CHAPTER SEVEN
She had not changed. Verena had not changed in the least. So fresh she looked, in the sprigged muslin gown, honey-gold loose curls spilling onto her shoulders from under a chip-straw hat, decorated with knots of tiny artificial blossoms. She was exquisite, like a china doll.
That same smiling mask adorned the perfection of her features, dispensing equal attention — and no favours, thank God — to each of the several males inhabiting her orbit. She was standing under an archway, the grace of her figure as elegant as the setting.
Denzell felt decidedly odd, the warmth giving way to a feeling he could not recognise. It was not, however, a feeling he could enjoy, for it was causing him a good deal of discomfort.
Why had he come here? Verena Chaceley was not going to welcome his advent.
He must be mad. Where the devil was he to find the gall to approach her?
He had not thought himself to be such a lily-livered poltroon.
He had not been so fainthearted since his green youth, before he had confidence in his ability to secure a lady’s interest.
Was it only that, after all? Had Ossie been all along in the right of it? He was piqued, pricked in his pride, and had allowed himself to fall victim to his own vanity. Then what the devil ailed him that he had come chasing down here like a lunatic at the full of the moon, who knew not what he did?
To the devil with it! He would go straight up to her and greet her as if nothing in the world had ever occurred between them to prevent his doing so.
His feet were already moving on the thought, and he had arrived at the knot of persons of which Verena was the centre before he had time to regret or retract.
She had her back to him and Richard Cumberland, that unspeakable nuisance of a playwright, was addressing her.
He could scarcely wait for the gentleman to arrive at the conclusion of his sentence.
In a voice loud enough — and cheerful enough — to gain him the instant attention of the entire circle, he spoke up. “Good day to you, Miss Chaceley.”
Shock blanketed out all thought in Verena’s head. A jolt seemed to stab in her chest. Out of the fog came one coherent idea: Hold your countenance, Verena.
Time seemed to Denzell to be standing still. For a moment, although every other head turned to look at him, Verena did not move. It appeared to Denzell as if she froze. The succeeding silence seemed to go on for ever.
But in reality it could only have been an instant before the honeyed hair rippled a little as she turned. The unyielding mask was in place, with that faintest trace of a smile. The exact same level of polite disinterest was in her voice as had been when she first spoke to him.
“How do you do, Mr Hawkeridge?”
The most intense dissatisfaction invaded Denzell’s breast. A savage thought sliced through his mind. At least she had remembered his name. Beautiful, serene, and exquisitely polite was she. And not at all the Verena he had expected — nay, longed — to find.
“I am very well, I thank you,” he said, almost curtly. “I trust I find you in good heart?”
“Extremely so.”
“And your mama?”
“She is in better — health.”
Was there a stress on the word? It was so hard to tell. How the deuce was anyone to know anything of the woman, when she persisted in this determined shutting off? The devil take you, Verena Chaceley!
Unable to think of anything to say that would not sound churlish and rude, Denzell bowed and moved away. Let others take the field. For himself, he was done with it.
He heard men’s voices start up behind him, and found himself wishing for the butt end of a pistol that he might knock them all on the head, the fools. Wasting their time in such a fashion, with a woman who would take a mile before she gave an inch. Nevertheless, he could not help but glance back.
Startled, he halted and turned, staring at the knot of people he had just left. They were dispersing, but where the deuce was Verena? She had been there but seconds ago.
His eye swept the room — and caught a glimpse of the straw-hatted head.
It was bowed a little, and she was hurrying, taking a path close to the walls, passing behind the little groups of persons as if she wished to remain unnoticed.
Where was she going? Looking forward, he saw the entrance doors. She was leaving!
His eyes went back to her, and he saw now that she had a hand pressed below her bosom. His glance strayed up to her face. She was biting her lip. Deuce take it, Verena! What in the world was amiss?
Thought deserted him. There was no feeling now in his breast but distress for her evident distress, and all he knew was the need to aid her, if he might.
Without quite knowing how he had got there, Denzell found himself out on the Pantiles, for the moment thankfully all but deserted. Except for the figure that clung to one of the columns of the colonnade with both hands, breathless and trembling.
“Miss Chaceley!”
