"Of course."
The challenge was taken up.
Lucy seated herself at the handsome mahogany instrument and ran her fingers lightly over the keys, trying to still their trembling. She could feel Lady Westcott's gaze on her and knew, somehow, that the woman was well satisfied with the proceedings so far. But if she thought Lucy would play the part of unwitting aide to the courtship between the cousins, she was quite mistaken.
For Lucy was certain that Valerie was not adept at the galop. Added to the girl's natural nervousness and the way Ivan rattled even the most self-assured young woman— herself, included—Lucy knew the dance would be a fiasco. To ensure it, she meant to play the tune a trifle faster than it was meant to be performed.
"Go ahead, girl. Step up to your cousin. Take his hand," Lady Westcott instructed Valerie, the only true innocent in this convoluted mess.
Valerie cast Lucy a pleading look, and for a moment Lucy hesitated. The child might have been a frightened hare trapped between two competing hawks, so frozen with fear did she appear. More than anything Lucy wanted to rescue her. But in order to be truly rescued from her godmother's plans, Valerie would simply have to endure a little fear.
Lucy began to play.
Within the first few steps it was plain that Valerie could not keep up with the music. To his credit, Ivan was a very good dancer and he made the steps as easy for Valerie as he could. Still, in the middle of the second verse the girl trod squarely on his toe, then backed away, red-faced and very nearly in tears.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "So sorry ..."
At once Lucy stopped playing and stood up. "No, it's my fault—"
"No. No, it's mine. I'm so clumsy."
Lucy felt awful, even though she knew it was for the best.
"You played it too fast," Lady Westcott accused. "Perhaps a waltz would be better."
"No!"
Everyone stared at Valerie, for that was the single most forceful thing the girl had said since she'd arrived.
"No, I... Why don't I play and ... and Miss Drysdale can dance with the earl?"
"I don't think so," Lucy began.
"What a novel idea."
Lucy stared at Ivan, appalled by his remark. "I don't think so," she repeated.
But he had the devil's own glint in his eyes and she had the sinking feeling that she would not be able to escape this awful situation. His next words confirmed it.
"Surely as Lady Valerie's chaperone you have instructed her in all the rules of society, one of which is that to turn down a man's polite invitation to dance is terribly rude."
"Yes, but... but we are not out in society at the moment."
"You were practicing though, practicing how to dance. So come, set a good example, Miss Drysdale." He stood before her and bowed. "I would be honored if you would allow me the pleasure of this dance."
Lucy frowned and hoped she was disguising the awful turmoil of emotions that twisted about inside her chest. Why was he doing this? And why was she reacting like a silly, frivolous girl? She'd had her season—two seasons, in fact. She'd danced with any number of earls before, also a marquess, and twice with a duke. Even the king's nephew had danced with her and brought her punch afterward. So why did she find this particular earl so unsettling?
Because he didn't play by the rules, came the answer. Because he was nothing like any man she'd ever met, not in his upbringing nor in his attitude. And that was why so many other young ladies were ready to swoon at his feet too. There was something wild and dangerous about him, and it seemed to draw women like a candle flame drew moths.
"Very well," she muttered, though her anger was di rected more at herself than at him. She jerked at her skirts, smoothing them to the side, then tilted her head back to stare mistrustfully at him. "What can you play, Lady Valerie?"
"Oh, anything, Miss Drysdale. A minuet?"
"How about a polka?" Ivan asked, keeping his eyes trained on. Lucy.
"I know the 'Frederika,' " Valerie offered.
"That should do very well."
Valerie sat down at the piano while Lady Westcott moved to a red damask settee. That left Lucy and Ivan standing but an arm's length apart, he with a smug smile curving his lips, she fighting back a groan of dismay. A polka. He would have to hold her and she would have to face him the entire time.
This was not going at all as she'd planned. But she would manage, she told herself. She must. She would dance a few turns around the room with him and that would be that. He obviously had a need to conquer every woman he met. But he was quite mistaken if he thought he could conquer her.
