“Actually, I doubt I’ll be there,” Serena said ruefully. “You must know I’m in disgrace since my engagement was broken.”
“But you will make another match in no time,” Catherine assured her. “You are so beautiful and lively.”
“Lively is the problem,” Serena explained. “One should be fashionably languid. As to another match, I’m not sure I want one. Which is probably fortunate since I am assured a broken engagement is disastrous in the marriage mart. No, we must make Gillie go to London for the season to keep you company, but you mustn’t worry—I know you will ‘take’!”
“It would be good,” Catherine said, lowering her voice further, “but I’m hoping it won’t matter too much. Don’t say a word to anyone, but I have met a man who admires me.”
Serena blinked at such modesty. “Cathy, lots of men admire you!”
“No, they don’t. They’re just used to me. The Comte is different.”
“The Comte?” Serena pounced. “Tell me more.”
“He is the Comte de Valère,” Catherine said, blushing. “An émigré nobleman from France. I met him here at the Assembly ball earlier this month, and he danced with me twice. He has called on us three times since then, and taken me driving.”
“Has he indeed? What is he like?”
“Oh, you shall see for yourself.” Catherine gave a quick, excited smile. “He is coming tonight! I am promised to him for the waltz.”
“I look forward to meeting him.”
Serena stood up for the first dance of the evening with Mr. Grant, who proved to be an entertaining companion, and by the time they returned to Kate, she was surrounded by young men eager to be introduced to Serena for a dance, or to renew old acquaintance with her.
It was all very flattering for a girl who’d been told she was as good as ruined. But she remembered Kate’s advice. “Never behave as though you have done anything wrong. Be seen, dance, laugh, have fun, but never beyond the line of what is pleasing, for there will be gossips here desperate to pass on any tiny transgression to their friends in London.”
“I don’t think I care if they do,” Serena had observed.
“Your mother will care,” Kate had warned. “And so will you, eventually. For your own sake, be a model of maidenly behavior. Until this nonsense blows over at least.”
Serena could not easily discount Kate’s advice, for the vicar’s wife had had to deal with scandal of her own. Besides, she began to appreciate that Kate never actually judged her or anyone else. There was unexpected kindness in her.
For that reason, she decided to sit out the waltz, which was still considered to be fast in many circles. Instead, she took a stroll around the ballroom with her partner, Gillie’s brother Bernard, catching up with his life and with news of his stepmother and tiny new brother. Apparently, he was as good as engaged to a Miss Smallwood, about whose beauty he waxed so lyrical that Serena’s attention began to wander. To her indignation, she saw that Catherine sat still beside her mother, her head drooping in a disconsolate manner. The wretched émigré, clearly, had not turned up to claim his dance. Misleading someone as good natured and modest as Catherine—someone, moreover, so lacking in self-confidence—was unforgivably mean. He’d better have a very good excuse, she thought furiously, or I shall give him the cut direct.
She moved her gaze toward the nearby ballroom door, searching for Catherine’s paragon among the new arrivals. And there, straight in front of her, stood the artist she so foolishly thought of as hers.
Gone was the long overcoat and the satchel, and he may have dragged a comb through his hair, but beside the other gentlemen with him, his plain black coat and breeches still looked unmistakably threadbare.
However, those around him didn’t appear to notice. They were laughing at something he said, and he, smiling, bowed over the hand of a beautiful woman Serena did not know. Jealousy twisted through her, shocking her. Then he strolled away, just in time to seize a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Raising the glass to drink, he looked about him. Serena was trying to drag her fascinated gaze free, when it finally clashed with his.
His eyebrows shot up. The glass lowered again, a smile blazing across his face as he walked directly toward her.
Serena, suddenly breathless with excitement, turned hastily back to Bernard, who, apparently catching sight of the artist, actually swerved toward him.
“Do you know him?” Serena demanded.
“Of course I do,” Bernard replied. “Everyone does.”
By this time, the artist was upon them, bowing with surprising grace. “Muir,” he said, while offering his hand to Serena. She took it, since it would have been rude not to. “I’ve come to steal away your partner, who is far too beautiful not to be dancing.”
“Lady Serena don’t care to waltz,” Bernard said indignantly, as though his honor had been impugned. “Wait for the next dance.”
“Actually, my card is full,” Serena declared, since they seemed to imagine they could decide such matters without her.
“You see?” the artist exclaimed. “Take pity on me, old chap. Half a dance is better than none.”
Bernard threw up his hands. “Lady Serena must decide that one.”
“Come,” the artist said. Somehow, he still retained her gloved hand. His fingers were warm, insistent through the fine silk. “What harm could half a waltz do you? Everyone will know you do it from mere pity.”
“I have no reason to pity you,” she scoffed, and yet somehow, she was walking with him toward the dance floor.
“But you have, far more than you know. So tell me,” he added before she could ask for clarification, “since we didn’t have time in the milliner’s. How did you escape your confinement?”
His arm encircled her waist, whirling her into the dance with rather more enthusiasm than was strictly proper.