Verena jumped, her eyes flying open as she looked up. Oh no, not he again! Had he not done enough?
“Forgive me, I think I startled you,” said Denzell anxiously. “I could not help but see — Miss Chaceley, are you unwell? May I do anything for you?”
“Unwell? No!”
That she was not. Yet what to say — how to explain to him, the author of her confusion, this extreme reaction to his sudden appearance?
The reverberations of the painful jolt in her breast were not yet ended.
How she had kept her countenance she did not know.
Thank heaven she’d had her back to him. Otherwise, she could not doubt but that he must have seen it in her face. And, dear heaven, here he was again.
Desperate to retrieve her facade, Verena sought for control, knowing that at any moment he would make one of those outrageous comments — that had done so much to alienate her and yet had set him in her thoughts, as it were, in immovable marble — that he had made on those previous occasions.
But Denzell, watching the strain in her lovely features as she tried to bring them back under that iron mastery, was beset by so much emotion that he would not have dreamed of adding to her distress by any untoward remark.
Moved by the unprecedented desertion of that very control that he had so much deprecated but a few moments before, he searched his mind for some legitimate excuse that might afford her ease.
He could not bear to see her so weakened, no matter the cause.
He would have given much to have swept her up into a safe embrace — his own.
But that was impossible. Spurred by necessity, he found the key.
“It is insufferably hot in that place, is it not? I confess I found it so myself.”
A grateful look rewarded him. “Y-yes, it — it was airless.”
Denzell glanced up at the cloudless sky.
“I dare say we may find it increasingly hot outside later on.” He smiled down at her, noting with satisfaction that she was recovering her lost control.
He offered his arm. “Meanwhile, do take the air with me for a turn or two, Miss Chaceley. Is not that what the Pantiles are for?”
A tiny choke of laughter escaped her. “So I believe.”
The somersaulting sensations in her breast were quietening, thank heaven.
She was so glad of his tact that she forgot her old resolve to remain aloof from this dangerous man.
Besides, he was waiting so patiently, his arm ready for her hand.
It would be unkind — even churlish — to refuse him.
Her jelly legs seemed to be firming up, and she tentatively released her clutch on the column.
To her consternation, she was not as steady as she had expected. Her knees buckled a trifle. Denzell was swiftly at her side, grasping her arm — and sending such a shooting sensation up her body with his touch that she was obliged to grasp on her other side at the column again.
“Lord!” she uttered helplessly.
“Don’t hurry,” he said. “Take your time. It takes a moment to recover from a near faint, you know.”
Again he was offering her a fitting excuse.
Verena could have kissed him. She balked on the idea.
What was she thinking of? A flood of warmth caused her to let go of the column in order to clutch at her cheek to hide the burning.
Faint indeed. True, she had felt close to swooning, but she was certain her colour belied that possibility now.
If only he knew that all this must be set down to his unexpected arrival.
“I am ready now,” she said with a calmness that did not in any way reflect the tumult of her emotions.
Denzell took her hand and placed it securely within his arm. The way she clutched at this support demonstrated more than anything else the strain under which she still laboured. His heart seemed to dissolve.
For a few moments they paced up the tiled pathway, both concentrating on the effort required. But as he felt Verena’s grasp on his arm loosen, Denzell looked for some innocuous topic that he might introduce. Searching, he discovered the one thing on which they might safely embark.
“Is it not an excellent thing that Osmond and Unice have managed to produce the girl they wanted?”
He could not have found anything better. The most natural smile creased Verena’s countenance, filling her features with warmth.
“Little Julia? Yes, indeed, I was so delighted for them both. She is the most beautiful baby, and so good.”
“So Osmond keeps boasting. He claims that he has not once been woken in the night.”
“That is because, so Unice tells me, he sleeps like one dead. She says that he would snore through the lamentations of a dozen babies.”
Denzell burst out laughing. “By George, how I shall roast him!”
“Oh, pray don’t,” Verena begged. “Unice wishes him to believe himself the perfect father.”
He glanced down at her. “Why, if he is not?”
An unprecedented gleam danced in her eyes as she returned his look. Fascinated, Denzell’s steps ceased.