Anne Barbour (35 page)

With what she hoped was a regal nod, she moved to the door, feeling as though at any moment she might break into a thousand painful shards of ice.

In the sanctuary of her bedchamber, she lowered herself carefully into a chair by the fire. How could she have been so stupid as to read a declaration of love into what was obviously no more than a moment’s dalliance for the Earl of Sandborne? Even a woman so unschooled as herself should have realized that a single kiss does not a commitment make. The scene at the bottom of the staircase had been merely a pleasant interlude for Josh.

For that matter, how could she have been so stupid as to fall in love with a peer? Or with any man with eyes in his head? Many years ago, she had taken her mother’s precepts to heart. How could she have forgotten them in the presence of a pair of heart-stopping jade eyes and a smile that could melt glaciers?

Well, she had been brought to the enormity of her mistake, and she would not repeat it. If it killed her— and it very likely might—she would henceforth treat the earl with such cool courtesy that he would apprehend without difficulty that she, too, looked on that midnight kiss with nothing but a slight distaste that she had so far forgotten herself.

If, as the earl had stated, he planned to leave the Court in a short time, so much the better. She would be glad to get him out of her life so that she could begin the painful business of getting him out of her heart. Please God, he would not heed Lady Sandborne’s pleas to stay in England. She did not think she could remain at the Court while the earl courted and wed his suitable parti and produced children with her. After many more minutes of fruitless reflection, which served only to plunge her farther into a seemingly bottomless pit of misery, she rose slowly from her chair by the fire and left the room to resume her duties as Lady Sandborne’s paid companion.

IX

The day of Lord Sandborne’s Christmas ball dawned bright and clear, and the house hummed with activity. Footmen scurried to accomplish last-minute tasks, kitchen maids basted roasts and prepared sauces, and flustered abigails prepared their mistresses for the evening’s festivities. The gentlemen merely tried to stay out of the way.

A few minutes before she was due to accompany Lady Sandborne downstairs, Melody stood once more before her mirror, staring in some bemusement at her image. With the assistance of her employer’s seamstress, she had crafted her own ball gown and she was amazed at the results. She had started it some weeks ago at a time when she still wished to present herself before the earl in an ensemble that, in the words of the seamstress, would “knock any man into flinders.” The gown was simple in design, made of a dark green silk over which lay a tunic of cream-colored gauze embroidered with a border of flowers that matched the silk. Her décolletage, while modest by prevailing standards, exposed a generous mound of soft, white bosom and her hair, sans cap, had been brushed into a shining coil, piled atop her head. Polished curls fell on either side of her cheeks, almost obliterating the tracery of her scar, and amid them, she had tucked a small sprig of holly.

Melody could not believe her eyes. While not a diamond of the first water, the woman before her could certainly be classed as a semiprecious stone of good quality.

And none of it mattered two straws, she thought dismally. All her dreams of smiting the earl with a
coup de foudre
were now so much dust. She had already discovered she possessed the power to lure him into a few moments of stolen passion. Unfortunately, a fleeting pleasure was not what she wanted—even if it did look as though that was all she was going to get.

In all probability, Josh would request her hand in a dance tonight, for he would consider it part of his familial duty to propel his aunt’s companion in a turn about the floor. She would certainly accede, for it would be unpardonably rude to refuse this participation in a minor social ritual. In addition, a refusal would indicate to him her heartbreak. She would rather die than have him know of the anguish that lay concealed in her breast.

With a ragged sigh, she draped a shawl of gossamer over her shoulders and left her chamber.

In the master’s suite, Josh also stood before his mirror. In accordance with his aunt’s wishes, he had expanded his wardrobe to include a new ensemble for the ball. He was forced to admit that he felt complete to a shade, as they said over here. In fact, he should be supremely satisfied, he thought with some asperity. Tonight’s ball was the signal of the completion of his present duties as the Earl of Sandborne. He would take his position at the head of the stairs and greet visiting Westons and Weston friends. He would dance with the ladies and converse jovially with the gentlemen, and when it was all over, he would be free to shake the dust of Sandborne Court from his well-shod feet.

