“How wonderful for you, dear,” Lady Hannah said. “And it is very fitting that you should do so, Gerard, as well as very generous. Christina is still the Countess of Wanstead, after all, and will remain so until you marry. Which perhaps will not be in the too distant future?”
But Christina was not listening. She knew why he was doing it—and why he was giving her an allowance and the girls a governess. He was demonstrating to her how very wealthy he now was, how very generous he could be even to a woman he disliked, one who had spurned him and his love. He was making very clear to her just how beholden to him she was for everything. He was not trying to make her happy—he was deliberately doing just the opposite.
“I have no immediate plans to marry, Aunt Hannah,” he said. “But who knows what the future holds?” He kept his eyes on Christina as he spoke. “You have a concern, my lady?”
“No, my lord.” She would look at this list of his. Perhaps she would even add to it. If he was determined to give, then she would take. Heaven knew she needed new clothes and more fashionable ones than the few she possessed. She would put her head together with Miss Penny’s and enjoy herself planning a new and colorful wardrobe. But she would not fawn upon him or show him anything like obsequious gratitude. “None at all.”
“I shall ask Miss Penny to see you tomorrow, Margaret,” he said. “She will be busy with her ladyship’s order, but she must make you one garment at least. I daresay you do not own a ballgown?”
Margaret gaped again. “A ballgown?” She clasped her hands to her bosom and gazed adoringly at her cousin. “Oh, Cousin Gerard. Oh, thank you. Aunt Hannah, I am to have aballgown!”
Which would give him a marvelous glimpse, Christina thought bitterly, into what life had been like with Gilbert. If he had not already suspected. She resented his knowing or his discovering. She felt intruded upon. Almost violated.
Ah, Gerard, Gerard, she found herself thinking.Why could you not have remained simply the golden boy of my memories?But she would not allow her thoughts to show on her face. She kept her lips tightly pressed together and her expression impassive.
If hehadbeen a stranger, she wondered, and had behaved today just as he had, would she be looking upon him as a generous and kind man? Would she have liked him?
But he was not a stranger.
“No,” the Earl of Wanstead said. “Romantic, ma’am. It is how you yourself described the dance, if you remember.”
His aunt lifted her hands from the keyboard. She had been playing with a spirited rhythm more suited to a gallop than a waltz. “Oh, dear, I am so sorry,” she said. “Yes, you are quite right, Gerard.”
“But it is a lovely tune,” he said, lest she think him over-critical, “and you play it well.”
She played it again.
“Perfect,” he said, interrupting her after a few bars. “Play it just that way, if you please. I am about to discover how good a teacher I am.” He grinned at her. He had learned the waltz himself only since his return to England. But it was all the rage in London. His guests would be disappointed if it were not included in the Christmas ball. Or perhaps his determination to have it danced had become firm only when the countess had objected to it.
She had become a Puritan, had she? Well, she would not drag him into her gloom. Or be allowed to continue her stem rule at Thornwood as she had for the past ten years.
“I am sure you will be a splendid teacher,” his aunt assured him. “Certainly you will have an eager pupil. Meg has spoken of nothing else since luncheon.”
Margaret, he had realized during the past twenty-four hours—not even so long—was an eager, pretty young lady who had no town bronze at all despite her twenty years. She had not even had a Season. She was almost pathetically eager for the house party, for the ball. Life, he was determined, was certainly going to change for his cousin.
He had come to Thornwood half willing to consider her as a bride. Even this morning he had held open the possibility. But he had already put the thought out of his mind. She was still too much the child. But he was her guardian. He would see to it that over Christmas she met and mingled with some young ladies who were her peers and some gentlemen who would help her to see herself as an attractive, eligible young lady.
She had come into the ballroom with the countess, he noticed. She was wearing last evening’s light muslin gown again, just as if this were some grand occasion. Her eyes were wide with the anticipation of some treat. He remembered suddenly teaching her as a child to swim and to ride. Well, now he would teach her to waltz and doubtless cause Gilbert to turn over in his grave. He strode across the ballroom toward her.
“You are ready, Margaret?” he asked. “It is really not a difficult dance, you know. It is easier than the simplest of country dances.”
She giggled, a sound that grated on him somewhat. But he recognized that she was nervous. He reached out a hand for hers.
“I must ask you, my lord—” the countess said, though she stopped speaking the moment he looked at her.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“Nothing,” she said. “There would be no point, would there?”
“None whatsoever,” he assured her and led Margaret in the direction of the pianoforte.
The countess was tall, slender to the point of thinness, tight-lipped, hard-eyed. She was dressed in unrelieved black from neck to wrists to ankles. Not a single curl showed beneath her black cap. She even looked Puritanical, he thought. She was a woman without joy. He was surprised that that younger daughter of hers had been allowed bright colors with which to paint—and that her fair curls had not been tamed.
She stayed where she was, he noticed, straight-backed, silent, disapproving. And she would stay too, he guessed, if only to confirm her own impression that the waltz was a wicked dance straight from hell. Her silent presence irritated him. He wished he had suggested that only Margaret and his aunt come.
“Now, then,” he said to Margaret, “we will not try to move to music yet or take up the correct posture for the waltz.” Theclutchingas she had described it at luncheon very much to his amusement. “We will practice the steps first. There are really only three, performed over and over again in a variety of patterns. But you must remember that we will face each other during the dance. Your steps, then, should mirror mine and not copy them exactly.”
She stared at his feet, a frown of concentration creasing her brow.
