Chapter 2

As a girl she had dreamed of dancing at a real ball, of being the focus of attention and admiration, of being whisked off to dance by dashing gentlemen. It was a typical girlish dream, even though her upbringing as a clergyman’s daughter had taught her that it would be wicked to dwell on such dreams. For one thing, one did not waste one’s time on dreams of the impossible. For another, it was wicked to hanker after frivolity and indulge personal vanity.

The dreams had not entirely died when she grew older, though they had been tempered by her knowledge that they were only dreams, that they could never become reality. When her father had died, her mother was poor. She herself had had to become a servant. But it had been there nevertheless, the dream of what might have been and of what might still be if only she were Cinderella, if only fairy tales could become reality. But she had been too sensible and too practical a young lady to believe that such a thing could really be possible. Except that once, of course, in London, when several times she had had a dizzyingly handsome escort and when for a brief moment—two brief moments— she had allowed her dreams to turn into painful hope. He had offered for her twice, once in London and once at Ebury Court, Clara’s home in Kent. Twice he had offered to make her his mistress.

Dreams had become firmly anchored in reality when Godfrey offered her marriage after the death of her mother, whose friend he had been. She had married him without hesitation, even though he had been fifty-six to her twenty-three. He had been able to offer her security, emotional as well as financial. She had married him because she did not want to become someone else’s paid companion or governess and because he had always been kind to her and because she would have thought her heart was dead if it had not pained her so much and so often. She had been unexpectedly happy with Godfrey. He had been good to her and she had tried her very best to be good to him. But dreams had died. This was reality, this marriage to an ailing man much older than herself, this life of rather dull routine in Bath.

But now the dream was back and it was becoming suddenly and stunningly real. Far from being a wallflower at Lady Avingleigh’s ball, she had a partner for each set and a choice of partners for each one after the first. Gentlemen came to be presented to her, some of them taking even Amanda by surprise, Harriet suspected. She also suspected that some of the gentlemen came because Amanda and Clive had arranged that they would just in case she should be in danger of being a wallflower. All the gentlemen with whom she danced conversed politely with her. Some of them paid her compliments—about her hair, her gown, her dancing skills, her eyes, her smile. Two of them named other social events that would be happening in the coming weeks and asked her if she was to attend. One of them asked if he might call at Lady Forbes’s the next day.

It was all wonderful beyond imagining. It was foolish to be so excited by it all, Harriet knew. It was only a ball, after all. Making polite conversation and paying compliments were part of what gentlemen did at balls. But sometimes, she decided very early in the evening, it was wonderful to give in to foolishness. There had been so little of it in her life. And so she did nothing to try to hide her enjoyment, though she knew that it was fashionable to appear bored in company. She knew that her cheeks must be flushed and that her eyes were probably bright and her lips smiling. She did not care.

She finished dancing a quadrille with Mr. Kershaw and smiled at both him and Mr. Hammond, to whose side he returned her. Mr. Hammond was waiting to present Sir Philip Grafton, who bowed gravely and requested the next set with her. She stood talking with the two of them during the five or ten minutes between sets and then turned to greet Mr. Selway, to whom Clive had presented her earlier.

It would be very easy to believe, Harriet thought, that she was a great success, that she really was taking the ton by storm, as the expression went. At the tender age of eight-and-twenty. As a widow. As the mother of a four-year-old daughter. The thought amused her and caused her to laugh merrily at some witticism of Mr. Selway’s. His look, focused on her mouth, became more appreciative. Godfrey had always said she had lovely teeth.

Mr. Selway began to say something else. She guessed he was about to ask her for the set following the next. But he was interrupted by a woman’s voice—Lady Avingleigh’s— calling her by name. A couple of times before their hostess had presented a gentleman to her. Harriet turned with a smile. Lady Avingleigh had a gentleman with her this time too, a tall and wondrously elegant gentleman dressed very differently from all the other men present in black coat and knee breeches. Harriet glanced at his face before turning politely to Lady Avingleigh. Though in fact she never did turn.

