“We return home next week.” Julian had to smile at the way Carbury could not seem to take his eyes off Elanna. The widower was too old, too much of a fuddy-duddy for his virginal sister, but Elanna enjoyed his company when he came to call. And he had called often last spring and summer. He’d made no overture to Elanna. Made no offer for her hand. Yet the fact that he was here in Paris at the same time seemed a bit of a coincidence and Julian wondered if Elanna or his mother had told the middle-aged duke of their travel plans.
“I return for my scheduled instructions in landscape painting,” Elanna told Carbury with a grin.
“Ah, yes, your efforts to exceed Mr. Turner,” he joked. “I do recall.”
Elanna lifted a shoulder. “I mustn’t disappoint Monsieur de la Bran with my lack of advancement.”
“You have determination,” he said with assurance. “You will succeed.”
A tall, dark, figure strolled abreast of their party. Waiting politely for an opening, he had turned to the two ladies who accompanied him. Julian’s skin prickled with a sensation of being watched. And he stepped to one side.
When he looked into their faces, he had jolt. Beside Killian Hanniford stood the two women whom he’d met this afternoon in the midst of the accident. And like a magnet, he focused on the startling blue eyes of Miss Lily Hanniford.
“Good evening, my lord,” the American millionaire said to Carbury in his leisurely American accent. “Forgive us for our tardiness.”
“I am most delighted to see you. All of you,” Carbury said, shaking hands with the gentleman and bowing to the ladies. “You are not late at all. We are reminiscing. Allow me to present my friends. My neighbors, too, they are.”
Carbury did the honors with social precision, so well in fact that Julian could greet Killian Hanniford with equanimity. He’d met with the infamous American blockade runner three times in the past two weeks and known him to be blunt, forceful but polite. As a scrapper from the docks of Baltimore, Hanniford had acquired polish with his fortune. Here as in his offices, the man was tailored, barbered to a far thee well and his manners were impeccable. So fine in fact that Julian’s mother, whether or not she knew of Hanniford’s proposed raid of Cardiff Shipping, accepted the introduction with a smug look of satisfaction. A rare thing.
So when the moment came for Carbury to introduce Julian to the luscious Miss Hanniford, he easily grasped her hand and bowed over her soft leather glove. “I had the honor to meet Miss Hanniford this afternoon. And Mrs. Roland, as well. Good evening, ladies. I trust you have recovered from the upset of the afternoon.”
“We did. Thank you, Lord Chelton,” Lily told him with a cool politesse that surprised and distressed him.
“You were very helpful, my lord,” Mrs. Roland added with more graciousness than Julian perceived in Lily’s greeting. “You saved us from disaster. Especially Madame le Comtesse.”
“What is this?” his mother asked. “You told me nothing of a disaster.”
Julian inclined his head. “It was a runaway horse and a frightened hack, Mama. Remy and I dealt with them both.”
“And I, Lord Chelton,” said Killian Hanniford with earnest thanks, “am the one most grateful for your intervention. Lily and Marianne told me all the details and I’m in awe of your quick thinking and your skill.”
His mother cocked a haughty brow. “Chelton has always made a habit of walking into danger.”
Thank you, Mama. Such a dubious commendation is so unwelcome.
“No wonder he did well today,” Lily Hanniford said with smooth flattery that warmed him and made his mother turn to glass.
Julian did not know what to say to that. It was not often someone could take his mother’s words and turn them into a compliment. Amusement curled his mouth. Appreciation made him grin.
“Here’s Remy,” his mother said and smiled at the man who bowed graciously to them all.
“Bon soir. Forgive me my tardiness,” Remy said, his twinkling eyes traveling the party and pausing for a second on the widow Roland. “Another accident along the Rue de la Paix tonight. I fear we have a contagion on our hands.”
His mother rushed to introduce Remy to the ladies, Hanniford and Carbury as if she wished him gone. But the chimes sounded for an intermission between acts and Carbury bent over Elanna, eager as a puppy and smiling at her.
