Page 4 of A Bride By Morning
Lady Derby always gracefully steered the conversation away from Lydia’s lack of marriage prospects. The matrons, after all, weren’t aware that the cause of her unfortunate circumstance was a gentleman they all esteemed and sought to match with their own daughters in matrimony. Eventually, everyone accepted that Miss Lydia Cecil was destined to remain her aunt’s devoted companion—and thus, she became invisible. She was no longer invited to gatherings or to take tea with debutantes. Men no longer asked her to dance. She was, quite simply, an extension of Lady Derby.
Rather like a servant, a duchess had once laughed.
It was just as well, Lydia supposed. She enjoyed the company of her aunt and the other matrons. Her little corner of the ballroom was a refuge away from the duties of courtship, where she watched couples dance and admired the ease of their movements and discussion.
She caught a few conversations, rolled their exchanges over in her mind the way one would assemble the solution to a puzzle. After it became clear Gabriel was not returning to marry her, she had thought to memorize such scripts and employ them when she could not depend on herself to be pleasant and witty. But the skills she might have cultivated as a younger debutante eluded her. Lydia had been nearly five-and-twenty when Lady Derby finally introduced her into society. Practically a spinster. She imagined people watching her for the slightest mistake, making judgments and evaluating her. Taking note of everything she did wrong, no matter how minuscule. After all, why would a girl of good breeding wait until such an advanced age to attempt to find a husband? What, they asked, was wrong with her?
Now, at the age of seven-and-twenty, she had become that glacial Lydia Cecil they believed her to be.
Entirely by accident.
One of the matrons said something to Lydia, and she forced a smile in reply. The noise was too loud for her to think of an answer. Aunt Francis gave her a sympathetic look, the older woman aware of Lydia’s difficulty in these situations. Whenever Lady Derby suggested that Lydia stay home for the evening, Lydia quickly rejected the notion. For some reason, the idea of retreating to a life of seclusion chafed. It seemed like an admission that there was something wrong with her.
An admission thathewas correct when he determined that she was not good enough for him, after all.
As if her thoughts summonedhim, there he was. Standing across the ballroom with a man she recognized as Mr. Mattias Wentworth, the second son of the Earl of Stafford.
Their eyes met.
Lydia felt every molecule of her body go still. The din of the crowd faded to a dull roar, and her vision tunneled at the edges. Against her will, she was struck by the memory of hundreds of days spent laughing with him at picnics. Practicing dancing in the garden as youths. Listening to him speak a dozen languages that she couldn’t understand.
But this Gabriel St. Clair was different from the boy who existed in her childhood. Over time, his features had only grown more handsome, his infectious smile renowned across ballrooms for making women blush. His physique, too, had changed. His shoulders had broadened, and his waistcoat hugged the flat planes of his belly. The cut of his trousers could not entirely hide the musculature of his thighs. As notorious as his smile was, she thought something empty and almost reptilian lurked behind his pale green eyes. Something that unsettled her.
It was strange to see such indifference in a face she’d once loved.
Wait for me.
He gave her an almost mocking flash of his teeth, as if he read her thoughts. No, that stranger near the terrace doors wasn’t the Gabriel she knew. She didn’t know this man.
She didn’t like this man.
She sharply looked away, trying to concentrate on the polite chatter of society matrons. The ballroom noise returned to inundate her senses.
Mrs. Fitzroy asked Lydia something she hardly heard. Lydia gave a cordial reaction that she hoped passed for a response. Then, unable to help herself, she glanced back at where Gabriel had been standing.
He was gone.
His absence did little to alleviate the sudden ache in Lydia’s chest—grief had dug its claws into her years ago.
“Aunt,” she found herself saying. The matrons quieted. “Will you please excuse me? I need a moment in the ladies’ salon.”
Aunt Francis frowned. “Is everything all right, dear?”
“I’m a bit overheated,” she said apologetically. The other matrons murmured in sympathy. A few fluttered their fans in agreement. “I’ll only be gone a moment. Would you like me to get you anything while I’m away?”
“No, my love,” she said, taking Lydia’s hand to offer a reassuring pat. “Please take all the time you need.”
With a grateful nod to Lady Derby and the other women, Lydia made her way to the double doors that exited the ballroom. People smiled at her as she passed, but Lydia didn’t return the expression. Her temper would not allow her to pretend. Let them all think her constructed of ice down to her very foundations. She knew better.
Gabriel, after all, had been her architect.
The hallway outside was only marginally more silent. It did not offer the kind of solitude Lydia required. Her breathing became erratic; she needed a calm place to gather herself. Desperately, she hurried down the hall and grasped the door handle to a random room, relieved to find Lord Coningsby’s study. The mahogany desk gleamed in the light that filtered from the hallway, and the air was redolent with the aroma of cigar smoke and brandy.
Lydia shut the door behind her. Then, on unsteady legs, she went over to the plush leather divan that occupied the center of the room and slid behind it. If anyone thought to look inside, no one would find her with her forehead pressed to her knees.
“Calm yourself,” she whispered. “Calm. Calm.Calm.”
Each time she said the word, she let it breathe out of her in a steady chant. She had done this so many times since Gabriel had ceased answering her letters. Since he had returned to England and pretended she was a stranger—or worse, a nuisance. A vexing little girl who was too infatuated with him for her own good.
