Page 39 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
The lady was a widow, a Mrs. Paddimore, and a friend of Lady Deerhaven. She stayed to talk for several minutes, finding common ground with Arial in their joint enthusiasm for a series of books by a pair of Englishmen who had, for the last decade, been entertaining the United Kingdom with their journeys in different parts of the world.
As had become usual when there was dancing, Arial soon accepted several invitations to dance. Peter wanted to refuse them all, afraid of what might be said to her when he wasn’t at her side.
Also, if he was to be honest with himself, because he preferred to keep all her dances to himself. She showed to advantage on the dance floor, though she had confided in Peter that all her experience until her marriage had been confined to dancing with Clara.
He had, as usual, solicited the first dance of the evening, and the supper dance. But when the music began for the second set, a contre-dance, he had to release her to go off with Lord Hershaw, a prominent Corinthian whom Peter might have liked if the man had not been so obviously an admirer of Peter’s wife.
Presumably, Hershaw said nothing out of place, for Arial was smiling when her second partner of the evening took over for the next dance in the set. Again, nothing went wrong that Peter could see. Arial returned to Peter’s side slightly flushed from the exercise but smiling.
She was engaged for the next set, too, and this one was clearly not as innocuous. Watchful from the sidelines as she and her partner stood together waiting for their turn to take up the pattern of the dance, Peter saw her stiffen at something the man said.
In the next moment, she pasted a smile back onto her face, saying something in reply.
The man stiffened in his turn, then bowed so slightly that the courtesy was itself an insult and offered his elbow. Arial ignored it, turning away and setting off around the edge of the dance floor toward Peter. As he strode to meet her, Peter saw Stancroft and his wife pushing their way to the front of the spectators so Arial had to pass them. They hissed something as she came level with them.
A few steps later, she placed her hand in his, her color high and her eye glittering.
Peter looked over her shoulder for her dance partner. He was nowhere to be seen. Probably as well. Punching him would relieve Peter’s feelings and enliven the evening but was unlikely to quell the rumors.
He tucked Arial’s hand onto his arm and escorted her out onto the terrace where they could talk. “What did he say?” he asked.
“Mr. Frankton? Or Josiah?”
“Yes.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I can see that Frankton upset you, and whatever Stancroft said, I’m sure it was poison.”
“As to Josiah, it was nothing. Just spite. Marjorie commented that she was astounded I was brazen enough to show my face, and Josiah replied that I didn’t. That I went everywhere masked, so I did not frighten children and spook horses.” She shrugged. “Perfectly true about the children. I suspect horses are made of sterner stuff.”
Peter thought a foul oath but kept it behind his teeth. He had not hit Josiah hard enough, but that could be amended. “And Frankton? It must have been bad for you to walk away from him in the middle of the set.”
“I should not have done that. I made a scene and drew attention to myself.”
“On the contrary. You were overcome by the heat and needed a moment outside. What did Frankton say, Arial?”
Arial looked down at their hands, still clasped between them. “Do you promise you will not call him out? Or make a scene?”
“I will not call him out, and nor will I make a scene. But I will make him regret the day he insulted my wife. He did, Lady Ransome, did he not?”
She looked up and met his gaze. “He asked me if, like the Loathly Lady of Arthurian legend, I turned into a beautiful succubus at night, and then proclaimed it apparently didn’t matter to you, since my money was lovely enough. He said he had heard that you cover my head with a flour sack before lying with me. He offered himself as a substitute, since I apparently possessed—I cannot repeat the word, but it referred to what he sees as the important part of a female’s body.”
Peter passed straight through red-hot rage to stone cold wrath.I will kill him. I will hunt him down and extract his ballsthrough his nostrils. When I have finished with him, there will not be enough left to bury.
“Peter, you’re hurting me.”
Peter became aware that Arial was trying to tug her hands free. He loosened his grip. “I am sorry,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Areyouall right?” She put a hand up to cup his face. “I should not have told you. Peter, he only said what others are thinking.” Arial cast a quick glance around to make sure they were alone on the terrace, then slipped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. “I am all right. Their words cannot hurt me, Peter.”
Peter moved farther into the shadow beside the door. Holding her in his arms quieted his battle rage like nothing else could. But it also fed the cold anger behind the rage. Whatever Arial said, she was wounded by the gossip. He saw it in her eye, felt it in the stiff way she held herself.
Frankton could not be allowed to get away with treating her so contemptuously.
As for the insult to him, it stung all the worse because it was partially true. Hehadmarried Arial for her money. He was ashamed that it was true, and it shamed him more because he had chosen it freely, and still resented it.
After a while, she sighed and lifted her head. “Thank you, I needed that. We had better go back in.”
“Let us go home,” Peter begged, but he was not surprised when Arial expressed a preference to stay. “The next set starts soon. My next partner will be looking for me.”
“Who is it?” Peter asked and conceded that the man was decent enough. He hovered through that set, and only relaxed when Deerhaven took Arial onto the floor. The supper dance came next. Peter had half an hour to hunt for Frankton. But search as he might, the man was nowhere to be found.
