Part 22 (1/2)

Chapter 21.

Less than an hour later, in the crowded, noisy, candlelit ballroom, Alexandra was painfully aware that all Roddy's predictions had been accurate. It was the first time in her recollection when she and Jordan were not completely surrounded by friends and acquaintances and even hangers on eager to incur Jordan's favor and influence. Tonight, however, everyone was avoiding them. In the mistaken belief that Jordan and Alexandra would be deeply chagrined when they discovered the truth about Elizabeth Cameron, the Townsendes' friends were politely trying to lessen their inevitable embarra.s.sment by simply pretending not to notice that the Townsendes were present and in the company of Elizabeth Cameron. whose reputation had sunk beneath reproach during their absence from England. Although they ignored Jordan and Alexandra out of courtesy, they, like everyone else at the ball, didn't hesitate to cast scathing glances at Elizabeth whenever they could do so without being seen by the few people she'd evidently duped into befriending her. Standing near the dance floor where dancers were whirling about -and stealing smirking glances at Elizabeth-Alexandra was caught between tears and fury. As she looked at Elizabeth, who was making a magnificent effort to smile at her, her throat constricted with guilt and sympathy. The laughter and music were so noisy that Alex had to lean forward in order to hear what Elizabeth was saying.

”If you don't mind,” Elizabeth told her in a suffocated voice that belied her smile and made it obvious to Alex that she was drowning in humiliation, ”I-I think I'll just find a retiring room and see to my gown.”

There was nothing whatever wrong with Elizabeth's gown, and they both knew it. ”I'll go with you.”

Elizabeth shook her head. ”Alex, if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone for just a few moments. It's the noise,” she lied bravely.

Elizabeth moved away, keeping her head high, threading her way through six hundred people who either avoided meeting her gaze or turned away to laugh and whisper.

Tony, Jordan, the d.u.c.h.ess, and Alexandra all watched her as she walked gracefully up the stairs. Jordan spoke first, careful to keep the emotion out of his voice for fear that if he showed how infuriated he was with all six hundred people in the ballroom, Alexandra would lose her slender thread of control, and the tears s.h.i.+ning in her eyes would fall down her flushed cheeks. Putting his arm around her waist, he smiled into her tear-brightened eyes, but he spoke quickly because, as Elizabeth walked away, the acquaintances who'd been giving the Townsendes a wide berth were beginning to . start their way.

”If it is any consolation, darling,” Jordan told her, ”I think Elizabeth Cameron is the most magnificently courageous young woman I've ever met. Except for you.”

”Thank you.” Alexandra tried to smile, but her gaze kept reaching for Elizabeth as she moved up the curving staircase.

”They will regret this!” the dowager said frigidly, and to ; prove it, she turned her back on two of her intimate friends who were now approaching her. The dowager's acquaintances had been the only ones to join the Townsendes tonight. because they were of her own age, and so several of them were unaware that Elizabeth Cameron was to be ridiculed, scorned, and snubbed.

Swallowing a lump of tears, Alex glanced at her husband. ”At least,” she said, trying to joke, ”Elizabeth hasn't been completely without admirers. Belhaven's been hanging about her.”

”Because,” Jordan said without thinking, ” he's on everybody's blacklist, and no one has condescended to share the gossip about Elizabeth with him-yet,” he amended, watching with narrowed eyes as two elderly fops tugged Belhaven's sleeve, nodded toward Elizabeth's back, and began to speak rapidly.

Elizabeth spent the better part of a half hour standing alone in a small, dark salon, trying to compose herself. It was there that she heard the excited voices of guests discussing something that on any other night would at least have evoked a feeling of shock. Ian had just been named heir to the Duke of Stanhope. Elizabeth felt no emotion at all.

In her state of consuming misery she was incapable of feeling anything more. She remembered, though, Valerie's voice in the garden long ago as she looked through the hedge at Ian: ”Some say he's the illegitimate grandson of the Duke of Stanhope.” The memory drifted past Elizabeth's mind, aimless, meaningless. When she had no choice but to return to the ballroom she crossed the balcony and descended the stairs, wending her way through the crowd, avoiding the malicious eyes that made her skin burn and her heart contort. Despite her brief respite her head was pounding from the effort of maintaining her composure; the music she'd once loved blared discordantly in her ears, shouts of laughter and roars of conversation thundered around her, and above the din the butler, who was positioned at the top of the stairs leading down to the ballroom, called out the name of each new arrival like a sentry tolling the time. Many of the names he called out Elizabeth recalled from her debut, and each one identified another person who, she knew, was about to walk down the stairs and learn to their derision that Elizabeth Cameron was there. One more voice would repeat the old gossip; one more pair of ears would hear it; one more pair of cold eyes would look her way.

