The Proposal (27 page)

He actually
knew
someone.

Constance, glowing visibly with happiness, danced the first set with a ginger-haired young gentleman who looked good-humored and who might or might not be considered handsome by a young girl despite his freckles. He was smiling at her and making conversation and dancing the intricate steps of a vigorous country dance with practiced ease and polish.

Lady Muir was dancing with one of her cousins. Her limp was altogether less noticeable as she danced.

Her eyes met Hugo’s and remained on them for a few moments.

He held his breath and heard his heartbeat drumming in his ears.

Chapter 16

Gwen danced the first two sets with her cousins. She was able to relax and make light conversation with them while keeping an eye upon Constance Emes. But there was nothing to worry about there. She was pretty and vivacious enough to attract more than enough partners even if she had nothing else to recommend her. But in fact there was much else. She had
Lady Muir
as her sponsor, and she was the sister of
Lord Trentham,
the famed hero of Badajoz. That fact buzzed quickly about the ballroom after it had been whispered in a few ears, probably, Gwen guessed, by her own relatives. And, perhaps most important of all, Miss Emes was rumored to be as rich as any of the most eagerly courted heiresses of the
ton
.

Gwen’s task for the rest of the evening would consist of nothing more onerous than screening the gentlemen who would vie to dance a set with the girl so that no blatant rakes or fortune hunters would be granted the favor. Constance danced the first set with Allan Grattin, youngest son of Sir James Grattin, the second with David Rigby, nephew through his mother of Viscount Cawdor, and the third with Matthew Everly, heir to a decent property and fortune of ancient lineage even though there was no title in the family. They were all perfectly respectable young gentlemen. The Earl of Berwick, one of the members of the Survivors’ Club, had bespoken the supper set with Constance though he was aware of the fact that she could not waltz until permitted to do so by one of the patronesses of Almack’s. Being seen in his company for that set, though, and during supper could do the girl nothing but good.

Gwen danced the third set with Lord Merlock, with whom she had been on amiable terms for the past two or three years and whom she had allowed to kiss her at Vauxhall last year. They smiled warmly at each other now, and he complimented her on her looks.

“You are the only lady of my acquaintance,” he said, “who actually gets younger each year. It will surely get to the point at which I will be accused of trying to rob the cradle.”

“How absurd,” Gwen said, laughing as the figures of the set separated them for a few moments.

After kissing her, he had asked her to marry him. She had said no without hesitation, and he had taken her rejection in good part. He had even chuckled at her prediction that he would probably be vastly relieved in the morning.

She wondered now if he
had
been relieved. She might have encouraged him to renew his courtship this year if she had not already invited Lord Trentham to do the same thing. She
wished
she had not done that. Although she did not know Lord Merlock very well, she was quite confident that he would be an agreeable husband. He was well bred and good-natured and mild mannered and—well, uncomplicated. If there were any skeletons in the cupboard of his life, she did not know of them. Though one never really did, did one?

Anyway, she
had
extended that invitation to Lord Trentham, and she was definitely not going to complicate her own life by stringing along two suitors at the same time.

Lord Trentham had left the ballroom ten minutes after the first set began. Gwen had known the moment of his leaving even though she had not been watching him directly. She had wondered if he would return. But of course he would. He had asked her to dance. Besides, he would want to keep an eye upon his sister.

He came back. Of course he did. And he did not even wait until the last moment before the fourth set began. He came to stand beside her as soon as the third set ended, and then he completely ignored her. He spoke instead to his sister, who was eager to give him an exhaustive account of every moment of the ball so far. She fairly bubbled over with excitement as she spoke. The girl knew nothing about fashionable ennui, Gwen thought—thank goodness. There was nothing more ridiculous than a young girl, fresh from the schoolroom and the country, decked out in virginal white, and looking bored and world-weary at yet
another
ball and yet
another
partner.

The Earl of Berwick joined them, and Miss Emes eyed his facial scar.

“You were an officer, my lord?” she asked. “And you knew Hugo in the Peninsula?”

“Alas, not, Miss Emes,” he said, “though I did know
of
him. There was not a soldier in the allied armies, from the generals on down to the newest recruit in the ranks, who did not know of Captain Emes, later Major Lord Trentham. He was what we all aspired to be and failed to become. We might all have hated him with a passion had he not been so dashed modest. I met him at Penderris Hall in Cornwall while we were both recovering from our war experiences, and I stood in speechless awe of him until he invited me not to be so daft. He did mention the existence of a sister. I am sure he must have. But he did
not,
the rogue, mention the fact that she was—and is—one of the loveliest ladies in the land.”

He had struck just the right tone with her. She gazed worshipfully at her brother for a few moments and then—with blushes—at Lord Berwick.
How wonderful still to be so innocent,
Gwen thought. He had spoken in such a way that the flattery appeared more kindly than flirtatious. His manner was almost avuncular, in fact, though he was surely only in his middle twenties.

He must have left his youth behind on a battleground in Spain or Portugal.

Lord Trentham was a silent member of the group, and he had
still
not even glanced Gwen’s way. She might have been exasperated had she not begun to understand him rather well. Ferocious and dour as he looked on the outside—and he looked both at this moment despite the fondness in his eyes when they rested upon his sister—he was very unsure of himself in a social situation. At a
ton
event, anyway. He might protest that he was middle-class and proud of it, and that might even be true. It probably was, in fact. But it was nevertheless true also that he was intimidated by the
ton
.

Even by her.

She had an unbidden memory of him wading out of the sea with unconscious grace in that cove at Penderris, water streaming from his almost naked body, his drawers clinging to his hips and thighs. And of his shedding those drawers later after he had carried her into the sea. He had not been intimidated by her then.

