“Would being his inamorata be so ruinous? Or would you have me save myself for such as Sir Bretwell? Carpe diem, Greyson. Carpe diem. I intend to ‘gather ye rosebuds while ye may,’ lest this rosebud wither on the vine. Besides, I have enough money for the both of us.”
Her steward shook his head. “I doubt a man of his stamp would allow you to support him. He appears to be a far different creature than his half-brother.”
“And what would you know of Lord Miles Everleigh?”
“You mentioned at one time, some years ago, you might… pursue Lord Miles’ acquaintance. I discovered what I could about him.”
She squinted up at her steward, arms crossed over her chest, toe tapping the marble floor.
He threw up his hands and gazed at the ceiling ten feet above him. “Fine. I have said my piece. I will say no more on the subject.”
She sputtered a half-laugh. “I wish I could believe that.”
Greyson offered her a smile of contrition. “I promise you have heard the end of that subject from me. Now, as I overheard you plan to go driving tomorrow afternoon, when would you like me to reschedule your meeting with Barings Bank?”
She groaned. It had wholly fled her mind. “Don’t send my apologies just yet. Perhaps Captain Everleigh would like to accompany me to my meeting.”
He couldn’t remember when he’d been so enthralled by a woman. Not even the most entertaining theatrical he’d ever seen could distract his awareness from the alluring creature by his side in his half-brother’s private box at the Drury Theatre. The more he learned of her, the more he found to admire. Sitting and listening while she met with Baron Anthony and the General Director of Barings Bank to discuss ways she could profit from the American war had left him feeling slightly bemused. He had no idea what they were discussing half the time. But then, he rather imagined she’d feel the same way were she to listen to a discussion on military strategy and deployment on the peninsula. He had no doubt he could have readily understood the meeting today were he to make himself familiar with the topic—just as he had no doubt she would make a formidable opponent were she to educate herself on military matters. He supposed he had his stepmother to thank for growing up with an appreciation for bright, intelligent women.
There was also her potent physical allure, and there he was well and truly run through on his own sword. He knew with no false modesty that he could have her in his bed should he ask—the evening of “the dinner party” still lived in his memory—but because of his burgeoning admiration and respect for her, he would not insult her so by asking. He could not merely bed her for their mutual enjoyment as he would have done with any other woman in his past, for she was not any other woman. Florence was a well-bred gentlewoman, a lady of quality who should expect nothing less than marriage before she graced some immensely fortunate male with her favors.
He had ridiculed her reliance upon his being a gentleman to protect her from his advances. He’d been so long out of society that he hardly considered himself one and his activities for Wellington should have put him beyond the pale. No gentleman agreed to engage in such duplicitous and furtive behavior as spying, not even during wartime. Considering present circumstances, he should have held his tongue, for she’d been right. It seemed he’d found some honor within himself after all, and she was safe from him. God-damn-it to hell and back.
His warm regard, admiration, and lustful cravings for Florence were almost sufficient to induce him to propose marriage—but the practicalities of achieving such were daunting. First, he would require the permission of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The Duke’s reaction to one of his officers marrying in the midst of an uncertain peace was a predictable, “Have you lost your bloody mind, sir?” In the unlikely event he should receive permission, he would, without doubt, be recalled at some point, leaving Florence to make do on her own recognizance—again. He couldn’t ask her to follow the drum as the wives of some officers and non-commissioned soldiers did.
Less troubling, but nonetheless another sticking point was money. How would he support her? He couldn’t think she would appreciate the spare living required should they live on his officer’s honoraria and while he might, with time, reconcile himself to living off his wife’s fortune, it would ease his mind if the differences in their wealth were not so vast. His older brother, the Duke of Chelsony, was flush in the pocket, but he knew better than to expect any largess from that quarter. The man qualified as a pinch-penny of the first degree and was devoid of any feeling of familial devotion. As a child, he’d detested his older brother, and as an adult, his feelings had not grown any warmer.
