Chapter Fifteen
IRENE TOLD HERSELF that Francesca was wrong.
She was not lying to herself about her feelings for Gideon.
She was quite aware of how dangerously close she was to tumbling into love with him.
But she also knew that she could not allow that to happen.
She would not let her heart sweep her into making foolish decisions, as had happened with so many other women.
So she kept her distance from him, settling into the role of chaperone and helping Francesca with whatever task needed doing.
She spent the first day touring the estate with the other young people, but she did not ride beside Gideon or talk to him.
She watched as he rode alongside first one young woman, then another, talking to each one, even, she thought, flirting a little with Norah Ferrington.
In the drawing room after supper that evening, she watched him exchange pleasantries with the girls and listen politely as they played the piano or sang, even standing beside Marian Salisbridge to turn the music for her.
And the following day, through a session of lawn tennis in the warm August afternoon and then tea afterward, she watched him devote his attention to each one of the women in turn.
It surprised her somewhat that he was actually making an effort to mingle with the marriage candidates whom Francesca and his great-aunt had selected for him.
He had apparently accepted her own refusal to marry him and was intent on pursuing someone more willing.
He did not seek Irene out for conversation or even ask her for a dance when the girls cajoled Pansy and Odelia into letting them roll back the carpet in the center of the music room and engage in an impromptu party.
Piers asked to stand up with her, as did Gideon’s uncle Jasper and Mr. Surton and even Lord Hurley, but Gideon did not approach her.
It was a slight that, she realized, was noticed by others, for as she stood, watching the couples go through an energetic country dance, Lady Teresa came up beside her and said, “Fickle creatures, men.”
Irene looked at her coldly. “I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you not?” Teresa smiled and shrugged.
“If you wish to pretend you had no hopes of landing him, well, who am I to deny it?” She paused, then went on.
“It is just as well that you did not set your cap for him. Whoever he marries will not have his heart. He has a low-born mistress in London, and she is the one he loves.”
“What?” Startled, Irene turned to look at Teresa in amazement. She realized then that she had shown too much of her feelings to this woman, and she shrugged, striving for an expression of indifference. “Many men have mistresses, especially before they marry.”
“Well, he intends to keep her. Her name is Dora. I heard him arguing with Lady Odelia about her. Radbourne said that he would never give up Dora.”
Irene felt for a moment as if she could not breathe, and the intensity of the pain that stabbed through her chest shocked her.
Dora. It had been years, but she remembered that name clearly.
It had been the one Gideon had spoken that very first time she saw him, the name of the woman whom he had warned her father to stay away from.
The woman he had been so determined to protect that he had attacked a peer of the realm.
And now, so many years later, she was still his mistress. Clearly this Dora held his heart, and so no wife would ever be able to.
“Indeed?” she said at last, striving to keep her voice cool. “It would seem that he has the same problem as his father—marrying one woman while still bound to another.”
Teresa’s eyes flared with fury at Irene’s words, and she turned and stalked away, leaving Irene feeling a trifle guilty over what she had said.
She should not have been so cruel, she thought, even if Teresa had hurt her.
But she had been unprepared for the pain it caused to hear that Gideon loved another woman, and she had lashed out without stopping to consider her words or the injury they would inflict.
Was what Teresa had said true? she wondered.
Or had the other woman made it up only to hurt Irene, and to drive a wedge between her and Gideon?
Francesca had been sure that Teresa wanted to keep Gideon from marrying Irene in the hopes that Teresa’s son would remain the heir to Gideon’s title.
But Teresa must have seen that Gideon was no longer pursuing Irene, that he was, instead, dancing attendance on other women.
There seemed, therefore, little reason for her to have made up such a story.
Of course, Teresa could have acted simply out of spite, letting her venom spew out over the nearest target.
But why, even out of spite, would she have made up such a story?
The words she said she had heard Gideon say to his great-aunt had a ring of truth to them.
And surely Teresa could not have settled on the name by coincidence or accident.
