Page 25 of The Duke's Last Dance
He did not hold her hand in the gardens. Instead, he had offered her his elbow as her escort through the gardens.
They stayed with Edward and Miss Juliet, which stopped Nicolas from offering her any kind of advances. He would not dare do so in front of Edward. Well, she hoped that he wouldn’t do so, anyway. It would have been embarrassing.
She no longer felt what she once had.
She forced her thoughts off of her feelings for Nicolas and onto the beautiful festoons hanging around the gardens. She had never understood why hanging lights were so beautiful, but perhaps it had to do with the fact that they could be, if only for a moment, suspended in the air as if nothing was holding it up.
When you moved, of course, you could see the wires and strings holding them in the air, but for a few moments, a few precious moments, one could believe they were being held up by fairies or something of the kind. ‘Something out of a fairytale’ had always been her favorite phrase when describing things like this; the word ‘magical’ never quite fit.
“The festoons are beautiful this time of night, don’t you think, Lady Catherine?” Miss Juliet’s voice hit her ears.
“Yes, they are,” she responded. “Quite beautiful. I wonder how long it takes for them to hang them all when getting ready to open the gardens for a night of wonder and splendor.”
“It must take quite a while,” Miss Juliet added. “There are so many of them, and the gardens are… so big. Beautiful, and big, and… and a dream come true.”
“They look like something out of a fairytale, as my sister is fond of saying,” Edward interrupted, a smile on his face.
Catherine felt her cheeks coloring, but she only took in a deep breath. It was not worth telling Edward to stop right now. She wanted to enjoy the evening, and she knew that yelling at him for embarrassing her would do nothing to further her enjoyment.
They continued to walk the paths, and Edward and Miss Juliet fell into their own conversation. Catherine did not say much.
This was too awkward. Nicolas seemed to expect her to feel the same way she had when he had left, and she just could not bring herself to say that she did. She felt as though that magic had been stripped away from her, and she was not sure where it had gone.
Other than the fact that she now felt butterflies around the Duke of Hestina, she had no idea where she wanted this Season to go. She wanted to see where that relationship would lead, and if Nicolas expected her to give him a chance as if he had never left England, never left her wondering what had happened to him and why he had decided to go into the Navy, then there was going to be more drama in the Season than a Season was worth.
“I am glad to see that Lord Radcliff has found a woman to spend his life with,” Nicolas said. “He seems truly happy with Miss Juliet.”
“He is happy with her, Lord Lockhart. You should have seen the way he smiled when he came home after asking her father’s permission. It was the smile that only a man in love could have,” she added. A smile formed on her face. “I am happy for him, too. He is my brother, after all, and his happiness is what I like to see the most.”
“And, what of your own happiness, Lady Catherine?” Nicolas looked at her. “Where do you believe that lies?”
“I do not know.” She frowned. “I thought, perhaps, that it would lie in being with my friends, but my friends were not true. Then, I thought it would lie in finding someone to court. I have yet to steadily court anyone.” She shook her head. “Perhaps true happiness for me lies in being alone for a while longer, or perhaps with a man I have yet to meet.”
“And, if a friend had come back to see you?” He fidgeted.
Catherine had a feeling that he was trying to get at a deeper topic. She refused to talk of that with him here in the gardens. Especially in gardens so crowded as Vauxhall Gardens were tonight.
“If a friend had come back to see me after wherever their life had led them, I would remain friends with them. However, the extent of that would depend entirely upon their new situation in life and what had caused it.” She did not give more details.
“I see…” He pursed his lips, but he allowed her to have her moment of silence for the topic.
For all she cared, he could take that and see it as her resistance to the idea of courting him. After the way he had left her wondering… she wondered why he believed she would have the same feelings she had had when he left. It was not as if she had heard him tell her anything more about his own feelings since he gave her the brooch.
The brooch. She had almost worn it tonight, but she had decided against it. It was too gaudy to be worn in public without a very good reason. She did not feel she had a good reason to wear such an old, worn brooch.
“Oh! Look!” Miss Juliet’s voice interrupted again.
While they had been in the same little group, Miss Juliet and Edward had been discussing wedding plans. Now, Miss Juliet extended an arm towards the sky, as if she was trying to draw attention to something else.
Catherine looked up, and the bright lights caught her off guard. They had stumbled into a firework show.
She watched silently, marveling at the colors. There were whites and reds and creams and blues… and many other colors. She wondered how they could possibly make all the different colors, but she dared not ask.
No one here would know, and it would not be ladylike of her to dispel the magic for others.
She started when something took her hand. She looked down, and then realized that Nicolas had moved his arm from underneath hers. Her hand now rested in his.
Her eyes travelled up his arm to his face. There, in his eyes, there was something more than friendship. She could not quite place what kind of feeling it was, but she knew that he regarded her as more than a close friend of his. Perhaps this was how he wanted to show her that he still felt the same way he had when he had given her the brooch.
