The Secret Mistress

except perhaps the pink one. I bought it because I loved the shade of pink and still do. But it is virtually unadorned. It is boring. I shall have to do something about it if I am ever to wear it. And it would be a horrid waste of money if I never did wear it after all, would it not? You have not answered my question. I suppose you are too polite to tell me the bonnet is atrocious. My brothers are not so tactful.”

“Is my good opinion so important to you, then?” he asked her.

She considered.

“No,” she said. “I have always had dreadful taste in clothes. I concentrate most of it upon my bonnets. Sometimes I take advice with dresses and other garments. And sometimes not. But I always choose my own hats.”

“Who told you you have dreadful taste?” he asked her.

“Apart from my brothers? Oh, everyone. My governesses—every one of them.” She looked for one moment as if she would raise her parasol again, but she changed her mind and rested it across her lap. “My mother.”

And he understood something about her in a flash—something he did not really want to know. Somewhere beneath the bright, noisy dazzle that was Lady Angeline Dudley there was a vulnerability. Perhaps even a massive one.

When she had said my mother, she had almost whispered the words.

Her mother had told her she had bad taste? Her mother, who had been so exquisitely beautiful herself and who had had exquisite taste in dress? Edward remembered her. But how could anyone not remember her once he had set eyes upon her?

“Your hats are distinctive, Lady Angeline,” he said. “This one is. The one you wore when you rode on Rotten Row the other morning was. Was that one of the fourteen?”

“That one?” she said. “Oh, no. That was just an old thing I wore because I needed to keep my hair dry for my presentation to the queen. It is an old favorite.”

“It drew comments,” he said. “This one will be talked about after today. I daresay the other thirteen will be too as you wear them, even the pink one, if the shade is anything similar to that of the dress you wore on the way to London.”

“It is almost an exact match,” she said. She laughed. “Everyone will talk about what ghastly taste I have in hats. But I do not care. I like them.”

He turned the curricle along a path that ran parallel to the waters of the Serpentine.

“And that, ultimately,” he said, “is all that matters. You like them. And a strange thing will happen in time. Gradually your hats will come to be associated with you, and people will look eagerly for new ones. And some people will begin to admire them. Some will even envy them and emulate them because they will assume that it is the bonnets that give you the bright sparkle that characterizes you. They will be quite wrong, of course. The bonnet will lend nothing to their character. You must not retreat into what others deem fashionable and tasteful if you prefer something else. It is sometimes better to be a leader of fashion rather than an habitual follower.”

Good Lord, did he really believe that? Or was he giving her appalling advice?

“Even if no one follows my lead?” she asked, looking across at him with brightly smiling eyes.

“Even then,” he said. “When the parade goes by, there will be no one to look at but you. But everyone will look. Everyone loves a parade.”

Her smile had softened and she turned her face rather sharply to face front again. He had to keep his eyes on his horses and the path ahead—there was more traffic here. Even so, he had the distinct impression that the brightness of her eyes as she looked away did not have everything to do with laughter. And indeed, there was no laughter in her voice when she spoke again.

“I shall remember what you have said all the rest of my life,” she said. “I shall lead fashion, even if no one follows behind me.”

“Someone always will,” he said, and he knew he was right. It was the nature of leadership.

They turned their heads at the same moment, and their eyes met. It was definitely tears that were in hers. They were not swimming there and they were not spilling over onto her cheeks, but they were there.

And then, just before he looked back to the path ahead, there was a spark of mischief there too to brighten the tears.

“You still have not answered my question,” she said. “Do you or do you not like my bonnet, Lord Heyward?”

“I think it quite the most ghastly thing I have ever seen,” he said, “with the possible exception of the riding hat you wore the other morning.”

She went off into peals of bright laughter, turning heads their way and causing him to smile.

Good God, was he in danger of liking her?

She was a walking, talking disaster. She was the very last woman that old sobersides, the Earl of Heyward, needed to become entangled with.

His thoughts flashed to Eunice.

Well, he did like her sense of humor—Lady Angeline’s, that was. He had to admit it yet again. There was really very little humor in his life. There had never seemed much room for it.

He turned the curricle in the direction of Grosvenor Square and Dudley House. He had the uneasy feeling that he was getting into something he was going to find it very difficult to get himself out of.

Even impossible?

And did he mean was getting? Or did he mean had got?———

I JUST HOPE,” Cousin Rosalie said, “that she has learned her lesson this time. I am convinced her marriage was not a happy one.”

“I believe,” Angeline said, “she is genuinely fond of him. She sat apart with him at Lady Beckingham’s this afternoon, and she appeared very happy when she drove with him in the park afterward.”

They were talking about the Countess of Heyward, who had apparently broken Cousin Leonard’s heart five years ago by marrying the earl and was now being offered a second chance to get it right, according to Rosalie.

“I dread to imagine,” she said, “what will become of him if she breaks his heart again.”

Cousin Leonard was almost completely bald. He also had a nose that went on forever. Even so, he was a kindly, pleasant-looking gentleman, and Angeline thought that even the beautiful Countess of Heyward would be fortunate to have him. There was such a thing as family bias, of course.

“I daresay she will not,” Angeline said.

They were in the carriage returning from an evening at the theater, where Cousin Leonard had invited them to join him in his box. It had been a thoroughly pleasant evening, even apart from the novelty of seeing a play acted out live upon a stage instead of just being read from the pages of a book, which Angeline had always found remarkably tedious and Miss Pratt had always insisted was the only way to appreciate good drama.

The theater was packed with people, and Angeline was able to gaze her fill—and