Couples were gathering on the ballroom floor for the waltz, and Lord Berwick bowed to Constance and extended a hand for hers.

“Shall we go in search of a glass of lemonade and a comfortable sofa from which we may observe the dancing?” he suggested. “Though it is probable that I will have eyes only for a certain nondancer.”

“Silly,” Constance said with a laugh as she set her own hand along the top of his.

Gwen watched them make their way toward the refreshment room and waited. She felt rather amused—and almost breathless with anticipation.

“I have waltzed on one occasion in my life,” Lord Trentham said abruptly, his eyes on the departing figure of his sister. “I did not squash my partner’s toes, and I did not go prancing off in one direction while she wafted gracefully in another. But my performance
did
incite laughter as well as derisive applause from everyone else present at that particular assembly.”

Oh, goodness. Gwen laughed and unfurled her fan.

“They must have been very fond of you,” she said.

His eyes snapped to hers and he frowned in incomprehension.

“Polite people,” she said, “do not laugh at someone or applaud him derisively unless they know he will understand their affection and join in their laughter.
Did
you laugh?”

He continued to frown at her.

“I believe I did,” he said. “Yes, I must have. What else
could
I do?”

She fanned her face and fell a little more deeply in love with him. How she would love to have seen that.

“And so,” she said, “you are now brimful of dread.”

“If you were to look down,” he said, “you would see that my knees are knocking. If there was not so much noise in the room, you would hear them too.”

She laughed again.

“I have danced three vigorous sets in a row,” she said, “and though my ankle is not aching, it
will
be if I do not use some common sense and rest it. I trust the Earl of Berwick. Do you?”

“With my life,” he said. “And with my sister’s life and virtue.”

“There is a balcony beyond the French windows,” she told him, “and a pretty garden below. It is not a
very
chilly evening. Walk out there with me?”

“I am probably depriving you of the pleasure of performing your favorite dance,” he said.

He was.

“I believe,” she said, “I will enjoy strolling with you more than I would waltzing with someone else, Lord Trentham.”

Unwise words indeed. She had not planned them. She was
not
a flirt. Or never had been, anyway. She had spoken the simple truth. But sometimes truths, even simple ones, were best kept to oneself.

He offered his arm and she slipped her hand through it. He led her across the floor and out onto the deserted balcony and down the steep steps to the equally deserted garden below. It was not totally dark, however. Small colored lanterns swung from tree branches and lit the graveled walks that meandered through flower beds bordered by low box hedges.

From the ballroom above came the strains of a lilting waltz.

“I must thank you,” he said stiffly, “for what you have done and are doing for Constance. I do not believe she could possibly be happier than she is tonight.”

“But I have been at least partly selfish,” she said. “Sponsoring her has given me great pleasure. And we have, I am afraid, spent a great deal of your money.”

“My father’s money,” he said. “
Her
father’s money. But will she be as unhappy in the near future as she is happy now? She surely cannot expect many more invitations to balls or other events, and she surely cannot expect any of the gentlemen dancing with her tonight to dance with her again. Her mother, Lady Muir, is sitting at home with
her
mother and sister. They make a modest living from a small grocery shop and hardly qualify even as middle-class people.”

“And she is the sister of Lord Trentham of Badajoz fame,” she said.

He turned his head to look at her in the near darkness.

“You probably have not even noticed that the ballroom is buzzing with your fame,” she said. “For years people have waited for some glimpse of you, and suddenly here you are. Some factors transcend class lines, Lord Trentham, and this is one of them. You are a hero of almost mythic proportions, and Constance is your
sister
.”

“That is the daftest thing I have ever heard in my life,” he said. “It is that drawing room at Newbury Abbey all over again.”

“And for your own part,” she said, “I suppose it would be enough to send you scurrying back to the country and your lambs and cabbages. But you cannot scurry, for you have your sister’s happiness to consider. And her happiness is of greater importance to you than your own.”

“Who says so?” he asked her, scowling.

“
You
have said so by your actions,” she said. “You have never needed to put it into words, you know, though you have come close on occasion.”

“Damnation,” he said. “God damn it all.”

Gwen smiled and waited for an apology for the shocking language. None came.

“Besides,” she said, “even apart from your fame, rumor is also making the rounds that Miss Emes is quite fabulously wealthy. A pretty and genteel young lady who is properly chaperoned will arouse interest anywhere, Lord Trentham. When she is also richly dowered, she is quite irresistible.”

He sighed.

There was a wooden seat at the far end of the garden beneath the shade of an old oak tree. It faced across the flower beds toward the lighted house. They sat down side by side, and for a few moments there was silence again. She would not be the one to break it, Gwen decided.

“I am supposed to be courting you,” he said abruptly.

She turned her head to look at him, but his face was in shadow.

“Not
supposed
to,” she said, “only invited if you wish to do so. And with no promise that your courtship will be favorably received.”

“I am not sure I do wish to,” he said.

Well. Blunt speaking as usual. She should be relieved, Gwen thought. But her heart seemed to have sunk down to the soles of her dancing slippers.

“I don’t think I want to court a murderess,” he said, “if that is what you are. Though why I should object, I do not know, since I could myself be accused of multiple murders without too much of a stretching of the truth.
And
I have entrusted my sister to your care.”

Well. So much for romance and light conversation suited to the festive occasion of a ball during the Season.

He had no more to say. There were a few more moments of silence between them. This time
she
was going to have to break it.

“I did not literally kill Vernon,” she said. “Neither did Jason. But I
feel
as if we both did. I feel that we caused his death, anyway. Or that I did. And my conscience will always be heavy with guilt. You would indeed do well not to court me, Lord Trentham. You carry around enough guilt of your own without having your soul darkened with mine. We both need someone to lift us free of such heaviness.”