by Anna Bradley
“Lady Lucinda? Are you all right? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Not a ghost, no. Just a man. A man she’d thought about every single day since her uncle had dragged her away from Brighton. A man she believed she’d never lay eyes on again.
Lucy shook her head. Her throat was too tight to speak.
Mr. Ramsey. Ciaran Ramsey.
Lady Felicia followed her gaze and let out a little laugh. “Oh, I see. Mr. Ramsey looks a bit terrifying, doesn’t he?”
“No,” Lucy whispered, too softly for her companion to hear her. He wasn’t terrifying at all. Quite the opposite. He was gentle, tender-hearted—a man who saved wallflowers from humiliation and careless young ladies from being trampled in a brawl. A hero on the beach and in the ballroom, with a slightly bent nose and the kindest eyes she’d ever seen.
“He isn’t in the least, I assure you,” Lady Felicia said. “But there, he’s seen me now, so you’ll find out for yourself how perfectly lovely he is.”
He was lovely. The loveliest gentleman Lucy had ever known.
And he was coming straight toward her.
She released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and waited for his gaze to find hers. When it did… when it did…Lucy’s heart thudded to life again with a sudden, painful leap.
I’m not the sort of lady who falls in love.
That’s what she’d told Ciaran, one of those dark mornings on the beach when the friendship between them was still new enough she’d believed those words to be true.
They weren’t. All it took was one glance into the blue eyes she remembered so well, and the truth swept over her, too powerful to be denied.
She was the sort of lady who fell in love.
She’d fallen in love with Ciaran Ramsey.
Chapter Nine
Ciaran passed under the archway leading into Lady Ivey’s ballroom with a sigh of resignation already on his lips. This was all Vale’s fault. If it weren’t for Vale he’d be at the Pantheon right now, searching for a telltale flash of coppery red hair.
He gulped in a breath of the stale air and made his way into the ballroom. He was here now. It was too late to avoid the inevitable. The sooner he danced with Lady Felicia, the sooner he could escape to Oxford Street, where the first subscription ball of the season was being held in the Pantheon’s Assembly Rooms.
If Lucy was in London, that was the most likely place to find her.
She wouldn’t be here. Lady Ivey was a kind soul, at least as far as fashionable London hostesses went, but she was haute ton, and would doubtless have drawn up her guest list from the ranks of the upper ten thousand.
The Earl of Bellamy’s daughter wouldn’t have been on it.
Ciaran’s gaze roamed over the crowd, searching for a glimpse of either Vale or Lady Felicia. He saw a few familiar feminine faces at the edges of the crush—ladies he’d danced with last season, when he’d devoted himself to London’s wallflowers—but he didn’t see any sign of either Vale or his sister.
Just one evening, Vale had said. A single ball, and no more than that. Surely Ramsey could spare a single evening for his dear friend? It was Lady Felicia’s second season, and her first had ended in disappointment. Surely Ramsey thought Lady Felicia deserved another chance to triumph? Surely Ramsey could see Felicia was as lovely a young lady as anyone could find?
Yes, Ciaran could see. That was the trouble. It would be a damn sight more convenient if he couldn’t, but God knew it would have taken a harder heart than his to look into Lady Felicia’s pleading blue eyes this afternoon and refuse to help her.
Especially after he’d spent all of last season dancing with every wallflower languishing on the sidelines of London’s ballrooms—something Vale hadn’t hesitated to remind him of. Squiring the wallflowers about last season had been good fun, but he’d never aspired to become the Wallflower’s Gallant. Or anyone’s gallant, come to that—
“Well, you look grim enough, Ramsey. It’s a ball, you know, not a funeral.”
Ciaran turned at the low drawl and found Vale at his elbow, an amused grin on his face. “Not much difference between the two, is there?” Ciaran asked.
Vale laughed. “Not for the gentlemen, no. Balls leads to courtships, and courtship to marriage. Either way, a burial awaits.”
Ciaran grimaced. “What a cheerful thought. Allow me to thank you again for insisting I come tonight.”
Vale slapped him on the back. “Eh, you’re safe enough. Felicia doesn’t want to marry you, so there’s no need for you to go about looking like a fox cornered by hounds. Felicia’s a good girl, and my sister, you know. Can’t leave her at loose ends, can I?”