She took a determined breath. For a moment—merely a fraction of a second—his gaze flickered down to her breasts. And just as fast as that, her confidence fled. When his eyes once more met hers, she knew the terrible truth— and feared he would read that truth in her eyes. He could conquer her, if he put only the least effort into it.
He held out his left hand to her. Shaken to the core, she reluctantly placed her right hand in his. She struggled not to react to his touch, and sternly reminded herself that two sets of gloves separated their fingers. Then his other hand came around her waist, the music began, and she was lost.
He danced very well.. Why was she not surprised? But it was more than merely the proper steps and the comfortable rhythm of the music. There was something in the way he moved, some dark, sensuous something that transmitted itself into her so that she danced as she never had. They whirled about the drawing room in an energetic three-quarter time until Lucy's heart was racing and her cheeks had gone pink.
"Dancing becomes you," he murmured, practically in her ear.
"What a well-considered remark that is," she retorted breathlessly. "I've no doubt all the young ladies are quite flattered by it." Even she, who should know better.
He grinned, a faint, knowing expression that made her stomach tighten. "I find dancing with virginal young women a good indicator of their—how shall I say it?— their potential for passion."
Lucy stumbled, but he caught her and kept them going. She stared up at him, both shocked and indignant. Passion? Oh, but he was too outrageous for words!
"Come now," he continued, his eyes glittering with devilment. "We both know you have a particular interest in other people's passions. So confess the truth, Lucy. Haven't you judged many a fellow by his abilities on the dance floor? A clod with two left feet is not very likely to exhibit a bit of finesse in the marriage bed."
"Really!" This time Lucy wrenched herself free from his wicked grasp. At her angry gesture the music came to a crashing halt. Lady Westcott leaned forward scowling, while Valerie seemed to shrink against the piano.
"I believe it is time for us to retire," Lucy said in the haughtiest tones she could muster. "Valerie?"
Wasn't he going to apologize?
Apparently not.
Valerie rose trembling to her feet, intimidated by the furious emotions rocketing around the room. Lady Westcott clearly recognized that some insult had been given and she too rose, cane in hand. "What is this? What? Why do you leave, Miss Drysdale? What offense have you given her, John?"
John? Outraged as she was, Lucy still could not miss the frigid glower Ivan sent the old woman when she called him John. Nor did she miss Lady Westcott's grudging amendment.
"Oh, all right! Ivan. What have you said to her, Ivan?"
From mocking to furious he had gone in an instant, and all on account of his grandmother calling him John. What on earth did that signify?
Then it occurred to her that John was the English version of the name Ivan. Suddenly she could picture him, a dark-haired Gypsy child being forced to abandon everything he'd known in order to become a proper English lord. And yet he'd clung to his name—his true name.
Unwillingly her heart softened toward him—until he turned to her, his rogue's persona firmly in place.
"It seems I made a remark which offended Miss Drysdale's sensibilities. I thought her a more wordly person than she is
. For that I apologize."
He was apologizing for thinking her worldly, Lucy noted. Not for the suggestive nature of his comment. Nor for calling her by her Christian name. Once again her irritation with him rose. The fact that he'd been an unhappy child did not excuse the fact that he'd become an impossible man.
Lady Westcott stamped her cane imperiously upon the floor. "Well, Miss Drysdale? Do you accept his apology? I will not abide discord in this house."
Unless it is of your own making, Lucy thought. At that moment she was heartily disgusted with the old harridan's manipulations. Still, she was not about to risk her stay in London. She hadn't been here even a week. If Ivan Thornton thought he could unsettle her to the point that she would abandon poor Valerie so easily, he was more than mistaken. She meant to stay in London as long as she could. She had Sir James's lectures to attend. She had a hundred—no, a thousand—intellectually stimulating conversations built up inside her, just waiting for an outlet.
She had no intention of letting one bad-mannered, ill-tempered earl ruin it for her.
