The Duke's Messenger (2 page)

Nell was among the first couples led onto the mirror-polished floor. Her escort in this significant event, Rowland Fiennes, Lord Foxhall, was recognized with varying degrees of dismay by many a young lady and many an ambitious mama.

Lord Foxhall had been the prime catch of five Seasons. He was handsome as the sunrise — which in fact he somewhat resembled, being golden of hair and rosy of complexion. Dressed in a superlatively cut black coat and black satin knee breeches, he placed Elinor Aspinall’s hand firmly on his forearm and stepped onto the floor as the musicians bowed the opening notes of a mazurka.

Watching Nell, Lady Sanford was distressed. Her dismay was not caused by the sight of Foxhall dancing with Nell. It was, on the contrary, directly a result of the impact on Phrynie’s sensibilities of the expression on Nell’s face. To give the girl credit, she was behaving with impeccable decorum. But a knowledgeable eye would detect Nell’s too intense concentration on her partner.

Phrynie’s eye was not the only discerning one. Darnford spoke quietly in her ear. “Too bad your child has developed a
tendre
in that direction, my dear, for you know he is bound hand and foot to the Freeland.”

“Nell is not a fool, Darnford,” retorted Phrynie. “He could do much better, you know, than that vinegar-faced ape leader.”

“Dear me,” he drawled, “such unwarranted heat! Ape leader?”

Phrynie was greatly irritated. “If Penelope Freeland hasn’t dragged Foxhall to the altar in five years, then it is likely he is not quite so firmly tethered as you believe.”

“I wonder…” mused Darnford. “You can’t think she is still hanging out for that fellow Whern, now that he’s got the title?”

“I care not in the least degree,” said Phrynie peevishly. “I simply want Nell happy.”

Nell was, to put it simply, ecstatic. Excessively aware of Rowland’s fingers clasping hers delicately and completely
comme
il
faut
, she felt a trembling that reached as far as her toes. She breathed in the fresh violet scent of his shaving soap, and thought it the most delightful aroma she had ever known. Even the intimacy of thinking of such a private rite as the removal of whiskers from a masculine face shook her until she feared she would blush most dreadfully.

“The weather has turned chilly, has it not?” remarked the Paragon.

“Of a certainty,” responded the lady.

Conversation lapsed. Nell finally lifted her magnificent eyes to Rowland. This was of course not the first time she had danced with Lord Foxhall. Indeed, she had spent one or two pleasant hours with him, if not alone, then at least in a tête-à-tête a bit removed from the company. A certain picnic at Richmond shimmered delightfully in her recollection.

But this evening seemed subtly different. To be his first partner of the evening surely meant he liked her, a little?

She had quite simply been stunned by her first sight of the striking Lord Foxhall. All of six months ago, that had been, and the presence of the unbelievably handsome Rowland Fiennes in her dreams, waking or sleeping, had vanquished any hope nourished by Nigel Whitley or any other serious swain.

How very handsome Rowland was! His features, distinguished by their resemblance to a head carved on an old Greek coin, were to be endlessly admired. His elegant figure was superlatively graceful, owing little to his tailor, and indeed he was fortunate enough, Nell thought, to possess no flaws whatever!

However, Nell could distinguish fact from fancy. She was well aware that Lord Foxhall was a cut above her, even though her breeding was as good as his. It was simply that he was kind to her, and so handsome that she was drawn to him, moth to candle.

Many another lady had swooned over Lord Foxhall, and yet the heir to an earldom had remained immune to all the wiles, subtle and not so subtle, that had been practiced on him. How could Nell be so rash as to think that she had a chance to snare this very elusive prey?

But he had in fact given her very discreet indications that she pleased him, and Nell was caught between two poles. At moments she thought that he was indeed fond of her, and the next moment she succeeded in convincing herself that he was simply an accomplished man of society, treating her with the same civility he would bestow on a cousin!

Nell stole a glance at the other dancers. Penelope Freeland was dancing with Charles Inwood, but her eyes were on Nell, burning across the distance between them, and their message was entirely clear. She wished Nell at the antipodes, and that, as speedily as her own guardian angel could arrange it.

