The Secret Mistress

semicircular set of more boxes about an open area used, surely, for dancing. And Rosalie was waving from one of the boxes, and Cousin Leonard was standing to greet them and show them to their seats, and there was everyone else to greet. Angeline and Tresham were, of course, the last of the party to arrive. Her come-out ball was perhaps the only event for which Tresham had been early his entire life. The Countess of Heyward was there and Mr. and Mrs. Lynd, Viscount and Viscountess Overmyer, Ferdinand, Cousin Belinda—though she was not actually their cousin, it was true.

And the Earl of Heyward.

Suddenly the excited anticipation Angeline had felt all day, the wonder and delight of the river crossing, and the sheer glory of her first impressions of Vauxhall all came together to be focused upon the person of one man, the quietest, least fussily dressed of any of them, as he bowed politely and wordlessly to them. It did not matter. She did not see him objectively. Perhaps she never had. She saw him with her heart, and her heart sang with happiness.

But it was a momentary rush of feelings. She would not embarrass herself by wearing her heart upon her sleeve. She was a member of a party. She smiled brightly about at everyone.

She had not seen Lady Eagan for years—probably not since Rosalie’s wedding. She was blond and slightly on the buxom side—though perhaps voluptuous would be a more accurate word. She was also beautiful in a languid sort of way, with full, pouting lips and eyes—or rather eyelids— rather like Lord Windrow’s. Bedroom eyes. If she felt either humiliated or grieved by Lord Eagan’s defection, she was doing an admirable job of disguising it.

Why had Lord Eagan run off with her maid? Now that Angeline had seen his wife, it would seem more believable if she was the one who had run off with his valet. Though looks could be deceptive. However it was, it was all very shocking and therefore vastly intriguing.

Angeline found herself seated, without any maneuvering at all on her part, between Mr. Lynd and the Earl of Heyward, and suddenly the evening air no longer felt uncomfortably cool. In fact, it felt decidedly warm and charged with energy all down her right side, which was, coincidentally, the side upon which the earl sat. She made no attempt to converse exclusively with him, though, or he with her. Conversation was general, and it was vigorous and covered a whole host of topics that included politics, both domestic and foreign, music, art, and gossip. It had none of the insipidity of conversation in the country. Angeline was exhilarated by it. How wonderful good conversation was, and how much there was to learn from it, far more than one ever learned in the schoolroom—a fact that seemed to be a contradiction in terms.

“I do believe,” she said, “that I have learned more in the month since I came to London than I did in all the years I spent with my governesses.”

“Book learning often does seem to be a useless waste of youth,” Mr. Lynd said. “But it gives us the basic knowledge and tools with which to deal with life once we have left it behind.”

“If we do leave it behind,” Ferdinand said. “We can learn a great deal from our daily lives and from our interaction with the minds and opinions of others, but there is no surer way of expanding our knowledge and experience than by reading.”

Ferdinand, Angeline remembered, had done rather well both in school and at Oxford. She tended to forget that and assume that he was only a very handsome but rather shallow rakehell. How dreadful to do one’s own brother an injustice. She stared curiously at him. She really did not know him well at all, did she? They were brother and sister and yet they had lived so much of their lives apart. How sad it was.

“School often seems dull and irrelevant to life,” Lord Heyward said. “But what we learn there gives us the grounding for a richer appreciation of life when we grow up. You are quite right about that, Augustine. How could we appreciate a poem or a play, for example, if we had not learned what to look for as we read? We could hope to be entertained, I suppose, but our minds, our understanding, our souls would remain untouched.”

“Oh,” Angeline said, “then all those tedious, tedious lessons in which Miss Pratt dissected a poem or play line by line and explained the meaning and significance of every word help me to appreciate poetry and drama now, do they? And is pure enjoyment to be despised?”

“Oh, bravo, Lady Angeline,” Lady Overmyer said. “Why read a poem or watch a play if one is not entertained by it? What do you have to say to that, Edward?”

“It sounds to me,” he said, “as though those lessons of yours were merely tedious, Lady Angeline, and were in grave danger of killing your interest in literature for all time. But there is a way of teaching that informs and guides and leads and encourages and excites the pupil at the same time. I was fortunate enough to know a few such teachers.”

“I had such a governess when I was a girl,” Cousin Rosalie said. “But she was a rarity. I have realized that since.”

“Learning was painful enough when I was a girl,” Cousin Belinda said, fanning her face. “Must we now talk about it?”

There was general laughter, and the conversation swept on to something else.

Their supper was brought to the box soon after, and they feasted upon a variety of sumptuous foods, including the wafer-thin slices of ham for which Vauxhall Gardens was famous, as well as the strawberries with clotted cream.

“Why does food always taste so much more appetizing out of doors?” Angeline asked.

The question led to a lively discussion.

“All I know,” Mrs. Lynd said to end it, “is that you are quite right, Lady Angeline, and it must be the reason why most of our eating is done indoors. We would all weigh a ton in no time at all otherwise.”

Everyone laughed. Everyone appeared to be having a wonderful time. Angeline looked happily about her and glanced at Lord Heyward. He was smiling at his sister. This, she thought, was the happiest night of her life.

And then the orchestra, which had been playing quietly all evening, struck up a more lively tune to signal the beginning of the dancing.

They played a waltz tune, and Angeline gazed wistfully on as Tresham led Cousin Belinda onto the floor, and Cousin Leonard followed with Lady Heyward, Mr. Lynd with Rosalie, and Ferdinand with Lady Overmyer. Angeline had been granted permission to waltz at Almack’s within the past week and could now officially dance it anywhere. And it was the most divine dance ever invented. Dancing it in the outdoors would surely be simply … heavenly.

“Well, Edward,” Mrs. Lynd said, “it would be too lowering for you to waltz with your sister. You must dance with Lady Angeline instead, then, and I shall twist Christopher’s arm and he will waltz with me. A certain amount of exercise is good when one is out of doors, I have heard. It fills the lungs with good, clean air and counteracts the effects of stale air breathed in when one sits in a box doing nothing. And it aids the digestion.”

She winked at her brother as Lord Overmyer got to his feet.

“I was about to ask you anyway, Alma,” he said. “You are looking very fine this evening.”

“Why, thank you,” she said as he led her away. “Flattery will win you a dancing partner any evening of the week.”

Lord Heyward was also on his feet, and for one moment Angeline was assailed by an almost irresistible longing. But only for a moment.

“Oh,” she said, “you look like a drowning man who has been up for air twice and is about to descend for the third and final time. I shall save your life. I do not wish to waltz.”

He sat down again.