Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride (28 page)

There were hundreds of eyes she might have met. And perhaps she did meet some of them fleetingly, though most of Lady Truscott’s guests were too well
bred to be caught gawking at her. But the pair of eyes she did consciously meet, across the full width of the ballroom, were those of Viscount Kersey.

Her heart performed a painful somersault and for many frozen and agonized moments she could not look away. Lionel! As handsome and as elegant as ever. Her Lionel. Her love. The dream that had sustained her through five long and dreary and rather lonely years.

And then she wrenched her eyes away and looked down at the hand she had rested on her husband’s arm. She was quite unaware, in her distress, of the intense satisfaction the
ton
was drawing from the scene, though none gazed openly.

The earl took her hand in his free one and raised it to his lips. He was, as she expected, smiling at her with an admirable imitation of adoration in his eyes. She felt a strong wave of hatred again and fought not to let it show.

Someone was bowing before her. Someone was willing to acknowledge her. She looked up in surprise and saw those blue eyes at far closer range. He reached for her hand, and she took it from her husband’s and set it in his, without realizing quite what she did. He lifted it and placed his lips against the exact spot where her husband’s had just been.

He had never before looked at her like this, one part of her mind told her. With such softness and warmth and tenderness. Never. Oh, he never had, though she had yearned for it and told herself that it would happen as soon as their betrothal had been announced or as soon as they were married.

“Ma’am,” he said, his voice soft, though she knew that several people around them, apparently involved in other activities and conversations, would hear what he said, “I would like to offer my sincere good wishes on your marriage. You must know that your happiness has always been my chief and my only goal. I hoped that you could find it with me, but I am glad that you have found it even at the expense of my own. You must not feel guilt.” His smile was warm and sad. “Only happiness. It is what I wish you for the rest of your life.”

He released her hand, bowed deeply to her, turned away rather jerkily, and hurried from the ballroom.

“The devil!” her husband muttered close to her ear. And then his hand was firm at the back of her waist, propelling her forward. “At last. The first set is to be a waltz, I hear. Come, we will dance it.”

She wanted nothing more than to flee into the ladies’ withdrawing room and hide in its farthest corner. She stepped forward onto the dancing floor, surprised that her legs would obey the command of her brain.

“Put your hand on my shoulder.” His voice was almost harsh as his arm came about her waist and he took her other hand in his. “Now look into my eyes.”

She obeyed him woodenly. She rather thought she might entertain the
ton
by fainting in front of them. It was unthinkable.

“Now,” he said, “tell me you love me. And when you have done that, smile again.”

“I love you,” she said.

“Once more.” He looked down at her lips. “And with a
little more conviction. And then the smile. Your pallor will be understandable under the circumstances, but it might be misconstrued if it continues.”

“I love you,” she said and smiled at him.

“Good girl. Keep looking into my eyes for a while,” he said.

It was ludicrous. Telling him that she loved him, smiling into his eyes, while both of them knew that she was almost fainting from love of another man. Lionel had been so kind and so very—noble about it. She would have expected him to cut her completely for the rest of her life. He had wished her happy. Even at the expense of his own happiness, he wished for hers. Did he not realize that her heart was aching for him?

Except that treacherously, gazing into her husband’s face, she felt that physical pull toward him that she always seemed to feel. And looking at his lips, she thought about his way of kissing and the strange effect the touch of his mouth against her own had on her whole body. She always felt it as much in her toes as on her lips. Her smile broadened with amusement despite herself. And despite herself she found herself thinking about last night, their wedding night, and becoming a little breathless at the knowledge that it was to be repeated tonight. Every night, he had said. At least once and sometimes more if he desired it and she permitted it.

And then her thoughts shifted suddenly and unwillingly to three evenings before and the reading of that letter. Lionel had been with his father. He had been absent from the ballroom with his father, no doubt planning
with him what they were to do about the intercepted letter. He had walked at his father’s side back into the ballroom and up onto the dais, where he had stood quietly while his father read.