The dance, all too soon for Nell, came to an end. Just before he led her back to her aunt, who was sitting with Darnford along the wall, Rowland bent to murmur in her ear, “Miss Aspinall, I shall hope to have the first waltz with you. At that time, I should like to say something very particular to you.”

Nell smothered an exclamation. She was oblivious to her aunt’s obvious curiosity and Darnford’s odd glance.

HE wished to say something
very
particular
…!

Chapter Two

Nell was forced to set her rosy speculations aside, for many dances were played before the old-fashioned duchess allowed a waltz. Even in 1814, a most advanced year, the waltz was far from accepted by the older members of society. It had taken dignified Tsar Alexander and the vivacious Countess Lieven to lend their
cachet
to the Austrian importation by tripping it gaily at Almack’s five months before. Only then had society as a whole believed it proper.

After all, it was hardly the thing for a man to place his arm around the waist of an unmarried woman, the Duchess of Netwick pointed out. “In my day,” she said inaccurately, “a gentleman would expect to be horsewhipped for taking such liberties, and rightly, too. I recall my own brother calling out young Whern for something much more trivial.”

“Young Whern?” said someone in the duchess’s circle, as he idly watched the excessively handsome couple now on the floor. “Foxhall, wasn’t it, with the Incomparable Penelope? Looks like they’re having a real argy-bargy.”

“He was young Whern at that time,” explained the duchess. “He’s put his spoon in the wall since then. The heir — that’s his grandson — not at all up to snuff.”

“In the army, wasn’t he? Blue-deviled by some lady, as I recall. Didn’t he come back from the peninsula with Wellington?”

“He did, and he has not yet made his manners to me,” said the duchess, “as he should, being my godson. He’s gone very mysterious, hasn’t even opened the town house on Duke Street.”

“A hermit, no doubt,” said a dandy, guffawing, but his laugh was cut short by the duchess’s stony stare.

“No, he’s not one of your Tulips,” said Her Grace with a significant glance at him. “The duke — Wellington, I mean, not Netwick — thinks much of him.”

The duchess was perfectly capable of carrying on a vigorous conversation, at the same time not missing much of what was transpiring in the middle distance. Having neatly disposed of the dandy, she commented with malice, “I wonder Foxhall hasn’t confessed defeat. The Freeland woman’s been after him long enough.”

Someone in the duchess’s circle murmured, “Wouldn’t want her laying siege to me! She’s a stunner, but any man who married her would be under the cat’s foot in a month, I’d take my oath!”

The duchess laughed until her little eyes disappeared in wrinkled folds. “Her grandfather, old General Sir Robert Freeland, you know, never won a battle in his life!”

The conversation around the duchess moved on to other, even more frivolous subjects, and the mysterious duke was forgotten. But all eyes remained upon the couple in question on the floor.

Penelope Freeland was not enjoying her first dance this evening with Rowland Fiennes. She had been out for five years, and had indeed come to think of Rowland as her own. Her father the Right Honorable the Lord Chawton was on Castlereagh’s staff and was expecting to be appointed ambassador to France, or Austria, or wherever there was an amusing capital. She would find it easy to persuade her father to require Foxhall to accompany them to their new position. Penelope herself, having been brought up, so to speak, in the Foreign Office, would make a wife
par
excellence
for a rising ambassador-to-be like Foxhall.

While Rowland had not yet precisely offered for her, such an event was only a matter of time. So Penelope had believed.

But then onto the London scene had come Elinor Aspinall. Penelope was not pleased. The Aspinall miss proved entirely too magnetic an attraction for Lord Foxhall, especially in recent weeks. At least so far Rowland had been discreet, his falling away signified only by a lessened attention to Penelope’s wishes and a sad failure to do her bidding with his usual alacrity. She was certain, however, that no one other than Penelope had noticed his preoccupation.

Even though she considered the burgeoning affair as merely a novel diversion for Rowland, she was determined to forestall any consideration of more serious possibilities.

Her dance with Rowland, therefore, was an exercise to that end.

“I expected you at my reception this afternoon, Rowland,” she began, breaking a too-long silence.

“I must apologize. Affairs at the Foreign Office required me.”

“Nonsense,” said Miss Freeland briskly. “You’re merely packing up for the journey to Vienna. Your people could have managed.”

Pacifically he said, “I had to give them direction, you know.”

