by Anne Gracie
He should not be staring at this girl. Not. Not. Not. There was no point, when Lady Elinore was his chosen intended. It was madness to look.
He could not stop himself.
The next question grated from his throat unwillingly. “Miss Hope who? Virtue?”
“No, their surname is Merridew. Of the Norfolk Merridews. They’re called the Virtue Sisters because all the sisters are named after virtues, or near enough.” He ticked them off on his fingers, “There’s Prudence, now Lady Carradice, and Charity, who married the Duke of Dinstable. Faith and Hope are the twins, and I believe there’s another one called Grace, also a beauty, only she’s still in the schoolroom. At any rate, someone dubbed them the Virtue Sisters, and it stuck. But Merridew is their name. The twins live with Sir Oswald during the season. Otherwise they’re with Lord and Lady Carradice or the Duke and Duchess of Dinstable.”
The string of names flowed off Sebastian’s consciousness like water off a duck’s back. Only one thing lodged in his mind. Her name was Hope. Hope Merridew. Or possibly Faith. The weight wedged in his chest came unstuck, and he found he was breathing again, raggedly.
Giles rubbed his hands together. “Well, come along then, I’ll arrange an introduction.”
Sebastian placed a restraining hand on his arm. “No, I thank you. I was merely . . . curious.”
His friend stared. “You mean you don’t want to be introduced? Demmed fine gels, the Virtue Twins.” He frowned at Sebastian’s expression. “Not the usual sort of beauty, either. You won’t find either of them blowing hot and cold, setting their suitors in a lather just for the fun of it. Miss Faith is sweet and quiet, and Miss Hope—I’m pretty certain that’s her in the azure—she’s a lively little filly, full of fun. Well you can see that for yourself.”
“I can indeed.” Sebastian’s voice was harsh with the effort of sounding indifferent. “My attention was merely caught for a moment by the way she was dancing. A certain . . . exuberance.”
“Ah yes, exuberance,” said Giles, instantly earnest. “That’s true. There was definite exuberance. But only of the Proper Sort. I thought it was very sensible exuberance. Extremely rational. Not at all frivolous. And quite dutiful in execution.”
“Stubble it, Giles!” Sebastian growled.
His friend laughed. “No, really. I think you should meet them. These girls are different; they actually do enjoy things. They don’t pretend to be bored and jaded and seen-it-all-before, like most of the others. When they like something, they show it!”
“So I see.” Sebastian watched Miss Hope Merridew stripping the willow with enthusiasm, leaving each man in the set grinning like a loon as she twirled around them and danced on.
“Well, then. Demmed refreshing, that’s what it is!”
Sebastian grimaced and said in a cold voice, “So you say. I see a girl who is very free with her smiles—bestowing them on any man in her orbit—be he old or young. I daresay that is what the ton admires.” He turned away, unable to watch her anymore. He was aware that his friend was staring at him, jaw agape, but he had to get away. She was dangerous. He could see it at a glance. She was everything he did not want—did not need in a wife. Lady Elinore Whitelaw was perfect for his needs. The sensation of being rocked off his axis would pass. He had to move on, get his breath back, allow his pulse to return to its usual steady beat. Resist the temptation. Return to his purpose.
“I say, Bastian, no! You’ve got it wrong! I didn’t mean that at all. Perfectly respectable, pretty-behaved girls. Not that sort at all—”
Sebastian held up his hand. “I meant no slur on their respectability, Giles. I am here to court Lady Elinore Whitelaw. I have no interest in spoiled beauties, accustomed to having their every whim granted. Lady Elinore is more mature and responsible than any Miss Merridew could ever be. Now, shall we move on? I gather you wish to observe the other ladies on display tonight.” He didn’t wait for his friend to respond but began to stroll around the room, breathing in slow, measured breaths, willing his racing pulse to calm.
Giles took the bait as intended. “On display?” He winced artistically and followed Sebastian, explaining in a pained voice, “I can accept your lack of subtlety—though I’m dammed certain you can be as subtle as you want when it suits you—but really Bastian—on display? It’s almost vulgar! And while you might not care about presenting yourself to the world as a crushing clod, you might consider my position a little.”
