Mary Balogh - One Night for Love

The Duke of Portfrey was looking at her quite steadily, she saw when she stole a glance at him. He always made her feel breathless—not in the way that Neville did, and not exactly with fear. She could not identify the feeling except that it made her uncomfortable.

"It is really quite remarkable," he murmured.

"Is it not?" Elizabeth said gaily. "Cinderella herself, would you not agree, Lyndon? But not incredible, you must confess. There was a great deal of beauty and natural grace and refinement on which to build. We have not created a new Lily. We have merely polished the old and made her into what she was always meant to be."

"I wonder." His grace raised his eyebrows and kept his eyes on Lily. He spoke softly, leaving Lily with the uncomfortable impression that Elizabeth had misunderstood his earlier remark.

But there was no more time for that particular discomfort. The carriage was slowing and then stopping. They were behind a line of carriages, Lily could see when she looked out through the window. Ahead of them a great deal of light spilled from the open doors of a brilliantly lighted mansion. A red carpet extended from the doors all the way down the steps and across the pavement so that guests alighting from their carriages would not have to set their feet on hard, cold ground.

They had arrived—or very nearly so. They would have to await their turn while the carriages ahead of them drew up one at a time to the carpet, where liveried footmen helped their richly clad passengers to alight.

Lily wished fervently that their turn would never come. And she wished it would come now , without any further delay, without any further moment for thought.

"You will be entering the house and the ballroom on my arm, Miss Doyle," his grace said quietly, clearly detecting her agitation, though she had thought she was showing no outer sign of it. "You will be quite perfectly safe. And even without my escort, you look every inch the lady and quite lovely enough to excite the admiration of every other person in attendance."

Lily had no wish to attract such notice, but his words were reassuring, she had to admit. And suddenly he looked perfectly dependable and trustworthy to her. She felt herself grow calmer. Until, that was, the carnage moved forward another few inches and one of the footmen opened the door and set down the steps.

***

Neville did not arrive early at the ball. He dined with the Marquess of Attingsborough, and they lingered over their port longer than was necessary.

"The fact is I have not set eyes on her," the marquess told him. "Elizabeth has kept her very close. I would not even have known she was in town if I had not been at Newbury when she left there. The word is out now, though. The whole world knows she will be at the ball—and you too, of course."

Neville winced. He thought he knew—he hoped he knew—what Elizabeth was up to, but he was not sure he liked her methods. This was going to be an alarmingly public encounter. And at a ton squeeze too. He would have preferred to call quietly at Elizabeth's, but she had refused to allow it. He would be willing to wager that Lily did not even know he was in London.

He tried not to imagine how she might react to the knowledge—or how she might react to seeing him unexpectedly tonight.

But poor Lily—she would have far more than that with which to contend tonight. He would have expected Elizabeth to be more sensitive to her feelings of inadequacy than to haul her off to a ton ball when even ordinary day-by-day life at Newbury Abbey had been beyond her ability to cope with. She would just not be able to handle such an ordeal, and she would hate it. The nervousness he felt as he finally approached

Cavendish Square

with his cousin and ascended the stairs to the Ashton ballroom was as much for her as it was for himself.

"The devil," he muttered to the marquess as the two of them stood in the doorway. "Why am I doing this?"

The dancing was unfortunately between sets, and there was a very definite hush at his appearance, to be followed a mere fraction of a second later by a renewed buzzing of conversation while a ballroomful of people did a poor job of pretending to mind their own business. Lily must indeed be here, then. Neville did not believe his appearance alone would be causing such an obvious stir.

This situation, he supposed, really must be the sensation of the year. Perhaps of the decade. Deuce take it, but he should not have agreed to this. This was ail wrong.

"Damn Elizabeth," he said, still muttering.

"My dear Nev," the marquess said languidly, "it was for just such occasions as this that the quizzing glass was invented." He had his own to his eye and was haughtily surveying the gathering through it.

"So that I might see my embarrassment magnified?" Neville asked, clasping his hands at his back and forcing himself to look around. For a whole month he had craved even a single sight of Lily, and yet now he found that he was afraid of seeing her—afraid of seeing her paralyzed by the embarrassment that even he was finding almost intolerable.

"To your far left, Nev," his cousin said.

Portfrey was immediately visible, and beside him, Elizabeth. There was a cluster of people making up their group—almost exclusively male, though there appeared to be a female somewhere in their midst. Lily ? Being subjected to a mob? Neville felt himself turn cold in much the way he had always done during battle if he saw one of his men beset by a multiple number of the enemy.

The mob had obviously not noticed him. Everyone else had. Everyone else watched him avidly—though he guessed he would not have caught a single one of them at it if he had turned his head to look—as he strode across the ballroom in the direction of the crowd.

"Steady, Nev," the marquess said from the vicinity of his right shoulder. "You look as if you are about to lay about you with both fists. It would not be good ton , old chap. The scene would be lapped up, of course, with all the enthusiasm of a cat for cream and would make you notorious for a decade or so. But it would do the same for Lily, you see."

Elizabeth saw them coming and smiled graciously. "Joseph? Neville?" she said. "How delightful to see you both."

Good manners took over. Neville bowed, as did his cousin. They exchanged bows with the Duke of Portfrey, who had also turned to greet them.

"You left your mother well, I trust, Neville?" Elizabeth asked. "And Gwendoline and Lauren too?"

"All three," Neville assured her. "They all send their regards."

"Thank you," she said. "Have you met Miss Doyle? May I present you?"

The gall of the woman, Neville thought. She was enjoying herself. The mob, he was aware, had fallen quieter. Several of them had melted away. And then stupidly, he was afraid to turn his head. It was physically difficult to do so. But he did it—rather jerkily.

He forgot that he was being observed by half the ton —and that she was too.

She was all in white—all delicate simplicity. She looked like an angel. She wore a high-waisted, square-necked, short-sleeved satin gown with a netted tunic, and white fan and slippers and long gloves. Even the ribbon threaded through her hair was white— her hair ! It had been cut short and curled softly about her face, making it look more heart-shaped, making her blues eyes look larger. She looked dainty and innocent and exquisitely alluring.

Lily. Ah, dear God, Lily! He had missed her every minute of every hour since she had left. But he had not realized quite how painfully until he saw her again.

"May I present the Marquess of Attingsborough and the Earl of Kilbourne to you, Lily?" Elizabeth said. "Miss Doyle, gentlemen."