The Wood Nymph by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2016-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

W illiam Mainwaring propped one foot with its silver-buckled dancing pump against the cushions of the seat opposite him. He had drawn the velvet curtains across the carriage windows. Although there was always plenty of light in the main streets of London even at night, he had no particular interest in viewing other partygoers. He rested an elbow on a satin-clad knee and smiled. Really, he marveled, he felt happier than he had felt in a long while.

He knew the reason for this ball, of course, as he had known the reason for the two informal dinner parties that the Hetheringtons had held in the two weeks and more since his arrival in London. Elizabeth was trying to matchmake. Robert had even admitted as much a few mornings before, when the two men were riding alone in the park. He had expected to feel more anguish at the realization. He had even gone home after the ride instead of accompanying his friend to Tattersall’s, so that he might examine his bruised heart in private.

And it was there, quite alone, that he had discovered that there was no very painful bruise, only amusement that a woman several years his junior, a woman who had once agreed to marry him, had taken it upon herself to find him a wife. He did not love Elizabeth any longer! That is, he had been hasty to remind himself, he loved her a great deal. None of his admiration for her serenity and her intelligent good sense, and none of his appreciation of her beauty had faded. He still felt his heart lift in her presence as he always had. He still considered her one of the closest friends he had ever known. But he no longer felt about her as a lover feels.

The knowledge had come as a great shock to him. He had taken for granted that that type of love could never die. When he had first met her again—dreadful afternoon—all the pain of his brief courtship and of its abrupt end had flooded back and the wound had been as raw and as painful as it had ever been. She was more beautiful than she had been, if that were possible. Now there was an addition to the serenity that he had always loved. Now there was a radiance, and it did not take much imagination to know that it was Robert who had wrought the change. If he had ever doubted the true feelings of those two for each other, he could doubt no longer after seeing them together. They did not display their love in public, but they did not need to. They glowed.

His unhappiness had been made even worse when Robert, after disappearing for a few minutes, had returned to the drawing room with their son, a blond, blue-eyed replica of himself. Mainwaring had witnessed the look that husband and wife exchanged over the baby’s head. It was not a particularly private look or a demonstrative one,

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