Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Choc Lit)

by Christina Courtenay

  ‘Osterly, you wouldn’t mind missing a dance with me, would you?’

  It wasn’t really a question, and she didn’t bother to wait for the poor gentleman’s reply before standing up and placing her hand on Robert’s arm. ‘Shall we?’ She flashed her dimples at him and at Jason, adding an extra flutter of her eyelashes at the latter, then swept on to the dance floor. Jason understood immediately that she was only dancing with Robert in order to further her acquaintance with a marquess, and he sighed inwardly. By the look in Robert’s eyes, he’d fallen hard and fast, but without a title he would have no luck with the likes of Miss Serena Templeton. It would all end in tears. How very tiresome, to be sure.

  Rob would be much better off with the other sister, Jason thought. Obviously not one of the usual simpering misses, she would no doubt make an excellent wife. He decided to try and steer his brother her way once Miss Templeton dashed his hopes, which hopefully shouldn’t take too long.

  He turned his attention away from the dancing couple and glanced again at the sister. Miss Ianthe was taller and she was wearing a most ill-fitting dress which gave the impression that she had simply thrown on whatever came out of her wardrobe first. It was only because the material was slightly diaphanous and she was standing with light behind her that he could make out her true shape, which was very pleasing. Without such help, she would have looked a complete dowd, but she was no such thing, he realised.

  Turning to her, instead of the two other young ladies who had been waiting for him to choose one of them, he bowed and said, ‘May I have this dance, Miss Ianthe?’

  She blinked in surprise, her eyebrows rising a fraction, but she remained calm and he thought he saw an expression of regret flit across her features.

  ‘With me? Oh, I am sorry, my lord, but unlike my sister, I’m afraid I have not been granted permission to dance the waltz. I am sure there are other ladies who could oblige you.’ She glanced pointedly at the two seated girls, but Jason ignored this.

  Catching the eye of the patroness, who had by now moved on to gossip with someone else, he crooked his finger and Lady Jersey immediately made her way back to him. Several people watched this in open-mouthed surprise, the stout Lady Templeton included. Jason reflected that they didn’t know Sally the way he did – her curiosity alone would have made her do his bidding in this instance as no doubt she scented a juicy piece of gossip.

  ‘My lord?’ she enquired, sounding slightly breathless with anticipation.

  ‘Apologies for interrupting your no doubt scintillating conversation with Lord Albemarle, but I would be vastly obliged if you could give Miss Ianthe permission to waltz with me?’

  ‘But of course.’ Lady Jersey nodded to them both, a speculative gleam in her eyes, then turned away with a smile.

  He held out his arm to Miss Ianthe, and without a word, she put her hand on top of it. He swept her into the dance with effortless grace, despite the fact that it was a while since he had last performed it. He knew himself to be a good dancer, and was pleasantly surprised when Miss Ianthe matched his steps without too much trouble.

  ‘You dance well,’ he commented. ‘Is this not your first time?’

  ‘Yes, but I have only to follow you. It seems simple enough.’

  He didn’t tell her many ladies found that beyond their capabilities and his toes had suffered accordingly on several occasions. Instead, he enjoyed the feel of her in his arms as he twirled her expertly around. There was only the slightest of contact between them, where his hand held hers and the other rested lightly on her back, but it was considered very risqué and for the first time he understood why. Despite the minimal friction, he was surprised to find that he was extremely aware of her as a woman and judging by her heightened colour, she was experiencing similar feelings of acute awareness. In fact, there was a veritable electric current between them that he simply couldn’t ignore.

  This thought made him almost falter in his steps. What was this? He had only danced with her in order to be able to further his brother’s suit. He wasn’t supposed to be attracted to her himself. He shook himself mentally and took a deep breath. He didn’t want a wife, and certainly not a chit only just out of the schoolroom. It simply wouldn’t do.

  But his body was telling him otherwise.

