoct some suitably ghastly story to explain her sudden moroseness.

The Earl of Heyward was still out on the terrace, she noticed with an inward sigh.