by Anne Gracie
“And she is older than you by ten years at least.”
“Only six.” Sebastian sipped his brandy. “In any case, a man looks for maturity in a bride.”
Giles gave him a look of disbelief. “She has eschewed marriage all this time, and yet she must have had offers—despite her lack of looks—for her father would have left her well provided for, even though he was estranged from the mother. Why would she change her mind now?”
“She has no choice. Her mother died last year, leaving her little to live on. Her father’s fortune comes to her only after she has been married for three years.”
Giles pursed his lips. “I see. But you don’t need a fortune, so why shackle yourself to a cold little fish like Lady Elinore? D’you know, I danced with her once. She made it abundantly clear she found me repugnant! Me!” Giles glanced indignantly down at his well-formed person.
Sebastian suppressed a grin. With Giles’s golden good looks, few women would find him repugnant. He said with dry amusement, “Another point in her favor. She shows great discrimination.”
“Bah! She is a complete eccentric! Her only passion is for good works—museums and destitute brats and charitable causes.” Giles shuddered eloquently. “It is madness, I tell you. Why would anyone choose to take a repressed little stick like Lady Elinore Whitelaw to wife, when there are plenty of prettier and more cheerful girls available on the marriage mart?”
Sebastian had engineered a meeting with Lady Elinore the previous week and found her small, quiet, and unremarkable. They’d discussed her charitable works, and Lady Elinore’s responses had confirmed his choice. She had devoted much of her life to working with orphan girls. She would do nicely. “Stubble it, Giles. My mind is made up. Prettier, more cheerful girls do not have the . . . the fortitude and experience a woman will need to deal with my sisters.”
Giles made one last effort. “But you’ll have nothing in common with her, Bastian. She’s plain as a pikestaff! One of those earnest, bespectacled bluestockings.”
“I don’t care. I’m not looking for beauty in a wife. My sisters need stability and a sense of family. I cannot give it to them because they cannot trust me; therefore I must take a wife, and Lady Elinore is the kind of—”
“What do you mean, they cannot trust you? You’re the most trustworthy fellow I’ve ever—”
Sebastian cut him off quietly. “Thank you, but trust is not a reasoned emotion. Their . . . experiences have made them unable to trust me.”
“I’m sorry, Bastian. I know how much you care about those girls.”
Sebastian shrugged awkwardly. Nobody would ever know how much his little sisters’ lack of trust hurt him. It did no good to repine. “The damage was done before I recovered them. But I won’t give up on them. Lady Elinore is a woman of sense who places a high value on duty, and her experience with destitute children means that she will be less easily shocked than most.” He sighed. “I have it on the authority of no fewer than seven governesses that Cassie is particularly shocking.”
“Sense and duty!” Giles snorted. “What about love?”
“Love is a lie told to children.”
“No, it’s a game, a delightful game.”
Sebastian snorted cynically.
“And you used to be such a romantic.” Giles clenched his fist. “I wish to God you’d never met the damned Ire-tons. That witch and her father—”
Sebastian cut him off, saying mildly but with a thread of steel, “When speaking of my late father-in-law and my late wife, do so with respect, if you please. If not for them, I would still be living in poverty, my sisters would be lost forever, and none of this would be possible. One must take the rough with the smooth.”
“I know, but still, what they did to you—”
“Yes, and I am such a delicate flower. Now drop it, Giles.”
Giles gave him a frustrated look. “Lord, but you’re stubborn.”
Sebastian smiled. “I know. And you are very good to put up with me. Now, may I rely on you to assist me through the shoals of the ton?”
Giles laughed. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
“Thank you. I wonder why that doesn’t fill me with confidence.” Sebastian set down the empty glass and stretched. “I must go. I have an early engagement in the morning.” He pulled a wry face. “Dancing lessons. Some finicky old French fellow. Wears rouge!”
Giles gave a shout of laughter. “I’ve a good mind to come around and watch!”
Sebastian gave him a dry look. “Do so at your peril, Bemerton.”
“All the world is here,” Giles assured him as they entered the Frampton House ballroom some ten days later. He immediately began to point out well-known people. Sebastian had no interest in them. He was here for one reason only.
