The Secret Mistress (17 page)

Or drove
with
the crowd would be a more accurate description. It was impossible to move at a faster pace than the slowest of
the vehicles ahead of him, and that was very slow indeed. Speed was not the purpose of an afternoon drive in the park, of course. Neither was getting somewhere—hence the circular nature of the drive. One came to be sociable, to mingle with one’s peers, to hear the newest gossip, to pass along something even newer if one was fortunate enough to have heard anything suitably salacious. One came to see who was with whom and, sometimes, who was
not
with whom.

One came, sometimes, to make a statement. Sometimes one made a statement even when one did not wish to do anything of the kind, when one wished, in fact, to do the absolute opposite.

Sometimes one could wish one’s female relatives in perdition.

“It is your first drive in the park?” he asked.

She had ridden on Rotten Row, of course, at least once, but that was a different matter entirely.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Neither Tresham nor Rosalie would allow me to come here before I was out, and yesterday Rosalie insisted that I
rest
. I went to Hookham’s Library, though. Oh, I met Miss Goddard there, and we went to a tearoom together and talked for a whole hour. And the Marquess of Exwich called at Dudley House in the afternoon. He came to offer me marriage, the silly man. Oh, there is
 … what
is his name? He was my third partner last evening. Sir Timothy Bixby, that is it. The lady with him danced once with Ferdinand. I cannot—How do you do?” She had raised her voice.

They stopped for a few moments to exchange pleasantries with Bixby and Miss Coleman.

Exwich
, Edward thought. He must be fifty if he was a day. He had been married how many times? Two? Three? And he had how many children? Six? Eight? Eighteen? All girls, apparently.

“Did you accept?” he asked as they drove on.

She looked blankly at him for a moment and then smiled broadly.

“Lord Exwich?” she said. “Oh, no. He wears
corsets.
”

Which was, apparently, reason enough to refuse his marriage offer. And perhaps it was too.

She had taken tea with
Eunice
? He still had not called on her himself.

It took them an hour to make the circuit. Virtually everyone there, of course, had also been at Tresham’s ball, so everyone must be greeted and everyone’s health must be inquired after, and everyone must be reminded of what a beautiful day it was in case they had not noticed for themselves.

And everyone looked with open speculation from Edward to Lady Angeline and back again.
Two
men of his acquaintance actually winked at him.

“You must be ready to return home,” he said at last. “I will—”

“Oh, no.” She turned a dismayed face his way. “It cannot be time to leave already. We have seen scarcely anything of the park.”

Did she not know that one was not meant to? Hyde Park was vast. The fashionable oval was not.

“You would like to drive for a little longer?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, please,” she said. “But can we find a less crowded area?”

“But certainly,” he said, drawing his curricle free of the crowds and turning down a quiet avenue
away
from the park gates rather than
toward
them.

In full view of half the
ton
.

This was becoming a statement with full fanfare.

He might as well send out invitations to the first christening party.

She raised a parasol above her head—it was an apricot color to match her muslin dress—though what function it could possibly serve given the size of her bonnet he did not know.

“Lord Heyward,” she asked him, “are you being coerced into courting me?”

He turned his head to frown down at her.

“Coerced?” he said.

“I suppose it is the wrong word,” she said. “No one could coerce you into doing anything you did not wish to do. But are you being … persuaded,
pressured
into courting me?”

He had asked her a similar question two evenings ago and she had denied it. Now he understood why. Good Lord, it was
not
a question he wished to answer.

“You refer to my grandmother and my mother and sisters?” he said. “They are like female relatives everywhere, I suppose. They wish to see me happily settled. They wish to see the
succession
happily settled. They are eager to pick out all the most eligible young ladies for me, on the assumption that I am quite incapable of doing it for myself.”

“And I am an eligible young lady?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “Probably
the
most eligible.”

Two children were chasing after a ball on the wide lawn to one side of the path. A lady sat on the grass some distance away from them. Apart from them there was no one in sight.

“And if you had the choosing,” she said, “without any necessity of pleasing your relatives, would you choose someone
ineligible
? Or
less
eligible?”

Oh, Lord.

“Lady Angeline,” he said, “I consider this a quite inappropriate topic of conversation.”

She twirled her parasol and laughed.

“You would never choose anyone
ineligible
,” she said. “You are a very proper gentleman. You are devoted to doing your duty. You would never follow your heart rather than your head. You would never do anything impulsive. No one would ever find
you
up a tree while an angry bull prowled about the trunk below.”

“I am, yes, a dull dog,” he said, hearing with dismay the irritation in his voice. “It is time I took you home.”

“But it is not dull,” she said, “to be proper and dutiful and to act with considered judgment. It is not dull to be a
gentleman
. And
must
we go home? When everything about us is so lovely and I am having my first ever ride in a curricle and
loving
it? How do you like my bonnet?”

She lowered her parasol as he turned to look at it.

“It is one of the thirteen?” he asked.

“Number eight,” she said. “And actually it is
fourteen
. I counted them yesterday and there was one more than I remembered.”

“I thought,” he said, “that you bought each new bonnet because it was prettier than the one before. Why, then, are you wearing number eight instead of number fourteen?”

She grinned at him.

“I said it for something to say,” she said. “I often do that. I love all my bonnets—except perhaps the pink one. I bought it because I loved the shade of pink and still do. But it is virtually unadorned. It is boring. I shall have to do something about it if I am ever to wear it. And it would be a horrid waste of money if I never did wear it after all, would it not? You have not answered my question. I suppose you are too polite to tell me the bonnet is atrocious. My brothers are not so tactful.”

“Is my good opinion so important to you, then?” he asked her.

She considered.

“No,” she said. “I have always had dreadful taste in clothes. I concentrate most of it upon my bonnets. Sometimes I take advice with dresses and other garments. And sometimes not. But I always choose my own hats.”

