"Well, he would," Emma insisted.
Eleanor let out a sigh. He had been occupying all too much of her mind. He had not been pleased with her at Schomberg, but she so wished she could please him tonight. That was the only thing from keeping her of complaining of illness and keeping to her bed. And so she had wanted to look radiant. Lovely. Breathtaking.
"I look like a ghost," she muttered, staring at her pale reflection and her white gown.
After wrapping another lock of wavy brown hair into the curling tongs, Elizabeth glanced down at Eleanor. "You look charming. And a touch of pallor is suitable in a bride-to-be."
"She does look like a ghost," Evelyn said from her seat on Eleanor's bed. "And I smell burning hair."
Elizabeth let out a cry and pulled the tongs out of Eleanor's hair, but the curl was only crimped too tight and not terribly singed. Shoulders slumping, Eleanor watched her sisters fuss with combs and flowers to hide the now too-curly strands.
Now I look like a ghost with too-curly hair.
But she would not say that, for it would only hurt her sister's feelings, and they were working so hard to try and make her look pretty.
Satisfied at last, Elizabeth left to allow Eleanor's maid to help Eleanor finish dressing. Emma and Evelyn left as well, but Emma came back with a pot of rouge, and whispered, "Mama won't notice just a touch."
Eleanor allowed Emma to smudge the rouge on, but when Emma had gone, Eleanor rubbed fiercely at her skin. She couldn't bring herself to paint her face, something their mother scorned for any lady. Besides, it seemed too much like inviting even more notice of herself. She took a deep breath, took another one, took a third, and finally found the courage to leave her room.
At the top of the stairs, Eleanor paused to drop a kiss on Evelyn's head. Too young to come downstairs, Evelyn had positioned herself where she could watch the guests arrive. Now, she frowned, her forehead scrunching with lines. "Perhaps you ought to use your card to ask for a green velvet dress. You would look very well in green, you know."
A smiled welled up inside her and Eleanor bent down to hug her sister. "Should I ask instead if you can come to live with us?"
"Oh, yes, do. But not all the time. I should miss Mama and Papa too much. Will you miss them, Ellie? And us?"
For an instant, tears stung the back of Eleanor's eyes. She forced a bright smile and hugged Evelyn even tighter. "I shall not. For I shall see you too often to miss you. And now what do you want me to spirit away from the ball for you?"
"Champagne. Just one glass, please?"
Eleanor knew that she ought not to promise such indulgence, but she could not resist her sister's pleading eyes. So she promised and went downstairs.
Two hours later, she wished she could sneak away to keep her promise to Evelyn. But Lord Staines had still not arrived, and guests were starting to talk about his absence.
Only the family and close relations had been at dinner. Lord Staines and his brothers had sent their regrets that they could not attend dinner, but Lord Staines's note had said he would be at the ball.
But where was he?
He had not come by eleven, when her parents had reluctantly moved away from the receiving line beside the ballroom doors. Had something happened to him? Or was this perhaps his way of giving her a reason to break the engagement?
That notion had her stomach tightening even worse than it had in anticipation of this ball.
Glancing around the crowded ballroom with a smile locked in place, Eleanor whispered to Elizabeth, "I think my face is going to be stuck like this forever."
"Perhaps if you smile long enough perhaps you will actually start enjoying yourself."
Eleanor forced her smile wider as Lady Terrance and her daughter came to wish her happy and ask how soon Lord Staines would be arriving. Eleanor froze, but Elizabeth made up vague excuses that seem to satisfy the ladies.
As Lady Terrance moved away, Eleanor cast another worried glance toward the entrance. "He is not going to come, is he?"
"Of course he will. He has to," Elizabeth insisted, her bright tone sounding forced.
Eleanor opened her mouth to object to this lack of logic, but before she could say anything, a stir brushed through the room. She glanced at the entrance to the ballroom—heads were turning that direction. And when the crowd parted slightly, there stood Lord Staines.