He extended his hand toward the door to a nearby box. “I hope all of you will join me here. The Hannifords are my guests and the four of you would turn us into a very grand party.”
Elanna pressed back against Julian’s arm.
Remy grinned, his attention to Mrs. Roland as apparent as a billboard.
And for himself, desire to be near charming Lily was raw. Better judgment screamed he should refuse.
But his mother was quick to agree.
“Let us go in, then.” Carbury offered his arm to Elanna.
Not to be impolite, she nodded and hooked her hand in the crook of his elbow.
Julian’s mother cast them a sideways glance, and at once, Julian’s skin prickled. Was this his mother’s ploy to push Elanna and Carbury together? It might very well be. The woman preferred her own company. Unless it benefited her to be social.
He set his teeth.
But as the party reshuffled to allow the pair to pass, Lily was at once by his side. His duty as a gentleman was to offer her his own arm.
“Thank you,” she said in that voice that melted his rational mind and she placed her warm palm on his sleeve.
“Do you like Offenbach?” he asked out of the blue.
“I’ve never heard his works before.”
“Ah,” he said like a dolt, his brain utterly, ridiculously blank.
As all eight of them filed in to the box’s anteroom where they could remove their wraps, instinct and manners drove him forward. He stood like a statue as Lily turned her back to him to help with removing her cape. Her fox fur-lined sateen was a deep shade of sapphire, darkly complementary to her flawless skin. His fingers brushed her bare shoulder as he slid the garment off her, only to make him catch his breath at the sky-blue silk gown that sluiced over her slim form. She looked like a shimmering ice goddess. She smelled like faint roses of summer. He was entranced. Silly him. She was quite exquisite, her skin as perfect as a pearl, her throat and the swells of her breasts, pristine.
What is wrong with me? For God’s sake.
He never ogled a lady. Not since he’d been a randy twelve-year-old.
Still, he stepped to one side in the box so that Lily had a choice to sit next to him or insult him and walk to the other side where the only other seat was open. She checked his gaze, glancing away as if their eyes had never met. But she sat beside him.
He let out his breath, relieved. The others took up the gilded red damask chairs and he settled in his own, congratulating himself like a lovesick fool that he could bask in the glow of the lovely American. She had more than beauty, too. He crossed one leg over the other, suppressing his satisfaction. She had wits enough to turn his mother’s insult to a compliment.
Then Lily faced him.
He locked on to those remarkable blue eyes. She searched as if she rummaged for some lost treasure. He wished he knew what it was. He’d give it her in a second if only she’d remain forged to him. “Can I get you champagne from The Glacier?”
“No, thank you. Perhaps later.”
Very well. What else might we discuss? “Did your fitting with Monsieur Worth go well?”
“It did.”
If she were any other woman, she’d be heaping him with details of fabrics and colors, shoes and bonnets. Instead she gave him silence. How was he to get on?
But she raised her face. Dear God. Her perfect oval face and the eyes that spoke of banked blue fires. Was that interest in him? Or not?
He despaired of ever learning.
Frustrated, he removed his gloves. Her gaze fell to his hands, drifted away and returned. She seemed troubled, flexing her fingers. “How was Madame l
e Comtesse when you took her home? Better?”
“Remy did the honors. But when I left the carriage, she seemed quite…bubbly.”
Lily’s tension collapsed and she wore a grin. “She loves champagne.”
“Shouldn’t we all.”
“You don’t?”
“It depends on my mood.”
“So. When you are happy, what do you drink?” she asked, playing with him now.
He arched a brow. “A burgundy with beef. A white from the Loire with scallops. A Scots whiskey when I am happy.”
“And when you’re sad?”
“A Scots whiskey.”
She let out a laugh.
Had they overcome the tension? “And what do you like when you’re happy?”
“Beer.”
He guffawed and others in the box shot him a look.
She leaned close and he inhaled her alluring scent. “Do you?”
“Like beer?” He loved the look on her face, open and accepting, full of humor. “I like to drink it with good friends.”
