Page 64 of An Unexpected Pleasure

Theo let out a groan. “Mother, no…”

“She insists upon seeing you. Says you haven’t paid her a visit since you came to town this summer.”

“Indeed I haven’t,” Theo retorted with heartfelt emotion. “All she ever talks to me about is settling down and doing my duty.”

“Yes, dear, I know, it’s terribly tiresome,” the duchess sympathized, patting his arm. “But she was threatening to come stay with us for a few days just so she can see you.”

“So I am to be the sacrificial lamb?” Theo asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yes, I am afraid so,” the duchess agreed serenely. “Your father nearly swallowed his tongue when Lady Rochester suggested visiting us. He cannot abide his aunt, and one can scarcely blame him.” She turned to Megan with a smile. “Now, my dear, I have been absolutely deluged with requests to be introduced to you. I fobbed most of them off, of course, but there are a few young men who aren’t entirely silly, so I thought I would introduce you to them. Unless, of course, you would prefer not to dance—I am sure they will all ask you.”

“Thank you. That is very kind of you.” Megan ignored the ill-natured grunt Theo let out behind her and smiled at the duchess, letting her lead her back toward the ballroom.

The duchess introduced her here and there, and before many minutes had passed, Megan found her dance card filling up. She danced with several young men, all the while keeping her eye out for Mr. Barchester and for Mr. Coffey.

She managed to catch sight of Julian Coffey two or three times, but he was always talking to someone, and she had little time to spare before another man came to lead her out onto the dance floor. It was going to be harder to get a chance to talk with the director of the museum than she had thought. She decided to tell anyone else who asked her that her dance card had been filled, so that she would have some time alone to interview Coffey.

As luck would have it, she was just walking off the floor after a lively waltz with a young man who danced expertly but had trouble saying anything but boring pleasantries when she came face-to-face with Mr. Barchester and her sister. Megan drew in her breath sharply, and her companion glanced at her with vague curiosity.

“Miss Henderson,” Deirdre exclaimed. “How very nice to see you again. You know Mr. Barchester, I believe.”

“Yes, of course.”

The two men seemed to be acquaintances and they shook hands politely. Megan wrapped her hand around her sister’s arm, saying, “Will you walk with me? It has been an age since I have talked to you.”

Megan bade her dancing partner a polite goodbye, and whisked her sister through the crowd and into the hallway.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“I didn’t know,” Deirdre replied. “Mr. Barchester did not ask me until after you came to visit us. Isn’t it grand?” Her blue eyes sparkled. “Do you think my dress looks good enough? I didn’t have anything fancy, but I so wanted to come. So I threw some lace and bows on my best dress and ripped out the lace fichu. Da was scandalized.” She let out a little giggle.

“You look lovely,” Megan replied, which was the truth, despite the fact that Deirdre’s gown was not as elegant as most of the others in the room. Deirdre’s fragile beauty was what drew the eye. “It’s just—I don’t know—it seems dangerous. Is he introducing you as Deirdre Mulcahey? What if Theo hears your name and remembers?”

“He won’t. Why would he? Andrew—Mr. Barchester, I mean—will not introduce me to him. He said that he and Lord Raine rarely speak to each other. Well, he would not want to, would he? Where is he? Lord Raine, I mean. Mr. Barchester hasn’t been able to point him out to me yet.”

“I’m not sure.” Megan cast a glance up and down the hallway. “But I cannot let him see me chatting so chummily with you—I’m not supposed to know anybody here.”

“That’s all right.” Her sister gave Megan’s hand a squeeze. “I just wanted to see you—and I couldn’t resist the idea of going to a grand ball like this. I have never seen anything like it.”

“Deirdre…has Mr. Barchester…I mean, he seems to be paying particular attention to you. Is he—are you…?”

Deirdre smiled, her eyes twinkling. “He is a nice man. Very polite and quite handsome. I—I think he is probably just being kind, coming to call so often. But I cannot help but think sometimes that he does have a certain partiality for me. Do you think it’s possible?”

“Of course it’s possible. Haven’t you looked in a mirror recently?”

“I know. But there is a definite difference in our fortunes, our stations—not to mention the fact that he is English.”

“There.” Megan spotted Theo seated on a couch beside an old woman with an elaborate coiffeur that sat in a strangely crooked manner on her head. She pulled Deirdre into the nearest doorway, whispering, “That is Theo Moreland out there, sitting with the woman in the red wig.”

Deirdre’s mouth opened in an O, and she stuck her head out the door, then ducked back inside. She stared at Megan.

“That is Theo Moreland? But he—he’s so handsome,” Deirdre whispered.

“I know. It surprised me, as well.”

“I thought—I don’t know, I thought he would look evil and twisted, like Iago in the Othello we went to see.”

“Well, he doesn’t…and neither does he act it.” Megan sighed.