Georgiana was left wondering whether there was, underlying his seriousness, some fine vein of sarcasm she had failed to detect. But she got no chance to pursue the matter; the music ceased and Lord Alton returned her to his sister’s side. With a smile and a lazy flick of one finger to Bella’s cheek, and a polite inclination of his head in Georgiana’s direction, he withdrew.
On the other side of the ballroom, Elaine Changley shut her ivory fan with a snap. Her cold blue eyes remained fixed upon a head of gold curls just visible through the throng. Surely Dominic hadn’t left her for a schoolgirl? Impossible!
The intervening bodies shifted, and Lady Changley was afforded a full view of Georgiana Hartley, slim and elegant at Bella Winsmere’s side. The blue eyes narrowed. Her ladyship had not reached her present position without learning to sum up the opposition’s good points. There was no doubt the girl had a certain something. But the idea of the charms of a delicate and virginal schoolgirl competing with her own experienced voluptuousness was too ridiculous to contemplate.
Lady Changley’s rouged lips set in a hard line. The thought of what her so-called friends would say if, after all her crowing, she was to lose a prize like Dominic Ridgeley to a chit of a girl fresh from the schoolroom was entirely too galling to bear. Perhaps a little reminder of what she could offer was due.
IT WAS PAST midnight when Georgiana slipped on to the terrace outside the ballroom. The last dance before supper was in progress, and the terrace was vacant except for the moonbeams that danced along its length. As the chill of the evening bit through her thin gown, she wrapped her arms about her and fell to pacing the stone flags, drawing in deep breaths of the refreshing night air.
She had yet to become fully acclimatised to the stuffy atmosphere of tonnish ballrooms. Feeling the heat closing in on her, she had very nearly suggested to her cavalier of the moment, Lord Wishpoole, that they retire to the terrace. Luckily, a mental vision of his lordship’s face expressing his likely reaction to such an invitation had stopped her from uttering the words, and doubtless saved her from the embarrassment of extricating herself from his lordship’s unnecessary and very likely scandalous company. Wary of giving Bella any further reason to view her with concern, she had pleaded a slight headache to Lord Wishpoole and headed for the withdrawing-room. Once out of his lordship’s sight, she had changed direction. The long windows of the ballroom had been left ajar, but the weather had turned and few guests had availed themselves of the opportunity to stroll on the long terrace.
Georgiana leant against the low balustrade and wished she was not alone. The idea of strolling beside Lord Alton, conversing easily while they took the air, was enticing. Only, of course, there was no possibility of Lord Alton wishing to stroll with her. Unfortunately, reality and dreams did not merge in that way.
The sound of footsteps approaching one of the doors at the far end of the terrace brought her upright. Someone pulled a set of doors wide, and light spilled forth. Startled, Georgiana looked around for a hiding-place. A tall cypress in a tub stood against the wall. Without further thought, she squeezed herself between the balustrade and the tree.
Through the scraggly branches of the tree she watched as a tall woman glided on to the terrace. The moonlight, resurrected now the doors were again shut, silvered her blonde hair. As she turned and looked towards the cypress, Georgiana caught a glimpse of diamonds glittering around an alabaster throat. The lady’s silk dress clung revealingly to a ripe figure; her long, graceful arms were quite bare.
Again light flooded the terrace and was abruptly cut off. Georgiana’s eyes grew round.
Dominic Ridgeley’s blue eyes were hard as they rested on Elaine Changley. His brows rose. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting, my lady?”
Inwardly, Elaine Changley winced at his tone. My lady? Clearly she had lost more than a little ground. But not a suspicion of her emotions showed on her sculpted face as she moved forward to place one slim hand on the Viscount’s lapel. “Dominic, darling. Why so cold?” she purred.
To her surprise and real consternation, Lady Changley sensed an instinctive rejection, immediately suppressed, but undeniable. Shock drove her to make a grab, however unwise, for her dreams. Allowing her lids to veil her eyes, she moved seductively closer. “Surely, my love, what lies between us cannot be ended with a simple ‘Goodbye’?”
Lady Changley was a tall woman. In one smooth movement, she pressed herself to Dominic’s chest, reaching up to place her lips against his.
Automatically, Dominic’s hands came to her waist, initially to hold her from him. But as he felt her silken form between his hands he stopped and quite coldly considered the situation.
He had come to the terrace in response to Elaine’s note, intending to make it quite clear that his “Goodbye” had meant just that. The problem he was having with Georgiana Hartley, or, rather, with making sense of his feelings towards a schoolroom chit, was his major and only concern. He had almost succeeded in convincing himself that it was merely a passing aberration, that the reason he no longer desired the company, let alone the favours, of the delectable Lady Changley was no more than a function of the natural passage of time and had nothing whatever to do with a slim form in green silk gauze. Almost, but not quite.
