Chapter Five #2
John opened and closed his mouth, appearing almost as lost as Petra had been before. However, any sympathy Wolf might have held for him evaporated at the thought of Petra’s devastated face.
“She’s your Lenore.”
John blinked at him. “My what?”
“You know that American poet.” Wolf had been talking about him for years. How had John never read any of his works? “He writes of a Lost Lenore. The woman you can’t have. The woman you compare all others to. It’s her, isn’t it? Mrs. Eden.”
“I never put it together before,” Wolf went on before John could speak. “I knew your family lived by them. I knew you were friendly with Stephen, even if he was a few years ahead of us at Eton. You spoke of her sometimes. Then, one fall, you never spoke of her again.”
John leaned his head to the side while he flexed his jaw. He still made no reply so Wolf went on.
“Devil knows you cannot help how you feel, Longley, but why did you have to dance with her in front of the ton? In front of Lady Petra? How could you do that to her?”
“It was not a formal engagement. It didn’t mean–”
“It meant something to her!” John had not seen the utter devastation that washed across her face.
For a woman so used to schooling her emotions, only the most profound despair could have wrought that.
“She bet her entire future on you. On your marriage. I saw her face when you were dancing. It broke her heart.”
“I meant to speak with her, but someone else monopolized her time.” Wolf lowered his gaze after John stared pointedly at him.
Glancing about the garden, Wolf became suddenly cognizant of his surroundings, struck by the profound absurdity of the pseudo-Greek statuary that adorned the grounds.
Marble fauns in ribald, eternal pursuit of elusive nymphs peeped from amidst the flora, a display as preposterous as the ton’s own posturing.
Finally, he redirected his attention to his companion, prepared at last to articulate the nature of his recent, unbidden obsession.
No, not obsession. Behavior. Explain his behavior.
“I tired of watching her stare longingly at the door at every function, waiting for you. I told her I could help her if we pretended to court. She thought it might hasten you to make a formal offer. I thought it might prove to her that you did not suit. But you were supposed to speak with her. Not declare your devotion to her cousin before all of Polite Society.”
Something seemed to crack in John’s expression as he sat heavily on a bench between a faun and a nymph statue.
“I’ve made a hash of everything.”
“You rather have, old chap.” Slowly, Wolf joined him, some of his anger lessening as a cool wind picked up on that warm summer evening.
“I wouldn’t hurt Lady Petra for the world,” John admitted. “But you have to see how I could never marry her.”
“Oh, I do. As I said, I never thought either of you suited. I used to think you were too good for her. But I found…” Wolf focused intently on the oddly familiar features the sculptor had chosen to carve on the faun to his left.
The faun rather resembled a former prime minister.
Aberdeen might wish to have a word with the sculptor…
“I found she was rather too good for you.”
“Quite right.” John conceded. “What can I do? How do I fix this?” Regarding his friend’s genuine remorse, Wolf exhaled, allowing the rest of his anger to float away on the wind.
Yes, John had wronged Petra. But he could not help his heart.
Wolf had been right: they were not a good match.
He only regretted that his correct prediction had caused Petra such profound sorrow.
Even though he had only opened his eyes to her these last few weeks, he could admit, perhaps only to the strangely familiar faun before him, that she had always stirred something within him.
Something more than just a mystery to be solved in him.
Something that made him want to protect her from any kind of sorrow.
As if he had summoned her by this thought, the lady herself appeared, quietly approaching them with another woman who he recognized as a dowager he ought to remember better.
“I don’t know, old chap.” He clapped John on the shoulder. “But it appears like you will have the opportunity to apologize.”
Upon the lady’s approach, both gentlemen rose with a collective, if somewhat startled, alacrity.
To his own chagrin, Wolf found himself gripped by a jarring vertigo, as though the very axis of his equilibrium had been thrown askew.
He marveled that a creature so petite and fairy-like could render a man of his own formidable stature, standing well over six feet, feeling so utterly and helplessly akimbo.
“Lord Wolfridge,” she murmured, and his name on her lips sparked another discovery inside him he could only now admit.
I want her. Quite desperately.
What an inopportune time to make such a discovery.
“Will you please join Lady Brawning for a moment?” Petra gestured to the older woman behind her. “My chaperone needs a gentleman’s arm while I speak with Lord John.”
She really had worked her magic, Lady Petra.
In finding a suitable old biddy to accompany her into the garden, she had safeguarded her reputation, as she would not be permitted to be alone with two gentlemen by herself.
And yet she likely knew she had to nip this in the bud right away.
Not just for her own sake but for her cousin and John.
Wolf spent the next few minutes reviewing the different types of flora that accompanied the fauns around them with Lady Brawning on his arm.
He supposed it was educational, but he could barely concentrate from straining to hear Lady Petra and John over Lady Brawning’s descriptions of different types of clematis.
Having no interest in flowers of any kind, Wolf scoured his mind for what clematis even was, as he could barely see the plant in the dark evening light.
The garden was not lit, but the lights from French doors spilled out to them, so he could make out a faint outline.
Petra and John conversed quite pleasantly.
He could tell from the softness of her demeanor that she was not expressing any anger toward him.
Indeed she seemed to beseech him about something.
Once they finished speaking, John rose as Petra nodded to Lady Brawning and the ladies discreetly returned to the ballroom.
His friend watched the women pass beyond the French doors as Wolf joined him.
“She is remarkable.” John admitted, his voice barely carrying on the thick, humid air of the evening.
“Indeed,” Wolf agreed, annoyed it had taken his friend this long to understand such a simple thing.
“She begged me to…help bring back the light in her cousin’s eyes.” John shook his head and put his hand to his chin.
“And will you?” Wolf asked.
“She made me swear on my honor to try with everything I had.”
Wolf nodded though he doubted John could see. “Your errand that takes you away. It will allow you to try?”
John brought his hand down to his side. “It should,” he said quietly.
“Then for her sake, do it.” Wolf said tightly. Unsettled by this new sensation of want within him, he stalked back to the ballroom, but he could not find the object of his desire.
He had lost her to the night. Perhaps that was for the best.