He had very blond hair and plenty of it. His face was handsome, aristocratic, thin-lipped. And he had silver eyes. She had always been fascinated by them. They were, she supposed whenever she was not looking into them, a light gray. But when she did look into them she knew that they could only be described as silver. Usually they looked back into hers with amusement or irony. Now they were blank but focused very fully on hers.

The last time she had seen him—the very last—he had ridden all the way from London to Ebury Court in order to make her his second offer. After her refusal he had kissed her and taken his leave. She had stood where she was for many long minutes, counting slowly and deliberately until she could be sure that he had gone beyond recall and that she would not go running after him, begging to be taken with him to whatever love nest he had had prepared for her.

He bowed suddenly, leaving her feeling bewildered and wondering for how long they had stared at each other. She was aware that she had stopped smiling, but seemed incapable of putting her smile back on. Her cheeks felt hot.

“Ah, I was not mistaken, then,” he said in a soft, pleasant voice that jolted her memory. “Lady Wingham and I have a former acquaintance, Chloe. She was Miss Harriet Pope when I last knew her.”

Harriet curtsied on legs that felt as if they might give up supporting her at any moment. She was only just beginning to realize that it was happening. It was actually happening. She was seeing him again. And it could have been yesterday. He looked very little different. No older. No less handsome.

“My lord,” she murmured.

“Come, Lady Wingham,” he said, and his eyes were mocking her as they had always used to do, “that should be ‘your grace,’ you know. I suspect you have not been listening to Chloe.” He was fingering the ribbon of his quizzing glass.

“His grace, the Duke of Tenby, Lady Wingham,” Lady Avingleigh said, and Harriet became aware that the words were being said for the second time. She could feel her cheeks grow hot again.

“I beg your pardon, your grace,” she said, grasping the fan that dangled from her wrist by a ribbon, opening it and waving it before her face to cool herself. She smiled and tried to recapture the mood of exhilaration and wonder that had borne her through the evening thus far. She had a moment in which to collect herself. The Duke of Tenby was bowing and assuring Lady Avingleigh that yes, indeed, he was acquainted with the other gentlemen.

“Lady Wingham,” he said then, “will you honor me by dancing a set with me?”

“The next is promised to Sir Philip Grafton,” she said, seeing beyond his shoulder couples taking their places on the floor.

“And the one after to me, Tenby,” Mr. Selway said. Harriet did not contradict him, though she had not, strictly speaking, promised any such thing.

The duke looked at Lady Avingleigh. “When is the next waltz to be, Chloe?” he asked. “There are to be waltzes, I take it?”

“The supper dance, Tenby,” she said. “If you are to dance it, it will be as well that everyone can sit and revive themselves afterward. The shock will be great.”

The silver eyes turned on Harriet again as Sir Philip Grafton extended an arm for hers. “The supper waltz, Lady Wingham?” he said. “You will dance it with me?” It seemed more a command than a request.

“Thank you, your grace,” she said and placed her arm along Sir Philip’s and was led away into the dance. Her heart felt as if it had leapt right into her throat and was beating there at double time.

“My reputation will be made,” Sir Philip said, laughing. “To have led a lady out right under the nose of Tenby is no mean feat.”

“I did not know that he is a duke,” Harriet said foolishly.

“The ton has been waiting with some impatience for several years for him to begin to show an interest in its daughters,” Sir Philip said. “He avoids ballrooms as if the plague raged within their portals. He has never been known to dance. One wonders if he is able. Perhaps he will tread all over your feet, Lady Wingham.” He was still laughing.

Or I all over his, Harriet thought. She looked swiftly about her, but the Duke of Tenby had disappeared. Just as if he had never been there. Just as if she had imagined it all, foolish woman. And imagined that he had singled her out and solicited a dance with her when he was reputed never to enter ballrooms or to dance in them. But she had not imagined it. Her heart would not be beating so wildly if she had. And Sir Philip would not be laughing and saying what he just had if it had all been imagination.

