Chapter 10

It was with great trepidation that Harriet stepped down from Sir Clive’s carriage outside the mansion on St. James’s Square the following Monday evening. She had looked hopefully at Lady Forbes’s pile of letters on Friday when her own invitation had come, but there was no matching one there. She alone was being invited to dinner and to spend the evening.

Her first instinct had been to refuse. If he had been angry with her for going there to tea, he would be furious if she turned up for dinner, doubtless with other guests. But he must know about the dinner and he must know the guest list. The invitation was in his name and the duchess’s. Besides, her unexpected burst of anger when he had accused her of impropriety had reminded her that she was not unrespectable by ton standards. There was no reason at all to refuse the invitation.

She did not want to go. She would rather do anything else than go. And yet she would not allow him to make her feel inferior. Besides, she knew why she had been invited. An event like a formal dinner and party was a sore trial to Lady Sophia Davenport, who so much enjoyed company but whose deafness cut off her pleasure in it. Harriet had been invited as her companion. She was not offended. Indeed, she was pleased. She would not have to join the company feeling conspicuously alone.

And yet she felt trepidation as she stepped down from the carriage. She had been awed by the size and magnificence of the mansion the first time she had been there. She had thought then that it was more like a palace than a private home. This time, knowing that it was his, she had to fight against that sense of inferiority she was determined not to feel. But it did seem indeed that he came from a different world from hers.

They had met during the afternoon and said not a word about the evening. She had not asked him why she had been invited. He had not asked her why she had accepted. She did not want to think about the afternoon. Not now. Not until she was home again and alone. It had been too disturbing.

The grand hall was lined at intervals with footmen splendidly liveried in pale blue and white, all wearing snowy white wigs. One servant—the butler, perhaps, or a steward—bowed low to her, clicked his fingers to a footman, who took her wrap, and escorted her upstairs past large and ancient portraits, doubtless of Vinney ancestors, to the drawing room, where he announced her in a voice whose rich tones must have reached to the farthest corners of the room. Harriet wished fervently for Amanda and Clive’s presence. Or Godfrey’s.

The Duchess of Tenby, regal in purple and nodding plumes, swept toward her. “My dear Lady Wingham,” she said, one hand graciously extended, “how gratifying that you were able to attend at such short notice. What a delightful shade of pink.” She glanced down at the silk gown of deep rose-pink that Harriet was wearing for the first time.

Harriet curtsied. “Your grace,” she murmured.

The room behind the duchess seemed filled with people. But Harriet saw only one of them. He was walking toward her, looking quite magnificently handsome in burgundy and silver and white.

“Lady Wingham,” he said, taking her hand, bowing over it, and raising her fingertips to his lips. “I am happy to see you again, ma’am. I hope I see you well?”

“Thank you, your grace.” She curtsied again.

He had held her hand in the carriage during the afternoon, and talked to her the whole way on a variety of topics. It was the first time they had not traveled in near silence. They had been silent on the return journey, but it had been a comfortable silence, and he had held her hand again. He looked at her now with a polite expression and blank eyes.

“You will see to it that Lady Wingham has a drink, Tenby,” the duchess said. “I do believe Sophie is eagerly awaiting her arrival.”

Harriet smiled. She had not mistaken, then. She took the duke's arm and was borne off to where Lady Sophia was sitting talking with the Earl and Countess of Barthorpe. They smiled rather gratefully at the interruption and moved off.

“Ah, my dear Lady Wingham,” Lady Sophia said, indicating by the movement of her hands that she expected to be kissed. “Looking as fresh as a rosebud in June. And twice as lovely. Wouldn’t you agree, Archibald?”

“I could hardly have put it better, Aunt,” he said. “I shall fetch you a glass of sherry, Lady Wingham.”

Harriet bent over the old lady and kissed her heavily rouged cheek before sitting down close to her. “Thank you, ma'am,” she said quietly, making sure that she enunciated her words clearly and that Lady Sophia could see her lips. “It is the color Godfrey always liked me to wear.” 

“Everyone else here tonight is whispering,” Lady Sophia said irritably. “I told Sadie and Archibald in no uncertain terms that I would not attend if I could not have my little pet here to bear me company. You shall tell me all the gossip that you hear at the table, and you will tell me all that you have been doing in the past week and how many slain bucks you have left in your wake. Ah, it does my heart good to see your pretty, smiling face, child.”

