Page 44 of Earl, Enemy, Husband?

‘Have you seen a friend?’ she asked.

His startled gaze met hers, almost as if he had forgotten she was there.

‘An acquaintance, merely.’

Why did she not believe him? Probably the satisfaction in the tone of his voice. He had been hoping to meet this lady; she was sure of it. For all his talk of honesty, was there something he had not told her about his past? Her heart clenched painfully.

He took her hand and led her back to where his mother was standing with a group of youngish women.

‘Allow me to bring you some refreshment,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Mother would you like some ratafia?’

‘No, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I would like to introduce you and Lady Blackdown to Mrs Drummond and Lady Cowper, our esteemed patronesses.’

He bowed and exchanged platitudes with the ladies, who seemed eager to meet him, but Florence knew, though he seemed focussed entirely on them, they did not have his interest. While Graydon did not stint in his attentiveness to his mother and her companions, Florence felt his urgency to be elsewhere. If only she did not suspect that the ‘elsewhere’ had something to do with the beautiful, striking lady in lavender.

‘You will be a credit to Society, Lady Blackdown,’ Lady Cowper was saying to her. ‘Your modesty becomes you and, while I would not have suggested a waltz as your very first dance, you showed the rest of these young ladies how to perform it with modesty and decorum.’

Graydon’s mother looked as if she might burst with pride, while Graydon smiled politely.

‘Thank you, my lady,’ Florence said. She smiled at Graydon, despite the ache in her heart. ‘I would like a glass of that ratafia you promised. I find I am quite thirsty.’

‘Of course,’ he said and there was a relieved glint in his eye as he moved away.

Her stomach sank as she saw the lady in lavender deliberately move across the ballroom to intercept him with a delighted smile.

Graydon had not expected to see Eloise here tonight. His discreet enquiries had led him to believe she had not come to town for the season. Yet here she was, as beautiful as he remembered. Unlike many women, her maturity made her more striking than she had been as a debutante.

He bowed. ‘Lady Standish. Good evening.’

She laughed, that tinkling note of amusement that had plagued his dreams for many years after he left England. Not the least because she had laughed at him in precisely that way at their very last meeting, when she had told him his lack of wealth and his father’s reputation made him ineligible as a husband. And that she had enjoyed his devotion but had no choice but to reject his suit.

‘Surely our friendship is of a nature that we need not stand on such formality, Graydon? You always used to call me Eloise.’

So, they were to pretend be friends. Perhaps she did not recall her words when they had parted. ‘It is good to see you again, Eloise. And looking as lovely as ever.’

He was surprised how easily the words rolled off his tongue. And surprised that there was no vestige of the pain their parting had caused him. No; he should not be surprised. He’d frozen out the part of him that cared.

She looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes in that disarming way she had, half-shy, half-bold. ‘You, on the other hand, have changed.’

‘For the better, I hope?’ Now why the devil had he said that? He did not need her approval.

‘Indubitably,’ she said, and her tone was…warm.

He forced himself not to be diverted or warmed. ‘Is your husband here? I never met him before I left for Canada.’

A flash of distaste passed across her face, quickly dispelled by a serene expression. ‘My husband is unwell. I left him at home with my son, nursing one of his many ailments.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘I am staying with my sister. You remember Celeste? Lady Swann, as she is now.’ She chuckled. ‘Quite the catch, she made. I am here for the shops, of course. One can buy nothing truly elegant in the country.’

‘True.’ He had said as much to Florence. ‘So, you have a son. Congratulations. How old is he?’

‘Ugh. Small boys; such little infidels. He is six.’ She laughed. ‘But I love him dearly. It is a shame his papa is in such poor health.’

‘I am sorry to hear it.’ The man she had married had been in his fifties. That was why he had been so shocked and hurt when she’d said that she had a better prospect for a husband—an older man who could afford to keep her in proper style, something she’d said he would never be able to do. By now that husband would be over sixty. It was hardly surprising he would not be in the best of health.

‘I hear you are married,’ she said, an odd light in her eyes.