No, I shall enjoy tonight and be a proper lady—and reassure Mr. Rutherford and myself that I am capable of self-control.
She took her brother’s arm as they followed several guests through the large open door into Mr. Rand Bascombe’s grand London home. The house was finer than Grace had expected with ornately styled wrought-iron banisters setting off the main staircase centered in the foyer. It led up to the first floor landing where the reception line was greeting guests before they entered the salon.
She searched the guests on the stairs as they handed over their wraps and coats, wondering if Mr. Rutherford was already among them. She silently recited again the temperate greeting she’d been practicing for him.
‘Good evening, Mr. Rutherford. How different you appear than when I saw you last at the horse fair!’ There! That will serve to remind him of our conspiracy and impress him with my composure and indifference to—
“Grace?” Sterling squeezed her elbow. “Did you not hear what Lady Pringley said to you?”
“What?” Grace abruptly came round, blushing at her lapse of attention. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Your Ladyship! Was it a compliment or a question?”
Sterling’s eyes flashed with suppressed fury before Lady Pringley replied, “What a cheeky thing, you are! It was neither.”
“Her Ladyship was commenting that she had never seen you before and asked for your name,” Sterling supplied, openly displeased.
“Grace Porter, Your Ladyship,” Grace offered, adding a wobbly curtsey for good measure. “I was…distracted at the sights and guests’ finery. It is my first ball and I meant no offense.”
“May I present myself? I am Sterling Porter. A close associate of Mr. Bascombe’s and assistant to Lord Waverly’s man at the—“
“No,” the older woman said with a sniff, cutting him off with disinterest as she turned back to address Grace directly. “Despite the fact that you are clearly too old to play the debutante, I hope you enjoy your evening, Miss Porter. I suspect your foray into society and our midst will be brief in light of your manners, but what a pretty thing you are! I have always been a great follower of fashion and had intended to compliment your gown.”
“Th-thank you?” Grace wasn’t sure whether to cry or laugh.
“You are most welcome,” Lady Pringley pronounced before turning on her slippered heels and sailing up the grand staircase to cut to the head of the queue of guests and make her way inside the salon doors.
Grace smiled. “I nearly enjoyed that.”
Sterling leaned in, his voice as cold as the hiss of a snake against the shell of her ear. “Goddamn it, Grace, that is precisely the sort of behavior you will forfeit instantly! Pay attention and keep your mouth shut for the remainder of the night or I will drag you out of here!”
She gripped her fan so tightly her knuckles turned white. Grace knew his anger was fueled by Lady Pringley’s dismissal but she had no intention of giving him an excuse to ruin the evening; or denying herself the sight of Mr. Michael Rutherford in evening clothes. “As you wish.”
She dutifully took his arm again and allowed him to escort her up the staircase toward their host and hostess.
“Ah, here is our host,
“Porter!” Mr. Rand Bascombe exclaimed. “I don’t remember seeing your name on the guest list.”
Grace nearly gasped at the icy loathing in the man’s face and began to wonder if a retreat at Lady Pringley’s insults might have been the wiser course. What in the world are we doing here, Sterling?
Sterling smiled unfazed. “I was sure your invitation was quite deliberate. What is the saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
Rand smiled in return, without a trace of warmth. “Ah, yes! So right! How useful it is to be able to point you out to a few of our mutual acquaintances to make sure they have a face to go with the name. For I can assure you, you have been quite the subject of so many of my recent conversations.”
“How appropriate,” Sterling countered easily. “But let us talk later when you can tear yourself away from your wife’s party. May I present my younger sister, Grace Porter?”
Rand gave her a cursory look but held out his hand as etiquette required. “A pleasure.”
She took his hand and curtsied. “What a lovely home you have.” A safe enough comment, let’s hope.
“Yes.” He turned to his wife and relinquished Grace’s fingers. “May I introduce you to Mrs. Bascombe? Miss Grace Porter, my love.”