Eleanor looked very young, Geoff decided. Very young, very innocent in white, and better than he deserved. A slash of rosy hue stood out on her cheeks, making those brown eyes of hers enormous, and her simple, high-waisted gown showed her trim figure to advantage. Well, why should she not shine tonight? This was her night to celebrate that she was to marry an earl's heir. A great catch in anyone's book, except perhaps in his own. And Cynthia's.
Scowling, he glanced around the ballroom, decorated in garlands of pine and white candles. He had delayed too long his arrival, he knew. It had been badly done. But it had taken the better part of a bottle of brandy just to get him here, and to push aside the unwelcome memories raised by that damn letter.
Blindly, he turned and found a drink offered on a silver tray. He took it, drained it, put the glass back, and took a second. He hardly knew what he was drinking, or with whom he had just smiled at or shaken hands. He went through the motions, but in his mind, he kept seeing Cynthia's heartbreakingly lovely face.
This should have been our engagement ball.
Someone else said something to him, and he nodded, smiled and turned away, his loathing for himself growing at his poor manners. He could not seem to help himself.
Damn, but why did that letter have to come this afternoon, of all times? He could not curse Mrs. Fletcher, Cynthia's mother, for writing him news of the neighborhood, and with warm wishes for his nuptials. Ah, if only that had been all there was to it. But, no, Mrs. Fletcher's regret that he and Cynthia had not made a match of it had stained every line, every sentiment.
And her regrets had returned to him everything that he had spent the last nine months striving to forget.
He had cried off dinner with Eleanor's family because he knew he would be poor company.
Poor.
He would have been bloody awful. With Patrick and Andrew already gone ahead to Westerley, he did not have them to act as buffers between him and the Glovers. And he did not have them acting as his conscience to behave himself.
No, he had only his memories of Cynthia.
Exchanging his empty glass for a full one, he drank that as well. Why could he not at least get drunk? Why did his mind seem sharper with each glass? His sins as clear as the crystal goblet in his hand?
Someone else took his hand to shake it and wished him happy, and he somehow found a smile that he could stiffen onto his face. And he knew that he had better search out his bride and her father and get this over with before he ruined everything. He was far too good at that.
And so he put aside his empty glass, took up a full one, and tried to remember that he was a gentleman, and that he had a duty to his wife-to-be tonight.
Watching Lord Staines make his way towards her, Eleanor thought he looked the ideal of masculine perfection. From his golden locks brushed into careless curls, to his black coat that set off his wide shoulders, to his white knee breeches, white stockings and black dancing slippers. Perfect except for the steady supply of drink in his hand.
Biting her lower lip, she watched him, her senses alert and every instinct inside her clamoring that something was wrong. Something dark and dangerous shimmered at the back of his too-bright eyes. She did not know what she might do to smooth it away, and she feared that perhaps some unhappiness with her had put it there.
He came up to her, and she lowered her gaze, afraid she would be tempted into asking him what was wrong, and that was hardly a way for a lady to greet her affianced husband.
She heard Elizabeth say, her voice deliberate and cool, "Lord Staines, how nice that you could join us at last. I vow that some here thought you had changed your plans—to attend, that is."
Eleanor shot an astonished glance at her sister. Elizabeth was never so rude as to offer such deliberate undertones of disapproval.
In fact, Elizabeth looked rather like the ideal match to Lord Staines. Candlelight pulled gold glints from her brown hair. She was nearly the same height as him, and held her head high to look straight at him. The pearls quivering around her slim throat were the only betrayal that she was not as confident in challenging him as she seemed.
Elizabeth held Lord Staines's gaze with a hard stare, and a rush of affection swept Eleanor that Lizzy should leap to her defense. She glanced at Lord Staines, a little afraid for her sister.
He returned Elizabeth's stare with one just as direct, then he turned to Eleanor. "Is that what you thought? That I would not come?"
Eleanor curled her toes inside her silk slippers. She did not want to tell him that she had indeed believed him capable of such poor behavior. He did not look as if he needed any more lashings added to his soul tonight. Instead, she wet her lips, and said, "I had understood that you do not care what others think of you, so I am not certain why you should ask me that."
The corner of his mouth crooked. "We are speaking of you, not others. Now, pray excuse us, Miss Glover. I should like to take a stroll around the room with your sister."