Her brother's arrogance in refusing her suitors two years ago would be recalled, and they would point out that only Sir Francis would have her now, and they would laugh. And in some ways, Elizabeth couldn't blame them. So utterly shamed was she that even the occasional faces that looked at her with sympathy and puzzlement, instead of contempt and condemnation, seemed vaguely threatening.

As she neared the Townsendes she noted that Sir Francis, clad in absurd pink britches and yellow satin jacket, was now carrying on an animated discussion with Alex and the Duke of Hawthorne. Elizabeth glanced about, looking for somewhere to hide until he went away, when she suddenly recognized a group of faces she had hoped never to see again. Less than twenty feet away Viscount Mondevale was watching her, and on both sides of him were several men and the girls Elizabeth had once called her friends. Elizabeth looked right through him and changed direction, then gave a start of surprise when he intercepted her just as she came to Alex and her husband. Short of walking over him, Elizabeth had no choice but to stop.

He looked very handsome, very sincere, and slightly ill at ease. ”Elizabeth,” he said quietly, ”you are looking lovelier than ever.”

He was the last person in the world she'd have expected to take pity on her plight, and Elizabeth wasn't certain whether she was grateful or angry, since the abrupt withdrawal of his offer had vastly contributed to it. ”Thank you, my lord,” she said in a noncommittal voice.

”I wanted to say,” he began again, his eyes searching her composed features, ”that I-I'm sorry.”

That did it! Annoyance lifted Elizabeth's delicate chin an inch higher. ”For what, sir?”

He swallowed, standing so close to her that his sleeve touched hers when he lifted his hand and then dropped it to his side. ”For my part in what's happened to you.”

”What am I to say to that?” she asked, and she honestly did not know.

”In your position,” he said with a grim smile, ”I think I'd slap my face for the belated apology.”

A touch of Elizabeth's humor returned, and with a regal nod of her head she said, ”I should like that very much.”

Amazingly, the admiration in his eyes doubled. When he showed an inclination to linger at her side, Elizabeth had no choice but to turn and introduce him to the Townsendes with whom, she discovered, he was already acquainted.

While he and Jordan exchanged pleasantries, however, Elizabeth watched with growing horror as Valerie, evidently resentful of Mondevale's brief desertion, began moving , forward. Walking with her as if they were moving as one, were Penelope, Georgina, and all the others, closing in on a panicking Elizabeth. In a combined effort to sidle away from them and simultaneously rescue Alex from Sir Francis's boring monologue and roving eyes, Elizabeth turned to try to speak to her, but Sir Francis would not be silenced. By the time he finally finished his story Valerie had already arrived, and Elizabeth was trapped. Reeking with malice, Valerie cast a contemptuous look over Elizabeth's pale face and said, ”Well, if it isn't Elizabeth Cameron. We certainly never expected to see you at a place like this.”

”I'm sure you never did,” Elizabeth managed to say in a controlled voice, but she was beginning to break under the strain. ”No, indeed,” said Georgina with a twittering laugh. Elizabeth felt as if she were suffocating, and the room began to undulate around her. The Townsende group had been like an isolated island all night; now people were turning to see who'd had the daring to go near them. The waltz was building to a roaring crescendo; the voices were getting louder; people were pouring down the staircase a few yards away; and the butler's endless monotone chant rose above the deafening din: ”The Count and Countess of Marsant!” he boomed. ”The Earl of Norris!. . . Lord Wilson! . . . Lady Millicent Montgomery! . . .”

Valerie and Georgina were looking at her pale face with amus.e.m.e.nt, saying words that were receding from Elizabeth's mind, drowned by the roaring in her ears and the butler's rhythmic calls: ”Sir William Fitzhugh!. . . Lord and Lady Enderly!...”

Turning her back on Valerie's and Georgina's scorching hatred, Elizabeth said in a ragged whisper, ”Alex, I'm not feeling well!” But Alex couldn't hear her because Sir Francis was droning on again.

”The Baron and Baroness of Littlefield! . . . Sir Henry ?? arum!...”

Elizabeth turned in desperation to the dowager, feeling as if she was going to either scream or faint if she couldn't get out of there, not caring that Valerie and Georgina and everyone else in the room would know that she had fled from her own disgrace. ”I have to leave,” she told the dowager.

”The Earl of t.i.tchley! . . . The Count and Countess of Rindell!. . .”

The dowager held up her hand to silence one of her friends and leaned toward Elizabeth. ”What did you say, Elizabeth?”

”His Grace, the Duke of Stanhope! . . . The Marquess of Kensington!”

”I said,” Elizabeth began, but the dowager's eyes had snapped to the landing where the butler was stationed, and her face was blanching. ”I wish to leave!” Elizabeth cried, but an odd silence was sweeping over the room, and her voice was unnaturally loud.