“Fourteen,” Harriet said with a laugh. “Fourteen slain bucks, ma’am, if one discounts the Prince of Wales.”

The old lady barked with laughter, drawing to herself not inconsiderable attention. The Duke of Tenby handed a glass to Harriet.

“That must have been too rich a joke not to be shared,” he said.

“My little pet here has stolen the hearts of fifteen young bucks in the past week, including Prinny’s!” Lady Sophia roared. “Ah, if I were only fifty or sixty years younger, child. We would make a team such as the ton has never seen before.”

Harriet’s cheeks flamed scarlet. She did not look up to note the duke’s expression—or anyone else’s.

“One must be careful, then,” he said softly, “to stay away from Lady Wingham unless one wishes to leave one’s heart behind.”

“Eh?” Lady Sophia asked “What did he say, my pet?”

Harriet, still feeling uncomfortably hot, related his words just as softly, and the old lady chuckled.

It quickly became clear to Harriet what the purpose of the occasion was. The duke bowed over the hand of the Countess of Barthorpe, Lady Phyllis’s mother, when dinner was announced, and led her into the dining room. He seated her to his right at the head of the table. The arrival of the duchess in town was obviously moving the courtship into another phase, making it almost official. Or perhaps entirely official. Perhaps an announcement was to be made after dinner. Harriet’s stomach lurched at the very thought. But no. He would have led in Lady Phyllis herself if matters were that far advanced.

Harriet exchanged a few words with Viscount Travers to her right, though most of her attention during dinner was taken by Lady Sophia to her left. She was glad of the necessity of talking almost without ceasing. It took her mind off the strangeness of the occasion. She was dining with the Duke and Duchess of Tenby. There were twenty-four at table. She held the lowest rank of all of them, being a mere baroness.

She tried to keep her eyes and her mind off the Duke of Tenby at the head of the table. It was hard on such an occasion to think of him by any other name. And hard to realize that the same man was her lover.

Lover. Harriet’s stomach lurched again. Somehow she was beginning to think of him as her lover, although of course he was not that. But he appeared to have taken her accusations during last week’s quarrel seriously. Even today. After talking with her throughout the carriage ride, he had been silent in the bedchamber. He had kissed her long and lingeringly—and tenderly—as soon as they had arrived there and then he had made long and slow love to her. It was treacherously easy to start using that term to describe what was happening between them. It had seemed that he was making love to her. Her head knew differently, of course, but her heart...

She had closed her eyes and given in to fantasy. When she had once opened her eyes on the bed, after he had raised himself onto his elbows as he moved rhythmically in her so that she would not be oppressed by his weight, she had found that his too were closed. Almost as if he did not want to see reality any more than she did. Afterward he had held her close and covered her with the bedclothes and allowed her to sleep. And when she had woken up later, although his hand gently massaging her head had told her that he was awake too, he had not taken her again but had lain quietly with her until it was time to get up. Strangely, it had felt like love. More so than if he had had her again.

Oh, so very, very like love. She had been disturbed by it after she had arrived home. She was losing touch with reality. She was allowing her dreams to become too real. Dreams and reality should never be allowed to mix. The reality was that they were having a physical relationship and that there was a certain fondness between them. That was all. Next time she must keep her eyes open.

But she knew that she had made the biggest mistake of her life when she had agreed to become his mistress. Better to have him briefly than never at all, she had told herself. She had even persuaded herself that once she had had him a few times she would be satisfied and would be quite able to go back home and forget about him. How very foolishly naive she had been. She dared not contemplate the extent of the heartache she was facing when it was all over. Amanda was quite right, of course. But it was too late now to benefit from either good advice or her own newly acquired experience.

The Duchess of Tenby motioned the ladies to rise and follow her back to the drawing room. The Marquess of Kingsley on one side and Harriet on the other helped Lady Sophia to her feet.

*  *  *

He had had an argument with his grandmother on his return from his assignation with Harriet earlier in the afternoon. Not that one ever really argued with the duchess, of course. One could only hope to negotiate with her. She had wanted him to lead Lady Phyllis in to dinner. And she had decided that there was to be dancing in the drawing room after dinner. She had even taken it upon herself during the day to hire a pianist and a violinist and cellist to come and play. He was to lead Lady Phyllis into the first dance—an old-fashioned minuet.

