Madcap Miss (22 page)

~ Thirty ~

IT WAS THE night of her ball.

Felicia studied herself in the long looking glass. Her gown of white and gold suited her provocative curves. The pearls threaded throughout her black curls made her feel exotic. Pearl drops at her ears and from the gold necklace finished off this touch.

She pouted over her reflection. Would the duke think she looked too young? Did she look too young? She wished her neckline was even lower … although she had to admit the scoop of the lace showed a great deal of her full breasts.

If she were more sophisticated, would he find her more desirable?

She hadn’t seen him in three days—not since he had allowed her to drive his team. They had enjoyed one another so very much, but she had not been able to break through the barrier he had put up. It was as though he had never kissed her … over and over, had never made wild and passionate love to her. All that was gone.

When he took her hand, he immediately withdrew it as though he had touched a flame.

What was she to do?

James Reinhart had been courting her now even more intently and diligently than he had before. She didn’t want Reinhart. There was only one man she wanted.

Now, she would have to descend the stairs and take her place among the beau monde officially.

The lilting sound of the music came sweetly to her ears. She could hear the buzz of the festivities below … it only wanted her entrance.

“Felicia?” Lady Daphne opened her bedroom door and stuck her head in. “Oh, oh, my dear, you are simply stunning.”

“Am I? Do you think the duke will approve?”

“My brother will be speechless with awe,” Daffy said. “Now come, it is time.”

She released a long sigh and followed Daffy out of her room. Daffy then took the stairs to stand below beside the duke and Freddy.

In black velvet with a white brocade waistcoat and an intricately tied cravat, his black layered hair framing his handsome face, the duke took her breath away.

He had not yet looked up, but as though he felt his eyes on her, he did at that moment, and their gazes locked.

It was a frightening thing to have to make one’s entrance for the first time with all the fashionable world watching and ready to find fault.

She was sure she would trip and falter … but she did not. With one lace-gloved hand she touched the railing, and with the other she lightly held her gown just a few inches up as she made her descent.

The duke came forward to receive her, and the nervous smile she had worn vanished, in its place a warm smile of gratitude. On his arm, there was nothing and no one to fear.

Everyone else faded away.

He led her to the ballroom and he said, “You beauty, you. I don’t think I was alive until I met you.”

She looked at him sharply. What was this? What was he saying?

A sudden, short hush swept over the ballroom as the duke and she were announced. She was aware, vaguely aware of the admiring stares as he led her onto the dance floor and requested a waltz.

How daring he was. He had asked for a waltz and claimed her for it.

She was sure that more than one dowager was heartily shocked. As he moved with her in perfect grace, she smiled breathlessly at him and said, “Ashton … Ashton, I can’t breathe.”

His silver eyes twinkled. “It seems we are both overcome with the same malady. I lost my ability to perform that necessary function the moment I saw you at the head of the stairs.” He shook his head, and his tone was despondent as he said, “I will lose you tonight.” He indicated with a lift of his chin quite a number of young gentlemen ready to claim her hand.

She scoffed, “Oh, but don’t you know yet … you have never claimed me for yourself and, therefore, cannot lose me.”

“I wish you would call me by my given name,” he said, changing the subject.

“Does one call one’s chaperone by his first name? I think that would not be quite the thing,” she answered on a tease.

“I have checked the rules. It is acceptable, and besides that … within days, my guardianship will be at an end.”

She gave him a long look and said in a small voice, “You are quite breaking my heart.”

He laughed this off. “Why? Because I want you to address me by my given name?”

“You know why, and still you mean to give me away … don’t you?”

“Felicia, my own dear heart, what you feel for me … will pass. It isn’t real. It is I who shall suffer the heartache. Not you.”

“I take leave to tell you, Glen Ashton, Duke of Somerset, you haven’t a notion what you are talking about.” She shook her head at him during the movements of the waltz and added, “I have quite a few suitors already, but I want none of them. So what then, Duke, what do you say to that?”

“We shall see,” was all the answer he was going to give her.

* * *

The waltz came to an end, and he stood back and sighed to watch her go off with Reinhart, who had been impatiently waiting in the wings to claim her.

Ah, Felicia
, he thought despondently. When she looked at him like she had just done, he almost believed there was something more than infatuation in her eyes. Love was elusive. He didn’t used to believe in love. Lately, Felicia had made him hope …

Hope was a dangerous thing. Her infatuation would pass as soon as her interest was locked elsewhere. He had wanted her to have her pick of men, and as he looked at all the puppies following her about, he knew that had been accomplished.

This sent him further into his despondency.

