Encounter with Venus (22 page)

But Harriet, two decades younger than he and therefore more agile, reached it first and started up the stairs. “He’s awake and dressed, I hope,” she called down over her shoulder, “because whether he is or not, Pratkin, old dear, I’m going up to see him.”

Harriet threw open the door to Bernard’s study with a bang and stormed into the room. Bernard, who was seated at his desk going over some papers, looked up, startled. “Harriet!” he exclaimed with an alarmed shudder.

“How dared you!” she said with melodramatic intensity. “How
dared
you!”

He blinked at her uncertainly for a moment and then wheeled his chair away from the desk to confront her. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “I’ve regretted it ever since. It was rude.”

The words made no sense to her. “What? What was rude?”

“You didn’t deserve it. I’m very sorry. It was just that I was startled at seeing you.”

Harriet shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re—”

Pratkin stuck his head in at that moment, breathless from his climb up the stairs. “Sorry, sir, she didn’t let me stop ‘er. Shall I escort ‘er down?”

“No, of course not,” Bernard said impatiently. “Go away.”

“Yes, Pratkin, go away,” Harriet echoed.

Pratkin flicked a glance from one to the other, broke into a grin, and hastily backed out.

“Where were we?” Harriet asked, rubbing her forehead nervously.

“I was apologizing for my rudeness.”

“Oh, yes. But I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bernard.”

“I’m speaking of the scene on the street yesterday. When I cut you.”

“Oh, that.” Harriet dismissed it with a shrug.

It was now Bernard’s turn to be confused. “Is that not what’s made you furious?”

“No, not anymore, though I admit to having been quite perturbed at the time.”

“Of course you were.” He lowered his head. “I’ve been feeling ashamed of myself ever since.”

“And rightly so. But that’s not why I’m here. And it’s not why I’m furious.” She glared down at him, arms akimbo. “Why did you assume that I introduced you to my friends in order to pass you off to one of them?”

He stared at her for a moment, trying to determine what this was all about. “Did George tell you that?” he asked.

“Never mind that. Answer my question.”

“I’ll wring his damned neck!”

“I’ll wring yours, if you don’t answer me.”

He shrugged. “What else was I to think when you had your friends parade their charms before me so blatantly?”

“There’s a great deal ‘else’ you could have considered. For instance, if that had been my purpose, why would I first have suggested that you sit out the dancing with my brother?”

“Oh,” Bernard said, bemused, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Yes,
oh!
And you could also have considered that my behavior in coming here and begging you to attend the ball was certainly peculiar for someone who was trying to pass you off on someone else.”

“Not necessarily,” he said defensively. “It’s not peculiar behavior for someone who had always gone out of her way to be kind to me.”

“Kind?
I never believed, Bernard, that you could be such a fool!” Exasperated, she flounced across the room and threw herself upon the sofa.

He wheeled himself after her. “Did you march up here, brazenly unchaperoned, just to tell me that you
weren’t
trying to pass me off onto one of your friends?”

“Yes, you idiot, that’s exactly what I’ve come to tell you. And to ask you, if passing you off was
not
my motive, then what could that motive have been?”

“I suppose you’re telling me that your motive was just what you said it was—a way of helping me to enjoy the ball. Only that and nothing more. An act of simple kindness.”

“Kindness,
again?
”
She glared at him. “You mean that my motive was to be kind to a crippled man, is that it?”

He met her angry gaze with one of his own. “Isn’t it? Let’s have the truth for once.”

“Dash it, Bernard,” she cried impatiently, “try not to be so stubbornly blind. Surely you can see that to have thrown myself at you as much as I have is a great deal more than mere kindness. Only a nun could be as kind as all that!”

Her true meaning broke upon him like a physical blow to the brain. His eyes widened in utter disbelief. “What are you saying? You can’t be trying to tell me...” His voice broke, and he turned the chair away from her. “You
can’t
be!”

“Why can’t I?” She got up, came up behind him, and put her arms about his neck. “Is it so hard to believe I love you?”

He sat unmoving for a moment, basking in the delightful sensation of feeling her arms about him, while he let her words sink in. Then he took hold of one of her arms and pulled her round to face him. “Look at me, Harriet,” he said softly.

She knelt beside the chair and gazed up at him. “I’m looking,” she said.

“You know how much I love you. But you’re too wonderful to settle for only a part of a man. You deserve more than this.”

“You sound like my mother. She knows that I had made up my mind long ago to have you, but she keeps warning me that life with you will be difficult.”

“She’s probably right.”

“No, she isn’t. My life with you will be happier than it’s ever been.” She laid her head down on his knee. “You are more a man to me than any I’ve known,” she said in a tremulous whisper. “You can do everything and anything I need a man to do.”

Expelling a long sigh of pure joy, he bent down and lifted her up onto his lap. She slipped her arms about him tightly and gave him a long, lingering kiss. When at last they paused for breath, he smiled down at her. “There’s one thing I can’t do, you know,” he reminded her. “I can’t dance.”

She smiled back. “That’s all right, my love. When I have a desire to dance, I’ll send one of my friends to sit it out with you.”

THIRTY-TWO

A proper dinner party, Felicia believed, required at least ten at table. And for this occasion, she decided that it would be a charmingly sentimental plan to invite everyone who’d been present at the Abbey when Beatrice and Algy met. “The problem,” she said when she discussed the matter with Leyton, “is that the Stonehams are traveling abroad, and that leaves only eight of the original assemblage: the bridal couple, Horace, George, Livy, Elaine, and us.”

“Mmm,” murmured Leyton, who was engrossed in the
Times.

“Are you listening to me, Leyton? We must have another couple to make ten, but most of our friends have not yet come to town.” She paced about the sitting room thoughtfully. “We could ask the Crowells, I suppose, but he likes to dominate the conversation, and she has an unfortunate tendency to belch.”