And now here was Elaine, providing him with a perfect chance to test the veracity of his conclusions. The acid test. Surely, if he were to kiss her now, a woman he had recently known so well, he would feel something?
On the thought, his hands moved to draw her more firmly against him. Then his arms closed around her and his head angled over hers as he took possession of her lips and then her mouth. He felt the ripple of relief that travelled through her long limbs. Warning bells sounded in his brain. He felt nothing—no glimmer of desire, no flicker of flame. The coals were long dead.
Abruptly he brought the kiss to an end and, lifting his head, put Elaine Changley from him. “And that, my dear, is very definitely the end. Adieu and goodbye.” With a terse bow, he spun on his heel.
Before he could leave, Elaine, desperate, stretched out one white hand to his sleeve. “You can’t just walk away from me, Dominic. There’s too much between us.”
The chill of his very blue eyes as they turned on her froze Elaine Changley’s blood. But, when he spoke, Dominic’s voice was soft—soft and, to Elaine Changley, quite deadly. “I suspect, my dear, that you’ll find you’re mist
aken. I should perhaps point out that any embarrassment you might suffer upon our separation will be entirely your own fault. And, furthermore, any attempt on your part to talk more into the relationship than was ever present will only result in your further embarrassment. So—” Dominic smiled—a singularly humourless smile—and lifted her hand from his sleeve, and thence, mockingly, to his lips “—I will, for the last time, bid you adieu.”
Elaine Changley made no attempt to detain him as he strode from the terrace. She was shivering, though not from the cold. Far too experienced to run after her ex-lover, Lady Changley forced herself to stand still until her composure returned. Only then did she follow Lord Alton back into the ballroom.
Georgiana let out a long breath. She emerged from behind the tub, automatically brushing her skirt free of small sticks and needles. She felt as if she had hardly breathed since scuttling behind the tree. That, of course, was the reason she was feeling light-headed. Nothing to do with the revelation that Bella’s brother was quite clearly and indisputably in love with Lady Changley. Why else would he have kissed her like that? She had been too far away to overhear their conversation, or to see their expressions, but the evidence of her eyes had been plain enough. Lady Changley had melted into Lord Alton’s arms. And he had welcomed her and kissed her as if he intended to passionately devour her.
She knew her love for him was hopeless. Had always known it.
Georgiana shivered. Slowly she looked around the terrace. Her innocent daydream seemed more distant than ever, elusive as the mist which wreathed the treetops. With a deep sigh, she pulled open one of the ballroom doors and re-entered the heated room. She finally located Bella amid a knot of their friends. Pushing through the throng, she made her way to her side, rehearsing her request to leave early on the grounds of a headache which she could now quite truthfully claim.
CHAPTER FIVE
DURING THE NEXT WEEK, Georgiana had plenty of opportunity to develop her tactics for dealing socially with Viscount Alton. Contrary to her expectations, his lordship graced all the functions she and Bella attended. He was politely attentive. There was nothing in his behaviour to feed the flame she was valiantly trying to dampen. To her irration, she found that fact depressing. More than ever aware of the disparity of their stations, she doggedly reminded herself that a thick skin could only be obtained through exposure. Consequently, she did not shrink from contact with Lord Alton. Instead, whenever he asked her to dance—which he invariably did at least once, and, on one memorable occasion, twice—she endeavoured to amuse him with her observations on life in the ton. To her surprise, he seemed genuinely entertained by her comments. Indeed, he went out of his way to encourage her to air her opinions. Doubtless, she thought, it ensured he was not overcome with boredom in her otherwise unenlivening company.
Her own motive in maintaining a steady flow of conversation lay in distracting his lordship from the other peculiar responses he awoke in her. Breathlessness, often occurring with a unnerving sense of exhilaration, was the least of these. Sometimes she believed the thudding of her heart would be plainly audible if she weren’t covering the noise with her chatter. Thankfully, he had not yet noticed the tremors that ran through her at his slightest touch. She had hoped these would ease with time, with familiarity, as it were. Unfortunately, they were becoming more acute with each passing day; she went in dread of his remarking them.
Absorbed as she was with dealing with his lordship, by the time they climbed into their carriage each night to return to Green Street she was thoroughly worn out. Gradually, the strain grew, until, in order to preserve her defences for the evenings, she found herself forced to forgo the pleasures of the day. When she excused herself from the afternoon’s promenade for the second day in a row, Bella’s concern became overt.