An Unexpected Proposal (St Daine Family 1)

by Leighann Dobbs

  “I've no preference for any specific partner at this point, Grandmother, but for a dance,” he turned in her direction and Claire felt her breath catch. His gaze burned into hers and her mouth went dry an instant before he finished, “I would be delighted if you would join me, Lady Melisande.”

  Melisande accepted his invitation to dance.

  Lucien led her onto the floor and Claire's breath left her in a whispered whoosh of relief and something far too close to disappointment, and she pressed her palm against her middle, as if it would somehow soothe the discomfort she felt there. Unfortunately for her, the dowager duchess noticed the action.

  “Are you feeling a bit under the pale, child?”

  Dear heaven, Claire worried. Was her reaction to the duke so obvious anyone could see how dreadfully his presence seemed to overset her? “I-I do apologize, Your Grace, but it does feel a bit warm this evening.”

  “Come,” the duchess said, taking Claire's free hand into her own before she swept them both into the crowd, as her grandson had done with Melisande, but in the opposite direction. “I shall give you a tour of the Rothwyn library. We've several lovely settees there, each tucked away into its own private little nook. I daresay you will recover nicely from whatever has unsettled you after a few quiet moments spent away from this heated crush.”

  The duchess did not rush, nor did she tarry. Instead, she made her way through the crowd with a slow, measured deliberation. At the edge of the ballroom floor, she stopped and patted Claire's hand consolingly while her gaze warmed with something Claire might have likened to friendship under less intimidating circumstances, but it was her words that put Claire immediately on her guard.

  “There is no need to pretend with me, Claire Leighton. Having attained the grand age of seventy four years, I have attended hundreds of balls,” she said, one aged brow arched high, “and I am well aware the flush gracing your cheeks at the moment has nothing to do with the rather moderate temperature in our ballroom.”

  Claire could feel her cheeks burn ever hotter, only this time with chagrin. How had the duchess known the uneasy reaction she was experiencing at the moment was really due to her grandson's nearness?

  Was it possible that was she also aware the tumult of emotions making her palms perspire and her stomach twist had been furthered still more when he had asked Melisande to dance instead of her?

  No, she could not possibly, Claire decided, and opened her mouth to deny it. But the duchess merely shook her head and continued, a knowing twinkle lighting her eyes. “Not to worry, my dear. I shan’t give away your attraction to my grandson this evening any more than you will dare to hasten our journey to the library.”

  Patting the hand she held lightly within her own, the dowager continued, “Each of us have our own agendas, I can assure you. Mine, for example, is to give Lucien a moment to dance with the lovely Lady Melisande without drawing his attention to precisely where and with whom his unruly sister has escaped just as yours was to give my darling Phoebe a moment of privacy during which to seek out that impish Locke fellow.”

  Claire's eyes widened and she could only guess at what her expression must have revealed in that moment but the duchess merely chuckled. “Come, my dear, we had better move along now lest that chatty bird, Lady Wingate, arrive in the library before us. It would not do to have Phoebe's private conversation with Lord Nicholas interrupted by that one, no, not a'tall.”

  * * *

  “Ugh. Had I but known finding a moment alone with one's friends would become a clandestine effort of monumental proportions once I came of age, I vow I would have remained in the schoolroom for at least a decade more,” Phoebe grumbled inside the library. She dropped down onto the plush settee, a pout curling her lips and furrowing her brow. “I shall warn Emily and Alaina at my earliest opportunity that they should never, ever grow up.”

  The deep, masculine chuckle following her words was soothing and while Nicholas Locke, a long time friend of the family, moved to stand near the door where he could easily be seen by any who passed the library, Phoebe kicked off the tight slippers she had been wearing to allow herself a moment of relief, which she expressed in a long, pleasurable sigh.

  “Bored with adulthood already?” Nick teased while she rubbed at her offended toes. “Best you find yourself a husband quickly, then, lest you end up shelved and furious about it, like our poor Julia.”

