Mrs. Bromley-Hayes was strolling away to join a group close by. "It was a horrible oversight on my mother-in-law's part not to have invited her," Vanessa said as Constantine led her onto the dance floor. "She said she had invited simply everyone." "Perhaps not /quite /an oversight," Constantine said. "Although Anna is a perfectly respectable widow, she also has something of a reputation for being sometimes, ah, overfriendly with certain gentlemen." For a moment Vanessa did not comprehend his meaning, but then she did and felt intensely uncomfortable. "Oh," she said. /Overfriendly. /The lady sometimes took lovers? It was no wonder the real sticklers of society, like the dowager viscountess, forgot to include the lady in their invitations.
Was Elliott aware of her reputation? But of course he must be. Was that why he was angry, then? This was, after all, a ball in honor of his youngest sister, who was a mere eighteen years old. "It was naughty of you, then," she said, "to persuade her to come here with you, Constantine. Perhaps you ought to apologize to my mother-in-law." "Perhaps I ought," he said, his eyes laughing at her. "But you will not," she said. "But I will not." She tipped her head to one side and regarded him closely. He was still smiling, though there was that edge of something almost mocking in the expression that she had noticed on other occasions. And there was a suggestion of hardness there too though she had not noticed that before.
Constantine Huxtable, she suspected, was a very complex man whom she really did not know at all and probably never would. But he /was /a cousin and he had never been unkind either to her or to her siblings. "Why do you and Elliott hate each other so much?" she asked. Perhaps /he /would tell her. "I do not hate him at all," he said. "But I offended him, you see, when Jon was still alive. I used to encourage the boy to tease him, not realizing that he would take the whole thing so seriously. He used to have a sense of humor before my uncle died and left him with so many responsibilities. He used to be up for all sorts of larks. But somewhere along the way he lost the ability to laugh at himself - or at anything else for that matter. Perhaps you will help him regain his sense of humor, Vanessa. I do not hate him." It all sounded very reasonable. But as she stood in the line of ladies and watched him take his place opposite her, she could not help feeling that there must be more to it than that. Elliott was moody and often irritable and downright morose. She herself had accused him of lacking a sense of humor. But he would surely not still hate Constantine with such passion just because once upon a time Jonathan had been encouraged to make something of a fool of him.
Then the music began and she gave herself up to the almost unbelievable joy of dancing at an actual /ton /ball. She looked about her, feasting her eyes on all the flower arrangements, breathing in their scents, and smiling at all their guests.
Her eyes met Elliott's at the head of the line, and it seemed to her that he looked at her with the intensity of…Well, not of love exactly. But of /something/. Fondness, perhaps? She smiled dazzlingly at him.
Ah, yes, she thought, theirs really was turning into a good marriage.
She was happy.
Elliott was so furious that he was surprised he had been able to cling to some control.
His first instinct had been to ask her to leave - to ask them both to leave.
To /demand /it, in fact.
To have them tossed out.
To do it himself.
But how could he do any of those things without creating a very public scene? They had timed their arrival with care - late but not too late.
They had known he would not make a scene before so many people - and in his own home.
Nevertheless, a large number of the people present must /know/.
Including his own mother!
No decent gentleman would ever invite his mistress - even his /ex/-mistress - into his own home. Especially when his wife was there, for God's sake. And his mother and his sisters.
Of course Con knew too - and it was Con who had brought her. He was as much to blame as she was. Probably more so. It was the sort of bold idea he was far more likely to have concocted than she.
Elliott tried to give his full attention to Cecily during the opening set. She was bright-eyed and nervous and chattery. This was, after all, one of the most important nights of her life. After dancing with him, she would dance with a succession of eligible young men, all carefully picked out for her by their mother. One of them might be her future husband.
But it was hard not to let his attention stray. What was Con saying to Vanessa? It appeared to be very little. He was smiling at her, and she was positively sparkling - as she had at the Throckbridge assembly. Con could not have said anything to upset her, then.
Anna was not dancing. She was standing on the side-lines, part of a group but not paying attention to the conversation of its members. She was fanning her face languidly and half smiling and watching him dance.
She was not even trying to disguise that fact.
She was wearing the gold gown he had bought her last year because it was daring almost to the point of vulgarity and he had told her that only she of all the women he knew had the figure to do it justice. She had always worn it in private, for his eyes only, when they had dined together or sat together in her boudoir.
He must assiduously avoid her for the rest of the evening, he decided, and hope that would be the end of the matter. He would try to see to it that Vanessa avoided her too.
Good Lord, how avidly interested half the guests must be, watching and waiting and - for the malicious element - /hoping./ She was not to be so easy to avoid, however. As soon as he had finished dancing with Cecily, Con came to claim her hand for the second set.
Vanessa was with her brother and sisters, introducing them to Miss Flaxley, Lord Beaton, and Sir Wesley Hidcote. Lord Trentam, Jessica's husband, spoke in Vanessa's ear even as Elliott looked, and she smiled at him and set a hand on his sleeve. Apparently he was asking her for the next set.
And then Anna appeared at Elliott's side before he could make any move to avoid her, waving her fan languidly before her face, still half smiling. He had little choice but to bow politely to her and listen to what she had to say. "I fear, Elliott," she said in her low, musical voice, "that you must have taken mortal offense." He raised his eyebrows. "I believe," she said, "one of my slippers hit you on the shoulder. I had forgotten when I threw it that it was one of the pair with the sharp heels. Did I hurt you?" "Of course not," he said. "I have a volatile temper," she said. "But you have always known that.
You have always known too that it cools as quickly as it flares. You ought to have returned later that very day. I was expecting you." "Were you?" he said. She had forgotten, perhaps, that her temper had cooled even before he left on that occasion. "But of course." "I was busy," he said. "I have been busy ever since." "Have you? Poor Elliott," she said. "Doing your duty? It must have been a sad chore." He raised his eyebrows again. "It cannot have been much of a pleasure," she said, laughing that low laugh that had always been able to raise his temperature a notch. "Indeed?" he said. "Pleasure and duty were never a good mix," she said, "which is why a marriage between you and me would not have worked well. It was wise of you to have seen that before I did. When may I expect you?" He had thought their affair firmly at an end. But the words had never been spoken, had they? They had quarreled on other occasions and had always ended up together again. "I am a married man, Anna," he said. "Yes, you poor man." Her eyes regarded him over the top of her fan. "But all is not lost. I am here to comfort you and I bear you no ill will.