CHAPTER 23
Claudia had been very strongly of the opinion earlier, while she waltzed with Joseph, that they were being watched with interest as a possible couple.
But while she was fetching her shawl it occurred to her that perhaps the looks—if there had been any—had been simply ones of incredulity that she should so presume. Or possibly even looks of pity.
But when had she started to think of herself as unworthy of any man, no matter who he was?
She was no one’s inferior.
By the time she had made her way back to the ballroom and found Joseph waiting for her outside its doors, there was purposefulness in her stride and a martial gleam in her eye.
And when had she started to think of him all the time as Joseph?
“Perhaps,” she said, “we ought to go for just a short stroll.”
He grinned at her. There was definitely a difference between a smile and a grin, and he grinned. She bristled with indignation. She was making a cake of herself in front of a large number of the aristocracy of England, and he was amused.
He took her by the elbow and guided her toward the outdoors.
“I have a theory,” he said, “that your girls all obey you without question, not because they fear you, but because they love you.”
“A goodly number of them,” she said dryly, “would be very interested to hear that, Lord Attingsborough. They might not stop laughing this side of Christmas.”
They stepped out onto the terrace. It was deserted but by no means silent.
There was the sound of music from the ballroom above.
There was also the sound of merrymaking and music of a different sort coming from the direction of the stables and carriage house, where grooms and coachmen and perhaps some off-duty servants were enjoying revelries of their own while they waited to convey their employers home.
“I am Lord Attingsborough again, am I, Miss Martin?” he said, turning to walk in the direction of the stables. “Is it not a little ludicrous in light of last evening?”
That irresponsibility had seemed somewhat excusable then because it was never to be repeated—she had known that Miss Hunt would not break off her engagement permanently.
Last night had been a once-in-a-lifetime thing, something she would remember for the rest of her life, a private tragedy she would hug to herself and not allow to embitter her.
The fact that Miss Hunt had ended the betrothal again tonight—and permanently this time—ought to have simplified her life, raised hope in her, made her happy, especially since he had immediately asked her to waltz with him and then asked her to walk out here with him.
But her life seemed more complicated than ever.
“If you could go back,” he asked, somehow picking up her thoughts where he had interrupted them, “and refuse my offer to escort you and your two charges to London, would you do it?”
Would she? Part of her said an unqualified yes.
Her life would be as it had been if she had said no to him—quiet, ordered, familiar.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps she would have met Charlie anyway at Susanna and Peter’s concert—and perhaps she would have reacted slightly differently toward him.
Without the existence of Joseph in her life, perhaps she would have fallen in love with Charlie again.
Perhaps she would now be making a decision regarding him. Perhaps…
No, it was impossible. It never would have happened. Though perhaps…
“It is pointless to wish to change one detail from the past,” she said. “It cannot be done. But even if it could, it would be foolish to do it. My life would have progressed differently if I had said no, even though it was only a few weeks ago. I do not know how it would have progressed.”
He chuckled before striding away from her into the revelries about the carriages and returning a few moments later with a lit lantern.
“Would you do things differently?” she asked.
“No.” He offered his free arm and she took it.
He was tall and solid and warm. He smelled good.
He was handsome and charming and wealthy and aristocratic—he would be a duke one day.
And he was very, very masculine. If she had ever dreamed, even at her age, of love and romance—and of course, she had dreamed—it would have been of a man altogether different in almost every way.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
They were walking down the main driveway, she realized, in the direction of the Palladian bridge. It was rather a dark night with high clouds hiding the moon and stars. The air was far cooler than it had been last evening.
“Of the man of my dreams,” she said.
He turned his head toward her and lifted the lantern so that he could see her face—and she his. His eyes looked dark and unfathomable.
“And?” he prompted.
“A very ordinary, unassuming gentleman,” she said, “with no title and no great wealth. But with an abundance of intelligence and good conversation.”
“He sounds dull,” he said.
“Yes, and that too,” she said. “Dullness is an underrated quality.”
