Chapter Seventeen
On the evening of the party, Adrian’s mother found him alone in the drawing room, watching a footman climbing a ladder to light the chandeliers.
The musicians were arriving, and servants moved through the adjoining rooms with trays and candles. Beyond the tall windows, the first carriages waited in the wet street, their lamps blurred gold in the drizzle.
“Miss James will come,” Lady Daventry said.
Adrian turned towards her. “You met her?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And I believe her. I rather liked her, actually.”
He had not known how tightly he held himself until something in him released. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me. It is an unattractive habit.” She came farther into the room. “I told her I would receive her, and I shall. I also told her what your choosing her would cost.”
The tightness returned at once.
“You had no right.”
“I am your mother. I have a great many rights, though you have lately developed a tiresome interest in disputing them.”
“What did you say?”
“The truth. That society will punish her, and that it will punish you if you bind your future to hers. The Calder name is not an ornament to be spent in a fit of romance.”
“It is mine to use.”
“To hold in trust.”
“For what purpose, if not to stand behind something worth defending?”
His mother’s expression hardened. “You speak as though I object because of her mother.”
“Do you?”
The question hung between them. Lady Daventry looked away first.
“I do not know,” she admitted. “That is the honest answer, and I dislike it. I have spent my life among people who would swear themselves free of prejudice while speaking of Miss James as though her ancestry were an unfortunate stain. I have not often contradicted them.”
“Neither have I.”
“No.” She looked back at him. “At least we know the company we have kept.”
His mother’s use of his own thought might once have amused him. Tonight it merely made him sad.
“I will receive her,” she continued. “If Crispin insults her beneath my roof, he will leave it. If others follow him, I shall discover that I have been feeding far too many people at supper.”
Adrian crossed the room and kissed her cheek. She caught his sleeve before he could draw away.
“Standing beside her tonight is one matter. Marriage is another.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
His mother searched his face. “Your promise was a bride by spring.”
“It is not yet spring.”
“Adrian.”
He covered her hand briefly with his.
“I will not offer for Ophelia while Markham has any claim hanging over her, nor while the whole world might tell her she accepted me because she required protection. I will not exchange one cage for a grander one.”
Lady Daventry released his sleeve.
“But if she is free,” he continued, “and if she will have me, there will be no other bride.”
Pain crossed his mother’s face, and love with it, unmistakable. The first trace of resignation followed. She studied him for a long moment. “You have changed.”
“I have become extremely inconvenient.”
“You were always inconvenient. You merely used to make it amusing.”
From the ballroom came the tentative notes of musicians tuning their instruments. Lady Daventry glanced towards the sound, then smoothed the front of her gown and drew herself upright.
“The guests are arriving,” she said. “Whatever disaster you intend tonight, try not to damage the parquet.”
“I shall confine myself to reputations.”
“That is exactly what I feared.” She gave his sleeve a final squeeze before releasing it. “I must take my place.”
Adrian watched her leave the drawing room and pass into the brightening hall, once more every inch the formidable hostess.
The cost she had named was real. The caricature he had seen that afternoon was real, as were the cuts and whispers that would follow.
His rank could open many doors, but it could not make Ophelia welcome in every room.
It could not keep cruelty from reaching their children, if they had them, and the thought would not be set aside.
There was an easier path.
He could free her from Markham and then step away.
The thought came dressed as honour. Ophelia would owe him nothing.
He could place his influence behind her reputation, protect her father’s business, and leave her independent.
London would praise his chivalry. His mother would forgive the scandal in time.
No one could accuse him of taking advantage of a woman under his protection.
He need never ask society to imagine Ophelia James as the Duchess of Calder. He need never risk hearing Ophelia refuse.
Adrian recognised the open door. It was the most elegant escape he had ever devised.
For years he had believed running meant carriages, unfinished letters, and leaving rooms before they grew uncomfortable.
He understood now that a man might remain in place and still retreat from everything that mattered.
He might call fear restraint, call longing impossible, and arrange his life around avoiding one honest question.
He would not do it.
If Ophelia wanted only freedom, he would help her win it and ask nothing. If she wanted him, he would not deny her because London found the choice inconvenient.
The decision was simple. Waiting for hers would be harder.
By ten o’clock Daventry House blazed with light.
The ballroom filled in a glittering rush of jewels, uniforms, bright coats, and gowns of every shade imaginable.
Every important face in London seemed turned towards every other in search of novelty.
The air had begun to thicken with hot wax and crushed flowers.
News of Ophelia’s expected appearance had spread, and Adrian could feel the anticipation beneath the music, a restless appetite disguised as conversation.
Sir Hugh Fenwick had followed them to London and stood near the card room with his sister, while Josiah James had arrived with Mr. Soane, the merchant visibly uncomfortable. Soane looked as though he had come to audit the chandeliers.
Markham had not yet appeared.
Adrian moved through the company, greeting people he scarcely heard.
A countess detained him to ask about Wales, and a baroness enquired whether the roads were passable, smiling as though she meant something else entirely.
Two of his old companions watched him with open curiosity, saying nothing at all.
He answered lightly and gave them nothing.
Near the ballroom doors, Josiah caught his arm.
“She means to come.”
“Ophelia?”
“Lady Elise sent me a note, telling me to be here, to support my daughter.”
Adrian looked towards the doors before returning his attention to Josiah. “What have you said to her?”
The merchant flinched, twisting his hands together. “Too much.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I asked her to marry Markham.”
For a moment the entire room seemed to sharpen around Adrian.
“After yesterday?”
“I was frightened.”
“So was she.”
“I know.” Josiah looked suddenly older. “She refused, but not as she did yesterday. I think I have nearly broken her courage, and I do not know how to give it back.”
“You cannot give it to her.”
“What can I do?”
“Believe her when she uses it.”
Josiah glanced towards the doors. “And if she cannot?”
Adrian had no answer to give him.
The musicians finished a country dance. Applause rose and faded, and conversation resumed with unnatural brightness.
Then the butler announced Lady Elise Maddox.
The room turned as one, conversation dying, as everyone waited to see if the disgraced heiress would show her face.
Elise entered first, slight and upright in iron-grey silk, her head held with the confidence of a duke’s daughter, the magnificent rubies Sir Rhys Maddox had given his wife glimmering at her throat.
Miss Pettibone followed, beaming at the company as though London had gathered for her benefit.
A ripple of indrawn breath moved ahead of them into the room.
Ophelia came last.
For one suspended moment, Adrian saw only her face.
She wore that unnaturally still expression he had seen so often in those first days at Plas Eira, the one he now recognised she wore to hide her fear. Yet her head was raised. Her gown was deep green, expensive silk but unadorned except for the gold at her wrists.
Shirin Sethna’s bangles shone beneath the chandeliers.
A whisper moved through the company like wind through grass. Ophelia heard it. Adrian saw her hear it.
She did not lower her eyes.
Lady Elise brought her to the receiving line. Lady Daventry’s gaze went straight to the bangles, and for a moment uncertainty crossed her face before her expression settled, unmistakably, into resolution.
She stepped forward.
“Miss James,” she said, clearly enough for those nearest to hear. “You are most welcome to Daventry House.”
“Thank you so much, Lady Daventry. I am deeply honoured.” Ophelia offered a respectful curtsey, and the room seemed to breathe again.
She looked across the ballroom and found him. He saw fear in her face, but he saw resolve as well. She had chosen, despite everything, to enter the light before she knew whether it would spare her.
Adrian did not rush to rescue her from the room’s attention. Instead, he gave her the same real bow he had offered in Wales when he first began to understand what it meant to see her.
Then he crossed the ballroom towards Ophelia James.