Ciaran rolled his eyes. He recognized that pathetic, doting expression on Vale’s face. He’d worn it himself, every time his own sister Isla wheedled a favor out of him. It was the look of fond elder brothers everywhere.
Of course, that didn’t explain why he was here. Felicia Wroth wasn’t his sister.
Ciaran scowled. This was all Isla’s fault. If she hadn’t twisted him around her finger, he wouldn’t be cursed with this irritating protective streak. He shuddered to think what would happen when his baby niece Georgie had her first season. If he wasn’t lucky enough to be dead by then, he was doomed.
Vale laughed at his expression. “Never mind that pathetic look, Ramsey. You’ll be thanking me soon enough.”
Ciaran raised an eyebrow at Vale’s smug tone. He glanced at his friend, and found Vale smirking gleefully at him. It was a look Ciaran knew all too well, and he let out a low groan. “Damn it. What have you done this time, Vale?”
“Who, me? Why, not a blessed thing.” Vale blinked innocently at him. “It’s all Felicia’s doing. She’s made a new acquaintance—a young lady she met at Thomas Wilson’s Dancing Academy. Now they’re bosom friends, in the way of warm-hearted ladies everywhere. See for yourself. There’s Felicia, just there.”
Vale nodded toward a row of chairs lined up along one side of the ballroom. Ciaran looked, and his gaze locked on a lady in a bright green gown with a headful of thick, curly red hair. It was a distinctive red—a shade Ciaran had seen only once before. A dark, coppery red that belonged to a single lady, and that lady alone.
All at once he was back in Brighton again, lying on the sand in the early morning, the dying moonlight and the first pale rays of the sun wrestling over which of them would illuminate the white sand. The sound of the ocean in his ears, damp red hair, glittering drops of water clinging to long, dark eyelashes…
A single glance was all it took. He would have known her anywhere.
Lucy.
His ocean siren had reappeared, and in such spectacular fashion his breath stuttered in his lungs when he caught his first glimpse of her.
“Stunning, isn’t she? I noticed she was a pretty thing the day of the bout, but she was covered from head to toe in some dark, shapeless cloak or other that day.” Vale let out a low whistle. “She’s not covered now though, is she?”
No. She wasn’t covered now.
Nor was she in her bathing costume, with wet hair dripping down her back. Ciaran had admired her even then—her sparkling eyes and the bright color in her cheeks—but if Lucy was pretty soaked to the skin and smothered in layers of heavy, dark blue linen, out of it, she was…
Breathtaking. An undisputed beauty. In a bright green gown that brought out the glinting threads of red in her hair, she made his mouth water—
Ciaran frowned. In a friendly way, that is. Not a lustful one. Certainly not a possessive one. Only a scoundrel leered at his friend.
His best friend. He opened his mouth to tell Vale he’d spent hours with Lucy since that day at the bout, but then he closed it again without speaking. Those moments were his—his, and Lucy’s—and he didn’t want to share them with anyone. Not even Vale.
Instead, he cleare
d his throat and asked, “What’s her name?”
“That lovely lady, my dear Ramsey, is Lady Lucinda Sutcliffe. She’s the Earl of Bellamy’s daughter. Poor man was madder than a Bedlamite, or so the gossips would have it. He died last year and left her with piles of blunt.”
Ciaran stiffened. Lady Lucinda Sutcliffe, heiress, daughter to a dead, mad earl. For the rest of the season, that’s all anyone would remember about her.
Jesus. No wonder Lucy had wanted to keep her full name hidden for as long as possible. Which wasn’t long at all, as it turned out. If Vale knew who Lucy’s father was, that meant all of London knew.
Vale frowned. “Never seen her before that day at the bout. She seems to have come out of nowhere. Felicia says she’s never been to London.”
Ciaran didn’t answer, but stood quietly, watching her. She and Lady Felicia were chatting together as if they were the oldest of friends. She held her head high, a slightly bemused smile on her lips as she watched the couples twirling about the ballroom.