"Apology accepted," she retorted, though without an iota of forgiveness in either her tone or her bearing. "However, it is late and I am tired. Come along, Valerie. We have quite a full day ahead of us tomorrow."
Valerie scurried to Lucy's side. Her pretty face reflected her dismay over any unpleasantness. Lady Westcott had said she was extremely pliable. It clearly came from being a middle child and being caught too often in the midst of family quarrels. Lucy surmised that Valerie would do almost anything to avoid being caught in another one.
Ivan, however, had been an only child. And a lonely child. He stood now, smug and unrepentant, his hands shoved casually in his pockets. Lucy knew he would not let it end so soon.
"You say you accept my apology, Miss Drysdale, but I detect a lingering irritation in your voice. If you will allow me the chance to redeem myself, I would like to do so tomorrow. Perhaps I can take you and Lady Valerie driving in the morning."
"That's really not necessary."
"Valerie must begin to get out." This came from Lady Westcott. Her shrewd gaze caught Lucy's and warned her against countermanding her will. "It will do her good to be seen. It will generate talk about the newest beauty come to town. Be sure she selects something blue to wear," she finished in a tone that brooked no disagreement.
Lucy gritted her teeth. "Very well. But while Lord Westcott provides her with an audience of future admirers, I would ask leave to provide her with a more mature insight into human nature."
Lady Westcott regarded her closely. "A more mature insight into human nature? What precisely is that supposed to mean?"
"There are a series of lectures being given which I would like her to attend with me, regarding human intellect and the influence of upbringing on the young person."
To Lucy's surprise, Lady Westcott agreed. It even seemed she smiled a bit, as if she actually approved of the subject matter, though that seemed rather unlikely.
Ivan smiled too, a lazy, arrogant sort of smile, as if everything were going just as he'd planned. But it wasn't. Lucy would see to that. Let him bait her on the morrow: it would cause Valerie to be all the more terrified by him.
Meanwhile, with Sir James's help she would educate the impressionable Valerie on the value of a balanced relationship between a husband and a wife, one founded, if not on love, at least on respect. Certainly it should not be predicated merely on the consolidation of wealth or titles, or both.
She hooked her arm in Valerie's and with a curtsy to Lady Westcott and a civil nod to Ivan, the two of them quit the room. But later, when she entered her own room and closed the door behind her, she leaned against that sturdy plank of wood and stared at the window opposite it.
Would she hear him through that window again tonight, bidding some shadowy woman adieu?
Though she told herself she did not care at all what he did—last night, tonight, or any other night—she knew it was not entirely true. But it was curiosity, that was all. It wasn't that she cared; she was merely curious, as all reasonably intelligent people tended to be. Granted, it was not a particularly admirable trait, but it was certainly common enough.
She pushed herself off the door and began to pull the pins from her hair. She would ask Sir James his opinion about curiosity, she decided, if the opportunity ever presented itself for her to ask him anything. She would ask him why some subjects excited the mind more than others and, as a result, tempted a person to look closer, delve deeper. But she would present the question in a general way. She would not mention names nor in any other way give the impression she was overly curious about any particular person.
Even though, unfortunately, she was.
* * *
Chapter Five
Ivan found Giles and Alexander at the Piss Pot, a seedy watering hole that had been a potter's shop in a former age—Pitt's Pottery—but was just the Piss Pot now.
Giles sat over a deck of cards, fleecing a rather tough-looking character of a week's pay. Were it not that Giles was so ferocious-looking himself, he would long ago have had his throat slit in some dark alley, he was that adept at cards.
Alex was the complete opposite. Though tall and of medium build, he had the pretty features of a lad—and languid manners befitting a prince—albeit an unacknowledged one. Now he sat in a corner booth, a pretty bawd in his lap. He had one perfectly manicured hand wrapped around a squat tumbler and the other up the wench's skirt.
Alex was the first to spy Ivan. "What brings you out this dismal night, my friend? Don't tell me your loving grandam has run you out of your own house?"
