She clung to him, wishing he could make her disappear.
“It’s all right,” he said in a low, soft voice. “Don’t let on that you notice. It will pass.”
His voice betrayed no sign of being bothered.
He’s accustomed to it, she realized. She’d never considered it before, but he must have endured years of pretending not to notice what people said about him after he’d made his bad investments.
In fact, it now occurred to her he’d never reacted to the many rather mocking things she’d said to him. She’d called him Lord Bore a hundred times without him ever flinching.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” he said into her ear.
She inhaled and relaxed her posture. Usually she hated being told what to do, but it was soothing, under the circumstances, to not be the one in charge.
“Good,” he murmured. “Now lean up and say something amusing to me.”
Her mind went blank. “I can’t think of anything amusing,” she whispered in his ear. “I can scarcely remember my own name.”
He laughed softly, like she’d made a private, intimate kind of joke. “It doesn’t matter what you say,” he whispered back. “Just say it like you mean it.”
She turned and grinned up into his pretty amber eyes. “What a dreadful situation.”
“Isn’t it?” He smiled back.
“No one has been so rude to me in years, no matter how awfully I’ve behaved.” She met his eye. “And I’ve had my regrettable moments.”
She hoped he understood that she meant she was sorry for all the times she’d said things that, perhaps, were not quite nice. Things that might have made him feel a bit like she felt now.
His eyes went dark. “We’ve both had our regrettable moments,” he said quietly.
Was that … an apology for what he’d said in the orangery?
She paused, trying to read his odd expression, but her brother’s voice called out her name. They turned to the sight of Archer and Poppy.
Archer clapped Apthorp on the back in a hearty, affectionate manner that was no doubt designed to discreetly inflict pain. She felt the eyes of the crowd observe this signal of his blessing.
She hoped desperately they absorbed the message.
“Constance, have you heard the news?” Poppy asked. “It seems you and Apthorp are not the only betrothed couple making your debut. Your friend Miss Bastian is promised to Lord Harlan Stoke. It is said they plan to marry in one month’s time.”
“Pardon?” She felt like she might faint.
“Are you quite all right?” Poppy asked.
She was not all right.
Gillian Bastian was a fellow refugee who’d been raised in Philadelphia and deemed hopeless when she arrived in London in search of a titled husband to strengthen her family’s ties to the Crown. Always sympathetic to a fellow déclassée, Constance had ushered Gillian into her closest circle of friends and set about making her a figure in society. When that had been accomplished with some success, she’d moved on to securing the girl a husband.
Namely, Apthorp.
In all the months they’d been in league together, arranging pretexts for him to call, analyzing his every move for some hint into the progression of his feelings, Gillian had never mentioned an attachment to Lord Harlan.
A brisk engagement implied a long-standing history between the couple, and perhaps the anticipation of their vows. If Gillian had been anticipating vows with the likes of Harlan Stoke, she’d surely been in no imminent danger of marrying Apthorp.
It made no sense.
But more immediately distressing than this lapse in friendship was how stupid it would make Constance look to the man currently holding her by the arm.
No, not stupid. Careless.
She glanced up at him to see whether he had made the same connection.
His face had gone the color of alabaster, and was just as rigid.
“How wonderful,” Constance said in an absolutely miserable tone. “I suppose we should offer them our congratulations.”
Apthorp nodded, because he could not count on himself to speak. He followed Constance out of the box, trying to steel his face into an impassive line.
Vindication was, in normal circumstances, very elevating. But any joy he might otherwise take in proving that Constance had been wrong was overpowered by his revulsion at the name of Harlan Stoke. And at him marrying some harmless girl like Gillian.
“I’m sorry,” Constance said in a low voice, glancing at him. “I truly don’t know how I got it so wrong.”
He said nothing. He had not yet collected himself to the point that he trusted he could speak without shouting.
“Please don’t be angry,” she said.
“I’m not angry,” he ground out. “Not, in any case, at you.”
“I feel so foolish,” she said in the smallest voice he’d ever heard from her.
Her regretful tone brought him back to himself, and their need to assert their purpose here. He tried to smile at her. “Never mind. They’re not our concern. Let’s circulate about the room before the curtains. It’s important to pretend to be enjoying ourselves.”
She clutched his arm more tightly than was decent. Because he was upset, he allowed himself to take in one strong, fortifying whiff of myrrh and gardenia and squeeze her back. It made him feel better.
“What if no one acknowledges us?” Constance whispered, letting her gaze dart about the room. He’d never seen her so unsure of herself. At least not in half a decade. It made him want to draw her closer, protect her from the stares he—they—were attracting.
“They will,” he said firmly, scanning the room for friendly faces. “Look, there’s Avondale. He’s thoroughly dissolute. He’ll happily be seen with us. We might even improve his reputation.”
He lifted his hand to the marquess, whose eyes lit up in greeting.
“Well, well,” Avondale said, clapping his hand on Apthorp’s back. “Lady Constance, I hear you’ve snagged yourself the least eligible man in all of London.”
The quip seemed to restore Constance’s spirits. “Lord Apthorp’s reputation for vice is second only to yours, my lord,” she said sweetly. “But I have made my peace with second best.”
Avondale threw back his head and laughed. Others noticed. Avondale was popular and wealthy. His approval would ease the way for them.
“Are you looking forward to the opera?” the marquess asked.
Constance smirked. “I’ve heard the aria is lovely, but it seems Lord Apthorp and I are the real focus of the evening’s entertainment.”
“My dear, with you in that gown, who would bother looking at the stage?” Avondale gave her a grin so wolfish it was physically painful to watch, but Constance only laughed and did something attractive with her fan.
God, she was good. Apthorp knew she was distressed, but to look at her bantering with Avondale, you’d never know that moments before her hands had been shaking as she’d clutched his arm.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Cornish Lane Day, his ally on the waterway bill in the House of Commons, and someone who had never looked wolfishly on anything other than a piece of legislation. Apthorp beckoned him over gratefully.