  Phoebe chuckled at that. Julia Locke was the first person she had looked for this evening because she had known Julia would get a message to Nick that she wished to speak to him in private. Her brow furrowed. “Jules is different tonight, though I find I cannot decide quite how.”

  Nick's brow arched high and his bark of rueful laughter brought another smile to her own lips. “No? Perhaps it is the scandalous cherry red dress she is wearing? Or mayhap 'tis the disdain she now wears in the haughty lines of her shoulders as she sweeps past each clique of drooling males in the ballroom—the same males who patently ignored her for the past two Seasons?”

  His brow furrowed and he shook his head. “No, I do not believe either of those explanations truly do justice to precisely how my sister Julia is somehow changed this evening.”

  Regretfully slipping her evening footwear back onto her feet, Phoebe straightened herself and stood to consider both the dress and Julia's seemingly much more confident attitude. Nay, it was not confidence, Phoebe decided, but rather an attitude of absolute nonchalance. “Does Sebastian know?”

  Nicholas's lips, which had before merely quirked upward the slightest bit, now spread wide in a gleeful grin. “He does not, though I have very little doubt he will be made aware of it 'ere dawn has fully lit the eastern sky.”

  Pulling Phoebe close so that she could peer along the corridor toward the ballroom with him, he lifted his hand toward his sister. “See you Lord Wyndham there? Is that not an impressive storm cloud brewing upon his brow?”

  Phoebe saw it, realized immediately what it meant, and laughed. “Oh my! You mean Adrien is jealous...?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Aye, but the sotted fool hasn't a clue.”

  After sharing another chuckle or two at Marquess of Wyndham's privately held blustering and confusion, Phoebe brought the conversation around to the topic she really wished to discuss with him. “Nicholas, have you heard aught on the waterfront that might give a hint toward Tristan's whereabouts? I am beginning to fear he has fallen into a dreadful bit of trouble....”

  * * *

  Though the mantel clock had long since struck three, Lucien remained seated in the library behind his mother's hand-carved, teak and rosewood escritoire. Given the tiring events of the past several days, he should have been upstairs hours ago, but his mind was simply too full. During the past week since Phoebe's guests had arrived for a grand house party, all conducted beneath his grandmother's watchful eye, Lucien had been quite run ragged by the proclivities of the women in his family.

  The few minor skirmishes with fellows taking a premature shine to either Alaina or Emily notwithstanding, he had had his hands full with avoiding his grandmother's quiet attempts to pair him with her guests while continuing to maintain a safe distance from those who played out schemes of their own, but so far, the beauties seeking to make a conquest of the Duke of Rothwyn had been far more easy to handle than his own sister.

  Phoebe, however, had led him through quite a merry dance for weeks now. In her pursuit of information which might somehow magically disclose their missing brother's whereabouts, she had continued to exercise a blatant and socially dangerous disregard for the rules, and thrice Lucien had been called upon to extricate her from possibly scandalous situations.

  The very night of her debut, she had gone, alone, onto the Kelsing's back terrace with Captain Parker Usburne—because she had learned from Christina that he was to captain one of the Wyndham-Locke ships and, knowing the captain was likely a frequent visitor to the docks, Phoebe hoped he might have seen or had word of Tristan. If Lucien hadn't circled
around and slipped out a side door to be there at her side when she came back in, he could only imagine the gossip that would have arisen from her thoughtlessness.

  Lucien had patiently explained the risks to her reputation, but it hadn't stopped her from trying to wheedle information from Lord Wyndham several nights later in similar circumstances—and Adrien, damn it all, knew better! At Lady Andibald's affair when she had smiled at yet another gentleman across the dinner table, Lucien had known instantly the fellow was her target for the evening, yet he had still barely managed to avert what would have been certain disaster, had he not been paying ridiculously close attention to his wayward sister.

