The Hero Least Likely

by Darcy Burke

  “No laudanum. I’d as soon not dull my senses.” The earl smoothed the lap robe that covered his legs, looking amused. “That pretty young lady is calling you.”

  “What pretty young lady?”

  “That one.” Lincolnshire motioned with his head. “Lady Corinna.”

  Corinna. Though London was certainly home to more than one Corinna, when Sean turned to look, he already knew what he would see: shining dark hair and stunning blue eyes.

  Begorrah, he’d met another member of the aristocracy, after all!

  “Mr. Hamilton!” she gushed as she approached, making him realize she’d already called out “Mr. Hamilton!” several times. He’d known he would forget to answer to the weasel’s name. “What a pleasure it is to see you again!”

  “Again?” Lincolnshire asked.

  “I met your illustrious nephew in the British Museum,” she enthused. “But when I went to introduce him to my sisters, he was gone!” She turned to a girl and a woman who had followed her. “Here he is at last, the talented and reclusive John Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton, this is my sister, Lady Stafford, and her mother-in-law, Lady Cavanaugh.”

  Both ladies curtsied. Lady Cavanaugh looked kind and motherly. Lady Stafford was pretty like her sister, but she was petite where Corinna was shapely.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not Mr. Hamilton.” Sean turned to Lord Lincolnshire. “Tell them, Uncle.”

  The earl’s eyes danced; clearly he was enjoying this bit of subterfuge. “Of course you’re Mr. Hamilton.” His papery lips curved into a smile as he focused on the three ladies, making Sean imagine he must have been a bit of a flirt back in the day. “But he’s Sean Hamilton,” he told the ladies. “Sean, not John. My other nephew.”

  Sean had never in his life heard anything less convincing.

  Lady Cavanaugh gave Lincolnshire’s shoulder a sympathetic pat. “I know you’re not feeling yourself these days, my lord, but you’ve only one nephew.”

  “I may have lost the use of my legs, but I assure you, dear lady, I haven’t lost my mind along with them.” He turned to Sean with an unapologetic grin. “I’m afraid our ruse didn’t work.”

  “I knew it!” Corinna exclaimed loudly enough to wake the dead. Heads snapped round to hear. “You are John Hamilton!”

  Whispers ricocheted about the room.

  “John Hamilton?”

  “The John Hamilton?”

  The whispers became a buzz. “John Hamilton!”

  “It’s John Hamilton!”

  Moving behind Lincolnshire where the earl couldn’t see him, Sean looked straight at Corinna and shook his head wildly. But she only frowned in confusion, and he was too late anyway. A matron was already waddling over, dragging a shy, marriage-aged daughter by the hand.

  “Lord Lincolnshire, may I beg an introduction to your esteemed nephew?”

  Another matron seemed to appear from nowhere. “Is this your heir, Lord Lincolnshire?”

  A third matron shoved in front of her. “Mr. Hamilton, my Matilda is a diamond of the first water.”

  Lincolnshire seemed to puff up like a peacock, albeit a seated one. “Our secret is out.” Pride was obvious in his tone. “I’m pleased to have you all meet the next Lord Lincolnshire. My nephew, Mr. John Hamilton.”

  Sean cringed as more matchmaking mamas came out of the woodwork, their eligible daughters in tow. Corinna disappeared, or maybe she was swept away by the rush. He was surrounded, pinned to Lincolnshire’s side, engulfed in a sea of beady eyes, ingratiating smiles, and fancy, fluttering silk fans.

  He’d never endured so much giggling in all his life.

  Or so much small talk. The endless parade of young misses talked at him for hours (at least it felt like hours), while he helplessly cast about for some means of escape. If only he could stick his fingers in his ears and sing at the top of his lungs like he used to when Deirdre wouldn’t shut up…

  “Sean.”

  Feeling a tug on his tailcoat, he leaned down with a sigh of relief. “Uncle, you must be exhausted. I’ll take you home.”

  “Balderdash. I haven’t felt so energetic in weeks. I wish to see you dance with one of these lovelies.”

  The mercenary mamas started shoving their charges Sean’s way.

