The Wedding Challenge

by Candace Camp

  “Bo Peep, I presume,” Rochford drawled, bowing over Lady Francesca’s hand, and she curtseyed to him.

  “You, I can see, did not bother to don fancy dress,” she retorted. “I should have known. Well, you shall have to answer to Lady Odelia. She was quite set on the idea of a masquerade, you know.”

  She gestured toward the woman who sat across the room. On a raised dais, Lady Odelia sat enthroned—there was no other word for it—in a high-backed chair padded in blue velvet. On top of her hair she wore an orange wig, and her face was painted white. A circle of gold was thrust into the mass of bright curls, and a high starched ruff rose up from her dress behind her head. Ropes of pearls hung from her neck down over her brocade stomacher and skirts, and rings bedecked her fingers.

  “Ah, Good Queen Bess,” Rochford remarked, following Francesca’s gaze. “The aging one, I presume.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that,” Francesca replied. “She cannot stand for long to receive guests, so she decided to hold court instead. Rather appropriate, I think.”

  Francesca turned toward Callie, holding out her hands and smiling with affection. “Callie, my dear. At least I can count on you. How lovely you look.”

  Callie greeted the other woman with a smile. She had known Lady Haughston all her life, for Francesca was Viscount Leighton’s sister and had grown up at Redfields, not far from the duke’s own Dancy Park. Francesca was several years older than Callie, and Callie had regarded her with awe and affection when she was a child. Francesca had married Lord Haughston and moved from Redfields, but Callie had continued to see her now and again when Francesca came to visit her parents. Later, when Callie had had her own coming out, they had associated frequently, for Lady Francesca, a widow for the past five years, was one of the leading ladies of the ton. Her sense of style was impeccable, and even though she was now in her early thirties, she was still one of the most beautiful women in London.

  “I am completely in your shadow, I assure you,” Callie told Francesca. “You look absolutely beautiful. But how did Aunt Odelia manage to trap you into receiving guests?”

  “Oh, my dear, she did much more than that. She did not feel that she could put on a ball in her own honor, so that fell to her sister Lady Radbourne and, of course, the new Countess of Radbourne—you know Irene—” Francesca swiveled to include the woman standing beside her.

  “Of course,” Callie answered. The ton was not a large group, and she had known Lady Irene superficially for some years. A few months earlier she had come to know her better when she had married Gideon, Lord Radbourne, who was in some collateral way related to Lady Calandra and the duke.

  Irene smiled in her frank way and greeted her, “Hello, Callie. Good to see you. Is Francesca telling you how I imposed on her good nature?”

  “Hardly an imposition,” Francesca demurred.

  Irene laughed. She was a tall woman, with thick, curling blond hair, and she looked stunning dressed in the white drapery of an ancient Greek. Her odd golden eyes were lit with laughter. Marriage, Callie thought, agreed with Irene. She was more beautiful than ever.

  “What Francesca means is that it was worse than that,” Irene explained, glancing at Francesca with affection. “You know how hopeless I am at parties. The entire thing fell to Francesca, so you must compliment her for the fact that it has come off so well. Or at all, frankly.”

  Francesca smiled amiably and turned to greet the next partygoer as Callie moved down the receiving line to Irene and her husband, Lord Radbourne. Gideon, Lord Radbourne, had come to the party tonight dressed as a pirate, and it was, Callie reflected, a guise that suited his rather unconventional looks. With his dark, slightly shaggy hair and powerful build, he looked more like someone who might stop one’s ship and rob it than like a gentleman, and he did not seem at all uncomfortable to have a cutlass thrust through his wide sash.

  “Lady Calandra,” Gideon greeted her, executing a brief but serviceable bow. “Thank you for coming.” A smile warmed his hard features for an instant. “It is good to see a familiar face.”

  Callie smiled. It was common knowledge that Gideon was not at ease in the company of his peers—bizarre events in his childhood had caused him to be raised from childhood in poverty in London, and he had survived and even prospered solely by using his wits. When he was returned to his proper station as an adult, he had fit in poorly with the other members of the ton. He was not much given to talking, and he had so far managed to avoid most social occasions. But he had found a proper fit with Irene, whose blunt speech and disregard of other’s opinions were equal to his own. On the occasions when Callie had been around him, she had found him quite interesting.