  Damnation.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ianthe tried to breathe normally, but found it increasingly difficult with Lord Wyckeham so near. A strange energy seemed to be passing through his fingertips into hers and snaking its way up her arm, and although she tried not to look at him, her gaze was drawn to his time and again. He had brown eyes, she noticed, but they were such a light brown, it was almost like looking through clear honey, which was very disconcerting. And they contrasted in the most fascinating way with his almost white-blond hair, which he wore long and tied back with a simple black ribbon.

  ‘Are you enjoying this, Miss Ianthe?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Yes, very much so, my lord.’

  ‘You are not afraid of me?’

  His question took her by surprise, but she didn’t hesitate to reply. ‘No, should I be?’ She realised she wasn’t afraid of him in the slightest, at least not in the way he meant. The way his touch made her feel was another matter altogether and much more frightening than the silly rumours about him being a murderer.

  He nodded, as if that short exchange took care of his supposed misdeeds, and changed the subject. ‘I take it you had not done much dancing previously this evening?’

  She smiled ruefully. ‘Not any evening, my lord. I am seldom asked.’

  His eyebrows lifted again, in that haughty manner she had found fascinating from the very first moment of seeing him. ‘And why is that, Miss Ianthe? You are not plain nor do you suffer from a squint.’

  She laughed, but stated matter-of-factly, ‘Bluestockings are not usually singled out for attention, my lord, with or without a squint. I have no idea why you chose to do so, but I am grateful for the opportunity to dance the waltz this once. It’s heavenly.’

  ‘Twice,’ he corrected.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘We will stand up for two dances. It would be impolite otherwise.’

  ‘Oh, would it?’

  Confusion swirled through her and she couldn’t help but wonder what game he was playing. Asking her to dance once was strange enough, but twice? Everyone was sure to remark upon it, even though it was permitted. She glanced in Serena’s direction and wished she hadn’t. Her sister, although smiling at her beau, Lord Robert, managed to shoot a dagger look in Ianthe’s direction which didn’t bode well. Serena’s temper tantrums were legendary in the Templeton household and Ianthe knew they were sure to be treated to one later on. She decided to forget it for now and resolutely put it out of her mind. She was determined to enjoy every moment of this dance; she would not allow Serena and her foul moods to ruin it for her.

  ‘May I ask why the patronesses allowed you to come to Almack’s if they had no intention of persuading young men to dance with you?’ Lord Wyckeham was saying.

  ‘I believe Lady Jersey insisted I should come along just to spite my mother. They … do not get on. One of the other patronesses granted vouchers to my sister Serena, but Lady Jersey sent one for me too with a note saying they couldn’t very well ask my sister and not me since we are twins. Naturally Mama couldn’t refuse to bring me, even though she knew it was a waste of time. Lady Jersey did try to persuade a few of the young men to dance with me the first time, but they were already promised elsewhere.’

  He frowned. ‘I’m surprised Sally would put up with that.’

  ‘She is not always here and I think once she had forced Mama to bring me, she lost interest in the game.’

  ‘I see.’

  They danced the second dance in silence, and Ianthe wondered if perhaps she had said too much, but when Lord Wyckeham led her back to her mother, he seemed unruffled. He bowed over her hand and she thanked him for the dance.

  ‘Not at all, t
he pleasure was mine.’

  And with that, he turned on his heel and left the room.

  ‘Well, I never!’ Lady Templeton stared after him, perplexed. ‘What was all that about?’ She looked her daughter up and down. ‘Were you ogling him?’

  ‘Me? I wasn’t even looking at him,’ Ianthe protested, although that wasn’t strictly true, of course.

  ‘You must have offended him then.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Lord Robert, who had by now returned with Serena and overheard their remarks, tried to smooth things over. ‘You mustn’t mind my brother,’ he said with a smile. ‘He is a strange fellow and never does what one expects him to. I’m sure he didn’t mean to upset anyone, it’s just his way.’