Sebastian raised a sardonic brow.
Giles continued, “I have a reputation for charm, subtlety, grace, finesse—”
“Modesty.”
“That, too. And I value my reputation!”
“Ah, well, with such grace and virtue at your fingertips, your unaccountable friendship with a great unsubtle clod from the north will be held to be a sign of depth in your nature.”
Giles chuckled, but he added in a more serious tone, “I mean it, Bas. You do need to watch that blunt tongue of yours. You will put people’s backs up unnecessarily. There is already some . . . talk about you. About where you have sprung from, speculation about your background, you know the sort of thing.”
Sebastian gave him an inscrutable look. “People will always . . . talk. The chatter of the easily bored means nothing to me.” He cocked his head. “Isn’t that the cotillion starting up? You’re engaged to dance it with Lady Elinore, aren’t you?”
Giles swore mildly and hurried across the dance floor to where Lady Elinore stood alone, a small, drab stick of a woman. Sebastian almost smiled, observing the pair joining a set; Giles all fluid grace and charm in his immaculate evening clothes, Lady Elinore all angles and frigid formality in her shapeless gray gown.
He strolled on, watching his friend try to coax conversation out of Lady Elinore as they danced. With scant success. Sebastian approved. A chattering woman was a tiresome thing.
Three more dances before the supper dance. His frown grew from the effort of preventing his gaze from returning again and again to the girl in the azure blue gown.
Chapter Two
Twice or thrice had I loved thee, before I knew thy face or name.
JOHNDONNE
“MRS. JENNER, WHO IS THAT MAN?” HOPE MERRIDEW NUDGED her chaperone, a modishly dressed, middle-aged woman.
Hope had become aware of him during the last part of the reel. She’d felt his gaze pass over her, like a physical touch, with an intensity that made her shiver.
Tall and brawny, he had the sort of hard, tough physique that made her shiver. She’d grown up under the harsh rule of her tall, powerful, insane grandfather; she would not lightly put herself in such a man’s power again. She preferred elegance and gentle manners to raw physical power.
She shivered again. Not that she was frightened—she’d grown in experience and confidence since she and her sisters had escaped from their grandfather’s violent custody, and she wasn’t easily intimidated. But there was something so . . . so particular in the way he was staring at her.
Since arriving in London, Hope had grown accustomed to being looked at, even stared at. People found twins fascinating; they were always staring and comparing to discover the similarities and differences between them. She’d outgrown the initial embarrassment of it, though her twin, Faith, still found it unnerving at times.
But this felt somehow different. As if he wasn’t looking at both of them, he was watching her.
He bent and said something to Giles Bemerton. The contrast between the two men was delicious; Mr. Bemerton, the quintessential ton beau, was all slender elegance and golden good looks. His friend, the big, enigmatic stranger, was all hawkish angles and brooding, dark intensity.
Beauty . . . and the beast. Not that he was beastly, but life had left its marks on his face; even from this distance you could see that his nose had been broken at least once. But it wasn’t his severe, dark looks that intrigued her so much, it was the way he carried himself with the bold indifference of a warrior prince in civilized climes. Not with strutting
arrogance but with quiet certainty.
She shivered again. Mr. Bemerton was much more in Hope’s style: lighthearted, charming, and funny, with all the latest on-dits.
The two men strolled on, and Hope saw she was not the only one whose eye was drawn to the tall dark man. She watched as they parted to skirt around a group of chattering girls, all in their first season. Their chatter died, and each one of the beautifully coiffed heads turned to watch him—the tall one—pass.
She’d read an account once of a tiger passing through a jungle—the jungle had fallen silent as it passed. Not a monkey, not a bird had made a sound.
She watched as he prowled on, oblivious of their interest, while behind him the girls formed an excited, whispering huddle. Hope smiled. Who was the prey here, she wondered, the chattering monkeys . . . or the tiger?
“Do you know who he is?” she asked her chaperone again.
“Hmm? Which one, my dear?” Mrs. Jenner peered vaguely around.
