The Secret Mistress

afterward.

By the time he went to bed, he was cautiously optimistic. He had enjoyed conversing with the Reverend Martin and Miss Briden at dinner, and he had enjoyed being partnered by Lady Palmer herself at cards. Keeping half a room’s distance between Lady Angeline and himself had proved really no more difficult than it had in any of the ballrooms and drawing rooms he had frequented for the past month.

Though it struck him as he got ready for bed that his reluctance to be any closer to her was odd. They were both adult members of the ton, after all. Their courtship, if it could be called that, had been brief and had ended with very little fuss—he had offered, she had refused. Why should they not meet now without any embarrassment or other discomfort?

But they had met, very briefly, on the banks of the River Thames, when he had rushed quite thoughtlessly to her rescue after seeing Windrow step between her and Eunice and offer her his arm. Why had he felt it necessary to be her protector yet again when she was absolutely none of his business? He had felt like an utter idiot afterward, especially when it had turned out that it was Eunice Windrow had taken out in a boat, not Lady Angeline. But he had made the mistake of looking directly into Lady Angeline’s eyes on that occasion, and he had felt a quite alarming discomfort. Her huge dark eyes had looked far more likely to cause drowning than all the waters of the river.

No, it was safer to keep his distance.

Safer?

He doused the candle, climbed into bed, and addressed himself to sleep. He was not going to let his mind wander along that particular path.

It took him only two or three hours to drop off.———

BY THE FOLLOWING morning Angeline had decided that she needed an accomplice if her grand scheme was to have any chance at all of succeeding. There was no point in maneuvering matters so that Miss Goddard and Lord Windrow were thrown together in Lord Heyward’s sight if Miss Goddard simply wandered away or allowed someone else to join them.

Both things had happened last evening. When Angeline had used great skill to bring the two of them together at tea and had moved away herself as if she had heard someone call to her from across the room, Miss Goddard had done nothing whatsoever to discourage the Reverend Martin from joining them. She had even directed most of her conversation his way and had given Lord Windrow no chance at all to do anything that might alarm Lord Heyward and bring him dashing to the rescue. And when Angeline had gone to great lengths again after the card games were over to suggest, when Miss Goddard and Lord Windrow were close to each other, that it might be pleasant to stroll outside on the terrace, both agreed with her—but Miss Goddard had turned and linked her arm through the very shy Miss Marianne Briden’s, and Lord Windrow had been left to stroll between Lady Overmyer and Mrs. Lynd, causing them a great deal of laughter as he did so. It had all been very exasperating. If one was going to make the effort to matchmake, the least one could expect was that the lady concerned would cooperate. But how could she if she did not know what Angeline was trying to do?

The only thing for it was to let her know, to enlist her active support.

They were both up in time for breakfast—Angeline because she had arranged the night before to go out riding early with her brothers and Cousin Leonard and Sir Webster Jordan, Miss Goddard because Angeline suspected she always rose early. Angeline invited her to go walking afterward before everyone else was up, and they strolled arm in arm along the paths of the formal gardens.

“It was very obliging of you,” Miss Goddard said, “to persuade Lady Palmer to invite me here. I am enjoying myself very much indeed even though the house party has scarcely begun yet. We have interesting fellow guests. Did you know that the Reverend Martin has actually been to the Holy Land?”

“I did not,” Angeline said, but though she felt a stirring of interest, she was not to be distracted. “I arranged to have you invited here for one main reason, you know, even though I hope I would have thought of inviting you anyway, as I value your friendship a great deal.”

“Oh?” Miss Goddard turned an inquiring face toward her.

“I thought it was high time,” Angeline said, “that you and the Earl of Heyward were brought together in the same house for a few days—with his family present.”

“But for what purpose?” Miss Goddard asked, all amazement.

“I know,” Angeline said, “that you are a pair of star-crossed lovers. Just like Romeo and Juliet, though they were ridiculously young, of course, and their families were feuding quite viciously because they were Italian and that is what Italians do, though I suppose families of other nationalities can be just as bad and I do not suppose all Italian families feud with one another or it would be a very uncomfortable place to live. Really, the two of them were nothing like you and Lord Heyward except that they were star-crossed. It is as plain as the nose on my face that you love him and he loves you and that you would make a perfect couple. A married couple, that is.”

Miss Goddard’s eyes fixed disconcertingly upon Angeline’s nose for a moment, but she said nothing.

“And it is perfectly absurd,” Angeline continued, “that you cannot marry just because he is an earl and you are the daughter of an academic gentleman. I daresay his family assumes that you must be inferior or even vulgar. During the next few days they will see just how wrong they are, and they will see how he loves you and how you love him, and because they love him too, they will … They will give their blessing to your marrying, and …”

She could have sworn before they started walking that the garden was flat. But it must be sloping quite steeply upward and they must be walking much faster than she had thought. She could hardly catch her breath. And where was the wind coming from to make her eyes water so? She could not feel any wind.

“Lady Angeline,” Miss Goddard said quietly and gently, “Edward and I are friends.”

“Of course you are,” Angeline said, blinking her eyes and realizing that they had come to a stop before a fat little stone cherub whose sightless eyes seemed to be gazing skyward. “That is the whole beauty of it. When he briefly courted me, entirely because I was the bride his family picked out for him because I am so eligible, they did not know me. They had not even met me. When he briefly courted me, he kissed me, just once and just briefly, you understand, because we were at Vauxhall and the path was secluded and the moon was almost full and one does tend to do silly things under such circumstances, I—What was I saying?” She ought not to have told Miss Goddard the earl had kissed her.

“When Edward briefly courted you,” Miss Goddard said, reaching out a hand to touch the sculpted curls of the cherub.

“Well,” Angeline said, “we were not friends at all, you see. He said he was fond of me, which really means nothing at all, does it? For I had asked him if he loved me, and he could hardly just say no, could he? At least, he could have, but he would not because he is a gentleman and he would not wish to hurt my feelings. And I daresay if I had said yes and married him, he would have been fond of me for the rest of my life. He would not have allowed himself to do any less. But we would never have been friends. I think a husband and wife really ought to be friends, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Miss Goddard said as they strolled onward.

“But he was playing cards last evening with Cousin Rosalie as a partner,” Angeline said, “and you with Sir Webster Jordan. And so it might go on for five days. I do have a plan, but I need to tell you about it so that you can do your part. It is not wrong, you know, actively to pursue what you want. And it is not wrong for you to want the Earl of Heyward. It is not his fault he