"Don't think you can go crawling back to Elliot," Giles warned Ivan, never looking up from his cards. "You hurt his feelings when you rejected his humble abode for that excessively large pile of stones you call the family's town house. One would think his three rooms not good enough for an earl."
The girl sitting on Alex's lap gave a little squeal, then a slow sigh.
"What do you say, Tess?" Alex asked. "Can a sweet piece like you tell the difference between a merchant, an earl, and a prince—under the covers and in the dark, I mean?"
She let out a giggle. "Shall we have us a contest, then? I'll close my eyes and give each of you a feel—or p'rhaps take a taste?" She laughed, then rubbed her bottom back and forth upon his lap. "You're beginning to feel very like a king to me, milord."
It was the wrong thing to say to Alex. Ivan could have told the coarse wench that. Any mention of the king, unless in the most derogatory tones, invariably soured the man. But then, what else should one expect? Of the four friends, the three of them who actually knew who their fathers were, despised them. Ivan had often thought Elliot Pierce fortunate not to be cursed with the knowledge of his own father's identity.
"Where's Elliot?" he asked, signaling the tavern master for his usual glass of gin. He took a chair near Alex, ignoring the interested look the girl—now shoved off Alex's lap—was giving him.
"Give us some privacy," Alex growled at the wench, sending her fleeing, her face a mixture of fear, anger, and confusion.
"Elliot is in some gutter or another," Alex muttered once the girl was gone. "His perverse way of celebrating his latest financial coup." He swigged down the dregs of his cup. From the card table came a sharp oath. A fist hit the table. A bottle toppled over, then shattered on the floor.
Ivan glanced mildly at Giles. The other card player had lurched to his feet and stood now, shaking a fist at his still seated opponent—not at all an unusual occurrence. Ivan had learned long ago not to play cards with Giles. Now this half-drunken cooper or draysman or whatever he was, was learning that same lesson the hard way.
Giles didn't move; he just stared at the sweaty brute, stared at him without blinking, until the man let out a string of curses far more inventive than Ivan would have credited the fellow with. Finally he spat, not on Giles, but near enough to make his insult clear. Only then did he leave, shoving over every chair in his path.
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"Sore loser," Alex quipped. "What did you take him for?"
"Five quid. You'd have thought it a tenner the way he carried on."
"Where does the likes of him get five quid?" Alex groused. He was forever short of coins.
"By the honest sweat of his brow, if the smell of him was any indication," Giles said.
"He ought to spend his pay on a new set of teeth," Alex remarked, tugging at the long lace cuff that hung from beneath his stylish silver-gray coat. "Or perhaps his tailor. No, good teeth are more important even than good clothes, don't you agree?" Then he focused on Ivan and his tone changed. "You look as though you'd like to knock somebody's teeth in. Your grandmother's?"
Ivan stared at the glass of gin, rolling it back and forth between his palms, watching the liquid swirl. "She has a new ploy, a new game she thinks to play with me. A sweet young thing—you'd like her, Alex. Lady Valerie Stanwich. She's sponsoring her for the rest of the season and has moved the girl, her chaperone, and herself into my house."
"And so you will be moving out again?" Alex asked, joining the other two at the sticky table.
Ivan shook his head. He'd had time to think about his grandmother and her plan—and about the imperious Miss Drysdale—on his ride over to the Piss Pot. "No. Not this time. I plan to maintain my residence at Westcott House. In fact," he said, his eyes glinting at his friends. "I'd like to fill the house with people. Entertain regularly."
Alex yawned. "If you want to run her off, we'd be more than happy to assist you. I can keep the grandmother happy—she likes me, you know. Giles can pursue the girl. No mama in her right mind would let her daughter even look at a merchant's bastard, no matter how much money he has. No offense, old man," he added to Giles with a shrug. "And perhaps, just for fun, Elliot can chase the skirts of the chaperone. Is she hatchet-faced, or a dried-up old prude? Those are the two most popular sorts in chaperones, you know. Or else she—"
"I'll tend to Miss Drysdale myself."
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