Leyton had heard enough to realize he did not want the Crowells. “Ask Bernard and Harriet,” he suggested promptly.

“But, dearest, didn’t you hear what George said about them? They aren’t speaking.”

“Exactly why I suggested them. Neither of them need know the other is coming. Then, when they come face-to-face, they may make it up. You’ll be doing a good deed.”

Doing a good deed was very appealing to the sweet-natured Felicia. Eight invitations were sent out that very day.

Dinner invitations were not extraordinary occurrences to any of the recipients, but in this case each of them reacted to the invitation as if the occasion were indeed extraordinary. Each had a personal reason for wishing to attend, and each immediately set about preparing for it. Beatrice wasted no time in calling on the most modish dressmaking establishment in Leicester Square and ordering a new gown. Algy sat down at his desk and tried to compose a witty response to the congratulatory toast he knew would be made. Horace, who’d been working hard at losing weight in order to advance his cause with Livy, ordered his valet to take in one inch from the sides of his favorite evening coat. Elaine sought the advice of her mother, her aunt, and three of her best friends on which of her dozens of evening dresses would be most fetching to the male eye. George, after eliciting a promise from his sister to seat him next to her house guest, spent a great deal of thought on the problem of how he might charm, cajole, or hoodwink Livy into liking him a little. Even Livy, who was expending just as much effort to steel herself against any temptation to soften toward him, nevertheless paid a visit to Felicia’s modiste and spent almost all of her two hundred pounds on a new gown—a wine-colored Florentine silk with full sleeves and a lovely flounce at the bottom.

Harriet and Bernard were the only recipients who considered refusing the invitation. When Harriet received hers, she went immediately to see Bernard. She found him frowning over his. “I think that at least one of us must refuse,” he said after they’d exchanged an affectionate greeting.

“Why?” Harriet wanted to know.

“Because the party is to celebrate Beatrice Rossiter’s betrothal to that Thomsett fellow. If we revealed the news about our engagement, it would infringe on the honor due to theirs.”

“But we needn’t tell them about ours,” Harriet pointed out. “Besides, Mama doesn’t want us to tell anyone until she makes her own party to announce it.”

Bernard laughed. “Anyone seeing me look at you would know at once that I’m top-over-tail for you.”

“I suppose my face reveals it, too,” Harriet agreed. She slid onto his lap and snuggled happily into his embrace. “It’s hard to hide the fact that it’s midsummer moon with us.”

“Although,” Bernard mused, “it might be fun to try.”

“Try what?”

“Try to pretend we’re still at odds.” He lifted her chin and grinned down at her. “Even George doesn’t yet know about us. We could go to the party and act cold to one another. Speak to each other in icy monosyllables. Never address one another directly, and never offer the other even a tiny smile. Do you think you could play the role?”

Harriet giggled at the prospect. “I think I could. But only if you promise not to look at me too much.”

So they, too, sent Felicia their acceptances. Felicia reported to Leyton that she was very pleased with the responses. Not one invitation had been refused. She might have been much less pleased had she guessed how charged with undercurrents her little dinner party would be.

THIRTY-THREE

The party began in a perfectly ordinary way, with the guests gathering in the drawing room for preprandial drinks and conversation. Felicia, Leyton, and Livy were on hand to greet each one. The first to arrive was Horace, who took Livy aside as soon as he had his drink in hand. “You look lovely,” he murmured, lifting her hand to his hps, “and charmingly daring in that striking red gown.”

Livy wondered if “charmingly daring” meant that the dress was too bold for a woman of her age. But Felicia had assured her that London ladies wore gowns a great deal bolder than hers. And Felicia herself was resplendent in a dandelion-yellow satin gown and a sequined, feathered headdress that could not be called modest. So Livy told herself to put the word “daring” out of her mind.

Bernard arrived with George, and they soon drew Leyton into a lively discussion of a procedural reform that was soon to be debated in Parliament. George, however, managed to take a long look at Livy, who was standing before the fireplace with a wineglass in her hand. Regally graceful, in an elegant red gown, with her hair pinned up and only a few small curls framing her face, she was a perfect subject for a master portraitist. George found himself wondering, for the thousandth time, why he had ever found her spinsterish.

The betrothed couple arrived next and were greeted with a round of cheers and congratulations. Then Elaine breezed in, her velvet cloak (which she should have handed to a footman downstairs) floating out behind her. She removed it with a flourish and handed it to Kelby, thus dramatically revealing a breathtaking gown of blue brocaded silk with so pronounced a décolletage that the room fell silent for a moment. It was, Elaine thought, as if the very air had gasped. Preening, she did not consider the possibility that the gasp signified shock rather than admiration. She smiled and told herself that this was going to be a delightful evening.

Harriet came in shortly afterward, shy and a bit nervous, in a demure gown of tearose pink crape. Bernard had a hard time pretending not to notice her. He would have liked to say to George, “Isn’t she a rose-colored vision?” but of course he had to restrain himself. Felicia, noting the girl’s uneasiness, immediately put an arm about her. “I know many of my guests are strangers to you,” she said, “but you’ll soon feel quite at home.” She promptly introduced Harriet to all the ladies, starting with the bride-to-be and ending with Livy. By some mutual instinct, neither Harriet nor Livy acknowledged that they recognized each other. They both understood that the embarrassing moment in George’s library was best forgotten.

Harriet had taken a quick look at Bernard when she’d first stepped into the room, but she’d not yet had to face him. When at last Felicia brought her to the corner where the three parliamentarians were gathered, Harriet steeled herself for the critical moment to come. “This is my husband, Leyton,” Felicia said, “and of course you know George and Bernard.”