He entered his suite, where his valet brushed his riding coat. He sighed deeply. “I shan’t ride this afternoon, Feeley. My plans appear to have changed.”
“Right ye are, Your Grace.” Feeley put down the brush with that familiar expression, the one which matched his opinion of all women—more trouble than a barrel full of monkeys but worth every bit of it. It usually annoyed Charles, who thought the Irishman brought trouble on himself, but he didn’t have the energy to reprove him, not when he found himself in agreement.
“I’ll visit Jackson’s. I will return in two hours and require a bath.”
Leaving Feeley surprisingly silent, Charles, a tick in his jaw, stalked out of the house.
Chapter Nineteen
Nellie stayed somehours with Marian before she summoned the courage to go home. She finally entered the house with a fluttery feeling in her chest. “Is His Grace at home, Grove?”
“He returned an hour ago, Your Grace.”
Where had Charles been? Visiting his rose-loving mistress, or was it Drusilla? Nellie climbed the stairs slowly, trying to think what best to say to him. Marian cautioned her to be calm and reasonable, but she feared it was beyond her capabilities.
In her bedchamber, as she removed her bonnet and tidied her hair, Charles knocked and entered. She glanced at him with what she hoped was a cool expression. “I have been visiting Marian, in case you wondered.”
“I guessed as much.” He leaned against the bedpost, his legs crossed in a casual pose, which didn’t fool her. There was a troubling light in his eyes, the atmosphere in the room laden with tension. Her pulse beating fast, she put down her hairbrush.
He straightened and moved away from the bed.
She was relieved. Charles and beds brought too many memories to mind. And she would never win an argument there.The closeness and tenderness they had shared, could it be that way again?
“I don’t expect there’s much I can say to alter your low opinion of me, Nellie,” he said in a low voice. “You are determined to think the worst.”
Nellie longed for him to come and put his arms around her, but he kept his distance. She put a hand to her aching head and bit her lip. “The mistress, I might have been able to understand, Charles, if you swore shewasin your past. But the marchioness, too? Or was Arabella Forrester about to be added to the list?”
He folded his arms with a frown. “That’s not worthy of an answer.”
Her throat was horribly tight. “Isn’t it? Then let’s not discuss it. It will get us nowhere.”
“I see that.” He bowed his head. “If you’ll excuse me, madame, I will be tied up until dinner.” He opened the door and strode out, shutting it quietly behind him.
Madame? He had never referred to her in that manner. Nellie gulped. Trembling, she sank onto the bed. Her world seemed to have fallen apart. She huffed out a gasp of annoyance. And really, why should she feel guilty?
After several minutes, she stood, and after dredging up a renewed sense of purpose from somewhere deep inside, she rang for Lilly.
“I’ll wear the red satin to the opera ball tonight, Lilly.”
It was not done to be seen in the same gown again so soon, but she needed that dress to give her courage and the confidence to get through the evening. She would add a silver lace shawl and lace gloves and wear the rubies.
She and Charles were unfailingly polite at dinner. They barely talked, and when they did, it was with excruciating politeness on inconsequential matters: the excellence of the roast beef and the freshness of the oysters, plus a newsworthy item inThe Times. Nellie felt sick and didn’t want to eat. She pushed her food around the plate and tried not to look at Charles, the tension strung as tight as a fiddler’s bow.
In their box at Covent Garden, their cool treatment of each other went unnoticed as friends and acquaintances crowded in at intervals to talk to them. To Nellie’s disappointment, the opera was rather dull as the aria sung by the stout, but handsome Elizabeth Billington was not quite as good a performance as usual, and she was almost drowned out by the noisy patrons.
At the following opera ball, she and Charles parted at the door, seeking their own group of acquaintances. As this was the usual way of things, most saw nothing unusual in it, although Nellie did overhear a comment from an aged dowager she passed. The woman spoke loudly behind her fan to a lady beside her. “The honeymoon is over.”
“Of short duration, wasn’t it?” her companion replied, not quite managing to hide a smirk.
When a waltz was called, Nellie accepted Walsh’s invitation with the intention of pursuing her plan. She only hoped he had more sense than to dredge up the past or try to flirt with her.
Walsh did not dance as well as Charles. But what man did? She hid the contempt she had for the Irishman. She could only be relieved and thankful her father had been far wiser than she was at eighteen. Was Marian right? Had the poet been hopeful of the marriage merely to better himself? If he had been tempted to use her to raise himself up in the world, she felt justified in putting him to good use now.
They paused after a series of steps. “I am to hold my first literary salon next week,” she said, offering him a sweet smile, more for the benefit of Charles, whom she suspected was watching them, than Walsh.
“Am I to be invited?” Walsh’s eyes brightened. “I thought perhaps because of our, shall we say, unfortunate past, I thought perhaps—”
“Nonsense. We shall not speak of it again. I should like you to be our first poet. Would you entertain us with a reading of your latest poem, Mr. Walsh?”
