Love in disguise, p.18
Love in Disguise, page 18
She hardly had to, for though he’d no awareness of drawing back again, he’d done so too in that moment, before she’d ever spoken. For he’d been jolted back by a sudden thought before his lips had even grazed against hers. He’d not remembered his manners, or that he was her host, or any proper thing he was supposed to. Instead, all that he’d done all through the night had come back to him in brilliantly clear obscene images and full force. Then he’d withdrawn instantly, as if even unthinkingly he hadn’t wanted to sully her with his lips, with his hands, not this lovely trusting girl, not now after all that he’d so lately done. Only after he’d pulled his head back did he hear her exclamation of horror. Then he stood stiffly still, after drawing in his breath as though she’d stabbed him, and watched her with opaque eyes.
She said nothing more at first, but stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. After a few silent seconds she recovered herself and tried to explain her cry, appalled to recognize it as insult, but he, after that moment, said gently, in a quiet, consoling voice, “It’s very late. Odd things happen at this hour. Things will look better in the morning, or so my nurse always said, though personally I always found they just looked clearer, perhaps because of all the light. You’re very weary, so am I, go to sleep now and we’ll talk it over, all of us, then.”
She said nothing more than good night to him, and went directly up the stair to her room, as he’d asked. He saw her safely there and then went slowly to his own rooms. Then he sank to his bed, his head in his hands, and congratulated himself bitterly, remembering the shock in her eyes when he’d drawn close. “Well done, Goblin,” he muttered. In the midst of his self-loathing he realized that naturally he’d found relief tonight where he’d sought it, but obviously, no surcease where it was needful, for he could never be allowed that, of course.
And after she’d closed her door, Susannah closed her eyes in embarrassment, as she finally realized what she ought to have noticed despite her own preferences, or his own kindnesses. Now, too late, she was aware at last that whatever else her host was, he was, of course, what she’d entirely forgotten or ignored: a man.
10
It rained in the early morning after the Swansons’ ball, and the next day dawned cool and gusty. No one who’d been there was surprised, fewer still were disappointed, and a great many people never noticed it at all. The warm heavy dampness resolving itself into cleansing rain lifted spirits rather than depressing them. The servants who had to clean up after the affair were just as glad that it wasn’t a balmy spring day they were missing, and most of the noble guests poked their noses out of their covers, and feeling the chill in the air, decided to sleep the rest of the day away.
But Warwick Jones was in his small dining room taking coffee with his newspaper at his usual hour just as though he’d been to bed as early as a deacon, although his guest thought his heavy eyelids drooped a bit lower and his usually olive complexion was a shade lighter. She didn’t have an opportunity to study him long, for almost as soon as she set a silent foot into the salon, he looked up at her. She hadn’t the time to read the expression in those dark blue eyes before she dropped her own gaze and made her way to her seat, murmuring her good morning as stiltedly and awkwardly as though, she thought in disgust, when she’d heard herself, she’d just dropped a pitcher of milk in his lap and not a curtsy in his direction.
But there was no one else at breakfast as yet, and so as soon as the butler had left the room and the footman bearing a pitcher of cream had gone to refill it, she spoke.
“I have to explain and apologize to you,” she began hurriedly, speaking even faster when she saw his surprise, registered by an uplifted brow and his coffee cup suspended in air. “I never meant to insult you, indeed, I’m very grateful to you for comforting me when I was so wretchedly unhappy last night, and you never actually, ah, did anything, ah, to me, so I believe I was only extra sensitive and being absurd and foolish and—”
“What a lot of rubbish,” her host commented pleasantly, putting his cup down in its saucer at last, and cutting across her hasty speech in laconic but clearly audible tones. “I believe I’ll stop it now, although I’ll admit I’m curious to hear what other abuse you can heap upon yourself, ‘absurd’ and ‘foolish’ being, I perceive, only an introduction to a more comprehensive list of your faults, but Mr. Fox is fleet-footed and I’m positive he’ll return before you’re done, and I do want to have my say before my toast grows cold. But no, my dear, there was nothing irregular in your behavior at all. I may not have ‘done’ anything precisely, but you’re entirely right in what you imagined I planned to do, and so entirely correct in your refusal to be party to it. Some religious persons hold that the thought is equal to the deed, only it’s not half so much fun, I’d say. In fact”—he paused and seemed to ponder, his head tilted in thought, before he went on—“if I thought that were the case, I believe I’d go ahead and do everything I thought straightaway, since it would eventually be weighted equally in the eyes of the Creator. I suppose,” he mused, “that’s just what I’ve been doing all my life anyway. But I digress,” he said calmly, looking at her expression of incredulity with amusement.