He knew very well what his grandmother was about, although she had not yet even met Lady Phyllis. She was trying to force his hand, make it impossible for him to back out of his vow to marry during the summer. She was even trying to precipitate matters, fencing him into such marked attentions to the girl that he would feel constrained to offer for her long before the Season’s end.

He would dance first with the girl, he had reluctantly agreed. He would not lead her in to dinner. It was too marked a favor to offer a young unmarried girl whom he was not even officially courting yet. He remained adamant against his grandmother’s hard look and stubborn jaw.

“You have not even set eyes on her yet, Grandmama,” he had said in exasperation. “How do you know that you will want to promote this courtship so ruthlessly?”

“It really does not matter what my eyes see, Tenby, does it?” she had said. “Or what yours see, for that matter. She is Barthorpe’s girl and will be a suitable hostess for you in the coming years. And, more important, a worthy mother for your heir.”

He had sighed. “I will lead the countess in to dinner,” he had suggested eventually. “Will that satisfy you?”'

“It will be most proper, Tenby,” she had said after a moment’s consideration, “since the girl is being presented to me for the first time. Better than my suggestion. Very well.”

It had been quite a minor victory. Everyone, from his servants upward, could be in no doubt of the purpose of the dinner and informal dance afterward. It seemed that one did not have to announce a courtship. One merely made one’s bow to an eligible party and speculation quickly gave place to certainty. Once he had led Lady Barthorpe in to dinner and opened the dancing with Lady Phyllis, any boats he had left to him would be quite effectively burned. He tried to imagine spending the rest of his life with the girl. He tried to picture himself in bed with her. But such thoughts could only bring a feeling of gloom, even nausea. He wished sometimes that he had been born a commoner. What a luxury it would be to be free to choose his own bride or no bride at all.

What he should have been adamant about, he realized after all his guests had arrived and they were all seated at dinner, was that Harriet not be on the guest list. He could not have done so easily, of course, out of courtesy to his aunt, but he should have hardened his heart. His grandmother, at least, would have been relieved. He found that he could concentrate on nothing and no one except Harriet sitting and smiling cheerfully beside his aunt eating very little because the demand of talking to her was taking almost all her time. She looked quite breathtakingly beautiful. He wished she had not worn that particular gown. How could one be expected to keep one’s eyes off her? But then Harriet would look beautiful in a faded sack.

He relaxed somewhat when the ladies left the dining room, but he knew he must not do so for too long. There was the necessity of returning to the drawing room before the ladies could start to feel neglected. And so he rose from the table less than half an hour after the ladies’ departure.

He danced with Lady Phyllis, Lady Leila, and the Duchess of Crail. Lady Phyllis was quiet, Lady Leila giggly, the duchess talkative. His grandmother, he knew, would count the evening a success. Harriet had danced once, with Sotheby, Barthorpe’s brother, who had an eye to her and was one of her regular court. Travers had sat beside her for a while until he moved away, doubtless as a result of having to repeat everything he said for Aunt Sophie’s benefit. The duke smiled inwardly. Good old Aunt Sophie! He struggled with himself not to laugh aloud and startle the Duchess of Crail as he remembered Harriet’s little joke before dinner and the embarrassment she had suffered when it had suddenly become very public. Ah, his sweet little blusher.

He wandered to his aunt’s side between dances. He knew that his grandmother was well aware of his attraction to Harriet and that she would be watching him like a hawk. But Harriet was, after all, his guest. And it was only polite to spend a little time in his aunt’s company. Most of the other guests were assiduously avoiding her. Not that she appeared to notice. She was doting on Harriet like a grandmother.

“Ah, there you are, dear Archibald,” she said, raising to her eye the jeweled lorgnette she had affected for the occasion. “You dance prettily, my boy.”

“Prettily.” He played with the ribbon of his quizzing glass. “Do I thank you, Aunt Sophie, or stare at you haughtily through my quizzing glass?”

She rumbled. “It would not work on me, boy,” she said. “I had perfected the art with this little jeweled toy long before you were even thought of.” She tapped her lorgnette on his sleeve.

Harriet was playing with a fan, opening it on her lap to reveal a spreading bouquet of pink rosebuds, and sliding it shut again. He did not realize he was watching her until his aunt spoke.

“You must dance with her Archibald,” she said. “She is without a doubt the prettiest little girl here tonight and has been drawing more than her share of glances. Yours included, dear boy. Dance, my pet. You should not be stuck here with an old woman when there is dancing to be done and more bucks to be slain.”

