A host of troubles rose up to attack me. I disliked to refuse outright, yet was loathe to have him set the tone for my possible partners. No doubt he was accompanied by other needy friends. I would be passed from one to the other, and kept from making more interesting acquaintances. On the other hand, I had not stood up since arriving. One was practically invisible when seated. Perhaps if I got on to the floor ...
And then there was Annie. I could not like to leave her all alone. Just as I was turning to display my excuse for refusing, I spotted Mr. Pepper ducking forward, dodging through the crowd at top speed to claim Annie. I also noticed the upturning of her lips, the gleam in her eye.
I said, “I would be delighted, Mr. Bellows. Thank you.”
Pepper said a few words and then suggested taking Annie away to the card room. I cast a commanding eye on her to remain where she was, but was forestalled by Bellows.
“Don’t worry about your charge, Miss Potter,” he said. “I shall consider it an honor to look after Miss Nesbitt.”
There was the germ of an idea for an essay here. Why should I, at seven and twenty, require looking after, especially by an unlicked cub like Bellows?
“We shall meet for tea,” Pepper said, and I was left stranded with Bellows.
I took what consolation I could from escaping the card party, and went with my partner to take my place in the set. There was not going to be one moment’s pleasure in this entire evening. I knew it as surely as I knew the two rawboned, awkward-looking youths toward whom we were rushing were Bellows’s friends. My next dances would be with them. I would ask Annie to leave as soon as tea was over.
Bellows was soon proudly presenting me like a trophy to the awkward youths and their partners. It was clear from their assessing eyes that I had been much spoken of. “So this is Miss Nesbitt!” and “Delighted to meet you at last” would have told the tale if their conspiratorial grins had not.
It did not seem to occur to any of them that our set lacked a couple, and the musicians’ violins were already making those squawking sounds which presage the beginning of the music. I said not a word.
If we failed to fill the set, I might escape yet. The card parlor now seemed preferable to the dance.
“We need another couple here. Where is the M.C.?” Mr. Bellows said in a fine, taking-charge manner.
I smiled wanly and said, “Such a pity! It seems we cannot complete the set. Shall we retire ...”
“Here’s a chap and his lady now,” Bellows said. “Why, it’s Lord Paton!”
My heart sank to my slippers. I turned slowly and saw the unmistakable silvery-gold head and straight shoulders of Lord Paton gliding toward us. Any hope that he would not remember me vanished on the spot. His dark eyes were on me, and his lips were pursed in amusement.
Within seconds he was presenting his partner, Mrs. Brisbane, to us. She was pretty, in a dashing way that fell just short of vulgarity. Her eyes were a shade too bright, her gown sprinkled with spangles, her voice just a touch loud, and her arm clung so tenaciously to Paton that it pulled his sleeve askew. I noticed she had the strongest possible effect on the provincial gentlemen in our set. That did not surprise me, but I had expected more discernment from Lord Paton.
The music began, and the dance proceeded before anything that could rightly be called conversation took place. The provincials made no headway whatsoever with the dasher. Her flashing eyes were only for Lord Paton. No matter what partner the movements of the dance gave her, her attention never wavered from him. He was too polite to ignore her, but he did not return his undivided attention. As often as not, he was looking at me in a strangely conspiratorial way that was hard to account for.
When the dance was over, he took Mrs. Brisbane on one arm, myself on the other, and swept us off. “I have someone who is very eager to meet you, Miss Nesbitt,” he said.
Mrs. Brisbane was returned to a chaperone and very civilly thanked for the dance. She managed to both smile at Paton and glare at me before we resumed our walk, which took us toward the doorway.
“Who is it that wishes to meet me?” I asked.
We were at the doorway. He opened it and ushered me out without answering my question. ‘Tea will be announced immediately. In this way, we beat the crowd and get our choice of table. That one in the corner—not the one by the doorway. We’d be jostled to death.”
I noticed that the table to which he dashed was a table for two. Most of them accommodated larger parties. “I am supposed to meet my chaperone,” I said.
“She is at cards?”
“Yes.”
“Then she will wish to take tea with her group. You don’t
really
want to listen to card talk for half an hour, do you? Useless repinings about trumps and tricks and honors?”