“And Lady Elinore?” He’d calculated that it would take six, possibly eight significant meetings before it would be acceptable for him to propose marriage.
“Yes, yes, she’s over there,” said Giles impatiently. “Though I don’t know why she bothers, the way she dresses.”
“Good, then let us waste no more time.” He made a bee-line across the room in the direction of Lady Elinore.
“Subtlety, my dear Bastian. A little subtlety, I beg of you,” Giles complained in an undervoice as Sebastian towed him through the crowd. “I have a reputation as a person of some finesse, I’ll have you know! Slow down!”
Sebastian grinned, but his pace didn’t slacken. He wanted to get this courtship over as quickly as possible and get back to what he knew best—work.
“Lady Elinore.” He bowed. From the corner of his eye, he saw Giles give him a look that recalled their earlier conversation and, without thought, Sebastian’s gaze dropped. Giles was right; she did not appear to have bosoms. He said hurriedly, “You look charming tonight, Lady Elinore.”
Both she and Giles gave him a doubtful look. She was a small woman, very pale and thin, with mouse-colored hair scraped back in a tight knot and a kind of cap thing pinned to it. Tonight she was dressed in a plain gown of dark gray bombazine. The gray fabric leached all the color from her skin, and the severe, high cut of the gown did nothing to soften her scrawny frame. She wore no jewelry.
Sebastian shrugged mentally. It didn’t matter whether the dress suited her or not. Women preferred compliments to truth. At least Thea had. Besides, he hated this sort of gathering, was absolutely out of his depth with the sort of light banter that Giles was so good at. A compliment or two could stretch a long way, he’d found.
“How do you do, Mr. Reyne,” Lady Elinore murmured. “I wondered if you’d be here tonight.” She glanced to his left with a faint look of inquiry.
“Ah, yes, my friend Mr. Giles Bemerton. Bemerton, I believe you have met Lady Elinore before.”
Lady Elinore inclined her head regally toward Giles and said in a cool voice, “I don’t believe so, although I suspect our families are connected in some fashion. You are one of the Staffordshire Bemertons, are you not?”
Clearly Lady Elinore had no recollection of the dance that rankled so in Giles’s memory. Sebastian watched his friend master his chagrin and bow gracefully. “Quite so. Delighted to meet you, Lady Elinore.”
Fearing further conversational fencing, Sebastian engaged Lady Elinore for the next available country dance and the supper dance also. Giles, prompted, he said later, because he didn’t want his friend to be seen to be courting a complete wallflower, engaged her for a cotillion and a waltz. Sebastian thanked him gravely.
Sebastian paced with repressed impatience around the edge of the dance floor. Courtship was a tiresome business. He’d danced the first of his dances with Lady Elinore and was now awaiting the supper dance. Unfortunately, that was some time away. He was fed up with the sight of the beau monde enjoying itself.
The beau monde—the beautiful people. People who had nothing better to do than spend their time enhancing their looks with cosmetics and jewels. For them, clothes were adornments, designed to flatter their sh
ape, not garments to protect a body from the cold and rain.
He watched them dancing, circling, laughing, and drinking, and his mood darkened. Beautiful. Frivolous. Not a care in the world. Lives of froth and bubble. They had no idea of the struggle for existence that most of their fellow humans experienced. Their bodies were well-nourished and well-formed, not starved and crippled by long hours of debilitating, repetitive factory work. Or crippled fighting for king and country, like Morton Black.
Sebastian didn’t belong here. He wasn’t one of the beau monde. He hadn’t lived a charmed life, as most of them had. He glanced at his scarred hands, at the two misshapen fingers on his left hand. Giles had advised him to wear gloves at all times, but Sebastian hadn’t. He wouldn’t disguise what he was.
The sooner he got this courtship out of the way and returned to the life he understood, the better. His gaze wandered idly over the colorful throng. And halted, riveted.
He grabbed Giles’s arm. “Who is that?” He breathed the question, staring across the ballroom floor, transfixed.