“Porter?” Mrs. Bascombe’s eyebrows arched and her look of assessment was far more thorough and judging than her husband’s as she possessively seized Rand’s arm. She was a handsome woman in her mid-forties, a well-preserved beauty though the effect was spoiled by her haughty expression. A tiara of small diamonds and seed pearls set off her dark hair and reminded Grace of a glittering spider on top of her head. “Ah, yes! My husband speaks so often of your brother, I couldn’t resist meeting the infamous Sterling Porter but his sister as well? What an unexpected surprise!”
“Really?” Grace blurted out then pressed her lips together tightly. “I’ll have to ask him how he earned his infamy when we get home.”
Sterling cleared his throat. “Yes, later. Come, Grace. You don’t want to miss the start of the dancing and we must find your Mr. Rutherford.”
“Who?” Rand asked sharply.
“No one of your acquaintance, Bascombe. But a special guest I’m sure you’ll thank me for including in the night’s festivities.” Sterling nodded in a mock bow and led Grace away from their hosts and into the salon.
She had no choice but to go with him into the crush and the noise. Once again, Grace was impressed by the rich details of the house. The room radiated wealth with its ornate marble floors and painted ceilings; gilt arches soared across the vaulted space and defied description. The writer her in her took note of every detail, greedily storing up each flash of color and striking chord of conversation. The furniture had been cleared from the large narrow salon; a theatre created for dancing filled with guests milling about in lively chatter awaiting the start of the music. The gallery above was lined with a narrow balcony and musician’s loft, the curtains drawn back to reveal a small ensemble tuning up their instruments.
Within seconds, she knew that Michael was not there. He’d have stood out among any crowd and disappointment lashed at her frayed confidence. I feel as welcome as a rag lady at a coronation—please, Michael. Do not let me face this alone!
“Is that Sterling Porter, I spy?” a sultry voice carried over the din and Grace watched in astonishment as the most beautiful woman she had ever seen strolled toward them.
“Madame Pierre! I had hoped to find you here!” Sterling said, bowing at the waist, then taking the woman’s gloved hand to kiss it. “You dull the company with your shining presence!”
Madame Orphée Pierre! Confined as I am, I know who she is!
The papers were full of scandalous references to the famed courtesan who was the current favorite of the Prince Regent and of her incomparable wit and sensuality. Grace watched in awe at the effects of the lady’s irresistible charms. A bubble of overtly curious eavesdroppers formed around them and even the thin-lipped few who made a pretense of disapproval at Madame Pierre’s appearance among their moral ranks craned their necks to get a better look. She was rumored to be a Creole and as exotic to the Ton as a bird of paradise. Her skin was the color of café au latté and her eyes were like emeralds. Her green emerald silk dress’s décolletage bordered on indecent but it was the height of fashion. Around her neck, she wore what was unmistakably her latest gift from her royal lover, a choker of solid emeralds and diamonds that engulfed her delicate throat.
Grace couldn’t determine what was more shocking; that the Madame Pierre she’d read of was standing within arm’s reach or that the woman knew her brother so well. She tried not to gawk at Sterling’s flowery speech and waited for an introduction or inclusion that never actually came. Instead she was a forgotten witne
ss to their conversation.
“I see so little of you these days, Mr. Porter! You naughty man!”
“If only…I had the time I wished to attend more social functions, Madame Pierre. Alas, I am chained to my desk at the East India.”
Her gaze narrowed but she kept smiling. “I would speak to you privately, sir.”
“Of course! Of course!” Sterling quickly agreed, then drew her off to a corner for an intimate conversation abandoning his sister to stand alone near the ballroom’s doorway.
She opened her mouth to protest but shut it quickly as nearby guests began to stare at her with speculation and open snicker at her predicament.
Please God…let Mr. Rutherford come as he’s promised.
And before I burst into tears.
At the sight of Madame Pierre, Sterling was sure that it was another tangible sign that his luck had truly changed. He had been striving to cultivate his acquaintance with her for months and after a few overt mentions of a certain glittering property he was about to acquire, it appeared he finally had her full attention.
