The Secret Mistress

she asked him, drawing her shawl more closely about her shoulders against the early morning chill. “After you proposed last month, you mean?”

“Yesterday,” he said, noticing that all the other geraniums were red. There was just the one pink bloom. Lady Angeline’s favorite color—among about fifty others.

Alma placed a hand on his sleeve and patted it.

“Suddenly, right out of the blue,” she said, “she told you not to ask her to marry you? I need a little more context here, Edward. Was this when you waltzed with her outside the drawing room last evening?”

“Yesterday afternoon,” he said. “We went up the hill beyond the lake—the one with that tower folly on top. While we were up there, her bonnet blew off in a gust of wind and ended up in a tree down below. We went down to get it, but we lost our footing on the slope and rolled down the last part of it. And I—well, I kissed her. I did not force it upon her. She—well, she kissed me back. And then she told me that this time I must not offer for her. She said she would refuse me if I did.”

“Oh, Edward,” she said, squeezing his arm. “Of course she did. And of course she would.”

There it was again—female logic. Quite frankly, it baffled him.

“I had better wait, then?” he asked her. “Perhaps forever?”

“Of course not,” she said. “But you must make it very clear to her that you ask because you love her, because you cannot contemplate life without her. You do love her, do you not?”

“Of course I do, but it makes no sense, Alma,” he said. “She is the sort of person …” He made circles in the air with one hand. “Well, this is the sort of person she is. Instead of letting me walk down the more gradual slope of the hill and back around the base to the tree where her bonnet was stuck, or at least make my way very carefully straight down the steep part while she remained safely at the top, she grabbed my hand and ran down. We might both have broken our necks.”

“And you lost your footing and rolled and arrived safely and kissed,” she said. “Did you also laugh?”

“How could we not?” he said. “Though it was not really funny, was it?”

“Life is not funny,” she said, “except when it is. Except when we make it fun. Edward, Lady Angeline Dudley is perfect for you. We have all seen it from the start. You are finally seeing it for yourself, though you are still puzzled at the realization. You have always been so afraid that you will lose control of your life if you should ever relax and enjoy it.”

“I am not as bad as that,” he said. “Am I?”

She leaned toward him and kissed his cheek.

“You are not bad at all,” she said. “That is sometimes the trouble.”

“You would have me be more like Maurice, then?” he asked, frowning.

“I would have you be more like Edward,” she said. “More like Edward as he can be if he lives to his full potential. If he does more than just love. If he also allows himself to be in love—with life and with the woman who was surely created just for him.”

“Hmm,” he said. He was a little embarrassed. Alma was his sensible, practical elder sister. He did not expect to hear poetic outpourings from her.

“But if you expect her to listen to another marriage proposal,” she said, “you must first make it clear to her that you ask from the heart, Edward. You must do something very decisive to convince her.”

He sighed and turned his head to look into her face.

“All I asked,” he said, “was whether you thought it would be in poor taste for me to make an announcement—if there is an announcement to make—during Lorraine and Fenner’s betrothal party.”

She laughed and he grinned.

“Well,” she said, “there is a simple answer to that one at least. No. It would not be in poor taste. Indeed, I believe Lorraine would be overjoyed. She is exceedingly fond of you, you know, Edward. You were always kind to her—and Susan.”

You must do something very decisive to convince her.

Right. But what?

He went fishing with most of the other men after breakfast. It was one of his favorite activities when he was in the country. And while he fished, he planned to take Lady Angeline walking again during the afternoon. He would talk with her, laugh with her again, kiss her again. And tell her he loved her. He might feel like a prize idiot as he did so— undoubtedly he would, in fact—but he would do it anyway. Such things were important to women, it seemed, and it was not as though he would be lying. He did love her.

Heaven help him.

The afternoon walk was to be delayed, though, he discovered after luncheon when Eunice bore Lady Angeline off to the conservatory for what looked like a private tкte-а-tкte. He did not see them again, even though he paced about the house long after everyone else had tired of the music in the drawing room, including the Misses Briden, who had been supplying it, and had gone outside or into the billiard room or to their own rooms for a rest.

Windrow was going home for the night—apparently it was only ten miles away. It was his mother’s birthday. A little while ago, Edward would have been delighted. Indeed, he would have hoped that Windrow would fail to return. He had got over that, though—as long as Windrow did nothing to threaten Lady Angeline’s safety or peace of mind.

And then, late in the afternoon, that was just what happened.

The butler waylaid him as he was passing through the hall, and placed a folded and sealed piece of paper in his hands.

“I was asked to deliver this to you personally at four o’clock, my lord,” he said with a bow.

Edward looked down at it. His name was written on one side in a neat, precise feminine hand. Eunice’s. He raised his eyebrows. A letter? Rather than a word to him in person?

“Thank you,” he said, and he went up to his room to read it in private.

Lord Windrow had invited Lady Angeline Dudley and her to accompany him to Norton Park as a special birthday treat for his mother, Eunice had written. Edward would know about that—he did not. It had all been arranged quite properly, of course. Both Lady Palmer and the Duke of Tresham had given their permission.

“But, Edward,” Eunice had continued, “I know that I have been invited only because permission would not have been granted for Lady Angeline to go alone. I am foolish perhaps to feel anxious. I am not normally given to groundless anxieties, as you know. But I am uneasy. How can I be certain that Lady Windrow is at Norton? Perhaps she is not. And how can I be certain that somehow I will not be spirited away somewhere, leaving Lord Windrow and Lady Angeline alone? Oh, these concerns must be groundless, must they not? I must be doing Lord Windrow an injustice. He is a gentleman, after all, despite what you witnessed on the road to London. But, Edward, he has mentioned an inn on the way to Norton, where he says we will stop for refreshments and a change of horses. But the whole distance is only ten miles. We ought not to need to stop, ought we? Forgive this letter. It is unlike me, I know. But Lady Angeline is such an innocent. I fear for her. And Lord Windrow is such a determined flirt—or maybe worse. Do ignore these