By the time Alistair came to claim her for the set she had lost her nerve. ‘I have changed my mind,’ she said, staying firmly in the seat where Francis had left her when he went to claim his own partner.
‘Don’t sulk, Dita, it isn’t like you.’
‘I am not sulking and you, Alistair Lyndon, are not my keeper; I’ll thank you not to embarrass me by interrogating perfectly respectable gentlemen just because they are in my company.’
‘I am going to marry you,’ he said, taking the chair next to her without being asked. ‘And besides, you should not toy with men’s affections this way. Wynstanley seems a decent enough fellow and he is within an inch of falling for you, if I am any judge.
‘Well, we know you are not, don’t we?’ she countered, refusing to react to the declaration that he would marry her. ‘You place no importance upon love.’
Alistair stretched his legs out in front of him, showing every sign of settling down for a long and intimate conversation. ‘It is a chimera, a delusion. You will come to your senses soon enough and marry me, Dita.’
‘What if I fall in love with someone else and want to marry them?’ she demanded. ‘Or are you so arrogant that you believe that would be a delusion that I must be saved from?’
It was not a possibility, of course. She had come to accept that she was not going to fall out of love with him and into love with some other man. Given that, marrying someone like Francis and settling down to a pleasant, if second-best, life might be possible if only she could square her conscience over hiding her feelings for Alistair from him. But to marry Alistair when she loved him and he did not love her would be misery. She would be constantly hoping that he would fall in love with her and every day she would be disappointed.
‘If he is a decent man and if I was convinced you loved him, then perhaps.’ He did not look happy about it. ‘And if you gave me your word of honour that you did love him and were not simply trying to escape from me.’
‘You trust my honour?’
‘I thought I could trust it with my own,’ he countered and there was no mistaking the bitterness now.
‘So you place your honour above my happiness?’ she asked. ‘No, do not answer that, I do not think I want to hear it. ‘Why not give some thought to your own happiness instead and then perhaps we can both sleep easy in our beds?’
Alistair sat down again as Dita swept off. Happiness. He had never thought of it as something to go out and seek. He had lived life as he wanted it and on his terms ever since he had left home and he supposed that for most of the time he had been happy. Certainly he had felt challenged, fulfilled, energised by the life he had lived.
Happiness, Dita appeared to be implying, required him to take a wife. He knew he needed one, but these little peahens were intolerable; he had observed them for two weeks and they bored him rigid. He studied the room, feeling like a punter assessing racehorse form. Silly laugh, intolerable mother, rude to servants, never washes her neck … None of them had Dita’s class or intelligence. And she, with every reason in the world to marry him—except her fantasy of love—refused him.
He sat and watched the dancing until he caught sight of Lady Evaline Brooke waltzing, which he was fairly certain she shouldn’t be, with that young man who only appeared to possess one waistcoat. He should extricate her from that flirtation before her mama saw her. Alistair waited until the music stopped and then walked across to cut into their conversation that was continuing as they left the floor.
‘Lady Evaline.’
She jumped and looked guilty. ‘Lord Iwerne.’
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‘Won’t you introduce me?’
‘Of course. Lord Iwerne, this is Mr Morgan, Lord Winstanley’s confidential secretary. James, the Marquis of Iwerne.’
‘My lord.’ The young man made a neat bow. He was slightly stocky, dark—Welsh, perhaps, as his name might suggest—and met Alistair’s cool regard with a expression that was polite but not cowed. He’s got some backbone, then.
‘Mr Morgan. Lady Evaline, I was hoping for a dance.’
‘Oh. Well, my card is quite full, my lord.’ She fiddled with it, nervous.
‘How dashing of you, Lady Evaline.’ He caught the dangling card and opened it. ‘Are you sure you cannot spare me a single county dance?’ Every remaining dance had JM pencilled against it. The uncomfortable silence dragged on. ‘How did you expect to get away with that?’ he asked.
‘We were going to sit them out, my lord,’ Morgan said. ‘Over there.’ He nodded towards a partly curtained alcove. ‘Not outside, I assure you.’
‘I suggest you have rather more of a care for the lady’s reputation, Mr Morgan. Lady Evaline, you, I believe, will dance this set with me.’ He swept her on to the floor, leaving Morgan white-faced on the sidelines. It was a country dance, not the best place for a delicate exchange, but he managed to ask, ‘What would your mother say?’
‘She’d be furious,’ Evaline murmured. She was as white as her swain, but her chin came up and she fixed a bright social smile on her lips. ‘You are quite right to chide me, my lord.’
‘I am not chiding,’ he said. ‘I’m rescuing you.’
The steps swung them apart and they said no more until the set was finished and he walked her off to find her mother. ‘Hide that card,’ he suggested. ‘Lady Brooke, here is your youngest daughter, who has danced me to a standstill.’
‘Thank you,’ Evaline said as he stood looking down at her. ‘You are quite right, I know.’