Elizabeth crept down the stairs into the downstairs hall. There was no one there. Apparently all the servants were busy either abovestairs with the refreshments or in the kitchen below. She turned a door handle and peered cautiously into a darkened salon. It appeared to be empty, though she whispered Lucy's name and listened a moment before closing the door again. She repeated the performance at a smaller room that appeared to be Mr. Main-waring's office, and at another, larger room that was obviously a well-stocked library. From this room she had an answer.
"Come inside, Elizabeth, if you must," a cool and familiar voice said from the depths of a large leather chair close to a window at the far side of the room.
"I shall not disturb you, my lord," she replied hastily. "I am looking for someone."
"Why would you search for Miss Worthing in a part of the house obviously not being used for entertainment?" Hetherington asked.
"Er, I merely thought she might be lost," she replied weakly.
"No, you thought she might be enjoying a secret tryst with her country swain," he said with heavy sarcasm. "And being the good and straitlaced companion that you are, you must interfere. She could do so much better if she went to London and hung out for a suitable husband, could she not?"
Elizabeth was angry. "You do not know why I am looking for Miss Worthing, my lord," she said, "and you do not know me. I have no desire either to explain or to justify myself to you. Excuse me, please. I must find Miss Worthing."
"Relax," he said, the sneer still in his voice. "She has been found already by the worthy squire and his wife. She and Dowling were in here with me. We were having a pleasant and quite unexceptionable conversation. It was totally improper, of course, for Miss Worthing to be here with two gentlemen, unchaperoned, but sometimes one forgets such niceties. I suppose the young lady will be whisked home early in deep disgrace."
"I am sorry for it," Elizabeth said, "but really her parents' actions are no concern of yours or of mine."
"No, they are not," he agreed. "Come inside and shut the infernal door for goodness' sake, Elizabeth. You look like a bird poised for flight with one hand on the door like that."
Elizabeth did not know why she did as he asked. He just seemed different tonight, sitting there in the darkness. He seemed unthreatening. She crossed the room and sat on the padded window seat.
"You have been drinking," she remarked.
He laughed. "And I believe you have become a puritan," he returned.
"You used not to drink at public entertainments," she said.
"And you used not to moralize, ma'am," he retorted.
"I was not moralizing," she replied, "merely wondering what troubles you."
There was silence for a few moments. Then he laughed softly again. "It seems to me that we have found ourselves in this situation once before," he said.
"Yes," she agreed softly.
They could find nothing to say for a while. They sat silently, remembering. Elizabeth closed her eyes and wished herself back to that previous occasion when Robert had first kissed her and told her that he loved her. If only they could go back, wipe out the intervening years. If only she could change the way he was, make him become permanently what he had seemed to be then.
"I suppose the young always imagine the good times will last forever," he said quietly, echoing her thoughts. "It is a rude awakening, is it not, to discover that people change, or that they have other facets to their character that we did not suspect?"
Elizabeth could feel tears welling in her eyes and a tickling in the back of her throat. She stared down at the dim outline of her hands, but could not trust her voice for a while. At last she got to her feet.
"I should not be here, Robert," she said, willing her voice to steadiness. "I must go."
"It is a long time since I heard my name spoken like that," he commented. "You always did have a special way of saying it, like a caress."
"Good night," she said, and moved past his chair.
He caught her wrist as she passed and stopped her progress. "You are right," he said, his words slightly slurred. "I have been drinking. And drink makes me sentimental. Tomorrow I shall be able to see you as you really are again and I shall despise myself for having detained you here. But for tonight, Elizabeth, I find you infinitely desirable."
He lifted her hand toward him and pressed his lips to her palm. He held her wrist afterward, closing her fingers over the spot that he had kissed. He got abruptly to his feet, dropped her hand, and faced the window. "Go now," he said harshly, "before I forget that there can never be anything but enmity between you and me."
Elizabeth turned and found her way out of the room more by instinct than by conscious direction. She stood outside, her back against the door, for a whole minute, fighting the bitter tears, deliberately taking deep, slow breaths to calm herself. Finally she forced herself to climb the stairs again and enter the ballroom. She made sure that there was a dance in progress before she did so, and made her way to an obscure alcove of the room, where she escaped attention until the final dance, when Mr. Rowe found her.
"Ah, Cinderella," he said, "I thought you were lost. I was convinced that Prince Charming must have chased you away already."
"Yes, he did, sir," she replied cheerfully, "but I considered it too far to ride home on a pumpkin, so I crept back inside through a rear door."
"Ah," he said. "Wise, if unromantic. Do come and dance, Miss Rossiter."
Chapter 7
The weather turned rainy the next day and remained gloomy for most of the following week. Cecily was restless. She had become used to the increased activities of the previous few weeks. Mrs. Rowe fretted. She had set such store by the arrival of distinguished visitors in the neighborhood, yet already the round of social activities had slowed down. And neither of the unattached gentlemen seemed likely to attach himself to Cecily. Perhaps just as provoking was the fact that the girl seemed not to mind.
Elizabeth was relieved, though. She wanted to see as little as possible of the Ferndale residents for the time being. She dreaded seeing Hetherington again. That last, strange meeting with him in the library had unnerved her more than she would have expected. She found his coldness and his anger easier to cope with than the melancholy and near tenderness that drink had induced in him that night. It had taken all her willpower in the hours following the ball not to allow the reserve she had built around herself in six years to crumble away. But she had held on and would continue to do so, perhaps, if she could just stay away from him.
And she was pleased, too, to avoid an early meeting with Mr. Mainwaring. She liked him, and her woman's intuition told her that she could attach his affections quite easily if she set her mind to the task. Common sense had already told her that she must not do so. But common sense sometimes seemed a dreary taskmaster. The previous years had been dull and lonely ones. It was pleasing to know that one was admired, especially when the admirer was a handsome and personable man. She felt that he could become a very close friend. And to a lonely person, friendship can seem a likely substitute for love. Elizabeth was tempted, yet she wished to resist temptation. The tedium of being forced to spend the better part of a week indoors was not wholly unwelcome to her, then.