Chapter 13
Rosalind was still in a daze that evening as she hurried to Lady Belham’s rooms. She had been unable to look the woman in the eye all afternoon. What had she been thinking? To allow Tristan, her employer’s cousin and a rake of the first order, to kiss her?
Her cheeks burned as she remembered the encounter with shocking clarity. Was it any wonder she had avoided Lady Belham?
Now, however, it was time for them to go to Lord Grover’s. And she could avoid the woman no longer. Would her employer somehow know what had happened? Would she turn her out on the street?
But no, she told herself fiercely as she knocked on Lady Belham’s door, the woman would not see it. Her actions were not printed across her forehead in blazing scarlet. Nor would Tristan have told his cousin. The horror in his eyes had told Rosalind all she needed to know about his feelings on the subject. He had been no more pleased than she had been.
She would not look too closely on why that particular fact was so lowering.
Lady Belham bid her enter then, saving her from further mental torture. “My lady,” Rosalind said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster, “are you ready for Lord Grover’s party?”
Lady Belham was seated at her dressing table, adjusting a glistening comb of rubies and pearls in her dark locks. She smiled at Rosalind in the glass. “I’m afraid we will be attending quite a different event tonight. I have decided to accept Lady Harper’s invitation instead.”
How Rosalind managed to keep her smile in place she would never know. Especially as her heart thudded with a disturbing degree of anticipation. For hadn’t Tristan told her just that afternoon that he was headed to Lady Harper’s himself? “Is that so?” she asked with impressive unconcern.
“Yes. I’m feeling the need for something less tame than Lord Grover’s promises to be.” She grinned, tugging her bodice down a fraction lower and sitting back to admire the effect.
Rosalind hardly registered the precarious position of the woman’s bosom, barely held in by the thin strip of crimson silk and black lace that formed her bodice. All she could see was the heat in Tristan’s eyes immediately before he’d claimed her mouth. She could not see him. She was still not in control of her faculties; if she came face to face with him she might very well melt into the floorboards.
Not that she would be able to avoid him forever. Still, every second counted in making sure she held tight to the slippery thing her sanity had become.
“Oh, I don’t know that Lord Grover’s will be all that tame,” Rosalind said as Lady Belham fiddled with her rouge pot. “I hear he has a French chef. That in itself is exciting, don’t you agree?”
“My palate is not so sophisticated that I would know the difference, I daresay.” Lady Belham applied a bit of rouge to her cleavage, then sat back and looked it over with a critical eye before, nodding with satisfaction, she rose and turned to face Rosalind. “I need some dancing, and some flirting, and what better place is there than a grand London ball?”
How could Rosalind argue that? Still, she could not go down without a fight. “But I am not attired for a ball.” It was a flimsy attempt, she knew, yet still she had to try.
Exactly as she knew would happen, Lady Belham quickly laid waste to the excuse. “Oh, pooh. You are perfect. That old gown of mine looks wonderful on you, darling. That shade of violet does wonders for your coloring. Or,” she said, pausing, a small frown marring her brow, “don’t you care for it?”
Rosalind blanched. “I love it,” she hurried to say, aghast that it may have seemed she disliked the dress. “Truly, it is the most glorious gown I have ever owned, and far too generous a gift.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Belham said with a wave and a smile. “I never wore it, I assure you. It wasn’t daring enough for the likes of me.” She laughed.
That Rosalind could believe. Even so, it had taken her three nights of sewing to take the gown in and make it presentable. Especially in the bust.
Which, of course, made her think of other things. Such as Tristan’s hand cupping her breast, the warmth of his large palm like a brand through the material of her dress that afternoon. She shivered, a strange reaction indeed considering how overheated she suddenly was. No, she thought as she clenched her hands in her skirts, she was definitely not ready to see him just yet.
But did she have a choice? Lady Belham’s maid arrived then, and the next few minutes were a whirlwind of preparation as Tessa helped their employer with the rest of her ensemble. All too soon she was done, and they were hurrying downstairs to the waiting carriage.
The time it took to get to Lady Harper’s should have been arduously long. Arriving at the most popular events was never an easy thing, and this particular ball was no exception. Yet the time passed as if accelerated. Why was it, Rosalind thought, that the minutes passed by so much quicker when the thing awaiting you at the end of a journey was dreaded? For too soon they entered the Berkeley Square mansion. And the time of her courage was at an end.
They approached the double doors leading to the ballroom. Hundreds of voices reached them then, a wave of sound that made Rosalind’s steps falter on the polished parquet floor. The trepidation she had been prisoner to since leaving the house bloomed then into panic. In a last gasp attempt to stall, she blurted, “Wouldn’t you like to visit the card room, my lady? Wearing that gown, I’m sure you could easily fleece half the men in London.”
Lady Belham laughed. “That’s not the type of victory I’m looking for right now, darling. And you needn’t worry you will need to play mother hen to me as you did Miss Gladstow. I assure you, I’ll be more than fine, no matter what comes of tonight.”
“Then I should return home,” Rosalind said, a hint of desperation coloring the words. “For surely you will have a much better time if you do not have me to worry about leaving behind.”
Lady Belham linked arms with her, dragging her on, securing her fate. “Nonsense, for I quite adore you. Besides,” she said, her voice dropping, “it will be nice to have a friend at my side.”
The words stunned Rosalind mute for a moment. No, not only the words, though they themselves told all she needed to know about her employer. It was the tone as well. For there was a pain there she had not expected.
Beyond their first meeting, when Rosalind had gotten an inkling of Lady Belham’s loneliness, no hint had been given of the woman’s lack of confidence. Indeed, she seemed to exude nothing but.
Now Rosalind thought back on the past three days in her employ and realized that the woman didn’t have a friend in the world. Oh, she had Tristan. And she had the admiration of more men than Rosalind could count.
But the woman did not have a single female friend. No one to lean on, to talk to, to gain comfort from. Did Lady Belham truly see her as a friend?
