Chapter 19
N,
Your courtship must have caused you to be temporarily remiss in your correspondence.
No matter. I am forgiving. I would never be so crass as to lower myself to offer any sort of unsolicited advice.
However, if I may, just this once offer an observation?
I often find a man doesn’t know what he wants in a woman until he sees someone else with such a woman, or until she’s quit of him.
Your Noble Friend
A little over a week and three more chaperoned outings later, Noelle sat in the ladies’ retiring room at the Dowager Duchess of Andover’s ball, listening to Miss Kelley relay that she had overheard several ladies discussing Noelle and the young viscount.
With his reckless reputation, to be the woman who tamed such a previously noncommittal beast had many giving Noelle notice they hadn’t before.
Noelle had been less overwhelmed by the spectacle of it all as she had been her first ball, but still too enamored to be as strategic and calculating as one needed to be.
It mattered not, that’s what she had the ladies around her for.
Miss Kelley cleared her throat, looking over her shoulder to double check that they were, in fact, alone in the retiring room.
She gave Lady Noelle her first glimpse yet of her past, “I haven’t mentioned it before, but…during my own season, there had been reason, perhaps a sensible course, and I heeded neither. I’ve come to care for you, Lady Noelle.
I could never let you suffer a similar fate without warning you to proceed with caution.”
“How am I…not being cautious?” Noelle asked, raising a brow. She avoided asking further questions of her chaperone that might cause her some indignity, but not without effort.
“You two were seen together-”
Noelle interrupted, rearranging an errant curl at her nape with an extra pin. “You were accompanying us; it was not inappropriate.” She met the woman’s eyes in the mirror.
“I am aware of that; it was still rather…delicate. And for you to show favor to him over all other suitors…” she shook her head as if to clear it, “I still urge you: let someone else have the dinner waltz-”
“But the dinner waltz is-”
Miss Kelley stilled her frustration with a soft hand on her charge’s shoulder.
“Listen, whoever claims the dinner set on your dance card ushers you into dinner and you will be sitting next to them for hours. If it’s Fitz, that gives the appearance that you are spoken for. Fitz has yet to offer for you. He may yet and he may not.
Don’t put all your hopes in one Viscount-shaped basket.”
Noelle had to concede Bridget had a point.
“She’s right, sister.” This from Moria who entered behind them.
Moria lending credibility to and agreeing with the governess startled her as much as her abrupt appearance in the retiring room.
Noelle paused the finishing touches on her appearance to take in the splendor of her sister, as proud and opulent as a queen in a dress that, when she turned, changed from deep hues of pink to purple to red.
Either Moria had a change of heart (unlikely) or there was merit in the woman’s words.
But Noelle guessed if anyone ought to know not to get one’s hopes up from a man, it was Moria.
These two women standing side-by-side and looking at her in the mirror were opposites; but they shared a loyalty, to her, and a protective instinct that was touching.
Noelle pinched her cheeks to heighten their color and gave both women a sly smile as she showed them her dance card.
“I’ll defer to both of your judgement on the dinner waltz. I already have a few candidates in mind.”
Lady Noelle thought Fitz hid his disappointment amiably when she told him she’d already promised the supper set to Lord Harwick; a young and handsome, albeit rather vain and penniless Marquess. Then Fitz engaged Moria for that dance.
There were two ways of looking at the matter. Either it was to make her envious or to show her he was not pining for anyone else; she wasn’t sure. How very like him to respond to her maneuvering in a way that could be read one of two very different ways.
Still, he kept an amiable distance from Moria, both only looking mildly interested in their conversation. His eyes occasionally looked up to find Noelle. No, he wasn’t toying with her; he made minimal effort to keep the interest from showing all over his face.
When she’d entered on the arm of Lord Harwick, Fitz’s eyes followed her as the other man helped her to her seat, adjusting her chair.
She saw the tight clench of his jaw and his narrowed eyes.
He’d arranged for her to not have to watch him flirt with another woman; but having his keen eyes on her as she attempted conversation with the other man caused them both to feel unsettled.
Good. Maybe he’ll do something about it, then. Her mind conjured maudlin images of dueling pirates, jousting knights, bareknuckled-brawling and bare-chested Byronic lords.
