And because she had dared come between him and Velma, Countess of Hazeltine?
He looked toward where Velma had been standing when he came into the room. She was still there, slowly fanning her face, smiling sweetly. Their eyes met, and he inclined his head in acknowledgment of the fact that he understood.
She had lied to his brother most cruelly because she had decided to marryhiminstead, to be Viscountess Ponsonby for longer than just a few months or years until consumption killed David. She hadliedwhen she might simply have explained to David that she wished to be set free and then have waited until after his death to set her cap athim.
What Velma had wanted, she had almost always got. He could remember that now. She had been blessed with parents who doted upon her and could deny her nothing.
How strange that memory could so have shut down until last night.
“Have you eaten, my love?” he asked Agnes, offering his arm for her hand.
“I have not,” she said. “I have been too busy meeting all your family and acquaintances, Flavian. But I am famished.”
He led her in the direction of the refreshment room, though it seemed that half his aunts and uncles then present, not to mention about a quarter of the cousins, wanted to talk to them, to touch them, to laugh with them. To show the family joining ranks, in other words.
There would be no scandal, Flavian guessed. Gossip, yes, for a while. The bulk of theton, newly arriving in town over the next month, would be regaled with the story of the new Viscountess Ponsonby’s lineage and would chew it over in drawing rooms and clubs for a week or so before turning its attention to more recent and more salacious gossip.
Agnes had rescued herself.
“I could not eat athingif my life depended upon it,” she said as he showed her to a table.
“Then I shall f-fetch you some tea or lemonade,” he said, “and toast you for your brilliance, Agnes.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” she said. “I have never known the truth of that before tonight. And I have you to thank.”
She looked pointedly at him when he returned with two glasses.
“My love?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
He was baffled for a moment. But hehadcalled her that in the drawing room, had he not?
“It seemed the right thing to say at the t-time,” he said, raising his glass to toast her and watching two cousins make their way toward them. “My love.”
***
They did not talk privately again that night. They did not make love either. He came to her bed—it was very late, and she was already lying down. He snuffed the single candle, lay down beside her, drew the bedcovers warmly over them, and wrapped his arms about her, drawing her against him. He sighed once against the side of her face, and was asleep.
This was what she most needed, she realized. She needed to be held just like this. She needed the warmth of him.
She dreaded to think what would have happened this evening if he had not warned her, if he had not found out her mother’s identity and whereabouts for himself and actually gone to Kensington to call upon her.
Even so...
Well, even so she was weary to the marrow of her bones. Too weary to sleep. As if meeting so many members of his family was not enough for one evening, some of them stern and pompous, some hearty and welcoming, most polite and willing enough to give her a chance. Of course, now there was not much they could do about it, bar snubbing and offending Flavian, who was, after all, the head of the family, at least his father’s side of it. And as if meeting what seemed an endless stream of unrelated strangers was not enough for one evening. Howcouldeveryone keep claiming that London was still empty of company? What on earth was it going to be like after Easter?
And as if seeing the arrival of the Countess of Hazeltine with her parents was not enough for one evening, and watching the ease with which she moved about the drawing room, mingling with Marianne’s guests, looking lovely and a bit fragile. And of course everyone present would remember that she had once been betrothed to Flavian—two beautiful people. And Agnes would wager that everyone knew that Velma and her parents and Flavian’s mother and sister had hoped to see a renewal of their courtship and betrothal this year. Everyone would be watching now to see how the two of them behaved in company with each other—and how the new wife would behave. Andwhether she knew.
Oh, it had all beenquiteenough to deal with in one evening, well before Agnes had felt something change in the atmosphere of the room about her, rather as though an invisible hand were making its stealthy way up her spine in the direction of her neck. Just so the whispers of impending scandal crept about theton, she realized. And she had known what was coming several minutes before it actually did come, first with a strange sort of space growing around her, even though the room seemed to be more crowded, and then with the arrival of Lady March at her side.
“Ah,Lady Ponsonby,” she had said, the emphasis sounding faintly malicious, “I was never more surprised in my life than I was a few minutes ago. I understand you are the daughter of Sir Everard and Lady Havell.”
Strangely, once it was all out in the open, Agnes had felt calm again. The invisible hand on her spine disappeared, was shrugged off for the ghost it was. She was also again and instantly aware of how much she owed to Flavian, furious though she had been with him earlier in the evening.
She curled against him now and felt herself sliding toward sleep after all. Part of her yearned to be back in her own peaceful life with Dora in the cottage at Inglebrook. Except that it was no longer her own life.Thiswas. She had married Flavian.
Given the choice, would she go back? Would she undo everything that had happened?
She fell asleep before she had answered her own questions.
