by Claudia Dain
Once the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to gobble them back in. She sounded like the worst sort of prig. Penrith would hate her instantly.
Penrith, tall and lean, looked down at her with an amused expression. Perhaps he did not hate her?
“Miss Prestwick,” he said, and a shiver worked its way over her skin, “you notice that Lady Dalby is standing not a foot away from Lady Amelia?” Without waiting for her reply, he said, “I can promise you that Lady Amelia is not acting independently. Nor is Lord Cranleigh, though he may not be aware of it.”
Illogical nonsense. Is this how Penrith and his mesmerizing voice had gained infamy? By spouting gibberish? Of course, his gibberish had sounded lovely enough until one bothered to try and make sense of his words. How did Lady Dalby figure into the events of the evening? She was infamous, true enough, but not for persuading young women to manhandle titled gentlemen.
Or was she? Penelope had heard some rather lurid rumors about Sophia’s own daughter, pearl necklaces, and a closet in Hyde House, not to mention a rigorous jaunt down Park Lane; actually, some of the rumors had been that she’d run down Park Lane, her new husband chasing after her. Penelope enjoyed a luscious rumor as much as the next person, but when they became out-and-out ridiculous fabrications, then rumors were in danger of losing all their entertainment value as a window into the private lives of the titled class. An abuse of their function, surely, and such a waste. If one couldn’t rely on the stoutness of rumor, well then, what was left?
“I should think that would annoy Lord Cranleigh,” George said mildly. George was often mild; it was what made his company so pleasant, and so rare in a brother. Most of them were simply horrid by her observation. Why, Amelia’s brother was a perfect example: Lord Hawksworth rarely went out, and when he did, he hardly spoke a word, unless it was to annoy Amelia. “Do you think he knows?”
“Knows that he’s annoyed?” Penelope said a bit too sharply, considering that Penrith was smirking down at her, his smirk more alluring than many a man’s cordial smile. The man could simply get away with nearly anything. “I should think he would.”
“I think,” Penrith said softly, his voice causing another shiver to pass over her skin, this time deeper and … lower, “that it is a rare event indeed when a man knows he is being managed by Sophia Dalby, and if he does know—”
“He doesn’t mind,” George finished, smiling conspiratorially at Penrith.
Good heavens. This sort of conversation served no purpose whatsoever. What could George be thinking?
“I find that,” Penelope said, trying very hard not to sound priggish, “puzzling.”
“If you’re puzzled, Pen,” George said, “just think how Cranleigh must be feeling. Look at him. He looks—”
“Deadly,” Penrith finished.
Penelope looked. He did. Cranleigh looked truly deadly and he was looking fully at Amelia Caversham. For a moment, Penelope felt almost sorry for Amelia.
But then it passed.
WHATEVER Amelia had been expecting when she laid her hand against Cranleigh’s chest, it was not that he would be hot beneath her glove, or that a jolt of fire would pass through his skin to hers, or that the look in his pale blue eyes would be so blatantly intense. So dangerous. The word clanged through her thoughts, screaming into her blood.
Dangerous.
“Are you pushing me?” Cranleigh asked, his voice nearly a hiss of derision. “I can’t feel anything.”
It was a lie. She knew it instantly for a lie. The look in his eyes, the ragged intake of his breath, which surely matched her own hoarse gasp for air, the pulsing heat of his massive chest all declared it a lie. He could feel it, feel her, and it enraged him.
And she was glad.
She forgot about Iveston, about Sophia, about Ruan, and all the rest. She only saw Cranleigh. She only wanted to beat him. To push him off. To push him and push him until he moved.
Until she could move him so far and so deeply that he would not be able to deny it. He would be moved. And he would know that she was the woman who had moved him.
She pushed.
He did not move. His eyes widened slightly, frozen and hard, immovable.
She pushed again slightly and raised her other hand to add in, to pile on, to defeat him by a single push.
His brows lowered, scowling. He was always scowling. She didn’t care if he scowled. She only wanted him to move. It was the most important thing, instantly and illogically, the most important thing. There was nothing else. Just this man and his adamant refusal to be moved by her.