  “I couldn’t choose,” he protested politely. But he wasn’t feeling polite at all. What he felt instead was a rising panic in his chest.

  He didn’t know how to dance. Not like the English, anyway.

  His mother had dragged him to many a village ceili. A vicar’s family should be social, she’d always say. But he’d never enjoyed dancing. And more to the point, Irish dance parties featured jigs and reels. No ceili band ever played a waltz.

  And Lady Partridge seemed quite partial to waltzes. The last dance had been a waltz, a waltz was playing now, and Sean would lay odds a waltz would come next.

  He tried for a winning smile. “Besides, I should stay with you, Uncle.”

  “I think not.” One of the earl’s grizzled brows went up. “I’ve a mind to see you settled before I die.”

  Settled? Posing as Lincolnshire’s nephew was bad enough—Sean would go only so far to placate the man. And a wedding went rather beyond that boundary.

  Miles beyond that boundary.

  And then he remembered.

  “I’m settled already. Didn’t you know I’m married?” The real Hamilton was married, after all. Had he not been married—to Deirdre—Sean wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place. “I’ve been settled for eight long years now.”

  A chorus of feminine sighs drowned out most of the earl’s response. Sean caught only the tail end: “—forgetting, considering I’ve never seen your wife in all that time.”

  Lincolnshire hadn’t seen his nephew in all that time, either, but Sean wouldn’t be the one to remind him. Instead, he said, ”Deirdre is a wonderful girl.”

  The earl’s forehead furrowed. “I seem to recall rumor has it you two don’t rub along.”

  “To the contrary,” Sean assured him. “The two of us rub along grandly.”

  Someone snorted, and a few other bystanders murmured, evidently recalling the same rumors. Or, more likely, rumors of the weasel’s many adulterous affairs.

  “Where is your wife?” Lincolnshire asked.

  “In the countryside,” Sean told him, not actually stretching the truth. Though Hampstead lay only a few miles northwest of Charing Cross, many Londoners did consider it “way out in the countryside.” Which was precisely why he liked living there. He had a preference for wide open spaces—they reminded him of home.

  “In the countryside.” Lincolnshire let out a long, disappointed sigh, his gaze turning wistful. “I do understand. But since I can no longer dance myself, I was so hoping to see you dance in my stead.”

  The current waltz ended, and sudden silence seemed to fill the ballroom.

  “Dance for him,” a woman urged.

  Her daughter nodded. “Make him happy.”

  The music—another waltz, naturally—restarted. “It’s just a dance,” someone else called out.

  The crowd seemed to press closer. “Lord Lincolnshire wants to see you dance.”

  “Humor him, will you?”

  Although attempting a waltz was sure to prove humorous indeed, Sean felt his resolve crumbling. The old, ailing earl was making eager puppy-dog eyes, practically bouncing in his chair.

  One of the young misses flapped her fan at Sean. “Don’t you want to make Lord Lincolnshire happy?”

  Saints preserve me.

  “Oh, very well,” he gritted out. “One dance.”

  Then he turned on his heel and headed straight for Corinna.

  As he elbowed his way through the crowd, Corinna’s startled blue gaze met his, and it seemed as though a fist grabbed him in the gut. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the maddening girl. Part of him felt like wringing her neck.

  But instead he seized her hand and hauled her off to the dance floor.

  He t
hreaded their way to the center, tripping over other dancers in the process. It was rather ungentlemanly, but he was determined to be in the middle, where he wouldn’t be on display.

  He turned her to face him. “I hope you can lead.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She stood still, gazing at all the people moving around them, and bit her lip.

  He swallowed hard. ”Thanks to you, I’ve been commanded to dance. And I’ve never waltzed in my life.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth curved into a sheepish smile. “I confess I’ve been accused of leading before. I fear it’s one of my bad habits.”

  “It’s glad I am to hear it.”

  Mimicking the other dancers, he wrapped an arm about her waist and held her gloved right hand. She began to move, keeping her frame rigid so that he moved with her.

  Not very gracefully, but they moved.

  “May I sketch you?” she asked.

