Susan Paul - Beguiled

“Why, I…” Lord Hanby began, clearly flustered.

“I’ve already reserved a waltz with Lady Lillian,” Lord Graydon said suddenly, tightly, “as well as the supper dance.”

“And I’ve reserved a waltz and a quadrille,” Lord Daltry put in. “You’ll have to make do with what’s left over.”

“Oh, well,” Lord Hanby said, looking at Lily uncomfortably. “Perhaps, then, if you’ll save me the first country dance, my lady?” He turned away before Lily could do so much as nod at him. “Lady Isabel, I was hoping that you might not yet have reserved the supper dance?”

“She has,” Lord Daltry answered, not giving Isabel a chance to speak. “With me. You can have a quadrille. Now please be a good chap, Hanby, and shove off.”

“Well, really,” Lord Hanby said, affronted by this glaring lack of good manners.

Lord Graydon covered his mouth with his hand and coughed. He glanced at Lily and she had to look away to contain her own amusement.

“I have not reserved the supper dance!” Isabel insisted furiously.

“Yes, you have,” Lord Daltry countered firmly. “Hanby, do I have to tell you twice, or would you rather serve as my next sparring partner at Jackson’s?”

Lord Hanby’s eyes widened, taking in Lord Daltry’s massive person, and then he said meekly, “A quadrille will be quite acceptable, Lady Isabel. Good day.” He nodded nervously at Lily and Lord Graydon. “Good day, my lady. Graydon. Daltry.”

“Why you ill-mannered, conceited swine!” Isabel said after Lord Hanby had ridden away. “How dare you lie about such a thing.”

Lord Daltry looked down at her from his greater height and said, “I rather like Hanby, at least enough to protect him from an underbred country chit who’d probably run some of his finest horses into the ground before she was done turning the man into a simpering fool by merely batting her eyelashes at him.”

Isabel lifted her parasol with the obvious intent of smashing it upon Lord Daltry’s head. Lily sat forward with a gasp to stop her, but Lord Graydon’s hand pressed reassuringly on her arm.

“Ah, Lady Hamilton and Miss Hamilton,” he said as another carriage pulled up beside them in the long line of slow-moving vehicles. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Lord Graydon!” the handsome, middle-aged woman in the other carriage greeted. “Indeed, it is. Frances and I were just hoping that we might see you here.” The lovely young lady sitting beside her smiled first at Lord Graydon, and then at Lily. “Won’t you introduce us to your companions?”

“With pleasure,” said Lord Graydon, and Isabel lowered her parasol.

Within fifteen short minutes, Lily found herself strolling arm in arm with Miss Frances Hamilton through the colorful paradise of Kensington Gardens, with Lord Graydon escorting Lady Hamilton beside them. Somewhere not far behind, Lily could hear Isabel and Lord Daltry arguing hotly, but, thankfully, not overloudly.

Frances Hamilton was close to Lily’s age, and very much like the friends that she and Isabel had left behind in Somerset. With curling, golden hair and warm brown eyes, she was a pretty, easygoing girl, open and kind and utterly unfazed by Lily’s inability to speak. She accepted the notes Lily wrote without a pause in conversation, just as if Lily had spoken, rather than written, the words, and she was quick to understand the hand signals Lily usually found it necessary to make.

“I do so hope that you and Lady Isabel will be able to attend the small party my mother is giving next week, Lady Lillian,” Miss Hamilton said. “It will mainly be a literary gathering, but we’ll have music and cards, and I’m sure you’ll both find it most entertaining. Of course, it will be nothing compared to the sort of ball that Lady Pebworth is giving tonight. Will you and your cousin be attending? Oh, how lovely! Do tell me what you’re going to wear. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to wear white this season, as I did last year. I’m mortally weary of it.”

Miss Hamilton had the kind of voice that Lily had always been envious of, clear and bell-like, musical when she chattered on, as she was at the moment, so feminine and pretty that Lily had to tamp down the bitter jealousy that so swiftly rose within.

“Please tell me, what color will your gown be?” Miss Hamilton asked. “It won’t matter, of course, for you’re so beautiful that any color will look lovely. Every man who sees you must fall in love with you.”

The compliment made Lily’s cheeks burn, and she smiled at Frances Hamilton and shook her head.

Miss Hamilton pressed her arm and said earnestly, “Well, it’s perfectly true. Don’t you agree, my lord?”

“Indeed, I do,” Lord Graydon replied.

Lily hadn’t realized that the other couple had come so close. She pushed away in her embarrassment and strode to a nearby rosebush, which possessed flowers of a light, pinkish white hue. She fingered one of the soft petals and lifted a small handful of her skirt.

“How lovely,” Miss Hamilton said approvingly. “And aren’t you clever, choosing such a beautiful shade? White, but not quite white. I wish we had thought of such a thing, Mama, when I had my first season, rather than buying only white gowns.”

Lord Graydon smiled down at the girl, possessing one of her dainty hands. “I liked you very much in those gowns,” he murmured, his gaze intimate. “You look beautiful in white.” Lowering his head, he gently kissed the hand he yet held, and then gazed into Miss Hamilton’s eyes for a long moment before releasing her.

Miss Hamilton’s cheeks grew pink and her expression filled with pleasure, while Lady Hamilton looked on with smiling approval.

Lily stood very still, watching the scene as if she were, in truth, completely invisible, as if she had no part in any of it. They were in love, she realized. Lord Graydon and Miss Hamilton. And she realized, too, that it couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence that they had met here like this, or that Miss Hamilton had been so friendly to her.

Did they think her an idiot? she thought with sudden fury. Or that because she was mute, she wouldn’t be able to reason the matter out? It was bad enough for Lord Graydon and Lord Daltry to lie about having asked her to dance, but this…this well-intentioned pity, this forced kindness…she hated it! The only thing she hated more was not being able to tell them how much she resented being treated in such a way, as if she must be handled differently from anyone else.

But you are different, she told herself silently, her fingers unwittingly crushing the delicate petals in her hand as she stood there, invisible, watching. You don’t even exist most of the time.

She should be grateful that Lord Graydon had made such an effort on her behalf, she thought, but she wasn’t. Why had he done it? What on earth had ever made him do it?

“You,” she heard Isabel’s angry voice say as she and Lord Daltry neared, “are an obstinate, thick-headed and stupid swine.”

“Yes, but at least I can ride a horse without half killing it,” he replied, adding acidly, “ Lady Isabel.”

Lily had never been more grateful for her relative’s hot temper, and when Lord Graydon said, with a chuckle, “Perhaps we had better go before war breaks out in Kensington Gardens,” she readily let him guide her back to his waiting carriage and hand her in.

Something was wrong, Graydon thought as he watched Lady Lillian Walford from across Lord and Lady Pebworth’s ballroom floor. Very, wretchedly wrong.

She was ethereally beautiful in her airy pink gown, which was indeed similar in color to the roses that she had so charmingly compared it to earlier in the day. He remembered perfectly the moment when her gloved hand had fingered the tiny petals—it was the last time she had smiled at him, the last moment she had gazed at him with the open friendliness he had found so refreshing. It seemed like an eternity ago.