After all, despite his bravado with the East India, he was clever enough to engineer a secondary plan. He’d leveraged himself to the hilt and with the numerous broken promises he’d made, Sterling was sure it was to his advantage to have another investor who might make good on his debts and advance his cause.
He expected Grace to obediently wait for him and didn’t care if she didn’t. Madame Pierre was far more important at the moment than a spinster sister who was more trouble than she was worth.
“I had begun to suspect you were avoiding me, Mr. Porter,” Orphée said. “You whet my interest and then I hear nothing from you…”
“I apologize. It’s no small thing to offend a dear lady like yourself but neither is it a small thing to deliver something that a queen would dream of holding—and might go a lifetime without seeing anything remotely close to its like.” He kept his voice low. “As I said before, you are not the only interested party and I have to be cautious. I don’t want them to know that I’m considering other offers.”
Orphée gasped, openly intrigued. “I have a fondness for…regal trinkets, Mr. Porter.”
“And I have a fondness for rare beauty which has led to my current dilemma,” he sighed. “If the others pay me, I will have no choice but to honor my agreement with them and hand it over—regretfully, of course.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Accept no payment, Mr. Porter! Send me a note with the price that would ease your conscience and win me my prize. I will see to the rest.”
“Thank you, Madame,” he said, taking her hand to kiss it. “I am another willing slave to your charms.”
She laughed, a pretty peal of music. “What a delightful thought! A stable of men to do my bidding! But as you know, my heart is secured for now so I will merely say, thank you.”
She left him to head into the salon, the crowd parting in front of her as if she were a great ship cutting through a storm. He watched until her emerald swathed figure was lost in the crowd and then finally recalled his sister.
“I see you’ve obeyed me for once,” he noted dryly as he returned to her side.
“I see you’ve forgotten that a woman cannot walk across a ball room unescorted without raising a few eyebrows,” she responded pointedly looking in the direction that Madame Pierre had taken. “I’m trying to behave, sir.”
Sterling had to bite his tongue, then smiled at the irony. He had in her in hand and just in time. Just in time to potentially not need her at all. Rutherford was a pawn he’d thought to require as leverage tonight to make his point, but now that he had two “queens” on the board, he felt untouchable.
Rutherford will give me what I want and I may commission his death for my own amusement…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Michael found her quickly, the robin’s egg blue shimmer of her dress drawing his eyes. He was lamentably late and wary of the reception waiting for him but there was nothing to be done except to bravely waste his second official apology and pray things went smoothly.
Whispers coalesced around him as he moved through the crowd and Michael did his best to pretend he was deaf.
‘My God, he’s so tall!’
‘A pretty brute, eh?’
‘What a sight! Does anyone know him?’
‘Look at that gentleman, my dear…what do you think? How tall is he?’
Michael’s jaw tightened. He was shy of seven feet but just barely and he hated the gauntlet of stares and whispers. Damn it, as if being tall were akin to having a horn growing out of your forehead!
Apparently Bascombe had invited three times the number of guests his ballroom could comfortably hold and Michael was cursing the man within twenty steps of struggling not to step on anyone’s toes and avoiding the shorter patrons’ treacherous elbows or emphatic hand gestures. Ashe might want to wax poetic about his stature but he hadn’t faced that particular danger to a man’s vulnerable parts…
He was blocked for a few seconds behind a tight clutch of men in conversation too distracted to notice him.
“Their election will decide it and then it’s to come to a civil war! Over the obvious immoralities of slavery as if they alone can—“
“It’s a fight about their government’s structure, Mr. Hodge! Their states apparently feel it’s tyrannical to have their local laws dictated to them by a remote authority.”
“There’s an old story,” another man said with a laugh. “Since when have the American Colonies ever enjoyed being subject to authority, Mr. Mitchell?”