He desired only her happiness, he had just said. How could he have done that, then? How could he have exposed her to such cruel treatment? Even if she had been guilty, it would have been ghastly and unusual punishment. They might as well have stripped her and confined her to a pillory and whipped her. She had felt that helpless, that exposed, that hurt. Of course, the whipping—or the caning—had come later in more privacy.

Even assuming that that letter had shocked and hurt Lionel, how could he have acquiesced in what his father had done? How could any gentleman have done such a thing? Especially a gentleman who had just professed to desire her happiness.

He had just made a gesture so noble that she had almost fainted. But was it really so noble? He had not apologized for his cruelty and lack of gallantry. He had merely—he had made himself look like a gallant martyr to everyone who had watched and listened. She had no doubt that a vast number had watched and that a significant number had listened. His words were probably known to every guest in the ballroom by now.

No, she was doing him an injustice. It was Lionel she was thinking of. Lionel. Her love.

“It was kind of him,” she said hesitantly. “It was nobly done.”

“It was pure theater,” her husband said softly. “He
won the hearts and the sympathy and the deep respect of all of fashionable society, Jennifer. He put you entirely in the wrong.”

“But he wished me happy,” she said.

“He does not care the snap of two fingers for you,” he said. “There is one love and one love only in Kersey’s life—and that is Kersey himself. If you did but know it, Jennifer, you are a thousand times better off with me.”

She looked at him, startled, her smile slipping for a moment. There was quiet venom in his voice. She would have expected him to feel some shame at the wrong he had done Lionel. But perhaps it was natural to hate the person one has wronged.

And then it was there, full-blown and startlingly unexpected and unbidden—that thought that had been nudging at her consciousness like a maddening irritant. Lionel had been with his sick uncle at Highmoor House two years ago. Catherine, at nearby Chalcote, had had a secret lover two years ago. She had been seduced by youth and beauty and charm, as she had put it in her letter. Her daughter was blond and blue-eyed—like her father. Gabriel, when she had asked if the child’s father was in London now, had not really answered her question. Gabriel hated Lionel.

The tumbling thoughts so terrified her that she tried to push them from her back to the place where they had only irritated her.

“Who was your stepmother’s lover? Who is Eliza’s father?” Horrified, she heard herself whispering the questions.

“No.” His hand tightened somewhat at her waist and he twirled her about a corner and then twirled her again. “This is neither the time nor the place, my love. We are dreadfully much on view.”

She felt enormous, knee-weakening relief that he had refused to answer, yet she knew that she would not be able to leave it alone. She knew that when they went home she would ask again and that she would not rest until she had heard his answer. Though she knew what the answer would be. And denied it to herself with panicked vehemence.

The set was almost at an end. But it did not end quite soon enough to save her. Even as the music drew to an unmistakable end, the final thought opened the door into her conscious mind and stepped through.

Gabriel hated Lionel. Because Lionel had been Catherine’s lover and had abandoned her and denied paternity of her daughter.
Do not seek revenge
, Catherine had written.

But he had sought it.

And he had achieved it, too.

In the crowded and stuffy and stifling hot ballroom, Jennifer suddenly felt freezing cold right through to her heart.

L
ADY
B
RILL HAD BEEN
very afraid that her one niece’s notoriety would reflect on the other. She had feared that Samantha would have no partners at Lady Truscott’s ball. She had been quite prepared to use all the power of her influence in order to prevent the disaster of her
niece’s being a wallflower. The situation might well be irreversible if it once happened. And so Samantha, just like Jennifer, was instructed as soon as she stepped from her uncle’s carriage to smile.

But Aunt Agatha need not have worried. Her usual court was about her almost before she had settled in one spot inside the ballroom and she had promised the first three sets. Even some gentlemen who did not normally crowd about her did so this evening. Samantha guessed that she was somehow benefiting from Jennifer’s disgrace. Perhaps a few of them hoped that she would say something to feed their thirst for gossip.

