Nick thought to remind her that it was rarely polite to put guests last, but he could see the stubborn glint in Rosalind’s eye and elected not to challenge her.
‘I will blindfold you, and you must identify your guests.’ She was tying a handkerchief around Harry’s face, and spinning him so that he lost all direction.
Guests who were not interested in playing moved to the corners of the room. Elise looked to the exit with longing, and then to Harry, as though trying to decide between the two.
But Rosalind hurried to close the door, and put her back to it, making the decision for her. ‘Quiet, everyone, let Harry try to find you.’
Nick swore silently, and nudged Elise towards the centre of the room and into the game. With Rosalind blocking the door, his escape was thwarted as well. If Harry’s eyes were covered, there was little he could do to affect the man. It would have been an excellent opportunity to get away. He shot Rosalind a murderous look.
She shrugged and cocked her head towards the other players, as though telling him to pay attention to the game.
While Nick was distracted by her, Harry lumbered past him, on his blind side, and stamped mercilessly on his toe. ‘Eh-what was that.’ He stumbled, turned back as though to find Tremaine, and then veered left at the last minute, catching another guest by the shoulders. ‘Let me see.’ He patted at the man, placing his hands on an ample stomach. ‘Cammerville. I do not need eyes to tell it is you.’
The gentleman laughed and sat down.
‘That’s one down.’ Harry swung his arm out wide through the open air and laid hands on a young lady, reaching carefully to touch her hair. ‘And the younger of the Misses Gilroy, I believe. For there are your pretty curls.’ Then he marched purposefully towards Elise, who took a deep breath and froze like a rabbit, waiting to be caught.
Nick hoped that the game they were really playing would be over once Harry had caught his wife. Elise looked more resigned than happy to be playing, but at least she was no longer as angry as she had been in the hall. But Harry stopped at the last moment and turned, moving across the room again, away from his wife.
Elise put her hands on her hips and glared at his back in disgust.
On his way to wherever he thought he was going, Harry managed to catch himself on a small table and tip it, sending a carafe of wine cascading down the leg of Nick’s best buff trousers.
He stifled an oath and mopped at the stain with his handkerchief.
Rosalind glared at him, making frantic gestures that he should hold his tongue and keep to the spirit of the game.
‘I have upset something,’ announced Harry, grinning without remorse.
Rosalind reached him from behind and spun him, giving him a forceful shove to send him back towards Elise.
Harry lurched again in the direction of his wife, only to catch another woman by the shoulders. ‘And this is the elder Miss Gilroy. For I have danced with you before, and recall you as being most slim and just this tall.’ The girl dissolved into a shower of giggles.
Elise’s countenance darkened with the clouds of a returning storm. As Harry made another pass through the room, instead of avoiding him she stepped in front of him, so that he could not help but run into her.
He swung his arms wide again, turned suddenly, and reached high instead of low, catching Tremaine by the throat. ‘What’s this, then? Have I caught the turkey for tomorrow’s dinner?’
He gave a warning squeeze, and Nick gagged slightly.
‘Oh, no. Not a turkey at all. It is Tremaine. I recognise that artfully tied cravat. You’re out of the running, old man. Sit down.’ He released his throat, spun him around and gave a sharp push to his shoulders that sent him stumbling towards the sofa. ‘And stay out of my way.’
The other people in the room laughed knowingly.
He turned again, ‘How many is that, then? Almost everyone? But there must be someone left.’ He walked deliberately past his own wife again.
Elise was getting angrier by the minute, and was now actively trying to be found-repeatedly stepping into his path, only to be avoided as he seized and identified someone else.
Nick was near enough to Rosalind to hear her fervent whispering. ‘Don’t toy with her, Harry. Do not toy with her. She does not appreciate it.’
But either Harry did not hear or did not care. He was still pretending that he did not know the location of his wife. He groped in the empty air to the right of her, and when she moved into his path he turned again. It was plain to all there that he was deliberately avoiding her.
‘Where is she?’
Several guests laughed, and a young girl called out, ‘Behind you. Look behind you.’
At last, Elise could control her temper no longer. ‘If you seriously wish to find her, she will be in her bedroom. With the door locked.’ Elise gave her husband an angry shove, then marched past him and through the drawing room door.
The room went silent, waiting to see what would happen next. When Harry yanked off the blindfold he looked, for a moment, as though he were torn between staying and following her. And then he smoothed his hair and let out a hearty laugh, to prove that there was nothing seriously wrong.
The guests relaxed and laughed with him.
Rosalind caught Nick before he could leave the room to find Elise. He frowned at her. ‘You need some practice, I think, in your tying of the blindfold. Your brother could see us all, clear as day.’
She let out an exasperated puff of air. ‘Of course he could. It would make little sense for him to have wandered around blind.’
‘That is the point of the game, is it not?’
‘When you are in a room with your wife and her lover it is never a good idea to be blind.’
‘He has pretended blindness on the subject long enough,’ said Nick, with a growing understanding of Harry’s predicament.
‘But now it is long past time for him to stop pretending.’ She glared in the direction of her brother. ‘I am so angry with Harry that I can hardly speak. He must have known what I was about by tying the handkerchief the way I did. I gave him an excellent opportunity and he wasted it. But if I question him on it, he will claim that he knows his wife better than I. And she will return to him in her own good time and there is little else to be done about it.’
‘You gave him no choice but to act as he did, Rosalind. I had my doubts, when he welcomed me into his home, but the man does have his pride. He wants his wife back, but he does not want to be forced to admit the fact in front of an audience.’
‘And why ever not? Admitting that you love your wife is nothing to be ashamed of.’
Nick shook his head. ‘Perhaps not. But to solve this problem someone must be willing to sacrifice their pride. And each one is still hoping that it can be the other.’
‘It might be easier for us to reconcile them were they not so perfectly suited in their bullheadedness.’
He glared at her. ‘It might also be easier if you would include me in the plans that you are making. At least a small warning would have been welcome just now. The man positively mauled me, and I had to stand there and take it in good humour.’
‘It serves you right,’ she said with vehemence. ‘You are quite horrible, you know.’
‘I am no worse than I have ever been.’
‘And no better than you should be. Harry is right in one thing, Tremaine. You need to change your ways. And, while it pains me to see Harry and Elise struggling with pride, I have no compunction in sacrificing yours. If this season gives you a chance to do penance, then so be it. You may start afresh in the New Year.’
‘What if one suspects that no matter what one does the next year will be no different from the last?’ He shook his head. ‘I find it no cause for celebration.’
‘Only if you are unhappy with your life,’ she said. ‘I thought you claimed to be content. If so, another year of the same will not bother you.’
Damn her for making him think on it. For as he did he realised that he was far too bored to claim contentment. ‘And you are so content in yours, then?’ He gave her a sour smile.
She lifted her chin. ‘My view of the future is somewhat more optimistic than yours. I do not worry myself over the things I cannot change, and apply myself diligently to those things that I can. I view the New Year as a promise
