The Secret Mistress

She was not really. Was she?

Flirting was such a trivial thing.

“No,” she said. “No. Absolutely not. I was told that you had requested the opening set with me. I could have said no, but I had no reason whatsoever to do so even though I did not know at the time who the Earl of Heyward was. Nothing was said about courtship. In fact, Tresham —”

But she could hardly tell him that Tresham had called him a dry old stick, could she?

“I am sorry,” he said. “I have embarrassed you.”

“No, you have not,” she lied, and she closed her eyes briefly so that she could concentrate upon the sensation of having her hand enclosed in his.

Cool night air. Warm, steady, very male hand. The most delicious contrast in the whole wide world.

And then she felt her hand being raised until it was against his lips.

Angeline, eyes still closed, thought she might well die. Of happiness.

“I must return you to the ballroom,” he said.

Must you?

But she did not say the words aloud. Thank heaven! She had been quite forward enough tonight as it was. She got to her feet and drew her hand from his to straighten her skirt.

“This has been a memorable day,” she said brightly as she looked up to find him standing only a few inches away from her. “Has it been as happy a one for you as it has for me? Despite the fact that you have had to dance? I will never forget a single moment of it.”

“It has been a happy day,” he said.

She tipped her head to one side. He had spoken with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm.

“But the happiest part is that it is almost over?” she said, smiling ruefully.

“You are pleased to put words in my mouth,” he said. “I would not be so ill- mannered as to suggest any such thing, Lady Angeline.”

But he had not denied it.

“I hope,” she said, and her voice sounded breathless in her own ears, “it will be a happier day in retrospect than it has been in the living. I do hope so.”

And she whisked herself about and strode back along the path in the direction of the terrace and the ballroom beyond, her hands clutching the sides of her gown. She could almost hear Miss Pratt calling after her to stop striding like a man and remember that she was a lady.

She did not want him to catch up to her and offer his arm. She did not want to touch him again.

Not yet.

She would suffocate.

Tresham and Ferdinand had both used to tell her that she never did anything by halves—whether it was galloping her pony hell-bent for leather, diving into the lake at the deepest part as though she meant to dive right down to China, or climbing the highest tree as though to reach the clouds. It had always been said with a certain degree of affectionate admiration.

They would not admire her now.

For she did not fall in love by halves either.

She was an absolutely hopeless case, in fact.

No, not hopeless.

One day he would love her too.

Passionately.

If one was going to dream, one might as well dream big.

Chapter 8

EDWARD ENJOYED MORE than half a day of relative freedom. He rode early in Hyde Park again with a group of friends—there were five of them this time—and encountered no one he did not wish to see. No one with the last name of Dudley, in other words. He spent an hour or so in the study with his secretary, looking over some important papers, dictating a few letters, deciding which of a flood of invitations he ought to accept and which he would decline, with regrets. He attended the House and even spoke up during one of the debates that interested him. He was to meet Headley and another friend later at White’s, where they were to dine together. They would probably linger there over their wine and their port until it was time to return home to bed.

It was only a relative freedom, of course, for his mind would not remain focused just upon the day’s business.

He must find time to call upon Eunice soon. He could not help feeling that he had abandoned her last evening when Windrow had asked her to dance. He ought to have objected, to have put a firm stop to the man’s insolence. Not that he owned Eunice, of course, or had any claim upon her at all, in fact. She would undoubtedly have been vexed with him if he had interfered. And she was still insisting that he marry someone more suited to his station, even though she had admitted that the ending of their agreement had left her feeling unsettled.

Dancing with Windrow had actually had a positive effect upon her fortunes. She had had partners for each set afterward. It was true that she professed to despise dancing and all the frivolities of ton entertainments, but even so, she surely did not enjoy being a wallflower either.

Anyway, he must call upon her.

But even apart from that obligation his sense of freedom was only a very temporary one. For he must still marry. He must still choose a bride. Perhaps Eunice. Definitely not Lady Angeline Dudley.

He could not simply dismiss the latter from his mind, however. She kept popping into it at any odd moment of the day. It was usually in a thoroughly negative way. She was bold, talkative, frivolous. Good Lord, she had talked with great enthusiasm about her thirteen new bonnets. But he was forced to admit— grudgingly—that she could also be amusing, especially on the subject of her own shortcomings and foibles. And he had had the feeling with the hat story that her chosen topic had not been an idle one. He had suspected that she was trying to cheer him up, that she was deliberately trying to coax a smile out of him.

Which only meant, of course, that she saw him as an old sobersides, to quote Maurice’s habitual description of him.

Why had she persuaded him to take her outside, then, first onto the terrace and then down into the garden? She had denied being instructed to court his favor. And why would Tresham give such instructions anyway—or countenance Lady Palmer’s giving them? Tresham despised him.

He tried not to think about her. He tried to enjoy the illusion of freedom offered by the day.

But he kept remembering, more than anything else, that moment when she had set her hand upon his. Or rather, he remembered the moment immediately following that one, when he had been assailed by a powerful and totally unexpected tidal wave of lust. He ought not to have been surprised. He had experienced it before—in the taproom of the Rose and Crown Inn. And he had acted without even a trace of his usual caution and discretion. He had first turned his hand beneath hers, then closed his fingers about it, and then