One Night for Love (36 page)

Two or three of his acquaintances had teased him with threats of matchmaking mamas setting their caps at him once more—their interest had waned a number of years ago as his age and his indifference to feminine wiles and lures had gradually outweighed the attractions of his rank and wealth and enduring good looks.

“They would be better served to keep their caps firmly tied beneath their chins,” his grace replied with languid good humor. But good nature deserted him when Mr.
Calvin Dorsey wandered up to him after Neville had led Elizabeth away to the refreshment room. The duke ignored him and engaged in a casual perusal of the room through his quizzing glass. Dorsey was his dead wife’s first cousin and heir to her father, Baron Onslow. His grace had never liked him, neither had his wife.

“Portfrey? Your servant,” Mr. Dorsey said pleasantly, sketching a careless bow. “I arrived late. But can gossip possibly have the right of it? Did the Duke of Portfrey lead the sergeant’s daughter into the opening set at the grandest squeeze of the Season?” He shook his head, chuckling. “The lengths to which some men are prepared to go in order to curry favor with their mistr—” But he cut himself off with one finger to his lips. “With their
particular friends
.”

“Congratulations, Dorsey,” his grace said without deigning to look at his companion. “You still have a talent for avoiding by half a word having a glove slapped in your face.”

Mr. Dorsey chuckled good humoredly and said nothing more for a while as he watched the patterns of the dance unfold. He was of an age with the duke, but time had been somewhat less kind to him. His once-auburn hair had grayed and thinned and he looked by far the older of the two. But he was a man of good humor and a certain charm. There were not many people to whom he spoke with a deliberately barbed tongue. The Duke of Portfrey was one of those few.

“I have been told that you called at Nuttall Grange a couple of weeks ago,” he said after a while.

“Have you?” His grace bowed to a buxom dowager with gorgeously nodding hair plumes who passed in front of them.

“A little out of the way of anywhere of any importance to you, was it not?” Mr. Dorsey asked.

For the first time the duke turned his glass on his companion before lowering it and regarding him with the naked eye.

“I may not pay my respects to my father-in-law without being quizzed by his nephew?” he asked.

“You upset him,” Mr. Dorsey said. “He is in poor health and it is my business to see that he is kept quiet.”

“Since you have been waiting for twenty years with barely concealed impatience to succeed to Onslow’s title and fortune,” his grace said with brutal bluntness, “I would have thought it more in your interest to encourage me to, ah,
upset
him, Dorsey. But you need not fear—or hope. I merely sent up my card as a courtesy since I was in the neighborhood. I neither expected nor wished to be received. There was never any love lost between Onslow’s family and my own even before Frances and I defied both with our secret marriage. There was even less after her death and my return from the West Indies.”

“Since we are into plain speaking,” Mr. Dorsey said, “you might oblige me by explaining why you were snooping around at the Grange when my uncle was too ill to send you packing.”

“Snooping?” His grace had his glass to his eye again. “Taking tea with the housekeeper is
snooping
, Dorsey? Dear me, the English language must have different meanings in Leicestershire than anywhere else I have ever been.”

“What did you want with Mrs. Ruffles?” Mr. Dorsey demanded.

“My dear fellow,” the duke said faintly. “I wished to know—I felt a burning desire to discover, in fact—how many sets of bed linen she keeps in the linen closet.”

Mr. Dorsey flushed with annoyance. “I do not like your levity, Portfrey,” he said. “And I would warn you to stay
away from my uncle in future if you know what is good for you.”

“Oh, I certainly know what is good for me,” his grace said, the languidness back in his voice. “You will excuse me, Dorsey? A pleasure to converse with one of my wife’s relatives again. It has been a long time, has it not, given the fact that we rather pointedly ignored each other at Newbury Abbey a month or so ago. One can only hope it will be at least as long again before the next time.” And he strolled away to exchange civilities with the dowager who had passed them a few minutes before.

