As if to remind her, Lord Ballston interrupted her thoughts. “Miss Hurston, are you quite comfortable there? Perhaps you’d like to sit here, on the end of the row. I’m sure the view is much better from here.”
“Do not be absurd, Ballston,” Lord Dareingham interrupted from his seat next to Cecily. “She can see quite well enough from here. Besides, on that side she might catch a draft.”
“Miss Hurston, surely you would rather sit up here with me,” Lord Fortenbury said, cutting off more talk of drafts from Dareingham. “The view is much better from here, and I have it on the best authority that the pianoforte is best listened to from a more central location.”
“Gentlemen, please,” a new voice interceded. “I’m afraid you are all doomed to disappointment, for Miss Hurston has already promised herself to me for the evening.”
Cecily looked up to find Lucas looming over the group, his height and military bearing making the other men seem like callow youths. Even his black frock coat and snug fawn breeches were dour when compared to the dandyish high shirt points and intricately tied cravats of her coterie of admirers. They were more of an age with Winterson’s brother, William.
William, who had gone missing on an expedition headed up by Cecily’s father.
Like the basket of a hot air balloon coming into contact with solid ground, the exhilaration generated by her new popularity fell to the earth with a resounding thud.
“Your Grace,” she said, rising from her seat between Dareingham and Selby. “I had forgotten our previous agreement. Do forgive me.”
The laugh lines around his eyes crinkled at her appropriation of his fictional assignation, though the rest of his expression seemed bland enough.
“My dear lady, there is nothing to forgive,” he said, taking her gloved hand in his and bowing over it. “Now, we had best excuse ourselves before the performance begins.”
Cecily allowed herself to be guided away to the other side of the room by her new escort, but was not surprised to see that many of the assembled guests had noted their abandonment of her admirers.
“You have made me the object of talk, you know,” she said as they wound their way through the people who had not yet taken their seats. “I wonder that you were brave enough to come retrieve me from my—”
Her brow furrowed.
“What does one call a group of suitors?” she wondered aloud.
“In the case of that crowd,” Winterson said with an expressive roll of his eyes, “nodcocks.”
“That is not quite fair,” Cecily argued as she allowed him to hand her into her seat, though she did tend to agree with him. “They are perhaps not the most intellectually gifted of men, but having grown up around an intelligent man I can tell you most assuredly that intellect can be highly overrated.”
Winterson flipped out the tails of his coat to take his seat and nodded a greeting to Lady Ashcroft, who boldly surveyed them through her lorgnette.
“Yes,” he responded to Cecily, “but there is a world of difference between nodcock and reasonably intelligent. And that lot is nowhere near the level of reasonably intelligent. I doubt they’ve got enough brains between them to power the mind of a fourteen-year-old boy.”
“Not even a small one?” Cecily asked, amused by the notion despite her discomfort at being the subject of so many curious stares.
“Not even a pygmy one.”
His face remained impassive, but Cecily was sure she noticed a twinkle lurking in his eye. Still, his derision needled her.
“You are quite determined to prevent me from enjoying my brief moment of popularity, aren’t you?”
“If by popularity, you are referring to the fact that you are now surrounded by witless, fashionable young men with little more to occupy their time than flitting from pretty flower to pretty flower,” he said sourly, “then yes, I am determined to prevent you from enjoying it. Besides,” he continued, scowling, “I thought we had an agreement.”
“I am well aware of our agreement, sir.” Cecily narrowed her eyes at him. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of jealousy in Winterson’s frown?
Refraining from voicing her thoughts, she continued, “But our agreement does not stipulate that I must avoid contact with gentlemen all together. That would raise suspicions, surely? Especially given the fact that I was seen just the other evening making a concerted effort to launch myself from the ranks of the social outcasts into the fashionable set.”
“Our agreement was that I would assist you in your quest for a husband if you would assist me in tracking down your father’s travel journals.”
Cecily watched in fascination as the muscles in his jaw clenched with his frustration, only realizing at the last minute that some reply was expected of her.
“Perhaps, Your Grace, I am doing just that.”
He raised one dark brow. “How so?”
A sigh escaped her. “I have it on some authority that there is to be a meeting of the executive council of the Egyptian Club this very evening.”
She watched his expression sharpen with some satisfaction.
“Go on.”
“Lord Willowbrook is a member of the executive council,” she continued. “I know this because my father was also on the council before his … attack.”
“Go on.”
Though she would be hard-pressed to say what exactly had changed, Cecily was aware of an alertness in him that had not been present before. Being the focus of all that energy was at once invigorating and frightening. She fought to maintain eye contact with him, though her every instinct demanded she look away.
“Well, Lord Willowbrook visited Papa this afternoon. It was the first time he has done so since my father fell ill. And I could not help but overhear him telling Papa about the meeting.”
“You were eavesdropping.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” Cecily replied, her voice low to keep her from being overheard. “But that should hardly be of concern to you when—”
“It is a concern to me,” he interrupted, “because if you had been discovered, Willowbrook would have been alerted to the fact that you are interested in the goings-on at the Egyptian Club.”
