Marriage Made In Shame(21)

‘No, sir. I have never wanted to leave the fine green fields of England. I have all that I might need here.’

A further benevolent nod from her uncle.

Imelda remained very quiet, but Adelaide felt her chaperon’s gaze pinned upon her.

When her uncle suggested they should start for the McWilliamses’ ball, she readily assented. Anything at all to get out of this cosy foursome that was laden with a great dollop of intention and an obvious undercurrent of deceit. She hoped fervently that Mr George Friar would not be attending.

* * *

The Earl of Wesley did not ask her to dance, even when Berrick had been called from her side where he had been stuck like glue for most of the night. No, Gabriel Hughes stayed at one end of the salon though sometimes she caught his glance upon her, flat and hard and unreadable. As the music began again Adelaide knew it was a waltz and she looked at Wesley directly.

Come and ask me. Come and hold me close.

The thoughts tumbled forth unbidden and shocking, the force of feeling within surprising even to herself. But Gabriel Hughes simply wandered off towards the top of the room, the tallest man here and the most beautiful, collecting a drink as he did so and never looking back once.

‘You look very lovely tonight, my dear.’ Imelda’s words brought her into the moment. ‘I was saying to your uncle how London’s society has suited you, made you glow, but never more so than now. Frederick Lovelace looks well tonight, too, do you not think?’

She nodded because her chaperon seemed to expect it.

‘He is a man whom many of the other young women here would be pleased to walk out with. Look at Miss Carrigan, for example, she is lit up like a beacon in that waltz with him.’

As she spoke Imelda leaned forward and took her hand. ‘The wise choice of a husband is crucial to the certainty of any woman’s future happiness, Adelaide. What seems desirable now is often less so when the rosy glow of attraction has lessened.’ Her fingers gripped harder. ‘And believe me, it will. Pick a man who is rich and biddable would be my advice; one whom you might enjoy the material advantages of, but is happy to allow you to do so. These are two very different things.’

‘A man of wealth and weakness, you mean?’

Imelda laughed. ‘A woman’s strength is all that is needed in a marriage. The position is too crowded should a man expect to have his say, too.’

Adelaide thought her old aunts would have liked Imelda’s sentiments, but for her such an argument spoken out loud was jarring. What of equality and the challenge of each other’s minds? Where would discussion and debate be consigned to should a union   be so very one-sided?

‘My Charles and I were wed for thirty years and nary a cross word between us. Lovelace has a resemblance to my dearly departed husband and should I offer you any advice at all it would be to make certain that he understands your more-than-obvious affection for him.’

At that moment the Earl of Berrick caught her glance between the shoulders of others who stood on the dance floor and smiled. A perfectly sweet smile.

‘He has offered for your hand in marriage, you know. Your uncle said I was not to say anything, but these things need to be nurtured in exactly the right setting and, if I might presume to say so, I think that this is it.’

Horror coated humour and then anger cloaked that. This whole evening had been about establishing signposts for the acceptance of a suitable marriage contract. Young women of high-born rank had been tutored extensively in the knowledge of what was owed to the family name and love was not considered an essential element at all. Females here married for security and freedom and wealth and, indeed, who could blame them with the abysmal strictures of manners and formalities attached to innocence.

God, how she suddenly hated the cage she had constructed all of her own making. She should never have agreed to come to London in the first place because the reality of it made her question all she used to believe. Spinsterhood suddenly held as much of a trap as an unhappy union  , the length and breadth of aloneness as repulsive as the enforced deceit of an unequal partnership.

Her thoughts fell to Daniel Wylde and his wife, Amethyst. That was what she wanted. The joy of strength in difference and a forged togetherness because of it. Berrick would never give her that.

Her aunt and uncle were plotting a marriage in which she had no say, and Lovelace had already offered his hand. If she did not act now, she might well indeed be married before she knew it and to a most unsuitable groom.

On the pretext of going to speak with Lucy Carrigan, Adelaide left Lady Harcourt and walked further into the room, a vaulted ceiling separating this part of the salon from the next.