“And I apologize to you, Miss Logan, for a gentleman ought not to force his attentions on an unwilling female of any sort, not to mention one that is his guest, as well as a friend he’s supposedly comforting. I hope I don’t presume in that as well—saying that we are friends,” he prompted, seeing her confusion, “and I do hope we shall be able to remain friends. And I promise not to repeat the episode.”
“But of course we’re friends, at least I’d be proud to think that we are,” Susannah said at once, “and I still think I was being missish and you don’t have to make any such promise, or any promises at all, really, because I know it was late, and you were only trying to comfort me.”
“And I was foxed and you were mistaken and I was so weary I only wanted to rest my lips against yours and it was merely a trick of the light and a thousand other polite lies, yes,” he said with infinite weariness, “yes, I see, but thank you,” he added with something like amusement in his voice, “for refusing my promise of future good behavior. It lifts my spirits—there’s nothing like having something naughty to look forward to for cheering a fellow up… Ah, good morning, Julian, Contessa, you come in perfect time to prevent Susannah from straying from the paths of righteousness. The marmalade must have been left to ferment too long, she’s making all sorts of rash statements this morning.”
“I’m the one who strayed, Warwick,” Julian said as he slid into his chair, and sighing, added, “and you can’t know how sorry I am, forgive me, Susannah,” looking at her with such contrition in his clear light eyes that she would have forgiven him anything, even the fact that he’d deserted her the previous night, as he now asked her to do.
“It never occurred to me,” he explained to Warwick, as soon as she’d protested there was nothing to forgive, “that she’d be left alone, how was I to know everyone would behave like such a pack of dunces? She was clearly the prettiest one there,” he went on, as Susannah thought: Ah yes, but your lady was the loveliest one, wasn’t she?—“and I expected her to be surrounded by admirers. But Bly and Bessacarr left early, and Leith was in a snit over something some chit said to him, and cut out as soon as he could too. In fact, a great many other fellows made a run for it as the ballroom heated up. Swanson must have been trying to hatch eggs as well as get his filly popped off.”
“It was certainly a tropical atmosphere,” the contessa put in, as she steadily spooned her eggs, “and a great many gentlemen did leave because of it. But I believe the difficulty lay in what was said within the ballroom by those who remained, and not in what was not said by those who left it early.”
“Indeed?” Warwick said with great interest, looking at the contessa with sudden interest just as his two guests were, but not displaying shock at her sudden loquaciousness as they were.
“Yes,” the contessa continued, meeting his gaze with equanimity, “so I believe, because it’s the lot as well as the duty of a chaperon to listen to what’s being said along the sidelines. Unfortunately,” she said, with something very like real unhappiness fleeting across her usually pleasant round face, “there was a great deal of talk about Miss Logan’s circumstances, actually about her family, you understand. That talk was couched in such derisive terms that it would’ve been a very brave gentleman who asked her to dance, for had he done so after having heard it, he would’ve felt he looked like a fortune hunter, or so I believe.”
“I see,” Warwick said thoughtfully, as Julian, leaning forward, asked quietly, if a bit bitterly, “And I suppose, having come in with her, and my financial state being well-known, I was looked upon as one of those fortune hunters?”
