There was a suggestion of a smile about his lips as he turned away.
16
“Who are the Duke of Stanbrook’s other guests?” Chloe asked as she sat beside Ralph in the carriage later, telling herself how silly it was to be nervous, as though she were about to be exposed to society for the first time. The very fact that it was not the first time was a large part of the problem, of course.
“Lady Trentham and Hugo,” he told her. “The Earl and Countess of Kilbourne, Lady Trentham’s brother and sister-in-law. And the Dowager Viscountess Lyngate, a widow of George’s acquaintance. I have not met the lady, but George tells me she was born and raised in Greece, came to England when her father was an ambassador here, and stayed to marry an Englishman. I have met Kilbourne and his wife a time or two and have always found them amiable. They were married in the Peninsula and ambushed by the French the very next day. He was badly wounded and brought home, and she was assumed dead. A long time later he was about to marry someone else when his long-lost wife suddenly appeared to stop the wedding. And I do mean wedding. They were in the church with half the ton in attendance.”
“Really?” she said. “She arrived only just in the nick of time? But how wonderfully romantic.”
“Provided,” he said, “he had not forgotten her and was not hopelessly in love with the other lady.”
“Oh. Had he? And was he?” She turned her head to look at him, though she could not see his face clearly in the darkness.
“Apparently not, on both counts,” he said.
“Then it was romantic,” she said. “But was the other lady in love with him? Was she left brokenhearted?”
He clucked his tongue. “There is no satisfying hopelessly romantic sensibilities, is there?”
“But was she?” she asked again.
“I have never asked her, Chloe,” he said. “It would seem presumptuous since she is virtually a stranger. Perhaps you might ask Kilbourne or his wife. But the lady concerned is now the Viscountess Ravensberg and does not look like a mere shadow of her former self. Not that I knew her former self, it is true.”
She stared at his darkened profile and realized he was talking more and in a lighter vein than usual as a deliberate ruse to distract her. And he had succeeded.
“Ralph,” she said, “never try your hand at writing a love story. You would leave your female audience howling with frustration and fury. A good love story needs a good ending, not just a well-they-look-happy-enough sort of ending.”
“There go my aspirations to compete in the literary world with your brother-in-law,” he said.
She stared at his profile in silence. Was this Ralph? She could not see his facial expression, but she would swear there was a smile in his voice.
“You would be doomed to disappointment if you tried,” she said. “No one can outdo Lucy’s Freddie.”
The carriage slowed and she could see that they had arrived at the theater. The light from a number of torches revealed an area crowded with carriages and people on foot. Chloe had always enjoyed going to the theater. She was determined to enjoy it this evening too. No one, surely, had ever been driven from town three times.
* * *
The Duke of Stanbrook was an attentive host with flawless manners. He was outside the theater awaiting their arrival. He opened the carriage door and set down the steps himself instead of waiting for the coachman to descend from the box. He handed Chloe down and introduced both her and Ralph to the Dowager Viscountess Lyngate, a handsome older lady. The duke offered his arm to Chloe and escorted her upstairs to his box, talking to her the whole way while Ralph came behind with Lady Lyngate. Both the foyer and the stairs were crowded with people, to several of whom the duke nodded graciously without stopping.
It was all very smoothly and very deliberately done for her comfort, Chloe thought. Though really she was not feeling very uncomfortable. The ton would not frighten her away this year. And its members would not openly snub the Duchess of Worthingham, she kept reminding herself.
The other four guests were already in the Duke of Stanbrook’s box, and Lord Trentham stepped forward, hand outstretched, as soon as they appeared in the doorway. His large frame almost completely hid the tiered galleries beyond the box and the people who filled them. Chloe did not feel as much on display as she had expected. Again she felt that it had been a deliberate move on Lord Trentham’s part to lessen her ordeal. Ralph’s friends were very kind even if unnecessarily protective. Her fleeing last year had clearly given the impression that she was a fragile weakling.
Gwen greeted her with a warm hug after her husband had wrung her hand and turned to clap Ralph on the shoulder.
“I did not realize when I called on you this afternoon,” Gwen said, “that I would be seeing you again this evening and that I would have the chance to introduce you to my other sister-in-law.”
Chloe looked at the other couple with interest and curiosity as Gwen introduced them. The Earl of Kilbourne was a blond and handsome man, though coincidentally his face too was scarred, presumably from an old battle wound. His countess was small and pretty, with a face that looked as if it habitually smiled. Chloe decided almost immediately that they were a happy couple, though she had no acquaintance with them upon which to base her opinion. Perhaps it was just the romantic in her that wanted it to be true. But she did wonder about poor Viscountess Ravensberg, the lady Lord Kilbourne had been forced to abandon at the altar. She hoped there had been enough happy endings to go around.