Free To Dream of Love by M. C. Beaton Page B

her. She looked very sweet and young and tremulous, her large eyes sparkling in the perfect oval of her face. Candlelight shone in the midnight masses of her black hair. She had all the freshness and beauty of youth and spring and first love.
    Agnes felt the pain and depression inside her lift and she smiled at Mr. Prenderbury, who gave her a startled look and then hurried to her side.
    “My dear Mrs. Hurlingham,” he said, “I have been trying to summon up courage to speak to you, but you looked so fierce.”
    “Not fierce,” said Agnes with a surprisingly charming laugh. “Just rather depressed.”
    He flicked the tails of his coat and sat down beside her. “I called twice to see you, but I was informed you were not at home in such a way as to imply I was no longer welcome.”
    Agnes took another look at the radiant vision of Harriet to give herself courage and then threw the last remaining vestiges of loyalty to Cordelia away.
    “I would like to have seen you,” she said, “but I fear Lady Bentley becomes jealous if anyone other than herself appears to be attracting attention. It was she who told the butler not to admit you.”
    “Monstrous! Can you not leave her household?”
    Agnes shook her head. “I have signed a contract for seven years.”
    “But that is bondage. That is like being treated like a servant in the colonies. Perhaps I could assist you. I have a friend who is a very good lawyer.”
    “The trouble is that I have nowhere else to go,” said Agnes. “I have thought perhaps of offering my services to Miss Harriet and her aunt when they return to the country. I do not eat much, and although they are very poor, I am quite clever with my hands and could perhaps be of help to them. But Lady Bentley would take me to court.”
    “We will talk further of this,” he said gently. “The next dance is a waltz. Pray honor me by partnering me in it.”
    “Oh, I dare not,” said Agnes. “Lady Bentley would be furious.”
    “She is already so furious with her sister she will not even notice us. Look!”
    The Marquess of Arden was holding out his hand to Harriet to lead her in to the waltz. Aunt Rebecca was nodding and smiling. On the other side of the ballroom stood Cordelia with a sort of dreadful stillness about her as she watched her sister.
    Harriet was determined to dance. She had never danced the waltz before. Aunt Rebecca, lumbering and hopping like an elephant around the drawing room at Pringle House, had taught her the steps of various reels and country dances. Harriet had only heard of the waltz, that daring and shocking dance where the man actually put his hand on your waist. She had a brief moment’s panic as the Marquess of Arden led her onto the floor. But then he put his hand on her waist and her feet seemed to float over the polished floor.
    The marquess looked down at her with a disturbed expression in his eyes. He seemed to be looking at several Harriets. There was Harriet, naked under the pump; Harriet, with her hair spilling about her shoulders as she sat at the spinet; Harriet, sooty and dazed, clasped in his embrace above the roaring crowd; and now this Harriet, fresh, beautiful, and achingly vulnerable. He was aware of the malice in Cordelia’s eyes, the awakened interest in Bertram’s, and all the nodding, gossiping painted faces. He wanted to protect her, to make sure she never suffered a day’s harm or hurt again.
    He was alarmed at the intensity of his feelings. She was only a woman, after all. If anyone had ever told the marquess that he despised women, he would have been most surprised. But the sad fact was, the only time a woman had not bored him in the past was when she had been flat on her back in his bed. Courted for his title and fortune, toadied to and flattered since the day he was out of short coats, he regarded all of the fair sex with a cynical eye. Romance was for milksops and poets. And yet there had been magic in Harriet’s kiss.
    “You are looking very