And Then She Fell(32)
Both he and Miss Fotherby deserved no less.
Even if fostering a match between them was the very last thing she wanted to do.
They’d been strolling in silence. After a moment more, James asked, “Did you learn anything else?”
While Henrietta reported, in careful and neutral terms, what she’d thus far gleaned as to Miss Fotherby’s standing, character, and personality, James found himself increasingly biting his tongue.
He wanted to ask Henrietta point-blank whether she truly wanted him to marry Miss Fotherby.
He wanted, badly, to ask the confusing female walking so fluidly—so confidently and easily—by his side what she’d thought about the kiss they’d shared. Whether she’d felt anything at all—anything like the cataclysmic and ineradicable shift in focus that that kiss had imposed on him—and whether, just possibly, she might consider marrying him herself.
He wanted to ask her all those things—wanted to look into her soft blue eyes and say the words, direct and without any obfuscation—but he couldn’t.
Not while she was strolling beside him singing Miss Fotherby’s praises and all but specifically encouraging him to look at Miss Fotherby as his prospective bride.
Confusion wasn’t the half of what he felt. Frustration roiled, mixing with a wholly unfamiliar panicky fear—a fear of not acting and through that losing her, which itself was solidly counteracted and blocked, stymied, by the weight on his shoulders and the horrible prospect raised by the question, What if she said no?
If he asked, and Henrietta refused him . . .
“I’ll inquire further at the teas this afternoon, but I suspect Miss Fotherby really will prove to be the most outstanding candidate.”
His temper snapped and flicked him on the raw. Goaded, he said, his tone terse and harsh, “All right. Enough of Miss Fotherby.” He looked at Henrietta. “Who else should I look at?”
Me. Say, Me.
She’d been looking down while she’d been speaking; now she drew in a deep breath as if girding her loins—and his heart leapt in hope.
“Well, we still have Miss Chisolm and Miss Downtree on the list, so I’ll ask after them, too.”
Hope crashed and died on the rocks of futility. The deflation that hit him left him feeling hollowed out inside.
“And you really should look further afield—we have Lady Hamilton’s ball tonight, and that’ll be another crush, so we may well find more suitable candidates there.” Raising her gaze from the grass, Henrietta was about to glance up at James—unsure of what might show in her own eyes, she hadn’t allowed herself to do so while speaking of Miss Fotherby—but as her gaze rose, she saw the lady in question standing a little deeper into the park and speaking with a very recognizable gentleman: Rafe Cunningham, gazetted rake, profligate gambler, and all-around hedonist.
The pair weren’t conversing; they were facing each other, several feet apart, and Rafe was clearly arguing. Hotly. Miss Fotherby had her back to Henrietta and James, but from the angle of her head, and her gestures, she was arguing just as hotly back.
A swift glance at James’s face confirmed that he, too, had spotted the pair.
Then Rafe spread his arms to his sides, hands open as he made some dramatic appeal.
Miss Fotherby threw her hands in the air, swept violently around, and strode swiftly toward the Avenue; all angrily swishing skirts, her face pale but with flags of color flying in her cheeks, her lips set in a trenchant line, her gaze fixed unswervingly ahead, she marched toward the carriages, where, no doubt, her aunt was waiting. She didn’t glance back once, and she didn’t notice Henrietta and James where they’d halted a little way away.
“Ah.” Henrietta glanced at Rafe, then looked at Miss Fotherby’s retreating back. “I suspect we can guess which gentleman has made Miss Fotherby an offer she doesn’t trust.” Rafe Cunningham was well-born and wealthy, the twin characteristics that, in a gentleman, made him eligible no matter his character.
Wondering how the information that it was Rafe who had approached Miss Fotherby might affect James’s view of that lady, Henrietta refocused her attention on him—and registered the tension investing his long frame. Glancing at his face, she saw that he was studying Rafe.
Was James already feeling possessive over Miss Fotherby?
To Henrietta’s dismay, her stupid heart lurched downward—which only proved that it hadn’t yet come to its senses over James. Inwardly sighing, she looked back at the carriages.