‘Well, it won’t,’ she said. ‘I shall flirt with whomsoever I wish,’ she said, making Lord Deben’s grin widen to something that looked, had she not known better, triumphant. ‘You do.’
Richard blinked and for a moment his mouth hung open.
Wythenshawe took the opportunity to deliver his next line. ‘Doth echo o’er the moonlit grass...’
Then a knowing look came over Richard, and he said, ‘You’ve been trying to make me jealous.’ He laughed. ‘And I never even knew about it until tonight. Don’t that beat all!’
That remark wiped the smile from Lord Deben’s face. It looked as though he’d realised that this was the man over whom she’d been weeping, the first night they’d met. And now, because of Richard’s arrogant assumption, he would think she had been using him all along.
No wonder he looked murderous.
‘I have not been trying to make you jealous,’ she denied hotly, for Lord Deben’s benefit as much as to puncture Richard’s over-inflated opinion of himself. ‘I have not spared you a thought for weeks and weeks.’ How could she, when she was completely obsessed with Lord Deben?
‘Of course not.’ Richard grinned. ‘You’ve probably been enjoying yourself immensely, too, while you haven’t been trying to make me jealous. Look, we’ll say no more about it, if you just come along nicely now. I only joined Miss Waverley’s court because it’s the thing to do. See? And as for the other—I’m not angry with you. Not a bit. Can even see how he might have turned your head. After all, a girl like you ain’t used to masculine attention.’
‘A girl like me? What, pray,’ said Henrietta in a dangerously polite voice, ‘do you mean by that, Richard?’
‘You, ah...well, you...’ Richard floundered for a few seconds, which was all the encouragement Wythenshawe needed to shout the next couplet.
While blanket-tossed I sleepless lie,
Pondering Sylvia’s peerless...
‘You ain’t a flighty piece,’ Richard burst out, apparently struck by inspiration. ‘That’s what I meant. And your brothers took good care you weren’t exposed to the wrong kind of men. His kind,’ he said, shooting a dark look at Lord Deben. ‘The kind that will steal an innocent girl’s heart for sport, then toss it aside when he’s sure of his conquest.’
He looked into her eyes with the kind of concern she had once dreamed of seeing.
And then shattered her by saying, ‘Face facts, Hen. It cannot go anywhere. Fellows like him don’t marry country girls with...well, let’s be honest, plain faces.’
This was not news to her. She’d always known Lord Deben would not stoop to marrying her. Yet to have somebody say it to her, in a crowded drawing room so that everyone could hear, was just about the nastiest thing anyone had ever done to her.
From the back of the room she heard someone snigger. She suspected it was Miss Waverley.
For a moment, she was so shattered, she was incapable of making any decisions as to how to handle this.
What did a girl do, when she’d just been completely humiliated in public? Walk out with her chin up? Faint?
But then Lord Deben spared her the necessity of having to do either of those things, by producing yet another handkerchief from his tailcoat pocket with a dramatic flourish, spreading it on the floor and kneeling down on it. On just the one knee.
‘Miss Gibson,’ he said, placing one hand over his heart, ‘if only I could steal your heart, I would consider myself the most fortunate man in London. For mine beats only for you.’
A collective gasp went up from the audience. With a strangled cry, Wythenshawe seized his pages of poetry and stormed from the dais.
Henrietta wanted to weep. Was Lord Deben mocking her? She hadn’t thought he could be so cruel.
But when she looked into his face, there was no trace of mirth. She had never seen him looking so deadly earnest.
A lump came to her throat. This must be his idea of coming to her rescue. He could see Richard had hurt her, publicly humiliated her, and he was trying to mitigate the damage by publicly denying he found her unattractive. And it was very sweet, but what good could it do?