* * *

Felicia walked out of the ballroom in search of a moment’s quiet, and as she meandered into the Waverlys’ drawing room she gasped.

Scott was just getting off one knee, and Felicia squealed and then joyfully exclaimed, “Oh, I am a wretch to have walked in on you! I knew that Scott had applied to your father, dearest, but I did not realize … oh, do forgive me … I was looking for a little quiet …”

Becky came forward and shoved her hand out in front of her. “We are engaged!”

Felicia hugged her fiercely. Scott had told her that he had applied to Becky’s father for permission to marry Becky and that the squire had heartily agreed.

“We must tell Daffy at once. She will be overjoyed—”

“No, Felicia. This night is yours. Ours will come,” Becky said softly. “Now go on … you had better get back before people come looking and find us all huddled here.”

“Yes, yes, of course, you need some privacy,” Felicia said and hugged them both before turning on her heel and hurrying out.

* * *

Becky waited only long enough for her friend to leave before saying, “Now, I am off to dance with the duke.”

“Are you, precious?” Scott asked, not unreasonably, considering he had rather thought she would remain a bit longer at his side, “Why?”

“Because, dearest, I adore Felicia, but she does not seem to know just how to manage her own affairs, though she thinks she does. Neither does the duke, you see, and this nonsense has gone on long enough. ’Tis time someone—namely me—handled it … him … her.”

He took her hand and led her down the hall and back to the ballroom. She spied the duke chatting with some friends and, with a wink at Scott, moved off towards her prey.

“Dance with me, Your Grace,” she said softly to him as she pulled on his sleeve for his attention.

“With the greatest of pleasure … ah, a waltz,” he said and smiled fondly at her. “This, however, will be our second dance of the evening. Are you not concerned about the gossipmongers?”

She laughed. “Poor dears, might as well give them something to chew on.”

He took her hand and led her onto the floor as she got her words and thoughts in order. She had to speak without offending, without overstepping. Could she? Facts needed to be presented to him in such a way as to make him see that his present course would end in heartache for himself as well as for Felicia. Did he not see that? No, of course he didn’t’. He thought he was being honorable … How could he when he had already been dishonorable with Felicia? This almost made her giggle at herself. Felicia had confided about her night with the duke, which of course happened when neither knew who the other was.

Finally, she said, “I have come to know you … and Felicia very well.”

“Y-y-es?”

“Enough to understand that she knows her own mind … and heart.”

“Yes?” he answered with a question, a frown descending over his handsome face.

“I know her, really know her, and it is next to impossible to move her from a goal once she has set it.”

“Your point, my dear?”

She almost stomped her foot but managed to keep her thoughts in line and continued, “My point, well, she will choose her own husband when she is ready to do so, and she will never marry anyone she is not in love with, and as of this moment,
she is in love and has made her choice
.”

“What are you saying?”

“Thick, you are so very thick, Your Grace. How can such a knowing man can be so blind? She doesn’t want any of the puppies constantly showing up at Waverly. She doesn’t want Reinhart. She has had her pick for quite six weeks now and has made her choice.”

He seemed to blanch under Becky’s intense gaze. It appeared he was worried and that her words had made him think Felicia might actually be in love with someone else. He said, “Who is it? How is it I have not been told about him?”

“Oh my word! Can it be that you really don’t know?” Becky was, in fact, flabbergasted.

“I am not sure that—”

“Stop it! Listen to me now, for it is evident you have not been listening to her! She knows her mind. She is not infatuated but in love, and your present course will ruin two people with one fell swoop!”

The waltz over, Scott came up to them to claim Becky’s hand. She looked over her shoulder as she walked away and glared at the duke.

* * *

Ashton was still staring after them when Felicia appeared at his side and remarked, “Such a dreadful frown!” Felicia giggled. “Who has annoyed you now? Surely not our Becky?”

She had watched the two twirl around the floor, and while she had not been quite jealous, she was certainly curious, especially now watching the duke’s flitting expressions.

He smiled down at her, caught her ungloved fingers, and took them to his cheek and held them there a moment for all the world to see. He didn’t care. In that moment, all he wanted was his madcap, his love, near and touching, even through the material of her lace gloves.

“Becky didn’t annoy me. She made me look into myself … into you,” he said softly.

“Has she? And what, my beloved guardian, did you see?”

“That she has asked the band to play another waltz, and that I am going to claim your hand for it.”

“Oh, but how can you? It would be our third waltz. You will set tongues on fire.” Felicia laughed openly at the notion.

