A Chance Encounter by Mary Balogh

balustrade.
    â€œYou know very well that our friends expect an announcement at any moment,” she was saying.
    â€œI know no such thing, Amelia,” he replied amiably. “If our friends really do so, their expectations can come only from you, my dear.”
    â€œHow can you say so!” Her voice shook with suppressed fury. “You have been playing with my affections, Robert. You would make me the laughingstock.”
    â€œIndeed not,” he denied, his tone more serious. “I have never led you to believe that I held you more dear than a friend, Amelia. I am sure that no one has been misled. Your reputation is in no way sullied.”
    â€œYou are despicable,” she spat out. “You must know that my sister is in daily expectation of hearing that you have offered for me. I am sure that every rustic in this godforsaken corner of England must be expecting an announcement. Have I been dragged here under false pretenses when I could have been enjoying the pleasures of Brighton?”
    â€œAmelia, my dear, please keep your voice low,” Hetherington cautioned. “I accepted an invitation here because William is a particular friend of mine. I heard purely by chance that you were also coming as sister of Henry Prosser’s wife. I was pleased. I have always found you lovely and pleasant company. But you must not read more significance into our being here together. Indeed, I am distressed to know that you have misunderstood the situation.”
    â€œMisunderstood!” she replied. “It is the little Rowe chit, is it not, Robert? How foolish you make yourself, running after a little schoolroom miss that would not hold your interest for a month. Can you contemplate what marriage with her would be like? You would have that dreadfully vulgar Mama forever visiting you and sunning herself in the glory of having a marquess for a son-in-law. And you would probably be saddled with that solemn drab of a governess, or companion, or whatever she calls herself.”
    â€œAmelia,” he said, his tone colder, harder than it had been, “I am not contemplating matrimony with any woman, and am not likely to in the future. I am sorry, my dear. I am sure that you can make a brilliant match if you will. But it would not be fair to encourage you to dangle after me. I may not marry even if I wished to.”
    There was no answer to his words, but after a few moments Elizabeth could hear a rustle of skirts and assumed that Miss Norris had swept back into the ballroom in high dudgeon. She dared not move. She had no way of knowing if Hetherington had accompanied his companion. She was relieved a short while later to hear a deep sigh from the other side of the plant and then the unmistakable sound of his footsteps moving away. Only then did she feel free herself to return to the welcome warmth of the ballroom.
    The excitement of the evening was still not over. Mr. Mainwaring claimed the supper dance with Elizabeth, as he had promised, and led her in to supper. He seated her at a table with Cecily and Ferdie Worthing. These two were engaged in a spirited argument about an incident from their childhood when they had been caught by the gamekeeper of the previous owner of Femdale trespassing and eating apples from the orchard. The argument concerned which one of them had been responsible for getting them both caught.
    Elizabeth and Mr. Mainwaring listened in amusement to the epithets that flew between the heated pair. Ferdie was “idiotic, stupid, and clumsy,” and Cecily “silly, slow, and shrill.”
    Cecily snorted. “It was funny, though, was it not, Ferdie, when you told him you were the squire’s son and he realized that he could not thrash us?”
    â€œI say, Cec,” Ferdie replied with enthusiasm, “you put on a jolly good show of crying and wailing. The only time in my life I ever heard you cry.”
    â€œIt worked, though,” she said proudly.
    â€œYes,