“Do you or do you not wish to know what I learned, Your Grace?”
He waved a hand that told her to proceed, though Cecily suspected he wanted to chide her further.
She smiled and nodded at Lord and Lady Fortescue, who took their seats two rows in front of them, before continuing. “The executive committee meets tonight,” she said in a hushed tone.
Then in a louder voice she trilled, “Oh, Your Grace, you are such a rogue!” For authenticity, she rapped Winterson’s forearm with her fan.
“Ah!” he yelped, clearly not expecting her gambit. “Ah … and you … Miss Hurston”—Winterson widened his eyes and raised his brows in silent rebuke—“are a delightful lady.”
Cecily sniffed. Delightful lady, indeed. Ignoring his lame response, she whispered, “They meet tonight, after the first interval of the musicale, in the Red Room.”
Aloud she said, “I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much, Your Grace. I never knew what a sense of humor you have.”
“I’ll leave first,” she whispered. “Then you follow a few minutes behind me.”
“Absolutely not,” he hissed. “You have no idea—”
But he was kept from continuing by the loud voice of their hostess, who had taken her place at the head of the room, and called everyone to order.
Cecily gave a silent prayer of thanks at the interruption. It would be much easier for her to simply do as she pleased instead of having to inform Winterson of her plans. But she had agreed to help him investigate William’s disappearance, and there was a certain comfort to be derived from having a partner in her quest to find her father’s journals. She’d been fending for herself for such a long time now that she’d forgotten what cooperation felt like. “I intend to observe this meeting myself,” she hissed during the
moment of applause that followed Lady Willowbrook’s introduction.
The stiffness in his bearing told Cecily that he was not pleased, but he held his peace, holding open the program to point out the number of pieces before the interval.
Risking a glimpse at him from beneath her lashes, she was shocked into stillness when her gaze locked with his. This time she was the first to look away, and the accelerated beat of her heart told her the reaction had little to do with their power struggle over her plans to attend the secret meeting. He was entirely too handsome for his own good, this man.
Determined to maintain her poise, she turned all of her attention to the pianist, Miss Jessica Slaughter, a plain young woman who had a surprising talent for the instrument. Allowing herself to relax, Cecily tried to listen to the music, but found herself hyperaware of the man seated beside her. His arm was warm through the superfine of his coat, and it was difficult for her to concentrate when she could feel him brush against her with each breath.
Restless, she fidgeted in her seat, smoothing her skirts against her legs, folding and unfolding her hands. When Lucas turned his head in question, she shook her head slightly. One could hardly tell a gentleman in the middle of a musicale that his very presence next to her was making her skin feel too tight. Or that he was causing a curious dampness in regions of her person that she had hitherto not spent a great deal of time thinking about.
She didn’t even hear the second soloist, and when the interval came, Cecily nearly leaped from her seat in her desire to remove herself from the Duke of Winterson’s disturbing proximity. Perhaps if she were fast enough he wouldn’t catch up to her in the Red Room.
* * *
The musician after Miss Slaughter was not nearly as talented, and it was with some relief that Lucas heard Lady Willowbrook announce that they would be taking a short break for refreshments.
Cecily must have taken that as her cue. Rising, with a speed that surprised him, she said with only a slightly raised voice, “There is something in my eye. Please excuse me.” Lucas stared after her with a rising sense of frustration as she hurried to the doors at the back of the room, and slipped out into the hallway.
He wanted to follow her, but leaving the room together would draw even more attention to them than they had already done just by sitting together for the musicale. Already he had received several curious looks from both male and female attendees.
So, he waited a full five minutes before rising from his seat and walking briskly toward the exit, only to be interrupted by Miss Amelia Snowe as he neared the end of the neatly aligned rows of seats.
“Your Grace,” she said, her speculative expression sounding an alarm in his head as he headed for the exit. “The music will resume in only a few more minutes. I should hate for you to miss it.”
Biting back a sharp retort at the interruption, Lucas decided a half-truth would not go amiss here. “I fear that I have recalled another pressing engagement, Miss Snowe.” Which was true. He had an appointment with Cecily. Besides, Amelia was hardly his personal confidante. He found her about as trustworthy as a hyena. Which was reinforced when she gave a perfectly constructed titter and popped him on the arm with her fan. “Oh, it is not necessary for you to deceive me, Lord Winterson. It is quite apparent that you are trailing after the…”—she paused as if searching her brain for just the right word—“memorable Miss Hurston.”
Lucas scowled and rubbed his arm. What was it with ladies hitting him with their fans tonight? Before he could respond, she went on, “It has been quite a surprise to me to see her attract attention from a certain impressionable group of young gentlemen. I do hope her head has not been turned by their flattery. I fear it is a little game they play from time to time. They will single out a young lady for the season, bring her into fashion, and then when the season ends, they simply cut the connection. They mean nothing by it, of course. Just a little harmless fun.”
Looking down at the pretty blonde, Lucas realized that she was even more conniving than he’d supposed. But nothing she said would make him see Cecily as anything other than what she was. A highly intelligent, if headstrong, young lady who was worth one hundred Amelias.
