Only Enchanting (10 page)

Agnes concentrated upon each introduction as well as smiling and nodding to Lady Barclay and Lord and Lady Trentham. It was almost as if she believed that, by doing so, she could avoid looking at the tenth person.

“And you have met Viscount Ponsonby, I believe,” Sophia said as she finished the introductions. “Indeed I know that
you
have, Agnes. You danced with him at the harvest ball. Miss Debbins, were you introduced too at that time?”

“I was.” Dora curtsied. “Good evening, my lord.”

Agnes, beside her, inclined her head.

He smiled and held out his right hand for Dora’s. “I understand you are to b-be our savior tonight, Miss Debbins,” he said. “If you had not c-come to play for us, we would have been d-doomed to listen to Vincent scrape away at his v-violin all evening.”

Dora set her hand in his and smiled back.

“Ah, but you must not forget, my lord,” she said, “that his lordship has learned those scrapings from me. And I may wish to quarrel with your description of his playing.”

His smile deepened, and Agnes felt an inexplicable indignation. He had set out to charm Dora and was
succeeding. She looked far more relaxed than she had when they arrived.

“Ho,” Lord Trentham said, “you had better be careful, Flave. There is none so fierce as a mother in defense of her chick or a music teacher in defense of her pupil.”

“You coined that one on the spot, Hugo, admit it,” the Earl of Berwick said. “It was a good one, though. Mrs. Keeping, you are a painter of some talent, or so Lady Darleigh informs us. In watercolors, is that, or in oils?”

Someone brought them drinks, and conversation flowed with surprising ease for the fifteen minutes or so before the butler came to the door to inform Sophia that dinner was served. But
of course
conversation flowed easily. These people were members of the
haute ton
. They were at ease in company and were adept at dispensing good manners and conversation. It would have taken them no time at all to sum up the visitors as they arrived, frightened and tongue-tied despite the fact that they were gentlewomen themselves, on the threshold of the drawing room.

Sophia had arranged the seating for dinner. Agnes found herself being led into the dining room on the very solid arm of Lord Trentham. She was seated halfway along the table, and he took his place beside her. Dora, she noticed, had been given the place of honor to the right of Viscount Darleigh at the head of the table. She had the Duke of Stanbrook on her other side. Poor Dora! She would appreciate the honor being paid her, yet it would surely terrify her too. Except that the duke had bent his head to say something to her, and she was smiling with genuine warmth.

Viscount Ponsonby took the place at Agnes’s other side.

What wretched bad luck, she thought. It would have been bad enough to have had him sitting across from
her, but at least then she would not have been expected to converse with him. He had Lady Harper on his other side.

“We are not usually quite so formal,” Lord Trentham said, speaking low. “This is all in your honor and that of Miss Debbins.”

“Well,” she said, “it is good to feel important.”

He looked a formidable gentleman. His shoulders were massive, his hair close-cropped, his face severe. As an officer he would have wielded a sword, but he would surely look more at home swinging an ax. But—a smile lurked in his eyes.

“I used to shake with terror,” he told her, still speaking for her ears only. “I was born to a London merchant who just happened to have enough money to purchase a pair of colors for me when I insisted that I wanted to be a soldier.”

“Oh.” She looked at him with interest. “But your title?”

She would swear he almost blushed.

“That was just daft,” he told her. “Three hundred dead men deserved it more than I did, but the Prince of Wales waxed sentimental over me. It sounds impressive, though, wouldn’t you say?
Lord
Trentham?”

“I do believe,” she said, “there is a story lurking behind that . . . daftness, my lord, but you look as if you would be embarrassed to tell it. Is Lady Trentham also of the merchant class?”

“Gwendoline?” he said. “Good God, no—pardon my language. She was Lady Muir, widow of a viscount, when I met her at Penderris last year. And she is the daughter and sister of Earls of Kilbourne. If you prick her finger, she bleeds blue. Yet she chose me. Silly of her, would you not say?”

