Duncan turned to look about him.
His aunt's home was admirably suited to a party of this nature, consisting as it did of a line of connecting rooms spanning the whole length of the house – drawing room, music room, library, and dining room.
The doors of each room had been folded back tonight so that guests could move from one room to another as if they were all one.
The drawing room was already almost uncomfortably crowded with guests.
Someone was playing the pianoforte in the next room. "Shall we go and listen?" he suggested to Miss Huxtable, indicating the door into the music room. "Oh, I would not if I were you," Andrea said, but Miss Huxtable had already set a hand on his sleeve. "Oh, dear, this /is/ awkward." They passed through the first door to find a group of people standing about the pianoforte, which was being played with more than usual competence by a very young lady in pale pink. Merton was standing behind the bench, turning the pages of music for her. "Miss Weeding," Miss Huxtable explained. "She has real talent. She is also very modest. I am delighted that she has been persuaded to play tonight." They stood with everyone else to watch and listen, and attracted somewhat less attention than they had in the drawing room.
Except from Merton himself.
He spotted them after a minute or two and looked noticeably restless and uncomfortable until the music came to an end. He bent his head then to say something to Miss Weeding and came striding across the room toward his sister. "Meg," he said, "I have been waiting for you to arrive. I was afraid to come back home for fear I would pass you on the way and not realize it.
You must allow me to escort you home again without delay." He looked at Duncan for the first time, his expression tight and hostile. "You ought not to be here, Sheringford. I'll wager Mrs. Henry did not invite you." Duncan merely raised his eyebrows. "But she /did/ invite /me/, Stephen," Miss Huxtable said, "and so it is quite unexceptionable for me to be here, and Lord Sheringford too, I daresay. Mrs. Henry is his aunt." "/Turner/ is here," Stephen said, his voice low but urgent. "So are the Pennethornes." Ah.
Well, it was inevitable, Duncan supposed. They were in London for the Season, as was he, alas. They were bound to come face-to-face sooner or later. It had almost happened the evening before last, though the whole width of a theater had separated them, and Turner had made no move to force a confrontation. Instead he had run during the first intermission, which had seemed entirely in character. Tonight perhaps he would have no choice in the matter, unless Miss Huxtable wished to turn tail and run now before it was too late.
She was looking at him. "I suppose," she said, "that is what Mrs. Henry meant when she said her soiree would be talked about for some weeks to come. And what your cousins meant when they said you should not stay long or venture farther than the drawing room." "Will /you/ take her home, Sheringford, or shall I?" Stephen asked. "Do you /wish/ to leave, my lord?" Miss Huxtable asked, virtually ignoring her brother. She was looking closely at him.
He did actually. This was a very public place. And he was escorting the lady he hoped to marry, the lady who could rescue him from penury and the inability to give Toby the country home he had promised him after Laura's death. He was in company with dozens of people who thought the very worst of him and would spare him no sympathy whatsoever in any confrontation with Laura's husband – or with Caroline Pennethorne.
It really was not a pleasant thing to be hated. One might be blasГ© about it on the outside, but inside … Yes, he wished to leave. But there were certain moments in life that forever defined one as a person – in one's own estimation, anyway. And one's own self-esteem, when all was said and done, was of far more importance than the fickle esteem of one's peers. He would not turn away from this particular moment any more than he had turned away from the painful decision he had made five years ago.
Not, at least, unless Miss Huxtable wished to leave. His primary responsibility at the moment was to her.
But she had asked him a question. "No," he replied. "But I will certainly escort you home if you wish to go." "There is no need for you to put yourself out," Merton said curtly. "It will give me the greatest pleasure to remove my sister from harm's way and myself from a potentially ugly scene. If I were you, Meg, I would say a permanent good-bye to the Earl of Sheringford." Her eyes had not left Duncan's. "Thank you both," she said, "but I intend to stay. It would be ill-mannered to leave so early." "Allow me at least, then," her brother said with a sigh, "to escort you back to the drawing room, Meg. There are – " She turned her head to look at him at last. "Stephen," she said, her voice soft and warm, "thank you. But I have my own life to lead, you know, and I am quite capable of doing it without assistance. Go and enjoy yourself. Miss Weeding has been looking quite forlorn since you abandoned her." "Meg," he said softly and pleadingly. He glanced at Duncan and turned back to join the young lady, who had relinquished her seat at the pianoforte to someone else with a far more heavy hand. "Miss Huxtable," Duncan said, "you have been placed in an awkward position, to say the least. I really ought to insist upon escorting you home." "I put /myself/ in an awkward position," she said, "when I lied to Crispin at Lady Tindell's ball. I compounded it when I received you at home the day before yesterday – oh goodness, was it really so recent? – and commanded you to woo me. You have done nothing yet to convince me that I /ought/ to marry you – and nothing to convince me that I ought /not/. If I run now, I will forever wonder if I might have married you and achieved something like happiness with you. I am going to stay. It is beyond your power to insist upon taking me home." /… something like happiness …/ He stared grimly at her. Was happiness – or even /something like/ happiness – a possibility if he married? All he wanted – all he had wanted for years, in fact – was peace. And his own familiar home. And a secure, happy environment for Toby to grow up in. The presence of a /wife/ at Woodbine would be a severe complication. But without a wife there would be no home at all either for himself or for the child – the one person in life whom he loved totally and unconditionally.