The Duke of Tenby. She had never known his grandfather’s title. She had not known that his grandfather had died. His grace. It was strange to think of him by another name. As if it was not he after all. As if she had imagined that it was he. As if the duke to whom she had just been presented merely resembled him and her imagination had taken flight. Except that he had told Lady Avingleigh that they had a previous acquaintance, that he had known her as Harriet Pope.

“You will be the envy of every lady at the ball,” Sir Philip was saying, “By this time tomorrow you will be the envy of every lady in London.”

“How absurd,” she said. “Merely because he is to dance with me? You are dancing with me, sir, and Mr. Kershaw and Mr. Hammond and other gentlemen have danced with me. What is the difference, pray?”

He laughed again. “None of us is the Duke of Tenby, ma’am,” he said.

At first Harriet thought she imagined it. But as they danced on and began to converse on other topics, her eyes occasionally strayed to the other dancers and to those people, most notably older ladies, who did not dance but stood or sat about the perimeter of the ballroom. Wherever she looked she caught eyes or quizzing glasses or lorgnettes looking directly back at her. After a while she realized that it was not her imagination.

Lord Archibald Vinney had become the Duke of Tenby. Young, unmarried, elusive, he had become also a great matrimonial prize. And for the first time since he had succeeded to his title, apparently, he had stepped inside a ballroom and asked a lady to dance. Her. Harriet. She wondered how the people whose interest she seemed to have aroused would react if they knew that six years ago she might have left employment as a lady’s companion for the far more lucrative post of mistress to Lord Archibald Vinney. She wondered how soon he would have tired of her, how generous a settlement he would have made on her when he discarded her.

She wondered if by any chance he would renew his offer, and her insides somersaulted at the thought.

When Sir Philip returned her to Amanda and Mr. Hammond at the end of the set there were no fewer than four gentlemen waiting to be presented to her and two more strolled up within the following minutes, before Mr. Selway claimed his dance.

“You have been brought into fashion, my dear,” Lady Forbes breathed in her ear when she could do so without being overheard, “quite brilliantly. Tenby has made his bow to you. It is a singular honor.”

Damnation, but she was more beautiful than ever. She had no business still being beautiful at her age. The Duke of Tenby stood behind Lord Bruce Ingram's chair in the card room, his pose relaxed, his lips pursed. Bruce was about to make a stupid move—disastrous if the stakes had been higher. But there was nothing particularly unusual about that. One thing his grace always studiously avoided when playing cards himself was partnering Ingram.

He was still shaken from seeing her and realizing that it was indeed she. Like a little ghost out of his past. He had always assumed whenever he thought of her that she was living a life of quiet and blameless drudgery somewhere, resisting the advances of amorous employers as she had resisted him, making an armor of her virtue. She had wanted him. He knew that. She had even admitted as much on the last occasion he had seen her, but had added with that sweet gravity that had always been able to raise his temperature a few degrees that temptation was not sin, only the giving in to temptation.

He had been about to marry her when his grandfather became gravely ill. Or to offer her marriage, anyway. Perhaps she would have refused. He had been about to offer her marriage because a marriage bed had seemed the only one he had had a chance of coaxing her into. And because he had been in love with her—in lust with her.

He had marveled at himself over the years since, wondering what could possibly have tempted him to act so out of character and so contrary to all that his family and upbringing expected of him. As memory of her had faded, blurring about the edges, it had seemed to him that she was nothing so out of the ordinary. She was a quiet, sweet little blusher. None of those qualities was appealing to him in other women. It was just that he had expected an easy lay with Miss Harriet Pope, he had convinced himself, and had been piqued at being rejected by a mere servant.

