His smile was that of a triumphant bully. He knew he had won. She gritted her teeth to prepare to bear his touch.
And then he stumbled, staggering back against the table which rattled slightly, and a very different man in a plain black coat stood in his place, murmuring an apology before speaking directly to Maria.
“Forgive me, I could not find you in the crush.” Michael Hanson did not seize her or compel her, merely stood aside and held out his hand respectfully.
She looked from him to Gideon’s threatening gaze and smiled. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. Mr. Hanson was before you.” And she took Michael’s arm and walked with him toward the dance floor.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
“Shall I escort you back to Lady Braithwaite?”
“God, no,” she uttered between her teeth. “I shall not let him win. If you would be so obliging as to dance with me, I shall be forever in your debt. Again.”
A breath of something very like laughter escaped him. At the same time, an expression she couldn’t read flashed in his eyes. Or it may have been the candlelight reflecting in his spectacles.
“Think nothing of it. It will be my pleasure.”
Other couples were forming on the floor, and the orchestra began the introduction. Michael’s arm encircled her waist, firm and oddly protective. He took her gloved hand in his, and, holding her at just the right, respectful distance, he set off with the music.
“Don’t be upset,” he murmured, giving her a hand a gentle squeeze.
“I’m not,” she confessed. “I’m furious. How dare he?”
His eyes smiled, as though he admired her temper. “He doesn’t yet understand he has bitten off more than he can chew. He imagines you are still a child hiding from your family. He probably imagines you still care for him, that you fear him as a timid wife fears her blustering husband. Having asked around, I gather he is the sort of unpleasant man who only bullies those he imagines can’t or won’t fight back.”
“I would like to shoot him,” Maria said between closed lips.
Not surprisingly, Michael blinked, and hysterical laughter caught her unawares.
“Or at least stamp on his toes,” she amended.
“I’m sure that can be arranged before this is done. You were magnificent, by the way. I thought you were going to laugh in his face.”
“I nearly did! Alice and Helen dropped lemonade on his head from the gallery.”
Michael grinned. “I knew they were young ladies of talent.”
“I gather you have not spoken to him yet? Or was he trying to get more money by speaking to me directly?”
“No, I see no harm in letting him stew. I suggest we enjoy our dance and then I shall have a word.”
This seemed eminently sensible to Maria, who found waltzing with Michael to be remarkably easy. She could follow him without thought, her movements attuned to his, their bodies in perfect rhythm with each other and with the music. Perhaps it was the recent confrontation with Gideon, but dancing with Michael now was a heady, almost blissful experience.
“You waltz like an old hand,” she teased. “Did my brother require it as a qualification?”
“No. But when I was a student, I was madly in love with a dancer.”
“You’re not quite as serious as you pretend, are you?” she asked in more amusement than jealousy.
“I am not serious at all. At parties.”
“Do you go to many?”
“A few. None like this.”
“Is that how you met your betrothed?”
A fixed quality seemed to cover his smile. “No. We met at a political gathering.”
“Does she dance as well as you?”
“She does not care to dance.”
Maria couldn’t help the widening of her eyes. “Why ever not?” she asked, before it struck her that the girl could be lame, or merely the product of very strict or religious parents.
“She finds it frivolous.”
“Well, it is,” Maria agreed. “That is the whole point. I would like to meet her and show her the enjoyment of dancing.”
He smiled but in a perfunctory kind of way that warned her to change the subject. Maria, however, had never been good with warnings.
“Would we like each other, your…?”
“Judith,” he supplied with odd reluctance.
“Judith and I?” she finished.
“I see no reason why not. Have your sisters poured lemonade on anyone else?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Maria replied, accepting the change of subject this time, though it did leave her wondering if she would like Judith if she were quite so joyless. But then, surely Michael would not love a joyless person. Dancing was a matter of taste, and it was hardly a crime not to share the same tastes as herself.
However, if Maria was engaged to Michael, she would take the opportunity to dance with him as often as possible.
“What?” he asked, eyeing her no doubt rapt face with suspicion.
She smiled. “Nothing. I was just thinking, I like dancing with you. It’s much more fun with friends.”
His eyes were enigmatic. “Then the officer you waltzed with earlier is also a friend?”
She thought about that. “An acquaintance I have known a long time. Why, do you think I make friends too easily?”
“It crossed my mind. You seem very trusting, see always the best in people.”
“Until they prove otherwise.”
“And then you are hurt.”
She searched his eyes for whatever message he was trying to convey. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“I would rather die.” As soon as the words spilled out, unguarded and sweet, he looked appalled, unexpectedly flustered. “That is, I can’t see how I ever could, let alone would.”
“You are a very kind man,” she observed.
“No, I’m not,” he said with odd grimness. Then the smile flickered in his eyes once more. “But quite aside from the honor, I like dancing with you, too.”
She had the strange urge to lay her head on his chest, but since that truly would have caused a scandal, she merely smiled and danced on.