Yes, indeed, all had gone according to plan.

Then why was he permeated by this emptiness— this sense of destiny unfulfilled?

He plucked irritably at an invisible scrap of lint on his sleeve. He well knew the reason for his dissatisfaction, and it lay in the diminutive form of Miss Melody Fairfax. He had not left the Court and he had already begun to miss her, for he had not seen her above once or twice since their encounter at the foot of the stairs. She’d been busy with ball preparations, he supposed, as well as to attending to the needs of his guests. In addition, she’d taken to dining in her chamber. They had not even met in the music room.

He had begun to wonder of late if there was perhaps another reason for her disappearance from his life. Was it possible that she had taken snuff at his—his display of affection? She certainly hadn’t seemed to mind at the time. He shivered involuntarily at the memory of her response to his kiss.

Surely, he mused uneasily, she had not read more into the episode than he had intended. He was very fond of Melody, and he had merely been expressing that fondness. She was an attractive young woman, he told himself, at least when she allowed herself to emerge from her drab cocoon. A man could not be faulted for wanting to take her in his arms for a moment of mutual pleasure.

He snorted. Who was he trying to hornswoggle? When Melody had hurried toward him down the stairs in the candlelight, with her mahogany hair falling about her shoulders, he had been entranced. He’d intended only a brief salute, but when she returned his kiss with such sweetness and fire, he had nearly lost control. She had been all womanly curves and giving innocence and her passion had ignited his.

He wanted to believe that it was simply because he had been without a woman for so long that he had gone up like an incendiary bomb at her touch. But, deep within him, he knew better. She was different from anyone he had ever known. In a few short weeks, she had stolen into his heart and become almost as important to him as his breath. He realized with a sudden, stunning burst of clarity that the magic he had sensed on the day of his arrival had indeed come to pass—in the form of a small, unobtrusive angel. The fact was inescapable. He was in love with Melody Fairfax.

And in a few short days, he would leave her.

Was he mad? Was he turning his back on the only chance for happiness he was likely to be offered in this lifetime, simply because of a disastrous experience back when he’d been too young to know better? And because he knew it was his destiny to be forever an outsider looking in at the happiness of others?

On the other hand, he had grown so accustomed to this role that he now felt comfortable in it. He was his own man and that was how he preferred it. He relished the freedom to live his life as he saw fit, whether in the comfort of Philadelphia or in the wilds of the land along the Susquehanna.

He was still talking to himself in this vein as he left his chambers and made his way downstairs, but on an impulse, he made a detour on his way downstairs. Most of the guests had long since repaired to the ballroom, which was situated in another wing of the house; thus there was no one in the long gallery as he entered quietly. He walked slowly past the portraits, his footsteps echoing on the polished floor.

He had not been here since the morning of Aunt Helen’s tour, and now he found himself studying the faces before him with renewed interest. Hmm. He could see a definite resemblance between the Honorable Horace Weston (1732-1759) and cousin Arthur. Lady Amelia Weston, who had arrived last week from Northumberland, was the spitting image of her great-great-great-grandfather. He noted with some surprise that the second Earl of Weston (1655-1704) had been painted as he sat in a carved oaken chair that, if Josh was not mistaken, currently reposed in his study.

At last, he came to the portrait of his father and his uncles. Good God, he hadn’t had so much as a sip of Christmas punch yet, but he could swear a twinkle of kinship and understanding shone in the eyes of sixteen-year-old George.

Josh glanced back along the corridor, at the line of portraits stretching back along its length. He could almost fancy himself a leaf on the tallermost branch of a giant oak, gazing down at his roots, spread far below him. He had thought himself completely alone, he reflected in some wonderment, but he was not. Like anyone else, he was descended from a line of human beings that stretched into the mists of antiquity. Unlike many others, however, he had been granted the opportunity to know the names and appearances of his progenitors from several generations back.

He made his way from the chamber, still mulling over this concept, which had not previously occurred to him. On reaching the portal leading to the East Wing, he stopped to gaze over a swirling sea of party-goers, all of whom had donned their gayest apparel. As he moved among them, they turned to greet him and to wish him a happy Christmas.