Giles heaved a sigh of relief. “Finally! Er, I mean, excellent. I knew the Frampton ball would yield up some entertainment. There’s dozens of prett—er, dutiful girls of sense here. Not that you’re interested in anyone other than Lady Elinore, I understand that. But it doesn’t hurt to look. Which one has caught your eye?”
Which one? Sebastian thought dazedly. There was only one. Giles might think there were dozens of pretty girls in the room, and he was right. But this girl was not merely pretty; she was purely dazzling. She stood out from the others like a star fallen into a set of candles.
She swung around on her partner’s arm, smiling, and for an instant she looked directly into Sebastian’s eyes. His breath caught in his chest. Of medium height, she was slender and lissome and perfectly shaped. Her hair was gold—not yellow or flaxen, but gold, spun fine and clustering around her head in soft curls. Her skin glowed. He could not see the precise color of her eyes from this distance, but they were large and, he thought, blue. As for her face, he had no words to describe it; it was simply the most beautiful face he had ever seen.
An angel’s face, only without the smugness and artificial calm of the painted angels he’d seen. This angel glowed with life, with delight and mischief, with the joy of living. And of dancing.
A blind man could tell that she lived to dance. This was but a simple country reel, its movements so familiar as to become rote to most people, but she—grace personified—brought a fresh delight to the dance that was infectious.
Sebastian watched, fascinated. He’d thought dancing a waste of time up till now. But this was not the rigid performance of steps and movements he thought of as dancing. This was something . . . magical.
She laughed up at her partner with unaffected gaiety, and he beamed back at her. Proprietorially. She twirled on to the next partner in the dance, and her smile took on a fresh warmth. Sebastian swallowed. To be the recipient of such a smile . . .
Her new partner was a spry, elegant old gentleman well past his sixtieth year. What had he done to deserve such . . . such warm intimacy from this glorious creature?
Sebastian tugged absently on his neckcloth, crumpling one of its severe, perfect folds.
The old fellow said something, and the girl laughed again. Sebastian was certain he could hear it, even though the room was filled with noise. Her laugh would stand out, he knew, like water in a fountain, like raindrops on diamonds . . .
It called to him. He stamped on the thought.
She was a belle of the beau monde, pampered and indulged and sheltered from all the evil of the world. She was created for pleasure and joy. He could tell just by looking at her that she expected to dance her way through life. And so she would.
Sebastian had spent most of his life in noise and smoke and filth and hardship. Even if he was rich now, his life was still in that place, not this. The only reason he had entered this bright, tinsel world was to get the sort of wife his sisters needed. Not to lose himself in foolish, impossible dreams.
He needed a woman of fortitude, one with experience of the seamier side of life, a woman whose strong sense of duty would carry her over the rough patches of life with him.
This joyous, perfect little sprite was not for the likes of him.
One did not purchase a spirited Thoroughbred and hitch it to a coal truck. If he took her into his grim world, the joy and vivacity would be crushed out of her. He’d watched his mother die of slow disillusionment. No man could live through that twice. Certainly not Sebastian. He had enough guilt to live with.
Still, it did no harm just to watch her dancing. If a cat could look at a queen, Sebastian Reyne could look at an angel.
She skipped through the movements of the dance, so light on her toes the old gentleman beamed and huffed to keep up with her. She seemed to notice it, too, and suddenly feinted sideways in a teasing movement filled with charm and mischief. The old man chuckled. Sebastian couldn’t help but chuckle, too.
The sound jolted him to awareness. He was standing on the steps leading down to the ballroom, blocking the entrance. A huge room filled with aristocratic strangers, and here he was, standing stock-still, grinning like a fool across a room crammed with England’s finest, at a girl he’d never met and couldn’t know.
Grinning like a fool.
Sebastian coughed, straightened his cravat, and hurriedly moved down the steps.
Giles led him to a raised alcove adjoining the dance floor. “We can see just as much here.” He snapped his fingers at a passing waiter and ordered drinks, then returned to the question at hand. “Now, which filly caught your eye?” He raised his quizzing glass and peered. “Ah, of course, one of the Virtue Twins no doubt. You couldn’t miss them. Lovely gals. Like peas in a pod, almost. Mirror images of each other, they are, in every respect.”