Harriet’s fingers whitened against the sides of the fan after she closed it. But she looked up with a smile. “I can think of no one I would rather be with, ma’am,” she said, reaching out a hand and resting it on the back of his aunt’s gnarled one. “You remind me of home and of—of Godfrey.”

His grandmother would have his head on a platter. The duke bowed and reached out one hand. “Ma’am?” he said. “It is to be a waltz, I believe. Will you do me the honor?” It had been agreed between his grandmother and himself that he would dance the first waltz with Lady Phyllis—though he had thought it might be bad form to dance with her twice.

Harriet’s eyes traveled up his waistcoat and his neckcloth to his chin, paused there, and lifted finally to his own. Those beautiful candid green eyes that he had purposefully avoided looking into as he had made love to her during the afternoon. She blushed as deep a pink as her gown. “Thank you, your grace,” she said, and placed her hand in his. The same soft little hand he had held on the way to and from their assignation earlier.

His aunt nodded in triumph. His grandmother was smiling and yet looking tight-lipped all at the same time. He would suffer a tongue-lashing for this before he went to bed that night, he would wager. Bruce grinned at him and winked. Travers and Sotheby were looking envious—as was the Marquess of Yarborough, interestingly enough. The man was old enough to be her father and was one of London’s most persistent rakes. Lady Phyllis was being led onto the floor by the Duke of Crail. And he himself was to waltz with the prettiest, daintiest lady in the room—even considering his bias, his aunt had been in the right of it there. Harriet’s eyes were fixed on the diamond pin in his neckcloth as she set her other hand on his shoulder.

“I wonder,” he said softly, “if there will be any clumsy oxen to protect you from this evening.” She looked up at him fleetingly and smiled. It seemed a long time ago, that waltz with her at Lady Avingleigh’s ball. And yet none of the wonder of finding her again had worn off. Alarmingly none of it had, although she had been his mistress for two weeks now and he had uncovered all her mysteries. Except the mystery of what it was that drew him to her, that made him want more of her the more he had. The mystery of what it was that made him love her when she used none of the lures that other women used and when he had never loved before—or since.

He smiled and looked about him, remembering that he was a host at his own party. There were six couples on the floor. Bruce was dancing with Lady Leila and enduring her giggles with a polite smile. Bruce was going to have to be careful or he would be snared himself. Crail, his father, was not likely to remain indulgent about his single state for much longer.

“You are making the evening a pleasant one for my aunt,” he said. “She does not bear her deafness with patience.”

“It must be a distressing, affliction,” Harriet said. “Partly because it makes other people impatient. I always remind myself that I may be old and somewhat infirm myself one day. I would hope that someone will show me a kindness if that time comes.”

How could anyone not be kind to Harriet? “Somehow,” he said, “one cannot think of Aunt Sophie as being infirm. She is the very devil.”

She looked up at him, startled, and smiled. “I am sorry,” she said. “You did not want to dance with me. Or to invite me here. Lady Sophia has a gift for having her own way.”

“On the contrary,” he said for the sheer pleasure of drawing the blush he knew would flood her cheeks. “I wanted too much to dance with you, Harriet. And to invite you here. Sometimes—most of the time—I feel a great fondness for the old devil.”

She blushed and he smiled. And totally forgot his surroundings and his audience of twenty-two. And the particular audience of his grandmother, who knew of his attraction to Harriet. He danced and his eyes and his senses feasted on his partner and he felt himself perfectly happy. She had made love that afternoon in silence with closed eyes. And with a compliant passionate body. He had discovered the best way to give her pleasure. She liked slow, almost languorous lovemaking more than an energetic “performance,” as she had described their earlier encounters. She liked to sleep and to cuddle afterward. And she had taught him to enjoy those times too—the tenderness of shared physical passion and its aftermath rather than the frenzy of it.

Inexperienced as she was, she had taught him that one extra dimension of love that was both entrancing him and breaking his heart. The meeting and joining of bodies in the act of union could also be the fullest, most complete expression of love, the most total giving of self. He wondered sometimes—he wondered now—-if she loved him. Sometimes he thought she must. Surely Harriet would not have given herself just for the sake of physical pleasure. And yet it was of no moment. He could not reveal his own love. He had nothing more to offer her than he was already giving— his body for her delight.

He dreaded the coming of summer more than he had dreaded anything else in his life.