“Sir Yeigh, you are too witty! I say we stay out of it when it comes, let them finish the nonsense in the course of a few weeks and enjoy better cotton prices!”
Michael cleared his throat and was rewarded by all three men turning to give him startled looks. “Coming through, gentlemen. Pardon me.”
They parted and he began to celebrate that he was nearly halfway to his goal when a very different obstacle materialized in his path. Sterling stepped in front of him holding two filled punch glasses and then stopped.
“You look like a man facing a cannonade.”
Michael didn’t bother to deny the obvious. “Enjoying my discomfort, are you?”
Sterling smiled. “I might be. Only because it is astonishing to see a man of your strength and size so rattled by the sight of a few fluttering fans and silken skirts. It’s a ballroom, Mr. Rutherford, not a battlefield.”
“That depends on your vantage point, Mr. Porter,” Michael said, straightening his shoulders and stiffening his spine. Hating Sterling was easy but keeping his guard up while Grace stood nearby, so lovely in her glittering gown with her shoulders bared was proving difficult. He wanted to follow the cat and mouse of Sterling’s banter and hold his own. But the orchestra was beginning to tune up their instruments and an icy dread growing inside of his stomach presented a more immediate threat.
A footman came up to Sterling’s elbow and whispered in his ear, ending momentarily, his pleasure at seeing Rutherford so off balance.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ve been called away,” Sterling said without preamble and shoved the punch glasses into Michael’s hands. “You don’t mind keeping Grace company do you, Mr. Rutherford, while I pay my respects?”
What? It was an abrupt shift and an unexpected request. “I don’t mind, Porter, and I’m not one to mince over etiquette but without a chaperone wouldn’t you rather—“
“What could possibly be inappropriate in the favor? Especially since you are a trusted friend and associate, Mr. Rutherford, and a man who spent time with me in India, yes?”
Michael grit his teeth to keep a sarcastic snort from slipping past his lips. Go on, Porter. Overestimate your power and see how far the game gets you. “It’s an odd habit you have of leaving your sister’s care in my hands and wandering away.”
“Nothing’s odd in trusting my instincts. Besides,” Sterling said as he adjusted his cuffs, “ I doubt you’d harm he
r.” Sterling shifted so that his back was to his sister, his voice lowering so that only Michael could hear him. “Even if you thought it would destroy me, Rutherford.”
Sterling walked away before he could answer and Michael tracked his retreat until his gaze fell onto Grace who was looking at him with open relief and a familiar joy that made his chest ache. The crush faded and he swallowed the irony that a man who could follow a single sparrow through an oak forest could lose his way so quickly. Grace was in his sights and Michael sighed as her beauty inevitably blinded him to everything else.
The footman led Sterling upstairs away from the din of the party to Rand’s private study and he went in alone. Five others were already waiting in the dim quiet where a single candelabra illuminated the space, and Rand Bascombe had notably given up the chair behind his desk to stand; a sign that even in his own home he wasn’t the dominant force in the room.
Not in this gathering.
God help me, but this cliché of meeting in shadows is beginning to wear on my patience…
It was a dull room with one wall effectively lined with leather-bound books as if to clarify its purpose. Sterling sniffed at the notion that Bascombe could reel off three titles with his eyes closed if he were challenged to it. But his rival had openly campaigned for Sterling’s destruction, and he knew better than to underestimate a wounded adversary.
The Jaded have taught me that, haven’t they?
“Here he is, at last!” Bascombe said. “The source of so much misery!”
Sterling made a mock bow. “You’re not blaming me for your recent misfortunes, are you Bascombe?” He straightened, putting his hands behind his back like a soldier facing a drum trial. “If I made a mistake it was in sharing my knowledge of the diamond with you far too early only to have you run off, half-cocked, to make a try for it yourself! It was mine! My scheme! You tried to make all of them believe that you were the mastermind to pull it off and it was your bungled hands that alerted the Jaded and drew this whole thing out!”
Desire Wears Diamonds Page 15
