Marriage Made in Hope(6)

The feel of him was known, his short brown hair well cut and groomed, the smell of an aftershave that held notes of bergamot and musk.

‘You look very pretty, Sephora, and more like yourself.’ This time his smile was genuine and she saw in him for a moment the boy whom she had grown up with and played with, though his next words burst that nostalgic bubble completely. ‘I do think, though, that you should refrain from imbibing any more wine.’

‘Refrain when I have barely begun to feel its effect?’

‘You have had two full glasses already, my dearest heart, and you are now in some danger of flippancy.’

‘Flippancy?’ She rolled the word on her tongue and liked it. She had never been flippant. She had always been serious and composed and polite until she had fallen headlong into that river and discovered things about herself that she could no longer hide.

For just a second she thought she loathed her intended groom with such ferocity she might well indeed have simply hit him. But the moment passed and she was herself again, chastised by the impulse and made impotent by fright.

Who was that inside of her? What crouched below the quiet and ladylike bearing that was her more usual demeanour and appearance, the lemon silk in her gown, the curls in her hair, the dainty bejewelled slippers upon her feet?

She had a headache, she did, a searing terrible headache that made her sick and dizzy. Richard in a rare moment of empathy recognised the fact and led her over to a chair near the wall apart from the others and made her sit down.

‘Stay here whilst I find your mother, Sephora. You do not look well at all.’

She could only nod and watch him go, the slight form of him disappearing amongst the crowd to be replaced by a man she recognised instantly.

‘You.’ Hardly mannerly, desperately said. The sound came from her in a whisper as Francis St Cartmail stood alone in front of her.

‘I am glad to see you much recovered, Lady Sephora. I am sorry I did not stay to see to your welfare after...’ The earl stopped.

‘My drowning?’ She supplied the ending for him and he smiled. It made his face softer somehow, the scar on his left cheek curled into a smaller shape and her three scratches on his right almost disappearing into a deep dimple.

‘Hardly a drowning. More a case of getting wet, I think.’

Simple words that she needed. Words that took away the terror and the hugeness of all that had transpired. He was even looking at her with humour in his eyes. Sephora wanted him to keep on talking, but he didn’t, though the stillness that fell between them was as distinct as any conversation.

‘Thank you,’ she finally managed.

‘You are welcome,’ he returned and then he was gone, Richard in his stead with her mother, her face creased in worry and remorse.

‘I should never have let you come. I shall have a good word with the doctor after this and tell him that it was much too soon and that...’

The words rattled on, but Sephora had ceased to listen. She was safe again, she knew it.

Hardly a drowning. More a case of getting wet, I think.

She suddenly knew that Francis St Cartmail would never have let her drown, not in a million years. He would have jumped in and saved her had the depth of the water been ten feet or twenty. He would have dragged her across a current many times more dangerous or a river fifty times as wide if he had had to.

Because he could.

Because she believed that he could, this enigmatic and unusual earl with his wide shoulders and steel-strong arms.

The relief of it was so startling she could barely breathe. She smiled at the thought. Breath was the one thing she did have now here in the Hadleighs’ ballroom under thirty or more elegant chandeliers and an orchestra of violinists beating out a waltz.

She was alive and well. The spark inside her had not been quenched entirely and was at this very moment bursting into a tiny flaring flame of revival.

She could not believe it.

Francis St Cartmail’s smile was beautiful and the cabochon ring on his finger was exactly as she remembered it. His voice was deep and kind and his eyes were hazel, like the leaves fallen in a forest after a particularly cold autumn, all of the shades of ruin.

And people watched him, carefully, uncertainly, the wave of faces following him holding both fear and awe and another emotion, too. Wonderment, if she might name it as he stalked alone through a sea of colour and wearing only a deep swathe of unbroken black.

She hoped there was someone here he might find a shelter with, some friend who would throw off the ton’s interest with as much nonchalance as he did himself, but he was lost to sight and her mother and Richard observed her closely.

She did not want to go home now. She wished to stay here so that she might catch sight of the Earl of Douglas again and hope that another conversation might eventuate.

