The Secret Mistress Read online

  “I have two of them for brothers,” Angeline said. “They are very exasperating. I love them to pieces.”

  “Lord Ferdinand Dudley is very handsome,” Maria said with what seemed to be a barely suppressed sigh.

  Miss Goddard smiled warmly.

  “I have enjoyed this,” she said. “Thank you so much for including me in your outing. But I must return home now. My aunt will be wondering what has become of me.”

  And that was the end of that. She left and it was time for them all to gather up their respective maids and make their way home.

  “Is she a bluestocking, do you suppose?” Maria asked after Miss Goddard was well out of earshot.

  “I would not be surprised,” Angeline said. “I rather like her even so.”

  “But poor lady,” Martha said, “feeling obliged to read those dreadfully dull books instead of the novels from the Minerva Press.”

  Angeline held her peace, but secretly she thought that she might try one of those books for herself the next time she went to the library.

  The excitement of her day was not over after she had sent the Marquess of Exwich on his way later in the afternoon. Half an hour after that a note arrived from Cousin Rosalie to inform her that they had been invited to take tea the following afternoon with the Marquess and Marchioness of Beckingham. They were the Earl of Heyward’s maternal grandparents, the note explained. Lord Heyward was to be there too, and Angeline must be prepared to drive in the park with him afterward, weather permitting. It would be a positive step forward in a possible courtship, Rosalie had also added, for Hyde Park was where everyone of any consequence went during the afternoon to see and be seen.

  Whose idea had all this been, Angeline wondered. His? His grandmother’s? She would wager it had not been his. But did it matter? She would see him again regardless. She would drive with him in the park, converse with him. Everyone would see them together.

  Oh, she could scarcely wait.

  She could make him fall in love with her, even if she did look like a swarthy gypsy.

  Of course she could.

  If only it did not rain.

  IT DID NOT rain. And it would not. There had been scarcely a cloud in the sky all day.

  The Earl of Heyward was the last to arrive for tea, but Angeline did not mind, as long as he did come. And he surely would. Half his family was there.

  The Marchioness of Beckingham was a small, slender lady with regal bearing, very white hair, and a long-handled lorgnette, which she used more as a baton to be waved about than as something to see through. She settled into conversation with Cousin Rosalie and Mrs. Lynd, the earl’s sister, but not before looking Angeline over from head to toe and nodding.

  “You look nothing like your mother,” she said almost as though it were a compliment. “Your face has character. And I have always envied tall ladies. I envy them even more now that I have started to sink in the opposite direction.”

  She had not called Angeline either pretty or beautiful, but her words had felt like approval.

  The marquess was tall and thin and slightly stooped and white-haired like his wife. After greeting Angeline and Rosalie, he returned to what appeared to be an engrossing discussion of politics with Mr. Lynd, who apparently was a government minister.

  The widowed Countess of Heyward, Angeline noticed with interest, sat a little apart with Cousin Leonard. They had been something of an item five years ago when the countess had made her come-out, Rosalie had told her during the carriage ride here. Then the late Lord Heyward had come along to sweep her off her feet, and Leonard had not looked at a lady since. Not in the way of marriage, anyway, even though he was now close to thirty.

  For five years Rosalie had not looked kindly upon the countess. But so many foolish young ladies fell for handsome rakes, she explained, married them, doubtless with the conviction that they could reform them, and then regretted it for the rest of their lives.

  “I do hope, Angeline,” she had said, “you will prove to have better sense than to allow that to happen to you. I am very pleased that the Earl of Heyward has shown an interest in you, despite what Tresham says.”

  The dowager countess and Viscount and Lady Overmyer, also Lord Heyward’s sister, engaged Angeline in conversation after the greetings were over, even though the viscount sat a little distance from them, having explained that he had a slight cold and did not wish to pass it on to either Lady Angeline or his mother-in-law. All three of them were flatteringly attentive to what she had to say, and all three of them complimented her on the success of her ball. The viscount expressed a hope that she had taken no permanent harm to her ankle and suggested that even now it might be wise if she kept her foot elevated whenever she was not forced to use it.

  Lord Heyward had asked her last evening if she had been prodded into encouraging his courtship, Angeline remembered. Was he being pressured by three generations of his own family into courting her? It would hardly be surprising. He was in need of a bride, Rosalie had explained to her, as there was no heir of the direct line remaining, his brother having fathered only a daughter before his untimely death. And Angeline was perhaps the most eligible young lady on the market this year.

  And then he arrived, looking wonderfully … neat in a form-fitting coat of dark green superfine, buff pantaloons, and high-topped Hessian boots, his short hair slightly tousled from his hat.

  Angeline beamed at him as he bowed to all of them, and waited impatiently while he spoke to his sister-in-law and Cousin Leonard and then to his grandmother and Cousin Rosalie and—at slightly greater length—to his grandfather and Mr. Lynd. But finally he came toward her group and actually took a seat next to his sister.

  “Communing with your own thoughts over there, are you, Christopher?” he asked the viscount.

  “I am attempting to keep my cold to myself, Edward,” his brother-in-law explained. “Ill health is my cross to bear in this life, as you know, but I try to bear it with patience and protect my fellow humans, the ladies in particular, from having to share it with me.”

