Chapter Ten
“Too many candles? Or not enough?” Wilfred asked, biting his lip.
He very carefully did not notice his housekeeper’s eyeroll.
“It all looks magnificent, Master Wilfred,” said Mrs. Ansley, once again refusing to use his formal address. “As you well know.”
It did look marvelous, though Wilfred would only admit to as much in the privacy of his own mind. It sounded arrogant to even think such a thing—but then, he had put a great deal of work into making this evening perfect.
The ballroom in the Aynor Bath townhouse had not been used for…
Well, now that Wilfred came to think about it, he could not recall the last time.
His parents had been alive; it had been that long ago.
He had crept down the stairs, holding his breath as though that would prevent anyone from spotting him, and had peered around the door into the splendid ballroom filled with swishing figures and laughter.
He had never seen the point of holding a ball himself.
Until now. The ballroom was lit with over a thousand candles, festoons of flowers hanging along the walls, and rose petals scattered on the edges of the room to add their perfume to the air.
A great amount of polishing the gold-gilt panels on the walls had occurred over the last few days, and Wilfred had seen more than one footman looking a little harassed the last hour or so.
But somehow, it had all come together perfectly, and about ten minutes before his invitations had summoned his guests.
Wilfred exhaled slowly as he took in the sight. “Yes, it looks good.”
“‘Good’! I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep without seeing polish in my dreams,” muttered Mrs. Ansley as she ordered a gaggle of maids to hastily re-pin a festoon of flowers. “And the footmen have been ordered to bring up food at—”
“I am sure you have the entire thing under control, Mrs. Ansley,” Wilfred said hastily as something caught his eye from the hallway, just visible from the other side of the room. “You will excuse me.”
His housekeeper continued to mutter, but Wilfred could not hear her as he strode rapidly across the room. It wasn’t possible—he had surely been allowing himself to think too much of Irene Chance, for he had thought he had seen her.
“Wilfred!” said Irene happily. “You don’t mind that we are early, do you?”
“Reeny insisted—”
“Papa!”
“—insisted we were here first, in case there was any assistance we could render,” said the Viscount Pernrith with a wry smile, clapping Wilfred on the back and shaking his hand.
“You had better be careful, Aynor. She’ll install herself as the mistress of your house if you’re not keeping an eye on her! ”
The Viscount Pernrith, the Viscountess Pernrith, the Right Honorable Mr. Michael Chance, and the Right Honorable Miss Theodora Chance all laughed.
Wilfred did not.
Neither did the Right Honorable Miss Irene Chance. In fact, now that Wilfred came to look at her more closely, he could see that she was…flushing?
Flushing? When did Irene ever get embarrassed?
“Don’t be silly, Papa,” Irene was muttering. “Wilfred’s never hosted a ball before. I just thought…you know.”
Precisely what Wilfred was supposed to know, he was not sure. He had just noticed what Irene was wearing and breath itself was now no longer an option.
She looked…
There were no words. Wilfred’s gaze raked over the most incredible silk gown, one that dipped lower than he had seen on her before—he had always paid careful attention to such things—yet it was still respectable, a hint of lace just barely covering the décolletage skimming above her gown.
The hemline was long, giving her a fashionable train Wilfred would have paid more attention to if the gown weren’t pinching in at Irene’s waist in a way that made his fingers itch to hold her.
And that wasn’t the only part of him springing to attention.
Irene had eschewed gaudy adornments, wearing a gold necklace with a single pendant, one perhaps of amethyst, accompanied not by matching earbobs or a matching bracelet but with amethysts dotted about her elegant updo, a small curl descending down the nape of her neck in a way that made Wilfred’s mouth dry.
She was, in summary, the most beautiful version of herself that he had ever seen. And she looked impressive on a normal day.
“Aynor?”
Wilfred flinched as someone—Michael, he now saw—clicked his fingers right before his host’s nose. “Wh-What?”
“I said, I hope you have some good claret in,” Irene’s brother repeated, his face a slight frown. “I do hope you’re not sickening for anything.”
For your sister, Wilfred could have said, but he was prevented from such madness by the viscountess.
“You should be delighted with your preparations, Your Grace,” said Irene’s mother with a smile. “I am duly impressed.”