Plodding through all these considerations had led him to the conclusion that his best course of action was to gather his forces and retreat from the field. It would be the wisest thing to do. Apparently, he enjoyed self-inflicted emotional disorder and a permanent ache in his ballocks, for he had no intention of staying away from her.
With most women, the more he was in their company, the more they became commonplace—not so with Florence. She was like a great masterpiece. The more frequently he looked at her, the more beautiful she became, the more nuances of her expression and personality he discovered. He’d never tire of looking at her. He noted her heightened color and broad smile as she applauded the actors taking their bows.
“Did you enjoy the play?” he said.
“Immensely. Kean is quite good, don’t you think? Deserving of all the accolades.”
“Yes, I agree.” He helped place her shawl on her shoulders. “Are you at all interested in a cold dinner? I asked Lady Eleanor’s cook to prepare something for two, but if you are tired, I will see you home.”
“Tired?” She snorted. “Good sir, it is the beginning of the evening. Only eleven o’clock. I have had nothing since five and am famished. You promised me dinner. I would be glad of a light repast.”
He held out his arm. “Then dinner it will be.”
She wrapped her arm through his, and they sauntered toward the exit, stopping several times to engage in polite conversation with other theatergoers with whom Florence had acquaintance, before getting in the queue for their carriage.
Hours later, Florence put her glass of wine down and laughed freely at the witty tale Duncan told of a mishap involving a wandering milk cow and an angry farmer that had befallen him in a tiny Spanish village. As he’d relaxed into the tale, his language became that of the militia he served with, strewn with coarse and vulgar words and a common manner of speech. She liked that he felt free to let her see that side of him. He treated her impartially, as if his equal, and not some prissy miss to be cosseted and protected from loutish words. He grinned at her like a mischievous little boy, taking delight in her delight … and she silently acknowledged the peril he posed to her. The more she spent time in his company, the further she succumbed to his charm. He was bad for her, an invitation to much grief and sorrow for he would break her heart when he left. Everything her steward had cautioned her about was fact. She knew it—and yet… she could not stay away.
The casement clock in the dining room of the Everleigh townhouse rang the hour, and Duncan straightened in his chair. “Four o’clock in the morning.” With a sigh, he tossed his serviette on the table and pushed back in his chair to stand. “As reluctant as I am to call an end to this night, I should see you home.”
She looked up at him as he came to stand behind her and helped move her chair away from the table. “This has been one of the most enjoyable evenings in current memory, and as I am out almost every evening at all manner of entertainments, you may take that as unqualified praise.” She rose and turned to him. There was little to separate them as he had only stepped from behind the chair when she stood. She could smell the fresh starch on his pristine white shirt and cravat. If she had lifted a hand, she would have grazed his thigh. With the table behind her and the chair beside her, she was effectively trapped.
The twinkle in his brown eyes turned sensual, and he swore under his
breath. “I should not… but I cannot help myself ...” His warm hand cupped her face, and his eyes watched hers as he leaned in to press a gentle kiss, fraught with desire, on her lips. He groaned into her mouth and deepened the contact, and she responded by rising on her tiptoes and grabbing the lapels of his coat to steady herself. His arm wrapped her back, pressing her into him, and he kissed her until she was out of her mind with need.
“You do not have to take me home,” she breathed.
He stiffened and pulled away with a curse, turning the broad, black-clad, expanse of his back to her. His right hand scrubbed through his hair and then released to fall at his side. “I would never dishonor you so. I should not have kissed you. That was ill done of me, and you have my most abject apology.”
She chuckled low in her throat. “I don’t want your apologies. I want you to take me to your bed.”
He shook his head accompanied by a guttural sound of pain. “Florence, I want to. As God is my witness, I want to—but I cannot.”
“From the evidence I felt, you are more than physically capable,” she teased.
