“Spilled paint? You are an artist, then?” Mrs. Whittier’s tilted hazel eyes grew bright, lending her features a glow.
Henry nodded. “I was, once. I hope to be again. Though today’s effort was, shall we say, not sufficient to get me into the National Gallery.”
Lady Stratton shrugged. “I’ve never had a painting accepted there, either, so that is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Do you paint?” He felt a quick flash of yearning.
She shook her head, smiling. “No, I don’t. But that is nothing to be ashamed of either.”
It took him a moment to sift her words; then he laughed. Flirtation. Just as in the old days, before he had left.
He settled into his too-small chair and regarded this widowed countess, this friend of Emily’s who seemed to have wrapped all London society into a ball and put it in her pocket. “I wonder, Lady Stratton, if you consider anything worth being ashamed of.”
She tilted her chin down and fixed Henry with the full force of her blue-green eyes. “Oh yes. But nothing that I’d admit to such a recent acquaintance.” Her mouth curved in a secret half smile. “If you wish, you may call me Caro, and perhaps I’ll tell you more.”
“Outrageous, isn’t she?” Emily murmured in Henry’s ear. Mrs. Whittier covered a grin with one hand.
Henry rather suspected Lady Stratton was less so than she seemed, that she had carefully honed her act on all the suitors who had come before. When one had wit and wealth enough, the edge of propriety could prove astonishingly flexible.
He was more than willing to tread that flexible line with her. With such a woman at his side, he could walk anywhere—and eventually, the ton would follow along.
It was time to employ a little strategy; he would set the pace. “You do me a great honor, my lady,” he said, “but as I cannot yet be Caro to you, I shall not ask that you be so to me.” Not yet Caro; not yet dear. Someday, though. Maybe.
She was surprised by this small rebellion, because her eyes widened before she smiled again, slow and appreciative. “You keep me at a distance, Mr. Middlebrook. How am I ever to learn anything of you?”
“Simply ask me, Caro, and I’ll tell you all his secrets,” Emily said. “For one thing, he’s a rotten caretaker of a carpet.”
“That’s one fact,” Mrs. Whittier agreed. “And we know he has two occupations: soldier and painter.”
Lady Stratton coaxed her fan closed with careful fingers. Her golden hair glinted, pale fire under the crystal-spun light of the chandelier. “I’ll grant that,” she said slowly. With a quick snap, she flicked the fan open again. “Very well, you’ve revealed three inconsequential facts about yourself. Perhaps you’ll call on me tomorrow and share a fourth?”
“Inconseq—” Henry’s brows shot up. “My lady, you are hard to please indeed if you think I’ve revealed nothing of consequence.”
“I’m not always hard to please,” the widow said with another of those veiled smiles. “It simply depends on what’s being revealed.”
“Honestly,” said Emily sotto voce. “It almost makes me wish to be widowed so I could be such a scandalous flirt.”
“She’s got a rare gift,” Mrs. Whittier replied. “I am widowed, and I couldn’t possibly manage it.”
The mischievous Mrs. Whittier seemed entirely capable of managing a scandal if she wished, but Henry dutifully pretended not to hear her aside. He considered her words, though. Yes, Lady Stratton did have a rare gift. She had already conquered society; if he could conquer her, then her triumphs would be his as well.
Emily thought they would suit one another; after all, she had said he would meet his future wife tonight. And Emily was usually fairly astute about such matters.
Very well. “Lady Stratton, I’d be honored to call on you and reveal as many inconsequential facts as your heart desires.”
She pursed her lips in a cherry-ripe bow. “Excellent. Perhaps I’ll reveal a bit more about my heart’s desires when you do. After all, a woman can’t live by facts alone.”
The hairs on Henry’s left arm prickled. Possibly on the right too, though he couldn’t tell. It only hung numb and useless at his side, as it had since Quatre Bras six weeks before.
Jem shoved his way back through the pressing crowd just then, trailed by a red-faced footman in a crooked wig. The footman hefted a tray of beverages, which Jem handed around their small party.
Emily held up a glass of cloudy, pale liquid. “If this is wine, there was a serious problem with the grapes.”
“It’s orgeat,” Jem stated proudly. “Delicious.”
Henry took his own cup and gave it a sniff. It smelled syrupy, like almonds boiled with sugar. Emily looked faintly nauseated as she handed the glass back to her husband, who drained it in one swallow.
Just then, a young man with a determined expression and a still more determined cravat, striped and starched up to his cheekbones, poked his face into their little gathering. “Lady Stratton? Our dance is about to begin.”
Lady Stratton—Caro, as she would have it—turned to him. “Oh, Hambleton, thank you for fetching me.” She stood and shook out the heavy silk of her gown, sunny and bright as gamboge pigment. “I must leave you all now. I’ve enjoyed our little tête-à-tête very much.”
Henry received a proper nod as the countess accepted the arm of her new suitor. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Middlebrook.”
And with a parting smile, she allowed her escort to pull her into the crowd.
So. She was a strategist too, as determined as he to set the pace for their flirtation or… whatever it might become. She would have him know she was quite willing to exchange his company for that of another. Even with Emily’s encouragement.
It was time he formed another alliance, then. The companion, Mrs. Whittier—she would be best, if only he could remove the audience to their conversation.
Emily sighed and stretched out her arms. “Jemmy, care to have a seat? If you aren’t going to bring me wine, you must amuse me in some other way.”
“Why not have a dance?” Henry encouraged. “I know you’d like to, Emily.” Indeed, the toe of her slipper was peeping from under the hem of her gown, wiggling in time to a sprightly scrape of strings.
Jem and Emily both regarded him with that bizarre expression he’d seen so often on their faces lately: half hope and half apprehension, with a seasoning of worry. “Are you certain? You won’t mind if—”
“Go on, enjoy yourselves. I’m sure Mrs. Whittier won’t eat me,” he replied.
“Don’t assume too much,” that lady said with a shrug. “All the world has told you how terrifying I am.” Her cheeks darkened from rosy madder to velvety alizarin, Henry’s favorite reddish pigment. A lovely effect with the fair olive of her skin and the stark, earthy brown of her hair, the ink-dark blue of her gown.
He regarded her closely as the chairs around them emptied, as the cream of London society crammed onto the dance floor.
“Mrs. Whittier, you might be surprised by what terrifies me.”
***
Frances studied the face of this man who regarded her with unnerving seriousness. His brows were determined slashes over eyes of a startling blue, his hair as fair as Caroline’s. Faint lines had been burned into the corners of his eyes, no doubt by months under the sultry sun of Spain or southern France. So faraway and lovely that a shiver ran through her body.
He had been a soldier, just like Charles.
“I reckon I have a fair idea of what terrifies you,” she said smoothly, slinging a friendly smile onto her face. “As you’re a soldier, it must be eminently practical—a boggy field or an empty powder horn.”