The Secret Mistress by Mary Balogh Page A

answer the question that had burned in her mind.
    Who was he?
    Angeline fanned her face a little faster before snapping the fan shut.
    Would she see him again?
    Would he be here tonight?
    She turned from the pier glass as a brisk knock sounded at the door. Betty answered it. Tresham and Ferdinand were standing out there, both tall and gorgeous in their black evening clothes with crisp white linen.
    Ferdinand was grinning.
    “We argued over who should come up for you, Angie,” he said, “and we ended up
both
coming. You look as fine as fivepence.”
    His eyes swept over her in what looked like genuine appreciation.
    “Thank you, Ferdie,” she said. “So do you.”
    He was twenty-one, one year down from Oxford, and well on his way to being as dedicated a rakehell as their brother—or so rumor had it, and Angeline did not doubt it. Neither did she doubt that he was wildly attractive to every female who set eyes upon him, and that he knew it.
    Tresham looked his habitual bored, handsome self.
    “Is this really our sister, Ferdinand,” he asked, probably rhetorically, “looking quite tame and civilized and, yes, very fine indeed?”
    One might wait a decade in vain for a compliment from Tresham.One ought to cherish one when it did come one’s way, then. But Angeline bristled instead.
    “Tame?”
she said. “
Civilized?
Does that imply that I am usually wild and
un
civilized? What do you know about me, Tresham? Before I came to town, I saw you on precisely two occasions after you were sixteen and I was eleven. And I would hardly misbehave during either Papa’s funeral or Mama’s, would I? You abandoned me when you left home so suddenly. All you knew about me afterward, presumably, was what you learned in the reports sent you by the various governesses you imposed upon me. And they
all
disapproved of me because I was not a perfect mouse of a young lady. What did they expect? What did
you
expect? I am a Dudley, after all. But I am not
wild
for all that. Or
uncivilized.
”
    Tresham regarded her steadily from his very dark, unreadable eyes.
    “That is better,” he said. “Now you have some color in your cheeks, Angeline, and are not unrelieved white from head to toe. Are you ready to go down? Or do you plan to make an entrance to your own ball after everyone else has arrived?”
    Ferdinand grinned and winked and offered his arm.
    Oh, she adored both brothers, Angeline thought as she took an arm of each and descended the staircase for the all-important duty of greeting the ball guests in the receiving line. She adored them even though she was constantly exasperated by them. She had
heard
much about them even though she had not seen a great deal of them during the past seven years—though Ferdinand had come home almost every school or university holiday, even if only for a few days. She had heard about the dangerous, reckless races, the fistfights, the mistresses, the duels, though that last applied only to Tresham. She had heard of two separate duels fought with pistols, in both of which Tresham’s opponent had shot first and missed before Tresham shot contemptuously in the air. And both duels had been over the other man’s wife, with whom Tresham was dallying. Fortunately, both duels were long over before Angeline heard about them. She was
very
disapproving of the cause,
very
proud that her brother had shotinto the air rather than directly at a wronged husband, and
very
convinced that every nerve in her body had been shattered by the news and would never function properly again.
    Cousin Rosalie was waiting in the hall below and smiled at Angeline with approval and encouragement.
    “You really do look very distinguished, Angeline,” she said. “Other girls are swallowed up by white. You … command it.”
    Whatever that meant, Angeline thought ruefully. And she had noticed that Rosalie called her
distinguished
rather than
pretty
.
    She wondered suddenly how her mother would have described her tonight. Would she