His eyes searched the throng, but he did not perceive the one he sought. He made his way slowly upstairs into the ballroom proper, stopping at frequent intervals to exchange conversation with cousins, nieces, and friends of the family. At one point, he halted abruptly to avoid being thrown almost into the arms of Mary Weston. He turned away, feeling little inclined to endure yet another freezing set-down from Arthur’s wife. Altering course, he drifted behind a nearby potted palm just in time to catch the tail end of a conversation between her and a woman whom he recognized as a visitor from London.

“Really, Mary, my dear,” this person was cooing, “I certainly commiserate with you. It must have been dreadful for you when Arthur was virtually pushed out of the succession, all to make way for a barbarian from—where is it?—Pennsylvania or some other impossible place in the American wilderness. Only fancy,” she tittered, “an untutored savage as the Earl of Sandborne!”

Josh stiffened unconsciously into a defensive posture, awaiting Mary’s response. The next moment his jaw dropped and his eyes widened in disbelief as his cousin snapped, “Pennsylvania is not some impossible place in the American wilderness, Sarah. I’ll have you know that Philadelphia is—is a cultured city. In addition, Josh is as much of a gentleman—and more—than anyone of my acquaintance.”

Her companion’s eyes widened in shock and she sniffed audibly. With a swish of her skirts she turned away from Mary, who swung about in another direction. She thus bumped into Josh, who had moved out from behind his palm tree in order to fully absorb the genteel confrontation.

“Oh!” she gasped, startled. Then, observing Josh’s bemused countenance, she grinned sheepishly. “Sarah Bliss has always been insufferable, and you’re—well, you’re family. Besides, I have decided I may have been rather—extreme—in my previous judgment of you.”

Bobbing her head, she pushed past him, leaving Josh to stare after her, openmouthed.

“Josh! There you are.” It was Lady Sandborne, gowned in a robe of burgundy velvet. On her gray curls perched a matching turban embellished with a spray of diamonds. “Heavens, I thought you must have taken a wrong turn at the conservatory. Come with me now to receive our guests, for we must begin the dancing soon.”

Still pondering Mary’s abrupt volte-face, Josh followed his aunt to the head of the staircase, where they took up their positions. The next minutes passed in a blur of hands pressed against his and lips put against his cheek. The guests, obviously in a festive mood, expressed their pleasure at being among those present, and many of them made it a point to tell him of their happiness that he had at last come home to take his place as the head of the Weston family. To his surprise, they seemed eminently sincere in these sentiments.

It was not until almost all the ball attendees had trooped past the line composed of himself, Aunt Helen, Arthur, and Mary, that Josh saw Melody. He halted mid-sentence at his first glimpse of her, standing some distance apart. It would be too much to say that she was the center of attention, but she had gathered a small court of attentive gentlemen about her. The reason, thought Josh, stunned, was easy to perceive.

Melody was a dream of Christmas in a gown that clung lovingly to her curves. All the sparkle of the brilliants scattered over her tunic seemed to gather in her luminous gray eyes as she spoke shyly first with one and then another of her admirers.

She lifted her head under his scrutiny, and across the distance that separated them, their gazes met and held. Some of the brilliance seemed to fade from her eyes, but at last she nodded courteously before returning to the gentlemen.

My God, he thought, a curious sensation stirring within him. It was the self-effacing companion garbed in ill-fitting gowns with whom he had fallen in love, but tonight. . . His heart swelled with a pleasure that was almost painful.

“Melody is in looks, is she not?” whispered Aunt Helen. Speechless, Josh nodded.

“I’m so glad she chose to dress for the occasion,” continued his aunt. “I have been urging her for some time to come out of the—the tent of obscurity with which she has chosen to cover herself for so long.” She paused before speaking again. “And I am glad you and she seemed to have established such a, er, rapport.”

At a certain note in her voice, josh swung to look at her. The countess promptly dropped her gaze. “She is a fine young woman, Josh. I would not see her hurt.”