He wondered for a fleeting moment if the other attendees of the musicale would read his departure so soon after Cecily’s in the same way that she had done. It was irrelevant, of course, given that he intended to follow her whether it caused talk or not. But he did not wish for Cecily’s reputation to suffer as a result. So he decided to redirect Amelia’s attention with a bit of flattery.
“We gentlemen can be a fickle lot, can we not?” he said in response to her dismissal of Cecily’s newfound popularity. “Still, I thought it would be kind to show Miss Hurston a bit of attention this evening. She is, as you say, quite popular right now. And I hear her father is unwell. Let’s keep this our little secret, shall we? Not everyone can be lucky enough to sit next to Miss Amelia Snowe, can they?”
With a conspiratorial wink, he stepped away from the soulless beauty and headed out the doors leading into the grand hallway.
Whereas the music room had been filled to capacity, with many of the ladies plying themselves diligently with their fans, the hallway was as empty as the proverbial tomb. A lady’s laugh from somewhere down the north corridor, however, had Lucas striding purposefully across the black-and-white checked marble tiles.
He cursed inwardly when he realized he hadn’t learned exactly where the Red Room was located. A friend lived in this same row of town homes, and rationalizing that the layouts of the two homes were probably similar, he headed for the second floor where the library should be located.
The first door he opened led into a small sitting room. It was well lit, but deserted, so Lucas closed the door and tried the next one. He had no luck until three doors farther down where he discovered a couple locked in a passionate embrace. As the lady was very clearly a redhead, Lucas ducked back out of the chamber and pulled the door closed. From the looks of things, he doubted the couple was even aware of his interruption.
Finally, as he neared the end of the hall, he heard more voices, male this time. Not wanting to broadcast his presence to the occupants of the room, he opened the door carefully and was pleased to note the Moroccan red of the walls. The gathering of men was hidden from the view of the door by a number of screens and potted trees that surrounded what appeared to be a large round table.
Thick Turkish carpets masked the sound of his footsteps as he crept farther into the room, which was a masterpiece of gilt and all things Egyptian. From the crocodile carvings that adorned the screens, to the golden pyramids that stood out in relief on the pots that held the trees, everything in the room was somehow linked to the ancient culture on the Nile.
Even the tall, evening-gowned figure hovering behind a particularly ugly wooden screen depicting Cleopatra wrestling with an oddly winsome asp.
* * *
When she felt a warm body press up against hers, and an arm snake around to cover her mouth, Cecily squealed in alarm.
“Shh,” whispered Lucas, his warm breath sending a shiver that had nothing to do with fear through her. “It’s just me. What have I missed?”
Thanks to the tall potted trees that were arranged just so, they were invisible to the men in the room.
Cecily breathed a sigh of relief as he removed his hand from her mouth, but it was impossible to ignore the feel of his strong body pressed against the length of hers. Not to mention his scent, clean and masculine and spicy, which made her want to turn around and burrow her face in his neck. And she had thought sitting next to him was uncomfortable. Her agitation of earlier was now increased tenfold.
Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on calming herself and shook her head to indicate that she couldn’t answer his question yet. She didn’t wish to alert the club members to their presence.
But Winterson wasn’t satisfied with being put off.
Touching her chin with one long finger, he turned her face toward him, his l
ips only a fraction from hers, and mouthed, “Tell me.”
Irritated by his high-handed demand, but unable to look away from him, she decided it would probably be faster and easier to just tell him. He didn’t exactly strike her as the sort of man who would wait patiently for an answer.
“They are discussing the club’s latest acquisitions,” she hissed.
At his brisk nod, Cecily turned back to watch the proceedings in the room beyond them. To her delicious agony, instead of moving to stand next to her, he remained behind her and slipped an arm around her middle to pull her closer to his body.
She knew very well that such contact was highly improper. And if anyone were to catch them like this, they’d be betrothed faster than Lord Deveril went through cravats. A few kisses in the park was one thing, but now they were for all practical purposes embracing in a room full of potential witnesses. Even so, the mixture of comfort and agitation his closeness brought her was utterly irresistible. And besides, she rationalized, if she made a fuss she’d give them away to the club members.
“We have added to the club’s collection this month alone,” Lord Peterborough, a portly older gentleman, spoke to the group. “Three mummified cats, acquired from a merchant in Billingsgate, for the sum of…”
As Winterson shifted behind her, Cecily swallowed, hard. She turned to scowl at him, just for propriety’s sake, but he appeared not to notice, his eyes fixed firmly on the scene before them. Could he really be unaffected by their closeness? she wondered. Was she the only one who felt the least bit of excitement here?
“A bejeweled figure of Horus, the falcon-headed god,” Peterborough continued, “dating from the fourteenth century B.C., estimated value unknown…”
Behind the screen, Lucas began to absently caress her with the hand against her midriff. Up. Down. Up. Down. The movement of his hand beat in counterpoint to her heartbeat. Cecily tried to concentrate on what Lord Peterborough was saying, but it was nigh impossible to do so with six feet and then some of solid male pressed up against her back and a strong arm wrapped around her waist.
How to Dance With a Duke Page 9