She pushed again, harder, putting her back into it, very nearly a shove.
He grabbed her wrists and pulled them down and away, a strong, effortless move that infuriated her as nothing in her life had done. His chest was scant inches away from hers, his face hovering above hers, his eyes like shards of ice, his mouth a line of anger, his body nearly twitching in repressed violence.
No, not repressed, delayed. He would, he wanted, to get violent. He wanted to yell at her and pummel something and have his way in this, in everything.
And he didn’t. And he wouldn’t. It was nearly enough to make her laugh.
Except, except the feel of his hands on her wrists made her want to do anything but laugh. No, she wanted to move him still. In any way. She wanted to best him and frustrate him and make him suffer.
“Did you feel that, Lord Cranleigh?” she whispered, her breath washing over his face. He was so close. He had a scowl line right down the center of his forehead, between his eyes, honestly earned, obviously. He made a business of scowling—it was only right that his body be marked for it.
“No,” he growled, scowling hard. Naturally.
“But you feel this,” she whispered even more softly, twisting her wrists in his hands, feeling his grip loosen. “You feel me.”
He released her at the words, clearly stricken. He stepped back, one step, and then two.
“Pushed,” she chided softly, smiling, unable to look away from his eyes, so blue and so hard.
“I’d say,” Iveston said mildly into the fury of their silence, “that she’s done it, Cranleigh. Well done, too, a most unusual approach.”
“But so very effective,” Sophia said.
Amelia and Cranleigh continued to stare at each other in something very nearly horror. But not quite horror. Not quite.
MISS Penelope Prestwick stared at Lady Amelia Caversham and the Earl of Cranleigh in ill-disguised horror. Actually, her feelings were likely not at all disguised, in any degree.
It was a debacle.
Her ball would not be remembered for having the finest orchestra, and she had imported them from Naples, or for having the earliest blooming and most spectacular roses in her conservatory, for which she had paid a fortune as neither she nor George had any skill with horticulture at all, which required her to buy the roses and let the assumption stand that she had grown them, or for her having the finest muslin gown with the most delicate and exotic black silk embroidery at the hem, a fashion statement her modiste had assured her was about to become the latest thing.
No, her ball would be remembered because Amelia Caversham had shoved Lord Cranleigh until he positively, and understandably, recoiled in revulsion.
“She’s done it again,” Penrith said, his green eyes sparking in what was clear to see was not horror. Most odd. “Would you care to wager on when the wedding is to take place?”
George smirked and said, “I shouldn’t admit it, but I have no knack for these seduction wagers. I lost ten pounds on Louisa Kirkland, thought for sure she’d hold out for Dutton.”
Penelope gaped at her brother until he said, “So sorry, Pen, I shouldn’t be discussing this in front of you. Lapse of judgment, but as this latest has happened in our very own home …” He shrugged. “Just think what this will do for our reputation.”
Ruin it, obviously. Men. They were such infants when it came to rumor and reputation.
“Quite right
,” Penrith agreed, nodding his head. “It will be talked of for months, perhaps years. Good bit of luck there,” he added, studying the grouping that was made up of Sophia, Ruan, Iveston, Cranleigh, and Amelia … where was the girl’s chaperone? Penelope scanned the room and finally spotted Lady Jordan in heated conversation with the Duke of Calbourne. Calbourne? When had he arrived? She had not greeted him. “Though,” Penrith said, “as Sophia Dalby has made something of a project of finding Lady Amelia a duke for a husband, I can’t think it’s good luck for Sophia. She does like her plans to stay firmly fixed. I wonder if she wagered on it?”
“There’s nothing on the book at White’s,” George offered, as if they were not discussing the most absurd and horrendous things, and discussing them casually.
And she had always considered George such a pleasant, almost harmless man. Certainly he had seemed so to her. Perhaps she didn’t know her brother as well as she’d thought. She eyed him now, very nearly scrutinized him. Penrith, of course, was known to be a rake and so she didn’t put anything past him, but George was her brother! It didn’t seem at all right that he’d put forth one face to her and another one to the bucks at White’s. Not a bit fair.
