"No."
The word came out more forcefully than she had intended. Helena's eyebrows rose.
"Well. That's definitive."
"I don't…I can't…." Vanessa struggled to articulate the tangle of feelings in her chest. "He's perfectly nice. He would make a perfectly adequate husband. But I don't love him, Helena. I don't even particularly like him. And the thought of spending the rest of my life with him…."
"Makes you want to scream and run in the opposite direction?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"Then don't enter into matrimony with him."
"It's not that simple."
"Isn't it?" Helena's gaze was shrewd. "Or is the complication standing across the room, pretending not to watch us?"
Vanessa glanced toward Martin. He was engaged in conversation with Lord Castleton and several other gentlemen, but even as she watched, his eyes flicked in her direction. Their gazes met for a fraction of a second before he looked away.
"I don't know what you mean," Vanessa said.
"Of course you don't." Helena sighed. "Vanessa, I have known you since we were children. I have watched you pine for Montehood for years…yes, pine, don't bother denying it. And I have watched him watch you with an expression that suggests he is not nearly as indifferent as he pretends."
"He doesn't…."
"He does. Everyone can see it except apparently the two of you." Helena gripped her hand. "If you want him, fight for him. Don't let Lord Deane's adequate niceness trap you in a life you don't want."
"And if Martin doesn't want me back?"
"Then at least you'll know. At least you won't spend the next forty years wondering what might have been."
It was the same thing Martin had said, Vanessa realised. In the park, on the bench, when they had spoken of secrets and regrets.
If you remain silent, you will never know what might have been. That is a heavier burden than rejection.
She had given him that advice. Perhaps it was time to take it herself.
Chapter Thirteen
A commotion near the entrance to the card room drew Vanessa's attention.
Two young men were squaring off against each other, their voices raised and their postures aggressive. She recognised them after a moment as Lord Fenwick's son, a notorious hothead, and the Hartley heir, whose temper was equally volatile. They had been rivals since their schooldays, or so the gossip went, and their enmity had only intensified with age.
"Oh dear," Helena murmured. "That's going to end badly."
The crowd around them was beginning to notice. Conversations faltered; heads turned. Lady Castleton, their hostess, had gone pale with distress. A scene at her ball would be social disaster, the sort of thing that would be whispered about for months.
Lord Castleton was moving toward the altercation, but he was across the room and hampered by the crush of bodies. He would not reach them in time.
Martin would.
Vanessa watched as he extracted himself from his conversation with a murmured word and crossed the room with unhurried purpose. The crowd parted for him, not dramatically, not obviously, but with a subtle shifting that cleared his path. People moved aside without seeming to notice they were doing it, responding to some unspoken authority that required no announcement.
He reached the two young men just as Lord Fenwick's son shoved the Hartley heir in the chest.
"Gentlemen." Martin's voice was quiet, but it carried. Both men froze, turning to face him with expressions thatmingled surprise and wariness. "I believe you're disturbing Lady Castleton's evening."
"This is none of your concern, Montehood." Lord Fenwick's son was flushed with anger, his hands still balled into fists. "Hartley insulted my sister."