What Mrs. Ruffles had been able to do was answer the Duke of Portfrey’s questions rather satisfactorily. She had had to think very carefully because the events about which he inquired were twenty years and more in the past. But yes, there had been a Beatrice employed at the Grange. The housekeeper particularly remembered, now she thought about it, because the girl had been dismissed for impertinence, though not to Miss Frances, if she recalled correctly. Why had she thought it might have been Frances, the duke asked. Well, Mrs. Ruffles told him, remembering clearly then, because Beatrice had been Miss Frances’s personal maid and Miss Frances had been fond of her and very annoyed with her cousin. The housekeeper had frowned in thought, Yes, that was it. It was Mr. Dorsey to whom Beatrice had been insolent, though she did not remember, probably had never known, exactly what the girl had said to him or done.

Beatrice had left Nuttall Grange a year or more—oh yes, surely more—before Miss Frances’s death, Mrs. Ruffles believed. She did not know where the maid had gone. But she had a sister still living in the village, she had added almost as an afterthought.

His grace had called upon the sister, who, once she had
recovered from the flusters and the almost incoherent babble that had succeeded them, had been able to inform him that Beatrice had gone away to stay with their aunt and had then married Private Thomas Doyle of the army, whose father had been head groom at Mr. Craddock’s estate of Leavenscourt six miles away. The Doyles had gone to India, where Beatrice had died years ago. She thought Thomas Doyle must be dead by now too. She had never heard of his coming back. Not that he would go to Leavenscourt anyway, she supposed. His dad and his brother were both dead, she had heard.

She had not heard of there having been any children born to Beatrice and Thomas.

She knew nothing of Lily Doyle, whom the Duke of Portfrey now watched intently as she danced a quadrille at the Ashton ball with Freddie Farnhope.

Lily was in a daze. She smiled and even conversed. She danced the intricate, newly learned steps without faltering. She coped with all the frightening, dizzying newness of being at a
ton
ball and of being a full participant. It had not taken her long to realize that she was not merely the anonymous companion of Lady Elizabeth Wyatt, but that everyone knew exactly who she was and had probably known even before her arrival. It had not taken her long, either, to realize that she was not going to be treated with hostility but with an indulgent, avid curiosity.

It was all a challenge, she realized, that Elizabeth had deliberately set her in the belief that she would rise to the occasion. She had not disappointed either Elizabeth or herself, she believed. She had remembered everything she had been taught, and somehow it had all worked. If she had not felt exactly at her ease, she had at least felt in command of herself.

Until she had turned her head to meet yet another gentleman who had applied to Elizabeth for an introduction—and had found herself looking at Neville.

She had been in a daze since. She was not even sure she remembered quite what had happened. He had bowed; she had curtsied. He had called her Miss Doyle—
had he
? He had never called her that before. And it had been a formal bow. He had not been smiling. She had remembered—she
believed
she had—to call him “my lord.”

They had both behaved as if they had not met before. And yet …

Mr. Farnhope said something to her, and she smiled at him and replied without giving her answer thought.

And yet there had been that night at the pool and in the cottage—that night she had relived over and over again during the past month. The memories had become more and more painful as time passed. It was all very well to steel oneself to doing what one knew must be done, she had found. One somehow assumed that the pain would pass, that time would heal. Time did not heal—not some wounds, at least.

She had dreamed the dream—the nightmare—a number of times during the past month.

She danced with Mr. Farnhope and knew that the eyes of the
ton
were on her even more intently than they had been at the start of the ball. She danced and smiled and all the while felt raw pain. Why had he come? He could not have expected to find her at tonight’s ball, of course. But why had he come to London? To acquire a special license, perhaps? For Lauren this time?

She did not wish to know. It was none of her business.