“Me, too.”
Oh, he was undone. By her naturalness. By her lack of guile. “Then you and I must become friends and enjoy fine beer.”
She turned away, swallowed hard and opened her fan. Whipping the thing so that the air around them grew crisp with tension, she raised the hope that he might have unnerved her as she did him.
Good.
The others spoke, conversed. Remy was fully engaged with Mrs. Roland. Carbury with Elanna. His mother chatted with Killian Hanniford and damn, if she wasn’t smiling, almost cooing to the American.
And Julian felt like a dimwit. Here he sat, silent. Undone. By the beauty of an American. A girl. Young and effervescent.
So much so, he had to admit to his great dismay, that he had lied to himself. Greatly. She was not forgettable. Not in looks or manner.
True, he liked all he saw. The elegant line from her ear to her shoulder. The delicate tendons along her nape. The way wisps of her hair fell, one by one, while she moved her head in tiny increments to or fro. The way she tipped her head when the orchestra struck up a chord that roused her. The unblemished expanse of her appealing décolleté.
He tore his gaze away, musing that he examined her like an artist memorizing his model. Remy, the true artist, would laugh at him.
He shook his head. Hot, bothered, he dug the program from his inner coat pocket. With blind eyes, he perused it. But he thrust it aside. He did not care a whit who sang. Or what. Or when. He lived only for the view. How she sat, her long arms swathed in formal white gloves. Her hands resting, cupped in each other. Her back arching, her shoulders rising, her derriere flexing.
He shifted in his own chair.
He was besotted. He sat in a crowded opera house with two thousand others, lusting for a woman to whom he’d spoken ten words.
He breathed deeply, casting about to find some other enchantment. What he saw were two gentlemen examining her, too. One man with a pair of binoculars in the box opposite them. Another man in the audience looking up in pure intoxication. Julian had no idea who they were. They had good taste. But no chance with Lily Hanniford. Not tonight. He was here to shield her from adventurers and charlatans. To throw a mantel of English correctness over the upstart Americans. To bestow on her, by his very proximity, a legitimacy and a value to Parisian society.
He crossed his arms and stared the two men down. Oh, yes. Nothing like the medieval glory of the Seton duchy to assure acceptance whether here or in London.
Whatever possessed him, he had no idea. But he reached over and took one of her hands to place on his knee.
She went to stone.
He smiled in irony. He’d been hard as a rock for the last hour.
She focused on her hand in his and in a deliberate move pulled it away even as she leaned over to him. “My lord.” Her voice was a whisper. “Please don’t stare at me.”
That she would mention his absorption in her was a faux pas no English lady of any breeding would ever commit. They’d take it as the compliment it was. Treasure it in silence and hope the man would come to call.
He could not respond. Would not. There was no discreet way. He had no alluring words. No apology, either.
Throughout the intermission when Remy adjourned with Mrs. Roland to the Glacier and then through the next act Julian complied with Lily’s wish. He grew testy trying to fulfill her wishes. To his supreme irritation, he surveyed the boxes, once, twice and then again. He counted the numerous men who peered up at her. But then he’d glance at her and excuse their captivation. He understood their fascination and he was undone by his own.
When the lights came up, with the rest of their party, the two of them rose and conversed, mingled and laughed.
Remy rubbed his hands together. “Shall we adjourn to a café for refreshments?”
Lily was first to respond. “Forgive me, I’ve enjoyed this tremendously, but I fear I must return home. It’s been a very long day. Excuse me, please. But, Papa, if you wish to continue the evening, do.”
Hanniford made his own excuses and Mrs. Roland in turn. They would leave.
The party reclaimed their coats and made their way down the massive staircase, into the rotunda and on to the portiere where the private coaches lined up.
Julian was careful, bidding all good evening with polite enthusiasm. And he stood beside Remy, watching the Hanniford carriage depart.
“Care to join me for a bit of fun?” Remy asked, an arched brow indicating his interest in quite another topic.