“Mrs. Grant,” she managed, “who is an old friend of my family’s, offered to chaperone me.”
“I’m very glad she did, for I missed you.”
She lifted one eyebrow.
“I went to the orchard this morning and you weren’t there.”
“Should I have been?” she asked carelessly.
“Well, I hoped you would be. I wanted to tell you, a cargo was landed at Braithwaite Cove, one the usual gentlemen were not aware of, and one that certainly hasn’t been distributed locally.”
“It’s in our cellar,” Serena told him. “Jem and I found four barrels and some smaller casks that shouldn’t have been there.”
“Who is Jem?”
“One of our gardeners. I’ve known him forever and we can trust him implicitly. On the other hand…” She trailed off, frowning.
His thumb stroked her hand, presumably to draw her back to the conversation, although in fact, it distracted her further.
“On the other hand, what?” he prompted.
She drew in a breath, as if that could make her think again. “Paton, our butler, has lost his key to the cellar. I think someone must have stolen it and given it to the smugglers, which is not comfortable.”
“No,” he agreed, frowning. “No, it isn’t, at all. Perhaps you could stay longer with the Grants?”
“And leave everyone else? No, I have to find out who’s doing this, and make them take the barrels away. Or better still, we should remove the barrels from the castle, and then report them to the excisemen.”
“The castle is a safe store for them,” the artist mused, “because no one around here, including you, is prepared to land the earl in trouble by revealing the barrels’ existence. They must be planning to take them somewhere else, further inland, probably.”
“Then why not just take them right away?” Serena argued. “Why leave them here at all, if they should be elsewhere?”
“Because the time isn’t right? Because they’re waiting for someone or something, some signal that it’s safe, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. He turned her a little too fast, reminding her just how c
lose to him she stood. She was only too aware of the movement of his warm, lean body, of his strong arm at her back. She could smell him, sandalwood and something fresher and more elusive that she associated with the orchard, with woodland.
“Why are you here?” she blurted.
“You mean at the ball when I have no money? I sold a painting last month and bought a subscription.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to paint Lady Arabella Niven and thought I’d find her here.”
“Did you?”
“Find her or paint her?”
“Either!”
“Both,” he said tranquilly. “In fact, if Alban would only pay me for the latter, I could get the bailiff off my back for a month or two.”
“I expect Lady Arabella was one of the women you wanted to kiss as well as paint.”
Instead of denying it, he appeared, infuriatingly, to consider it. “I wouldn’t have minded, but by the time I met her, she only ever looked at Alban. It’s not much fun kissing someone who’s thinking of another man.”
Serena regarded him with disfavor. “I think, sir, that you are an incorrigible flirt.”
“Not really. I just like faces and I speak the truth. But I like flirting with you.”
“You are not flirting with me,” she said firmly, as though speaking the words made them true. “How do you manage to move in such elevated circles?”
“I often ask myself the same question. Bare-faced effrontery, I suppose. How else would I get to dance with you?”
“Why on earth do you want to dance with me?” she demanded, unwarily.
“Because I’ve wanted to hold you in my arms again ever since I kissed you.”
Embarrassment flamed through her. At least, she thought it was embarrassment. To hide it, she glared at him. “Will you stop that?” If she hadn’t been dancing, she’d have stamped her foot.
“Why?” he asked, depriving her of breath all over again.
“Oh, you’re impossible. I’d storm off, if only it wouldn’t cause even more talk!”
“Can’t we just enjoy the waltz?”
In truth, it would have far too easy to relax into the dance, into his arms, surrounded only by music, as if there was no one else in the room.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said in frustration.
“I was hoping you didn’t.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I want you to like me as I am, without all the baggage that comes with names and worldly identities.”
“Aha,” she said wryly. “You are a royal prince travelling incognito.”
“Would it help?” he asked.
“No,” she said crossly.
“Then I’m not. I’m just what you think me, an artist without two pennies to rub together, who wants very badly to kiss you and paint you, and for once I don’t know which I want more.”
She tilted her chin. “Did you say that to Lady Arabella, too?”
As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. She had only meant to show him that she didn’t take him seriously. Instead, she sounded appallingly jealous.
His gaze held hers when she tried to free it. “No.” Again, his thumb moved in an apparently absent caress. “I wish we had longer. I wish things were different.”
A frown twitched at her brow. Possibly for the first time in their odd acquaintance, she sensed he was serious. “What do you mean?”
His lips twisted. “I mean, I wish I were different,” he said ruefully.
“I don’t,” she blurted.
She was too used to speaking her mind. And it was too difficult to keep pretending she didn’t like his odd, intriguing company, just to salve her pride.
An arrested expression filled his eyes, swiftly followed by a look so warm it seemed to scorch her. A smile tugged at his lips. “Truly? I shall remember that when I see you from afar.”
“Afar? You think I shall ignore you when I know your name? Stop being mysterious and tell me who you are.”
But it was too late. The dance had ended, his arm slipped from her suddenly cold body, and etiquette demanded she curtsey to his bow.
“Come, I’ll take you back to Kate,” he said, offering his arm.
