But he was curiously hesitant to make it. The visit had been a success. She was everything he had hoped she would be. Yet now that the time had come, he could not bring himself to take the final and irrevocable step. And of course he really had not committed himself in any way. He was not honor bound to make the offer, despite the general expectation that he would.
He did not have to marry Miss Hopkins. But he did not know why he hesitated. He felt that it was time to marry. He needed and wanted children. She was the perfect choice in every way.
You should marry someone who could give you companionship, my lord.
Laura Melfort was an impertinent, outspoken woman for a governess. She had dared to reprimand him for using the mildest of profanities in her hearing, the prude. Not that it had been a gentlemanly thing to do, of course—he ought to have known better. She had studied Latin and Greek, for the love of God! And mathematics! And she had eyes that terrified him because they did not flutter before his but gazed directly into them and beyond them into the very depths of his being.
He would have to keep her in his household in some capacity after Beatrice left the schoolroom, he had told her. Was he mad? If she was in his house, he would never come home. Even now he vowed to leave soon after his guests, and not come back until Beatrice no longer needed a governess. He could not live under the same roof with such temptation.
He had given in to Beatrice’s pleadings against his better judgment and agreed to allow her to attend the ball for a short while—for three sets. She could continue to watch from the old minstrels’ gallery until supper, at which time she was to go to bed. And if she did not, he would want to know the reason why, he had added while she pulled a face at him and called him an old ogre and then hugged him and thanked him for allowing her to attend at all.
He had chosen her partners with care—two young men from the neighborhood for the first and second sets, and himself for the third. On no account was he going to allow any of his town guests to get their hands on her.
She danced very prettily. The dancing master who had spent a month at the house during the winter had done his job well. And Miss Hopkins danced very elegantly—as he knew from having danced with her on several occasions in London. She also looked at him a little—anxiously? And everyone else all evening had been looking at him with an air of expectation.
But he was largely unaware of it all—the splendor of the flower-decked ballroom his servants had prepared, the elegance of his guests, the richness of the music, the excitement of Beatrice, the anxiety of Miss Hopkins, the expectations of everyone else. It was all like something that was happening around him but did not concern him.
All his attention, though he rarely glanced in her direction, was on Beatrice’s chaperon, dressed neatly and unfashionably in gray silk, her hair in a simple knot at her neck. As was to be expected, she somehow found a shadowed corner in the ballroom and sat there, a part of the furniture. Invisible.
Except to him. To him she might as well have been seated on a high dais surrounded by banks of lit candles. He could see no one else.
And after she had withdrawn following the third set with Beatrice, who gazed at him first imploringly and then reproachfully, it seemed to him again that she was some kind of angel hovering over him from the gallery, where she stood with his niece, much as she had in the library that night.
He blessed the coming of supper. Perhaps for the rest of the evening he would be free of her and able to concentrate his attention on his guests. Not that he particularly wished to do that. He felt uncomfortably guilty. Expectations were almost as powerful as facts, it seemed. He felt almost honor bound to make the offer he was more and more reluctant to make.
He felt a flashing of anger when he returned from the supper room, the Viscountess Gleam on his arm. It seemed Beatrice had defied him. He would have sharp words for her in the morning and cold words for her governess. She was to be in bed by now, not still watching proceedings from the gallery.
And yet when he looked up, he found that there was no one there. He looked away again, relieved, and engaged the viscountess and another lady in conversation.
But she was there. He knew she was there.
When the music began again, he made sure that all the ladies had partners before slipping from the ballroom and climbing the stairs to the wide landing that held the door leading out onto the minstrels’ gallery. He turned the knob and drew the door toward him very quietly.
She was in the alcove where the minstrels used to sit, in shadow as was to be expected. She was gazing down onto the ballroom, a look of naked wistfulness on her face. She was alone.
And then something must have alerted her. She turned her head sharply, and her eyes met his. His heart turned over and his knees felt unsteady. Her eyes were very bright. With unshed tears, he realized in some shock.
“It is a waltz,” he said quietly. “Do you waltz?”
She continued to stare at him as if she had not heard him.
“Come.” He held out a hand toward her. “We have our own private ballroom out here. Come and waltz with me.”
She shook her head quickly, but he stood unmoving, his hand reaching out for hers until she looked down at it and came slowly toward him. She paused for a long while just beyond the reach of his hand before lifting her own from her side and setting it slowly in his. It was cold.
“Come,” he said again, closing his hand about hers and drawing her out onto the landing, dimly lit with only two widely spaced branches of candles.
She stood rather stiffly as he slipped his palm to the back of her waist and took her hand with his, but then she raised her free hand to his shoulder and her eyes to his. Her gaze was still bright with tears.
And he knew the truth with such stunning force that it amazed him he had blocked it so effectively from his consciousness for almost three weeks.
“You see?” he said. “We can hear the music quite clearly from here.”
“It is not right,” she said. “You should not be dancing with me my lord. You should be dancing with—with your future bride.”
He smiled at her and they danced. She waltzed gracefully. She felt like a mere feather in his arms, her spine arched beneath his hand. She moved perfectly to his lead. They danced silently for many minutes, their eyes on each other’s. A footman, coming upstairs on some errand, paused, hesitated, and then scurried downward again.
“I always imagined,” the earl said, “that a bluestocking would have two left feet.”