  Despite his own fervent wishes to the contrary, Lucien knew he could not forbid Phoebe's going about with friends and other young ladies of her acquaintance, nor could he demand she refrain from talking about their brother altogether. But he could, and had, warned warned her of the possible consequences. Her mutinous responses each time, however, were one of the most pressing reasons behind tonight's sleeplessness and why he was seated still at his mother's writing desk, his thoughts running completely amok though it was well past three in the morning.

  Each time he tried to talk to her, Phoebe always delicately skirted using the actual words, but the haunting pain in her eyes still somehow berated him for his part in Tristan's disappearance. But it was her continued insistence that he was doing nothing to locate their brother himself which had Lucien sighing and pushing agitated fingers through his hair while sitting in the library in the dark at three in the morning—long after the rest of the family lay sleeping in their beds.

  Phoebe accused him of doing nothing, and yet, her accusations couldn't be further from the truth. He had done quite a lot; more than anyone knew and even a few things he knew his father would have frowned upon, in his efforts to locate Tristan. But even he knew better than do something to truly bring shame and scandal upon the St. Daine name.

  Not so, Phoebe.

  She wheedled and cajoled, simpered and smiled while she fished – often somewhat less than discreetly – for the information she sought.

  During the past few weeks, Lucien had had to fend off more inquiries about Tristan from friend and acquaintance alike than he had the entire two years since their wayward brother had disappeared.

  Of course, no one truly believed Lucien had lost all trace of his brother and most found Phoebe's inquiries amusing, but Lucien, however, did not.

  Nor did their grandmother. Amelia had no wish to see Phoebe labeled as a meddling female, especially so soon after her debut, but her ceaseless inquiries were being noted.

  “Keep her on the ballroom floor and out of mischief!” his grandmother had demanded, but Lucien was now certain his grandmother had no idea of the breadth and depth of precisely what constituted mischief when it came to Phoebe St. Daine. The girl defined persistence, and while he knew he must keep her from causing any real trouble, Lucien also admitted to feeling more than a little prideful admiration for her determination to persevere.

  A slight sound—or perhaps it was the growing appearance of light slowly spilling into his darkened retreat?—warned him he was no longer alone.

  Glancing up, he watched as the other reason for his sleeplessness, her body cleverly adorned by a tempting nightdress wrapped in a warm halo of soft light, materialized in the doorway.

  Claire.

  His body heated instantly and his heart beat out a thrilling rhythm while his mind played through the torturous scenario which had teased him all week despite his attempts to block the tantalizing scene of impropriety from his thoughts.

  He had dreamed of her.

  Aye, he had dreamed, that first night after she and her family had arrived at Rothwyn House. Even now he could remember the highly erotic sounds of their mingled breathing as their bodies rhythmically strained together, glistening with the effects of concerted effort as they strove toward the pinnacle of release. Unfortunately for him, he had awakened before the much sought release could be obtained, and the effect had left him disgruntled and a bit surly. He shifted to ease the sudden, uncomfortable tightness in his breeches. The action must have given away his presence there in the darkness, because he saw Claire's hand fly up to her throat as a tiny yelp of fright fell from her lips.

  “Your Grace! You startled me!”

  “My apologies, Miss Leighton. Is aught amiss?” The question was unnecessary, of course, for if the lady was below-stairs, after hours and unchaperoned, that was clue enough something had certainly gone awry.

  Tightening her fingers in the fabric of her robe, she clenched the garment close below her chin while her cheeks flushed with color just notable in the low light. “No, I-I was restless and thought I might find a book to read.”

  She watched him, her gaze filled with cautious curiosity, and Lucien stifled a sigh.

  The often wearying and much lauded constraints of propriety (the likes of which he had all but preached to Phoebe every single day of this past week, his conscience sarcastically pointed out to him) demanded he leave the room immediately. But the mulish, obstinate male side of him insisted he stay. “I am sure we have several volumes on animal husbandry, if your goal is to bore yourself to certain, witless slumber.”

