sweet on him when she was a girl. How that must have hurt!' 'You cannot be blamed. Meg never was one to talk about herself or to display her feelings for all to see,' Vanessa said. 'I believe I was her only confidante as a girl, though now she does not confide her deepest feelings even in me. I will be happy if she finds someone else to love this Season or next.' 'Perhaps the marquess?' Katherine said. 'He is not terribly handsome, is he, but he seems amiable enough. And he can be no more than ten years older than Meg.' 'And he /is /a marquess,' Vanessa said, smiling. 'How blasГ© we are becoming about such things already.' 'He is not a prince, though,' Katherine said, and they both laughed and walked on.
Cecily was out walking with a group of young ladies, their maids trailing along some distance behind. They stopped to talk with a couple of young gentlemen on horseback as Vanessa and Katherine approached - Vanessa recognized them from last night's ball. Greetings were being exchanged with much merry laughter.
Cecily smiled brightly at them and invited them to join her group. 'We are going to walk down to the Serpentine,' she explained. 'Oh, I would love to see the water,' Katherine said.
Vanessa would too - but preferably not in company with such an exuberant crowd of young ladies. She must be getting old, she decided ruefully. '/You /go,' she urged Katherine. 'I must be getting home anyway. Perhaps Elliott will be there. Cecily and her maid will surely accompany you home.' 'But of course we will,' Cecily said. 'I /wish /you had brought your brother with you.' 'Yes, indeed,' one of the other young ladies said. 'He is quite divine.
Those curls!'
There was a flurry of giggles.
Vanessa watched them go on their way. But she was now without either companions or a maid and must not dawdle. Perhaps she would lie down for an hour when she got home and catch up on some of the sleep she had missed for the last two nights. Unless Elliott had come home, of course.
And then perhaps…
She quickened her pace.
Three ladies were approaching in an open barouche, all of them with bonnets or hats that were extremely fashionable. Vanessa looked admiringly at them until the lady who sat with her back to the horses turned her head, and Vanessa saw that she was Mrs. Bromley-Hayes.
The lady saw her at the same moment, and they smiled warmly at each other. 'Oh, do stop,' Mrs. Bromley-Hayes called to the coachman as the barouche drew abreast of Vanessa. 'Lady Lyngate! The very person I have been hoping to see today. I must thank you for being so gracious last evening. It was a splendid ball, was it not? I would have stayed longer if I had not had another engagement elsewhere.' 'Oh,' Vanessa said, 'I am so glad to hear that. I hoped you did not feel unwelcome. It was an unfortunate oversight that your invitation was not sent out.' 'That is kind of you,' the lady said, and looked at her companions. 'I am going to walk with Lady Lyngate for a while. Do go on without me. I shall find my own way home.' The coachman jumped down from his perch, and soon Mrs. Bromley-Hayes, looking fashionable and startlingly beautiful, was at Vanessa's side and taking her arm so that they could stroll onward together. 'Elliott said you were tired after yesterday,' Mrs. Bromley-Hayes said. 'But it is good to see you out and enjoying the air this afternoon.' /Elliott?/ 'You have seen him today?' Vanessa asked. 'Oh, yes, of course,' the lady said. 'He called on me earlier as he often does.' /Why?/ 'Did he?' Vanessa said. 'Oh, you need not worry,' the lady said with a light laugh. 'The Wallace men are always very discreet, you know, and unscrupulously loyal to their wives in public. Elliott will never embarrass you. And you will have his home and his heirs. You already have his title. Indeed, Lady Lyngate, /I /am the one who should envy /you/. You need not envy /me/.' What was she saying? But even an imbecile, or even someone who had lived a sheltered existence in the country, could not possibly mistake her meaning.
She was Elliott's mistress! /Although Anna is a perfectly respectable widow, she also has something of a reputation for being sometimes, ah, over-friendly with certain gentlemen./ The words Constantine had spoken last evening came back to Vanessa as clearly as if he were walking beside her speaking them now.
As did Elliott's anger at seeing the lady in his ball-room when she had not been invited. /Of course she had not been invited./ 'Oh, dear,' Mrs. Bromley-Hayes said now, a suggestion of laughter in her voice, 'never tell me you did not /know/.' 'I believe,' Vanessa said through lips that felt stiff and did not obey her will very easily, 'you were depending upon my not knowing, ma'am.' 'I forgot,' the lady said, 'that you have come recently from the country and have never mingled with polite society. You cannot be expected to know its secret workings. Poor Lady Lyngate. But even you, surely, cannot believe that Elliott married you for any other reason than convenience.' Of course he had not. He had not even dreamed of marrying her until /she /had asked /him/. 'You have only to look at yourself in a glass,' Mrs. Bromley-Hayes continued. 'Which is not to say that you are ugly. You are not, and you must be commended for dressing as well as you can given your figure. But Elliott has always been renowned, you know, for his exquisite taste in women.' The wife and the mistress were walking side by side and arm in arm, Vanessa thought, in surely the most public afternoon location in London.
The picture they presented to everyone else in the park must be ludicrous indeed. And of course, everyone else must /know/. Only she had not until a few moments ago. 'Exquisite in what way?' she asked.
It was the best she could do without any chance to think of any better or more cutting reply. Her head buzzed as if it were inhabited by a hiveful of bees.
The lady laughed low. 'Ah,' she said, 'the cat /does /have claws, does it? But come, Lady Lyngate, there is no reason we cannot be friends. Why let a man come between us? Men are such foolish creatures. We may need them for certain things - well, for /one /thing at least - but we can live far more happily without them most of the time.' 'You will excuse me now,' Vanessa said, drawing her arm free. 'I was on my way home when I met you. I am expected.' 'By Elliott?' The lady laughed. 'Poor Lady Lyngate. I doubt it. I very much doubt it.' 'Good afternoon to you,' Vanessa said, and hurried off through the throng, looking neither to right nor to left.
From the jumble of her mind certain thoughts popped out, clear as day, one at a time.
The fact that she was plain.
That Elliott had called her beautiful, rather as one would soothe a child with insincere flatteries.
That until she had confronted him two mornings ago, he had been from home all day every day following their arrival in London.
That his mother had said at some time during the first few days here that she had hoped he might be different from his father.
That his frequent lovemaking had nothing to do with love and everything to do with begetting his heirs.
That he had spent a few minutes last evening talking with Mrs.
Bromley-Hayes before she left.
That seeing her at the theater had discomposed him and set him to drumming his fingers on the armrest of their box.
That he and Constantine had a quarrel - and it was Constantine who had brought the lady to meet them at the theater and to appear at the ball last evening. To embarrass Elliott.
That he had seen and talked with Mrs. Bromley-Hayes today and told her that /she, /Vanessa, was tired. Like a child who had been given too many treats the day before.
That he was enormously handsome and attractive and could not possibly be satisfied with a wife such as she.
That she was a fool and an idiot.
Naive, gullible, stupid.
Unhappy.
Wretched.
Almost unable, long before she reached home, to continue setting one foot in front of the other.
Fortunately - /very /fortunately - he was not at home when she arrived there. Her mother-in-law was in the drawing room, the butler informed her, entertaining a few callers.
Vanessa walked past the drawing room, treading lightly lest she be heard. She continued on up to her room, made quite sure that both her bedchamber and dressing room doors were tightly shut, climbed into bed fully clothed except for her shoes and bonnet, and pulled the covers up over her head.
She wished she could die then and there.
She fervently wished it. /Hedley, /she whispered.
But even that was unfair. She had been unfaithful to the man who had loved her with his whole being - with a heartless man who did not even know the meaning of love.