Oh, goodness, Agnes liked him. And after a few more
minutes she realized what he was up to. He did not, perhaps, have the sort of polished conversation the other gentlemen had to set ladies at their ease, but he had found another way. If
she
was a bit uncomfortable, despite the fact that she was a lady born, he was saying, in so many words, how did she think
he
felt in similar situations, when he was a man of the middle classes?

Wise Lady Gwendoline, to have chosen him, Agnes thought. The lady herself, seated opposite and to their left, was absorbed in something Sir Benedict was telling her.

And then Lady Barclay at his other side touched his sleeve, and he turned his attention to her.

“Agnes,” Lord Ponsonby said from her other side.

She turned toward him, startled, but he was not addressing her. He was making an observation.

“A f-formidable name,” he said. “I am almost g-glad I was unable to keep our appointment.”

She hardly knew where to start.

“Formidable? Agnes?” she said. “And did we
have
an appointment, my lord? If we did, I was unaware of it. I was not there anyway. I had more important things to do this morning.”

“This morning? And
where
did you not go this m-morning?” he asked.

What an elementary blunder to have made. She attacked her fish with a vengeance.

“Why formidable?” she asked when she became aware that he was still looking at her, his knife and fork suspended above his plate. “Agnes is a perfectly decent name.”

“If you were Laura,” he said, “or Sarah, or even M-Mary, I would scheme to kiss you again. They are soft, biddable names. But Agnes suggests firmness of character and a stinging palm across the ch-cheek of any man
audacious enough to steal a k-kiss for the second time, when she can be presumed to be on her guard. Yes, I am
almost
glad I was unable to m-meet you. Were you r-really not there? Because I might be? But the daffodils will not bloom forever.”

“It had nothing whatsoever to do with you,” she said. “I had other things to do.”

“More important than your painting?” he asked. “More important than m-me?”

Oh, good heavens, they were at the dinner table. Anyone might overhear snatches of their conversation at any moment, though it was doubtful. And how had she got embroiled in this? She was not his flirt and had no intention of alleviating his boredom for the next two and a half weeks by becoming one.

“More important than me, then,” he said with an exaggerated sigh when she did not answer. “Or should that be
I
? More important than
I
. One feels very p-pedantic sometimes when one insists upon using correct g-grammar, would you not agree, Mrs. Keeping?
Who is there? It is I.
It sounds mildly absurd.”

She did not look at him. But she did smile at her plate and then laugh.

“Ah,” he said, “that is better. Now I know how to coax a l-laugh out of you. I merely have to speak correct grammar.”

She picked up her glass of wine and turned toward him.

“Are you feeling less savage this evening?” she asked him.

His eyes went still, and she wished she had not reminded him that he had said that yesterday morning.

“I expect to be soothed by music,” he said. “Is your s-sister as talented as Vincent claims?”

“She is,” Agnes told him. “But you may judge for yourself later. Do you like music?”

“When it is well performed,” he said. “V-Vincent performs well, though I like to tease him to the contrary. We do t-tease one another, you know. It is one of the endearing aspects of true friendship.”

Sometimes she felt that he was not as shallow as his almost habitual expression seemed to indicate. She remembered having the same thought during the ball. He was not, she thought with an inward shiver, a man one would be comfortable to know.

“He sometimes p-plays a wrong note,” he said, “and he often p-plays more slowly than he ought. But he plays with his eyes wide-open, Mrs. Keeping, and that is what m-matters. That is
all
that really matters, would you not agree?”

And often he spoke in riddles. He would judge her, she sensed, according to how well she was able to interpret them.

“With the eyes of his soul?” she said. “And you are not speaking just about Lord Darleigh or just about the playing of music, are you?”

But his eyes were mocking again.

“You have become too p-profound for me, Mrs. Keeping,” he said. “You are turning philosophical. It is an alarming trait in a l-lady.”

And he had the effrontery to shudder slightly.

Lord Trentham, she saw, had finished talking with Lady Barclay, at least for the moment. Agnes turned her shoulders and asked him whether he lived in London all year.

