Chapter 9 #2
‘That is so, if you have no objection. My betrothed is Lady Eveline Hartwell, sister of the Duke of Statony,’ he assured her.
‘I would be grateful if you would announce, in an indisputable manner, that she and I are engaged. I would not have any gentleman commit the recklessness of thinking the lady is free. Do you understand me?’ The earl’s eyes moved to the place where she was still dancing with that fool.
The hostess brought a hand to her chest and followed his gaze.
‘I understand perfectly. It would be an honor. An immense honor. Do you wish me to do it at once?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Of course. Of course. My dear Lord Arden, permit me to congratulate you. Lady Eveline is a charming young woman.’
‘I know.’
The answer came out more possessive than amiable. Lady Brackenbury did not seem to notice it or, if she did, had the good sense to pretend it was part of a recent betrothed’s fervor.
Arden looked again towards Eveline.
The piece had ended. She was still beside the young man with whom she had danced, though her eyes were no longer on the fool.
They were on Nathaniel’s, and then they moved to observe Lady Brackenbury.
Then they returned again to Arden, and he had the audacity to smile at her, because he was sure she had just understood what was about to happen before the hostess gave the signal to the musicians to stop.
Eveline had been at enough engagement announcements not to know it.
For a few moments, the room quieted just enough for the conversations to drop in tone. Lady Brackenbury came forward with a splendid smile, asked for attention with a grace that did not hide her excitement, and began to speak:
‘Tonight is a happy occasion. Happier than it already was. I have the honor of announcing formally the engagement between the Earl of Arden and Lady Eveline Hartwell, sister of the Duke of Statony.’
The murmurs came at once.
Eveline did not move from her place. Nor did she pale or protest; she did nothing that could feed a scandal. She smiled, remained serene, beautiful, and showing an astonishing calm.
On the other side of the room, Statony had seen it all.
The duke had his jaw clenched. Alice, at his side, laid a hand on his arm. They did not intervene. That did not mean approval, of course. In Statony’s case, perhaps it translated into restraint, because he would not wish to give high society the spectacle of a second punch in less than four days.
Arden accepted the congratulations gladly, though they meant nothing to him. He cared only for Eveline’s expression, that silent fury with which she looked at him, and the brutal satisfaction of having made clear, before everyone, that she was engaged.
To him.
The orchestra skipped protocol and was about to begin a waltz, because the occasion required it.
The earl waited no longer. He crossed the room, stopped before his betrothed, and inclined his head.
‘Lady Eveline. ’
She looked at him without granting him a single amiable emotion.
‘Lord Arden.’
‘I believe this dance belongs to me.’
‘What a surprise. I would have sworn you meant to claim them all by decree.’
‘Do not tempt me. You know well that I am capable of that and more,’ he warned her in a low voice, so that no one could hear them. And without formality, of course.
The young man who had danced with her was already far off. Eveline did not give him so much as a glance, which relieved Arden in a way he would have found humiliating to admit. The jealousy had him very much on edge.
He offered her his hand. She took a second to accept it.
Only one. Enough to make clear that, if she obeyed, it was because the entire room had just received the announcement of her engagement and not because he had won anything.
Arden closed his fingers around hers and led her to the center of the room.
The waltz began.
Eveline danced with an impeccable correctness.
She did not look at him, nor did she speak to him.
Her fingers rested in Arden’s hand without surrender, and each time he tried to draw her closer to his body, she distanced herself.
That irritated him more than an argument would have achieved.
A few days ago she had clung to his lapels in desperation and opened her mouth for him.
She had begged him not to stop kissing her!
At that moment, by contrast, she treated him like a creditor to whom she owed three minutes of civility before withdrawing.
Arden felt jealousy, rage, and something more vulnerable mingle until they clouded his judgment.
‘You have very little shame,’ the earl said at last, ‘to dance so animatedly and give hopes to a fop while you know you are engaged to me.’
Eveline’s body tensed beneath his hand.
At last she looked at him.
‘What did you say?’ She forgot etiquette in her address.
‘You heard me perfectly.’
‘And I regret having done so.’
‘Is this how you have spent these four days without me? Flirting without rest and dancing without cease with every gentleman who looked at you?’
