A Chance Encounter (11 page)

“Amelia,” he said, his tone colder, harder than it had been, “I am not contemplating matrimony with any woman, and am not likely to in the future. I am sorry, my dear. I am sure that you can make a brilliant match if you will. But it would not be fair to encourage you to dangle after me. I may not marry even if I wished to.”

There was no answer to his words, but after a few moments Elizabeth could hear a rustle of skirts and assumed that Miss Norris had swept back into the ballroom in high dudgeon. She dared not move. She had no way of knowing if Hetherington had accompanied his companion. She was relieved a short while later to hear a deep sigh from the other side of the plant and then the unmistakable sound of his footsteps moving away. Only then did she feel free herself to return to the welcome warmth of the ballroom.

The excitement of the evening was still not over. Mr. Mainwaring claimed the supper dance with Elizabeth, as he had promised, and led her in to supper. He seated her at a table with Cecily and Ferdie Worthing. These two were engaged in a spirited argument about an incident from their childhood when they had been caught by the gamekeeper of the previous owner of Femdale trespassing and eating apples from the orchard. The argument concerned which one of them had been responsible for getting them both caught.

Elizabeth and Mr. Mainwaring listened in amusement to the epithets that flew between the heated pair. Ferdie was “idiotic, stupid, and clumsy,” and Cecily “silly, slow, and shrill.”

Cecily snorted. “It was funny, though, was it not, Ferdie, when you told him you were the squire's son and he realized that he could not thrash us?”

“I say, Cec,” Ferdie replied with enthusiasm, “you put on a jolly good show of crying and wailing. The only time in my life I ever heard you cry.”

“It worked, though,” she said proudly.

“Yes, I was the only one who was punished,” Ferdie said dryly. “The dratted man sat me down at the foot of a tree and told me that if I wanted apples, I could have them. He made me eat one after another until I was sick.”

“You ate eight and a half,” Cecily remembered.

“And have never eaten one since,” he added.

They all laughed. Mr. Mainwaring touched Elizabeth's hand briefly and smiled directly into her eyes. She had been glad of the lively conversation provided by the younger pair. She was thankful now for another interruption. Lady Worthing had touched her on the shoulder.

“May I speak with you a moment, Miss Rossiter?” she asked.

Surprised, Elizabeth rose to her feet and followed the older lady into the deserted ballroom. Squire Worthing was there, too.

“Miss Rossiter, will you help us?” the squire's lady asked. She was obviously distraught.

“What is it, ma'am?” Elizabeth asked, helping the lady to seat herself, taking her vinaigrette from her nerveless fingers and waving it in front of her nose.

“Lucy is missing,” Squire Worthing said gruffly. “Has been missing for an hour or more. We do not wish anyone else to notice but cannot find her ourselves.”

“We know you to be discreet,” his wife continued, “and perhaps you would be less conspicuous moving about than we are. The silly girl must be hiding somewhere and does not know how much time has passed.”

“Gracious!” said Elizabeth. “Is she alone, ma'am?” Lady Worthing hesitated. “I believe Mr. Dowling is absent too, Miss Rossiter,” she said. “Oh, it is too provoking. I quarreled with Lucy just this afternoon. What does she want with that dull, undistinguished man when her father and I are sacrificing a great deal in order to take her to town next winter?”

Elizabeth bit her lip. “I shall walk into the garden,” she said. “Rest assured that I shall keep looking until I find her. There is no chance that she has left altogether, I suppose?”

“Our carriage and Dowling's are both still in the stables,” Squire Worthing replied.

“Then there really is nothing to be worried about,” Elizabeth said practically. “I am sure it is as you say, ma'am. They have just forgotten the time.” She smiled and hurried away.

She stepped out through the French windows onto the balcony and down the steps at one end. Lanterns had been hung in the trees close to the house. Elizabeth wandered over the lawn and peered among the shrubs that surrounded it, but was afraid to go farther as the lighting was not good and she did not know the grounds at all. She decided that Lucy would probably not have wandered beyond that area for the same reasons. She must return to the house, it seemed.

The house was difficult to search for all the same reasons. Most of the rooms were in darkness and Elizabeth had never been inside the house before. She dreaded being caught apparently snooping. But she felt compelled to continue with the search. She felt responsible for the apparent attachment between Lucy Worthing and Mr. Dowling. It was her advice at a dinner table that had set Lucy talking to this neighbor, whom she had not noticed before. And it seemed that the girl was in trouble with her parents', who looked higher for a husband for their daughter than to a mere gentleman farmer.

Elizabeth crept down the stairs into the downstairs hall. There was no one there. Apparently all the servants were busy either abovestairs with the refreshments or in the kitchen below. She turned a door handle and peered cautiously into a darkened salon. It appeared to be empty, though she whispered Lucy's name and listened a moment before closing the door again. She repeated the performance at a smaller room that appeared to be Mr. Mainwaring's office, and at another, larger room that was obviously a well-stocked library. From this room she had an answer.

“Come inside, Elizabeth, if you must,” a cool and familiar voice said from the depths of a large leather chair close to a window at the far side of the room.

“I shall not disturb you, my lord,” she replied hastily. “I am looking for someone.”

“Why would you search for Miss Worthing in a part of the house obviously not being used for entertainment?” Hetherington asked.

“Er, I merely thought she might be lost,” she replied weakly.

“No, you thought she might be enjoying a secret tryst with her country swain,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “And being the good and straitlaced companion that you are, you must interfere. She could do so much better if she went to London and hung out for a
suitable
husband, could she not?”