“You do realize, Ramsey, if you’d only move a few paces toward her, you could ask her to dance?” Vale tried to prod him forward with a nudge to the ribs. “Come do the pretty with Felicia, waltz with a wallflower or two, then later we can reward ourselves for our good deeds with a little harmless debauchery. Speaking of debauchery,” Vale went on, “There’s a gaming hell in Covent Garden we might…”
Vale kept blathering on, but Ciaran didn’t hear a word.
He’d come to London only for her, yet a part of him could hardly believe she was actually here—that a few paces would bring him close enough to talk to her, touch her.
He’d thought of Lucy dozens of time—no, hundreds—since she’d disappeared from Brighton. Even after he knew she was gone he’d wandered every secluded stretch of beach, haunted every assembly and endless musical evening, hoping he’d somehow made a mistake—that he’d catch a glimpse of her.
But she’d disappeared without a trace. Without an explanation, and without a single word. His disappointment had been indescribable.
Now here she was, at the first ball he’d happened to wander into, on his very first night in London. Thousands of people flocked to the city during the season but somehow, with all the odds against it, Lucy had found and befriended Vale and Lady Felicia.
A rueful smile drifted across Ciaran’s lips. It was just like Lucy to somehow find the only two people in London who’d lead her directly to him.
“Shall we, Ramsey? Felicia’s waving us over.”
By now Lady Felicia had caught her brother’s eye with a few vigorous flutters of her fan. Beside her, Lucy had risen to her feet. Ciaran saw her glance around the ballroom, her lips pressed into a frown. Lady Felicia whispered something in her ear and gestured toward them with her fan. Lucy rose to her tiptoes, and Ciaran just had time to suck in a breath before her dark gaze caught his.
A spray of gooseflesh rose on his arms. She was looking straight at him. The weight of the velvety brown eyes he remembered so well felt like a caress, as if her fingertips had drifted across his cheek.
As soon as she realized she’d caught his eye, her lips curved in a half-smile.
This time when Vale took his arm to move him forward, Ciaran didn’t resist. He did his best not to stare at Lucy, but as they made their way across the ballroom toward her party, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her.
A friendly gaze, that is. Not a lustful one.
“Well, Mr. Ramsey. I’d quite given up on you this evening. The ball began an hour ago,” Lady Felicia scolded, even as she greeted him with a smile. “May I introduce my friend to you? This is—”
“Lady Lucinda Sutcliffe.” Ciaran bowed to both ladies, but it was Lucy’s hand he took and raised to his lips.
Lady Felicia looked from one to the other of them, a blonde eyebrow arched in surprise. “You already know each other?”
“Doesn’t every lady in London know the gallant Mr. Ramsey, the darling of London’s wallflowers?” Lucy’s smile widened, and her dark eyes twinkled as she looked up at him. “Tell me, will you dance with the wallflowers this evening, or are you planning some other sort of daring rescue?”
Lucy brushed her gloved fingers discreetly against the side of her nose, and a laugh rose in Ciaran’s throat. She was teasing him about his heroic plunge into the ocean to save a lady who knew perfectly well how to swim.
How had he forgotten she’d nearly broken his nose?
“No daring rescues this evening, Lady Lucinda. Just a dance with Lady Felicia, if she’ll have me.” It took an effort for Ciaran to smother his wild impulse to snatch Lucy up and carry her off to some private corner, but he’d promised Vale he’d dance twice with Lady Felicia. Once he’d done so, he could devote the rest of the evening to Lucy.
“Daring enough, I think, given I haven’t left this chair the entire evening.” Lady Felicia took his hand with a smile and let him lead her to the dance floor.
When Ciaran glanced back, he saw Vale bow to Lucy. Her eyes widened with alarm and she shook her head, but then Vale said something that made her laugh. After another hesitation she took his hand and let him lead her to a quiet corner of the dance floor. They were on the other side of the ballroom, so Ciaran had to content himself with catching fleeting glimpses of Lucy’s burnished head as she moved through the dance.
The dance, which seemed to go on and on and on…
It was a reel, for God’s sake. How long could a reel last? Forever, it seemed.
“Your brother tells me you’re taking lessons at Thomas Wilson’s Dancing Academy,” Ciaran managed at last, wrenching his attention back to Lady Felicia. He’d hardly spoken a word to her the entire dance. “I don’t remember you having any trouble with the dances last season.”
