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She eyed him over the top of her fan. “Do I?”
“Have I not told you?” His voice became low and throbbing. “Have I not laid my heart bare to you? Every word I’ve written to you is torn from my heart. You know I’m in agony. Why do you torture me?”
She looked about her. “You are indiscreet. Someone will hear.”
“We must settle this,” he said. “Every day you change your mind.”
“Every day!” she said. “How many days has it been? Days, milord. Not years or even months or weeks. A few days. A few letters.” Ah, yes, she’d answered his. She’d given him reason to hope and reason to despair. She’d encouraged him while seeming to push him away or seeming undecided. But she’d taken care never to write anything undecided enough or rejecting enough to cause him to give up. “You must not press me.”
“I haven’t time to wait,” he said. “If you mean to trample on my heart, do it now. Kill my hope, but do it quickly, for God’s sake, and put me out of my misery.”
She moved away. He followed her.
“You hurry me,” she said. “A woman should not be hurried in affairs of the heart.”
“I knew my heart the instant I met you,” he said. “I knew we belonged together.”
As soon as you heard of my great fortune.
A servant approached, carrying a tray laden with glasses of champagne. She shook her head at the servant and continued toward her destination.
“We cannot talk in this place,” she said. “Too much activity. Too many people. Another time we will meet.”
“They’re going in to supper,” he said. “There won’t be a better time. And there won’t be another time. I must know tonight. You promised me an answer tonight.”
“You are too impetuous.”
And she’d done her best to make him that way.
“Madame, for me, time is running out.”
“Ah, yes, you are to be married.”
“That is for you to determine.”
“I cannot abide the thought of taking you away from that pretty girl,” she said. “To break her heart? I am not that kind of woman.” While they talked, she never paused but walked on, at a leisurely pace, letting him follow.
“Break her heart?” he said. “She barely tolerates me, as well you know. You’ve seen. All her family despise me. If it were not for one foolish moment, I should be free. And then I should wait and wait for you to make up your mind.”
“One foolish moment? And how do I know I am not another foolish moment for you?”
“What proof do you want?”
They’d reached the French windows, which stood open to let air circulate through the ballroom on this warm night. Beyond lay a small terrace, bordered by a stone railing. Some light from the ballroom cast its glow over the terrace. To the left, one part of the railing stood in shadow. Beyond the terrace, lanterns lit the gardens. So romantic. She smiled to herself.
She stepped through the French window and walked to the shadowy part of the railing.
“What proof?” he said again
“I will not have an affair,” she said in a low voice. “I was true to my husband. I am not a wicked woman. I will not be your mistress. I am not the courtesan.”
“I don’t want a mistress,” he said.
Naturally not. Mistresses were expensive to keep.
She said nothing.
“My intentions are honorable,” he said. “I can prove it.”
She glanced up at him.
“I can,” he said. “Come away with me—now—tonight. We can be in Scotland in less than two days—and we can be wed as soon as we get there.”
“To elope?” she said. “You would do this?”
“Why not?” he said. “Sheridan did it not long ago. And unlike him, we needn’t worry about being pursued.”
She put her hand to her heart and turned away from him.
“Madame?”
She shook her head. “No, stay away. I must think. This is not what I thought. I was not prepared.” While she spoke, she made a few quick, covert adjustments to her dress. “I never dreamed you would go so far,” she said. “To run away with me—it will anger your friends. This means disgrace for you, perhaps.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “If I have you, nothing else matters. Madame, I beg you.” He set his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. She didn’t resist. He drew her into his arms. “Come away with me.”
“No!” she shrieked. “No! Stop! Help!” As she cried out in French and English, she pushed him away. When she did so, the bodice of her dress slid down, exactly as it had been designed to do, revealing the expensive blond lace of her chemise and a bit of one of Marcelline’s elegant Venetian corsets.
At the same moment, right on cue, a small crowd spilled out onto the terrace, Lady Clara in the lead.
Adderley jumped away from Sophy as though she’d broken out in boils. “What the devil?” he said. “What is this?”
“It’s quite obvious what it is,” Lady Clara said. She marched up to him and slapped him. “You brute. You false, despicable brute.”
“For shame!” someone in the crowd said.
“You disgust me,” Lady Clara said. “I will not marry you. The world may think what it likes of me—but I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”
Adderley said, “But I didn’t—”
“For shame!”
“Disgraceful!”
Other voices chimed in, to the same effect.
Marcelline made her way through the bystanders and went to Sophy. “Ma pauvre dame!” She glared at Adderley. “Quel monstre!”
Adderley said, “But I never—”
“Beast!” someone cried.
“Brute!”
“What the devil is going on?” Longmore broke through the crowd. He looked at Sophy. He looked at Adderley. He started for Adderley.
Clevedon pulled him back. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t dirty your hands.”
“Not worth the effort,” someone called.
“Let him rot,” said another.
“Not on my terrace,” Lady Bartham said. She
stood in the French window. Beside her stood Lady Warford. With the light of the ballroom glowing behind them, they looked like avenging angels.
“Lord Adderley, I must ask you to leave,” Lady Bartham said. “And you are not welcome to return.”
Longmore knew what he was supposed to do.
“Don’t on any account hit him,” Clevedon had counseled, and all the Noirot sisters had agreed with him.
This was Clara’s moment, they’d all said. Let her do it. Let all those who’d judged her see.
And so Longmore had let Clara slap Adderley.
But the cur was slinking away, and flames danced in front of Longmore’s eyes.
He started after Adderley. He’d not gone three paces when he heard Madame’s voice, shaky and tear-clogged. “Lord Lun-mour.” He turned. She stood, her sister’s arm about her shoulders, her beautiful dress disordered. Tears streamed down her face. “Please return me to my hotel.”
The sight of the disordered dress turned his mind black with rage. All he could think was murder, and he almost said, “Clevedon will take you.”
But the great blue eyes held him.
He dragged in a lungful of air and let it out. He returned to her. “Of course, madame,” he said.
He picked her up and carried her—through the ballroom, past a lot of gaping and whispering aristocrats and on through the corridor and down the stairs and out of the house.
He held her, her face buried in his shoulder, while a carriage was hastily commandeered to transport them.
Within a very few minutes, their host’s carriage arrived. He quickly bundled Sophy into it.
When they’d turned a corner, and were well out of sight of Bartham House, he said, “That went well, I thought.”
She had been slumped against him, teary and trembling.
The trembling stopped and she sat up and drew out the world’s tiniest handkerchief and briskly wiped away the tears. “Nearly perfectly,” she said.
“Nearly?”
“You were not supposed to go after Adderley with murder in mind,” she said. “You were not supposed to go after him at all. I explained that to you. We all explained it to you. It would diminish the effect. Have you forgotten how it goes? He assaults your what-you-call-it.”