He’d smelt like soap and lemon and cleanness, the crisp odour of washed male having the effect of bringing Sephora quickly to her feet.

Her worried mother took her hand.

‘Would you like some supper, my dear? Perhaps if you ate something you might feel better?’

Food was the last thing she truly wanted, but some sort of destination solved the problem of simply standing there dumbstruck, so she nodded.

* * *

After that most unusual exchange Francis went to join Gabriel Hughes leaning against a pillar on one side of the room. ‘Was she what you expected?’

‘You speak of Lady Sephora, I presume?’

‘Cat and mouse does not suit you, Francis. I saw you talking to her. What did you think?’

‘She is smaller than I remember her and paler. She is also frightened.’

‘Of what?’

‘I think she was sure she was going to drown and has suffered since for it. She thanked me for saving her.’

‘And that’s all that she said?’

‘Well, there was some silence, too.’

‘The stunned silence of Perseus falling in love with the drowning Andromeda?’ Gabriel’s tone held a good deal of humour in it that Francis ignored.

‘She fell off a bridge, for God’s sake. She was not chained to a rock waiting to be devoured by sea monsters.’

‘Still, one must feel a certain connection when a soul is saved. I would imagine something along the lines of the life debt in honour-bound cultures, so to speak.’

‘A heavy price, if that’s the case? I did not see such in the eyes of Sephora Connaught, though they are surprisingly blue.’

Gabriel nodded. ‘And young men have written sonnets about those orbs. The number of her suitors is legendary, though she has turned each and every one of them down.’

‘For the marquis?’ He didn’t want to ask the question, but found himself doing so.

‘Winslow fancies himself as something of an example others should be copying in both dress and manner, I think. He is said to be somewhat pompous and arrogant in his dealings with people.’

‘Well, he looks fairly harmless.’ Glancing across the room to where the young lord stood, Francis saw that Sephora Connaught was tucked in beside him.

‘Harmless but controlling. See how he positions himself at her elbow. Adelaide said that if I were to ever constantly hover like the Marquis of Winslow does, she would simply shove me in the ribs.’

‘Perhaps Lady Sephora enjoys it?’

‘I think she allows it because she has never known differently.’

Sephora Connaught’s profile was caught against the light—a small turned-up nose, sculptured brow and cheekbones that were high. Her pallor was almost white.

‘From all accounts Winslow congratulated himself quite heartily on his organisation at the riverside, but his bride-to-be does not look quite herself tonight. Perhaps she does not concur to the same opinion. Perhaps she wishes he had thrown caution to the wind and made the more solid gesture of self-sacrifice by jumping in after her.’

‘Stop teasing, Gabe.’ Adelaide swiped her husband’s arm. ‘It was a scary and dangerous situation and I am certain everyone tried to do their best. Even the marquis for all his pedantic and fussy ways.’

But Francis was not so sure. ‘No, I think Gabe has the gist of him. Winslow sent me a card the next day. While he made an art form of thanking me for my help, he also implied that further correspondence with Lady Sephora would be most unwelcome. He did not want her bothered by any maudlin recount of the incident, he stated, and hoped I had put the whole nonsense behind me because he certainly had.’

‘So you are now to be an inconsequential saviour? A man to be barely thanked?’ Gabriel looked like he wanted to go over and knock Allerly’s head off his shoulders.

‘Winslow’s father is ill so perhaps that is weighing heavily upon him.’ Adelaide frowned as she added this to the conversation. ‘It is, however, hard to imagine what a woman like Sephora Connaught might see in such a man.’

‘She grew up with him,’ Gabriel said. ‘Both families are friends with strong ties and all adhere to the expectations of old tradition, so I am sure the parents are more than pleased with their daughter’s choice of husband.’

As they watched, Sephora’s well-endowed mother, Lady Aldford, towed her away and he observed those around giving their greetings. What was it in the young woman that intrigued him? She was the ton’s favourite daughter, a woman who had managed to snag one of the loftiest catches of the Season without even a hint of criticism from anybody. People admired her. She was everything that was good and true and honest and she was beautiful along with it. Cursing, Francis turned away and was pleased when a passing footman offered around a new tray of drinks.