Agnes did not go back to the park, despite the facts that it was a lovely day and the daffodils would not bloom forever or even for much longer. She stayed home instead to wash her hair and dream up excuses for not going out to dinner. She could not do more than dream, however, for Dora looked as though she would snatch at the flimsiest excuse to stay at home with her.
Agnes wondered ifhehad gone back this morning and, if so, how he had felt to discover she was not there. He would probably have shrugged and forgotten her within moments. It must not be difficult for a man like him to find women to kiss whenever he pleased.
A man like him.
She knew nothing about him, apart from the fact that he had once been a military officer and must have been wounded severely enough to have to spend a few years in Cornwall at the home of the Duke of Stanbrook, recuperating. The only sign of any wound now was his slight stammer, and that might have nothing to do with the wars. Perhaps he had always had a speech impediment.
But—a man like him.He was extraordinarily handsome. More than that, though, he radiated a magnetic, almost overpowering masculinity. His hooded eyes and mobile eyebrow suggested that he was a rake. And his looks, his physique, his air of assured command would all make him a very successful one and probably a ruthless one.
Not that she could be sure of anything. She did notknowhim.
She donned her pale green silk when it was time to get ready, and remembered that it was what she had worn to the harvest ball. It could not be helped. It was her best evening gown, and nothing less would do for tonight. No one would remember anyway.Hewould not. And apart from Sophia and Dora, no one else among tonight’s guests had seen her that night. She dressed her hair a little more severely than she would have liked. She ought not to have washed it today. It was always at its silkiest and least manageable on the first day.
Who would care what she looked like?
Dora looked positively pasty, and her dark hair was even more severe than her sister’s.
“Sit down and let me do your hair again,” Agnes said. Dealing with her sister’s appearance and soothing her jitters helped calm her own discomfort and embarrassment until the carriage arrived from Middlebury, and it was time to go.
There were only ten people gathered in the drawing room when she and Dora were announced, and two of them were Sophia and Viscount Darleigh, with whom they were long familiar. Three of the others had come with them to the cottage yesterday. It really ought not to be an ordeal, then, to meet the others. Yet there seemed to be far more than just ten persons in the room, and it was hard to convince oneself that they were just people like anyone, despite the grandeur of their titles.
Really, of course, Agnes was forced to admit to herself, there was only one of the company she dreaded meeting, and he was no stranger.
The Duke of Stanbrook was a tall, elegant, austere-looking older gentleman with dark hair graying attractively at the temples. Sir Benedict Harper was lean and handsome—and seated in a wheeled chair. His wife, Lady Harper, was tall and shapely, very dark, and stunningly beautiful in a faintly foreign sort of way. The Earl of Berwick was a dark-haired young man who somehow remained good-looking despite the nasty scar that slashed across his face and slightly distorted one eye and one side of his mouth.
Agnes concentrated upon each introduction as well as smiling and nodding to Lady Barclay and Lord and Lady Trentham. It was almost as if she believed that, by doing so, she could avoid looking at the tenth person.
“And you have met Viscount Ponsonby, I believe,” Sophia said as she finished the introductions. “Indeed I know thatyouhave, Agnes. You danced with him at the harvest ball. Miss Debbins, were you introduced too at that time?”
“I was.” Dora curtsied. “Good evening, my lord.”
Agnes, beside her, inclined her head.
He smiled and held out his right hand for Dora’s. “I understand you are to b-be our savior tonight, Miss Debbins,” he said. “If you had not c-come to play for us, we would have been d-doomed to listen to Vincent scrape away at his v-violin all evening.”
Dora set her hand in his and smiled back.
“Ah, but you must not forget, my lord,” she said, “that his lordship has learned those scrapings from me. And I may wish to quarrel with your description of his playing.”
His smile deepened, and Agnes felt an inexplicable indignation. He had set out to charm Dora and was succeeding. She looked far more relaxed than she had when they arrived.
“Ho,” Lord Trentham said, “you had better be careful, Flave. There is none so fierce as a mother in defense of her chick or a music teacher in defense of her pupil.”
“You coined that one on the spot, Hugo, admit it,” the Earl of Berwick said. “It was a good one, though. Mrs. Keeping, you are a painter of some talent, or so Lady Darleigh informs us. In watercolors, is that, or in oils?”
Someone brought them drinks, and conversation flowed with surprising ease for the fifteen minutes or so before the butler came to the door to inform Sophia that dinner was served. Butof courseconversation flowed easily. These people were members of thehaute ton. They were at ease in company and were adept at dispensing good manners and conversation. It would have taken them no time at all to sum up the visitors as they arrived, frightened and tongue-tied despite the fact that they were gentlewomen themselves, on the threshold of the drawing room.
Sophia had arranged the seating for dinner. Agnes found herself being led into the dining room on the very solid arm of Lord Trentham. She was seated halfway along the table, and he took his place beside her. Dora, she noticed, had been given the place of honor to the right of Viscount Darleigh at the head of the table. She had the Duke of Stanbrook on her other side. Poor Dora! She would appreciate the honor being paid her, yet it would surely terrify her too. Except that the duke had bent his head to say something to her, and she was smiling with genuine warmth.
Viscount Ponsonby took the place at Agnes’s other side.
What wretched bad luck, she thought. It would have been bad enough to have had him sitting across from her, but at least then she would not have been expected to converse with him. He had Lady Harper on his other side.
“We are not usually quite so formal,” Lord Trentham said, speaking low. “This is all in your honor and that of Miss Debbins.”
“Well,” she said, “it is good to feel important.”
He looked a formidable gentleman. His shoulders were massive, his hair close-cropped, his face severe. As an officer he would have wielded a sword, but he would surely look more at home swinging an ax. But—a smile lurked in his eyes.