“She wouldn’t be down under her own name,” Penrith said, looking down at Penelope pleasantly, including her without shame in their speculative conversation. Confirmed rake. “She always gets some member to bet for her. Makes it tricky because she very nearly always wins. If she had a steady, confirmed alias it would throw off the odds considerably.”
“She can’t have wagered on this,” George said, staring across the room at Amelia and Cranleigh.
Penrith looked instead at Sophia before answering. Penelope found herself staring at Sophia as well. If she had placed a wager and lost it, though what the wager could have been and how she could have either won or lost it was a mystery to Penelope, she looked remarkably calm about it. In fact, Sophia looked almost pleased. By what, for heaven’s sake? Penelope’s ball had just been ruined.
“I don’t know,” Penrith said. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but … she hardly looks upset, does she?”
And of course, Sophia didn’t. But why should she? It was Penelope who was upset and for very good cause, though George and Penrith seemed to have not considered that at all. Penrith was clearly the most horrid influence on everyone he met, including dear George. Penelope was determined to rescue him from Penrith’s influence immediately, or at least once the ball was over, which would have to be soon enough.
“I can’t think why you’re bothering me about this, Calbourne,” Mary, Lady Jordan, snapped. “It was hardly my idea and I scarcely endorse it. I should think you’d be glad to be free of it.”
Mary had been dealing with the Duke of Aldreth, Amelia’s father, for more than twenty years. She was not in awe of dukes, no matter how tall or how demanding they happened to be. Certainly, Aldreth was far more demanding and awe-inspiring than Calbourne could hope to be, at least as far as she was concerned. At the moment, Calbourne was acting like a child who had been deprived of his pony for a week. In an hour, he’d likely forget he’d ever had a pony, distracted by a new indulgence. Dukes were like that.
“How can I be free of it when I was dismissed like a boy at school?” Calbourne asked.
They were thinking along the same lines, obviously, at least in thinking that he was behaving like a spoilt child.
“I suppose you wanted to be considered, evaluated, judged, and then married in July?” Mary countered, because that was the only option, at least as far as Sophia was concerned.
Mary had, reluctantly, allowed Sophia to have her way with things as they pertained to Amelia, but only because of how well things had turned out with Louisa. In truth, neither Louisa nor Amelia had done well on the marriage mart, for entirely different reasons, but results hardly cared about reasons. Mary had done quite well in her Season, as had her sisters, one of whom had married Melverley and produced Louisa; the other had married Aldreth and produced Amelia. Good Seasons, good husbands, at least from the look of it, miserable marriages.
Sophia had, with her brother John’s reluctant help, convinced Mary that what had been done for Louisa could also be accomplished for Amelia. Mary, who was profoundly reluctant as well, had gone along with it. She did want better for her nieces than what she and her sisters had wrought, namely, perfectly miserable marriages. Of course, Martha, her sister and the Duchess of Aldreth, had claimed with her very last breath to have been content in her marriage, but Mary didn’t believe a word of it. Any man who maintained a French mistress from almost the outset of his marriage to this very day was not a man to make a wife happy. That much was perfectly obvious. Martha had put a good face on it, as anyone would, and gone into her grave with a smile for Aldreth.
Mary wanted better for Amelia, Martha’s daughter. Sophia implied, for she never promised anything, that, with her aid, Amelia’s husband would be assured.
As Amelia wanted a duke for a husband, Mary had, somewhat ungraciously, allowed the interviewing process to proceed unhindered, or at least unstopped, by her. Calbourne had got out with his skin intact, if not his pride. If he had any sense, he’d know he was well out of it. But he was a man. And a duke. He had no sense.
Unless he was infatuated with Amelia and devastated that he’d lost his chance with her?
Mary snorted in amusement. He was a man. And a duke. He had more pride than sense.