He choked on grim laughter. “Not that I cannot but that I will not.” He strode quite purposefully away from her to the side table by the door where she had discarded the light shawl she’d used for a wrap. Still with his back to her, he picked it up and worried it through his hands the entire time he was speaking. “My admiration and respect for you are such that I will not simply use you. You deserve better than that from any man. You are a fine woman, Florence, deserving of a man’s highest regard, and I should lose all respect for myself were I to treat you in any other fashion. Any man who enjoys your body should offer no less than marriage.” He straightened, pulled his shoulders back and turned to address her. “I am not in a position to offer you such. Would that I were. If I were truly a gentleman, I would absent myself from your life and not provoke you any further.”
“Please do not,” she blurted. “Ah…” With some effort, she composed herself and offered carelessly, “I should expire of boredom. You are the only ‘potentially-a-spy’ I count among my acquaintances. Please say we may at least remain friends?”
“Have no worry on that account.” He gave a helpless snort. “I lack the will to stay away, but I console myself with the promise I will do you no harm.” He held out her shawl. “So… as your friend and fervent admirer, I am taking you home.”
Their short ride to her townhome was achieved in silence. Duncan appeared lost in thought, and she had much to consider. She rejected a platonic friendship with Captain Everleigh out of hand. It had been over a decade since a man had so inflamed her lustful passions and engaged her heart and mind—and that man was dead. Yes, Duncan would leave, but until that dark day, she would grasp for whatever joy was allowed her. His like were so rare in her life, such a man might never grace her existence again. If she but thought it through enough, surely a solution as to how to accomplish her goal and protect his conscience would present itself. Duncan would discover her scruples were not as refined as his. As he walked her to her door, she asked, “Will you be attending the Dacosta ball this Saturday?”
“Lord Miles and I will indeed be attending. He has written he is coming to town with Eleanor. He wishes her to see Sir Richard Croft, a London accoucheur and surgeon, and Dr. Matthew Baillie, a prominent London physician. He does not have the same faith in their local midwife that she does. He and I will both be present at the Dacosta ball.”
“Indeed? It will be good to see Eleanor. I’m surprised she did not write to tell me she was coming.”
“I believe Eleanor suddenly capitulated after Miles waged a protracted campaign.”
“Yes,” she mused. “Eleanor can be very stubborn.”
“Will you save a waltz for me?”
“You waltz, Captain? I am surprised, what with you being so out of the social whirl.”
“Wellington insists his officers be proficient dance partners. He enjoys a lively social calendar and requires his staff to accompany him. I can promise I will not step on your feet.”
“In which case, I will save you two. A waltz and the dinner dance. I will enjoy having an interesting dinner companion.” She rose on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, rough with dark stubble. “I had a delightful time today. Thank you.” With a smiling backward glance, she slipped in the door, and it closed behind her.
Chapter Seven
Florence tried to be unobtrusive in her search of faces as Lord Seville swept her down the long expanse of polished ballroom floor. An accomplished dancer—indeed there was little he did not excel at—she followed his strong lead with little thought. Her left hand held her ball gown’s three yards of train off the floor. A white orchid was affixed to the wrist of her right hand, now clasped in Lord Seville’s. The purple, coloring the throat of the flower, matched her over-the-elbow purple kid gloves and the sprigs of deep purple shot through with silver thread that embroidered an ecru over-dress of whisper-sheer silk gauze. The ornately embroidered gauze covered an empire gown of off-white silk charmeuse. A cluster of amethysts and seed pearls adorned the center of her deep décolleté and created swirls of color on the hem of her undergown.
The scent of hundreds of beeswax candles burning in the wall sconces and crystal chandeliers that lit the massive room as if it were day competed with the overwhelming sweetness of the vast number of white roses and lilies used for decoration in the Dacosta ballroom. On one side of the white and gilt-paneled room, in between each of a dozen double French doors opening onto an outdoor terrace, stood fluted marble columns topped with sprays of hothouse flowers. A crushing number of guests packed a ballroom and gallery that should have appropriately held one-half the number. In such a squeeze, it could be that Duncan had arrived unnoticed as it was well into the second hour of the event.
