She was still sitting as before. With her face half in light, half in shadow she looked very appealing. It was hard to remember his first impression of her when she had stepped inside the visitors’ parlor at her school, looking stern and humorless.
“Thank you,” he said. He reached out and covered her hands with one of his own. “You are very generous.”
“And perhaps very foolish,” she said. “How on earth can I offer any sort of an education to someone who cannot see? I have never thought of myself as a wonder worker.”
He had no answer for her. But he curled his fingers about one of her hands and raised it to his lips.
“Even for what you have done and are prepared to do I thank you,” he said. “You have looked upon my daughter not just as an illegitimate child who has the additional disadvantage of being blind, but as a person worthy of a meaningful life. You have persuaded her to run and laugh and shout with glee just like any other child. Now you are prepared to give her a summer of fun that has surely always been beyond her wildest dreams—or mine.”
“I believe,” she said, “that if I were a Papist I would be eligible for sainthood, Lord Attingsborough.”
He loved her dry humor and chuckled softly.
“I believe the music has stopped,” he said, pausing for a moment to listen. “And it was the supper dance. May I escort you to the supper room and fill a plate for you?”
She took her time about answering. Her hand was still in his on his lap, he realized.
“We waltzed together,” she said, “and then left the ballroom together. Perhaps we would create the wrong impression if we sat at supper together too. Perhaps you ought to go and sit with Miss Hunt, Lord Attingsborough. I will remain here for a while. I am not hungry.”
To the devil with Miss Hunt,he almost said aloud. But he stopped himself in time. She had done absolutely nothing to deserve such open disrespect, and indeed it could be said that he had neglected her somewhat this evening. He had danced with her only once.
“You are afraid,” he said, “that people will think I am dallying with you?”
She turned her face, and he could see that she looked suddenly amused.
“I very much doubt anyone would think that,” she said. “But they might very well think that I am angling foryou.”
“You belittle yourself,” he said.
“Have you looked at yourself in a glass lately?” she asked him.
“And haveyou?”
She smiled slowly.
“You are gallant,” she said, “and kind. I amnotangling for you, you may be relieved to know.”
He raised her hand to his lips again and then, instead of releasing it, he laced their fingers together and rested their hands on the seat between them. She made no comment and did not try to snatch her hand away.
“If you are not hungry,” he said, “I will sit here with you until the dancing starts again. It is pleasant here.”
“Yes,” she said.
And they sat there for a long time just as they were, without speaking. Almost everyone else must have gone for supper, including the orchestra. Apart from a few stray voices coming from the direction of the balcony, they might have been all alone. The lamplight beamed across the small pond, outlining a few lily pads. A slight breeze caused the fronds of the willow tree to sway before them. The air was cool—and then perhaps a little more than just cool. He felt her shiver.
He released her hand and removed his evening coat—not an easy thing to do when it had been made fashionably form-fitting. He set it about her shoulders and kept his hand there, to hold it in place. With his other hand he took hers again.
Neither of them spoke a word. She made no objection to his arm about her shoulders or her hand in his. Beneath his touch she was neither stiff nor yielding.
He relaxed.
The extraordinary notion occurred to him—not for the first time—that perhaps he was falling ever so slightly in love with Miss Claudia Martin. But it was an absurd idea. He liked her. He respected her. He was grateful to her. There was even a touch of tenderness mingled in with the gratitude because she had shown so much kindness to Lizzie without demonstrating any moral outrage toward him for having begotten an illegitimate child.
He was comfortable with her.
Those feelings did not equate with love.
But therehadbeen last evening.
