The crowd parted for a moment, and Geoffrey, still tugging at his cravat, found himself looking directly at Alessandra as she looked back. It was clear she had seen him and Jacqueline in the alcove. Her chin lifted, her head turned toward her escort, a Major—the name escaped him—Somebody, and she flashed the man a smile that could only be called flirtatious.
Really! That is no way for a newlywed wife to act, not keeping up appearances…, he thought.
“Do you remember this gown?”
Geoffrey looked down at his alcove partner. He frowned, confused. “Remember your gown?” It was a pale green, perfectly acceptable.
“I wore this gown the first time we kissed.”
He cast about for a memory, but the gown prompted no particular recall. “Oh,” he said, his frown deepening as he saw Alessandra laugh at something the major had said. What could be so amusing?
“…married for four days,” Jacqueline said.
“Four days?” Geoffrey mumbled.
“Geoffrey,” Jacqueline scolded, eyes snapping with emerald fire. “I am married now.” She lifted a hand, indicating the partygoers around them. “This ball is in celebration, as you well know.”
When he did not speak, she seemed compelled to explain a deeper meaning to her comment. “I am safely wed. Now we are free to meet. I miss you, and your kisses.” She lowered her lashes fetchingly, then raised them boldly. “I can be yours.”
He looked down at her at that. He’d known she’d married, that Alessandra had arranged for a gift to be sent even while she’d declined the invitation to the wedding. “Do you not plan a bridal journey?” Why do I stall? Why do I not set a tryst right now?
Jacqueline gave an elegant little shrug. “Aldford has changed his mind. He says he only wishes to go to Paris, and since war makes France impossible we will stay in London.” She gave Geoffrey a lingering glance. “I agreed that I desired London above all things, too.”
Her meaning could not be missed.
“Good gad, woman. You’re only four days married,” he snapped at her.
Her brows lowered and her eyes narrowed.
Geoffrey pulled himself to his full height. This beautiful woman offers herself on a platter to you. You’ve admired her. You’ve toyed with thoughts of a future with her. Certainly you’ve imagined what it would be like to bring her to your bed…
But, truth was, Geoffrey suddenly understood he’d earned that cold look from her, Here he stood, looking down at her, scandalized by her offer—but he had no right to condemn her for her foolish words, for what he now so clearly saw as her ridiculous thoughts of an affair. How could he? He who had toyed with such thoughts himself? How could he fault her for her shocking words when he’d had equally shocking thoughts? Thoughts, he realized now, that were against his very nature, for he knew himself to be a man who did not utter vows lightly. It wasn’t this woman he rejected, not nearly so much as he rejected acting in ways that made him less than he would be.
He lifted his head, took his hands from Jacqueline’s, and stepped back. He gave her a long look, but it was really inside himself he searched.
At length, he gave her a bow, not a stiff one, but a true bow of apology. “Lady Aldford,” he said, letting her see the remorse in his heart. “I fear I have played you false. I have, in fact, played myself false as well. There can be nothing between us. I beg pardon that I have allowed my stupidity to alter our friendship. I understand it would be too much to think we might retain cordial ways. The fault is completely mine.”
“What…what do you mean, Geoffrey?” she said. She must have heard the sincerity in his voice, for she put a hand to her throat even as she also took a step back.
“I only mean I am suddenly quite clear that I must try to cleave only unto my wife. If she’s so foolish as to let me.” He gave her a little smile, yet another act of contrition. “I wish you well, my lady. Truly, I wish you all happiness, but now I must go and try to see if I might, despite my follies, bring about my own.”
Jacqueline’s face flushed with fury. She blinked hard, but it was surely angry tears that threatened, not saddened ones. She moved only her eyes, glancing to both sides to see if their spat was drawing attention.
“You can’t mean—”
“My lady, I do. I truly do.”
She stared for several long beats, then threw back her head. “Never speak to me again,” she said down her nose. She lifted her skirts and swept past him.
Geoffrey’s mouth turned down, for he was sorry to have hurt her…but not at all sorry he had not made a terrible, terrible mistake.
He searched the room for the one face to which he would never reveal he’d contemplated being a fool. Not in order to hide his almost-sin from Alessandra, but because he’d earned the lash of knowing his own near-idiocy, and she was a true innocent who deserved no part of any such recriminating burden.
He spotted her—and a kind of growing exhilaration mixed with doubt. Had he left things too late? Could they start anew? Of one thing he was certain: the woman he looked at now possessed a fineness that came from things more precious than a pretty face or a fetching gown. She had those, but more, much more, she had a generous heart…perhaps she might let him reintroduce his finer self to her…?
He tapped one Mr. Albertson on the shoulder and pushed his way between the man and Alessandra. “Sorry,” he said, abruptly sweeping Alessandra away, paying no heed to the other man’s mild protestations.
Such was his spinning head that it took him a moment to realize Alessandra was stiff in his arms. “My lady?” he said at once.
“You were seen.” Her lips barely parted to get out the words. “Going into that alcove with Lady Aldford.”
Any lightness vanished, replanting Geoffrey’s feet on the ground. He deserved this charming woman’s censure, for more than she could know.
He could only tell the truth. “Lady Aldford and I fought. We are no longer friends.”
She stopped even trying to dance, glaring at him from a pale face marked with twin high spots of pink. She examined his face, hurt hiding in her eyes. “I…I don’t quite know what to make of your statement.”
“Make nothing of it,” he said, his gaze boring into hers, willing her to see that if he’d indeed hurt her before, he was done with such ungentlemanly behavior. “Instead, kiss me.”
She gasped, and he was a bit surprised to see the pain lingered in her eyes. “Kiss you?”
“Here. On the dance floor, before everyone. It would kill any gossip,” he assured her.
