“Would I? You intrigue me, Miss Deverill.” He pulled her closer, his fingers tightening around hers, his knuckles brushing against her belly. “Perhaps we should break some rules together?”
“Which ones did you have in mind?”
That provocative question came tumbling out of her mouth without any thought, and in its aftermath, she cursed her sudden propensity to be a flirt.
Thankfully, the music stopped before he could reply, and Clara was profoundly relieved. She pulled back, expected he would let her hands go and offer his arm to escort her back to her place, but to her astonishment, he didn’t let her go. He didn’t even move.
“Several ideas are going through my head, I confess,” he murmured, answering her question. His vivid blue gaze lowered to her mouth. “A kiss during a dance would break quite a few rules, wouldn’t it?”
Clara imagined it, his arms around her and his mouth claiming hers, but though it was just a flash through her mind, her knees suddenly felt like jelly, even as her feminine pride railed against the notion that she could be conquered so easily.
“Many rules, I should think,” she agreed, pulling her hands free and heaving a sigh of feigned disappointment. “But it’s quite impossible.”
“Is it?” He stirred, moving closer. His head bent down a fraction. “Why?”
She began to laugh. “Because the dance is over.”
He blinked as if that were the last thing he’d expected. “What?”
Noting his blank expression, she realized he’d been so caught up in her that he hadn’t even noticed the end of the dance. She laughed, exhilaration rising inside her like a sudden burst of fireworks, overriding everything else this man had made her feel. She had her own siren song, it seemed. Who’d ever have thought that?
He glanced about as if working to come to his senses, and she took that opportunity to turn away and start for the nearest door. It was a breach of good manners, for it deprived him of the opportunity to return her to her place, but Clara didn’t care. For the first time in her life, she’d said the perfect thing at the perfect moment, and she didn’t want to spoil such an unexpected triumph by talking with him any further.
But when she glanced over her shoulder, she found that her escape was not to be so easy. He was in pursuit. Why he should be, she couldn’t imagine, but there was an unmistakable half smile on his lips and a determined cast to his countenance that made Clara quicken her steps.
She had the advantage on him, for his momentary daze had enabled her to put a good twenty feet of distance and half a dozen couples between them. But once she left the ballroom, those advantages would evaporate. Her vague, half-formed intent had been to duck into the ladies’ withdrawing room, but only now did she realize she’d never ascertained where it was and she had no time to go looking, for he was on her very heels. And even if she could spare a moment to find out that information, there was no one to whom she could put the question because when she stepped into the corridor, she found it was empty.
Cursing her sudden and most uncharacteristic impulse to be a flirt, Clara glanced around. Ahead of her was the main corridor that led to the foyer, a vast expanse with no side doors and no hiding places. To her left and right, the ballroom wall was flanked by large marble statues, and she saw only one possible means to evade him.
She turned to the right, running for all she was worth down the corridor, but she’d barely managed a dozen steps before she heard the door to the ballroom open, and she veered sideways, catching the glint of his tawny hair out of the corner of her eye just before she slid between two statues. She drew in her breath and stiffened her spine, hoping her body was slender enough and her skirt narrow enough to sufficiently conceal her from view.
Voices and music floated to her down the corridor, and then the door closed again, muffling the sounds of the ball going on in the room behind her. She didn’t know if he’d gone back inside or not, but there was no way to find out, for she didn’t dare move. She waited, listening, hardly daring to breathe.
“What the devil?” she heard him mutter. “How does a girl just vanish into thin air?”
Clara bit her lip, smiling to herself. How, indeed.
The grandfather clock by the stairs began to sound the hour and as the twelfth chime died away, a sudden chuckle of laughter echoed to her along the corridor.
“Midnight, eh?” He laughed again. “Well, then, Cinderella, it seems I must bid you good-night.”