*   *   *

Agnes,
Flavian thought as they made their way to the music room from the dining room and he watched her
talking to Hugo, her arm through his. One could not imagine reciting a sonnet to the delicately arched eyebrow of sweet Agnes, could one? Or weeping over the immortal tragedy of
Romeo and Agnes
. Parents really ought to be more careful when naming their children.

He remained on his feet after seating Lady Harper close to the pianoforte. He clasped his hands behind his back as Vincent played his violin—a lilting folk tune. Vince really had improved—there was more vibrato in his playing than there had been last year—though how he could have learned to play at all when he was blind, who knew? It was a triumph of the human spirit that he had done it. Flavian did not join in the applause that succeeded the piece. Instead he beamed fondly at his friend, forgetting for the moment that Vince could not see him. One
did
tend to forget at times.

The cat purred rather loudly when the applause died down, and there was general laughter.

“I absolutely refrain from commenting,” Flavian said.

Lady Harper played the pianoforte for a few minutes, though she protested that she had only recently resumed playing after a lapse of many years. Then she played and sang a Welsh song—in Welsh. She had a fine mezzo-soprano voice, and somehow made one almost yearn for the hills and mists of Wales. Almost.

Now,
there
was a woman, Flavian thought, about whom one might weave romantic and erotic fantasies if she did not happen to be the wife of a dearest friend—and if one felt anything more for her than a purely aesthetic appreciation.

Imogen and Ralph surprised everyone by singing a duet to Lady Trentham’s accompaniment. Flavian did not need to tease them afterward—everyone else did it for him. Lady Trentham then played alone and with
practiced skill, while Hugo beamed like an idiot and looked fit to burst with pride.

Vincent played on the harp, and Flavian strolled closer to frown in amazement over the fact that he could distinguish so many strings from one another when he could not even see them.

And then it was Miss Debbins’s turn to play, and Flavian had no further excuse to prowl, for she would surely play for longer than a few minutes. He really ought to have taken a seat earlier. The choice left to him now was to squeeze between George and Ralph on the sofa, which would have looked a trifle peculiar and might have annoyed the cat, currently curled up on the middle cushion—or to sit beside Mrs. Keeping on a love seat a little farther removed from the pianoforte.

He chose not to annoy the cat.

He wondered whether she had told the truth about not going to the meadow this morning, and then realized how conceited it was of him to imagine that perhaps she had gone there and been so disappointed not to find him that she had pretended she had not gone at all.

He had very possibly given her an eternal disgust of him when he kissed her. She had probably not been kissed by any man other than her husband until then. Undoubtedly she had not, in fact. She had
virtuous woman
written all over her in invisible ink.

“The serious entertainment is to begin, then?” he said as Miss Debbins seated herself at the harp.

“The implication being that the other performances were trivial?” she said.

He grasped the handle of his quizzing glass and half raised it.

“You are in a combative mood, Mrs. Keeping,” he said. “But I would g-guess none of those who have
already played or sung would care to f-follow Miss Debbins.”

“You do have a point there,” she conceded.

She was wearing the same gown she had worn to the harvest ball. Now, how the devil had he remembered that? It was hardly an outstanding item of fashion, though it was pretty enough. The light from one of the candles was sparkling off the silver embroidery at the hem, as he remembered its doing on that occasion.

And then he lowered his glass and gaped. At least, that was how he felt inwardly, even if it did not show on his face. For suddenly music poured and rippled and surged about them and did a number of other startling things that words could not begin to describe. And it all came from one harp and the fingers of one woman. After a minute or two Flavian raised his quizzing glass again all the way to his eye and looked through it at the instrument, at the strings, and at the hands of the woman who played them. How was it possible . . .

The applause at the end of the piece was more than polite, and Miss Debbins was begged to play again before moving to the pianoforte. When she did go there, George jumped to his feet just like an underling to position the bench for her.

“And do you p-play, Mrs. Keeping?” Flavian asked while her sister prepared herself at the keyboard.

“Hardly at all.”