by The Treasure
Quivering so that the jewels at her neck and on her arms glittered, Ottoline bleated, “Why must you make me suffer so? Have I not done my best as your hostess after you asked me for help? No one understands my torment.” Her voice changed to the crackle and snap of a master sergeant. “And Thistlethwayte has informed me you’re leaving for Agincourt Hall before the end of May. The end of May, when the Season is at its height. You can’t do this to me. I swear you’ll drive me into a brain fever. Why did you ask me to help you find a suitable wife, if you were going to thwart me in all I try to accomplish?”
Ottoline’s complaints showered over him as Valin turned and whistled to Megan. “Go to Mr. Leslie, girl. Time for your walk.”
The collie was a streak of gold and white. Paws scrambling on the polished wood floor, she hurtled by Ottoline and down the hall. Wishing he could go with her, Valin offered his arm to his aunt and descended to the great marble-and-gilt entrance hall.
Half an hour passed while he greeted guests with such august and ancient names as Howard, Grey, Spencer, and Seymour. It was all he could do to clamp his jaw shut so that he didn’t yawn. Now he was listening to the uninspired and insipid compliments of the lovely Miss Adelaide Beresford, who offered her most fascinating comment so far.
“I do so admire your floral arrangements, my lord. Using flowers as decoration is so festive.”
Valin’s stupor evaporated at the sound of a throaty feminine voice that cut through the drone of the crowd and the music.
“Indeed, Miss Beresford. How unusual to see flowers at a ball. But I think his lordship would prefer a more poetic expression. ‘The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,/ Though to itself it only live and die.’ ”
While Adelaide gave a murmur of incomprehension, Valin turned to welcome the only person in years whose conversation might not make him wish to put a gun to his head rather than listen. His artificial smile faded as he met the forthright gaze of a young woman whose manner surprised and delighted him. Unlike most, she met his eyes without blushing, simpering, looking at his boots, or flapping her fan as though she were doing an Oriental dance.
“Oh, I am remiss,” Adelaide said. “Valin North, may I present the honorable Miss Emily Charlotte de Winter. Miss de Winter is the great-niece of Miss Cowper, come home from school in France.”
Valin bowed, his gaze taking in auburn hair, emerald eyes above a small straight nose, and a figure the stance of which reminded him of a grenadier on parade. Except for the curves, which immediately forced him to revise the image. Miss de Winter wasn’t a great beauty—she wasn’t as rounded or as pale as she should be for that—but the whole of her person fascinated despite this disadvantage. He lifted his eyes to those of his guest to find her watching him with detached amusement.
Another surprise. Few young ladies met him with such an attitude of equality and lack of feminine calculation. Although fawning admiration disgusted him, Valin found himself growing a bit irritated that this young lady excepted herself from the rest. As he straightened from his bow, he noticed that she curtsied in an offhand manner, as though it were an afterthought. Why did she not make this gesture a display of her grace, as did the other eligible girls introduced to him? Surely she knew he was available. And why was she smiling at him as though she knew what he was going to say next?
“You were at school in France, Miss de Winter?”
“Yes, my lord. A prejudice of my mother, who was finished there as well. But now I’m come home to be shown off and married off.”
“Emily!” Adelaide was blushing and shushing her friend.
Miss de Winter shrugged, another gesture an English girl would avoid. “Everyone knows it. I might as well say it.” She turned to Valin with a wry smile. “So much more efficient than speaking of the weather, which is horrid dull, don’t you think?”
“I’m beginning to, Miss de Winter.”
Before he’d spoken she moved down the receiving line, not at all bothered that the next girl and her parents had dislodged her from the place opposite him. While he engaged in yet another inane welcome, he watched Miss de Winter out of the corner of his eye. She was listening with sympathy to his aunt’s complaints about the crush of people.