  “It is a pleasure to be here,” Callie assured him. “I fear that winter at Marcastle has grown quite monotonous. And, in any case, one could hardly not attend Aunt Odelia’s birthday ball.”

  “That seems to be the case with half of England,” Gideon opined with a glance at the crowded ballroom.

  “Let me take you over to visit the guest of honor,” Irene suggested, linking her arm through Callie’s.

  “Traitor,” her husband said in a low voice, though the warmth of his smile as he looked at his wife belied his caustic word. “You are simply seizing the opportunity to get out of this damnable receiving line.”

  Irene let out a laugh and cast a teasing smile at Lord Radbourne. “You are quite welcome to join us if you wish. I am sure that Francesca will be well able to handle the new arrivals.”

  “Hmm.” Lord Radbourne adopted a considering pose. “Greeting guests or facing Aunt Odelia—a difficult choice indeed. Is there not a third, more attractive, alternative—perhaps dashing into a burning building?”

  Gideon smiled at his wife in a way that was almost a caress and went on, “I had best stay here, else Aunt Odelia will no doubt take me to task again because I did not come as Sir Francis Drake as she suggested, a globe under my arm.”

  “A globe?” Callie repeated sotto voce as she and Irene strolled away.

  “Yes. For sailing all over the world, you see—though I’m not entirely sure that Sir Francis Drake actually circumnavigated the globe. But that would scarcely matter to Aunt Odelia.”

  “Little wonder that Radbourne did not care to come in that costume.”

  “No, but it was not the globe that put him off so much as those puffed short pants.”

  Callie laughed. “I am surprised you were able to get him to come in costume at all. Sinclair would not consider it, beyond a mask.”

  “Doubtless the duke has more dignity to lose,” Irene replied lightly. “Besides, I have found ’tis quite amazing the persuasive power a wife can exert on her husband.” Her eyes glittered behind her gold mask, and there was a soft, provocative curve to her mouth.

  Callie could feel a faint blush rising in her cheeks at the implication of the other woman’s words, and she felt a not unfamiliar twinge of curiosity. Women were usually quick to cease any discussion of the marriage bed if an unmarried girl was around, so Callie had heard very little about what happened in the privacy of a couple’s bedchamber, although, as was usually the case in a girl who had been raised in the country, she had some degree of knowledge of the basics of the act, at least among horses and dogs.

  Still, Callie could not help but wonder about the feelings—the emotions and the physical sensations—that were involved in that very private human act. To ask a direct question was, of course, unthinkable, so she had had to glean what she could from conversations she overheard and, sometimes, an inadvertent slip of the tongue. Irene’s comment tonight was, she thought, different from most that she had heard from married women. Though lightly humorous, there was a pleased tone to her voice—no, more than that, there was the almost purring sound of someone who thoroughly enjoyed participating in that wifely “persuasion” about which she spoke.

  Callie cast a sideways glance at Irene. If there was anyone who would talk about such a thing to her, she thought, it would be Irene. She
cast about for some way to keep the conversation going in the direction Irene had taken, but before she could think of anything to say, she glanced across the room, and every thought left her head.

  A man stood leaning against one of the pillars that marched along either side of the room. He looked negligently at ease, his arms crossed, one shoulder to the pillar. He was dressed in the style of a Cavalier, his wide-brimmed hat pinned up on one side and with a sweeping plume on the other. Soft leather gloves with wide, long gauntlets encased his hands and lower arms. His fawn breeches were tucked into soft boots that were elegantly cuffed just below the knees, and slender golden spurs hung at the heels. Above his trousers he wore a matching slashed doublet, bare of any ornamentation, and over that was a short round cape, tied casually at the neck and caught on one side behind the elegant thin sword hanging at his waist.

