“You admitted to me yourself that you had barely seen him since he came to England, but the Season is starting up now, you know, and you are bound to see him.” Caroline glanced pointedly at Louisa’s gown. “As you are well aware by the look of that dress.”
Louisa looked down out of habit, though of course she knew what she was wearing. It was burgundy, a daring colour with an equally daring neckline that was on the very verge of scandalous, and she hadnotworn it because she expected to see Henry. “That’s entirely beside the point.”
“Thatisthe point, darling. Don’t lie to me. Now you’ve expressed how you feel, you want to make him painfully jealous. And what better way to make him wild for you?” She peered across the ballroom. “Is that him? He’s so dreadfully handsome, don’t you think? And oh—he’s conversing with a lady.”
Louisa told herself the lurch in her stomach was nothing more than hatred. Disgust at the thought of sharing a space with him again. Once had been bad enough. “Of course he is,” she said with tolerable calm. “You were the one who told me he intended to marry.”
“Yes, but he is talking with Miss Venetia Winton.”
Louisa received her second unpleasant shock of the evening. There was nothing strictly wrong with Miss Winton, except being on the very edge of theton, but Venetia was everything Louisa was not. She was quiet, colourless, quite possibly passionless. No doubt she would make a perfectly respectable wife with no aspirations other than to keep his home and bear his children.
The things Louisa had not wanted.
The thought irritated her. She wanted him to burn with frustrated lust for her, to crave her with no hope of satisfaction. Not seek out the very kind of woman she was not.
“Oh,” she said tonelessly when Caroline was still watching her for a response.
“She’s rich,” Caroline continued, evidently enjoying herself immensely. “Although I’ve heard that’s the only thing to recommend her.”
Louisa summoned a flat smile. “You should not be so cruel.”
“Would you like me to lure him away from her? I can put my assets to work.” She gave a wicked, sparkling smile. No wonder she had so many lovers.
“If you think you can succeed, be my guest. But I warn you: not even your charms will be likely to succeed. He took a vow of celibacy. To remain chaste until marriage.”
“Celibacy?” Caroline stared at her as though she had just grown three heads. “In this day and age? Whatever for?”
“Moral reasons, I’d imagine.”
“Is he Puritan?”
“Not unless many things have changed since I last knew him.” Which was, admittedly, distinctly possible.
“And yet you were in love with him?”
“A lamentable lapse in judgement, I assure you.”
“No, what I meant to say is . . . you were in love with him and yet hestillmaintains his vow of chastity?”
“If you’re asking whether I succeeded in seducing him, the answer is I did not.”
“Did you try?”
“A little,” Louisa confessed. “Not as much as I would have done if I’d known how he would reject me.”
“Well, then,” Caroline said, continuing to peer at him. “My estimation of the man has lowered considerably. Gentleman who care for nothing but their dreary honour are not worth knowing.”
Honesty compelled Louisa to say, “I suspect he had some consideration for my honour, too.”
“Oh, well, what does that matter? You should take another go at seducing him now, darling. Make him regret the day he ever slighted you.”
“Be serious.”
“I am. What better revenge could you conceive? When you were younger, you would not have had the charms you possess now. Nor the experience. The man wouldn’t stand a chance.”
For a moment, Louisa allowed herself to consider it. Time had beaten the pain of heartbreak into anger, the blacksmith ofexperience honing the emotion until it was as sharp as a blade. Not only had she been forced to relinquish her claim on Henry, but she had been forced to endure a miserable marriage to a man she detested. Compelled to compromise herself in a way that still horrified her.
She had been forced to compromise herart.