What was it about her? Even her dress was different, perhaps because it was French. That was part of it. She wasn’t dressed in delicate pink, white, or ivory. Miss de Winter wore a rose-patterned silk gown of chestnut and bronze green. There were ivory roses in her swept-back hair and on her left shoulder, and the skirt of her gown was shaped differently, like a cone with a train that revealed yards and yards of luxurious, shimmering fabric.
He would never have noticed such details had he not spent the last tedious weeks listening to the conversation of young ladies. But thanks to his ordeal, he was able to recognize the work of Charles Frederick Worth of Paris. He remembered his aunt remarking that Worth spent time with his clients and designed a wardrobe that fit their personalities. Evidently Miss de Winter was dramatic, bold, and original.
As he bowed to his next guest, Valin murmured to himself, “Take heed, Miss de Winter. I’m going to find out if you’re as fascinating as Mr. Worth would have everyone believe.”
4
Valin North wasn’t the fool Emmie had hoped he’d be.
To make things worse, his mere physical presence was interfering with the proper workings of her mind. To her dismay a part of herself she never knew woke, sat up, and paid bright, ear-pricked attention to Valin North—his horseman’s body, gleaming mahogany hair, and wide mouth. This was a man who, despite his threatening, scowling manner, could have been a model for a sculptor or for a knight of the round table.
Nodding politely to indicate her interest in a boring conversation, Emmie scolded herself for losing sight of her goal—all because of a pretty man. She’d spent weeks preparing for this ruse, studying his reputation, learning about the family, their friends, and their servants. It had taken awhile to prepare her own character, to devise a history, to find a suitable wardrobe, and to find a gullible Society matron to serve as her sponsor.
Emmie stood beside the Society matron, Adelaide’s mother, doing her best not to look at the marquess. It shouldn’t be this hard not to look at him. Never had she encountered this urge to stare at a victim of one of her plots. She would not look at him. She wouldn’t.
Even as she repeated these words to herself her gaze slid sideways to the tall figure striding across the dance floor to open the ball with the traditional quadrille. Who was he dancing with? The lady guest of the highest rank, of course, some dowager countess or duchess.
No, he wasn’t a fool. Valin North had responded immediately to her quotation. He liked literature; she’d discovered that in her inquiries. It never did to embark upon a scheme such as this without knowing something of one’s enemy. But no amount of inquiry could have prepared her for North’s personal charm.
Her mouth had almost dropped open when he turned his gaze on her. For once he wasn’t scowling, and those eyes had captured her attention at once. They were light gray, the color of a storm cloud lit from behind by white sunlight, the color of sunbeams reflecting on water.
Once she’d considered gray an ugly color.… Emmie came to herself with a jolt. What was she thinking? Gracious mercy, she would soon be fawning over him like all the other women.
Forcing her thoughts from the marquess, Emmie busied herself with the business of dancing. Soon she had written names on most of the ivory spokes of her fan, as her mother had described when she was little. However, her most important task was to ingratiate herself with North’s Aunt Ottoline, the dowager Countess of Pomfret.
As his hostess, Lady Ottoline controlled access to the marquess, his social calendar, and most important, his guest list. While couples whirled on the dance floor and the chandeliers dripped candle wax on everyone, Emmie worked her way through a forest of crinolines, lace, and black evening coats to Ottoline’s side.
“Oh, Miss de Winter, shall I find
you a partner?” asked Lady Ottoline.
Emmie fluttered her fan and smiled. “I thank you, but this is the only time I’ve had to rest since I arrived. Lord Mimsey said you were a most accomplished hostess, but his compliments hardly did you justice, Lady Ottoline. Neither Devonshire House nor Chesterfield House can compare with North House.”
“How sweet of you, my dear, but what it has cost my nerves no one can know.”
“I’m so sorry,” Emmie said with a sympathetic frown. “It must be difficult.”