The contessa dropped her mild gaze to her plate again. “It was not Miss Logan whose name was linked with yours, my lord,” she replied with great care, avoiding a direct answer to his direct question.
“Oh well,” the viscount said with great false humor, shaking his golden head in rue, “then it’s only Lady Marianna’s fortune they think I’m after. I should be pleased—half a rogue is better than one, I suppose.”
“Interesting,” Warwick said, refusing to so much as smile at his friend’s pun. “And I?”
The contessa didn’t attempt to misunderstand him, since it seemed to the others that the lady found it easier to speak with him than to anyone else in the household. Although Julian always jested with her, it might have been the combination of his title and radiant good looks that accounted for her continued self-consciousness in his presence. Her formality with Susannah may have been caused by her outsize sense of duty, for she evidently took her responsibilities very seriously and so took great care with what she said to her charge, despite all of Susannah’s efforts to get her to be more natural with her. It might have been that Warwick had an undeniable way with people, as Julian claimed, but it was actually because he’d sought her out when she’d first come to his house and spoken with her at length then, to learn what he could of her and put her at her ease. Neither Julian nor Susannah knew this, but Julian at least, knowing his friend for so long, wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it. If he had, he’d have said it was precisely Warwick’s way, since Warwick always swore he found people even more fascinating than books, while he also always vowed there was little in life as interesting as books.
“You, Mr. Jones,” the contessa said, a rare real smile gathering on her lips as she spoke, “are acknowledged to be a mischievous gentleman. And so little that you do is held to be remarkable.”
“Wonderful,” Warwick said comfortably, contemplating a biscuit he was slathering with preserves. “Now I may go out and commit mass murder and not cause any chatter. But,” he added over all their laughter, as he noted the footman’s hand shaking more than his tightly compressed lips were while he poured a crooked stream of coffee into his cup, “I’d rather they didn’t say anything about any of you either. It’s interesting that I, who don’t give a damn—excuse me, Contessa (no, I won’t apologize to you, Susannah, you’ve given me leave to do wickedness),” he said blithely, before he went on, “I, who don’t care what they say of me, am free of censure, while Susannah, who’s blameless, and Julian, whose only sin is temporary insolvency, are so maligned. Interesting, interesting, but wrong. I think we ought to set about righting it, don’t you?”
The first thing to do, they decided, once the cups and plates were cleared from the table and they sat around it like generals plotting tactics against Napoleon, rather than three young persons and a chaperon plotting the overthrow of the social code, was to be sure they were most in sight. After all, as the contessa agreed, it is easier to gossip about persons one does not see than about persons one runs into all the time. Absence made tongues wag faster, she commented ruefully, causing the company to recall that having eloped with a foreigner, she had in her time been the object of a great deal more gossip than they could imagine, since it was easier to say dreadful things about persons one didn’t expect to have to face again the following day. Or, as Warwick put it succinctly, as Susannah giggled and Julian winced, “In society, obviously, familiarity breeds content.”
If they weren’t going to be invited to ton parties, Warwick decreed, they’d go to the theaters, the operas, the dog shows, or wherever else polite society went, in order to keep themselves clearly before the ton’s wide watchful eye. And, as Julian said with a grin, he and Warwick could certainly go to other sorts of entertainments in low society as well, where they might see the gentlemen of high society. When Susannah looked put out at that, and said pettishly that not only was that unfair, it was likely immoral, Warwick replied, “Boxing matches immoral?” in the loftiest tones, even as Julian looked insulted and said that cockfights might not be humane, but they were scarcely immoral. Then when Susannah flushed so rosily that she looked sunstruck, both gentlemen began laughing and Warwick said he thought it was very generous of them to sacrifice their fair bodies in her cause, and Julian added that it was positively brave as well, before the contessa shushed them, if not for the sake of propriety, for the sake of her charge’s complexion, which was growing more brightly red by the second.