But he had remembered wrongly. Harriet Pope had been all of those things he had remembered, but it was the sum total of all the qualities he usually found unappealing rather than each taken separately that had so affected him. And he really had been in love with her, he realized now in some surprise, wincing as Lord Bruce Ingram made the expected fatal move. It had not been just the desire to mount her body, though it had definitely been that too. It had been the need to possess her and to be possessed by her. The realization shook him. He had never felt that way about any other mistress, either before or after the start of a liaison. He did not feel it about Bridget, his current resident mistress. He visited Bridget in order to satisfy his lust. It was as simple as that. He cared not one fig for the person inside Bridget’s body.

“The devil,” Lord Bruce said, scraping back his chair and getting to his feet “I can’t think why I play, Tenby. I have no luck.”

The duke forbore to comment on the fact that it was not always luck or the lack thereof that accounted for a loss at the tables. “You need to find a servant to refill your glass,” he said.

Lord Bruce nodded and signaled a footman. “So you did not pluck up the courage to go shopping after all, Tenby?” he said. “Many a fluttering hope must have been dashed when you walked away from the ballroom doors. You care to play?”

“Do you know a Lord Wingham?” the duke asked abruptly.

Lord Brace thought for a moment “Can’t say I do,” he said. “What about him?”

“I am dancing the supper waltz with his wife,” the duke said.

Lord Bruce grinned. “You made the supreme effort after all, old chap?” he said. “And found that the first woman you fancied is not a marketable commodity? Hard luck, Tenby. They should have to wear different-colored plumes in their hair or something, don’t you agree? Yellow for married, red for single, pink for married yet available, blue for single but not interested. It would all give a man a sporting chance not to make an ass of himself.”

The duke was not paying attention. He was wondering who Wingham was, how long she had been married to him, how deeply she cared for him. Was he a handsome devil, damn him? The name made him sound dashing. Was he one of her former employers who had also discovered that it had to be a marriage bed at Miss Harriet Pope’s back or none at all? Was that what she had always been in search of? A wedding ring in exchange for her virtue? Was that what she had hoped for from him? She had very nearly got her wish too, by Jove.

But there was no point in whipping up anger against her, he thought. That was all any woman was after, was it not? That was what virtue was—that marketable commodity which a woman of quality sold in exchange for a husband. Harriet had sold to Wingham, whoever the devil he was. He wondered if she was happy, if she considered she had made a fair exchange. She had looked happy enough until she had caught sight of him.

But damnation, she looked lovely when she blushed. He had not been able to resist fading into the old habit of trying to make her do so. It was no more difficult to do now than it had been six years ago. How much longer did he have to wait before the supper dance?

“You may wear a hole in it if you stare so fixedly and so ferociously at it, Arch,” Lord Bruce said.

The duke looked up at him, frowning in incomprehension, and then back down to the carpet at which he had been staring.

“She must be a looker,” Lord Bruce said. “But not a better looker than Bridget, surely? And certainly not better endowed by nature in her other parts? Impossible, Archie.”

“You are referring to a lady,” the duke said, his voice haughtily aristocratic, one hand playing with the handle of his quizzing glass. “And another man’s wife, Bruce.”

Lord Bruce chuckled, quite uncowed by the reprimand. “She is a looker,” he said. “This I have to see, Arch, my boy, even at the expense of having to step into the lions’ den for the second time in one evening. The supper waltz. And then supper. Someone had better warn Wingham, whoever he might be, poor devil. But he might be a ferocious giant who has no respect for ducal titles, you know. You might be going into the lions’ den in dead earnest, Archie.”

“I am not planning to ravish the woman in the middle of the ballroom,” the duke said with an hauteur that would have cowed most listeners.

His friend merely chuckled. “In some secluded corner, then?” he said. “Much more tasteful, Archie. You had better not be late. It must be approaching suppertime if my stomach is a reliable hourglass. It usually is.”

