Free Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) by Mary Balogh Page B

He was already engaged to waltz with Moira Hayes, he remembered.
    And he remembered, too, his regret at having solicited her hand for the set, his reluctance to touch her. He remembered his unexpected meeting with her on the beach and the flood of memories encountering her there of all places had brought to mind. Of course, those memories had not depended upon his coming face-to-face with her. He had walked about the cove long before she came into sight and had even stood still there, remembering. Remembering meeting her there for the first time alone and realizing that she had grown from a child he had scarcely noticed into a tall, willowy, darkly alluring young woman. He had only recently begun to notice young women. He had remembered other meetings with her after that: infrequent, contrived meetings, not all of them in the cove. But it was in the cove he had kissed her for the first time. By that time, he had been at university and had learned enough about kissing—and about more than kissing—to become quite blasé about the whole business. But one touch of Moira’s lips had sent his temperature soaring.
    He had not reacted to her, though, as he had to the few Oxfordbarmaids with whom he had had dealings. It had not been an entirely physical thing—or so he had told himself, perhaps to assuage the guilt of having arranged a private meeting with a lady and of having stolen a kiss from her. He had fallen in love with her.
    And then, while memory was still rampant in him, while he was still feeling rather sad for that long-ago idealistic, romantic boy, Nelson had found her just beyond the cove. And despite her drab gray cloak and bonnet, she had looked again for a few minutes like the Moira of old—her cheeks and nose flushed rosy with the cold, her eyes wide with alarm, her whole body rigid with terror and then with anger at Nelson and him and at herself for showing such weakness, he suspected. He had had sleepless moments since then over the memory that he had almost stepped close enough to take her into his arms to comfort her and assure her that Nelson would never harm her.
    And yet he would have her at least within the circle of his arms during one set of waltzes at the ball. The thought was a disquieting one. As was the thought of dodging Miss Wishart and the concerted efforts of a number of his relatives and hers to throw them together.
    On the whole, he thought ruefully, he might have done considerably better to have stayed in London to enjoy the Christmas festivities with Eden and Nat. He should not have made such a momentous decision while too foxed to think straight. They were doubtless enjoying themselves without a care in the world.
    *   *   *
    FOR a while on the day of the ball Moira had hopes of avoiding it after all. First there was the letter that arrived for Sir EdwinBaillie from the eldest of his sisters. She wrote to congratulate her brother on his betrothal and to express the pleasure she and her mama and sisters felt at the prospect of welcoming Miss Hayes as a far closer relative than she had been before. She wrote to wish her brother and his betrothed—and Lady Hayes, of course—the compliments of the season. And
she
wrote rather than her mama because Mama was feeling slightly under the weather, having still not quite shaken the chill that had threatened when dear Edwin left. But he was not to feel alarmed. Christobel was confident that another day or two of quiet rest would restore her mother to full health once more.
    Sir Edwin was beside himself with anxiety. His mother must be very sick indeed if she found herself unable even to write a letter to her son and her soon-to-be daughter-in-law—if Miss Hayes would pardon such a familiar reference to herself. It was inexpressibly kind of Lady Hayes to try comforting him with the assurance that his sister would surely inform him of any serious decline in his mother’s health, but he knew how tenderhearted his sisters were and how