  “Sketch me?” he echoed absently, marveling at finding himself swirling among the other dancers. “I don’t think so.”

  “Never?”

  He tread on her toes.

  A wee “Eek!” escaped her lips, but then she gave him another smile. An understanding one this time.

  “Very well,” she said on a sigh. “I suppose you’re too busy with your own art to sit for someone else.”

  She was exasperating. “You’re ruining my life.”

  “How so?” she asked. “I’ve done you a favor, Mr. Hamilton. Society is all aflutter to finally meet Lord Lincolnshire’s famous, mysterious nephew. They’ll pay even more for your paintings.”

  He leaned improperly close, catching a trace of a light, floral scent with something peculiar—paint?—layered beneath it. “I’m not an artist,” he hissed in her ear. “I’m Sean Delaney, not John Hamilton.”

  When he drew back, making them lurch, he was dismayed to find her latest smile closer to a smirk. “I haven’t heard you say that in front of your uncle.”

  “For his sake.” Revealing the truth would probably destroy the kindly old earl, not to mention infuriate Hamilton and jeopardize Deirdre’s divorce. “I’ll not to embarrass the poor fellow by correcting him in front of his friends.”

  “I understand you value your privacy, Mr. Hamilton. But as the real Mr. Delaney said in the museum, you are much too self-effacing. You’ll get used to being famous, and it’s long past time you met your adoring admirers.”

  He considered stepping on her foot again, on purpose. “They wouldn’t adore me if they knew the truth.”

  “Of course they would. They all love Lord Lincolnshire and will transfer that affection to you. In fact, they already have. I was squeezed right out of the earl’s circle by all the girls who want to marry you.”

  So she hadn’t heard he was married. Or rather, that Hamilton was married. Well, he wasn’t going to inform her. That would only serve to reinforce her conviction that he was Hamilton.

  “Lincolnshire is well loved,” he muttered instead in disgust. Had the earl been the beast Hamilton had described, he wouldn’t have been welcome at this ball. And Corinna would never have introduced Sean as his famous nephew. “Everyone seems utterly devastated to lose him.”

  “Of course we are,” she said, pulling his hand back to keep him from ramming into someone. “Lord Lincolnshire is the most compassionate person you’ll ever meet. He supports half the charities in London, and he’s just as generous with his time. He’s helped practically every ton family at one point or another.”

  “You exaggerate.”

  “Not by much.”

  “Everyone says they’ll do anything for him.”

  “Anything but the one thing we cannot,” she said mournfully, “which is to save his life.”

  “Then why didn’t you believe him?” When he stumbled, her hand gripped his shoulder to keep him upright. “He told you I was Sean, not John, but you disagreed with him. Loudly.”

  The look she gave him said he was a complete idiot. “He was obviously fooling! Do you not know your own uncle? It seems as if you only met him today.”

  Well, yesterday.

  She went on, “And Sean is the same name as John in Ireland anyway, isn’t it? You sound like you come from Ireland.”

  That he couldn’t deny. Not without looking like an even bigger idiot. Luckily for him, just then the music stopped. The dance had come to an end. Corinna curtsied, thanked him politely, and quit the dance floor.

  He’d survived his first waltz. But as her intriguing, paint-tinged scent wafted away, he found himself wishing it had lasted longer.

  And wasn’t that absurd? He was lucky he had come out alive.

  ELEVEN

  Shortly after noon on Monday, Sean paced outside the gate in front of Lincolnshire House, planning his day as he waited for his curricle to be brought round.

  Thanks to a long breakfast with Lincolnshire, he was getting a very late start on his very full agenda. Besides all the work that had piled up in his absence—contracts to review, sales to negotiate, properties to inspect—he needed to talk to Deirdre, which meant a drive all the way out to Hampstead and back. He hadn’t a moment to spare.

  Making himself stand still, he stared impatiently out across the street. Berkeley Square hummed with activity. From his vantage point at the north end, he watched people traipse in and out of the fenced, grassy park in the middle. In the row of houses along the west side, a blue door opened, catching his eye. Two footmen emerged, burdened with boxes and an easel. As they headed across the street toward the park, a girl came out and followed, her shapely figure clad in a pale blue gown with a white apron tied over it, her glossy dark hair worn unfashionably loose.

