“He is a man after my own heart, Lizzie,” her aunt said. “Do keep him.”
“Splendid.” Anna clasped her hands to her bosom. “A ball at Archer House it will be, then. If Alex and Wren and Cousin Althea will not be horribly offended, that is.”
“I think it will be quite lovely, Anna,” Elizabeth’s mother said, “to be able to attend my daughter’s betrothal ball without also having to plan it.”
And so it was settled. There was to be a ball as early as next week and the wedding in less than a month’s time—at St. George’s. And then…And then the rest of her life would begin and she and Geoffrey would live happily ever after.
Well, probably not quite that.
Contentedly ever after, then. She could confidently predict that. And contentment would be good enough, even preferable to exuberant happiness, in fact. Happiness did not last. There was more stability in contentment. And stability was what she had craved ever since leaving Desmond.
Happiness—and the hope that it would last forever—was for young people.
Like Colin.
She hoped fervently for his happiness with the bride he would choose and felt quite depressed again.
•••
Colin was feeling a bit low in spirits by the time the Archer House ball rolled around. For one thing, he feared Elizabeth was making a mistake and all the ebullient high spirits and sense of fun she had displayed at Brambledean over Christmas would be lost to the quiet decorum of marriage with a dull man.Notthat it was any of his business. But he was fond of her. No, more than that. He had placed her on a pedestal at Christmastime and she had remained there ever since. He…What was an appropriate word? Worshipped? Adored? Cherished her? He very dearly wanted to see her happy in a second marriage, even if the thought made him selfishly despondent because it would set a distance between him and her that had not been there before.
He was a bit depressed too with the direction his own affairs had taken. He was being maneuvered. He could feel it happening, yet he seemed almost powerless to do anything about it. He did try. He escorted Miss Eglington to a concert one evening with Ross Parmiter and his sister. And he took Miss Madson for a drive to Kew Gardens and a picnic on the grass. Her sister and brother-in-law accompanied them.
But he feared he was fated to marry Miss Dunmore. Thoughfearedwas surely the wrong word. He liked her. She was beautiful and sweet and accomplished and appeared to have all the qualities any gentleman could ask for in a wife. If he did not know it for himself, he had her mother to tell him so—frequently. And that was the trouble. Left to himself, he might well fall in love with the girl, make her his offer after talking with her father, marry her, and live happily ever after with her. But he was not being left to himself.
She and her mother seemed to appear at every social event he attended. They were even at the concert, and Lady Dunmore looked very contemptuous as her eyes lingered upon Miss Eglington. He half expected to see them at Kew too, though that at least did not happen. He seemed forever to be finding himself sitting next to Miss Dunmore or fetching her food or drink or turning pages of music for her or escorting her out to her carriage or dancing with her.
And then there was the letter that had come from his mother. He almost had not recognized her handwriting. He had recognized the perfume that lingered about the paper, however. She wanted him to take tea with her at the house on Curzon Street. As soon as he had named a day, she would herself write to Lady Dunmore and invite her and her daughter to come too.
Miss Dunmore is very lovely, dearest,she had written.You make a dazzlingly attractive couple. I will have to be very careful that you do not outshine me, though a number of people are saying that would be impossible. I tell them they are nothing but flatterers, but they keep saying it.
Colin wrote back, breaking a long silence, apart from that brief meeting in the park. He was not formally courting Miss Dunmore or any other lady, he informed her. It would be inappropriate, then, to single out anyone to take tea with him and his mother and hers.
His letter was brief and, he hoped, clear. But he did not like the fact that his mother was edging her way back into his life and trying to do it on her terms. She had always surrounded herself with beauty—which she then proceeded to control and use to draw attention to herself and her own superior and everlasting loveliness.
He wasnotgoing to let it happen to him.
But did that mean he must stop considering Miss Dunmore as a bride? It seemed unfair—to both her and himself. He believed she favored him, and not just because her mother did. And he still thought it possible that he might fall in love with her.
Determined as he was not to be manipulated, he still found that he was to dance with her twice at Elizabeth’s betrothal ball—for the opening set and for the second waltz, since she had recently been approved to dance it. Her mother had seemed a little chagrined that it could not be the first waltz, but he had explained that Lady Overfield had already promised that one to him.
“Oh well,” she had said grudgingly, “I daresay you feel obliged since she is the sister of your brother-in-law, Lord Hodges. However, I suppose you are sorry now that you know Lydia is permitted to waltz.”
He was not feeling in a particularly cheerful mood, then, when he arrived at Archer House and made his way upstairs to the receiving line and the ballroom, John Croft at his side.
•••
Archer House on Hanover Square was indeed the perfect setting for a grand ball, the ballroom being large and spacious and luxuriously decorated and situated at the head of a wide, sweeping staircase. Elizabeth had attended balls here before—for Anna when she was being introduced to society, for Jessica at her come-out last year. But this ball was for her.
She and Geoffrey stood in the receiving line with Anna and Avery on one side, closest to the door, and her mother and Alex and Wren on the other. And she was hit by the reality of it all. Invitations had gone out to almost everyone of any social significance in London, and it seemed that almost everyone must have come—as was to be expected, of course, when the ball was hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Netherby.
It felt very real now, her betrothal. There was no going back. Not that there had been from the moment she had said yes. And not that she wanted a way back.
She was standing in the receiving line, feeling vivid and rather dashing in her new high-waisted ballgown of gold lace over bronze silk with deep and elaborately embroidered scallops at the hem and the edging of the short sleeves. She usually favored pastel shades, but Wren and Anna, who had accompanied her to the modiste on Bond Street to choose among fabrics and patterns for the ball and her wedding, had insisted upon this for her betrothal ball, and Elizabeth had meekly acquiesced.
“You are as much the tyrants over my clothing as Mama is over my wedding plans,” she had told them.
“The thing is,” Anna had said, “that you cannot be allowed to fade into the background at your own betrothal ball or at your wedding, Elizabeth. We will not allow it. Will we, Wren?”
