Cousin Rosalie reached out and patted her hand.
I think it quite the most ghastly thing I have ever seen, with the possible exception of the riding hat you wore the other morning.
Angeline smiled secretly into the darkness.
DAMNATION, EDWARD THOUGHT the following morning when he opened the invitation Lorraine had warned him would be coming.
Vauxhall!
It was famous for its glitter, its vulgarity, its artificiality. He had never been there. He had never wanted to go. He still did not. He could not think of many places he would less like to go.
But go he must.
Lorraine had been close to tears in the drawing room before dinner last evening when she had spoken of the planned visit to Vauxhall. Both he and his mother had been present as well as Alma and Augustine.
“It has been only a little over a year since Maurice’s passing,” she had said. “I would not offend any of you or appear uncaring or … or fast by engaging in too many social pleasures too soon or giving the appearance that perhaps I have a … a beau. Will you all please come too to Vauxhall, and persuade Juliana and Christopher to come, so that it will be in the nature of a family outing?”
“I doubt if Christopher will risk the dangers of night air and the smoke of fireworks clogging his lungs,” Augustine had said, looking at Edward with a twinkle in his eye. “Unless Juliana persuades him that it is safe, of course, or that going to Vauxhall is essential for her good health. That would do it. He is soft in the head where she is concerned.”
Edward’s mother had got to her feet and hugged Lorraine tightly.
“Lorraine,” she had said, “no one could have been a better wife to my son, and no one could be a better mother to my granddaughter. But Maurice is dead and you are alive. You must not be ruled by guilt or the fear that we will think you somehow unfaithful to his memory. I assure you we will not. But Vauxhall? My dear! It is for young people. I will certainly not go there with you. But Alma and Augustine surely will, and I daresay Juliana and Christopher will too. And Edward, of course.”
Of course. Of course he would and of course he must. Not just because his mother had given him little choice, but because he was fond of his sister-in-law and could see that she already had a genuine regard for Fenner—and he for her. And Fenner was a steady character. He was not just another Maurice.
Duty called, then. Oh, and affection too. Duty did not preclude love. Indeed, it could hardly exist without love to impel it onward.
So he would go. To Vauxhall of all the undesirable places. With the near certainty that Lady Angeline Dudley would be a fellow guest. If Fenner was inviting all of Lorraine’s family, it stood to reason that he would invite all of his too. And devil take it, that included the Duke of Tresham as well as his sister.
“Send an acceptance of this one,” he told his secretary, waving the invitation in one hand before setting it down on the desk.
She would love Vauxhall. She would bubble over with exuberance. He could picture it already in his mind. Lady Angeline Dudley, that was, not Lorraine. Lorraine’s enjoyment would be altogether quieter, more dignified, more decorous.
Chapter 10
ANGELINE WAS SITTING very upright in a small boat on the River Thames, wishing that somehow she could open up her senses even wider than they already were and will them to take in every sensation of sight, sound, smell, and touch and commit them to memory for all time.
Not that she would have trouble remembering anyway.
It was evening and darkness had fallen. But the world—her world—had not been deprived of light. Rather, the darkness enhanced the glory of dozens of colored lanterns at Vauxhall on the opposite bank and their long reflections shivering across the water. The water lapped the sides of the boat in time with the boatmen’s oars. There were the sounds of water and distant voices. She was on her way to Vauxhall—at last. The hours of the day had seemed to drag by. The air was cool on her arms. It was a little shivery cool actually, but it was more shivers of excitement she felt than of cold. She held her shawl about her shoulders with both hands.
Tresham had insisted upon the boat, though there was a bridge close by that would have taken the carriage across in perfect comfort. Angeline was very glad he had insisted. And she was still surprised he had accepted his invitation from Cousin Leonard. She knew he had been about to refuse it, but then he had heard that Belinda, Lady Eagan, Leonard and Rosalie’s cousin on their mother’s side, having arrived unexpectedly in town just last week, was also to be of the party. Lady Eagan’s husband had run off to America with her maid a year or so ago, and Angeline could hardly wait to meet her. She hoped she was not gaunt and abjectly grieving, however. That would be distressing.
Tresham was reclining indolently beside Angeline, one long-fingered hand trailing in the water alongside the boat. He was looking at her rather than at the lights.
“You do not have a fashionable air, Angeline,” he said. “You are fairly bursting with enthusiasm. Have you not heard of ennui? Fashionable ennui? Of looking bored and jaded as though you were a hundred years old and had already seen and experienced all there is to be seen and experienced?”
Of course she had heard of it—and seen it in action. Many people, both men and women, seemed to believe that behaving with languid world-weariness lent them an air of maturity and sophistication, whereas in reality it merely made them look silly. Tresham did it to a certain extent, but he was saved from silliness by the air of dark danger that always seemed to lurk about him.
“I have no interest in following fashion,” she said. “I would prefer to set it.”
“Even if no one follows your lead?” he asked her.
“Even then,” she said.
“Good girl,” he said, a rare note of approval in his voice. “Dudleys never follow the crowd, Angeline. They let the crowd follow them if it chooses. Or not, as the case may be.”
Remarkable, she thought. Absolutely remarkable. Tresham and the Earl of Heyward agreed upon something. Tresham would expire of horror if she told him.
“You know why you have been invited this evening, I suppose,” he said.
“Because Leonard is our cousin?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the lights, which were becoming more dazzling and more magical by the minute. They looked even more glorious if she squinted her eyes.
“Because Lady Heyward and her family have singled you out as the most eligible bride for Heyward,” he said. “And for some reason that eludes my understanding, Rosalie seems just as eager to promote the match. I was always under the impression that she was a sensible woman, but matchmaking does have a tendency to distort female judgment quite atrociously. You had better watch your step, Angeline, or it will be the earl himself who will be turning up at Dudley House next to petition for your hand. And you know how much you love having to confront and reject unwanted suitors.”
There had been two more since the Marquess of Exwich. And the embarrassing thing with the second of the two had been that when Tresham had come to the drawing room to inform her that Sir Dunstan Lang was waiting in the library to propose marriage to her, she had been unable even to put a face to the name. And when she had gone down and had a faint memory of dancing the evening before with the young gentleman standing there looking as though his neckcloth had been tied by a ruthlessly sadistic valet, she had no longer been able to recall his name.