any female? He seems to have been quite impervious to the charms of any of the ladies he has met in the past week or so.'
The Marquess of Hetherington laughed and took her hand. 'Elizabeth, I quite forbid this train of thought,' he said. 'William is a grown man, you know, older than either you or I. Let us leave him to manage his own life.'
'But he cannot be happy, Robert,' she persisted. 'There must be someone worthy of him. Do you think he became well-acquainted with any of the earl's daughters during the summer?'
'I doubt it,' he said. 'I don't think any of them is quite William's type. The oldest one is too haughty for her own good. The middle one is shallow, if I may judge on such short acqaintance. And the youngest one… well, what did you think of the youngest one?'
Elizabeth looked at him. 'Oh, Robert,' she said, 'I do hate to be unkind. But was she not dreadful? No looks. No manners. No personality. I feel quite sorry for the girl.'
'I found her quite fascinating,' Hetherington replied, and he grinned as his wife looked at him, eyebrows raised. 'I do believe this afternoon was the first time I have ever seen you fail miserably to draw someone into conversation. Did she actually growl at you, my love, or did it merely appear that way from across the room?'
'She certainly scowled when I tried to commend her on her embroidery,' Elizabeth said.
Hetherington leaned toward her until their shoulders touched. 'I do not know why we are wasting time on such topics,' he said, 'when we are all alone together in such a setting, Elizabeth.'
'Oh, do behave yourself,' she said with a most unladylike giggle. 'We are in the streets of London, Robert, not far out on an empty highway.'
He sighed. 'Even there, you always seem to be terrified that a highwayman or someone will poke his head through the window at some intimate moment,' he said. 'Not that that ever particularly deterred me, did it, love? It is still my theory that John was conceived on the road to Devonshire.'
'Robert!' she said, her face and neck almost crimson. 'You know I do not like you to say so. And I am sure it is not true. Oh, do stop it.' She slapped ineffectually at his hand, which had already undone the ribbons of her bonnet and was pushing it back from her head. 'Have you no shame?'
'None whatsoever, my love,' he said, and he grinned down into her flushed face before lowering his mouth to hers.
Chapter 9
William Mainwaring propped one foot with its silver-buckled dancing pump against the cushions of the seat opposite him. He had drawn the velvet curtains across the carriage windows. Although there was always plenty of light in the main streets of London even at night, he had no particular interest in viewing other partygoers. He rested an elbow on a satin-clad knee and smiled. Really, he marveled, he felt happier than he had felt in a long while.
He knew the reason for this ball, of course, as he had known the reason for the two informal dinner parties that the Hetheringtons had held in the two weeks and since his arrival in London. Elizabeth was trying to matchmake. Robert had even admitted as much a few mornings before, when the two men were riding alone in the park. He had expected to feel more anguish at the realization. He had even gone home after the ride instead of accompanying his friend to Tattersall's, so that he might examine his bruised heart in private.
And it was there, quite alone, that he had discovered that there was no very painful bruise, only amusement that a woman several years his junior, a woman who had once agreed to marry him, had taken it upon herself to find him a wife. He did not love Elizabeth any longerl That is, he had been hasty to remind himself, he loved her a great deal. None of his admiration for her serenity and her intelligent good sense, and none of his appreciation of her beauty had faded. He still felt his heart lift in her presence as he always had. He still considered her one of the closest friends he had ever known. But he no longer felt about her as a lover feels.
The knowledge had come as a great shock to him. He had taken for granted that that type of love could never die. When he had first met her again-dreadful afternoon-all the pain of his brief courtship and of its abrupt end had flooded back and the wound had been as raw and as painful as it had ever been. She was more beautiful than she had been, if that were possible. Now there was an addition to the serenity that he had always loved. Now there was a radiance, and it did not take much imagination to know that it was Robert who had wrought the change. If he had ever doubted the true feelings of those two for each other, he could doubt no longer after seeing them together. They did not display their love in public, but they did not need to. They glowed.
His unhappiness had been made even worse when Robert, after disappearing for a few minutes, had returned to the drawing room with their son, a blond, blue-eyed replica of himself. Mainwaring had witnessed the look that husband and wife exchanged over the baby's head. It was not a particularly private look or a demonstrative one, but it had told him more clearly than any words could have done that the child was the greatest bond of love between them. He had felt the bottom fall out of his world.
Yet, over the days, when he saw both Robert and Elizabeth frequently, the pain had receded again and he had found himself genuinely relaxed in their presence. They were a warm and a charming couple, radiating friendliness and happiness. Without realizing it was happening, Mainwaring found that more and more he thought of them as a pair who belonged together. There was no doubt about it; they had been born to find each other. He thought of them less and less as separate persons. But it was not until that morning after the ride in the park that he had realized fully what had happened to him. Elizabeth was Robert's wife and it was right that she should be. She could never have belonged to him. He could not have made her happy, and consequently he would not have been happy himself. He finally, and with grateful relief, let go of her with his mind. Henceforth he could relax in her friendship.
The coach lurched to a stop and Mainwaring grabbed the leather strap beside his head to prevent himself from being hurled to the seat opposite. He drew back the curtain and peered out, but let it fall into place again hastily when he heard angry voices d outside. Let his coachman argue the matter out. He had no wish to become involved in a street brawl.
Strangely, it had been only that morning that he realized the implications of his freedom from loving Elizabeth. Two of his trunks, those that contained his less-than-essential belongings, had finally arrived the afternoon before. The servants had unpacked them, but he had instructed that the books be piled in the library, as he wanted to put them on the shelves himself. He had declined the usual morning ride with Robert in order to perform the task. And, of course, among the books was his copy of
He was free of Elizabeth. His heart was whole again. It was possible that he could love again. He had found himself thinking of his little wood nymph all day. She had never really been out of his mind since summer, in fact. But always he had assumed that he could never love her. He had concluded long ago that his feelings for her were mostly physical, that his longing for her was occasioned by the fact that she was the first, and only, woman he had ever possessed. He knew there was more to his feelings than that. He liked the girl, too. She had an interesting and original mind, even if she was uneducated. He was attracted to her as a person.
But he had never even considered labeling those feelings as love. He loved Elizabeth, and he had always assumed that one loved only once in a lifetime. For almost the whole day the possibility that he loved Nell haunted him. He tried to tell himself that he could not possibly love a girl of such vastly different background and station in life from himself. He tried to tell himself that he was behaving with naivete to so exaggerate such a brief episode in his life. The chances were that Nell had forgotten him already. It was quite possible that she had wed some village lad by now.
The carriage jerked into motion again. Mainwaring was not particularly in the mood for dancing. Not that he ever was. But he smiled again, remembering why Elizabeth had arranged the evening. She had probably invited every eligible female between the ages of eighteen and thirty in the hope that one of them would catch his fancy. Dear Elizabeth. He must waltz with her. She was lovely to dance with. The very first time he had talked to her had been during a waltz. She had been so surprised that he had asked her, a mere governess and chaperon at the time, to dance.
What would she say tonight, he wondered, if he were to tell her that he was seriously considering returning to Yorkshire to ask for the hand of a little waif of a girl who did not even possess a pair of shoes? She would think
