Page 61 of The Trouble with True Love

He didn’t answer, and when she looked up, his faint smile was gone, but his eyes were as blue as the sea. “I want it, Clara.”

She inhaled sharply as her heart slammed against her ribs with painful force, and she looked away again. She reached for the little pencil tied to her wrist, but when she glanced over her card to find the place to put his name, she couldn’t help being amazed anew at how few lines were blank.

“It is astonishing, you know,” she confessed softly, staring down at the list of penciled names. “At least to me. I’ve never had a dance card before.” She looked up with a laugh. “Never needed one before.”

He didn’t laugh with her.

“It’s because of you,” she blurted out, nodding to the card in her fingers. “All this.”

His mouth tightened. “No, it isn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Every rose blooms at some point, Clara. I just happened to be here when it happened to you.”

He spoke again before she could reply. “Best put my name down,” he advised. “Otherwise, you might forget, and if some other chap steals my waltz, I shall demand pistols at dawn.”

He bowed and walked away, and as she watched his broad-shouldered frame meld into the crowd, she knew he was wrong. She was only blooming now because of him, because of what she saw in his eyes when he looked at her, and what she heard in his voice when he said her name, and what she’d felt that glorious afternoon when he kissed her. He had awakened things in her that she’d never felt in her life, things she’d never known existed. If she was the rose, he was the sun and spring rain that had lifted her out of a lifetime of winter.

Maybe that, she thought, was what rakes were for.

In Clara’s case, a rake’s kiss might have inspired her to bloom like a rose, but only an hour later, she discovered that not every rose was the same.

Having just made use of the lavatory, she was still in the water closet, adjusting her skirts, when she heard the outer door open and two women came into the ladies’ withdrawing room, one of them clearly in great distress.

“I can’t believe he’s here,” she sobbed. “Oh, Nan, it was awful.”

“Now, now, everything will be all right. Just sit down here and catch your breath.” There was a pause as the door was closed. “Seeing him must have been a terrible shock.”

“It was! I haven’t seen him, you know, since I broke things off, and I felt as if I’d been struck by an omnibus.”

Clara bit her lip, acutely aware that this was the second time in a month she’d been privy to a confidential conversation. Deciding it was best if she exited and made her presence known to the other two women as quickly as possible, she finished settling her skirts, but when she turned to open the door of the water closet, the woman called Nan spoke again, stopping Clara in her tracks.

“But what is Lionel even doing here?”

Clara froze, hand on the doorknob.

“I don’t know,” the first woman sobbed. “And given that he’s made no effort to speak to me, I shouldn’t even care why. But I do care,” she added on another sob.

The woman called Nan gave a cry of sympathy. “Oh, Dina, my dear.”

At the sound of that name, Clara’s hand fell away from the doorknob, and she stayed right where she was, listening for all she was worth.

“This is a charity ball,” Dina said with tearful indignation. “Lionel never attends public balls. How dare he come here?”

“He’s such a cad. Handkerchief?”

“Thank you.” Dina sniffed. “I suppose it’s just one of those cruel twists of fate.”

“Or perhaps he knew you’d be here. As you said, he never comes to these charity affairs, and you are on the committee.”

“Do you think he may have come to make up our quarrel?” There was so much hope in Dina’s voice that Clara’s heart twisted with renewed compassion.

“It’s possible. But of course, it may also be that it’s sheer coincidence. Not everyone bothers to read the list of sponsors before purchasing vouchers. And anyway...” She hesitated, then said, “Don’t be offended, darling, if I ask this question, but do you really want him back? I mean, you were the one to break things off.”

“Oh, he deserved it! When he gave me that ridiculous speech, it was so much like Lady Truelove’s column, it was uncanny.”

Not really, Clara thought with a grimace.

“Why, I felt as if Lady Truelove was almost talking to me,” Dina continued, “instead of to that other poor girl. I knew just what Lionel was trying to do, the scoundrel.”

“Well, I think you were quite right to call his bluff.”

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