Something Lord Harwick said made her laugh as a footman placed the second course in front of her, and she thought Fitz would jump from his chair.
When Harwick’s gaze dropped to the front of her bodice when Noelle leaned in to talk to the lady on her right, she’d seen the way he’d looked at Harwick as though he’d pry him apart with his bare hands.
She sent him a knowing smirk. His eyes traveled to her lips, smiling at her with a force that sent her into turmoil.
The handsome lord to her left said, “Lord Ludlowe looks as though he’d like to request my head on a pike.”
Noelle picked up her napkin in her lap, holding it to her lips to disguise her laugh. “I’m sorry, my lord. You shouldn’t say such things to a lady in such a public setting.”
“I can’t say that I regret making you laugh.” His eyes lingered a little too long on her lips, but it wasn’t Lord Harwick who sent a prickle of awareness over her skin. She heard Fitz clearing his throat from across the table. He looked at her like he wanted her, and he didn’t care who knew it.
The dowager on her right said, “I don’t suppose the Earl of Westmoreland approves of the way either of those two young gentlemen are looking at you, Lady Noelle,” with a smile.
Lady Noelle leaned around the lady to catch a glimpse of her brother up the table, glowering at Fitz and then down at his plate of venison.
“I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing, especially from the Earl,” she responded as she took a demure sip from her water goblet, causing the older woman to laugh. Throughout the remainder of the evening, she felt the heat of Fitz’s eyes on her.
“A confession: I have come to picture you as more of a Viscountess than a Marchioness. I’m coming to collect you for a teatime visit with someone who will support my cause. Don’t make me wait.
- F
PS: After toying with me across a dinner table, I ask: Who’s the Rake now, my lady?”
The morning after the ball, Noelle traced her finger over that jauntily flowing “F” uncurling almost like a flower at the bottom of the carefully penned note Ella had brought to her on a tray.
In no time, a bevy of feminine heads had descended over her shoulder to read the note. She closed her eyes in irritation, hiding the note in the folds of her dressing gown.
“You’ll have to try harder than that!” Olivia called, tackling her onto the bed. Both sisters collapsed in a heap of limbs. Olivia’s tiny fingers bore into her with tickles, until Noelle, laughing with mirth, held up her hands in surrender. “Fine, I surrender!”
When Olivia reached for the note, Noelle called out, “Oh, is that a falcon I see?” Pointing past her sister at the open window. Noelle used this as her opportunity and took off down the hall, darting behind their statuesque older brother like a pillar just before colliding with him.
“What the bloody-” He objected.
“He can’t save you!” Moria called out, charging toward her and colliding with Jasper’s side.
“Hellions, the lot of you,” he muttered, “get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast.”
Not a single one of his sisters obeyed his directive.
Noelle crossed her arms, rooted to her spot.
Moria lifted her chin, resolute and indignant.
Olivia threw him a sheepish grin. Kathleen, who’d appeared on Moria’s heels with an infant on her hip, looked appalled at his tone.
Ella attempted to innocently dust a wall sconce with a dirty cloth as if she weren’t invested.
“I’m already dressed,” Kathleen added, bouncing the child at her hip.
Jasper let out an exhale until his lungs were emptied. “Anyone mind informing me what this all-female circus performance in my hallway is about?”
“Lady Noelle got a note hand-delivered this morning.”
Miss Kelley said, materializing from nowhere and leaning close to him conspiratorially.
When she whipped her gaze toward her charges, the bound column of her fiery hair collided with his shoulder.
Surely Noelle wasn’t the only one who noticed the way he leaned closer to her in spite of himself.
“My lord?” Miss Kelley called, looking back at him concerned. He cleared his throat.
“Shouldn’t one be allowed any secrets in this house? Good god, the meddling is intolerable!” he bellowed, flapping his dressing gown dramatically as he tore off down the hall to the breakfast room, both of his loyal hounds following at his heels.
The girls collapsed into each other in a tangle of giggles in the hall. Except for their companion, who watched the Earl’s retreating form with an expression full of equal parts regret and longing.