He offered his arm to Eleanor, and she could only give Elizabeth what was meant to be a reassuring glance before setting her hand on that muscular arm.
As they set off, the crowd parted for them. Eleanor kept her lashed lowered, watching her hem swirl around her feet and brush his ankles.
Beside her, Lord Staines said, his voice hesitant, "I am sorry if I put you in an awkward position this evening."
His too-careful speech told her that he had indeed drunk a good deal tonight. Her heart ached for him. What was wrong?
"Please don't apologize. You put me in an awkward position when you proposed. I mean, that is, I expected the engagement to be aw—" Biting off her words, she glanced up at him.
A faint amusement warmed his tired eyes. "Awkward? Awful? Or is there another adjective that I am missing?"
She shook her head and would say nothing more.
He nodded to others as they passed, but he did not pause to allow them to interrupt. He said, his voice low and enticing her confidence, "You might as well tell me. You cannot make it any worse."
"Yes, I can." She felt his stare on her, burning into her head, but she would not meet it. "Father says that I have a tongue as blunt as a dull garden spade."
She heard his chuckle and she did glance at him. His face had relaxed, and under her hand the tension eased from his arm. A thread of pleasure spiraled loose inside, like a kite set free on the wind. She had made him laugh. She could make him smile. She felt as if he had just given her a wonderful gift.
"Well, please do not sharpen it. I like you blunt, Eleanor."
She smiled and ducked her chin low, holding close the delight that his words had raised in her, and she looked up at him again. "Even so, you almost did not come tonight."
He stopped and something dark shadowed his smile. "Engagements are like a game of Cricket—almosts do not count. And I am here now. And I have a Christian name, which I now give you free rights to use."
Geoffrey,
she said inside her mind, turning the word over, liking the sound of it, but too shy to say it aloud, for in saying his name she might say to him far too much of other things she did not want revealed.
Turning, he signaled a waiter and got them glasses of wine. He gave her one and took the other. "Shall we find our courage in the glass, and then let us find your father and get this whole announcing over with?" He hesitated suddenly, his blue eyes pale. "Unless, that is...I do not want to rob you of this moment. If this is something you have dreamed of…"
She had, in a fashion, but her fancies had not been anything like this, so she said without a second thought, "Oh, I never would have spent my blank card on this."
His smile widened, and he lifted his glass. "Then let us drink to getting over this hurdle as best we may."
With a shy smile, she lifted her glass to ring the crystal against his. Frowning, she asked, "But I would make one request of you, if I may?"
"A request—but not written on a card? Does it have to do with donkeys?" he asked, a teasing spark back in his eyes.
She started turning the glass in her hand, twisting the stem between her fingers. "No, no animals. And no card—unless you feel I ought to. It is just that. Well, that is...how do you do that...that whatever-you-did when you came into the room? How do you look as if you do not care. I wish I could look so...so unconcerned and confident. Can you teach that to me?"
His smile slanted, and the look in his eyes deadened to something that send a chill across Eleanor's skin. "That is not something I ever want to teach you. And I pray that life may spare you the lesson I was given on how not to care so much. Now, come. Your father is looking as impatient as I feel."
Taking her arm, he led her towards Lord Rushton, and the announcement to be made.
Eleanor wondered if it was how she had asked her question, or if something else was behind his curt response. She wished suddenly that she knew more of the man who would be her husband.
I can always cry off. If it really gets too awful, father and mother would let me do so
, she told herself. But she feared she would never be brave or wise enough to ever do so.
And her father was signaling the musicians to stop playing, and everyone was starting to look at her, and the old panic tightened inside her chest like a frightened, wild animal that was about to burst out of her.
She tried to keep breathing. She tried to remember Emma's smiles and Elizabeth's advice. She tried not to notice all the stares focused on her, or the ladies whispering behind their fans, or the gentlemen with knowing looks on their faces.
They are laughing at me because I am no match for him
, she knew, and she wanted to shrink herself into nothing.
It doesn't matter. I don't care what they think.
But it did. And she did.
They all kept staring at her, watching. And she could not bear it a second longer. She had to get away.