Her smile widened into a grin. She didn’t like him, nor did she have the desire for his company, but nonetheless, it was exciting to be caught up in a real-life fairy tale—to be, for the first time, the lovely ingénue who captured the interest of the handsomest man at the ball. Even if he was a cad.
The door to the ballroom opened and closed again, but Clara continued to wait, counting a full thirty seconds before she dared to emerge from between the statues.
Thankfully, the corridor was empty.
Chapter 5
Rex could not imagine how the girl could have vanished in the blink of an eye, but he knew she couldn’t have gone far, and any other time, he’d have willingly lingered for a more thorough search. Unfortunately, he had other obligations to fulfill, and wandering the corridors of the house in search of one cheeky girl wasn’t among them, a fact brought home to him with force the moment he reentered the ballroom.
Auntie Pet’s stern gaze honed on him at once, reminding him that he had at least half a dozen dances to go before he could return his attentions to the provoking Miss Deverill.
He glanced around for a suitable partner, and when he spied Lady Frances Chinden a few feet away, he approached her for the waltz. From his point of view, Lady Frances was a perfect choice. Her father had massive gambling debts, so Petunia would never approve of her as a possible future Countess of Galbraith. She was also distractingly pretty to look at and quite enjoyable company, but even Lady Frances’s considerable charms did not enable him to dismiss Clara Deverill from his thoughts. The girl’s face, lit with laughter at his expense, remained crystal clear in his mind even as he danced with another woman, the orange-blossom scent of her hair still lingered in his nostrils, and her words echoed in his ears more loudly than the strains of Strauss’s “Blue Danube.”
You can’t kiss me during the dance, Lord Galbraith . . . because the dance is over.
He pictured himself as he’d been a few minutes ago, dazed, stunned, even aroused—on a dance floor, he appreciated with chagrin, in full view of society. He’d been so occupied with delicious notions of kissing her that he hadn’t even realized the music had stopped and they were no longer dancing. No wonder she’d laughed at him.
Still, he did have an excuse. She might not be the sort a man noticed in a first cursory glance, true enough, but when she laughed, the transformation was a bit shattering. When Clara Deverill laughed, when she smiled, it lit up her face—hell, it lit up the room—and sent any notions that she was plain straight out the window.
She didn’t realize it herself, he suspected, or have any idea that she had a unique charm all her own. He’d have been happy to show her, but she’d never given him the chance. She’d been off like a shot the moment the dance was over, leaving him standing there like a chump and feeling like a prize idiot.
Where she’d gone still baffled him. She must have slipped into the ladies’ withdrawing room, though he couldn’t see how she’d managed to reach it in time. She must have run hell for leather.
But why? Without being unduly conceited, he knew he wasn’t the sort ladies usually ran from. So why such a desire to escape? Had she merely been flirting with him? Running away, expecting him to pursue as the next move in the game?
That didn’t quite square. She had not wanted to dance with him, that had been clear enough, and despite a few flirtatious words here and there, her manner toward him had been for the most part coolly indifferent, even disapproving.
Who was she to approve or disapprove of him? he wondered, a bit ne
ttled. They’d only just met.
With that thought, he felt again the curious sense that he knew her somehow.
I can assure you, Lord Galbraith, that we have never actually met.
Well, that was that, he thought. But the more Rex tried to dismiss a nagging feeling of familiarity, the stronger it became. They must have met, and she was denying it for some reason. But why? To pay him out for some slight, perhaps? Had he offended her in some way?
Before he could explore that rather unsettling prospect, Lady Frances’s voice intruded on his thoughts.
“You seem preoccupied, Lord Galbraith.”
With an effort, Rex set aside his contemplations of his former dance partner and returned his attention to the one in his arms, hastily conjuring an excuse for his inattention. “My apologies, Lady Frances. I am preoccupied, I do confess. On my uncle’s behalf, I’m playing host this evening, and I’m not accustomed to the role. It’s giving me cause for anxiety.”
“There’s no need for that. You’re doing splendidly. The role of host suits you well.”