  “That is admirable of you,” Lord Heyward said good-naturedly while Lady Overmyer poured him a cup of tea. “Thank you, Juliana.”

  He scarcely looked Angeline’s way for the next half hour, though he participated in the general conversation. But she did not mind. There were still no clouds in the sky.

  Finally the countess got to her feet, swiftly followed by Cousin Leonard.

  “Mother,” she said, addressing the dowager, “Lord Fenner has brought an open barouche and has invited me to drive in the park with him. Will you mind dreadfully returning home in the carriage alone?”

  “Unless you would care to come with us, ma’am?” Cousin Leonard asked politely.

  “One can be exposed to too much sunshine in an open carriage,” the dowager said, smiling graciously from one to the other of them, “and I did not bring a parasol with me. Thank you, Lord Fenner, but I will return home in the comfort of my own carriage. Edward was kind enough to bring it to London for me from Wimsbury Abbey. You go and enjoy yourself, Lorraine.”

  It was the Earl of Heyward’s cue, it seemed.

  “Lady Angeline,” he said, getting to his feet and looking directly at her at last, “would you give me the pleasure of driving you too in the park? I have the curricle with me.”

  A curricle. Angeline had never ridden in one, since they were not vehicles much used in the country. But she thought them quite the most dashing of vehicles even if they could kill people who did not drive them with the proper care and attention. She would wager Lord Heyward was far from being a careless or inattentive driver.

  She smiled brightly.

  “What a splendid idea,” she said. “Thank you, Lord Heyward. I would like it of all things. May I, Cousin Rosalie?”

  Rosalie inclined her head.

  “You must be careful not to drive too fast, Edward,” Viscount Overmyer said, “even if the air does appear to be warm today. It is not warm when one is travelin
g at any speed. And you would not wish to cause Lady Angeline a chill.”

  “Thank you, Christopher,” Lord Heyward said. “I shall keep that advice in mind if I should feel the sudden urge to spring the horses.”

  Angeline almost laughed aloud. But she might hurt the feelings of the viscount, who had spoken in earnest and was concerned for her health.

  “Thank you, Lord Overmyer,” she said, smiling at him. “But I trust Lord Heyward to keep my best interests at heart at every moment.”

  “It is one of Edward’s most admirable traits,” his sister said. “He is utterly trustworthy, Lady Angeline.”

  “We will leave now,” Lord Heyward said, “before I am elevated to sainthood.”

  And he bent to kiss his grandmother’s cheek.

  Chapter 9

  HE FELT THAT he was making a grand public statement, Edward thought uneasily.

  Engage a lady for two sets at her come-out ball, including the first, sit with her at supper, and then, two days later, on a perfect spring afternoon when absolutely everyone would be out, drive her in the park—on the high seat of a spanking new curricle.

  Add a large, wide-brimmed bonnet in varying shades of green and orange—and not subtle shades at that—laden with artificial fruit and flowers and ribbons and bows and Lord knew what other bells and whistles, and a dazzlingly smiling face below it, and a mobile mouth, and a hand that waved to everyone and his dog—yes, she did indeed wave to a little fluff of a mutt, which was prancing along the pedestrian path with its mistress, its stub of a tail adorned with a blue ribbon bow.

  He might as well be done with the whole business and put an engagement notice in tomorrow’s papers. He might as well get the wedding invitations made up and sent out. He might as well book St. George’s on Hanover Square for the ceremony and plan the wedding breakfast. He might as well start fitting out his nursery.

  “Is this not all absolutely wonderful?” Lady Angeline Dudley said as he drove through the crowd of carriages and horses that made the fashionable afternoon loop in Hyde Park.

  Or drove with the crowd would be a more accurate description. It was impossible to move at a faster pace than the slowest of the vehicles ahead of him, and that was very slow indeed. Speed was not the purpose of an afternoon drive in the park, of course. Neither was getting somewhere—hence the circular nature of the drive. One came to be sociable, to mingle with one’s peers, to hear the newest gossip, to pass along something even newer if one was fortunate enough to have heard anything suitably salacious. One came to see who was with whom and, sometimes, who was not with whom.

  One came, sometimes, to make a statement. Sometimes one made a statement even when one did not wish to do anything of the kind, when one wished, in fact, to do the absolute opposite.

  Sometimes one could wish one’s female relatives in perdition.

  “It is your first drive in the park?” he asked.

  She had ridden on Rotten Row, of course, at least once, but that was a different matter entirely.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Neither Tresham nor Rosalie would allow me to come here before I was out, and yesterday Rosalie insisted that I rest. I went to Hookham’s Library, though. Oh, I met Miss Goddard there, and we went to a tearoom together and talked for a whole hour. And the Marquess of Exwich called at Dudley House in the afternoon. He came to offer me marriage, the silly man. Oh, there is … what is his name? He was my third partner last evening. Sir Timothy Bixby, that is it. The lady with him danced once with Ferdinand. I cannot—How do you do?” She had raised her voice.

  They stopped for a few moments to exchange pleasantries with Bixby and Miss Coleman.

