Too much hinged on this afternoon’s expedition and she needed to look her most innocent and charming.
There was so much she had to put to rights. Whether she possessed the power of allure and words to work a miracle, only time would tell.
* * * * *
Sir Aubrey was not in a pretty mood as he flicked the ribbons over his pair of handsome bays. This should have been a proud moment. Right now, by this morning’s calculations, he should have been a man who’d set himself up nicely. Just the right horseflesh and equipage to cut a dash and stir the blood out in the fresh air before returning home to sweet, undemanding domesticity.
Undemanding domesticity. It’s what he’d envisaged would be the foundation of his first marriage, fool that he was for not considering the ramifications of marrying a woman rumor had it was mad for her cousin.
Arrogance? Innocence.
He rather thought that could excuse it. He’d never experienced the pangs of love or even a particularly strong desire before the necessity arose to take a wife. A marriage was a contract of expediency. This had been so well and truly drummed into him he did not think to question it.
When he’d met Margaret, he’d been struck first by her pretty face and sweet nature. With no angst he’d looked forward to a long and fruitful partnership. He knew men took mistresses when the unions with their wives proved unhappy but the mere thought of Margaret had stirred his loins. Her feelings, he did not take into account. Margaret’s father agreed with alacrity to the contract and Sir Aubrey didn’t think to wonder if she had objections, callow youth that he’d been.
When Margaret lay cold in the ground, ruling out the possibility of reconciliation that had long sustained him, Sir Aubrey realized her death had created a vacuum that would be filled with pain and loneliness unless he found a long-term mistress, for he was not a man who would consider satisfying his sexual needs with a string of meaningless encounters.
With great deliberation, therefore, he’d set about choosing a mistress as far removed from Margaret as was possible.
Jezebel. What a beauty. He was an object of envy for snaring such a rare gem. But with her beauty came a nature that was feisty, demanding and ungrateful.
His life became even more complicated as the rumors surrounding his wife’s death grew. He heard it whispered that Margaret had taken her life because he’d driven her to it. He knew Debenham fed the flames, that he whispered “traitor” and hinted Sir Aubrey had had some involvement in Spencean activities, including the plot to assassinate Lord Castlereagh.
He’d assumed such talk would be dismissed in the absence of proof.
He’d been wrong. Debenham had influential friends and mud stuck.
Frustrated, Sir Aubrey had diverted his energies toward activities that were venal and self-serving rather than the lucrative and mentally rewarding positions within government he’d left his life as a country squire to pursue.
Meeting the two Miss Partingtons this morning was yet another betrayal. More proof that human beings were treacherous creatures and few of them—especially shy, innocent debutantes—what they seemed.
He heaved in a breath as he approached the trio that was to be his afternoon’s entertainment. The gentleman among them, Stephen Cranbourne, eyed him with the suspicion of someone who knows courtesy requires that he be civil to an adversary whose soul is black with sin. His look suggested he was waiting for an opportunity to prove it. The dark-haired and most striking of the two young ladies simpered up at him with transparent design. Sir Aubrey had a fortune and would likely as not inherit a title. Miss Partington was brash and bold enough not to concern herself with his apparently dangerous reputation.
Her pale and unassuming sister was the enigma. Beside Miss Araminta Partington, no one looked twice at Miss Henrietta in a ballroom crowded with beauties.
And yet she was the one who had captured his heart. Captivated him.
He tried not to look at her while he considered the question. Had she really captivated him? Until this morning she’d been but a business transaction. He’d bought her affections and her exclusivity and he’d thought confidently that his physical, and to an extent emotional, involvement were not matters that need concern him unduly until he was ready to move on.
As he pulled on the reigns and drew up beside the waiting party, his confusion grew. To what purpose had his Henrietta—or rather Miss Henrietta—deceived him? It was unfathomable and Sir Aubrey was not someone who liked enigmas. Had she thought to force him to the altar by declaring publicly he’d taken her virtue?
Was she in fact a minion of Lord Debenham’s?
To look at the downcast set of her features, her slumped shoulders and patent discomfort and embarrassment, he would countenance neither of these things.
“Hetty and I shall wait here in the shade.?
? There was no friendliness in Stephen Cranbourne’s tone as Sir Aubrey helped Miss Partington up beside him. Sir Aubrey was equally cool as he prepared to defend himself against his new companion’s wiles. She was terrifying with her not-so-secret agenda.
He could barely make eye contact with the other one.
The other one. She’d have accompanied her elder sister everywhere, to every dance and every ball while he, blind to her less showy attributes, must have looked through her a dozen times.
“You’re very serious, Sir Aubrey,” Miss Partington teased him. “I trust you are not concerned as to how to control your handsome bays?”
“I am not.” He might have added more lightly that he was a dab hand with the ribbons and so set the course for more entertaining chatter, but he could not bring himself to lighten the mood. Leave that to her.
Unfazed, she said, “I shall want a pair of matched roans. My favorite horse was a roan. I’m very partial to them. I am an excellent horsewoman, Sir Aubrey. I believe you are fond of the hunt. So am I.”