  He could have stepped from a painting of the nobles who had fought and died for their doomed king, Charles I—elegant, and whipcord lean and tough. The dark half mask that hid the upper portion of his face only added to the air of romance and mystery that hung about him. He was glancing about the room, his expression arrogant and faintly bored. Then his eyes met Callie’s and stopped.

  He did not move nor change expression, yet somehow Callie knew that he had become instantly, intently alert. She gazed back at him, her steps faltering. A slow smile spread across the lower half of his face, and, sweeping off his hat, he bowed extravagantly.

  Callie realized that she was staring, and, with a blush, she took two quick steps to catch up with Irene. “Do you know that man?” she asked in a hushed voice. “The Cavalier?”

  Irene glanced around. “Where—oh. No, I don’t believe I do. Who is he?” She turned back to Callie.

  “I do not think I have ever seen him before,” Callie replied. “He looks…intriguing.”

  “No doubt it is the costume,” Irene told her cynically. “The most impossibly dull sort would look dashing in the clothes of a Royalist.”

  “Perhaps,” Callie agreed, unconvinced. She was tempted to turn and look back at the man, but she resisted the urge.

  “Calandra! There you are!” Lady Odelia exclaimed in her booming voice as they approached the dais upon which the old lady sat.

  Callie smiled as she stepped up to greet her great-aunt. “May I offer you my felicitations, Aunt Odelia?”

  Lady Odelia, a formidable-looking woman even when she was not dressed up in the manner of Queen Elizabeth, allowed a regal nod and gestured Callie forward with a gesture worthy of that monarch. “Come here, girl, and give me a kiss. Let me look at you.”

  Callie obediently bent and kissed her great-aunt’s cheek. Aunt Odelia took both Callie’s hands in hers and stared up at her intently.

  “Pretty as ever,” she announced in a satisfied voice. “Prettiest of the lot, I’ve always said. Of the Lilles, I mean,” she offered in an aside to Irene.

  Irene nodded her understanding, smiling. She was one of the few women in the ton who held no fear of Lady Pencully; indeed, she rather enjoyed the old woman and her blunt ways. She had, in fact, engaged in a few lively discussions with Odelia that had sent everyone else scurrying out of the room and left the two women flushed, eyes snapping, and quite pleased with themselves and each other.

  “Can’t imagine what is wrong with young men today,” Lady Odelia went on. “In my day a girl like you would have been snapped up her first year.”

  “Perhaps Lady Calandra does not wish to be ‘snapped up,’” Irene offered.

  “Now, don’t go putting your radical ideas into her head,” Lady Odelia warned. “Callie has no desire to be an ape-leader, do you, my dear?”

  Callie suppressed a sigh. “No, Aunt.” Was she never to get away from this topic today?

  “Of course not! What intelligent young girl would? ’Tis time you put your mind to it, Calandra. Ask that chit Francesca to help you. Always thought the girl had more hair than wit, but she managed to get this one to the altar.” Lady Odelia gestured toward Irene, who rolled her eyes comically at Callie. “I would not have taken odds on that happening.”

  “Indeed, Aunt,” Irene put in. “To hear you and Lady Radbourne speak of it, one would assume that your grandson and I had nothing to do with the matter, only Lady Francesca.”

  “Hah! If I had left it up to you two, we would still be waiting,” Lady Odelia tossed back, the twinkle in her eyes counteracting the bite of her words.

  The two of them continued to bicker in a playful fashion, and Callie realized with a rush of gratitude that Irene had skillfully led the obstreperous old woman away from the subject of Calandra’s own unmarried state. She cast her friend a look of gratitude, and Irene responded with a smile.

  Callie stood, idly listening as her companions strayed into an apparently endless and comfortably familiar list of items about which Irene and her husband’s great-aunt enjoyed crossing swords. She glanced up at Irene just as her words suddenly came to halt and saw that Irene was looking over Callie’s shoulder. Just as Callie started to turn around to see what had caused the sudden interest on Irene’s face, a masculine voice sounded behind her.

  “Pardon me, Your Highness, but I come seeking the favor of this fair maiden’s hand for the next dance.”