“Who told you you have dreadful taste?” he asked her.

“Apart from my brothers? Oh, everyone. My governesses—every one of them.” She looked for one moment as if she would raise her parasol again, but she changed her mind and rested it across her lap. “My mother.”

And he understood something about her in a flash—something he did not really want to know. Somewhere beneath the bright, noisy dazzle that was Lady Angeline Dudley there was a vulnerability. Perhaps even a massive one.

When she had said
my mother
, she had almost whispered the words.

Her
mother
had told her she had bad taste? Her mother, who had been so exquisitely beautiful herself and who had had exquisite taste in dress? Edward remembered her. But how could anyone
not
remember her once he had set eyes upon her?

“Your hats are distinctive, Lady Angeline,” he said. “This one is.
The one you wore when you rode on Rotten Row the other morning was. Was that one of the fourteen?”

“
That
one?” she said. “Oh, no. That was just an old thing I wore because I needed to keep my hair dry for my presentation to the queen. It is an old favorite.”

“It drew comments,” he said. “This one will be talked about after today. I daresay the other thirteen will be too as you wear them, even the pink one, if the shade is anything similar to that of the dress you wore on the way to London.”

“It is almost an exact match,” she said. She laughed. “Everyone will talk about what ghastly taste I have in hats. But I do not care. I like them.”

He turned the curricle along a path that ran parallel to the waters of the Serpentine.

“And that, ultimately,” he said, “is all that matters.
You
like them. And a strange thing will happen in time. Gradually your hats will come to be associated with you, and people will look eagerly for new ones. And some people will begin to admire them. Some will even envy them and emulate them because they will assume that it is the bonnets that give you the bright sparkle that characterizes you. They will be quite wrong, of course. The bonnet will lend nothing to their character. You must not retreat into what others deem fashionable and tasteful if you prefer something else. It is sometimes better to be a leader of fashion rather than an habitual follower.”

Good Lord, did he really believe that? Or was he giving her appalling advice?

“Even if no one follows my lead?” she asked, looking across at him with brightly smiling eyes.

“Even then,” he said. “When the parade goes by, there will be no one to look at but you. But everyone will look. Everyone loves a parade.”

Her smile had softened and she turned her face rather sharply to face front again. He had to keep his eyes on his horses and the path ahead—there was more traffic here. Even so, he had the distinct impression
that the brightness of her eyes as she looked away did not have everything to do with laughter. And indeed, there was no laughter in her voice when she spoke again.

“I shall remember what you have said all the rest of my life,” she said. “I shall
lead
fashion, even if no one follows behind me.”

“Someone always will,” he said, and he knew he was right. It was the nature of leadership.

They turned their heads at the same moment, and their eyes met. It was definitely tears that were in hers. They were not swimming there and they were not spilling over onto her cheeks, but they were there.

And then, just before he looked back to the path ahead, there was a spark of mischief there too to brighten the tears.

“You
still
have not answered my question,” she said. “Do you or do you not like my bonnet, Lord Heyward?”

“I think it quite the most ghastly thing I have ever seen,” he said, “with the possible exception of the riding hat you wore the other morning.”

She went off into peals of bright laughter, turning heads their way and causing him to smile.

Good God, was he in danger of
liking
her?

She was a walking, talking disaster. She was the very
last
woman that old sobersides, the Earl of Heyward, needed to become entangled with.

His thoughts flashed to Eunice.

Well, he
did
like her sense of humor—Lady Angeline’s, that was. He had to admit it yet again. There was really very little humor in his life. There had never seemed much room for it.

He turned the curricle in the direction of Grosvenor Square and Dudley House. He had the uneasy feeling that he was getting into something he was going to find it very difficult to get himself out of.

Even impossible?

And did he mean
was getting
? Or did he mean
had got
?

———

I
JUST HOPE
,” Cousin Rosalie said, “that she has learned her lesson
this
time. I am convinced her marriage was not a happy one.”

“I believe,” Angeline said, “she is genuinely fond of him. She sat apart with him at Lady Beckingham’s this afternoon, and she appeared very happy when she drove with him in the park afterward.”

They were talking about the Countess of Heyward, who had apparently broken Cousin Leonard’s heart five years ago by marrying the earl and was now being offered a second chance to get it right, according to Rosalie.

“I dread to imagine,” she said, “what will become of him if she breaks his heart again.”

Cousin Leonard was almost completely bald. He also had a nose that went on forever. Even so, he was a kindly, pleasant-looking gentleman, and Angeline thought that even the beautiful Countess of Heyward would be fortunate to have him. There was such a thing as family bias, of course.

“I daresay she will not,” Angeline said.

They were in the carriage returning from an evening at the theater, where Cousin Leonard had invited them to join him in his box. It had been a thoroughly pleasant evening, even apart from the novelty of seeing a play acted out live upon a stage instead of just being read from the pages of a book, which Angeline had always found remarkably tedious and Miss Pratt had always insisted was the
only
way to appreciate good drama.

The theater was packed with people, and Angeline was able to gaze her fill—and be gazed upon. Several people had come to the box during the interval to pay their compliments to one or another of them. Lord Windrow had cocked one mobile eyebrow at her from across the theater and inclined his head in an exaggeratedly deferential bow. The Earl of Heyward was not present. Martha Hamelin was, and they were able to flutter their fans at each other from a distance and smile brightly.

What had made the evening particularly special, though, was the fact that Cousin Leonard had issued yet another invitation before
they left. He was organizing a party to spend an evening at Vauxhall Gardens, and he hoped they would be his guests there. The idea had occurred to him while he was driving in Hyde Park earlier in the afternoon and Lady Heyward had informed him that it must be three years at the very least since she was last there but she longed to go again.