Chapter Eight
Lieutenant Gideon Heath seethed inwardly to have his pretty little fly whisked out of his web. He had fond memories of Maria, guileless, eager, and loving, but this young woman who had gazed at him so coldly was very different from the girl who had bade him farewell so bravely with her massive brother-in-law at her side. Little Lady Maria had grown up and grown claws. Which was why he had been so pleased to see the look of defeat in her face when he had commanded her to dance. She would have gone with him, too, if that damned nobody hadn’t plucked her away from under his nose.
He had no idea who the nobody was, but he was fairly sure the man had shoved him. Why else would he have stumble so awkwardly and made the way to her possible?
With ill grace, he snatched up a glass of champagne. For some reason, it wasn’t much consolation that she would have to come to him eventually. She had received his note. Her avoidance of him as she’d led him all over the ballroom had proved that. Damn, he had even enjoyed the chase, knowing he would corner her in the end. He had even begun to think that another elopement—successful this time—might be better than simply milking the girl. That way, he would have it all.
He prowled around the edges of the dance floor, nodding to acquaintances, including his colonel, as he went, keeping track of the girl and her nobody. To his annoyance, they seemed to be great friends. They were even laughing together, and he felt a surge of pure hatred at the sudden suspicion that they might be laughing at him. Could this nobody possibly be her new love? The man she was supposed to marry, Lord Underwood? Or was she still trying to disoblige her family by insisting on someone considerably less suitable?
He knew a twinge of jealousy that came close to regret. He had once been that less suitable person. She would have done anything for him, if only he hadn’t blown it by getting quite so bosky at the
ball last year. Well, the fellow she was dancing with, in his spectacles and a coat he should have been ashamed to be seen in, didn’t look as if he was the bosky type. Not entertaining in the slightest, Heath guessed irritably. So why the devil was Maria smiling at him?
“Cheer up, Heath,” Grantham said in passing. “You look as if someone’s stolen your last guinea.”
Heath forced a smile. He’d make damned sure that didn’t happen, whatever else was going on. “Not at all, merely lost my beautiful waltz partner to some insolent nobody. You don’t know him, do you? That fellow dancing with Lady Maria?” Please don’t say Lord Underwood…
Grantham peered through the throng of dancers. “She is not high in the instep, is she? His name is Anderson—no, Hanson. He’s Braithwaite’s secretary.”
For an instant, Heath was speechless with fury. Then he understood. Braithwaite had set his servant to keep his eye on her, because the servant could pass as a gentleman. No doubt Braithwaite knew by now of their attempted elopement last year and caused his man to intervene. A quick glance at Braithwaite, wandering toward the card room with another aristocratic gentleman, provided no signs of worry. He trusted his secretary, as apparently did Maria. Of course, it would have been particularly rude to refuse the invitation of such a man. She would have accepted him from pity…or simply to avoid Heath and win that little skirmish.
It didn’t matter. The battle would, inevitably, be his. All the same, he might have to change his plans. If Braithwaite already knew the scandal, and yet had admitted him with the other officers to avoid talk, then it was Lord Underwood Heath should concentrate on in his negotiations with Maria.
And failing that…there were other methods he was now prepared to employ. He didn’t like her showing her teeth. And he particularly didn’t like her publicly preferring her brother’s secretary to him.
However, she was only one cog in the wheel that would turn his future, and he forced her to the back of his mind. After all, she was bound to come looking for him before the end of the ball.
He finished his champagne, found another, and spent some time with a couple of young bucks visiting Blackhaven for the health of some family member known to the dowager countess, and then, when it was time, made his familiar way out on to the ballroom terrace.
His memories of the terrace were hazy but unpleasant. Someone—he suspected Lord Torridon—had certainly hit him there last year, but he had been far too drunk to remember precisely why. Despite more of Braithwaite’s excellent champagne, he would not repeat those mistakes. In fact, he had arranged this meeting, of necessity, in a place rather more distant from prying ears.
He strolled past a group of young officers, and the couple lurking in the shadows, and down the steps from the terrace to a fine lawn. Then he took out the cigarillo that was his excuse. He had been given several of these by Greene, who had brought them back from Spain but decided to give them up. Heath wished to cultivate them since they gave him something of the look of a heroic veteran.
He lit it from the lantern on the terrace wall and sauntered on around the castle to another lawn beneath another terrace in the dark, private part of the house. Here, he found a little arbor, a bench sheltered by trained tree branches that would protect him from the threatening drizzle, and waited in the darkness.
It wasn’t long before another figure loomed through the darkness and sat beside him. “Captain Heath?”
“Indeed.” A little self-promotion to a civilian did him no harm.
The indistinguishable figure took some documents from inside his coat. Heath took them and placed them inside his own.
“I hope you have a good hiding place, or neither you nor they will leave the country.”
This would, in fact, have suited Heath best of all, but this was the only way to accomplish his own plans without being dishonorably cashiered.
“Of course, I have,” he said coolly.
“Then look for more in the next couple of days. I’ll leave them on the back-corner table of the coffee house.”
“Why don’t you give me them all at once?” Heath said impatiently.
“Because your smart coat would bulge like a merchant’s on quarter day. Good evening, Captain. Your country will thank you for this one day.”
