She danced with Lord Farraday and relaxed to his easy manner and humorous stories about his sisters. She laughed when he told her he had lost his mother and grandmother again on Bond Street that morning. And she danced too with Sir John Charlton. That was perhaps the only set she did not fully enjoy. She felt uncomfortable with him. Was it just because he was undeniably good-looking? she asked herself. But she thought not. He was not nearly so handsome as his lordship.
“You have recently married, ma’am?” he asked. “Is it to your marriage that we owe the pleasure of your presence in town?”
“My husband has brought me here, sir,” she said. “I go wherever he chooses to go, of course.”
“Then I owe Lord Astor a debt of gratitude,” he said, “for bringing such a lovely lady to participate in the activities of the Season.”
Arabella noted with some misgiving that he did not smile or name Frances. He was looking full at her.
“I am fortunate to be here myself,” he said, “since I have just left the house of my aged uncle, the Earl of Haig. I am his heir, you know. He is fond of me and hated to see me leave. But I am very glad now that I did.”
“I hope you left him in good health,” Arabella said politely.
She was glad when the dance came to an end.
Chapter 7
LORD Astor had returned Frances to his aunt’s side after the quadrille, spent a few minutes talking to a group of acquaintances, and was now standing watching the dancers. He had spent some time in the card room earlier, but he had not played. He had stood and watched. And he had wandered back into the ballroom and not danced, except the first set with his wife and the previous one with his sister-in-law. He was bored.
No, not bored exactly. Restless. He was not particularly enjoying his marriage. It was not nearly what he had expected. He had planned it with great nonchalance, expecting that once the business of the wedding and settling his wife in his home was done, he would be able to carry on with his life as it had been for the previous six years. The only difference would be that there would be a wife to dine with occasionally and bed at night, and children in his nursery eventually.
His marriage was not developing at all like that. He watched Arabella gloomily as she danced the steps of the Roger de Coverley with a gangly youth who looked as if he had never seen a dancing master in his life. Arabella was smiling dazzlingly up into his long, pale face, and succeeding in dancing gracefully despite his clumsiness.
She appeared to be doing well enough at the ball. Indeed, when he had asked her at the end of the opening set to write his name in her card next to the supper dance, she had told him first that that dance was taken, and then that there were no dances left for him to have. Except the waltzes that she was unable to do, of course.
It had been the perfect excuse for him. He should have been able to take himself off to the card room and become involved in playing for the rest of the evening. He should have been able to enjoy himself without either a concern for his wife or a thought to his married state for several blissful hours.
But he had found himself unable to do so. What if one of her partners failed to claim his dance? She would be left partnerless, feeling like a wallflower at her first ball. He could not allow such a thing to happen to Arabella. And what if there were some gossip about her indiscretion of the morning? He must be there to turn it off carelessly, mentioning the fact that her ladyship had sent her maid home ahead of her from the park for some reason.
It was quite absurd, of course. Not only was Arabella clearly enjoying herself, but she was also well-supplied with company. When he had returned her sister to Aunt Hermione a few minutes before, Arabella had been there too, but she had been deep in animated conversation with a group of two ladies and three gentlemen, two of them men he did not know himself. He only hoped that she had been properly presented to them. He was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which she seemed to fit into the society around her.
Really, Lord Astor thought, looking critically at his wife as she continued to smile and talk to the gangly youth, she did look good. His compliment to her earlier had been largely designed to set her at her ease, but there was truth in it too. If he were seeing her for the first time tonight, he might even call her pretty. The simple design and pale shade of her yellow silk gown showed off the pleasing feminine curves of her tiny body. Her short hair became her and looked pretty with yellow ribbon threaded through the curls. He had dissuaded her from buying plumes, which she had thought would give her some needed height and which even his aunt had thought would make her look more distinguished. Although the majority of ladies at the ball wore them, they would have looked ludicrous on Arabella.
Lord Astor caught the eye of an elderly matron who sat nearby with another lady of his acquaintance. He inclined his head and strolled over to exchange civilities with them. A few minutes passed before he turned away again, his ears having been assailed with congratulations on his recent marriage and compliments on the looks and vivacity of his wife.
It was not just this evening that he was having difficulty forgetting his marriage and his responsibilities, he thought, singling out Arabella from the dancing throngs again. It seemed to happen constantly. He could enjoy his clubs, his visits to Tattersall’s, the occasional attendance at the races, his frequent mornings at Jackson’s. But he found himself often hesitating over joining his friends at any activity that would keep him from home for any long period of time. There had been the boxing mill, for example, that would have taken him from home for one night. There was no reason whatsoever why he should not have gone, since Arabella had her sister for company, and anyway, the two of them had been invited to join a theater party that evening that did not include him. But he had not gone.
He was annoyed with himself. Worst of all was the fact that he was beginning not to enjoy his afternoons with Ginny as much as he had used to do. He had been remarkably contented with her for a year, although there had been other females too on occasion, and he was certainly the envy of many men of his acquaintance. She was beautiful and very desirable to the eye, in addition to being a cut above the average kept mistress. Ginny was a singer much in demand at private parties.
He tried to put his wife from his mind whenever he crossed the threshold of Ginny’s lavish establishment, which he had provided for her. Certainly he needed her. No robust male could be expected to satisfy his appetites with the restrained and respectable beddings that were all he would allow himself with his wife. And Ginny was enough to make any man forget even his own name when she was aroused to passion—a state that was not difficult to induce in her.
Why was it, then, that the last time he had been with her he had caught himself at the most energetic and usually most mindless moment of his performance wondering if Arabella were as attached to the scuffed leather saddle she used as she was to the horse beneath it, or if she would like a new one. And after his second effort with Ginny, in which he had succeeded a little better in blanking his mind to his wife, he had lain awake when he had wanted to sleep, picturing in his mind that upward-curving lip of Arabella’s and the white, even teeth beneath it, and wondering idly if there would be any pleasure in kissing her mouth. He had never done so.
The set was ending. Both Lord Astor and his wife seemed to be surprised when the gangly youth escorted her to him rather than to Lady Berry and Frances, who were a little way off.
Lord Astor clasped his hands behind him. “You dance very well, Arabella,” he said. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said. “Yes, I am. I expected that everyone here would be very grand and would dance divinely. But really, some people are quite ordinary. Poor Mr. Browning was very apologetic when he led me into the last set. In fact, he suggested that we sit out because he claims to have two left feet. But that is silly, as I told him. In a room that is so crowded, no one is going to single him out to notice that he does not dance quite as well as some of the other gentlemen. And he did not once step on my feet as he was afraid of doing. And I am no expert myself, as I was willing to tell him.”
Lord Astor was amused. He enjoyed his wife’s occasional bursts of speech in his presence. She was usually so quiet with him. He waited for the now-familiar blush and return to silence.
“The next set is a waltz,” he said. “Would you care to stroll with me out on the balcony, Arabella?”
“Oh,” she said, her head to one side. “I have promised to sit with Mr. Lincoln because he cannot dance at all. There is something wrong with his leg, though I do not know what. He limps.”
“He had an illness as a child,” Lord Astor said. “It has left him permanently lame.”
“Poor man,” she said. “Though he seems quite cheerful. With some people a handicap is not a thing to be pitied, is it? Some people rise above it. But I am sorry, my lord, about the walk. Do you mind?”