Damnation, the duke thought, releasing his hold on his quizzing glass and turning to leave the card room and return to the ballroom, he was feeling nervous! Nervous of going back in there and dancing with her. With Harriet Pope, the little girl who had worked for Freddie’s wife. With a woman who was now married to another man and of no possible interest to him except as a slightly nostalgic memory.

More likely, he thought, it was of entering the ballroom he was nervous. He had the feeling that doing so would change the whole comfortable and familiar pattern of his life. Though perhaps that was already an accomplished fact. He had already entered the ballroom and found Harriet there. Already he was uncomfortable and already he was on unfamiliar ground.

He squared his shoulders as he approached the ballroom, Bruce at his side, and concentrated on looking haughty and slightly bored. It was an effective mask and had served him well through the years. She was in the middle of a circle of admirers, he saw at once, flushed and laughing. Behaving quite unlike her former self.

“Which one?” Lord Bruce asked.

“In front of Lady Muir,” the duke said, turning his eyes away from her. Obviously a set had just ended and the supper waltz was next. “Holding court.”

Lord Bruce Ingram was silent for a few moments. “Yes, a looker,” he said. “And more than that. Definitely more than that. Poor Bridget. I hear a death knell tolling. Do knells toll? Or is my lady a virtuous wife, do you suppose? What a bore for you if she is, Arch. My commiserations, old chap.”

“I had better go and claim her,” the duke said, strolling away, feeling again as he had felt earlier the attention he was drawing. Well, he would waltz with her and have supper with her, if the unknown Lord Wingham did not raise any objection. And then he would take himself off to Bridget’s to give her an unexpected night of hard work and to proceed to lay the ghost that should have been laid six years ago.

She was aware of his approach. He could tell that, though she was half turned away from him. He watched her flush deepen and her smile become more fixed as she listened to what Robin Hammond was saying to her. He wondered how she had remembered him through the years, if she had remembered him at all. With shame? With indignation? With regret? With indifference? He wondered how she had been comparing her memories of him with her present feelings for her husband.

“Lady Wingham?” He bowed to her as she and her whole court turned to look at him. He had almost the feeling of being on the stage, of having the whole room watching the little drama unfold. “My set, I believe?”

“Thank you.” Her eyes were green. Their color had been one detail of her appearance that he had not been able to recall. Though looking into them now, he could not understand how he could have forgotten. They were such a very distinctive shade of green. They were wide eyes, disturbingly and perhaps unwisely direct. Perhaps that was the reason for his forgetting their color. Somehow Harriet’s eyes drew one beyond their color and their form into the woman herself. She appeared to have no defenses as almost all other people of his acquaintance did. Another of her undeniable attractions, perhaps. One felt immediately protective of her. At least he had. And did.

Her arm was light along the top of his. The tips of her fingers extended beyond the lace of the ruffles that partly covered his hands, and brushed against his bare flesh. There was something distinctly erotic about her touch, though he was sure it must have happened dozens of times before when other women had taken his arm. He led her out onto the dance floor. The top of her head reached barely to his chin. And yet in memory she had seemed even smaller. Perhaps it was the girlish slimness of her body that gave the impression of excessive smallness. She smelled of some appealing perfume, and yet when he tried to identify it to himself it seemed to him like nothing so much as clean soap.

She turned toward him when he stopped, and fixed her eyes on the neckcloth his valet had tied earlier in the evening with great artistry and greater pride. The music began almost immediately. She raised her arms and set one hand very lightly on his shoulder. He could feel it there like a lover’s touch on bare skin. He raised his eyebrows at the fanciful thought. He set his hand behind her waist and felt its smallness, its warmth, the feminine arch of her back. Her palm touched his and he enclosed her hand in his own. They moved to the music.

“Well, Harriet,” he said softly, “we meet again, my little blushing charmer.” The old words that he had used to use. He had not intended to say them now.

Her eyelashes lifted and her eyes looked into his, almost setting him back on his heels. “Yes, my lord,” she said. His heart did strange things as the predictable blush made its appearance. “Yes, your grace.”