‘How dare you!’ she sprang up, offended.
‘You have done a great many things in my absence. And from what I deduce, all of them reprehensible. ’
‘Arden, you are crossing a very fine line.’
‘Did you not notice the way that fool you were encouraging so brazenly looked at you? Is that the loyalty I deserve from you?’
‘Are you jealous?’ she asked, astonished.
‘I will not have you make a spectacle of me, Eveline. ’
‘Of course not. You judge everything by your own standards. You show yourself angry because I was dancing with a gentleman. Very well. How should I feel because you have appeared and orchestrated a second announcement like the one that was made without my consent?’
‘The announcement was necessary. Tonight’s and the one I made at your brother’s country house. Perhaps you have forgotten that it was there I first proclaimed that you would be my countess, after I kissed you and you returned the kiss.’
‘In truth, I do not remember that last part at all. ’
That struck him with more force than he expected.
‘Eveline, the one about to cross the line is you. I have had a horrible few days, and I arrive in London to discover that my betrothed is encouraging the attentions of other gentlemen. Do you not realize that you need to be sensible for once in your life? You are gambling not only with your reputation, but with mine as well.’
She could bear no more. The humiliation was suffocating her.
‘Go to the devil, Arden,’ she said in anger, and then tried to pull free.
But the earl did not allow it. Eveline meant to leave him standing in the middle of the ballroom, before the hostess, the guests, and the Duke and Duchess of Statony.
So he did what anyone in his situation would do: complicate matters further.
He held her more firmly by the waist so as to keep her from a fresh recklessness that would set the whole room ablaze.
‘In hell I have lived since I met you, Eveline. ’
‘Release me.’
‘No.’
‘Arden, I swear to you that if you do not—’
‘Enough,’ he ordered her as though she were a capricious child.
Eveline’s gaze blazed.
‘This will not end here, I assure you. ’
For a few seconds they went on turning, caught in a music that did not respect a lady’s humiliation. Arden inclined his face just enough to speak without anyone hearing them again.
‘If you want to argue with me, we shall do it in a less crowded place.’
‘I do not want to argue about anything. I want you to release me and never to see you again as long as I live.’
‘You lie. A woman who returns a man’s kiss like that does not want him to pull away. Have you been dreaming of me, Eveline?’
‘It was a mistake of no importance that I no longer remembered,’ she tried to deflect.
‘You lie again,’ he accused her.
The piece had not yet ended when Arden changed the movement with a subtlety only a good dancer would have noticed.
He led her towards the side of the room, where the couples were regrouping near a door open to the terrace.
Eveline understood his intent too late. By then, he had already drawn her out of the flow of the dance and was taking her discreetly towards a very dark place.
No one could accuse them of fleeing. Not entirely, because they were already engaged.
They stepped out into the night air with the appearance of two betrothed seeking a few minutes of conversation.
Lady Brackenbury’s garden did not have the breadth of Hounslow Park, but it offered gravel paths, trimmed hedges, and a terrace from which the music and the murmur of the guests still reached them.
Eveline released his hand the moment they were outside the room.
‘Have you finished dragging me from one place to another, Arden?’
‘I have finished keeping you from turning us into the tastiest conversation of the evening.’
‘Too late. You have already seen to that with the announcement.’
‘My announcement has protected you.’
‘With your announcement you have claimed me,’ she corrected him.
‘The two things are not always different.’
He saw her tense. A mistake. Another to add to the list. Lady Ashbury was right, confound it. Words were dangerous, above all when a man chose them poorly and the woman he was trying to reach was already wounded.
Eveline drew a deep breath and turned towards the balustrade. She was not crying, but her silence worried him more than an explosion would have.
‘This cannot turn out well,’ she whispered.
‘We shall have to make it turn out well, because there is no going back. ’
‘Why could you not have appeared later?’
‘I would have done so much sooner, Eveline. It was the rain that delayed me.’
‘So I have had a few days of peace only because it was raining wherever you were?’
‘No peace at all. You have had several days in which you have been seeking to replace me.’
She let out a low laugh without cheer.
‘Is that what you think?’
‘Statony left me a rather instructive letter.’
‘Then you will know that I do not need your pity.’
‘I offer you no pity.’