He hadn’t said enough, or said it wrong, because she pushed her hands against his chest so that they both stumbled backward a few steps. She righted herself, then turned and fled, running in her haste to be away from him, out of his arms.
She disappeared into the crowd as he stared after her. It took him a moment to overcome his disappointment and alarm at his own lack of charm and sense, but then he went in pursuit.
***
“Lady Huntingsley?” a voice called softly.
Alessandra turned, wiping quickly at her eyes, to note the Baron von Brauer striding across the lawns toward her. She’d fled outside. Hiding. Confused. Longing. Wanting solitude in which to search her thoughts and Geoffrey’s words.
“It is cold, my dear. May I offer you my coat?” He started to shrug the garment from his shoulders, but she declined quickly.
“No, I should be going back in. I w-will…in a moment or two.”
She turned her back to him, blinking down the tears as she pretended to mark the stars.
“It is most clear that you are upset,” he said, still in that quiet way. “May I be of some assistance?”
“No.” She forced her manners forward. “Thank you.”
“But I think I could be.”
She sighed, wiggled on the garden seat she’d sat on, at last turned to regard him with tears still hovering on her eyelashes. “My lord?” she tried to be polite.
“Customs are different in Germany than in England. We can be very formal when we wish to be, but also sometimes we know it is better to be less so, ja? You understand what I say?”
“No.”
He gave a small, kind laugh. “In England, as an outsider, it would be very improper of me to say what I wish to say, but when I am der Baron im Deutschland, then I do as I wish. So, I hereby claim this little bit of lawn for Germany, for one minute’s time.”
Her answering smile was fragile.
He came closer to her, taking up her hands. “I have not been unaware of your mother’s interest in me. No, do not fear, she has been most circumspect, but I am vain enough to admit I know when a mama is assessing my good self as a bridegroom. I admit I do not understand this, as you are married. But do not fear I will ask you for explanations. All I want to say is that, your mother’s interest aside, it is quite plain to me that you are in love with your husband. Und I don’t think he knows this. You scarcely know it yourself. This causes you great pain, and so maybe you think about other men, you try to divert der mind, you think about another life you could live, ja? But you have no success. No, my dear girl, don’t deny it. Why should you?”
“Oh, but I...I—” she cried, her heart beginning to pound in her ears at his words that so reflected her mangled thoughts.
“I watch you two, und I hear him say ‘kiss me,’ und I see you want to und also not want to,” his head tilted to one side and then the other, “und you run out here, from your uncertainty. I merely wanted to tell you there is no dishonor in love, and that as he is already your husband this makes for a tidy resolution, nicht wahr? If you wish it, it could be so, you together. Ja, you could make it so.”
Alessandra stared, more than half-afraid to listen to—to hope in—this man’s kind advice. “I am so confused,” she admitted.
***
From an open door, Geoffrey saw her then, in her white gown—an unmarried girl’s gown he ought to have seen was replaced with fine new dresses—tauntingly glowing softly in the moonlight, her hands clasped in those of Von Brauer. Though the fairy lights in the garden barely extended to where the two stood, he could tell her face was flushed as she gazed up at the older man. Geoffrey’s breath evaporated, and there was ringing in his ears. He felt as he once had as a lad, in a schoolyard fight, after the blows had knocked him senseless enough that they no longer hurt much in the moment.
“Geoffrey?”
He jerked around and saw it was his mother who hailed him. She came close and slipped her arm through his. He shuddered under her touch, too kind in an unkind, awkward moment, and made an effort not to pull away.
“Mama,” he blurted, “Jacqueline and I are no longer friends. She wanted more than I had to give her.”
He looked at her long enough to see her eyes widen, but he felt her vision follow his back to where Alessandra stood in the dark with another man. “Ah,” she said, sounding as though she took his meaning and was not too shocked by it. “So then, do you plan to continue with your marriage?”
He hung his head. Straight to the point, that was Mama. “I…I do not forget your plea.”
“That it is better to get out of a marriage than to let it turn into something you regret?” She sighed when he nodded. “Walk with me,” she said, already turning them back into the room in a gentle promenade. When he’d finally allowed his feet to move, she guided him to where the ball was loud and they would be less likely overheard. “I have a regret, Geoffrey, one I did not tell you of, before.”
He squeezed her hand, for she sounded so somber. There was something new in the gaze she raised to his—an openness that had not been there in a long time, a milder shadow of what he had seen the other day. “I regret I hardened my heart to your father. I never gave him a chance, back then, so early on. I told myself he did not want to be with me, not really. That I had trapped him. I feared it so much—so much that I made it true.” She held his gaze, letting him guide her feet now, her brown eyes soft with feeling. “It was the biggest mistake I ever made.”
“You are telling me—?”
“That now, perhaps, he and I have a chance to right that error.”
He slid his hand over hers atop his arm.
“I gave you a plea, Geoffrey, and I meant it. I mean it still. But now I understand that a beginning must come before you allow an ending. Don’t throw away this marriage, not easily, not precipitously. You owe it to her. You owe it to yourself. Do not follow my example. Get to know her, talk to her about all that’s been between you. Give both of you the time I never gave your father and me.”
“Mama, you realize there is irony here,” Geoffrey said, keeping his tone kind.
“Irony?”
“That had Papa given you the divorce you’d asked him for, it is unlikely this re-meeting of your two minds and hearts could have occurred.” When she considered this with a wry little twist of her lips for several long moments, Geoffrey decided to confess his father’s secret. “I used to sometimes spy and find him crying. He was so lonely.”
His mother lowered her face, perhaps blinking away tears.
“And, Mama, I vow I saw something in your face the other day—”
She blushed like a maiden. “If you saw that I was beginning to hope, then, yes, you were correct.”
“You two will try to live together again?”