had thundered so hard in her chest it had been almost painful. If he guessed how she truly felt, would he take fright, and disappear from her life?
But even so, she’d found herself blurting, ‘You make me laugh when sometimes I think there is nothing left to so much as smile about.’
For a moment it had almost overwhelmed her. All of it. She’d had to lower her head and press her lips together to stop them trembling, and blink rapidly to disperse the burgeoning tears.
He’d patted her hand and said, ‘I shall consider it my duty to make you smile, then, whenever our paths cross.’
He already did that. Whenever she was dancing with him, or taking supper, or walking along like this, with her hand on his arm, gazing up into his laughing blue eyes, it was as though the sun had broken through the dark clouds that habitually hung over her.
But then he’d brought those clouds rolling back, by adding, ‘Life is too short to ruin it by worrying about what might or might not happen, Miss Franklin. We should just enjoy each day we are given and let the future take care of itself.’
And she’d had to bite back a sharp retort. It was all very well for him to say such things. He had no idea! He had a roof over his head. A regular allowance—even if he did complain it was a beggarly amount. A secure place in society, because of his rank.
And, most importantly, he did not have to marry, not unless he really, really wanted to.
Was he married now?
She watched him smile down at the plump girl as they went into a right-handed star.
She had no idea. She’d deliberately avoided finding out anything about him since she’d married Colonel Morgan. Things had been difficult enough. If she’d read the announcement of his betrothal to some other woman, and known that she’d managed to impress him enough to renounce his hedonistic lifestyle, she would have wanted to curl up and die.
Which would not have been fair to her husband. To whom she owed so much.
No—to repay all Colonel Morgan’s generosity by breaking her heart over another man—that would have been unforgivable.
‘So…he is a friend of yours then, Robert?’ Rose was looking from her to her brother, a perplexed frown creasing her brow.
‘Not any longer,’ Robert growled. ‘I did not mention it, but…’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, if you must know, we had a bit of a falling out. I have not spoken to Rothersthorpe since a short while after you married our father,’ he said to Lydia, though it was Rose who was questioning him. ‘I did not tell you about it, because, well, because…’
Rothersthorpe?
He’d come into his father’s title, then. Her insides hollowed out at the thought they’d drifted so far apart she did not even know that much about his life.
Though it had been what she’d wanted.
It had.
‘But Mama Lyddy called him Mr Humming… something.’
‘Hemingford,’ Robert corrected her. ‘That is his family name. Now that his father has died, he has of course inherited the title. He is Viscount Rothersthorpe now. I would have thought you would have known that, Mama Lyddy.’
‘No.’ She’d taken such pains to avoid seeing his name in the Weekly Messenger that she had missed even that.
When you made your bed, you had to lie in it. And it had been hard enough to accustom herself to Colonel Morgan as a husband as it was. Letting anyone suspect she had married one man, whilst mourning the inconstancy of another, would have done nobody any good.
And it would do nobody any good to so much as hint at the truth now, either.
‘Heavens, Robert, surely you know I have never been one to pore over the society news? I left that world behind when I married your father.’
‘But you have been talking about him,’ Robert persisted. ‘Neither of you can take your eyes off him.’
Oh dear. He was not going to let it drop. Now he was like a guard dog with a bone.
‘I was trying to warn Rose to be on her guard. I don’t want her taken in by his handsome face and superficial charm.’
He gave her one of those penetrating looks that put her so very much in mind of his father. He had the same steely-grey eyes, the same hooked nose and eyebrows that could only be described as formidable. Of all Colonel Morgan’s children, he was the one who resembled him, in looks at least, the most.
He reminded her of him all the more when he looked down that beak of a nose and said, ‘You need not worry. I am more than capable of protecting her from undesirables.’
Both Lydia and Rose turned their backs on him, snapped open their fans and began to ply them vigorously.
Men! They were all so…impossible!
Especially the handsome charmers like Rothersthorpe, as she must think of him nowadays. Because, even though she was angry with him, she was still achingly aware of exactly where he was, at any given moment.
She refused to look at him, yet she knew when he returned the plump young lady to her chaperon. And she sensed him turn and begin to saunter straight across the room to where they were sitting.
Her heart skipped a beat when she realised he was coming straight towards her.
That he was going to speak to her.
Well, his first words had better be an apology for letting her down, just when she’d needed him the most.
He came to a halt not three feet before her chair, a sardonic smile hovering about his lips.
And it took all her will-power not to get up and slap it right off his face. She had to remind herself, quite sternly, that this was a public ballroom and she must not cause a scene that would rebound on Rose.
She took a deep breath and snapped her fan shut.
She could be polite and dignified. She could, even though her heart was pounding, her mouth had gone dry and her knees were trembling.
She wasn’t an impressionable eighteen-yearold any longer, but a mature woman, and she refused to blush and stammer, or go weak at the knees, just because a handsome man was deigning to pay her a little attention.
Chapter Two
‘Good to see you, Morgan,’ said Rothersthorpe, his gaze sliding right past her as if she was not there.
After a moment’s struggle, she acknowledged that it was probably just as well he had not spoken to her first. Apart from the fact that it wasn’t the done thing, she still wasn’t fully in control of her temper. Only think how dreadful it would be if he’d said, ‘Good evening, Lydia’, as though nothing was wrong, and she’d let all this bottledup hurt and anger burst forth like a cork flying from a shaken bottle.
As it was, she felt Robert’s hand go