Like most men, Rex found praise an agreeable thing, but only if he deserved it, and in this case, he didn’t, since he’d been playing host for less than an hour. No, he thought, looking into Lady Frances’s pretty face, this was the meaningless sort of flattery debutantes seemed to feel was expected of them. Most debutantes, anyway.
You do have quite a scandalous reputation.
Rex muttered an oath.
“I beg your pardon?”
Lady Frances was staring at him, looking rather shocked, and for the second time, Rex forced his thoughts back to his present dance partner. But despite his best intentions, he occasionally found his gaze scanning the room for a glimpse of a willowy figure in white illusion and a crown of light brown hair. To no avail.
It wasn’t until he had returned Lady Frances to her parents and started toward the refreshment table that his efforts seemed rewarded, and when he spied a tall, slender figure in white slipping onto the terrace, he wasted no time in going after her. When he reached the terrace, however, he discovered that the woman he’d been following was not Clara Deverill, but the slightly scandalous Lady Hunterby, who gave him a wicked smile just before she dashed down the steps and out into the gardens.
He moved to the balustrade, watching with a hint of envy as Lady Hunterby crossed the lawn toward the folly in one corner of the garden. A tryst, he couldn’t help but feel, was far more entertaining than dancing with women he had no interest in, or searching in vain for an aggravating girl who clearly had no interest in him.
“I took your advice.”
Rex turned at those words, glad of a distraction, and found Lionel Strange coming toward him across the terrace. “Lionel? What an agreeable surprise to see you. I had no idea you’d be at Auntie’s ball.”
The other man shrugged, but there was a curious tenseness in his demeanor that belied the nonchalant gesture. “I’m sometimes invited to these things. I suppose even your aunt Petunia finds it hard to scrounge up enough single men for a large ball.”
Rex noted the slight slur in Lionel’s words and his unsteady gait as he came across the terrace, and he felt a glimmer of surprise. Lionel was seldom drunk. “I’m sure that’s not why she asked you,” he said as the other man halted in front of him. “It’s probably because she knows we’re friends and I think quite highly of you.”
“We’re friends?” Lionel echoed, laughing a bit too loudly. “Are we, indeed?”
“Of course we are.”
“Then you have some damnable notions of friendship.”
Rex frowned, his surprise deepening into concern. Even on the rare occasions Lionel had indulged in alcoholic excess, Rex couldn’t recall him becoming belligerent or boorish. “I haven’t the least idea what you mean, but either way, I’m sure you weren’t invited just to balance the numbers. My aunt would never invite anyone of whom she didn’t have a good opinion. And you’re an MP, a man of position in your own right. It’s not as if you’re an insignificant nobody.”
“Perhaps, but we both know I’m not top drawer.” There was an unmistakable bitterness in the words. “Geraldine knows it, too, apparently.”
Rex’s frown deepened at the mention of Dina, and so did his concern. “What do you mean?”
“As I said, I took your advice. This very evening, as a matter of fact. Do you want to know the result?”
Rex wasn’t sure he did, given his friend’s obviously inebriated state, grim countenance, and bellicose manner, but a man couldn’t shirk when a friend was in difficulties. “I do want to know. Tell me what happened.”
Lionel shook his head, laughing a little, but there was no humor in it. “Exactly what I predicted. She agreed wholeheartedly with my suggestion that perhaps we should part, declared that I was right—that she in fact was too good for me. And then she left me flat.”
“What?” Rex blinked, a bit taken aback by this piece of news. Dina was, first and last, a flirt. It didn’t seem like her to walk away without leaving Lionel some means to pursue. “Did you go after her? Give her the speech I suggested?”
“Oh, yes.” Lionel’s expression got a bit grimmer. “But I barely got halfway through it before she stopped me, declaring that she knew I’d try something like this.”
“Something like what?”
“Lady Truelove had warned her to expect it, she said.”