Instead of replying to Elizabeth's statement, the dowager was doing what everyone else was doing, staring at the landing. ”Tonight only wanted this!” the older woman said in a furious voice.

”I-I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth asked. ”Do you swoon?” the d.u.c.h.ess demanded, dragging her eyes from the landing and pinning Elizabeth with the direst of looks”

”No, not in the past, but I really don't feel well.” Behind her Valerie and Georgina erupted into laughter.

”Do not even consider leaving until I say you may,” the dowager said tersely, sending a speaking look to Lord Anthony Townsende, a pleasant, unaffected man who'd been her escort tonight, and who suddenly clamped Elizabeth's elbow in a supporting grip. The entire crowd in the ballroom seemed to be pressing infinitesimally closer to the staircase, and the ones who weren't were turning to look at Elizabeth with raised brows. Elizabeth had been the cynosure of so many eyes tonight that she took no notice of the hundreds of pairs glancing her way now. But she felt the sudden tension growing in the room, the excitement building, and she glanced uncertainly in the direction of whatever seemed to be causing it. The vision she beheld made her knees tremble violently and a scream rise in her throat; for a split second she thought she was having a distorted double vision, and she blinked, but the vision didn't clear. Descending the staircase side by side were two men of identical height, clad in matching black evening clothes, wearing matching expressions of mild amus.e.m.e.nt on their very similar faces. And one of them was Ian Thornton.

”Elizabeth,” Tony whispered urgently. ”Come with me. We're going to dance.”

”Dance?” she uttered. ”Dance,” he averred, half pulling her toward the dance floor. Once there, Elizabeth's shock was superseded by a blissful sense of unreality. Rather than deal with the horrible fact that the gossip about her former relations.h.i.+p with Ian was now going to erupt like a full-fledged volcano, and the equally appalling fact that Ian was there, her mind simply went blank, oblivious. No longer did the noise in the ballroom pound in her ears; she scarcely heard it at all. No longer did the watchful eyes wound her; she saw only Tony's shoulder, covered in dark blue superfine. Even when he reluctantly guided her back to the group around the Townsendes. which still included Valerie and Georgina and Viscount Mondevale, Elizabeth felt. . . nothing.

”Are you all right?” Tony asked worriedly. ”Perfectly,” she replied with a sweet smile. ”Do you have any hartshorn with you?”

”I never faint.” ”That's good. Your friends are still standing around to watch and listen, eager to see what happens now.”

”Yes, they will not want to miss this.” ”What do you think he will do?”

Elizabeth raised her eyes and looked at Ian without a tremor. He was still beside the gray-haired man who looked so like him, and they were both surrounded by people who were gathering around and seemed to be congratulating them on something. ”Nothing.”

”Nothing?” ”Why should he do anything?” ”Do you mean he'll cut you?” ”I never know what to expect from him. Does it matter?”

At that moment Ian lifted his gaze and saw her, and the only cut he thought of was a way to cut through the drivel and good wishes so that he could get to her. But he couldn't yet. Even though she looked pale and stricken and heartbreakingly beautiful, he had to meet her casually, if there was any hope of putting the right face on it. With infuriating persistence the well-wishers gathered around, the men toadying, the women curtsying; and those who weren't, Ian noticed with fury, were whispering and looking at Elizabeth.

Ian lasted five minutes before he signaled his grandfather with a curt nod, and they both disengaged themselves from three dozen people who were waiting to be formally presented to the Marquess of Kensington. Together they started through the crowd, Ian nodding absently to acquaintances and trying to avoid being waylaid, but pausing to bow and shake hands now and then so it wouldn't seem that he was heading straight for Elizabeth. His grandfather, who had been apprised of the plan in the coach, carried the whole thing off with aplomb. ”Stanhope!” someone boomed. ”Introduce us to your grandson.”

The stupid charade chafed against Ian's straining patience. He'd already been introduced to half these people as Ian Thornton, and the pretense that he hadn't was an infuriating farce. But he endured it for the sake of appearances.

”How are you, Wilson?” Ian said at one of their innumerable pauses. ”Suzanne,” he said, smiling at Wilson's wife while he watched Elizabeth out of the corner of his eye. She hadn't moved, didn't seem to be capable of movement. Someone had handed her a gla.s.s of champagne, and she was holding it, smiling at Jordan Townsende, who seemed to be joking with her. Even from this distance Ian could see her smile lacked its entrancing sparkle, and his heart twisted. ”We'll have to do that,” he heard himself say to someone who was inviting him to call at their house, and then he'd had all he was willing to endure. He turned in Elizabeth's direction, and his grandfather obligingly stopped conversation with a crony. The minute Ian started toward Elizabeth the whispers. .h.i.t unprecedented volume.