CHAPTER TEN #2
‘No, oh no. You dance very well, as I have discovered, sir.’ She put out her hand to lay upon his arm, and looked up at the still frowning countenance.
‘If you wear that expression, Sir Lucius, it will be said it is you who are unwilling to dance.’ She tried to make the comment light, 136but even as she said it the grey eyes seemed to draw her in, and as he took her in hold they made a peculiarly sombre couple.
It was only upon later reflection that she realised how conscious she had been of his guiding hand in the small of her back, of the light grasp of his long fingers. She could not drop her gaze.
‘Why do I get the feeling that I disappoint you, Sir Lucius?’
‘Disappoint me?’ He sounded taken aback.
‘Yes, sir. When you look at me it is as if you find fault.’
The frown deepened, and for a moment of silence Elizabeth thought it anger. When he answered, it was in a dazed whisper. ‘I can find no fault, no fault whatsoever.’
It was not flattery, not flowery compliment. She felt slightly dizzy, and if she told herself that it was the twirl of the dance, it was a falsehood. She blinked at him. ‘I … You found fault with me when you saw me riding, and when I was with Lord Collingbourne.’
‘No, in either case. I found fault in the beast upon which you were mounted, as you did yourself, and with Lord Collingbourne … No fault lay with you.’
She processed this information as they swirled, so effortlessly that she almost forgot they were moving at all. ‘You object to my acquaintanceship with Lord Easby.’
‘I have no right to “object”, ma’am.’
‘No, you do not, Sir Lucius,’ she retorted swiftly, and then sighed. Why did it always end with them at daggers drawn? There was silence for several revolutions.
‘Miss Ashling, my “objection”, if you wish to term it thus, was to you being taught to drive by a man whose 137skills are inadequate to the task.’ He paused.
‘And, I admit, because Lord Easby is not a man whom ladies have ever had cause to trust. Forgive me speaking so boldly, but I have been upon the Town a good many years, and you … are far less experienced.’ He sounded sincere.
Her anger dissipated, and she felt her cheeks flush.
‘You think me censorious, ma’am, but be assured I only wish …
’ He stopped. How could he tell her he wished for her happiness when it had been he who, however much he had retracted the term on an instant, had set her up to be beset by unwanted suitors?
How could he tell her that he wished for something else that, at this moment, he did not comprehend within himself?
‘Wish what, Sir Lucius?’ It was barely a whisper, scarcely audible over the scrape of the violins, more lip-read than heard.
He swallowed. ‘I only wish to be of service.’
It was so much more than he had intended to say, and so much less than he felt.
‘I see.’ She did not. There were undercurrents, and such things dragged one down into the depths of Charybdis, so she tried to ignore them.
‘Then you might serve me by telling me what you think of Lady Godmanchester’s grey mare.
I will be in the park early tomorrow. You are, as I hear from all sides, the connoisseur of horseflesh, and I would hate to find myself as poor a judge of a horse as I am, apparently, of men. ’
She had said it light-heartedly, but her last words brought a stiffness to her that he felt within his grasp.
The music had reached the concluding phrases, they were finishing 138the formalities of the dance, walking from the floor, and without thinking, he was guiding her to the supper room.
She made no demur, and Mr Escott, who had watched their dancing in growing indignation, entertained positively murderous thoughts in his head.
Not normally of a bellicose disposition, Mr Escott was being assailed by strong emotions, the mildest of which was a burgeoning desire to plant Sir Lucius a facer.
The fact that he had proved a dismal pugilist at school was temporarily forgotten in this desire, which might have overpowered him had he not retained just enough sense of his surroundings to recognise that to brawl in Lady Manningham’s drawing rooms would be a solecism so great that people would assume he was wildly inebriated, or mad as Bedlam.
Either was social suicide. The trouble was that Miss Ashling, his Muse, without whom he just knew his inspiration would wither, was being kept from him by the wicked Sir Lucius, a man with no poetry in his soul, a man who saw beauty only in terms of four legs and good conformation.
This Philistine was out to destroy him, and indeed his anger over the sight of Miss Ashling whirling round the room with him had already wiped away some very promising couplets about Miss Ashling dancing, ‘Terpsichore in Mayfair’, from his head.
Had it not taken him a considerable time to create the careful disorder of his gleaming locks, he would have run his hands through his hair in distraction.
He did, however, manage to make himself hyperventilate to the point where the room began to spin, and he felt a little faint.
He groped his way to a chair and sat down heavily upon it.
139He was not the only interested observer.
Lady Godmanchester, in whose bosom the horse purchase had raised hopes for her friend, had watched the couple closely.
Her feminine intuition told her that matters stood as yet in flux, but that neither was impervious to the other.
She certainly did not detect any animosity in their body language, nor sign of quarrel.
Her husband understood Sir Lucius as she could not, but discussing such things would, at this stage, bring down a charge of being fancifully romantic.
Men were such doubting Thomases, demanding physical proof where a woman trusted instinct.
She thought Elizabeth’s resolve to keep gentlemen at a distance was crumbling, which would alarm her and make her withdraw as much as possible.
She hoped Sir Lucius had the intelligence to make allowances for this, and help her dismantle her defences.
Aware of the gossip, but unwilling to broach her concerns with her friend, she also hoped that the Earl of Easby was not using the breach for his own less honourable ends.
Three years’ experience of London society had given Lady Godmanchester knowledge that Miss Ashling, with not even one full Season behind her, could not hope to possess, for all her natural intelligence and good sense.
The Earl of Easby was, in her ladyship’s opinion, both dangerous and unpleasant.
She could not see how Elizabeth could be blind to his faults, but, from all that Elizabeth said, knew that any remonstration on her part would be regarded as paying too much attention to the old tabbies.
He was, Elizabeth had assured her several times, not interested in her and was simply a friend.
It was Helen Godmanchester’s firm belief that there was nothing 140at all simple about Lord Easby, and that the concept of ‘friendship’ with a woman was alien to him.
The object of her disapprobation had also taken note of the last waltz.
Lord Easby had been dancing with another young woman, a chattering blonde with the faintest hint of a lisp.
The lady found him a little distant, since he was focusing upon what he could detect as he manoeuvred his partner closer to Sir Lucius and Elizabeth.
What he saw gave him pause for thought. Whilst he still refused to see Radstock as a serious rival, if the man’s word grew to have weight with the chit, he might yet ruin at the least a promising seduction.
He himself would have to make some slight alterations to his plans in order to negate this threat, but he was confident that it was quite within his powers.
After all, the dismally reputable Sir Lucius would only use fair means to achieve his aim, and he was not similarly constrained.
In fact, it might even add a little extra spice to the whole thing.