The Secret Mistress by Mary Balogh Read Free Book Online

refuse to saddle a horse for her without Tresham’s consent. No, he would not. Not if she behaved as if it had all been planned yesterday, and
—what
? Had his grace not
informed
Marsh about it and instructed him to have a mount ready for her? How very odd!
    No harm would be done. What could she be expected to do alone for three whole hours, after all—
at least
three? She would only get more nervous thinking about her curtsy and the tricky maneuver of backing out of the queen’s presence without tripping over the train of her gown. Not that the possibility had struck her until this very moment. But now that it
had
, it would consume her mind and her nerves for every idle moment until she was safely out of the royal presence.
    What better way to distract her mind and her nerves than to go for a morning ride? She would take a groom with her. She was not so lost to all conduct that she would go tearing in pursuit of Tresham without proper chaperonage. Besides, Marsh would never allow her to set one horse’s hoof beyond the stable doors unless there was someone trustworthy with her.
    Tresham would not mind if she joined him on his ride.
    Well, he probably would, but he was not her
father
. He was only her guardian, and he had not exerted himself greatly so far to be a vigilant one—except that he had surrounded her with governesses and servants from the moment he became duke at the age of seventeen. And except that he had given vent to a minor volcanic eruption when he had discovered at that inn that the Reverend Coombes had abandoned her and that none of the four grooms or footmen from Acton had been in sight when she rushed downstairs to greet him and that Betty had still been half asleep up in her room. Nowhe had imposed Rosalie on her. Not that Rosalie was a great imposition.
    He would not scold her today, would he? Not in public, anyway. Or in private. Not today. This was her very special day, perhaps
the
most special of her whole life, and he would not wish to upset her.
    And if she stood here any longer holding this rather garrulous mental debate with herself, she thought, straightening up and closing the window, it would be too late to go, and now that she had conceived the idea of taking a morning ride in order to relax her nerves, she could not possibly do without it.
    Well, perhaps she
could
. But she
would
not.
    She strode off in the direction of her dressing room.
    T HIS WAS THE day, Edward thought as he woke up—and wished he could simply fall back to sleep.
    There was his maiden speech to deliver in the Upper House. It had been written and rewritten and then written again. It had been practiced and repracticed and practiced again. And just last night—and every night for the last two weeks—he had been assailed by terror at the conviction that it was utter rubbish and he would be laughed out of the House and expelled from the ranks of the nobility.
    He was not usually given to vivid, ridiculous imaginings.
    And then tonight there was the Tresham ball and the set he was to dance with Lady Angeline Dudley. It was only a
dance
, he had tried to convince himself. But it was the opening set of her come-out ball, and every eye in the ballroom—virtually every eye in the
ton
, in other words—would be fixed upon them. His only hope, a faint one, was that most of those eyes would be directed exclusively at
her
. She was, after all, the most eligible young lady on the market this year and most people would be getting their first look at her.
    However, he would think of the ball and that particular dance later.
    He went out for an early morning ride in the park despite theinclemency of the weather—it was cloudy and chilly, and a light but persistent drizzle kept everything and everyone uncomfortably damp. If one waited for clement weather in England, though, one might find oneself riding for brief spells once or twice a fortnight if one were fortunate. Besides, he had made arrangements to meet two of his oldest