“Truly, my dear, it is. The guest list alone was a nightmare. I declare I had to consult DeBrett’s at least a hundred times to get the seating right for supper. And this floor! The beeswax had gone bad …”
Emmie smiled and nodded, frowned and nodded, tut-tutted with compassion, and generally behaved as if Lady Ottoline’s trials were the equivalent of those of Job. She was well rewarded. After a lengthy description of her troubles with her nerves and the vapors, Ottoline placed her gloved hand on Emmie’s arm and gave her a smile.
“You’re such a good girl. Not flighty and uncivil like so many young people today. I shall send my card to you, and you must return yours. You’re staying with Adelaide?”
Emmie, in her guise as Miss Cowper, had written herself an introduction to Adelaide and was indeed staying with her. Expressing her deepest gratitude, Emmie allowed herself to be escorted to the dance floor by her next partner. The most delicate part of her task this evening had been accomplished.
She couldn’t pursue the Norths’ acquaintance unless Lady Ottoline called on her first. Now that the older woman was to send her carriage with a maid to present her card, this would establish Emmie as a member of the family’s circle—those persons of rank, reputation, and civility with whom the marquess socialized.
Twirling around the room in the arms of a young man with a store of the fatuous conversation appropriate for debutantes, Emmie caught a glimpse of the marquess. He turned his partner in a circle and looked in Emmie’s direction. Emmie gave her young man a glittering smile and laughed, even though he hadn’t said anything funny.
She was disgusted that she felt an urge to impress Valin North—not just in order to gain access to his house and its hidden treasure, but to gain his admiration. She wanted to fascinate him as he was fascinating her. Why was she so obsessed?
Was it because, when he wished, he had exquisite manners that matched the elegance of his appearance? It couldn’t be. She wasn’t a dithering light-minded miss whose heart fluttered just because Valin North was at once inviting and dangerous.
She was Mrs. Apple, the leader of as disreputable a gang of villains as ever roamed the streets of St. Giles or Whitechapel. It was she who was dangerous.
Then why did her hands grow cold just looking at him?
“Gracious mercy, behave yourself,” she muttered as the dance ended. It was all she could do not to look around in search of him.
“This is torture.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss de Winter?” said her partner.
“Oh, I said this is a pleasure. Such lovely music.”
She spent the next three hours proving to herself that she could be in the same room with Valin North and not look at him. During that time she sensed his brooding regard more than once. Her plan was working, then.
Once she had discovered a way to get herself to this ball, Emmie had thought long about how to attract the interest of so sought-after a man. Her deliberations led her to the conclusion that indifference would set her apart from the bleating herd of debutantes that surrounded him. Men always seemed to want what was beyond their reach.
The supper hour passed with Emmie snaring the attentions of the heirs of a baron and an earl and the rich younger son of a duke. The dances after supper passed in a blur except when she spied the marquess headed her way. This happened after the second waltz.
Valin North had escorted his partner back to her chaperone, turned smoothly, and walked straight toward her. Emmie had nodded at the earl’s son like a queen to a courtier and slipped into the crowd. Before the marquess could catch her, she went upstairs to the ladies’ retiring room and spent a good quarter hour pretending to adjust her costume. By the time she returned to the ballroom North’s famous scowl was back.
At last there were only a polka and two waltzes left in the evening. It was time. She danced the polka with the duke’s son and at the end fluttered her fan and protested her fatigue. She sent her partner off in search of lemonade, then whirled in a cloud of bronze skirts and darted into the crowds around the dance floor.
Her path took her near enough to the marquess so that he couldn’t help seeing her flee. With the air of one escaping unwanted attentions, Emmie sought the refuge of a screen and potted plants beside the soaring French doors that led to one of the balconies. A leaf tickled her shoulder and she swatted at it with her fan.
The etiquette Mother taught had been a useless accomplishment in the rookeries, but had become a boon now. One of its most important precepts was that young ladies at social functions did not seek out private places such as libraries or conservatories. A balcony was as intimate a setting as she was going to manage. Not that she wished to be alone with Valin North for long. Of course she didn’t.