And then she remembered that she was to dance the next set with him. For the first time all evening she felt the sort of panic she had felt often at Newbury Abbey and the urge to run away. But there was no park beyond the
doors of Lady Ashton’s mansion into which to run and no forest and no beach. Besides, running away would serve no purpose except to make it impossible to come back. A lady did not run away. Neither, for that matter, did Lily Doyle. Not any longer.

He was standing with Elizabeth, she saw as the quadrille came to an end. Mr. Farnhope led her in their direction. Neville was looking extremely elegant and handsome all in black and cream and white. He was looking at her with an unsmiling, almost haughty expression. Perhaps he too was feeling the embarrassment of knowing them to be the focus of attention, though everyone was far too well bred to stare openly. He looked unfamiliar. It was hard to believe that he was the man who had once married her—Major Lord Newbury. And the same man who had made love to her in the cottage by the waterfall.

He bowed to her again and she curtsied again.

“I hope the Countess of Kilbourne is well, my lord?” she asked him.

“I thank you, yes,” he said.

“And Lauren and Gwendoline too?”

“Both well, thank you.”

She smiled and wished fervently that Elizabeth would step into the breach—she remained silent.

“I trust you are enjoying yourself … Miss Doyle?” he asked.

“Oh, exceedingly well, thank you, my lord.” Lily remembered her smile and her fan and made use of both.

“And I trust you have been seeing something of London?”

“Not a great deal yet, my lord,” she said. “I have been very busy.”

If Elizabeth only had a knife, Lily thought without a glimmering of amusement, she would surely be able to
slice the air between them. Would no one come to the rescue? And then someone did.

“Lady Elizabeth? Would you do me the honor of presenting me—again?” It was a pleasant man’s voice, and Lily turned with a grateful smile toward its owner. But she recognized him. He had been at Newbury Abbey for a few days after her arrival. He was a friend of Baron Galton, Lauren’s grandfather.

“Mr. Dorsey?” Elizabeth said. She turned to Lily. “Lily, do you remember Mr. Dorsey? Miss Doyle, sir.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Lily said, curtsying and hoping fervently that he would stay awhile and make conversation, though she was fully aware that at any moment the next sets would be forming.

“Charmed, Miss Doyle,” he said. “And charming too if I may be allowed to say so. Would you honor me with your hand for the next set?”

“It is promised to his lordship,” Lily said.

“Ah, of course.” He smiled at Neville. “How do you do, Kilbourne. Then perhaps the next?”

“The next is promised to me, Dorsey.”

Lily turned in some surprise to see that the Duke of Portfrey had come up behind her. His words had been clipped and none too politely spoken.

“And every set after that is also promised,” his grace went on to say, quite erroneously. He had not even reserved the next set but one with her.

“Lyndon—” Elizabeth began.

“Good evening, Dorsey,” the duke said in quite decisively dismissive accents.

Mr. Dorsey smiled, bowed to them all, and strolled away without another word.

“Lyndon,” Elizabeth said, “whatever possessed you to be so ill-mannered?”

“Ill-mannered, ma’am?” he said coldly. “To keep rogues away from young innocents? I am amazed that you would deem it unexceptionable to present to Miss Doyle any scoundrel who asks for the favor.”

Elizabeth was tight-lipped and pale. “And I am amazed, your grace,” she said, “that you would presume to instruct me in proper behavior. Mr. Dorsey, I recollect, was your wife’s cousin. If you have a quarrel with him, you can scarce expect that I will make it mine.”

It had been a short, sharp exchange conducted in lowered voices. It shocked and upset Lily, who felt that she had been the cause of the unexpected quarrel. It also helped quench her own indignation over the Duke of Portfrey’s presuming to speak and act on her behalf.

“Lily,” Neville said, extending his arm for hers, “the sets are forming. Shall we join one?”

For a few moments she had forgotten him. But the sets were indeed forming, and she had agreed to spend all of half an hour in his company. It was not an enticing thought. The prospect of half an hour with him when there must be a whole lifetime and a whole eternity beyond it without him was a mortal agony to her.