The Secret Mistress

be gazed upon. Several people had come to the box during the interval to pay their compliments to one or another of them. Lord Windrow had cocked one mobile eyebrow at her from across the theater and inclined his head in an exaggeratedly deferential bow. The Earl of Heyward was not present. Martha Hamelin was, and they were able to flutter their fans at each other from a distance and smile brightly.

What had made the evening particularly special, though, was the fact that Cousin Leonard had issued yet another invitation before they left. He was organizing a party to spend an evening at Vauxhall Gardens, and he hoped they would be his guests there. The idea had occurred to him while he was driving in Hyde Park earlier in the afternoon and Lady Heyward had informed him that it must be three years at the very least since she was last there but she longed to go again.

Vauxhall Gardens!

The thought of going there was sufficient to send Angeline into transports of delight. It was the most famous pleasure grounds in the world. Well, in Britain anyway. She was not sure about the world. There was a pavilion and there were private boxes and sumptuous food. There were music and dancing and fireworks and broad avenues and shadier paths. There were lanterns in the trees and a boat to take one across the river.

But the fact that she was going there was not all.

The evening was being arranged for Lady Heyward’s benefit. But Lady Heyward had apparently shown some unease over any impression of carelessness or heartlessness she was giving her late husband’s family, so Leonard was going to make it a family party—or a two-family party, to be more accurate. Perhaps, he said, Tresham and Ferdinand would come.

The Earl of Heyward was sure to be there too, then, Angeline thought while she stared dreamily into the darkness beyond the carriage windows as they drove home. The earl and Vauxhall all in one evening.

“I daresay,” Rosalie said from the seat beside her, just as if she had read Angeline’s thoughts, “the Earl of Heyward will accept Leonard’s invitation to Vauxhall. Do you like him, Angeline? Did you enjoy your drive in the park with him this afternoon?”

He had given her permission to continue wearing the bonnets she liked. Not that she needed his permission or anyone else’s. But he had made her feel that it was the right thing to continue wearing them, that it would be the wrong thing to bow to popular opinion.

He had said something else too. Angeline thought a moment, bringing the exact words to mind again in his own voice.

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.

… the bright sparkle that characterizes you.

No one else had ever said anything even half as lovely to her.

And he had advised her to set fashion rather than follow it—even if no one followed her.

But the loveliest memory of all from this afternoon—oh, by far the loveliest—had come when he had joked with her. And it had been a joke, not an insult as it was when Tresham or Ferdinand said similar things.

I think it quite the most ghastly thing I have ever seen, he had said when she had pressed him for an opinion on her gorgeous green and orange bonnet, with the possible exception of the riding hat you wore the other morning.

And then, while she had laughed with genuine amusement because the words were so unexpected, he had smiled. He really had. A full-on smile that had set his blue eyes dancing and had shown his teeth and creased his cheek on the right side.

“Oh, I did,” she said in answer to Rosalie’s question. “It is the loveliest place in the world to be on a sunny afternoon. Though I daresay Vauxhall at night will be even lovelier.”

She gazed out at a streetlamp that broke up the darkness for a moment.

“And yes,” she said. “I like the Earl of Heyward well enough.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” Rosalie said briskly. “Though there are plenty of other gentlemen worthy of your consideration if it turns out on further acquaintance that you do not like him quite well enough. I am not the sort of chaperon, I hope, who expects her charge to marry the first gentleman presented for her inspection.”

“I know,” Angeline said. “I am very fortunate to have you, Cousin Rosalie. More than fortunate. I am happy.”

Happier than she would be if it were her own mother presenting her to society and the marriage mart? But she made no attempt to answer the question, which was pointless anyway. Mama was dead.

Cousin Rosalie reached out and patted her hand.

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

Angeline smiled secretly into the darkness.

DAMNATION, EDWARD THOUGHT the following morning when he opened the invitation Lorraine had warned him would be coming.

Vauxhall!

It was famous for its glitter, its vulgarity, its artificiality. He had never been there. He had never wanted to go. He still did not. He could not think of many places he would less like to go.

But go he must.

Lorraine had been close to tears in the drawing room before dinner last evening when she had spoken of the planned visit to Vauxhall. Both he and his mother had been present as well as Alma and Augustine.

“It has been only a little over a year since Maurice’s passing,” she had said. “I would not offend any of you or appear uncaring or … or fast by engaging in too many social pleasures too soon or giving the appearance that perhaps I have a … a beau. Will you all please come too to Vauxhall, and persuade Juliana and Christopher to come, so that it will be in the nature of a family outing?”

“I doubt if Christopher will risk the dangers of night air and the smoke of fireworks clogging his lungs,” Augustine had said, looking at Edward with a twinkle in his eye. “Unless Juliana persuades him that it is safe, of course, or that going to Vauxhall is essential for her good health. That would do it. He is soft in the head where she is concerned.”

Edward’s mother had got to her feet and hugged Lorraine tightly.

“Lorraine,” she had said, “no one could have been a better wife to my son, and no one could be a better mother to my granddaughter. But Maurice is dead and you are alive. You must not be ruled by guilt or the fear that we will think you somehow unfaithful to his memory. I assure you we will not. But Vauxhall? My dear! It is for young people. I will certainly not go there with you. But Alma and Augustine surely will, and I daresay Juliana and Christopher will too. And Edward, of course.”

Of course. Of course he would and of course he must. Not just because his mother had given him little choice, but because he was fond of his sister-in-law and could see that she already had a genuine regard for Fenner—and he for her. And Fenner was a