“The tall one over there. Dressed for a funeral instead of a ball and prowling the room with a hungry-looking scowl on his face. I don’t think I’ve seen him before.” She hadn’t. Who could forget a man like that?
“Which gentleman?” Mrs. Jenner raised her quizzing glass. “Funeral, you say? Hmph! Half the young men these days dress for funerals instead of balls. In my day they dressed as young peacocks, in satin breeches and gorgeously embroidered—oh good heavens, that man!” Mrs. Jenner started slightly as she followed the direction of her charge’s gaze. “That wretched boy, Giles Bemerton, has been introducing the fellow into all the best circles and cannot—positively will not!—be hinted out of it.”
“Why should Mr. Bemerton not introduce him?” Hope asked, intrigued.
“Shoulders like a common stevedore!” Mrs. Jenner sniffed. “No surprise there, given his background!”
As if he was aware of being the subject under discussion, the dark man turned his head slightly and looked directly at them. Directly at Hope. Not at her and her twin sister. Not around the room. Just at Hope. There was no subtlety about the look he gave her. It was a direct expression of desire. Desire for Hope.
Unable to break the power of his gaze, Hope felt a long frisson of sensation pass through her whole body.
Mrs. Jenner snapped, “Avert your gaze, if you please, my dears. That fellow is unsuited for a lady’s ballroom, let alone for a pair of beautiful unmarried girls.” She turned and bustled the girls away.
Faith winked at her twin as they were shepherded to a small alcove with tall French windows leading out to the terrace, but Hope was in no state to wink back.
That brief wordless exchange had shaken her like nothing else. He’d prowled the room like a man very certain of himself, of his place in the world, indifferent to those who surrounded him. But when he looked at Hope, she saw a kind of hunger in his eyes. A fierceness, a wanting. Directed solely at her.
It touched a part of her she never knew existed. She wanted to walk back into the ballroom, to walk right up to him, to touch his hand. She wanted to look into his eyes again and hear his voice.
Was this the thunderbolt she’d dreamed of? It couldn’t be. Fate would not be so cruel. She did not want a big, strong, tough-looking man, one who reminded her of her grandfather!
They found seats. Hope was grateful to sit down. Her knees were shaking. Mrs. Jenner sent several of the hovering young men off to fetch them glasses of ratafia, then sent them to the right-about after they had fulfilled their mission. “Leave us be for a few moments, will you, gentlemen?” she ordered. “The girls and I need to catch our breath.” She flapped her hands at the young men who’d pressed forward to talk to them and shooed them away like a flock of inquisitive geese.
From her seat in the alcove Hope watched. His height made his progress easy to follow. Mr. Bemerton greeted acquaintances here and there, introducing his friend, who uttered what appeared to be a scant greeting and then waited with an air of leashed impatience that was tangible, even from this distance.
She’d seen a tiger in a cage once, newly arrived at The Royal Exchange, pacing back and forth with just that expression, lashing his tail impatiently, indifferent to the onlookers on the outside.
Frowning, he made some comment to Mr. Bemerton, who flung back his head and laughed. The tigerish look faded, leaving an expression of ironic humor on his face. He was younger than she’d thought at first. About the same age as Giles Bemerton, she decided; not yet thirty. Odd how he’d seemed older at first, as if weighed down by something.
An interesting friendship, thought Hope. She didn’t know Mr. Bemerton very well, but he’d always seemed a lighthearted type, an entertaining rattle, as Mrs. Jenner would put it, and somewhat of a rake. She hadn’t imagined he could be on terms of friendship with someone so grim and intense-looking.
As they sipped their drinks, Hope remarked in a casual tone, “Mrs. Jenner, you must explain. Who is he? I confess I’m curious. He looks out of place in this company, but does he care? Not he!”
Mrs. Jenner sniffed, hesitated, then pronounced with genteel scorn, “He is a Mushroom.”
Hope giggled at the image of a mushroom dressed in evening clothes. “A rather large mushroom, don’t you think? He must be six feet tall.”