Elizabeth was angry. “You do not know why I am looking for Miss Worthing, my lord,” she said, “and you do not know me. I have no desire either to explain or to justify myself to you. Excuse me, please. I must find Miss Worthing.”

“Relax,” he said, the sneer still in his voice. “She has been found already by the worthy squire and his wife. She and Dowling were in here with me. We were having a pleasant and quite unexceptionable conversation. It was totally improper, of course, for Miss Worthing to be here with two gentlemen, unchaperoned, but sometimes one forgets such niceties. I suppose the young lady will be whisked home early in deep disgrace.”

“I am sorry for it,” Elizabeth said, “but really her parents actions are no concern of yours or of mine.”

“No, they are not,” he agreed. “Come inside and shut the infernal door for goodness' sake, Elizabeth. You look like a bird poised for flight with one hand on the door like that.”

Elizabeth did not know why she did as he asked. He just seemed different tonight, sitting there in the darkness. He seemed unthreatening. She crossed the room and sat on the padded window seat.

“You have been drinking,” she remarked.

He laughed. “And I believe you have become a puritan,” he returned.

“You used not to drink at public entertainments,” she said.

“And you used not to moralize, ma'am,” he retorted.

“I was not moralizing,” she replied, “merely wondering what troubles you.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then he laughed softly again. “It seems to me that we have found ourselves in this situation once before,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed softly.

They could find nothing to say for a while. They sat silently, remembering. Elizabeth closed her eyes and wished herself back to that previous occasion when Robert had first kissed her and told her that he loved her. If only they could go back, wipe out the intervening years. If only she could change the way he was, make him become permanently what he had seemed to be then.

“I suppose the young always imagine the good times will last forever,” he said quietly, echoing her thoughts. “It is a rude awakening, is it not, to discover that people change, or that they have other facets to their character that we did not suspect?”

Elizabeth could feel tears welling in her eyes and a tickling in the back of her throat. She stared down at the dim outline of her hands, but could not trust her voice for a while. At last she got to her feet.

“I should not be here, Robert,” she said, willing her voice to steadiness. “I must go.”

“It is a long time since I heard my name spoken like that,” he commented. “You always did have a special way of saying it, like a caress.”

“Good night,” she said, and moved past his chair.

He caught her wrist as she passed and stopped her progress. “You are right,” he said, his words slightly slurred. “I have been drinking. And drink makes me sentimental. Tomorrow I shall be able to see you as you really are again and I shall despise myself for having detained you here. But for tonight, Elizabeth, I find you infinitely desirable.”

He lifted her hand toward him and pressed his lips to her palm. He held her wrist afterward, closing her fingers over the spot that he had kissed. He got abruptly to his feet, dropped her hand, and faced the window. “Go now,” he said harshly, “before I forget that there can never be anything but enmity between you and me.” Elizabeth turned and found her way out of the room more by instinct than by conscious direction. She stood outside, her back against the door, for a whole minute, fighting the bitter tears, deliberately taking deep, slow breaths to calm herself. Finally she forced herself to climb the stairs again and enter the ballroom. She made sure that there was a dance in progress before she did so, and made her way to an obscure alcove of the room, where she escaped attention until the final dance, when Mr. Rowe found her.

“Ah, Cinderella,” he said, “I thought you were lost. I was convinced that Prince Charming must have chased you away already.”

“Yes, he did, sir,” she replied cheerfully, “but I considered it too far to ride home on a pumpkin, so I crept back inside through a rear door.”

“Ah,” he said. “Wise, if unromantic. Do come and dance, Miss Rossiter.”

T
he weather turned rainy the next day and remained gloomy for most of the following week. Cecily was restless. She had become used to the increased activities of the previous few weeks. Mrs. Rowe fretted. She had set such store by the arrival of distinguished visitors in the neighborhood, yet already the round of social activities had slowed down. And neither of the unattached gentlemen seemed likely to attach himself to Cecily. Perhaps just as provoking was the fact that the girl seemed not to mind.

Elizabeth was relieved, though. She wanted to see as little as possible of the Ferndale residents for the time being. She dreaded seeing Hetherington again. That last, strange meeting with him in the library had unnerved her more than she would have expected. She found his coldness and his anger easier to cope with than the melancholy and near tenderness that drink had induced in him that night. It had taken all her willpower in the hours following the ball not to allow the reserve she had built around herself in six years to crumble away. But she had held on and would continue to do so, perhaps, if she could just stay away from him.

And she was pleased, too, to avoid an early meeting with Mr. Mainwaring. She liked him, and her woman's intuition told her that she could attach his affections quite easily if she set her mind to the task. Common sense had already told her that she must not do so. But common sense sometimes seemed a dreary taskmaster. The previous years had been dull and lonely ones. It was pleasing to know that one was admired, especially when the admirer was a handsome and personable man. She felt that he could become a very close friend. And to a lonely person, friendship can seem a likely substitute for love. Elizabeth was tempted, yet she wished to resist temptation. The tedium of being forced to spend the better part of a week indoors was not wholly unwelcome to her, then.

She did have visitors one afternoon. Mrs. Rowe and Cecily had driven over to the vicarage in a desperate attempt to cheer themselves up. Lucy and Ferdie Worthing arrived on a similar errand, Elizabeth decided after one look at the gloomy faces of the pair.

“Went out this morning for a gallop, rain or no rain,” Ferdie told her, “and lamed my best horse when he skidded in the mud. Ruined a good coat and pair of breeches, too.”

He wandered off to the stables to examine a pair of horses that Mr. Rowe had recently added to his stable.

“I must confess that I had hoped to have private talk with you, Miss Rossiter,” Lucy said hesitantly as soon as her brother was out of earshot.