By every rule of birth, fortune, and beauty, Lady Felicia should have had a triumphant first season, but she’d discouraged the attentions of her numerous suitors. Ciaran knew of more than one gentleman who’d sighed after her, but she’d rebuffed them all. She’d gone home to Lewes before the season ended, after refusing two advantageous marriage offers.
“No, no trouble at all, but Sebastian insisted. He thought it might ease my anxiety about returning to London after last season. I was quite put out with him over it, but I’m ever so glad he did, or else I wouldn’t have met Lady Lucinda and Miss Jarvis.”
“Miss Jarvis?” Ciaran frowned. The name Jarvis sounded familiar, but he couldn’t recall why.
“Yes. She’s Lady Lucinda’s cousin.” Lady Felicia titled her head toward the opposite corner of the ballroom. “The young lady who’s dancing with Lord Markham.”
Ciaran glanced over and saw the pretty, dark-haired girl he’d seen with Lucy at the musical evening in Brighton. “Yes, I remember her, though we were never introduced.” Lucy had also mentioned an uncle, but as far as Ciaran knew, he’d never laid eyes on the man the entire time he’d been in Brighton. “I believe Lady Lucinda’s aunt is in London, too?”
“Yes, she’s just there.” Lady Felicia nodded toward the thin, nervous-looking matron Ciaran remembered from Brighton.
The music ended then, but Ciaran kept Lady Felicia on the floor for their second dance. Vale led Lucy back to her aunt, then bore Miss Jarvis off for another dance as soon as Markham returned her to her mother. Markham lingered beside Lucy’s chair, chatting amiably with her while Mrs. Jarvis looked on, flushed with pleasure at the compliments being paid to her niece and daughter.
“There’s an uncle, too,” Lady Felicia went on, “But I haven’t met him…oh, but that must be him, mustn’t it? The man who’s just seated himself on the other side of Mrs. Jarvis?”
Ciaran’s gaze slid from Lucy’s face to her left, where a rotund little man with greasy dark hair and a petulant twist to his lips had just joined the party.
Ciaran stiffened. He was Jarvis?
He recognized the m
an at once. Had they been introduced? It seemed they must have been, given the number of hours they’d spent across from each other at the card table, but if they had been, Ciaran didn’t remember it. Maybe he’d overheard Jarvis’s name mentioned once or twice. He’d thought the name was Jarndyce, but he’d never bothered to find out for certain.
Despite the hours they’d spent together at the table, they’d never spoken. Ciaran had disliked Jarvis on sight, and his dislike had quickly turned to scorn when he discovered the man drank to excess, played deep, and wagered recklessly. Of all the men in the world Mr. Jarndyce, or Jarvis, or whatever the devil his name was, was the last man Ciaran would have chosen to turn out to be Lucy’s uncle.
“My goodness,” Lady Felicia murmured. “I can’t say I much care for the look of Lady Lucinda’s uncle. He’s got a vulgar air about him.”
Jarvis was vulgar, and it was the best one could say of him. Ciaran studied the man, his eyes narrowed. Mrs. Jarvis didn’t seem at all pleased her husband had joined the party. She kept flinching away from him, almost as if she were afraid of him.
“Who’s the other gentleman with Mr. Jarvis? The older man, with the walking stick and the sparse gray hair?” Lady Felicia frowned. “I daresay I’ve seen him before. I can’t place him, but I confess I don’t much like the look of him, either.”
Damn it. It was Godfrey, the worthless scoundrel.
Lord Godfrey had been in Brighton, as well. He was an earl, but from what Ciaran could tell, Godfrey’s title was his only claim to gentlemanliness. Ciaran frowned, thinking back to the dozen or so times he’d seen Godfrey in Brighton. He did his best to avoid the man, but Godfrey was an avid gamester, so they inevitably ran into each other at the card games held in the back room of the Castle Inn.
Ciaran’s jaw went tight as he watched Jarvis fawn over the older man. Every time Ciaran had seen Godfrey in Brighton Jarvis had been with him, tossing banks notes about the tables as if he had an endless supply of them. Ciaran had been disgusted with them both—Godfrey because he was a grasping scoundrel, and Jarvis because he was just the sort of brainless, drunken cull Godfrey would pluck of every penny he had.