  Neither Serena nor her mother looked convinced however, and as soon as Lord Robert had left them to dance with Miss Gardiner, Serena hissed at Ianthe, ‘You must have done something to chase him away, but we’ll speak about it later,’ before sailing off to dance once more with the Earl of Somerville.

  Ianthe sighed and returned to her pillar. To her surprise, however, she wasn’t left to prop it up for long. It would seem the young men in the room had been galvanised into action by Lord Wyckeham’s interest and everyone suddenly wanted to dance with her. She marvelled at their fickleness and thought to herself that they were nothing but a flock of sheep, going only where someone else led. Still, it was a vast improvement on being bored silly, so she ought not to complain.

  By the time they reached home in the early hours of the morning, Serena was incandescent with rage at her sister’s surprising success, but Ianthe was too tired to care.

  ‘You’d better keep your hands off the earl,’ was Serena’s morning greeting to her sister the following day. ‘And don’t even think of setting your cap at the marquess. Not that he’d have you, as he’s apparently sworn never to marry again, but I might try and see if I can change his mind.’

  Ianthe looked up from the Gothic novel she was reading at the breakfast table and tried not to let Serena rile her. She knew if she rose to her bait, open warfare would ensue, as it always did. ‘I’m not interested in the earl,’ she replied evenly, ignoring the last part of Serena’s sentence.

  Her sister shot her a dark look, as if she didn’t believe this for a moment. ‘I should hope not, because—’

  She was interrupted by a knock on the door which heralded the arrival of a couple of housemaids carrying two vases of flowers each, followed by a footman with another bouquet.

  ‘These arrived for the young ladies,’ one of the maids said with a curtsey. ‘Mr Balfour said to bring them in straight away.’

  Ianthe was astonished to find that two were for her and gazed in wonder at the gorgeous bouquets. No one had ever sent her flowers before. The larger one consisted entirely of enormous red roses interspersed with greenery, while the slightly smaller one was made up of a mixture of pink and yellow blooms. Serena’s bouquets were identical, and when Ianthe inspected the cards that accompanied the flowers, she found that one had been signed simply with a large ‘W’, while the other read ‘Lord R W’. Wyckeham and his half-brother. A frisson went through her and she glanced up to find her sister looking daggers at her again.

  Serena came over and snatched the cards out of Ianthe’s hand. ‘This is intolerable,’ she snarled. ‘Why are they bothering to send flowers to you?’

  Ianthe was about to reply, but her mother forestalled her. ‘Now, now Serena, they are merely showing us that they are polite young men. They are new in town and since they have only just made our acquaintance, they’re not to know that you are usually the only recipient of floral tributes. Perhaps they thought to get in our good graces by buying bouquets for both of you? You are twins after all. And look, you have a lovely bouquet here from the earl as well. Ianthe doesn’t.’

  Serena mulled this over and flounced back to her seat, where she picked absently at a piece of toast. ‘You may be right, but I’ll not have Ianthe ruining things for me.’ She turned to her sister and fixed her with a glare. ‘At the musical soirée tonight, you’d better stay out of the way or else … It’s not as if you have any interest in marrying anyway.’

  ‘And what if I have?’ Ianthe asked, goaded into anger at last by her sister’s threats.

  ‘Then find your own suitors. Don’t poach on my territory.’

  ‘Girls, girls, really, this is most unseemly,’ Lady Templeton admonished, but Serena paid her no heed and merely swept out of the room without a backward glance. Ianthe was left to glare after her, more angry with herself for becoming entangled in the argument in the first place than with her sister for being so horrid.

  ‘I hope she marries soon so the rest of us can have some peace,’ she muttered.

  ‘She is doing awfully well, you know,’ her mother commented mildly. ‘The young men seem to flock to her side, but then you didn’t do too badly yourself last night. Whatever the marquess’s faults, at least he did you a favour by dancing with you. You must try to capitalise on that tonight. Do your best to encourage the gentlemen who danced with you yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, Mama, must I go? I do so hate musical soirées. A lot of screeching if you ask me. I’d rather stay at home.’

  ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? Now that you’ve finally managed to attract some attention you can’t mope around at home! Now go and find something suitable to wear. I noticed you didn’t make much effort for Almack’s. I shall expect better of you today. Wear your best gown, the jonquil muslin.’

  ‘That makes me look sallow, Mama, and—’

  ‘Nonsense. Now do stop arguing with me. You’re giving me a headache.’

  With a sigh, Ianthe left the room, resigned to an evening of boredom, unless … No, there probably wasn’t much hope of the marquess attending a musical soirée. Or was there?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was as awful as Ianthe had feared. Their hostess had been too penny-pinching to hire a professional musician or singer, and instead called upon a number of young ladies of her acquaintance to show off their skills with the pianoforte, the harp or their voices, Serena among them. It was purgatory.

  Ianthe cringed as yet another girl warbled her way through a ballad of some sort, missing several notes and mangling the rest. She decided that enough was enough. ‘Mama, I’m going to the ladies’ withdrawing room for a moment. I feel faint,’ she whispered to her mother, fanning herself vigorously to demonstrate just how ill she felt. Lady Templeton frowned impatiently but nodded her acquiescence.

  ‘Very well, but don’t be long.’

  As she’d had the forethought to sit at the end of a row, Ianthe was able to slip out fairly easily into the large hall next to the drawing room. And when the footman closed the door behind her, mercifully shutting off the screeching, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘That bad, is it?’ The voice, oozing lazy amusement, came from just to her right. Ianthe jumped and turned quickly to find the Marquess of Wyckeham smiling at her before giving her a conspiratorial wink. She couldn’t help but smile back.

  ‘Yes, absolutely excruciating. It was making me feel quite faint, so I thought I’d go and freshen up.’

  ‘Very wise of you.’

  ‘And what is your excuse for skulking out here, my lord?’ she dared to tease him.

  ‘I arrived late, so naturally I couldn’t be so rude as to interrupt. Far better to wait out here until it’s over, don’t you think?’ His eyes were sparkling with amusement and she decided she liked the way they crinkled at the corners. It was most attractive.

  ‘Definitely, and it has the added bonus of allowing you to retain both your sanity and your hearing,’ she said.

  He laughed and held out his arm. ‘May I escort you on to the terrace? Or would you prefer to sit down somewhere?’

  ‘The terrace would be lovely, thank you.’

  She placed her hand on the proffered arm. His coat sleeve was slightly rough under her fingers, but she could also feel the wa
rmth of his skin radiating through the material and the hard muscle underneath. The sensation sent a shimmer of excitement through her.

  He led her to the back of the house and outside through a large French window and over to the balustrade of the terrace, where they stood in the semi-darkness, breathing in deep lungfuls of delicious night air. Lanterns had been hung in the nearby trees and they twinkled prettily when the wind stirred the branches, making the garden look almost ethereal. Ianthe was aware of the fact that she ought not to be out here on her own with the marquess, but she’d been unable to resist. She found him fascinating, but she also knew he had a reputation with the ladies, while she was young and naïve and perhaps easy prey.

  As if he had read her thoughts, he said reassuringly, ‘Don’t worry, you are quite safe with me. I only seduce innocent young ladies on Thursdays.’

  ‘Today is Thursday.’

  ‘Is it? Good Lord, I must mean Fridays then.’

  She laughed and shook her head at him in mock exasperation. ‘You’re impossible.’

  ‘So I’ve been told. I have to live up to my nickname, you know.’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Of course.’ He smiled and shrugged ‘The gossips aren’t exactly subtle.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’re also very generous – I must thank you for the flowers you sent this morning. They were exquisite.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me if you don’t want to,’ he said, a teasing note in his voice.

  ‘Of course I want to, I only meant … Oh, you know exactly what I meant.’

  He chuckled. ‘Sorry, couldn’t resist. You are lovely when you’re flustered, but you don’t need to be when you’re in my company, you know. I don’t bite and contrary to popular belief, I do have a sense of humour.’