“If you are seeking Captain Everleigh, he and his half-brother, Lord Miles, are in the corner by the orchestra chatting with our host and hostess.” Lord Seville twirled them in a rapid circle around a slower couple, a maneuver which left her momentarily giddy.
“Are you going to prick at me for not giving you my undivided attention?”
“Heaven forbid. I recognize the attraction. Captain Everleigh is a well stood-up male specimen, though if pretty looks were the deciding factor, to my mind, I should prefer his half-brother, Lord Miles.”
She chuckled. “Who is very much taken. Besides, I prefer the captain.” Lord Seville glanced down at her, an eyebrow raised. She met his gaze somewhat shyly. “It has been ever so long since I have liked another so monstrously well. I am embarrassingly enamored.” She sighed.
“That was not the sigh of a content woman. My spies report you have been much seen in his company and that his manner toward you is … familiar.”
“Nothing beyond kisses.” She snorted. “He ‘respects’ me too much to engage in any further sort of dalliance.”
“Do I detect a note of complaint?”
“Yes.”
“Far be it for me to advise you in matters of intimacy, but if Mohammad won’t go to the mountain, then the mountain must go to Mohammad.”
“Thank you for stating the obvious, and I take umbrage at being called a mountain.”
Lord Seville put his head back and laughed. “What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea, but I am not reconciled to simple friendship.”
“No?”
“No.”
The strains of music from the orchestra died away. “Well, mountain, shall I escort you to Mohammed?”
“You are too good.”
He put her hand through his arm. “You know very well I’m nothing of the sort.”
She rolled her eyes and chuckled as he accompanied her to where Duncan, Lord Miles and Lord and Lady Dacosta stood conversing, then withdrew. She exchanged pleasantries with her host and hostess, acknowledged Duncan with a smile she hoped hid the leaping of her heart and nodded at Lord Miles.
“Lady Lloyd-Smith, you are looking
particularly lovely this evening,” Lord Miles said. “Eleanor sends her warmest affection and hopes you will call on her later this week. She begged off tonight, claiming fatigue. She is in sad need of female company. I fear she is quite out of patience with the men in her life. May I tell her you will visit soon?”
Duncan devoured her with his eyes. She understood the draw. Several days had passed since she’d last seen him and it was difficult to look away from him. Ever since his inflexible statement that their relationship could not go beyond friendship, her physical desire for him had grown burdensome. She’d never experienced such strength of physical want and wondered if his desires paralleled hers. Such a handsome, virile man. His black and white evening attire suited him well, and she disagreed with Lord Seville. To her, Duncan was every bit as attractive as his half-brother. Warmth flushed her cheeks, indeed ran her entire length, as she returned his concentrated perusal.
With a start, she realized Lord Miles no longer spoke, and he and Lord and Lady Dacosta regarded her with expectant looks and open amusement.
She forced her head around to face Lord Miles. “Umm … I will most assuredly visit Eleanor frequently now that she is here in London.”
“Her spirits will rise immeasurably when I tell her so.” Lord Miles smiled in a kind fashion with no mention of her rude distraction and then bowed to Lady Dacosta. “My lady, might I request the honor of this dance?”
Their hostess blushed with a slight bob of a curtsy. “I should be enchanted, my lord.”
As Lord Miles led their hostess off to the dance floor, Duncan stepped to her and bowed. “I believe you have saved me a waltz, Lady Lloyd-Smith.”
“Yes, Captain Everleigh.” She smiled demurely and accepted his arm.
With an acknowledgment to their host, he led her to the floor and swept her into the swirl of couples with a practiced hold and a confident stride. It took no more than two steps for her to relax into the arms of her captain and beam up at him with happiness.
A Destitute Duke Page 6
