Mary Balogh: Christmas Beau

And each time she turned her head, sometimes deliberately, sometimes under the pretense of looking elsewhere close by, he was standing in the same place. Lady Mumford joined him there, but still he looked quite steadily at her, Judith found.

She had not realized that the ballroom was quite so hot and stuffy.

She was wearing an apricot-colored gown of simple but elegant design. It was neither too low nor too high at the bosom, and it was fashionably high-waisted, falling in soft folds to the scalloped hemline. She wore white lace gloves and white slippers. Her hair was dressed as it had been at the soiree.

She looked beautiful, as she had looked in the park that afternoon with reddened cheeks and nose and hair somewhat windblown beneath her bonnet.

The Marquess of Denbigh stood in the doorway of Lord Mumford's ballroom looking at her. If she had been grief-stricken at the death of her husband, then she had recovered her spirits in the year since. She was laughing quite merrily.

He watched her until he knew she was aware of his presence. And then he continued to watch her, knowing that his gaze would disconcert her. He knew that even when she was not darting glances at him she was aware of his steady scrutiny. And he knew that when she looked at people or objects close to him, smiling in apparent enjoyment of the evening, she was really seeing him out of the corner of her eye. He knew that when she looked full at him it was in the hope that his attention had been taken by someone or something else.

He watched her even when he knew that other people must be noticing the focus of his attention and even when Lady Mumford came to speak with him to apologize for the fact that she and Mumford had not been at the door to greet him. He knew he was late, he explained to her. He did not expect them to stand at the door all evening merely in order to greet latecomers.

Finally, after he had stood in the doorway for well over half an hour, a set ended and Judith Easton joined a group of guests and deliberately turned her back on him. It was a very straight back. If she was uncomfortable-and he knew very well that she was-then she was going to do nothing outwardly to show it.

She had always had that control over her emotions even as a girl. Unfortunately, at that time he had mistaken control for sweetness and shyness.

He strolled toward her. Nothing in her posture suggested that she knew he had moved from his position in the doorway. But as he approached another lady said something to her and she turned her head sharply just as he came up to her. He nodded a greeting to the whole group and turned to her.

"Mrs. Easton," he said, "will you do me the honor of waltzing with me?"

She inhaled visibly as she lifted her eyes to him.

"Oh, I say," said a florid-faced gentleman with whom the marquess was not acquainted, "I was just about to ask you myself, ma'am."

"Thank you," she said, ignoring the florid-faced gentleman, seeming in fact not even to have heard him. She stepped away from the group. He felt himself also inhaling slowly when the music started and he touched her for the first time in almost eight years. Her waist was still small and supple beneath the folds of her gown-even after two children. Her hand was still slim and soft. She wore the same perfume. He could not identify it, but he knew instantly that he had not smelled it since he had last been close to her. Long eyelashes, darker than her hair, still fanned her cheeks.

He had never waltzed wim her before. The waltz had come into fashion since their betrothal. But she danced it as well and as daintily as she had used to dance the quadrille or the minuet.

She looked up to his chin. ' T want to thank you for letting my children ride your horse this afternoon, my lord," she said. "You gave them a great deal of pleasure."

"I am fond of children," he said, and watched her raise her eyes briefly to his.

Perhaps she did not believe him. Probably she did not. And of course he had not been motivated chiefly by his love

for children that afternoon, though he had liked the boy's enthusiasm and the girl's quiet trust.

What had he done wrong? he wondered as he had wondered hundreds-thousands-of times years before. Why had she preferred Easton to him? He had had the rank and the wealth and the prospects. It was true that Easton had been good-looking and charming with the ladies. But the man had also had a reputation as something of a rake.

Probably that had been it, he had concluded long ago. Perhaps it had been the eternal attraction of the rake. He on the other hand had always behaved toward her with perfect decorum and restraint. Perhaps she would have liked him better if he had displayed his feelings on occasion. But he had thought a display of feelings inappropriate before their wedding night. A night that had never come. Besides, he had never been easy with women of his own class.

"You are planning to make London your home?" he asked.

"For a while," she said.

"You are joining your husband's family for Christmas?" he asked.

She hesitated. "No," she said. "We are going to be quiet here alone for a change. My parents went to Millicent's in Scotland, but I decided that my daughter is too young for the lengthy journey. We are not going to stay with Andrew's family this year."

"Ah," he said. "London can be sparsely populated and a little lonely at Christmas."

"I have two young children and a sister-in-law," she said. "We will not be lonely."

That was the end of their conversation. He had found out what he wanted to know, and he had no wish to entertain her. He watched her as they waltzed, not taking his eyes from her face, totally unconcerned by the attention he must be drawing from the other guests-or by the embarrassment he must be causing her.

She remained calm, though he could feel a certain tightening of muscles beneath his hand at her waist.

Had she ever regretted jilting him? he wondered. Once the stars had faded from her eyes and she had realized-as she surely must have done-what kind of man she had married, had she remained in love with him, loyal to the feelings that had sent her running guiltily to his arms?

Or did she sometimes regret the man she had wronged? He supposed the answer depended upon whether she had been hostile to him or merely indifferent. Perhaps she had been hostile. Having grown up in a womanless home, he had never learned that easy charm with women mat seemed to come so easily to other men. Perhaps she had actively disliked him. Perhaps she had never for one moment regretted her decision. His jaw tightened and his lips thinned.

Toward the end of the waltz he thought that she would open the conversation again. She drew breath and looked up resolutely into his eyes. But whatever words she planned to say were not spoken after all. She let out the breath through her mouth and continued to look into his eyes as he gazed steadily back. And finally her own wavered and fell.

He felt almost like laughing. But it was far too early to gloat. His revenge had scarcely begun yet.

"Thank you, my lord," she said, smiling at his chin when he returned her to her group at the end of the set. "That was pleasant."

"The pleasure was mine, ma'am," he said, bowing to her as she lifted her hand from his arm.

And he sought out Lady Mumford, complimented her on the success of her ball, bade her good night, and left the house.

Judith awoke the following morning when a little figure climbed onto her bed carefully so as not to wake her, and burrowed beneath the bedclothes beside her.

"Mm," she said, reaching out a hand and ruffling auburn curls, "am I being an old sleepyhead?"

"Yes," Kate said. "Aunt Amy is painting with Rupert and Nurse is busy, and I escaped."