The fact that he wanted to impress her, he wanted to impress them all, was not lost on Wilfred, but it was the use of such a formal greeting that made his stomach twist. “Aynor, please. We are like family.”
“We are not like family,” the Viscountess Pernrith said, stepping toward him.
Wilfred could not help his stomach dropping as Michael wandered farther into the ballroom with his sister Theodora on his arm. Well, it had been very forward of him. Just because he thought of the Chances as his family, that did not mean—
“We are family,” the Viscountess Pernrith said quietly, kissing him on the cheek. “My favorite son.”
“Mother!”
“Well,” said the older woman with a shrug, ignoring the call of Michael from across the ballroom. “That one is such a worry to us, you know, but you? Wilfred, you have never given me a hint of concern in all your days. Right. I had better find out where my husband has gone…”
She floated away, her gracefulness never changing with age, and Wilfred was left alone with Irene.
Well. As alone as one could be, in a ballroom.
“No Gwen?” he said aloud, trying not to think about just how beautiful the woman before him was.
“No, my parents said that until I—I mean, until I or Teddy…” She cleared her throat. “The plan is still for her to perhaps debut in the upcoming Season, but only if… If one more of her sisters…” Her words faded away into an embarrassed silence.
Which was odd. In fact, his best friend had been acting most oddly the last week or so, Wilfred realized.
He had not put it all together until this moment, but…
yes, most oddly. She had been looking at him…
oddly. Lost her train of thought far more often.
She had even started asking him for more walks, sans chaperones, as was Irene’s wont, though she would say very little unless prompted on such excursions, and Wilfred could not understand for the life of him why she wished to talk with him along the dirty, busy Bath streets, where anyone might see them together unsupervised.
Most strange.
“If one more of her sisters marries. Until I marry. Or Teddy marries,” Irene said in a rush. “It doesn’t do to have too many daughters out in Society.”
And suddenly, it was Wilfred’s face that was flushed, Wilfred who found words difficult to grasp. “Oh…yes. Right. I see.”
He did see. Or at least, he thought he did.
Was this Irene’s delicate way of informing him that she would now be looking out for a suitor?
Had her parents someone in mind? She was many years past her official debut.
To be honest, he was sure only his frequent presence at her side had deterred other gentlemen from pursuing her until now.
And because of that, because he had kept them all at bay—which he could only be glad for, really—she was nearing the age one might tentatively deem her a spinster.
Not that he could ever think of her in a negative light.
To be honest, part of him had secretly hoped she’d embrace spinsterhood, if she were not to be his own bride.
But with her beauty? Her charm? Her elegance?
That was a fantasy. Wilfred had always known their friendship would outlast any husband who came to claim his best friend, but that the friendship itself would have to change.
It would be forced to, unable to survive the shifting loyalties Irene would be faced with.
But the idea that it could happen soon—that she would be taken from him…
Which is ridiculous, Wilfred tried to tell himself. She had already spent far too many Seasons without a match. And he had no ownership over Irene. Even her future husband never would; Wilfred knew her well enough to be secure of that.
“It… It all looks wonderful,” Irene said after she’d inhaled deeply.
Wilfred tried not to say, It’s all for you. It was, but she didn’t have to know that. “Thank you. I… I hope you enjoy it.”
“I am sure I will,” said his best friend quietly.
They stood there for a moment in silence, a strange sort of awkwardness overwhelming Wilfred mostly due to its novelty than the awkwardness itself, and then suddenly both of them spoke at the same time.
“I need to tell you—”
“I have to ask—”
“Master Wilfred!”
Wilfred blinked. What?
“Master Wilfred, your first guests are here!” called out Mrs. Ansley as she walked over to him, beckoning with her hand for him to come into the hallway. “Begging your presence, Miss Chance,” she added with a faint blush to her cheeks.
He had never told his housekeeper how he felt about Irene. Perhaps, after his conversation with Michael, he had never needed to.
Wilfred turned to Irene. “You will have to excuse me.”
“Oh, yes, of course, of course,” said Irene hastily, waving him off in much the same way his housekeeper was doing. “You have your duty, as host. I suppose I shall see you—”
Precisely when he would see her, Wilfred never found out. Mrs. Ansley had grabbed his arm and was now bodily heaving him toward the front door.
“Master Wilfred, your guests!”