“But I said I would meet her.”
He smiled urbanely. “I’ll go to her table and explain.”
He drew my chair. I sat down, and Lord Paton summoned a waiter by some magic, invisible means. He ordered tea and cakes, and I once again asked who wished to meet me.
“Me,” he replied with a smile that would not only lure birds from a tree, but vultures from a carcass.
It was a peculiarly intimate smile that had more to do with the eyes than the lips. It took me a moment to recover my wits, but eventually I said, “You mean it is all a trick? There is no one at all?”
“Only that sorry old critic, Paton. Practically no one.”
The word “critic” jumped out of the conversation and into my mind. Was it possible he was going to review my essay after all? The next term’s
Review
was probably being written now.
“And what does the critic think of my essay?” I inquired hopefully.
“It was a very spirited attack on masculine arrogance. It certainly made
me
think.”
“Then you will give it a good review?”
His mouth, which had been formed in a smile till that moment, fell open in surprise. “Ah—well, I am only a scribe for the
Review,
you know. I do an occasional piece for them, but it is the editors who determine the contents, the works to be reviewed. I broached the matter of your essay. They felt it would not be of interest to our readers.”
A weak “oh” was all I could manage. My hopes were dashed to the ground. “Why did you wish to meet me, then?”
Another of those intimate smiles glowed in his eyes. “I am not only interested in the anonymous writer, but in Miss Nesbitt herself.”
The cakes and tea arrived, along with a sudden rush of customers into the room. We surveyed the throng till we spotted Annie and Mr. Pepper. They were with the rest of their card table, as Lord Paton had prophesied. He went and made my excuses to Annie, and returned just as I was setting down the teapot.
“I wish you had waited,” he said. “I like to watch a lady pour tea.”
“Drink up, then, and you shall see me pour the next cup. It is hardly a performance to anticipate. I lift the pot by the handle and tip, hopefully in the direction of the cup.”
“But the curve of the wrist, the height at which the pot is held, are revealing. Is the pourer a venturesome lady who has confidence in her ability to hold the pot high and let the steaming liquid gush like a waterfall? Or does she let it hug the cup and trickle in with no flare? That is what I should like to have seen, Miss Nesbitt.”
“This is a new method of character revelation, to read the pouring rather than the leaves. I shall be very careful at what height I hold this creamer. You go first, milord. I shall try to spoon the sugar into the cup unseen while you are occupied.”
“I take my tea straight, but neither milk nor sugar count in any case. There is no threat in milk and sugar, except to the figure. Hot tea, on the other hand, is something to be handled.”
I felt uncomfortable all the same as I poured the milk with his dark eyes observing me.
“I see you have put off your turban this evening,” he mentioned after we had tested the tea and found it acceptable.
I felt a little blush at this reminder of the past. “Just as well. No doubt you noticed its eagerness to leave my head when last we met.”
Paton put back his head and emitted a very natural-sounding laugh, deep and masculine. “You will never know what fortitude was required to prevent me from running after you and giving that tail a yank as you strode majestically from the party. You handled the contretemps admirably, by the by. I
do
admire a lady with a countenance.”
“It wasn’t a real turban.”
“So I gathered. At least they don’t usually come equipped with a fringe. I shouldn’t think you care much—yet—for my opinion, but I think you look lovelier
sans
turban. Why were you so eager to don the disguise of an older lady?”
This brief, offhand speech gave me pause for thought. The “yet” suggested the time was coming when I would care for his good opinion. “Lovelier” gave rise to the hope that even
avec
turban I was not grotesque, and of course the suggestion that I was not an older lady was most pleasing of all.
“I did not wish to appear different from all the other literary ladies. Would you have me draw vulgar attention to myself by being the only one there without a turban and paste brooch?”
“A case of when in Rome ...” He examined the pearls at my throat, which were genuine and not small. “I trust you will not feel obliged to succumb to all of Mrs. Speers’s idiosyncracies.”
“Neither gin nor Madame de Stael are amongst my weaknesses.” This talk of weaknesses recalled to mind a certain Angelina, and a pair of cream ponies. I lifted a brow and said archly, “But perhaps we ought not to harp on weaknesses. We are none of us perfect, I think?”