She smiled and danced and chattered to gentlemen and to other young ladies of her acquaintance. And she noted with pleased satisfaction that Jenny was not being shunned but that she danced each set. But she could not feel happy. She had witnessed the incredible spectacle of Lionel crossing the ballroom—he had not walked around the edge of the dancing floor as people usually did but right across its emptiness—and kissing Jenny’s hand and saying something to her and bowing to her and then hurrying from the room.

While her heart had gone out to him for his courage and nobility in doing something so very difficult to do, the scene had also depressed her. He truly cared for her. She heard those words or words to that effect all about her as people discussed the incident.

Perhaps Lionel had loved Jenny after all.

She watched unhappily for his return to the ballroom and felt mortally depressed at the strong possibility that
he had left the house. But he had not. During the second set he returned. He spoke with a group of ladies and danced the third set with one of them.

Samantha waited for him to approach her. Or if not that, for him at least to glance at her. For some sort of signal to pass. Surely he would give some sign. A smile, perhaps. An inclination of the head. Some private promise that he would speak with her openly at a more opportune time.

But there was nothing. He was being very discreet.

Or she was being very foolish?

She could stand it no longer when supper was over and she could see that Lord Graham was about to ask her for the next set. Lionel was standing close to the doorway, talking with two other gentlemen.

“Excuse me, please,” Samantha said, and she hurried away after murmuring to Aunt Agatha that she was going to the ladies’ withdrawing room. She did not stop to listen to the exasperated question of why she had not gone there when she was passing it a few minutes ago on the way back from the supper room.

Her heart beat painfully as she approached the doorway. She had never in her life contemplated anything so brazenly improper. She bumped awkwardly against Lord Kersey as she hurried past him and stammered an apology as he caught at her upper arms.

“Let me speak with you outside,” she whispered, and hurried on past.

A moment later she would have given anything in the world to have those words and that collision back. How
could she? Oh, how could she? She stood uncertainly, fanning herself, and decided that after all she would rush for the ladies’ room. He would think he had imagined what she had said.

But he came strolling from the ballroom while she still hesitated.

“Ah, Miss Newman,” he said, making her an elegant bow and taking her hand to raise to his lips. “I am charmed to see you here. I trust you are enjoying the evening?”

“Oh, yes, my lord, thank you,” she said breathlessly, looking anxiously into his face. Let him speak without delay, she thought. There was nothing improper in their exchanging civilities for a few moments. But a few moments were all that propriety would allow.

He was looking at her politely, his eyebrows raised. There was … amusement? in his eyes. “Yes, Miss Newman? How may I be of service to you?”

How unspeakably mortifying. Except for that look in his eyes—that knowing look—he might have been addressing a stranger.

“I thought—” she said. “That is—When you were still betrothed to Jenny you said—I—”

He leaned his head a little closer to her as if trying to make sense of a child’s meanderings. “I believe,” he said, “your extreme youth has led you into a misconception, Miss Newman. You are a lovely young lady, and I have always appreciated loveliness. Perhaps I expressed some gallantry that you misinterpreted?”

She stared at him in disbelief and horror. And realized
in a painful rush everything that her extreme youth had led her into. She had been disturbed by his willingness to speak secretly of love to her when he was promised to Jenny. And she had once suspected that he wanted her to try to end the betrothal by speaking with Jenny. She had been quite right—though she had mistaken his motive. Oh, yes, she had. It was so crystal clear to her now that she felt mortified at her own stupidity. Or at her own childish refusal to listen to her own doubts.

“You wanted your freedom from Jenny,” she whispered. “You tried to use me. Oh!”

“My dear Miss Newman.” His look was one of avuncular concern. “I believe the heat of the ballroom has been too much for you. May I fetch you a glass of lemonade? And help you to a chair first?”

But another ghastly thought had struck her. Jenny had denied those indiscretions that the letter had listed, and Samantha had known it was almost impossible for her to have had clandestine meetings with the Earl of Thornhill. And Jenny had said the earl had denied writing the letter. Lionel had done nothing to protect Jenny from that dreadfully public disgrace. He might have confronted her privately, put her away from him quietly. But he had not. And now she knew why.