‘So clumsy of me …’ he’d blustered. Then he bowed. ‘Allow me to make amends. Fetch you a drink.’
He had not offered to fetch her a drink, Henrietta had seethed. He’d said he had more important things to do than dance attendance on her. But when Miss Waverley had smiled at him, a tide of red had swept up from under his collar. When she had held out her hand and cooed that of course she forgave him, that a glass of lemonade would be wonderful, because wasn’t it hot in here, and dancing made her sooo thirsty …
And he had dashed off to do her bidding.
As if that hadn’t been bad enough, not twenty minutes later, from her seat on the sidelines with the other wallflowers, Henrietta had seen him take Miss Waverley on to the dance floor with an expression of besotted admiration on his face.
That was when she’d seen what a colossal fool she’d made of herself. She had followed Richard to town, thinking she could make him notice her. She had gone to stay with people who’d been strangers until she’d walked into their house, spent a small fortune at various modistes and outfitters, endured all kinds of painful procedures in the name of feminine beauty—and it had all been a complete waste of time. He simply did not see her as a woman. But he’d only had to take one look at the beautiful Miss Waverely to fall prostrate at her feet!
As she had watched them skipping down the set together, she had felt her heart breaking. At least, there was a pain, a very real pain in the region where she knew that organ beat. And her eyes began to smart. Bursting into tears in a ballroom was the very last thing any lady should do, but she was very much afraid she would not be able to hold her emotions in check if she sat there, watching Richard dance with another woman when he would not even condescend to escort her anywhere! Or waste his precious time talking, when he could have been in the card room with his friends.
Not that he even appeared to remember his prior commitment to them any more. His entire being was focused on Miss Waverley.
Swiftly, before anyone could notice her emotional state, she’d dashed from the ballroom, running she knew not where, pulling open doors and slamming them behind her, in an effort to drown out the noise of the orchestra, whose cheerful strains seemed to mock her.
Somehow she had ended up outside. But she could still hear the music they were dancing to. She had gone to the windows that threw light on to the stone flags, even though she knew that if she looked inside, she would see them … still together, uncaring that she was out here, in the cold and damp, a sheet of glass between what she wanted and where she actually was in life.
She had let the tears flow then, but only once she was completely certain that nobody could see her.
Once she’d had her cry, and pulled herself together, she had planned to go back and act as though nothing was the matter. The very last thing she wanted was to have anyone know that she was suffering from unrequited love. It sounded so pathetic. If she had come across a girl crying because the man she had set her heart on was dancing with another, prettier girl, she would have no sympathy for her whatsoever. She would counsel this fictitious love-lorn girl to have a bit of pride. Show some backbone. Dry her eyes and go back with her head high, and dance the rest of the night away as though she had not a care in the world.
Perversely, the notion that she was betraying all her own principles over Richard made her tears start to flow afresh. How could she let him affect her like this? She despised herself for running after a man. But most of all, she despised herself for her total, abject failure at being feminine. It wasn’t enough to put on an expensive gown and have her hair styled. She didn’t have anything like the … allure of a Mildred, or a Miss Twining, let alone a Miss Waverley.
It was just as she had reached her lowest ebb that he had sauntered out on to the terrace. Lord Deben.
And she’d seen that if there was one thing worse than bursting into tears in a crowded ballroom, it would be being caught weeping, alone, by a man like him. She’d recoiled, earlier, from the way his hooded eyes had swept round the entire assembly with barely concealed contempt. She’d had no intention of handing him an excuse to sneer at her, personally, just when she was least able to deal with it.
And yet, now she cast her mind back, there had been one moment, when he’d turned that jaded face up to the rain, as though he needed to wash something away, when she’d wondered if he was facing some sorrow as great as her own. But then he’d pulled out his watch and turned to what little light there was. It had been enough to throw his harsh features into stark relief. She did not think she had ever seen a man who looked more jaded, or weary, or so very, very hard.
The brief pang of sympathy that had made her wonder what sorrow could have driven him out here in the rain, as well, withered and died. She was just thankful he had not noticed her. A man like that would never understand why she would run outside and weep over the notion her heart was broken. On the contrary, he would very likely laugh at her.
‘Miss Gibson,’ he now said firmly. ‘Will you kindly pay attention?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said contritely. ‘I was miles away.’
‘I noticed,’ he snarled. He had not only noticed, but been incensed by her inattention. He was used to people hanging on his every word. Particularly females.
‘I can only assume you were re-living whatever it was Miss Waverley has done to make you believe there is nothing further she can do, but believe me, you are wrong.’
‘I am wrong, but you are right, is that what you mean? And do not presume you know what I was thinking about.’
‘It was not difficult. You have a very expressive face. I watched every emotion flit across its surface. Yearning, despair, anger, and then came a resolute lifting of your chin that told me you refuse to let her win.’
‘It was not … nothing like …’ she sputtered.
‘Then you have not had your heart bruised? You have not decided that only a perfect ninny would go into a decline?’
She winced as he flung her own words back at her.
‘I may have said more than I should have, about matters which are quite private and personal …’ She had not told anyone about Richard and, if she had her way, she would keep the whole sorry episode secret to her dying day. ‘But that does not give you the right to taunt me …’
‘Taunt you?’ He shot her a sharp look. She looked upset. And his irritation at her preoccupation with other matters, when she ought to have been paying him attention, promptly subsided.
‘Far from it. I admire your fighting spirit. If anyone tries to knock you down, you come out fighting, do you not? In just the same way that you erupted from behind your plant pots, taking up the cudgels on my behalf when you thought the odds were stacked against me.’
Which nobody had ever done before.
And though she was now giving a shrug of her shoulders, as though it was nothing, she had not denied that she had felt some kind of … empathy towards him and had wanted to help.
It gave him a most peculiar sensation. He ought, most properly, to have taken offence at her presumption he was in any way in need of anyone’s assistance. But he wasn’t offended in the least. Whenever he looked at her, when she wasn’t annoying him, that was, he couldn’t quite stem a feeling of warmth towards the only person who had ever, disinterestedly, attempted to stand up for him.
‘And now I fear that the odds might be unfairly stacked against you. I repay my debts, Miss Gibson. I shall be your ally.’
She blinked up at him in surprise.
‘Miss Waverley will try to harm you if she can,’ he explained. ‘She is the kind of person who would have no compunction about using her social advantages to prevent you from achieving whatever it was you hoped to achieve by coming to town for a Season.’
Henrietta