“Eventually,” Warwick said, when order had been restored, “our very accessibility will do the trick, and if you are seen everywhere, doubtless you will be invited everywhere as well. I can’t promise you Almack’s, child,” he told Susannah gently, “because I don’t work miracles, only possibles, but it’s possible to be accepted into society even without admission to that august and overrated social club, as any number of good people can tell you. One of my friends who is no less than a duke, and pious to the point of boredom now that he’s married and given up his youthful indiscretions, is still not admitted there. Or so, at least, I think he isn’t, because being an intelligent fellow, the Duke of Torquay would, I think, rather have his foot surgically removed from his leg entirely than set it over their threshold even now.”
“But, Warwick,” Julian said slowly, “although I don’t doubt that eventually a viscount turned coachman might come to be considered amusing rather than scandalous, and a young woman of beauty and wealth might be admitted to their ranks because it seemed she’d already been, don’t forget that Lord Moredon’s a fixture in society and will be best pleased if we’re not. He’ll try to throw trouble in our path.”
“I understand Lord Moredon is about as popular now as a recurrence of the Black Death, wouldn’t you say, Contessa?” Warwick asked.
“No, actually, a little less so, sir,” the lady replied thoughtfully.
As Warwick grinned and rose, saying that they all should be in readiness to go to the theater that night, Susannah also stood, but she sprang from her chair and then spoke up abruptly. She’d kept to a brooding silence for a long time, or at least for longer than she usually did, and was obviously very grieved.
“No, I think I’d rather not,” she blurted, and when they all stopped to stare at her, she explained. “Everyone’s been wonderful to me. Everyone here, that is,” she said at once, “but although I know it’s meant as kindness, I see that this is coming to be foolishness itself. Oh, I’ll admit I once had certain dreams, but this is reality and I believe I’ve had enough of it. And if I have, why then, why should you all put yourselves out so much and open yourselves to insult, and all for the sake of thrusting someone into a society that doesn’t want her? Especially when she doesn’t want them, no, really, not anymore.”
Warwick began to reply, with great reasonableness, that it was because he had nothing better to do, when Julian stood and took both of Susannah’s hands in his.
“Believe me, I only wish I were that noble,” he said sincerely as he gazed down into her troubled eyes, “but it isn’t all for you, you know. I have very good reasons for wanting to be acceptable too, since the one I want so much is so much a part of that world that I couldn’t ask her to leave it even if I should ever succeed with my wildest dreams. My helping you will help me as well, and I thought that you wanted to help me too.”
Warwick found Susannah’s expression so painfully stripped of artifice that he had to look away, but Julian was pleased her face was so transparent a key to her emotions, thinking he’d convinced her and that all the pain and sorrow he saw were sympathy and concern for himself and his plight.
“Of course,” she said, glad to be the object of his searching gaze even if it seemed he never actually saw her, even though this rare moment of having his complete attention turned her hands to ice, then caused them to burn, and made her breath quicken. “Of course,” she said, “I’m not so selfish. I’d only forgotten,” and then, to his mildly astonished expression, she explained, “I was so wrapped up in myself, you see.”
They parted then, and while Susannah went to cool her cheeks and hide her confusion in a book, Julian went off whistling, pleased that he’d been the one to convince her to persevere for her own sake, as well as his. Then he set out to discover if there were a way he might compound his luck this day and lure his lady to the theater this night as well. And Warwick, although knowing that his box at Drury Lane was free for the night, still said he was going to see about tickets, for he needed to get clear of his house to clear his head. Because even though all his suggestions had been taken and all his plans adopted, he was strangely subdued.
His butler noted it, but handed his master his hat and helped him on with his greatcoat without a word of inquiry about it. Not only would the query have been presumptuous (for it was not his place to ask such, even after seven years of service with his master), but having known Mr. Jones ever since he’d set up his bachelor establishment, he reasoned that since his employer often wore a melancholic expression, it was often difficult to say if he were lost in thought or sincerely troubled.