Dora was indeed the name that Gideon had flung at her father years ago, warning him never to try to touch her again.
Gideon had told her that he attacked her father because he was protecting one of his faro dealers, but had not the very heat of his fury indicated some deeper feeling than that?
It would explain, as well, his lack of interest in finding a wife whom he could love. If the love of his life was a woman whom he could not marry, given his suddenly acquired position in life, he could very well plan to marry for duty and keep a mistress in the city for love.
Irene swallowed, feeling a little queasy.
Had he kissed her as he had, all the time knowing that he was in love with another woman?
She had known that he did not love her, that all that lay between them was desire, but…
she hated the thought that his desire could have had so little in it of caring, that in his embrace there had been nothing but carnal lust.
Irene glanced around. All eyes were on the center of the floor, where Gideon and the others were dancing. No one was looking at her, and no one would notice if she left, least of all Gideon.
She turned and slipped out of the room. Outside in the hallway, she hesitated.
She had thought to go up to her bedchamber, but she was too restless, she realized.
Instead, she turned and hurried down the corridor and out the rear door onto the terrace.
She stood for a moment, drawing a calming breath.
Finally she started down the steps to the garden.
It was a trifle cool, but the evening air felt good against her overheated cheeks, and she did not want to go back for a wrap.
In any case, she would not stay long, as the partial moon did not provide enough light for her to venture farther back into the gardens, where trees and hedges created deeply dark spaces.
She strolled along the central path to where it split around the fountain and stood for a moment, gazing down at the cheerily splashing water.
“Irene.”
She whirled around, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest. Gideon stood a few feet behind her. The noise of the fountain must have covered his steps. She straightened, lifting her chin a little. She must not let him think that she was mooning over him.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “I saw you leave the room.”
“I stepped out for a breath of air,” she told him nonchalantly. “It had grown rather warm in the music room.”
Her statement would have sounded better, she knew, if she had not involuntarily shivered right afterward as the night breeze touched the bare skin of her arms.
“But now you are cold.” He shrugged out of his jacket and came forward, laying it about her shoulders.
The jacket was still warm from his body, and his scent lingered on it.
Irene clutched the edges together, feeling suddenly as if she might burst into tears.
Whatever was the matter with her? He had rudely ignored her all evening, and now a tender gesture from him was enough to make her cry?
She was not, she reminded herself sternly, one of those females.
It did not matter that she wanted to lean against him, to rest her head against his hard chest. It did not matter that his nearness was intoxicating to her, that the heat emanating from his body drew her, that the unique scent of him set up a fluttering deep in her loins. She would not be weak.
Irene swallowed and said, “You seemed to be enjoying the dance.”
He made a face and said, “I would rather—”
He broke off as a voice from the terrace called, “Gideon!”
They turned and looked up to see Gideon’s uncle approaching rapidly.
“Oh, excuse me, Lady Irene,” Jasper said. “I did not see you standing there.”
“It is perfectly all right. I left the music room and Gi—Lord Radbourne came after me to make sure that I was not ill.”
“Are you all right?” Jasper asked, trotting down the steps to join them.
“Perfectly.” Irene forced a smile onto her face, hoping that it looked more natural than it felt. “I just came out for a stroll, and then I found it a trifle too cool.”
“I wanted to talk to you, Gideon. I had not been able to catch you alone this evening,” Jasper told his nephew.
“Pray excuse me,” Irene said quickly. “I will leave you gentlemen so that you may talk.”
“No, please, my lady, I did not mean to be rude,” Jasper said quickly, looking embarrassed. “You are welcome to stay. Indeed, I already spoke to you on this subject the other day.”
“Oh.” Irene knew that he was referring to the afternoon two days before, when she and Francesca had inadvertently overheard Jasper’s argument with his mother. “About Lady Selene?”
“Yes.”
Beside her, Gideon stiffened, and Irene suspected that he was searching for a way out of the conversation.