“I hope it thanks you equally,” Heath said with the hint of a sneer.
His shadowy companion had stood, but now paused as though unsure how to react. Then he walked away into the darkness.
Heath didn’t know who he was and didn’t want to. The man spoke like a gentleman and was probably one of Lady Braithwaite’s guests, but even that was not certain. He could have arranged the meeting outside so he didn’t have to gain entry to the building.
Brushing away speculation, Heath rose and walked back around the building toward the ballroom terrace. There he flicked what was left of his dead cigarillo onto the lawn.
A man was sitting idly on the steps, a half-full glass of brandy in the hand that dangled casually between his knees. He glanced up at Heath as he ambled up the steps, and the lantern light glinted off the nobody’s spectacles.
Taken by surprise, Heath scowled instead of ignoring him. Fortunately, there was no one now on the terrace to witness his social slip.
“Lieutenant,” the man said, as if Heath could be won over by amiability. “Join me.”
“I would rather eat my own shoes.”
“Who knows? We might manage both by the end of the evening. I believe you are expecting a lady.”
Heath’s eyes narrowed as he speculated on how much he could possibly know. “She had better not even think of betraying me,”
“I believe she has long ago left such acts to you. What you hope for, you will find at the end of the path, through the door in the wall, and under the first rose bush on your left.”
Frowning, Heath gazed along the indicated path, the end of which vanished into darkness. “How am I supposed to find that in the dark?” he demanded.
“Neither of us care,” the nobody said, standing up. “Snout for it on your hands and knees if you must. But bear in mind, it is all you will ever have of her.”
It was irritating that the secretary was as tall as he and seemed to think he didn’t have to be afraid of Heath, who was an officer and a gentleman.
Heath made up for it with his best sneer. “That will be for me to decide, not some secretary.” And he turned on his heel and marched down the path across the lawn.
Behind him was only silence and the muffled sound of music and gaiety from inside the ballroom. Perhaps the nobody had gone back inside. Either way, Heath had won the last word, which made him smirk as he slowed in the growing darkness.
Eventually, he found his way through the door in the wall, largely by feel, and walked through on to a continuation of the path. Leaving the door open to allow what light there was to follow him, he peered to his left and waved his arms to discover what plants lurked there. He swore as a thorn tore at his skin. At least he had found the rose bush. Squatting down, he felt underneath it, finding nothing but soil under his fingers and jaggy stems in his face. He felt farther toward the back of the bush and his hand closed around an oil cloth.
He smiled just as the door behind him closed quietly. A key turned in the lock, and he realized he had just been locked out of the castle.
*
Michael strolled back up the path to the ballroom terrace with a certain, quiet satisfaction. Of course, Heath could walk around to the main drive and try to regain entry that way, but he would no longer have his card of invitation, and Michael doubted he would risk his dignity.
Which meant Maria could relax for the rest of the evening.
Michael, however, was intrigued by another mystery. Who it was Heath had met in the arbor and what had changed hands there? For curiosity had made him follow the scoundrel part of the way, and he’d seen another figure waiting for him. It was far too dark and distant to make out features, but it had been a man. And when Heath had strolled back,
his coat had bulged slightly and rustled when he walked. He hadn’t seen the other man come in, so either he had reentered the castle via the front door—the others were all locked for the occasion—or he had left the premises.
As he approached the terrace once more, a couple slipped out of the door and into the shadows. Pretending he hadn’t noticed, Michael went back inside the ballroom and looked around for Maria. Everyone seemed to be making their way to the supper room, where a large and elegant spread had been set out.
He saw her at last, beside Lord Underwood, who was helping her to various delicacies before serving himself. To Michael, he looked a little too proprietorial, and he had to remind himself that Lady Maria’s marriage plans were nothing to do with him. As Heath had pointed out, he was only her brother’s secretary. And even if all his ambitions were fulfilled, he would never be considered good enough for Lady Maria Conway.
Which hardly mattered, since he was going to marry Judith in any case. He refused to let the haunting eyes and laughing lips of a girl he had known two days eclipse his betrothed. Instead, he fetched some food and allowed himself to be drawn to sit at a table beside Lord Tamar, Bernard Muir, and several Winslows. From there, he could join in the banter and do his best to see which men had mud on their shoes. As whoever had met Gideon Heath in the arbor was bound to have.
It wasn’t until they had left the supper room that he found Maria hurrying along by his side. Immediately, he slowed his pace.
“The matter is dealt with,” he murmured. “He should have gone.”
“Why, did you pour lemonade over him, too?” she breathed.
“Of course not. I locked him out of the west gate.”
She glanced up at him, her eyes so brimful of laughter and gratitude, that he almost groaned. And then she was gone, flitting away up the ballroom staircase. It would be far too easy to become obsessed with Maria Conway. It was more than time to take a step back, to cultivate some distance and perspective, and stop behaving like a foolish schoolboy.
So, since the earl had condemned him to two dances, he took advantage of Genevra Winslow’s nearness to ask her.
The Wicked Sister Page 8
