Eleanor felt a gentle warmth creep through her iced veins with the bubbles of the champagne, bringing her alive again. How valuable good friends were. She need not have been so concerned. Across the room she could see Lady Beatrice Faringdon, as well as the Earl and Countess of Painscastle. She wondered idly if Henry had once again exerted some influence on this show of support. He must certainly have bribed Nick to guarantee his reluctant presence.
‘You must find your family most supportive.’ Lady Sefton picked up Eleanor’s thoughts before she moved away to greet more guests.
‘I do indeed.’
‘And I am interested to note a predatory look in Lord Henry’s eye for anyone he suspects of showing you less than good manners.’
‘Do you?’ Eleanor looked across the room to Henry in some confusion.
‘Of course. He is most attentive. And so very handsome. I am quite jealous.’ She tapped Eleanor’s wrist playfully with a pretty ivory-sticked fan and laughed. ‘Perhaps you should try to persuade him to remain in London. There are so few very attractive men in comparison. And certainly none, I suggest, in the marriage market!’ On a little laugh, seeing Eleanor’s deepening colour, Lady Sefton made her departure.
Does she suspect me of flirting with Henry? With my husband dead little more than four months? Eleanor was horrified as she turned to look to where Henry was in conversation with his aunt, Lady Beatrice Faringdon, a stout Dowager of considerable presence in sumptuous maroon satin and nodding ostrich feathers. Formidable indeed, as her mother had intimated. Then his lordship looked up as if he sensed her questioning gaze on him and, unsmiling, very grave, raised a hand in tacit recognition before bending an ear back to the Dowager, who was holding forth on some subject. Yes. He is attractive. And he cares. No matter what was between us in the past, he cares. Whatever happens, I am not alone in this.
And Nick watched the silent exchange. And understood. The flash of recognition, the almost intimate connection between them. Hal might as well have kissed her! The fierce heat, the intense possession in Hal’s eyes were unmistakable. He had set himself up as Nell’s protector, but there was far more involved here than family support in a potentially stressful situation. Just as there was no mistaking the delicate flush on Nell’s cheeks as she turned away. They might deny it, as he was sure they would. They might succeed in hiding it from the fashionable world, as was doubtless their intent, but Nick could read the love between them as clearly as if they had shouted it from the rooftops. He swallowed against the dismay as he contemplated the terrible uncertainty of the future.
With a lighter heart, unaware of Nick’s concern, Eleanor turned her thoughts back to the pleasures of the evening. Behind her a familiar voice took her attention and she soon found herself deep in conversation about the prevailing fashion for silkedged bonnets with Cousin Judith and Miss Hestlerton, a pretty girl related to the Seftons and in her first Season. Perhaps the polite world was not so quick to judge after all.
But her renewed confidence was to be short lived. Lady Sefton requested in her gentle voice that her guests take a seat to listen to a poem, an ‘Ode to Love and Romance', which was to be read by its author, a young man very much in the Byronic mode with ruffled dark locks and pale features.
There was some manoeuvring and much comment in the salon as guests took their places or attempted to withdraw to a little side salon, which had been set aside for those whose taste ran to a hand of whist.
‘Eleanor.’ Judith drew her notice with a hand on her arm. ‘Can I introduce you to Lady Firth? I am not sure that you are acquainted. She has been out of town for some months with her husband who is a keen traveller.’
Before them stood a thin, fair lady of her mother’s generation. Eleanor noticed that she had the coldest grey eyes. And for the first time there was no polite or welcoming smile, no exchange of light talk, nothing but contempt, barely concealed.
The thought flitted across Eleanor’s mind. Lady Firth. No, she did not know the lady, but she knew of her. An associate of the Princess Lieven, which would explain much. The lady looked at Eleanor with a frown. She raised a pearl-handled lorgnette, with thin-lipped superiority. There was a world of distaste imprinted on her haughty features and in her gesture as she raked Eleanor from head to foot with condemnation in her eyes.
‘No, my dear.’ Lady Firth addressed herself to Judith. ‘I do not think that I wish to be introduced to this person.’ Her smile could have cut through glass, all edges sharp. ‘I believe that she is here under false pretences and has no right to the title that she claims as hers through marriage. Lady Sefton really should have chosen with more discrimination for her guest list—but I suppose it is difficult to believe the depths to which some people will descend to be noticed.’ The lady’s voice had an unfortunate carrying quality that drifted across the elegant room, slicing through the conversations. Heads turned in their direction. Silence fell. All attention was drawn away from the budding poet.
Judith rose to the occasion without hesitation, eyes fierce, her red curls aflame with indignation. ‘I am certain, Lady Firth, that it is no such thing. The Marchioness of Burford is my dear cousin and worthy of all respect.’
Eleanor drew herself together, all dignity and pride and glittering diamonds. She had expected to be overwhelmed with shame, but it was anger that surged through her veins in a veritable tidal wave. She would not bow her head before idle gossip and common innuendo. How dare this woman snub her in so public a manner! How dare she presume intimate knowledge on so delicate and private a matter! If Judith’s eyes sparkled with indignation, Eleanor’s flashed fury, entirely at odds with their beautiful, soft-violet hue. ‘It is no matter, Judith. Do not allow yourself to be disturbed.’ She bent her cold regard on the lady with a curl of derision to her soft mouth, spine held rigid. ‘If Lady Firth is sufficiently ill mannered as to discuss my private affairs in Lady Sefton’s salon, she does not deserve any word of explanation or apology from our lips. If she chooses not to recognise me, then—’
A cold voice, frigid and lethal as the wind from arctic snows, interrupted and finished the sentiment, ‘—then it is her loss.’ A strong arm was placed beneath Eleanor’s and a long-fingered hand closed around her wrist in a firm embrace. At the same time she was aware of Nicholas, unusually stern and forbidding, standing to her other side.
‘Forgive me, Lady Firth.’ Lord Henry bowed with impeccable grace and deliberate intent. ‘Considering your ill-bred comment, it is not suitable that my sister remain in your presence. Come, Eleanor. You should not remain with one who listens to scurrilous gossip from the gutters and would give credence to it.’ The silence in the room increased, positively crackling with tension as ears strained to grasp Henry Faringdon’s words. He bowed again. ‘Since the Countess of Sefton has made us welcome here tonight in her home, may I suggest that your own presence, Lady Firth, is suspect indeed if you would choose to be discourteous to one of her guests.’ He turned his back on the astonished lady with deliberate and graceful arrogance and led Eleanor away towards a chair beside Lady Beatrice.
‘An excellent response, my dear Eleanor,’ he murmured through gritted teeth. ‘There is no need for you to feel in any way discomfited by such ill manners. Just think of what is due to the fortune in stones around your pretty neck!’
‘Of course.’ And she smiled, a little startled at his barely repressed temper. ‘Thank you for rescuing me, Hal.’
‘I do not deserve your thanks! You should not have had to suffer such crude indignities. Permit me to say that you handled the whole affair magnificently. You have my total admiration, my lady.’
Eleanor made no reply, unless it might be the hot colour in her cheeks, unwilling to exacerbate the rigid tension in the muscles and tendons of Henry’s arm beneath her hand, masked by the softness of the satin. Conversation flowed on around them. Everyone keen to gloss over the slight to one of their number—for the moment at least. She took her seat beside Aunt Beatrice, who patted her hand whilst scowling at the distant figure and flushed face of Lady Firth. For the rest of the evening, Eleanor rose to the occasion superbly, with grace