  Exwich, Edward thought. He must be fifty if he was a day. He had been married how many times? Two? Three? And he had how many children? Six? Eight? Eighteen? All girls, apparently.

  “Did you accept?” he asked as they drove on.

  She looked blankly at him for a moment and then smiled broadly.

  “Lord Exwich?” she said. “Oh, no. He wears corsets.”

  Which was, apparently, reason enough to refuse his marriage offer. And perhaps it was too.

  She had taken tea with Eunice? He still had not called on her himself.

  It took them an hour to make the circuit. Virtually everyone there, of course, had also been at Tresham’s ball, so everyone must be greeted and everyone’s health must be inquired after, and everyone must be reminded of what a beautiful day it was in case they had not noticed for themselves.

  And everyone looked with open speculation from Edward to Lady Angeline and back again. Two men of his acquaintance actually winked at him.

  “You must be ready to return home,” he said at last. “I will—”

  “Oh, no.” She turned a dismayed face his way. “It cannot be time to leave already. We have seen scarcely anything of the park.”

  Did she not know that one was not meant to? Hyde Park was vast. The fashionable oval was not.

  “You would like to drive for a little longer?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes, please,” she said. “But can we find a less crowded area?”

  “But certainly,” he said, drawing his curricle free of the crowds and turning down a quiet avenue away from the park gates rather than toward them.

  In full view of half the ton.

  This was becoming a statement with full fanfare.

  He might as well send out invitations to the first christening party.

  She raised a parasol above her head—it was an apricot color to match her muslin dress—though what function it could possibly serve given the size of her bonnet he did not know.

  “Lord Heyward,” she asked him, “are you being coerced into courting me?”

  He turned his head to frown down at her.

  “Coerced?” he said.

  “I suppose it is the wrong word,” she said. “No one could coerce you into doing anything you did not wish to do. But are you being … persuaded, pressured into courting me?”

  He had asked her a similar question two evenings ago and she had denied it. Now he understood why. Good Lord, it was not a question he wished to answer.

  “You refer to my grandmother and my mother and sisters?” he said. “They are like female relatives everywhere, I suppose. They wish to see me happily settled. They wish to see the succession happily settled. They are eager to pick out all the most eligible young ladies for me, on the assumption that I am quite incapable of doing it for myself.”

  “And I am an eligible young lady?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “Probably the most eligible.”

  Two children were chasing after a ball on the wide lawn to one side of the path. A lady sat on the grass some distance away from them. Apart from them there was no one in sight.

  “And if you had the choosing,” she said, “without any necessity of pleasing your relatives, would you choose someone ineligible? Or less eligible?”

  Oh, Lord.

  “Lady Angeline,” he said, “I consider this a quite inappropriate topic of conversation.”

  She twirled her parasol and laughed.

  “You would never choose anyone ineligible,” she said. “You are a very proper gentleman. You are devoted to doing your duty. You would never follow your heart rather than your head. You would never do anything impulsive. No one would ever find you up a tree while an angry bull prowled about the trunk below.”

  “I am, yes, a dull dog,” he said, hearing with dismay the irritation in his voice. “It is time I took you home.”

  “But it is not dull,” she said, “to be proper and dutiful and to act with considered judgment. It is not dull to be a gentleman. And must we go home? When everything about us is so lovely and I am having my first ever ride in a curricle and loving it? How do you like my bonnet?”

  She lowered her parasol as he turned to look at it.

  “It is one of the thirteen?” he asked.

  “Number eight,” she said. “And actually it is fourteen. I count
ed them yesterday and there was one more than I remembered.”

  “I thought,” he said, “that you bought each new bonnet because it was prettier than the one before. Why, then, are you wearing number eight instead of number fourteen?”

  She grinned at him.

  “I said it for something to say,” she said. “I often do that. I love all my bonnets—except perhaps the pink one. I bought it because I loved the shade of pink and still do. But it is virtually unadorned. It is boring. I shall have to do something about it if I am ever to wear it. And it would be a horrid waste of money if I never did wear it after all, would it not? You have not answered my question. I suppose you are too polite to tell me the bonnet is atrocious. My brothers are not so tactful.”

  “Is my good opinion so important to you, then?” he asked her.

  She considered.

  “No,” she said. “I have always had dreadful taste in clothes. I concentrate most of it upon my bonnets. Sometimes I take advice with dresses and other garments. And sometimes not. But I always choose my own hats.”

  “Who told you you have dreadful taste?” he asked her.

  “Apart from my brothers? Oh, everyone. My governesses—every one of them.” She looked for one moment as if she would raise her parasol again, but she changed her mind and rested it across her lap. “My mother.”

  And he understood something about her in a flash—something he did not really want to know. Somewhere beneath the bright, noisy dazzle that was Lady Angeline Dudley there was a vulnerability. Perhaps even a massive one.

  When she had said my mother, she had almost whispered the words.

  Her mother had told her she had bad taste? Her mother, who had been so exquisitely beautiful herself and who had had exquisite taste in dress? Edward remembered her. But how could anyone not remember her once he had set eyes upon her?