He took her waist and hand and began to lead her into the steps of the waltz and bent to tell her, “You know, I love your eyes. I have from the start … they speak. Even when your lips are sealed tight, your eyes say so much.”

“And what are they telling you now?” she whispered.

“I see myself in them,” he answered, and his voice was a caress.

Tomorrow, she thought would be another day. Tonight. She would always have tonight … and the night she had spent in his arms in his bed. Would that she could spend another such night … forever!

~ Thirty-One ~

LORD WAVERLY EYED his lady as he helped her out of their town coach and said in an undertone, “He is going to put up a fuss, and then when
she
finds out what we have done, she is going to put up a fuss—two of them, fussing, and
I don’t like fusses
.”

He turned to his coachman and told him, “Sorry, ol’ boy, we shall probably be about twenty minutes or so.”

Daffy sighed as she took her husband’s arm. “The trouble is, Freddy, you are right. You are always right.”

He patted her hand. “Dearest heart, don’t fret then. We’ll muddle through.”

“Shall we? Shall we muddle through and stand by and watch my brother make a mess of this entire business? Felicia is with him right now with his solicitor. His guardianship is at an end as soon as they sign the necessary papers. What then?”

At that moment, a young man came dashing out of the duke’s house just as they were about to knock. He stopped, mumbled something incoherent in the way of a greeting, and told them that his life was at an end. So announcing, he dashed past them, down the steps, and along the avenue out of sight.

“That was young William,” Freddy said on a frown. “Seems a bit … distracted.”

“Oh no, Freddy. My brother cannot have refused William of Hartford’s courtship of Felicia?” Lady Daphne wailed. “William is an earl and wealthy, so wealthy. If my brother doesn’t mean to have her, and I am beginning to think he doesn’t, then he must not stop all these wonderful suitors from courting her.”

They went inside and were led to the library, Freddy muttering about keeping well out of it as things had a habit of sorting themselves out. His wife said she wished this were true, and then a most charming vision met their gazes.

The duke was seated by the fire in a leather-bound chair, a folded document in his hands. At his feet, Felicia in a gown of dark blue velvet was comfortably leaning against his chair and perusing a fashion plate and reading the duke a lecture about something. Daffy was too stunned to hear over the din in her head.

“Daff!” Felicia said, looking up at the newcomers. “Finally, you are here. Good. I must tell you what this brother of yours just did. I am so embarrassed.”

“Never mind,” the duke said on a frown.

“He sent poor William of Hartford off. Told him he wasn’t fit to stand up to a waltz with me, let alone court me,” stuck in Felicia, ignoring the duke’s warning look.

Daffy eyed her brother. “Yes, we saw the poor young man as he dashed out of here. Said his life was over.”

“I do not think that is true, do you?” the duke countered ruefully. “Besides, he is no more than a puppy. How dare he come here after only a day after Felicia’s ball and declare himself!”

“Glen—” Daffy started to object but was pinched by her husband.

“Hush,” Freddy whispered to her. He eyed his brother-in-law and said reasonably, “Can’t go about insulting bloodline like Hartford’s, you know. Will cause your sister … discomfort.”

“Oh, as to that … well, what is done is done,” the duke answered. He ran a hand through his locks and got to his feet. “I’ll ring for coffee.”

“Felicia,” Daffy said, ignoring this. “Come sit with me on the sofa, and then we will return to Waverly. My brother’s guardianship is at an end, but you know Freddy and I wish you to remain for the season … or even longer. I love having you at Waverly.”

“You are wonderful, and I thank you so much. I would love that.” She peeped at the duke, “Tomorrow, I will be one and twenty, and do you know what that means?”

“What?” three people said at once.

“Freddy has promised to tell me … as his birthday gift to me, why he doesn’t like Reinhart,” Felicia said on a laugh.

“I didn’t say that, puss, and you know it,” Freddy returned affectionately.

“You said you would think about telling me when I am old enough to understand. So, tomorrow I will be old enough.” Felicia smiled brightly.

Scott appeared in the doorway and said, “Flip—there you are. Have you forgotten?”

“Forgotten what?”

“The balloon, girl, the balloon. We can stop by Becky’s and collect her and still make it on time if we leave now,” Scott explained.

“Oh faith,” Felicia said and ran towards him. She turned to the duke. “Do you come?”

“I think not,” the duke said.

She stomped her foot. “You must … you said yesterday that you might.”

“I find that I cannot,” he said quietly.

She put up her chin, made her farewell, picked up her cloak, and left with Scott.

Freddy turned to the duke and said, “I have never known you to be a fool.”

“I am not being one now. You must trust me in this.”