Emmie risked a glimpse between the leaves of the ferns. Her heart bounced polkalike in her chest; he was only a couple of yards away! Despite the fact that she’d planned this encounter Emmie panicked, bolted, and nearly tripped over her skirts as she rushed around the screen and onto the balcony. Where once cool reason dwelt, confusion ruled, and Emmie struggled with a rush of feelings she didn’t understand. All she knew was that Valin North made her insides quiver, and that she desperately wanted him to come to her while at the same time she dreaded it. As she tried to take herself in hand his voice cut through her thoughts and made her jump.
“Miss de Winter, are you well? Has the dancing wearied you?”
Emmie glanced over her shoulder at him, met those cloud-with-a-silver-lining eyes, and blurted out, “Oh, I rub on as well as I can.”
“What?”
She could have bitten her lip. What a time for her to slip into thieves’ cant. If she didn’t take care, she’d be nattering about coiners, mouchers, and flash pubs.
“I’m quite well, thank you, my lord. I’m afraid I’ve danced with as many condescending young fops as I can manage this evening.”
He was beside her, and she could feel the warmth of his body even across the two feet that separated them.
“Indeed,” Valin said softly.
He looked down at her with a half smile of gentle amusement she’d never seen before. She looked away, out at the dark garden. Feeling heat rise from her neck to her face, she took refuge in one of her prepared speeches.
“I love such nights in early spring, the chill with a promise of warmth to come, but I’m afraid the mists are rising, and that always reminds me of Macbeth.”
“Macbeth,” came the startled response.
“Oh, yes. You know, ‘Double, double toil and trouble;/ Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble.’ ”
“Good God, she’s read a book.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Forgive me. I should have said, good God, she’s read something other than a novel.”
Emmie curled her lip at the note of arrogant surprise in his voice. To think she’d wanted this man’s company just moments ago. How she detested the pride and ignorance of men, especially aristocrats. Those old feelings of resentment provoked instant, explosive anger and overcame her good sense. Valin North was most irritating.
“What an ignorant assumption, my lord, that all women are unread. Allow me to provide you with further proof of your mistake.”
She planted her fists on her hips and kicked her train aside. “ ‘Fillet of a fenny snake,/ In the caldron boil and bake.’ ” She advanced on North, making him back away from her as she chanted, “ ‘Eye of newt, and toe of frog,/ Wool of bat, and tongue of dog.’ ”
> His eyes widened when her gaze held his without faltering. “ ‘Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,/ Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing.’ ” She took another step; he kept backing up. Emmie raised her voice and stuck out her chin. “ ‘For a charm of pow’rful trouble,/ Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.’ ” Valin North bumped ignominiously against the stone balustrade.
Noting the astonished look in his eyes, she turned her back on her host and sauntered inside. “Good evening to you, my lord.”
As she left she heard him whisper, “Damn.”
She was almost through the balcony doors when a gloved hand fastened around her arm and swung her around. North pulled her into the shadows of the balcony with a chuckle.
“How easily you take offense.”
Emmie jerked her arm free. “How easily you give it, my lord.” She moved toward the doors again, but he put his arm out to stop her.
“Don’t go. You can’t blame me for being surprised.”
He had moved closer, but it was so dark she could see only the line of his cheek and the brilliant white of his shirt. She had already allowed him to stand there too long. Ladies kept a distance from gentlemen.
Emmie edged a step away from him. “I do blame you. All women are not the same.”
“No, they’re not, and you’ve proved it tonight. Will you honor me with this next waltz?”
“I believe Adelaide and her mother are leaving.”
North offered his arm. “They can’t leave without you, and you will be dancing the last waltz with me. Come, Miss de Winter. It will be your triumph.”
“It will? Why?”
At this, North stared at her in a puzzled manner. “Surely you know the marriage market game. You said you were here to be shown off and married off.”
“Those are my family’s plans, my lord. It does not follow that they’re also mine.”
