Chapter 14
“Ihave been hoping to speak with you all evening, Miss Fairchild.”
Frederick pressed a glass of champagne into Louisa’s hand as she entered the supper room.
His smile was warm, his attention fixed upon her with the singular focus he had been directing her way since the cotillion.
Behind them, Oliver released her arm. She felt the absence of his touch through the silk of her glove, a sudden cooling, a withdrawal.
“You have been speaking with me all evening, Lord Langley,” she said. “We danced twice.”
“Dancing is not speaking. Dancing is performing in front of forty critical observers while attempting to keep count.” He guided her toward a small table near the window where two chairs had been drawn close together, a supper arrangement that spoke of forethought rather than chance.
“I wished to speak with you properly. Without the orchestra.”
Louisa glanced over her shoulder. Oliver had stopped beside the door.
Sebastian was at his elbow, pressing a glass of claret into his hand.
Oliver accepted the glass. He did not look at her.
He murmured a remark to Sebastian she could not hear, and the two of them moved toward the opposite side of the room.
She sat. Frederick sat beside her. The supper table was laid with cold meats, aspics, fruit, tiny cakes dusted with sugar. The candlelight fell across Frederick’s face, softening the planes of it. He leaned toward her.
“I spoke with Lord Ashton this afternoon,” he said. “About his house party in Wiltshire.”
“You mentioned it during our dance.”
“I mentioned the possibility. I am now in a position to offer certainty.” He reached for the claret jug. “Lord Ashton has asked me to extend an invitation to you personally. His wife specifically requested your inclusion.”
Louisa set down her champagne glass. The crystal caught the light, scattering tiny rainbows across the white tablecloth.
“A personal invitation?” She heard the surprise in her own voice.
“Lady Ashton was quite insistent. She told Lord Ashton that a gathering without Miss Fairchild would be a gathering not worth having.” His eyes held hers. “I found myself in complete agreement.”
Six months ago, she would have wept at the prospect. She would have run to Eleanor, seized her hands, spun her across the drawing room.
“That is very generous,” she said. “I should be delighted to attend.”
“Excellent.” Frederick lifted his glass. “To Wiltshire, then.”
“To Wiltshire.”
They touched glasses. The chime was bright, precise, lost immediately in the murmur of forty guests settling into their suppers.
“You will adore the grounds,” Frederick said, setting down his glass.
“Ashton has nearly two hundred acres of parkland. The approach alone takes ten minutes by carriage. There is an avenue of limes that runs from the gatehouse to the main entrance, planted by his grandfather in 1740. Quite magnificent.”
“It sounds beautiful.”
“Beautiful does not begin to cover it. The lake is the real triumph. Capability Brown designed the landscaping, or so Lord Ashton claims. I am not entirely convinced, but one does not argue provenance with a man in his own dining room.” He leaned closer.
His elbow rested on the tablecloth near her plate.
“There is a folly on the western bank. A Grecian temple, just large enough for a table and two chairs. Lady Ashton takes her breakfast there in summer. She says the light on the water at seven o’clock is the finest view in Wiltshire. ”
“You have visited before?”
“Twice. Once for the shooting, once for the harvest ball. The gardens are what stay with you. Lord Ashton’s mother planted the original beds, and Lady Ashton has expanded them into a proper program.
Roses along the south terrace. A walled kitchen garden with espaliered fruit trees.
A glasshouse where she grows pineapples, if you can believe it. ”
“Pineapples in Wiltshire?”
“I know. Absurd. Wonderful.” He turned his wine glass by the stem.
“The sort of place that makes one think about what a home ought to be. Not just a house. Not just land. A place designed around a life.” His voice had dropped.
The guests around them had blurred into the background.
“I find myself drawn to that idea more and more. A home with purpose. Good company. Someone to share it with who would appreciate the pineapples as much as the view.”
He held her gaze a beat longer than the words required.
“There will be music,” he said. “Dancing, I expect. Long walks through the grounds. Lady Ashton mentioned charades, though I confess I find charades rather agonizing.”
“You will survive.”
“Will I? I have very little talent for theatrics.”
“Nonsense. You performed beautifully during the quadrille.”
His laugh was pleased, surprised. She watched it change his face, watched the slight stiffness around his mouth ease into warmth. He was handsome when he laughed. She had always thought so.
He excused himself after supper to speak with Lord Ashton about the arrangements.
Louisa stood, her glass empty, the taste of champagne bright on her tongue.
She scanned the room. Oliver was standing near the far wall beside a tall arrangement of white lilies, his shoulder against the paneling, his claret untouched. Sebastian had gone.
She crossed the room. Oliver straightened as she approached, the languor leaving his posture as though someone had pulled a thread.
“Frederick has invited me to the house party,” she said. “Formally. Lord Ashton extended the invitation through him.”
“I heard.”
“You heard? How could you hear? You were across the room.”
“Sebastian told me. Lord Ashton mentioned it to him during the second course.” He lifted his glass, studied the claret, set it down again on the marble ledge beside the lilies. “Congratulations. This is precisely what you wanted.”
She waited for him to say more. He did not.
“You do not seem pleased,” she said.
“I am pleased.”
“What about your irritated face?”
“They are interchangeable. It saves time.”
She studied him. His coat was still impeccable, his cravat still perfectly arranged, his posture still carrying the loose confidence that made drawing rooms feel smaller when he entered them.
But there was a tension in his shoulders tonight she had not seen before.
A tightness across his upper back that pulled at the fabric of his coat.
“Oliver,” she said. “This is what the arrangement was designed to do. Frederick is inviting me to spend a fortnight at a private estate with his closest friends. He introduced me to Lord Ashton’s wife. He danced with me twice.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you look as though I have told you your horse has gone lame?”
His eyes met hers. A flash of heat moved behind them, quick, complicated, disappearing beneath the careful surface before she could read it.
“I am glad for you,” he said. “Truly.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“You should tell Eleanor. She will want to plan your wardrobe.”
Louisa smiled. It felt thin on her mouth.
She wanted to press him the way she had pressed him during the waltz, to find the unfinished sentence he kept pulling back.
But the supper room was full, Frederick was returning from his conversation with Lord Ashton, the evening was reassembling itself around them.
“I should go,” she said.
“Yes. You should.”
She turned. She walked toward Frederick. She did not look back.