A Chance Encounter

Lady Worthing hesitated. "I believe Mr. Dowling is absent too, Miss Rossiter," she said. "Oh, it is too provoking. I quarreled with Lucy just this afternoon. What does she want with that dull, undistinguished man when her father and I are sacrificing a great deal in order to take her to town next winter?"

Elizabeth bit her lip. "I shall walk into the garden," she said. "Rest assured that I shall keep looking until I find her. There is no chance that she has left altogether, I suppose?"

"Our carriage and Dowling's are both still in the stables," Squire Worthing replied.

"Then there really is nothing to be worried about," Elizabeth said practically. "I am sure it is as you say, ma'am. They have just forgotten the time." She smiled and hurried away.

She stepped out through the French windows onto the balcony and down the steps at one end. Lanterns had been hung in the trees close to the house. Elizabeth wandered over the lawn and peered among the shrubs that surrounded it, but was afraid to go farther as the lighting was not good and she did not know the grounds at all. She decided that Lucy would probably not have wandered beyond that area for the same reasons. She must return to the house, it seemed.

The house was difficult to earch for all the same reasons. Most of the rooms were in darkness and Elizabeth had never been inside the house before. She dreaded being caught apparently snooping. But she felt compelled to continue with the search. She felt responsible for the apparent attachment between Lucy Worthing and Mr. Dowling. It was her advice at a di

Elizabeth crept down the stairs into the downstairs hall. There was no one there. Apparently all the servants were busy either abovestairs with the refreshments or in the kitchen below. She turned a door handle and peered cautiously into a darkened salon. It appeared to be empty, though she whispered Lucy's name and listened a moment before closing the door again. She repeated the performance at a smaller room that appeared to be Mr. Main-waring's office, and at another, larger room that was obviously a well-stocked library. From this room she had an answer.

"Come inside, Elizabeth, if you must," a cool and familiar voice said from the depths of a large leather chair close to a window at the far side of the room.

"I shall not disturb you, my lord," she replied hastily. "I am looking for someone."

"Why would you search for Miss Worthing in a part of the house obviously not being used for entertainment?" Hetherington asked.

"Er, I merely thought she might be lost," she replied weakly.

"No, you thought she might be enjoying a secret tryst with her country swain," he said with heavy sarcasm. "And being the good and straitlaced companion that you are, you must interfere. She could do so much better if she went to London and hung out for a suitable husband, could she not?"

Elizabeth was angry. "You do not know why I am looking for Miss Worthing, my lord," she said, "and you do not know me. I have no desire either to explain or to justify myself to you. Excuse me, please. I must find Miss Worthing."

"Relax," he said, the sneer still in his voice. "She has been found already by the worthy squire and his wife. She and Dowling were in here with me. We were having a pleasant and quite unexceptionable conversation. It was totally improper, of course, for Miss Worthing to be here with two gentlemen, unchaperoned, but sometimes one forgets such niceties. I suppose the young lady will be whisked home early in deep disgrace."

"I am sorry for it," Elizabeth said, "but really her parents' actions are no concern of yours or of mine."

"No, they are not," he agreed. "Come inside and shut the infernal door for goodness' sake, Elizabeth. You look like a bird poised for flight with one hand on the door like that."

Elizabeth did not know why she did as he asked. He just seemed different tonight, sitting there in the darkness. He seemed unthreatening. She crossed the room and sat on the padded window seat.

"You have been drinking," she remarked.

He laughed. "And I believe you have become a puritan," he returned.

"You used not to drink at public entertainments," she said.

"And you used not to moralize, ma'am," he retorted.

"I was not moralizing," she replied, "merely wondering what troubles you."

There was silence for a few moments. Then he laughed softly again. "It seems to me that we have found ourselves in this situation once before," he said.

"Yes," she agreed softly.

They could find nothing to say for a while. They sat silently, remembering. Elizabeth closed her eyes and wished herself back to that previous occasion when Robert had first kissed her and told her that he loved her. If only they could go back, wipe out the intervening years. If only she could change the way he was, make him become permanently what he had seemed to be then.

"I suppose the young always imagine the good times will last forever," he said quietly, echoing her thoughts. "It is a rude awakening, is it not, to discover that people change, or that they have other facets to their character that we did not suspect?"

Elizabeth could feel tears welling in her eyes and a tickling in the back of her throat. She stared down at the dim outline of her hands, but could not trust her voice for a while. At last she got to her feet.

"I should not be here, Robert," she said, willing her voice to steadiness. "I must go."

"It is a long time since I heard my name spoken like that," he commented. "You always did have a special way of saying it, like a caress."

"Good night," she said, and moved past his chair.

He caught her wrist as she passed and stopped her progress. "You are right," he said, his words slightly slurred. "I have been drinking. And drink makes me sentimental. Tomorrow I shall be able to see you as you really are again and I shall despise myself for having detained you here. But for tonight, Elizabeth, I find you infinitely desirable."

He lifted her hand toward him and pressed his lips to her palm. He held her wrist afterward, closing her fingers over the spot that he had kissed. He got abruptly to his feet, dropped her hand, and faced the window. "Go now," he said harshly, "before I forget that there can never be anything but enmity between you and me."

Elizabeth turned and found her way out of the room more by instinct than by conscious direction. She stood outside, her back against the door, for a whole minute, fighting the bitter tears, deliberately taking deep, slow breaths to calm herself. Finally she forced herself to climb the stairs again and enter the ballroom. She made sure that there was a dance in progress before she did so, and made her way to an obscure alcove of the room, where she escaped attention until the final dance, when Mr. Rowe found her.

"Ah, Cinderella," he said, "I thought you were lost. I was convinced that Prince Charming must have chased you away already."

"Yes, he did, sir," she replied cheerfully, "but I considered it too far to ride home on a pumpkin, so I crept back inside through a rear door."

"Ah," he said. "Wise, if unromantic. Do come and dance, Miss Rossiter."