  Callie swung around, and her eyes widened as she found herself staring up into the masked visage of the Cavalier.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE MAN WAS, Callie realized, even more intriguing up close than he had been at a distance. The black half mask concealed the upper portion of his face, but it also emphasized the strong, chiseled jaw and well-cut, sensual mouth that lay below it. The eyes that looked out through the mask were fixed on her with a gaze that was decidedly warmer than was polite. He was tall, with wide shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, and he exuded a powerful masculinity that owed only part of its aura to the dashing costume he wore.

  She should have given him a setdown, Callie knew, for she was certain that she did not know the man, which made it quite forward of him to ask her to dance. However, she found she had no desire to snub him. Indeed, what she desired was to put her hand in his and let him lead her out onto the floor.

  However, Callie was certain that she would not be able to dance with him, for Lady Odelia would doubtless blister his ears for his impudence. Callie waited, with an inner sigh of regret, for that lady’s words.

  “Of course,” Lady Odelia said—nay, almost purred, Callie thought, as she glanced at the old lady in surprise.

  Irene’s face registered a similar sense of shock as she, too, turned toward Lady Odelia. But Lady Odelia was smiling with what could only be called pleasure at the Cavalier, and when Callie did not move, she waved her hand in a shooing motion toward her.

  “There, girl, do not stand rooted on the spot. Get to the floor before the orchestra starts again.”

  Callie did not need to be told twice to do what she wanted. If Lady Odelia had given her blessing to dancing with this man, it would satisfy the requirements of propriety—and prevent any upbraiding from her grandmother. But there was nevertheless a whiff of something illicit about dancing with a perfect stranger that she found enticing.

  She quickly placed her hand on the arm the stranger held out to her, and they went down the step of the dais and onto the dance floor. Callie was very aware of the man’s arm beneath her hand, the muscle hard under the soft material.

  “I should not dance with you, you know,” she told him, a little surprised at the flirtatious tone that bubbled up in her words.

  “Indeed? And why is that?” He looked down at her, his eyes twinkling.

  “I do not know you, sir.”

  “How can you be sure?” he countered. “We are masked, after all.”

  “Still, I am certain that we are strangers.”

  “But is that not the point of a masquerade? That you do not know who anyone is? And so, surely, it is only to be expected that one would dance with a stranger. The usual rules do not apply,” he told h
er, and his gaze slid down her face in a way that made Callie feel suddenly warm.

  “None of them?” she asked lightly. “Indeed, sir, that sounds dangerous.”

  “Ah, but that is what makes it exciting.”

  “I see. And it is excitement you seek?”

  His smile was slow. “’Tis pleasure I seek, my lady.”

  “Indeed?” Callie arched one brow, thinking that she should probably nip this conversation in the bud. It was growing altogether too familiar—and yet she could not resist the tingle that ran through her at his words, his smile.

  “Indeed, yes—the pleasure of dancing with you,” he went on, the light in his eyes telling her that he was aware of exactly where her mind had strayed.

  The lilting strains of a waltz began, and he held out his hands to her. Callie moved into his arms, her heart beating a trifle faster. It was even more daring to waltz with a stranger than it would have been to take to the floor for a country dance. She had to stand so close to him during a waltz, her hand in his, his arm almost encircling her. It was a much more intimate dance. It was often not even allowed at the more conservative assemblies in the countryside, and even here in London society, she had rarely shared a waltz with a man with whom she had not at least danced before. Certainly she had never done so with a man whose name she did not even know.

  But Callie could not deny that despite the strangeness of it, she liked the way she felt in his arms, and she knew that the flush moving up her throat was due only in part to the exertion of the dance.

  At first they did not speak. Callie concentrated on matching her steps to his; she felt almost as she had when she had first made her debut—anxious that she might make a misstep or appear awkward. She quickly found, however, that her new partner was an excellent dancer, his hand on her waist steady and firm, his steps in perfect rhythm to the music. She relaxed and settled down to enjoy herself, glancing up at him for the first time.