“No, Rowland, I
don’t
know. You forget that I am in my father’s confidence, and I am as well informed on matters
in
the Foreign Office as anyone.”

“Penelope, believe me, I do not forget that fact.”

Rowland was entirely courteous, as befitted a man with ambitions in the diplomatic field in conversation with the daughter of a man with great influence in that same area. But he made no promises, nor, to be precise, did he even seem to listen to her.

Only Miss Freeland’s rigorous training kept her smoldering instead of bursting into flame, but it was clear to the most casual observer that she was unhappy.

Nell, dancing with one and another whose identities she would not later recall, was not aware of the byplay that so beguiled certain of the guests. If her aunt had not been indulging — simply to keep her hand in — in a mild flirtation with her host, the ancient Duke of Netwick, she might have found material for thought, but she did not.

At last came the first waltz, and Nell saw, as through a rosy veil, the approach of Lord Foxhall. The insistent rhythm captured her as he placed his arm, most delightfully, around her slender waist and swung her into the whirling dance. Her feet seemed to move without her volition somewhere above the mundane floor, the music sang in her veins, and paradise itself was not far removed.

At the conclusion of the dance, Foxhall led her off the floor. In this side room, where she suddenly found herself alone with Foxhall, the duchess had succumbed to the craze for Grecian furnishings that had followed upon the arrival from Athens of the marbles under the aegis of former Ambassador to Greece Lord Elgin. Nell had not before received the full impact of a room walled with plaster caryatids, whose blank eyes stared at the two inhabitants of the room. Even Rowland’s thrilling presence could not remove her strong distaste at what she considered the gross overpopulation of what was after all a very small room.

Lord Foxhall did not seem aware of any lack of amenities. Of course he was not sitting on the cold marble bench upon which he had placed Nell. Instead, the rising diplomatist, ill at ease, was standing before her, his tongue unable to utter a sound since it was unaccountably cleaving to the roof of his mouth.

Better a hundred interviews with Lord Castlereagh, he thought, than one with this small girl with the great gray eyes.

“You must surely have understood,” he began at last, “my purpose in seeking you out these past weeks. You are not unaware, I believe, of my intentions toward you.”

Nell put out a hand as if to protest. Her response was to a degree chaotic. “No, no, Lord Foxhall — I dare not —”

“So formal, Miss Aspinall? I should like very much your permission to call you Elinor. May I?”

She thought she nodded agreement. In fact, her wits were so scattered it seemed a miracle that she had not fainted from the roaring tumult in her head.

It was a curious thing, she discovered, that happiness was such a
noisy
state. She could hardly think above the racket in her ears.

His voice came to her as though from a far distance. “Miss

Aspinall — Elinor, that is — I — I confess that I have never before put this question to any lady of my acquaintance.”

When he did not speak for some moments, Nell prompted him. “Question?”

He drew a deep breath. “I should like your permission to call tomorrow morning with the hope of a private interview with you. Shall you object?”

Private interview! The phrase rang in her head. She was well aware of its significance, especially when coupled with the anxious look in his shallow blue eyes.

“Oh, yes. I mean, oh, no, of course I shall not object!”
However
could
I
? By good fortune, her last words were not spoken.

Nell slipped into a timeless rosy haze, pale plaster ladies forgotten. How handsome he was! His address was full of grace, his manners entirely faultless. What more could she wish for?

Foxhall lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips respectfully. Behind her inward sigh of bliss, she perceived lurking a wicked hope that he might — just for a moment, of course — be swept away by passion to the point of clasping her willing body to his chest.

Only a heightened color in his cheeks gave an indication that he was possibly struggling against making an improper advance. If so, he subdued the wayward impulse manfully-to her unspoken regret.

*

Nell, bursting with her secret, and excessively anxious to share with her aunt dear Rowland’s intentions, was not best pleased when she was requested to make room for Darnford in their carriage.

But, when the marquess gave every indication of making a long visit, even at that late hour, Nell gave in with good grace. In truth, she was not reluctant to hold her delicious news to herself for a little while yet. She had not fully savored the incredible fact that Lord Foxhall would, in the morning, make a formal offer for her hand.

She went to bed, but not at once to sleep. Rowland’s classic features slid from her wakeful thoughts into her dreams, and she slept at last with a smile on her lips.