  As his curricle pulled up, he blinked, suddenly recognizing Corinna.

  “Just a moment,” he told the stableman before dashing out into the square.

  By the time he reached her, the servants had positioned her easel beneath a giant plane tree and were setting a canvas upon it—one covered with blotches of gray and white. She riffled through a box filled with little pots of paint, her gaze focused, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

  “Good day to you, Lady Corinna.”

  Startled, she looked up, narrowing her blue eyes.

  To Sean, most everyone’s eyes (including his own) were brown. Green, hazel, brown…they all appeared brown. Only shades of blue looked different, and Corinna’s eyes were the clearest, most brilliant blue he’d ever seen. They were bottomless.

  He gave his head a little shake to clear it.

  “Have you decided to let me sketch you?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “I was waiting there for my curricle”—he gestured toward Lincolnshire House—“when I noticed you entering the square. I came over to convince you I’m not Hamilton. I’m not Lincolnshire’s nephew.”

  She lifted a dull knife. “So you keep saying.” Using it to scoop brown (or maybe red or green) paint onto a palette, she slanted him a glance. “Yet you’re living in Lincolnshire House.”

  “I am. I can explain. Hamilton is my brother-in-law, and—”

  “You said that in the museum.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  She seemed to be staring at his mouth. When he raised an eyebrow, she quickly looked away, wiping the knife on her splotched apron and using it to add a smidge of a lighter color. “I don’t believe you.” My, she was rather blunt for a lady. “I understand that you’ve enjoyed your anonymity in the past, but your secret is out now. You’re going to have to get used to the fact that everyone knows you’re John Hamilton.”

  She glanced at his mouth again, making Sean suddenly think about kissing her—though really, what he wanted to do was throttle her. “But I’m not John Hamilton.”

  “And I’m not here in Berkeley Square.” With a cheeky smile, she picked up a brush and turned to her canvas. “I expect you should get to your own painting, Mr. Hamilton. I wish you a successful day.”

  Clearly he was dismissed. He marched back to his curricle,
bunching his fists.

  With Corinna living across the street, he feared his hands might become permanently clenched.

  With Griffin gone, Corinna had been looking forward to a few peaceful days to work on her portrait. But she wandered the drawing room Tuesday, still pondering whom to paint.

  She’d decided her picture would be set outdoors. She was an accomplished landscape artist, after all, and it was important that her backdrop be as impressive as her central subject. She wanted the play of light and shadow, the varied greens of grass and trees, the bright hues of blooming flowers. She’d started painting all of that yesterday in the square, and she was happy enough with how it was coming along. But she couldn’t make up her mind whom she wanted in the foreground and what, exactly, he or she should be doing.

  She didn’t care for formal portraits where the sitter just stared at the viewer. She preferred to see subjects in context. Conversation portraits, they were called. Quite popular in the previous century, they often featured whole families or groups of friends posed casually, as though caught in some everyday action. Although it wasn’t common to do the same with a single subject, she wanted to give it a try. She hoped it would make her painting a little different—and therefore more noteworthy.

  If the painting turned out well, it would not only be the first work she submitted to the Summer Exhibition, but also the first portrait she put on public view. She wanted to choose someone who would be memorable. Someone whose personality would shine from the canvas. Someone she knew well enough to portray in such a manner that the viewer would feel he or she was a close, personal friend.

  That was why she’d painted family members over and over.

  She stopped and scanned all the many old Chase family portraits on the wall, settling on one dated 1670. The gentleman wore a long surcoat and a lace-trimmed cravat, the lady a full, heavy brocade gown with an old-fashioned stomacher fronting the bodice. A small engraved metal plate on the frame read:

  JASON AND CAITHREN

  6TH MARQUESS AND MARCHIONESS OF CAINEWOOD

  She’d never known this couple, of course. They’d both died long before she was born. But unlike the ancient, more sober portraits, which invariably featured stern, unsmiling subjects, this pair looked happy. They looked like they were in love.