Sebastian shook his head brusquely. His—the girl he’d noticed—was unique. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It was a moment of curiosity only. You know I’m only here for Lady Elinore.”
Giles took no notice. “The curious thing is, one of ’em’s left-handed while the other one’s right-handed—though I can never remember which is which. The left-handed one don’t like it known. But it’s personality rather than looks that’s the key to their difference, I’m told. Miss Faith is the quiet one, and Miss Hope is the merry one. Not that I’m particularly closely acquainted, mind. Respectable gals on the search for a husband—not my style, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Look, it doesn’t matter, Giles. I’m not here to play the field. I’ve made my choice,” Sebastian’s voice was firm.
Giles continued. “Is it the twin dancing beside the long meg in yellow, or the one next to Lady Augusta—the little round dumpling in purple silk? A charmin’ old lady, Lady Augusta. Sir Oswald Merridew, the old chap in the set, is smitten with her, but she’s led him a merry dance these last two years.”
Sebastian grunted in what he hoped was a semblance of polite interest as Giles rattled on. He couldn’t care less about the little fat lady in purple or whoever might or might not be smitten by her. He wanted to know the name of the glorious creature in blue. He could have said, “The one in blue,” of course, but somehow he just couldn’t say it aloud.
It would . . . mean something. A declaration of some sort. Which was ridiculous. He didn’t want it to mean anything. He wasn’t interested. He was just . . . looking. Filling in time until the supper dance. He tugged on his neckcloth again, and the words just came out. “In blue.”
“A Virtue Twin then—they’re both in blue. I can’t fault your taste, Bas. Glorious creatures, both of them. Gloriously sensible, serious, and dutiful, I mean!” Giles amended hastily. “So, which twin is it?”
Sebastian frowned. She was a twin? He examined the others in the set and realized there was another girl who looked a lot like his joyous sprite. But she didn’t glow with beauty.
Giles nudged him impatiently in the ribs. “Azure blue dr
ess or celestial blue?”
Sebastian gave his friend a look. “What the devil do I know what sort of blue it is? Blue is blue!” It was a lie. He could probably name the ingredients of the dye vat the fabric came from, but he wasn’t going to say so. Giles wouldn’t understand, and anyway, it wasn’t important. All he knew or cared was that the delicate azure silk gown swirled and clung to her lithe young body in a way that made his throat dry and his heart pound. He swallowed thickly.
Giles shook his head and said severely. “If you’re going to enter the ton, my dear Bastian, you will need to learn these things.”
“I’m courting a woman, not setting up as a milliner!” Sebastian growled. “And besides, I have no intention of entering the ton. Once I marry Lady Elinore, I’ll be able to put all this nonsense behind me.”
Giles shook his head in mock sorrow. “You poor, deluded fellow. To begin with, you don’t know that Lady Elinore will accept you.” He held up his hand to block Sebastian’s retort. “And even if she does, you will still need to learn to make polite conversation with females, for Lady Elinore is a female, even if odd. And so are your sisters—female, I mean. And they will have friends. Take it from me, these little things are very important to ladies, bless their prett—er, eccentric, dutiful, and sensible heads. Now, which girl in blue was it?”
There was a long pause. Finally Sebastian made himself say it. “The one twirling just now with the old fellow.”
Giles looked. “Aha! Azure blue. The old fellow is Sir Oswald Merridew, and his partner is his great-niece. Miss Hope, I think.”
Sebastian frowned, ignoring Giles’s nonsense. “Mishope?” What sort of a name was that? The ton was prone to bestowing nicknames on people, he knew, but mishope?
“Yes, or Miss Faith. I did tell you I get the twins mixed up.”
“Oh. I see.” Miss Hope. Her name was Hope. Or possibly Faith. With an effort, Sebastian dragged his gaze off the sprite in the blue silk gown and glanced at her twin. She was very pretty, but not a golden sprite.
Miss Hope—if that was who she was—seemed to glow from within. She so bubbled with life and joie de vivre, it was almost tangible.