“I am not the man of your dreams, then?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. “Not at all.”
They stepped onto the bridge and stopped by the stone parapet on one side to watch the water flow dark beneath on its way to the lake. He set down the lantern.
“But then,” she said, “I cannot possibly be the woman of your dreams.”
“Can you not?” he said.
She could not see his face, the lantern being behind his head. It was impossible to know from his tone alone whether he was amused or wistful.
“I am not beautiful,” she said.
“You are not pretty,” he conceded. “You very definitely are beautiful.”
What a bouncer. He would carry gallantry to the end, would he?
“I am not young,” she said.
“It is a matter of perspective,” he said. “To the girls in your school you are doubtless a fossil. To an octogenarian you would appear to be a sweet young thing. But we are almost exactly the same age, and since I do not think of myself as old—far from it—I must insist that indeed you are young.”
“I am not elegant or lively or…” She ran out of ideas.
“What you are,” he said, “is a woman who lost confidence in her beauty and charm and sexual attractiveness heartbreakingly early in life. You are a woman who sublimated her sexual energies into making a successful career. You are a woman of firm character and will and intelligence and knowledge. You are a woman bursting with compassion and love for your fellow creatures. And you are a woman with so much sexual love to give that it would take far more than your quiet, dull scholar to satisfy you—unless he too has hidden depths, of course. For the sake of argument let us suppose that he does not, that he is simply ordinary and dull with conversation to offer you and nothing much else. No passion. He is not a dream man at all, Claudia. He is verging upon nightmare.”
She smiled despite herself.
“That is better,” he said, and she realized that he could see her face. “I have a marked partiality for Miss Martin, schoolteacher, but it is possible that she might choose to be a cold bed-fellow. Claudia Martin, the woman, would not be. Indeed, I have already had proof of it.”
“Lord Attingsborough—” she began.
“Claudia.” He spoke over her. “We have had our fairly brief stroll. We can return to the house and ballroom now if you wish. It is altogether possible that not above half of the guests here have noticed we are gone. We can enjoy the rest of the ball—separately so as not to arouse gossip among that smaller half. And tomorrow I can come and take Lizzie, and you can return to Bath, and we can both deal with receding memories over the coming weeks and months. Or we can extend our stroll.”
She stared at him in the darkness.
“This is one of those moments of decision,” he said, “that can forever change the course of a life.”
“No, it is not,” she protested. “Or at least, it is not more important than any other moment. Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.”
“Have it your way if you must,” he said.
“But this moment’s decision awaits us both.
What is it to be? A desperate attempt to return to the way things used to be before I presented myself at Miss Martin’s School for Girls, a letter from Susanna in my coat pocket?
Or a leap in the dark—almost literally—and a chance for something new and very possibly quite wonderful? Even perfect.”
“Nothing in life is perfect,” she said.
“I beg to disagree with you,” he said. “Nothing is permanently perfect. But there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more such moments. Last evening was perfect. It was, Claudia. I will not allow you to deny it. It was simply perfect.”
She sighed. “There are so many complications,” she said.
“There always are,” he told her. “This is life. You ought to understand that by now. One possible complication is that the little lodge in the woods might be locked tonight as it was not yesterday afternoon.”
She was speechless—except that she had understood the moment he asked her to come walking with him where they would go. There was no point in trying to deny it to herself, was there?
“Perhaps,” she said, “they keep the key over the lintel or beside the step or somewhere else easy to find.”
She still could not see his face. But for a moment she caught the gleam of his teeth.
“We had better go and see,” she said, drawing her shawl more closely about her.
“Are you sure?” His voice was low.
“Yes,” she said.
This time when they walked on, instead of offering his arm he took her hand in his and laced their fingers.
He held the lantern aloft. It was needed at the other side of the bridge, where the trees obscured even what little light was provided from the sky.
They found the faint path by which they had returned yesterday and followed it through the woods until they arrived at the hut.
The door was unlocked.