“Harriet.” He did not realize he had spoken her name until she raised her eyes to him. But he had nothing more to say unless he poured out a confession of his love for her. He gazed into her eyes and she gazed back for what might have been an eternity but was probably no longer than a few seconds or a minute at the longest before she looked down to his diamond pin again.

He wanted to take her somewhere where he could kiss her, but there was nowhere. The realization brought him back to an awareness of his surroundings. He felt rather as if he had been gone for a long time. And perhaps he had been. The music was drawing to an end. He set Harriet’s hand on his sleeve and returned her to the empty chair beside his aunt. He bowed over her hand and thanked her. What was it about Harriet, he wondered, that made her seem sweet and pure even now after she had shared his love nest with him on several occasions?

“You were the handsomest couple I have seen tread a measure together for many a long day,” his aunt said with embarrassing loudness. “You dance as prettily as Archibald, my pet. But then I remember that from Bath, when Wingham used to bring you to the assemblies and all the gentlemen would crowd about to lead you out. None of them as handsome as Archibald, though, eh?”

Harriet was saying something quietly as the duke bowed and walked away, noting with an inward wince of discomfort that his grandmother—and several other of his guests—had been well within earshot of his aunt’s remarks. The next dance, he quickly discovered, was also to be a waltz—his grandmother’s doing, doubtless. He crossed the room to solicit the hand of Lady Phyllis.

After waltzing with the Marquess of Yarborough, Harriet retreated to the ladies’ withdrawing room. She still felt flustered about the forced dance with the Duke of Tenby. She had been so achingly aware of him as they waltzed and there had been such an intensity about his silence that she had had the uncomfortable—and doubtless mistaken—impression that they had been the center of attention just as they had been at Lady Avingleigh’s ball.

She was about to leave the room five minutes later when the door opened and Lady Phyllis Reeder came inside. Harriet smiled at her as she passed. But the younger girl stopped her.

“There is no maid here?” she said. “Oh, dear. My hem is down at the back. Would you be so good as to pin it for me, Lady Wingham? Thank heaven there is a dish of pins on the washstand.” 

Harriet went down on her knees, the dish of pins beside her, and began the repair job after assuring Lady Phyllis that the damage was not great.

“Oh,” the girl said with a sigh after a few moments of silence, “I do so envy you, Lady Wingham. How wonderful it must be to be a widow and to be free to enjoy the Season. Unless you were fond of your husband, of course,” she added hastily.

“I was,” Harriet said. But she smiled to show that she had not taken offense. “Are you not enjoying the Season?”

The girl pulled a face. “Is it done? Oh, thank you. I thought it was quite ruined and I must sit in a corner for the rest of the evening. I enjoyed the last two Seasons enormously. But this year Papa made it quite clear that I was to be serious. And as luck would have it, Tenby chose just this year to select a bride.”

Harriet wished she could have escaped in time. “You do not like the Duke of Tenby?” she asked unwillingly.

The girl shrugged. “He is handsome enough,” she said, “except for those cold, pale eyes. They make me want to shiver, I must confess. It is just that I hate being seen as someone to be bred, no more. Does my outspokenness outrage you? It is the truth, what I say. Do you think he cares a fig for me?”

“I am not privy to his grace’s feelings,” Harriet said. “Can you not just discourage him?”

“Pooh!” the girl said. “Papa would disown me and Mama would scold from now until Christmas. I dreamed of marrying for love, that is all—for two full years. Foolish when one is the daughter of an earl, is it not?”

“No,” Harriet said quietly. “Not foolish.”

“Did you marry for love?” Lady Phyllis sighed. “But I have heard that Lord Wingham was ancient. No matter. I wish you were an earl’s daughter, Lady Wingham. I wish you could marry Tenby.”

“I?” Harriet looked at her, startled.

“He greatly admires you,” Lady Phyllis said. “All the world knows that. It is hardly surprising. All the gentlemen admire you. You are so despicably lovely. I would be jealous if I did not have admirers of my own. But they are all falling away now they know I am to be Tenby’s bride. One does not trifle with Tenby. I will not even be able to take lovers after my marriage. Have I shocked you again? I would wager a year’s pin money that Tenby would not countenance it, though doubtless he will have three or four mistresses in his keeping at any one time.”

“You are repaired,” Harriet said cheerfully, “and will not have to sit in a corner. I must return to Lady Sophia.”

The girl pulled a face again. “Imagine having that for an aunt for the rest of my life,” she said.

Harriet smiled stiffly and left the room.