  Peering askance at her, fully aware he had a house full of guests, any one of which could also 'feel restless' and come stumbling upon them at any particular moment, he rose from his seat and moved toward where she stood poised for flight in the opened doorway. “I could recommend a particularly dreary tome, if you would like. Or perhaps you had hoped to find something much more interesting?”

  6

  Claire did not think anything he might suggest could possibly be more interesting than her peculiar reaction to his voice at the moment. He spoke and her body tingled. Her cheeks were sure to be permanently rendered the most ghastly shade of red from the many blushes his presence caused, she thought.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice low and husky, and Claire was helpless against the flood of warmth flowing through her. She felt it to her toes.

  Perhaps her reaction was due to the fact that he had come up in front of her and was now standing so near she could smell the very scent of his skin, she wondered, hoping it was so and yet knowing better, though she was loath to admit it.

  He was far too close for her comfort, especially given the battle she waged in her head at the moment. Suppressing a shiver of uncontrollable pleasure at both his nearness and the sensual level of his tone, she said, “That I should not be here with you. I—”

  “Should be tucked safely away in your bed, far from the dangers of being caught in a darkened library with a lonely old duke?” he answered for her.

  Ignoring the 'old' bit of his comment, for clearly he was far from aged, Claire stared up at him, her brow creased in a slight frown. “You are lonely, Your Grace? How could such a thing even be possible when you are surrounded by a large and loving family?”

  She could just see his brow arch upward in the darkness before he said, “Large? Yes. Loving?”

  He shrugged. “Betimes that is debatable. My sister, Phoebe, for instance, likely hates me and the ground I walk upon.”

  Claire knew she should find it odd to be discussing his family and their emotional attachments, or the lack thereof, with him in the middle of the night while she clutched her nightdress close, and yet, she found their conversation strangely normal.

  “I am quite certain your sister does not hate you, Your Grace,” she hastened to assure him. “She merely feels you are being a trifle…overprotective.”

  Lucien chuckled. “A trifle? Of course she does. But then, someone must keep an eye on her reputation while she rushes about willy-nilly and with nary a thought into yet another situation rife with possible scandal.”

  “Your sister does seem quite determined to locate her brother,” Claire offered, remembering the one conversation she had shared with the younger St. Daine earlier in the week. Her tone hinted that she
would not be adverse to learning more about the situation if he were willing to share, but he did not bother to explain his sister's preoccupation with their missing brother.

  Rather, he asked, “And you? What is it that you are determined to do, Claire?”

  Help Melisande win a proposal from you, she thought immediately, and again, she flushed hot, both from the guilt she felt at knowing being alone with him like this was both highly inappropriate and inadvisable, considering her goal (not to mention the strictures of Society) and from her reaction to his casual, almost familiar use of her given name. He must know his doing so during such a vulnerable moment for her was hardly helping matters. “You should not use my name, Your Grace. We are hardly—”

  “Intimates?” he asked, his tone ever more sultry, and Claire could not help but wonder if he drew some fiendish pleasure from watching the play of shocked emotions chase across her face. They came on so suddenly where he was concerned and there was no time for her to hide them.

  “Family,” Claire corrected, her tone filled with censure. “Or even yet friends. We've barely met, Your Grace, and I am—”

  “Terrified of the smoldering desire you feel when I am near?” he answered for her yet again, completing her sentence in a way she never would have dared, even if he had spoken the truth.

  She flushed hot, a denial rising to her lips in a furious rush even as her insides melted at his quietly voiced summation of honest fact. Her mouth dropped open to issue a scathing retort but she quickly snapped it shut in indecision. If she boldly declared herself unafraid, he might believe she was being forward. Yet, if she decried the warmth she felt when he was near, she would be lying.

  Desperately searching her thoughts for an appropriate response to his no doubt purposely scandalous question, Claire neglected to realize just how near he really was or that he meant to kiss her—until his head lowered and she felt the air between them disappear.