The Secret Mistress

all but capable of extraordinary passion. She had known that he was capable of loving her with that forever-after sort of love that sometimes seems not to exist outside the pages of a novel from the Minerva Press but actually, on rare occasions, does.

Oh, she had been right. She had known.

She loved him and he loved her and all was right with the world.

His eyes were bluer than the sky.

And then, in a flash, she remembered something else and could not believe she had forgotten. She had resolved to be noble and self-sacrificing. For Miss Goddard loved him too, and in his heart of hearts he loved her. They were suited to each other. They belonged with each other. And not only had Angeline pledged herself to bringing them together, but she had also told Miss Goddard about her plan and enlisted her collaboration.

Oh, what had she done?

When Lord Heyward opened his mouth to speak, Angeline placed one finger over his lips and then removed it again hastily.

“And this time,” she said, smiling brightly at him, “you do not owe me a proposal of marriage. You do not. I would only refuse again.”

He searched her eyes with his own and then moved without another word to sit beside her. He was silent for a while. So was she. She doubted she had ever felt more wretched in her life. For not only was her heart broken, but—worse—she had betrayed a friend.

She was going to have to redouble her efforts.

Lord Heyward was looking up into the tree in which her bonnet was stuck. It was an awfully tall tree, and the bonnet was awfully high up it.

“It can stay there,” she said. “I have sixteen others, not counting all the old ones.”

“Plus all the ones that will take your fancy before you leave London for the summer,” he said. “But that is a particularly, ah, fancy one.”

He got to his feet, and almost before Angeline could sit up he was climbing the tree with dogged determination. It seemed to her that there were simply not enough foot- and handholds, but up he went anyway. Her heart was in her mouth long before he was high enough to unhook her bonnet from the branch with which it had become entangled and toss it down to her. Which was strange really because her heart also seemed to be crushed beneath the soles of her shoes. How could it be in both places at once?

And her stomach was churning with terror.

“Oh, do be careful,” she called to him as he made his way down again. And she spread her arms, her bonnet clutched in one hand, as if she could catch him and keep him from harm if he fell.

He did not fall. Within minutes he was on the ground beside her again, watching while she tied the ribbons of the bonnet beneath her chin and tucked up all the untidy locks of her hair beneath it.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I am sorry,” he said simultaneously.

“Do not be,” she told him. “Sorry, I mean. You are not responsible for everyone who crosses paths with you.”

“Even when I kiss them?” he asked.

“Even then,” she said firmly, and turned to make her way along the bank of the lake toward the more cultivated lawn that led in a long slope up toward the house. Now that they had moved clear of the trees, she could see Mr. and Mrs. Lynd and the Reverend Martin on the far bank. They were talking with Ferdinand and Miss Briden. There was no sign of Miss Goddard and Lord Windrow—or of any of the others for that matter.

Lord Heyward fell into step beside her. He did not offer his arm. She made no move to take it. They walked in silence.

How could she, Angeline thought. How could she have fallen in love with him again when she had pledged herself to bring him to a happy union with Miss Goddard, who was her friend? No, not fallen in love again, she thought bitterly. She had never stopped loving him, had she?

Would she never make sense to herself?

“I do apologize,” he said as they made their way up the long lawn to the house, “if I have offended you.”

“You have not,” she said crossly, turning to him. “Why must you always worry about offending me? Perhaps I have offended you. If I had not untied the ribbons of my bonnet because I was hot after the climb, it would not have blown off and we would not have run down the hill so that you could put your life in danger to rescue it, and we would not have kissed, and you would not have thought that you owed me a marriage offer again, and I would not have had to tell you that it is unnecessary and that I would refuse it anyway. And do notice that I said we would not have kissed, not you would not have kissed me. It takes two to kiss, you know, unless it is forced, which it clearly was not either just now or in Vauxhall. We kissed. And we do not need to marry just because of it. I will never marry you, so if you are still devising a way to do the gentlemanly thing, forget it. Sometimes I wish you were not such a gentleman, though the fact that you are was precisely why I liked you so much the very first time I saw you.”

The lawn was sloping. She was fairly gasping for air.

He took her hand in his own and drew it through his arm. He bent his head toward hers and looked into her face.

“Don’t cry,” he said softly. “I am sorry. Whatever it is I said or did to hurt you, I am sorry. And don’t tell me not to be. It is not in my nature to hurt others and not be sorry for it. It is who I am, Lady Angeline. Forgive me, if you will, for asking forgiveness.”

He smiled at her. A real smile. Except that it looked a little sad.

She was not crying. Was she?

Oh, what was she going to do?

But it was not a valid question, because it had only one possible answer.

Chapter 17

LORD WINDROW CAST a glance back over his shoulder after he had been walking for a few moments with Eunice.

“Ah,” he said, “as I suspected. Lady Angeline Dudley is not to be left to remove the rock from her shoe unassisted after all. Heyward has rushed to her rescue and is on one knee before her. It is an affecting scene and would not be without romantic appeal were he not such a dull fellow.”

“Edward is not dull,” Eunice said. “And of course you were quite right to suspect this would happen. Anyone would have predicted it—except Lady Angeline herself.”

“It was not, ah, planned, then?” he asked.

“The stone in the shoe?” she said. “Yes, that part was, or some such action anyway. But it was a quite different outcome that Lady Angeline planned. I really must tell you about it, for it is quite mad, and rather touching—and not at all honorable where you are concerned.”

“My dear Miss Goddard,” he said, touching his fingertips to her hand as it rested in his arm and dipping his head closer to hers—and turning with her so that they veered off the route to the lake and moved in the direction of a grove of trees a short distance away, “I am intrigued. And I am all ears.”