“Louisa must be very gratified,” she said as soon as they had moved to the relative quietness of the landing beyond the ballroom. “Her ball is even more of a squeeze than it usually is. Or perhaps it is just that most people have been crowding the ballroom itself instead of wandering off to the card room or the salon as they usually do.”
“Elizabeth,” he asked, “why are you doing this? Why are you trying to change Lily? I liked her just as she was.”
“Then you are being selfish,” she said. “Yes, the refreshment room is this way. I need a glass of lemonade.”
“Selfish?” He frowned.
“Of course,” she said. “Perhaps Lily was not happy with herself just the way she was. But there is no question of mychangingher, Neville. When one learns, one adds knowledge and accomplishments to what one already is. One enriches one’s life. One grows. One does not change in fundamentals. I liked Lily as she was too. I like her as she is. She is still Lily and always will be.”
“She hated being at Newbury Abbey,” he said, “even though everyone tried to be kind to her. Even Mama was kind after she had recovered from the shock. She was quite prepared to take some of the burdens of being my countess off Lily’s shoulders. But Lily hated it anyway—you knew that. She must hate this. I will not have her unhappy, Elizabeth, or bullied into doing what she does not want to do or into being who she does not want to be. I will settle her somewhere—in some country village, I believe—where she can live her own quiet life.”
“Perhaps it is what she will choose eventually,” Elizabeth said. “But perhaps not. Perhaps she will choose employment of some kind—even possibly as my permanent companion. Or perhaps she will marry despite her lack of fortune. There are any number of gentlemen this evening who appear fascinated by her.”
“She will not marry,” he said between his teeth. “She ismy wife.”
“And you will challenge to pistols at dawn any man who feels inclined to dispute that fact,” she said cheerfully as they entered the refreshment room. “Lemonade, if you please, Neville.”
She was smiling when he came back to her, glass in hand.
“Thank you,” she said before sipping her drink and resuming their conversation. “The point is, Neville, that Lily is twenty years old. In two months time she will be of age. Perhaps you should begin to consider not what you wish for her future but whatshewishes.”
“I want her to behappy,” he said. “I wish you had known her in the Peninsula, Elizabeth. Despite the conditions of her life she was the happiest, most serene person I have ever known. I want to give back to her that life of simple pleasures.”
“But you cannot,” she said. “Even apart from the fact that you have no say in what she does, a great deal has happened to her since those days—the death of her father, marriage to you, captivity, arrival in England, all that has happened since. She cannot go back. Allow her to go forward and find her own way.”
“Her own way,” he said with more bitterness than he had intended. “Without me.”
“Her own way,” she repeated. “With or without you, Neville. Ah. We are about to be joined by Hannah Quisley and George Carson.”
Neville turned with a polite smile.
19
The Duke of Portfrey was not in the habit of gracing fashionable ballrooms during the Season. He was not by any means a hermit, but balls, he was fond of remarking to his friends, were for young sprigs in search of wives or flirts. At the age of two-and-forty he was not interested in such public pursuits—besides there was Elizabeth, with whom he certainly had a relationship though its exact nature had never been defined.
But he was in attendance at the Ashton ball because of a peculiar fascination with Lily—and because Elizabeth had asked for his escort and it would not have occurred to him to deny her when she made so few demands on him. He had danced the first set with Lily, the second with Elizabeth—and had then been compelled to add an edge of frost to his habitually impeccable manners in order to dissuade his hostess from presenting him to a whole host of other young ladies she was sure would be delightful dancing partners.
Two or three of his acquaintances had teased him with threats of matchmaking mamas setting their caps at him once more—their interest had waned a number of years ago as his age and his indifference to feminine wiles and lures had gradually outweighed the attractions of his rank and wealth and enduring good looks.
“They would be better served to keep their caps firmly tied beneath their chins,” his grace replied with languid good humor. But good nature deserted him when Mr. Calvin Dorsey wandered up to him after Neville had led Elizabeth away to the refreshment room. The duke ignored him and engaged in a casual perusal of the room through his quizzing glass. Dorsey was his dead wife’s first cousin and heir to her father, Baron Onslow. His grace had never liked him, neither had his wife.
“Portfrey? Your servant,” Mr. Dorsey said pleasantly, sketching a careless bow. “I arrived late. But can gossip possibly have the right of it? Did the Duke of Portfrey lead the sergeant’s daughter into the opening set at the grandest squeeze of the Season?” He shook his head, chuckling. “The lengths to which some men are prepared to go in order to curry favor with their mistr—” But he cut himself off with one finger to his lips. “With theirparticular friends.”
“Congratulations, Dorsey,” his grace said without deigning to look at his companion. “You still have a talent for avoiding by half a word having a glove slapped in your face.”
Mr. Dorsey chuckled good humoredly and said nothing more for a while as he watched the patterns of the dance unfold. He was of an age with the duke, but time had been somewhat less kind to him. His once-auburn hair had grayed and thinned and he looked by far the older of the two. But he was a man of good humor and a certain charm. There were not many people to whom he spoke with a deliberately barbed tongue. The Duke of Portfrey was one of those few.
“I have been told that you called at Nuttall Grange a couple of weeks ago,” he said after a while.
“Have you?” His grace bowed to a buxom dowager with gorgeously nodding hair plumes who passed in front of them.
“A little out of the way of anywhere of any importance to you, was it not?” Mr. Dorsey asked.
For the first time the duke turned his glass on his companion before lowering it and regarding him with the naked eye.
“I may not pay my respects to my father-in-law without being quizzed by his nephew?” he asked.
“You upset him,” Mr. Dorsey said. “He is in poor health and it is my business to see that he is kept quiet.”