“Thanks, no.” He inclined his head toward his own conveyance far down the line. “I’ll join the family for home.”
“I need a drink. Conversation, too. Don’t you?”
Julian recognized the light in his eye. Only a few women did that to Remy. “The comely widow interests you?”
“She does. I wish she didn’t.”
“I understand.” He clapped a hand on Remy’s broad shoulder. “Go home. Think better of it in the morning.”
“One would hope so.”
“Au revoir. Tomorrow then?”
Julian left him to climb into his coach and sink against the squabs. His mother chatted on about Carbury, all his marvelous assets, financial included. Thank God Elanna seemed immune. She sat back into the shadows and nodded at their mother’s words of praise. At length, without response from Elanna, their mother grew silent. Only the rhythmic clopping of the horses’ hooves on the cobbles pervaded the night air—and Julian was free to mull his dilemma.
Lily had warned him away from her. Good of her. Wise, too.
He’d not mix business with pleasure. Never had. Wouldn’t start now.
Devil of it was that he wanted her more than before. He ached with it. Swearing silently, he paused, struck with the clarity of his problem. And hers.
She enjoyed him, but she didn’t want his attentions.
That was precisely how he himself wished to relate to women. Enjoy them. Admire them. Seduce them.
But not this one. Never delectable Lily Hanniford.
His conclusion was a dreadful one. He must not ever see her again. Let alone spend an entire evening watching her every breath. And getting lost in her blue, blue eyes.
Chapter Four
March 1878
No. 110 Piccadilly
“Our latest invitations!” Marianne sailed into the drawing room, flourishing aloft the latest crop of large envelopes in her hand. She lifted one to her nose and, closing her eyes, inhaled.
“How many?” Lily stopped her pacing, grateful for the diversion from her worries over the imminent arrival of their first guests for tea.
“Three. Smelling marvelous, too,” she said with the charm of a conspirator as she tore open one and plunked in the wing chair opposite Lily.
So many had arrived in that past few days that Lily had had to make a master list of all the details. What to wear was the least of their worries. Papa’s expenditure of more than forty thousand dollars o
n both her and Marianne’s wardrobes meant they could appear anywhere and be appreciated, even envied. But who their hosts were, what their rank was, who else might attend, who got the deeper curtsy, all were delicate points that could kill their social acceptability. And acceptable, they must be, declared her father.
Dizzy with the complexity of who had invited her and her cousin to an array of luncheons, teas and musicales, she and Marianne had reassured each other their studies of such niceties had been superb. Their knowledge of etiquette finite. But the crush was great. Into the London Season only a week, they were exhausted and not rising before ten. Today was their first at-home tea and they’d been nervous as cats all morning.
“Oh, dear,” Lily said beneath her breath. “I don’t like the look on your face. Is it from someone on Papa’s ‘Awful List’?”
Writing down names of undesirable contacts from his business dealings, her father had dubbed his list ‘The Unsuitables’. These were men or entire families whose presence was not welcome to the Hannifords’ home. He’d made it clear they were not to be accepted under any circumstances, even if their lineage in Debrett’s Peerage did go back to William the Conqueror. Among them, the names of the Duke and Duchess of Seton, their son, the marquess of Chelton, and their daughter, Lady Elanna, did not appear—and Lily was delighted. But feared none of them would ever call.
“No. Very nice.” She put down a large card on the table beside her and went to work on the next one.
“Who? Do tell.”
“A dinner party at the home of the Earl and Countess of Ely a week Wednesday.”
“Ely? Doesn’t he have a son who is a widower?” Lily recalled her father saying something like that. Meanwhile, Marianne tore open another envelope like a child opening birthday gifts.
“Mmm. Yes. And an ancient keep in need of a new roof. But this—” Marianne covered her mouth with two fingers. “Oh, my.”
“What?”
“We’re to go to a house party.” Her dark green gaze locked on Lily’s.
“Whose? How many days?” Could anyone keep up polite appearances for days, especially if, as Papa said, many of the married couples switched bed partners at night?
Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1) Page 5