Rex blinked, still utterly at sea. “Lady Who?”
“Lady Truelove. It’s an advice column. Dear Lady Truelove. God, Rex, surely you’ve heard of it. Don’t you ever read the papers?”
“You know I don’t.”
“People write to Lady Truelove with their romantic problems, and she advises them on what to do.”
Rex studied his friend’s angry face and began to wish the other man had sought advice from this Lady Truelove instead of him, but of course, it would never do to say so. Instead he tried to make sense of the situation at hand. “Geraldine wrote to an advice columnist in the paper?”
Even as he said it, he knew how absurd that notion was. Dina might be a flirt, but she was also discreet. She’d never do such a thing.
“She says not. But it hardly matters either way. The letter described a situation so much like her own that she decided to take the advice Lady Truelove had offered the correspondent. It was Providence, Dina said.”
“You’re not serious?”
“Oh, but I am. The letter, from some woman calling herself ‘Bewildered in Belgravia’, claimed that the man she loved had led her to expect marriage, but that he was now expressing reluctance to actually marry her.”
“Well, that is rather a common tale, I daresay—”
“Just like us, Dina said. She said it was as if Lady Truelove was talking straight to her. After reading the column for myself, I could see why she came to that conclusion.”
“Nonetheless, it is just a coincidence.”
“The correspondent comes from a much higher station than the man she loves. She is a widow of the aristocracy, while he is merely middle class. They have each declared their love for the other. They meet in secret and their families know nothing of their amour. They’ve been together a month. That’s quite a string of coincidences, wouldn’t you say?”
“But what other explanation could there be?”
“That is what I’ve been asking myself. Lady Truelove advised her correspondent that the man in question was a rotter, a scoundrel who was clearly out to take advantage of her in the most reprehensible way possible.”
“Don’t tell me you’re taking this personally? Really, Lionel, it’s not as if this woman is referring to you.”
“You think not?”
“How could she be? She doesn’t know you.”
“Perhaps she does, even if I don’t know her. She told the girl,” he went on before Rex could respond to that rather enigmatic remark, “that the man would try to get ’round her somehow, that he would work his wiles on her and attempt to per
suade her to continue this liaison.”
“Well, of course any man who found himself in such an agreeable situation would want it to continue for as long as possible. You certainly do. But as I’ve said, Dina’s far too discreet to air her private concerns to a newspaper columnist.”
“She is discreet,” Lionel agreed, and his expression hardened even more. “Which brings me to you.”
Rex stiffened, suddenly wary, not liking the resentful way his friend was glaring at him. “Just what are you implying, Lionel?”
Instead of answering, his friend reached into the breast pocket of his evening jacket, pulled out a cutting from a newspaper, and unfolded it. “Allow me to share with you Lady Truelove’s assessment of the situation and the advice she offered.”
Looking down at the page in his gloved fingers, he began to read. “‘I doubt that simple procrastination is the explanation for this man’s lack of action. My dear young lady, it is clear, I am sorry to say, that honorable marriage is not in his plans at all. To be blunt, he is using you in the most dishonorable way a man can do. Should you question his motives, I daresay he will attempt to make his reluctance to wed you sound honorable, even noble. He may declare that he cannot marry you because you are too far above his station, and that he hasn’t the means to support you in the way you’ve been accustomed.’”
“Any man would feel the need to underscore a vast difference in station between himself and his lady love,” Rex pointed out. “To marry with such differences between them would be precipitate and unwise.”
“‘He will say that you deserve more than he can provide,’” Lionel went on, ignoring Rex’s point altogether, “‘and that you are too good for the likes of him. He might make a token effort to break things off. He might say that he does not want to do this because he’s wild about you, that he can’t eat or sleep for wanting you, that your time together has been the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to him.’”
At this exact repetition of his own words from the other day, Rex gave a laugh borne of pure astonishment. “But how would—”
The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2) Page 6