“Pshaw! You know what I mean—he is a parvenu, an interloper, a thrusting social climber! More, he is a Person Not Fit for a lady’s drawing room. Giles Bemerton needs a good whipping—poor boy! That devil must have a hold over him. There is no other explanation. Giles’s mother is everything that is good ton.”
“Really?” breathed Faith, entranced. “You cannot mean he has blackmailed Mr. Bemerton into taking him around and introducing him?”
Mrs. Jenner shrugged pettishly. “As to that, how should I know the sordid details? But it will be something—payment of a gambling debt or some such thing—mark my words.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Hope regarded the two men thoughtfully. There was genuine friendship there, she felt certain. And while the tall man looked as if he would not care the snap of his fingers about flouting the law, he looked too . . . too big, somehow, to stoop to blackmail. Blackmail was a weak person’s weapon. This man didn’t appear to have a weak bone in his body.
And for a man who had supposedly pushed himself into society, he made no attempt to ingratiate himself. Mushrooms and parvenus made every effort to charm. This man made no effort Hope could see to please or charm anyone. Unless he thought scowling fiercely and looking bored and impatient was charming, she thought with an inner giggle.
“What did you say his name was?”
“I didn’t.” Mrs. Jenner took a long, pointed sip of her ratafia. “Are not the decorations elegant tonight?”
“Yes, very elegant,” Hope agreed. “And his name is . . . ?” She found her chaperone’s determination to shelter them irritating in the extreme. Hope was very well aware of Great Uncle Oswald’s ambition for her and Faith to make a splendid match—preferably to a duke or a marquess—but this was their second season, and they weren’t schoolroom misses, to be sheltered from unpleasant truths.
Mrs. Jenner took out her fan and fanned herself with a faint air of desperation. “Of course it is most agreeable for the Framptons to host such a squeeze, but really, I do find this room overly warm.”
“Yes, quite warm,” Hope said affably, “but that breeze from these windows is very refreshing, is it not? I can always discover his name from someone else, you know. I am certain a dozen people would be only too happy to inform me. The ton has such a sad predilection for gossip, does it not?”
“Most reprehensible,” responded Mrs. Jenner limply. “Oh very well, his name is Reyne, Mr. Sebastian Reyne.”
Sebastian Reyne. It suited him. Big and dark and somehow . . . mysterious. “And—?” Hope prompted.
Mrs. Jenner rolled her eyes. “He has sprung from nowhere, has plenty of money—though the source of his wealth is . . . muddy.”
“He has no family, then?”
>
Mrs. Jenner pursed her lips. “As to that, the Reyne family is well-known, but they don’t recognize this fellow.”
Hope frowned. “You mean he is illegitimate? If that’s true, it’s unfortunate, but I don’t see that he can be blamed for it. It is no reason why he should be shunned, for there are any number of people we know who are not their father’s true child—it is an open secret.”
Mrs. Jenner was scandalized. “Hush! Do not think to compare genteel people of the ton with such as he! All I said was that the Reynes do not know him. Anyone can use a name. Whether they have a right to it is another matter.”
“Well, why is he so undesirable, then?” her twin sister asked. “He does look rather sinister. That black frown is quite intimidating. Is that what you mean?”
Sinister was putting it a bit strongly, Hope thought. Intimidating was right. He looked at her as if he could just stride over, pick her up, and carry her off.
She wondered briefly what it would be like to be picked up and carried off by such a man. She wouldn’t like it, she decided.
Mrs. Jenner shook her head. “I’m not basing my opinion on just his looks—though I do agree, my dear, he is quite ugly.”
“Ugly!” Hope exclaimed involuntarily. “I don’t think he’s ugly at all. Rather severe-looking, to be sure, but there is a certain . . . masculine strength about him that some might find appealing.” She caught the surprised looks of both her sister and her chaperone and broke off, flushing self-consciously. “Not me! You know perfectly well, Faith, he is not my type. But you cannot deny he is interesting.”
Interesting was an understatement. It was riveting the way he’d watched her, indirectly, but with force. And when he looked her full in the face, the expression in his eyes took her breath away.
Hunger such as she’d never seen in a man before.
She took a sip of her drink, hoping the slight tremble in her fingers didn’t show. It was very confusing.