She had never thought of herself as particularly brave or desiring of adventure, but tonight everything inside her was different, heightened, alive. Gabriel Hughes stood talking with Lucien Howard, his sister, Christine, next to him, and as Adelaide gave her greeting she was swallowed up into the group with an ease that was both surprising and gratifying.

‘I was just saying to my brother how much I enjoyed our evening of discussion the other night, Miss Ashfield, and how we should do it again. Soon.’

‘I would like that, Lady Christine.’ She did not raise her eyes to Lord Wesley, but felt him there, a solid and startling presence. His shoes were beautifully polished and the cut of his pantaloons a fine one. The damned blush that she seemed cursed with for ever in his presence was beginning to creep into her cheeks.

When Lucien and Christine began to talk to each other of a man they both had just seen, the Earl of Wesley leaned in and spoke quietly.

‘Are you well, Miss Ashfield? You seem out of sorts.’

A smile tugged at her lips and she made herself look at him directly, the gold in his gaze questioning. He held the look of a man who did not want to fight any more, wary and drained, but even this did nothing to deter her.

‘Would you partner me for the next waltz, my lord?’ There it was out, said, blunt and honest.

He was good at hiding things, but still she saw shock on his face and question.

Lost in the consternation of this Adelaide was not cautious with her next words. ‘Lord Berrick wants me to marry him.’

It was as if the world around them no longer existed, the people and the noise relegated to a place far away, lost in the ether of what each of them was saying, words under words and the colour of the room stark in only black and white.

Gabriel Hughes stood very still, a grinding muscle in his jaw the only movement visible. ‘And what do you want?’ he asked finally.

‘A home, though it is only recently I have come to realise that a place to be and live is important. My chaperon has been quick to tell me that when Bertie brings a bride to Northbridge I shall be...in the way.’

He turned towards her, using the pillar as a barrier so that they were cut off from the hearing of those around them, but she knew that it would not be many seconds before the world around them impinged again.

‘You would be bored to death with Freddy Lovelace in a week.’

‘Could we meet privately, then?’ She made herself say the words, hating the desperation so obvious within them.

‘Pardon?’

‘I need to know what it would be like to touch a man who might make my heart beat faster before I settle for one who does not. Your reputation heralds a great proficiency in such matters and I thought perhaps you might...’

‘Hell, Adelaide.’

The horror of everything spiralled in her head. She had asked for something so dreadful that even the most dissolute lover in all of London town could not accommodate her.

‘I...can’t.’

His voice was strangled and rough, the words like darts as she turned on her heels, hoping he did not see the tears that were threatening to fall as she walked briskly from his side.

* * *

Gabriel leaned back against the hardness of cold marble and felt pain pierce his chest. The scent of lemon hung as suspended as his disbelief in her words.

I can’t.

I can’t touch you.

I can’t let you know.

She was going to marry Berrick for a place, for a home, for the desperation of not being tossed out of an estate that had always been her sanctuary.

They would never suit. She was far too clever for Berrick and far too...knowing. Adelaide Ashfield would eat a husband like that up in no time flat and be starving for all the rest of her life, doomed to the ordinary.

She deserved rare and remarkable, astonishing and marvellous. The list of adjectives made him smile, but another feeling twisted, too. Sadness and regret. That he had not met her at another time in his life, earlier, when he was still whole, and good and honourable.

‘You look pale, Gabe.’ Lucien took up the space that Adelaide had just left, his sister, Christine, chatting to a girl he did not know on his other side. ‘And Penbury’s niece seems upset.’

‘I’m tired, that’s all.’ He tore his eyes away from following Adelaide’s form across the room. She was with her chaperon now and her uncle and they looked to be preparing to leave.

He was glad for it.

‘For a débutante Miss Ashfield seems to inspire strong feelings in those around her.’ A question lingered in Lucien’s eyes. ‘Selwyn Carrigan was telling me the other day that George Friar was asking after her.’

‘The colonial is a charlatan. I hope she stays well away from him.’