His bland smile revealed nothing. If my shot hit home, it delivered no pain whatsoever upon impact. “Very true. I have never been at all good at geometry,” he said. “My whist is only passable, and I am considered an indifferent hunter by my friends. Those are my more outstanding defects. Will you reciprocate, Miss Nesbitt, and caution me of your imperfections? You will note my subtlety. I do not accuse a lady of actual weaknesses.”
“Nothing to speak of. A touch of imperfection perhaps in six of the seven deadly sins. I acquit myself of gluttony.”
He listened, smiling remotely. “But not the others—pride, covetousness, lust ...”
“Good gracious! I was only joking!”
“I like a sense of humor in a lady. I think you and I are going to become very good friends, Miss Nesbitt.”
This speech had something of the air of conferring a favor. It is hard to say just what accounted for it, unless it was the implicit assumption that my friendship was available for the taking. Perhaps it was Lord Paton’s wealth and superior position in life that were to blame for his attitude, but my backbone stiffened, and my reply revealed nothing of the sense of humor recently conferred on me.
“Your friends require a sense of humor, do they?”
“Not at all. I am ridiculous enough to lure a smile from a Methodist, but you must own a glowering woman is no blessing to anyone.”
“No, nor a glowering man either.”
“I seldom glower, unless driven to extremity. It takes some such catastrophe as losing my fortune at cards, or a badly set cravat to put me out of sorts. Usually I am a model of smiling idiocy. But you must judge me after you have had time to see whether we suit. Shall we say tomorrow, around three-thirty, for a spin into the country?”
When I lifted the teapot to refill our cups, I had other things on my mind than the pouring. Lord Paton appeared interested in me, and quite apart from the literary doors he might open, he was an excellent parti. His physical person was attractive, and he was amusing. There was no earthly reason to refuse.
“I have usually finished my writing by three. Three-thirty will be fine.”
Then I noticed he was paying close attention to the pouring, “That was admirably done,” he congratulated me. “Wherever you learned to pour tea, you do it with a ladylike air.”
“I should hope so! I was not reared in the gutter, you know.”
“You don’t belong in an attic either, Miss Nesbitt. Pray, don’t be angry that I have been poking my nose a little into your situation. I was interested in you from the moment we met.”
It was hard to be angry at such a statement as that. In fact, I felt quite giddy with astonishment. “You have an odd way of showing it, sir. Two weeks have elapsed since first we met, and you have not called on me. If we had not chanced to meet here this evening, I doubt I would ever have seen you again.”
“Now, there you are mistaken. I was not in a position to—to pursue the acquaintance at that time. I had some—er, personal affairs to tidy up. The two weeks have been used in paving the way for our friendship.”
It seemed impossible that Lord Paton should blush and stammer like a schoolgirl, but blush and stammer he did. The personal affairs I immediately concluded were Angelina and her cream ponies. He had turned off his flirt. This sounded like serious business.
When he looked at me, I felt as though he was reading my mind. It was a deep, probing gaze, full of meaning. “You know what I am referring to, I think?” he asked.
“How should I? I am not a mind reader.”
“Bath is a cauldron of gossip. A man cannot hope to keep anything secret,” he said with a scowl.
“Then a man ought not to do anything he is ashamed of.”
He lifted his quizzing glass and examined me with one eye magnified. “Not in Bath, in any case. Nor should a lady either, Miss Nesbitt.” It seemed to be my gown he was staring at, though there was nothing amiss with it. It was not particularly revealing.
“You look remarkably handsome in gold, though I think you could wear
black
to advantage as well. Not that a lady would appear at a ball in black, of course. That suggests she is in
mourning.”
The enlarged eye held a challenge.
He knew. His nose poking must have led him to Milverton, or someone who knew me. I couldn’t meet his gaze. I looked at the table, and noticed we had not touched the plate of cakes, which looked quite delicious.
Lord Paton’s hand moved into my ken. It was a lovely hand, long-fingered, elegant, with a carved emerald on one finger. He raised his hand, and I felt it touch me under the chin, lifting my head till I was forced to look at him. He was saying something with his eyes, but it was not easy to read. There was compassion there, I think, but tinged with impatience, or anger.