“I might have,” Calbourne said, lifting his chin and looking the picture of a proud duke. What else? “I do think I didn’t get a fair run at the thing.”
“By the thing I suppose you mean Amelia?”
Calbourne colored slightly. “I suppose that is not precisely what I meant, but surely I deserve another chance to make a favorable impression.”
Mary shrugged, and not at all discreetly. She was far past the age, and too often pleasantly foxed, to care what dukes or earls thought of her. She knew what she thought of them and that was enough for her.
“Why should you care, Calbourne?” Mary asked. She was older than Calbourne by a good ten years. She could call him what she liked.
Calbourne, who truly was an attractive man, even though he was very tall, looked around the room a bit in apparent discomfort. He looked clear over her head without any trouble whatsoever. Mary was very petite, a fact she more than liked about herself.
“It’s on the book at White’s,” he said in an undertone, still surveying the crowd. “That I was discarded. That I was rejected. For my excessive height.”
“Only Amelia thought it was excessive,” Mary felt duty bound to say.
Calbourne was not a bad man, for a duke. As far as dukes went, he was very pleasant. As far as dukes went. Yes, she was repeating herself. It bore repeating. Dukes, as everyone knew, were not known for being particularly pleasant. As to that, neither were duchesses, although her sister Martha had been a positive joy, if a bit complacent, and she was certain that Amelia would make a stellar duchess.
“But it’s on the book!” Calbourne said, rather urgently, too.
Men and their betting. It had ruined her husband and, consequently, it had ruined her. He had died inconveniently and left her without a farthing. After he had been dead for a sennight, it had become abundantly clear that what had been inconvenient was his debt, not his death. Was there any other reason why she was locked into place as the perennial chaperone for Amelia and Louisa? Now that Louisa was safely married, she had only Amelia left to see to. Of course, Eleanor would have her come out, but then, perhaps Louisa could see to her. An older married sister ought to be able to adequately see to her younger sister, see her settled properly.
Though Louisa did not put much store in what was proper. Just look at the bungle she had made of her own come out. If Mary could only get Amelia married to a lovely duke, then she could see to Eleanor.
As lovely dukes went, Calbourne wasn’t bad. Certainly he was better than Edenham, who might well kill Amelia. Having had Martha eff
ectively killed by Aldreth, through childbirth, she did not relish the same fate for Martha’s daughter. Besides, Edenham had already put three wives into the ground; he’d had his share and more besides.
Mary looked Calbourne up and down somewhat sloppily. She was more than half cup-shot, a circumstance that didn’t alarm her in the least. In fact, she preferred it. Amelia could do worse. And he seemed very eager, which was preferable to being forced. Usually.
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” Mary said, “have another go.” That sounded rather too blunt, even for her. “What I mean to say is that, you were rather rushed out of the running, I do agree with you there, and so, I should think that you ought, in fairness, be allowed to continue a conversation with Lady Amelia.”
There. That sounded better. Very nearly respectable.
“You think so?” Calbourne said, looking very eager, very boyish. It was slightly charming. Even Mary was not so jaded that she was blind to it. “You will allow it?”
“But of course,” she said with dignity. “Fair play and all that. Have to.”
Which, again, sounded a bit less dignified and proper than what an elderly female relation ought to say to a virile man about Town, but, again, Amelia did deserve her duke and this one was as good as any other.
“Have to,” she said again, nodding, very pleased with herself. Very.
Fourteen
ANNE Warren and Lord Dutton, along with everyone else in the room, had been caught up in watching the spectacle that was Lady Amelia attempting to shove Lord Cranleigh from her path. Most peculiar behavior from a girl who had hardly had the spine to even dare being noticed before now. Of course, she was taking counsel and guidance from Sophia Dalby now, and that explained absolutely everything about the situation. Although, perhaps, it did not explain why a woman who wanted to marry a duke, and Iveston would be a duke one day, if he lived long enough, would push that man’s brother about like a lackey. Strange methods, but then again, Iveston didn’t look particularly alarmed. No, in fact, he looked almost amused.
