Beguiled. Susan Paul Spencer
do so hope that you and Lady Isabel will be able to attend the small party my mother is giving next week, Lady Lillian,” Miss Hamilton said. “It will mainly be a literary gathering, but we’ll have music and cards, and I’m sure you’ll both find it most entertaining. Of course, it will be nothing compared to the sort of ball that Lady Pebworth is giving tonight. Will you and your cousin be attending? Oh, how lovely! Do tell me what you’re going to wear. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to wear white this season, as I did last year. I’m mortally weary of it.”
Miss Hamilton had the kind of voice that Lily had always been envious of, clear and bell-like, musical when she chattered on, as she was at the moment, so feminine and pretty that Lily had to tamp down the bitter jealousy that so swiftly rose within.
“Please tell me, what color will your gown be?” Miss Hamilton asked. “It won’t matter, of course, for you’re so beautiful that any color will look lovely. Every man who sees you must fall in love with you.”
The compliment made Lily’s cheeks burn, and she smiled at Frances Hamilton and shook her head.
Miss Hamilton pressed her arm and said earnestly, “Well, it’s perfectly true. Don’t you agree, my lord?”
“Indeed, I do,” Lord Graydon replied.
Lily hadn’t realized that the other couple had come so close. She pushed away in her embarrassment and strode to a nearby rosebush, which possessed flowers of a light, pinkish white hue. She fingered one of the soft petals and lifted a small handful of her skirt.
“How lovely,” Miss Hamilton said approvingly. “And aren’t you clever, choosing such a beautiful shade? White, but not quite white. I wish we had thought of such a thing, Mama, when I had my first season, rather than buying only white gowns.”
Lord Graydon smiled down at the girl, possessing one of her dainty hands. “I liked you very much in those gowns,” he murmured, his gaze intimate. “You look beautiful in white.” Lowering his head, he gently kissed the hand he yet held, and then gazed into Miss Hamilton’s eyes for a long moment before releasing her.
Miss Hamilton’s cheeks grew pink and her expression filled with pleasure, while Lady Hamilton looked on with smiling approval.
Lily stood very still, watching the scene as if she were, in truth, completely invisible, as if she had no part in any of it. They were in love, she realized. Lord Graydon and Miss Hamilton. And she realized, too, that it couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence that they had met here like this, or that Miss Hamilton had been so friendly to her.
Did they think her an idiot? she thought with sudden fury. Or that because she was mute, she wouldn’t be able to reason the matter out? It was bad enough for Lord Graydon and Lord Daltry to lie about having asked her to dance, but this…this well-intentioned pity, this forced kindness…she hated it! The only thing she hated more was not being able to tell them how much she resented being treated in such a way, as if she must be handled differently from anyone else.
But you are different, she told herself silently, her fingers unwittingly crushing the delicate petals in her hand as she stood there, invisible, watching. You don’t even exist most of the time.
She should be grateful that Lord Graydon had made such an effort on her behalf, she thought, but she wasn’t. Why had he done it? What on earth had ever made him do it?
“You,” she heard Isabel’s angry voice say as she and Lord Daltry neared, “are an obstinate, thick-headed and stupid swine.”
“Yes, but at least I can ride a horse without half killing it,” he replied, adding acidly, “Lady Isabel.”
Lily had never been more grateful for her relative’s hot temper, and when Lord Graydon said, with a chuckle, “Perhaps we had better go before war breaks out in Kensington Gardens,” she readily let him guide her back to his waiting carriage and hand her in.
Something was wrong, Graydon thought as he watched Lady Lillian Walford from across Lord and Lady Pebworth’s ballroom floor. Very, wretchedly wrong.
She was ethereally beautiful in her airy pink gown, which was indeed similar in color to the roses that she had so charmingly compared it to earlier in the day. He remembered perfectly the moment when her gloved hand had fingered the tiny petals—it was the last time she had smiled at him, the last moment she had gazed at him with the open friendliness he had found so refreshing. It seemed like an eternity ago.
She’d been misleading about the dress, however. It wasn’t simply a pink ball gown; it was a creation that had clearly been fashioned to suggest the dawn of a perfect new day. The net overskirt was fixed with what must have been hundreds of—what?—diamonds?—so that every movement set off a sparkling that looked like early stars fading against the blush of a clear morning’s light. The effect was eyecatching, and enchanting. Not that Lady Lillian needed such a gown to gather attention. She could have been dressed in a grain sack and every man in the room still would have been eyeing her with admiration. The trouble was that admiration, at this point, was the only sort of attention she was getting. The ball had been in progress for more than two hours, and she’d not once danced, not even with him.
Somewhere between the delightful afternoon they’d spent together and tonight, Lady Lillian had ceased to be an angel and had turned into a frigidly unapproachable ice maiden. He’d stood before her, having gone to claim his waltz, with his hand outstretched and his most charming smile frozen upon his face, both looking and feeling a fool, not knowing quite what to do. He had never before been turned away when he had requested a dance, and she—she had done nothing but stare at him as if he were something disgusting. She hadn’t even written him a note from her little golden note case, as she had done so often during the day, but had disdainfully communicated through Lady Isabel, who had clearly been highly embarrassed, relating that Lady Lillian had said it was not necessary for him to dance with her.
Not necessary, he thought angrily, watching her across the floor. What in the name of heaven was that supposed to mean? He’d gone to a great deal of trouble on her behalf, and now, for no good reason, she threw it all back in his face. Just thinking of what he’d had to do to assure her a few dances made him clench his fists. Seaborne Margate had even had the gall to insist that he would only dance with the silent Lady Lillian if Graydon would sell him the black hunter he’d purchased last year. Now he’d lose the hunter for nothing; she’d turned Sea away just as coldly as she had the rest of them. Not that it hadn’t been amusing to see the handsome, lofty Sir Margate refused for once in his charmed life—the man had looked positively thunderstruck, a circumstance that Graydon knew Daltry wouldn’t stop taunting the man over for days to come—but Graydon still felt like wringing Lady Lillian’s ungrateful little neck.
She was standing near her sister-in-law and Lady Isabel, much as she had been at Almack’s a few days before. At Almack’s, however, she had at least looked approachable. Now, Lady Lillian looked like nothing better than an impenetrable fortress. Even Frances, who had been so generous in her friendship that afternoon, had been coolly rebuffed, and Lady Jersey had been sent scurrying away with little more than a chilly glance.
Both Lady Margaret and Lady Isabel looked as if they were lost, exasperated but completely unable to reason with their beautiful relative. Lady Isabel had tried to refuse to dance as well, clearly waiting for Lady Lillian to join the gaiety before she did, until Lord Daltry had finally refused to be put aside and had forced that formidable young woman into a waltz by practically carrying her onto the dance floor. When it was finished he carried her back to her mother and strode purposefully to Graydon’s side.
“She’s unhappy,” he said in a low voice. “Lady Isabel, that is. Seems as if Lady Lillian spent the rest of the day locked away in her bedchamber after we took them home. Cardemore went in and spoke with her after an hour or so, and when he came back out he didn’t look very pleased.”