Mechanically, she laid her fingertips upon it. “So, you are upon first name terms with Kate,” she noted. “She does not ignore you. And she is the vicar’s wife!”
“Exactly.”
“You are infuriating,” she informed him as they arrived at Kate’s chair.
“Thank you.”
She didn’t know if his gratitude was for the dance or the insult, for he merely bowed over her hand, cast a quick rueful smile at Kate and walked away.
“I see you’ve met Tamar,” Kate said wryly.
Serena laughed. “Tamar,” she crowed, loud enough for him to hear. He half-turned, casting a quick smile over his shoulder, but he didn’t stop. “Tamar,” she repeated with a quick frown. “Is he a famous painter?” she asked Kate, sitting next to her. “Is that where I’ve heard the name?”
“He’s getting that way, in Blackhaven at least. Gillie might have mentioned him to you. But you’re more likely to have heard of him as the impoverished marquis.”
“Lord Tamar,” she said blankly. “I thought he didn’t exist. I thought the whole family vanished when the old marquis died in massive debt.”
“Only into obscurity. Tamar came here because it was quieter than London or Brighton or Bath, but contained enough wealthy people to buy his paintings. He doesn’t speak of his siblings, but I’m fairly sure he sends them most of what he earns.”
“No wonder the bailiffs are after him.”
Kate cast her a confused look. “Bailiffs can’t touch him. As a peer, he can’t be arrested for debt.”
Serena frowned. “He said there was one haunting his doorstep.”
“I expect it was a figure of speech. For broke.”
Deliberately, Serena smoothed out her frown. “I expect it was. Someone owes him money.”
“Perhaps it’s time we bought a few paintings,” Kate said neutrally.
“Perhaps it is… Where did he live before, then?”
“In the ruins of Tamar Abbey, according to Daxton. They all grew up there, he and his siblings, running wild, without any adult older than the new marquis who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old when he inherited.”
“Why would he—” Why would he think I’d hate him once I knew who he was? Fortunately, she broke off before she asked the whole question aloud. It would have given away a greater friendship with him than she wanted Kate to be aware of.
Besides, she could probably answer it for herself. A low-born artist was beneath her. A marquis, however poor, was perfectly eligible by birth. Marrying a very wealthy heiress was his only hope of recovering his family’s fortunes.
Serena was a wealthy heiress.
Fortune hunter… Lord Tamar was a fortune hunter. No wonder he flirted with her.
Chapter Five
Serena had to draw on all her London experience in order to appear to enjoy the rest of the ball. She danced, conversed, and laughed with such an apparently light heart that no one could have guessed the whirlpool of speculation, hurt, and indignation spinning in her head. And if she always knew where in the room Tamar was, if her gaze occasionally strayed toward him, it never lingered, and their eyes never met.
She knew whom he danced with, and that he took supper with the same beauty she’d seen him with earlier. But he never came near her, even during the second waltz.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself. It never mattered, it never will.
Although she no longer knew whether or not she wanted him to pursue her, she was distinctly piqued that he didn’t. Was this part of some plan she was too naive to understand?
It was only as they left the ball—a little early since both the Grants had to make an early start the following morning—that she saw him. She and Kate had just retrieved their w
raps and emerged from the cloakroom to discover him at the front door with Kate’s husband.
His expression was amiable but far too controlled for the carefree artist she thought she knew a little. Grant laughed at something he said, and then, seeing the ladies approach, stepped outside into the street, leaving Tamar to hold the door, in the absence of the usual Assembly Rooms doorman.
Tamar bowed them through with amusing exaggeration.
“I thank you, my lord,” Kate said in the same spirit as she sailed through.
“Good night,” Serena managed, moving after her. But at the last minute, just as she stood beside him in the doorway, desperation swamped her and she halted, turning impulsively toward him. “Are you?” she demanded.
The words fortune hunter hung between them. Neither pretended not to understand. Are you a fortune hunter? Are you hunting mine?
He said, “I’m walking away.”
Her breath caught in hope, though of what she didn’t know.
An unhappy smile tugged at his lips. “But you’ll never be sure, now, will you, Serena?” A swift glance into the empty foyer, then he picked up her hand in both of his and pressed a strong, warm kiss to her knuckles. “Good night.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he dropped her hand as if it burned him.
“Serena?” Kate said from the street.
“She caught her shawl,” Tamar said. “She’s just coming.”
And she was outside in the chill of the autumn night, walking blindly between Mr. and Mrs. Grant. She’d never felt so alone.
*
The following morning, Tamar woke with a pounding in his head that wasn’t all on the inside. Raising his head groggily from the sofa where he’d fallen asleep dead drunk in the small hours of the morning, he realized someone was knocking—nay, battering—at the door.
His friends all knew to call out to him. No one did.
“Bloody bum-bailiff,” he muttered, and pulled the covers over his ears to go back to sleep. However, thirst drove him to the water jug which he poured directly down his throat before tearing off his shirt and pouring the rest over his head and shoulders.
The Wicked Marquis Page 5
