The Secret Mistress

her foot in it and set it down on the ground.

“It has gone,” she said. “Thank you.”

He stood up and looked into her eyes.

“Miss Goddard—” she said.

“She will not thank me for rushing up to her like an overanxious chaperon,” he said. “Shall we walk?”

She stared at him for a few moments. This was not the way she had planned it. Lord Windrow had acted just as he was supposed to. Why had Lord Heyward not?

He was offering his arm. His eyebrows were raised. Miss Goddard would be so very disappointed. But what was to be done? Nothing could be done at present. They would have to try again. Angeline took his arm and sighed inwardly. Why did his arm always seem steadier, more reliable than any other man’s? It was just an arm, after all.

They could have caught up with the group with the greatest ease. But Lord Heyward made no attempt to do so. Instead, he took a different direction entirely, taking Angeline with him.

“I wonder if there is a path up that hill beyond the trees,” he said. “I believe there must be, for there is a folly at the top of it—some sort of ruined tower. Do you see it?”

She followed the direction of his pointing arm. And she forgot instantly about her failed plan and about the group of young people making their merry way in the direction of the lake.

“Oh, I do,” she said. “Shall we find the way up to it? There must be a splendid view from up there.”

“If the climb will not be too much for you,” he said.

“I am not a wilting violet,” she told him.

“I did not believe so,” he said. “I have never yet seen a wilting violet tear across a meadow and straight up a tree.”

She glanced sidelong at him. Had Lord Heyward just made a joke? And about behavior he so despised?

“Of course,” he added, “I have never actually seen you do it either.”

He had made a joke.

“That is really too bad,” she said, “for I have no intention of performing an encore just for your benefit, you know.”

And there it was—that dimple in his cheek. And there went her stomach, doing a tumble toss, and she beamed her delight and laughed out loud. Oh, but she was over this. Long over it. Except that they were just two young people strolling in a private park during a house party and enjoying a summer afternoon. Why should they not joke and laugh together? It did not mean anything.

They found the path with no trouble at all once they had wound their way past the band of trees at the foot of the hill. They toiled up it without wasting breath talking. It was steep and rather overgrown with coarse grass. At one time it must have been used frequently—perhaps when Cousin Rosalie’s boys had been younger, before they all went off to school, or perhaps before Lord Palmer went on his diplomatic mission to Vienna. By the time they reached the top Angeline was quite out of breath, and she was sure her face must be horribly flushed and damp with perspiration. But Lord Heyward was panting too.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I ought to have asked myself if the climb would be too much for me.”

She smiled at him. Another joke.

“At least it will be all downhill on the way back,” she said. And because she was so warm, she untied the ribbons of her bonnet and let them flutter free. Her chin and neck immediately felt cooler.

But goodness. Oh, goodness. They were surrounded by nothing but view. Angeline turned completely about and saw house or park or village or farmland or countryside wherever she gazed.

“Oh, look,” she said unnecessarily, for of course he was already looking. What else could one do up here but stand and marvel?

“I will wager,” he said, “that the view is even more magnificent from up there.”

He was pointing at the tower.

“But no one would wager against you,” she said. “Besides, a lady never wagers. And I am a perfect lady now that I have made my come-out, remember?”

His eyes came to hers, and she could see that he did remember. The first time he had almost smiled at her was during the first set of her come-out ball when she had told him that from then on, now that she was out, she would be a perfect lady and there would be no more incidents like being alone in an inn taproom or galloping and whooping along Rotten Row during a rain or dashing across an occupied bull’s meadow.

“I’ll race you to the top,” she said, grasping her skirt at the sides and dashing across the short distance to the tower.

It looked far larger and more imposing from up here. Angeline pushed open the studded wooden door and stepped inside—and instantly forgot the race to the battlements. The walls and the floor were a brightly colored, intricate mosaic of colored stones. Slit arrow windows let in sunlight and would at any time of day—they faced in all directions. There was a wooden bench all about the perimeter, made soft with red leather cushions, though the color was marred somewhat by a layer of dust. A wooden ladder staircase in the middle of the room led upward to a trapdoor.

“What a glorious retreat!” she exclaimed. “If I lived at Hallings, I would come up here every day. I would bring my books and my easel, and I would sit here and read and paint and dream.”

She had been alone a great deal at Acton over the years and had made a friend of the hills and woods where she had played with Tresham and Ferdinand as a child. She would have made a retreat out of Dove Cottage by the far lake in the park, since it was beautifully situated, but it was where her father had housed his mistress—one of them, anyway—and she could never erase the wound of that memory from her mind.

Lord Heyward was climbing the ladder and pushing at the trapdoor until it disappeared into space and fell back somewhere up there with a thud. Angeline climbed up after him and took his offered hand to step out onto the battlements. He closed the trapdoor behind them.

“And what was the prize to be if you raced me to the top?” he asked her.

She turned to smile at him.

“You did not accept the wager,” she said, “just as I did not when you said the view would be even more magnificent from up here. I daresay we can see for miles in every direction. Oh, this was worth every moment of the climb, was it not?”

The tower was properly battlemented, of course, though there was some crumbling to one side at the front. It had been constructed that way, for this was a folly and was therefore supposed to look like a ruin, like something that had been here for a thousand years. Angeline rested her hands on the higher projections of the battlements and raised her face to the sky.

“It’s a little gusty up here,” Lord Heyward said, raising a hand to hold on to his hat. “You had better—”

The attempted warning came too late. Even as Angeline lifted both hands to grasp the ribbons of her bonnet and tie them securely beneath her chin again, they whipped free, and her bonnet lifted from her head and sailed off into the sky and down over the slope in the direction of the lake below. All that saved it from a watery grave was the presence of a tree at the foot of the hill that was taller than its fellows. The ribbons caught and tangled in its upper branches and the hat lodged there to end up looking like a particularly exotic bloom.

“Ohhh!” One of Angeline’s hands slapped against her mouth while the other reached out foolishly into empty space and Lord Heyward’s hand clamped about her upper arm like a vise to prevent