by Julia Quinn
She smiled at that. “Have you had her guardianship for very long?”
“Seven years.”
“Oh!” Her hand came to her mouth, and she stopped walking. “I’m so sorry. That is an unimaginable burden on such a young man.”
“I regret to say that I did consider it a burden at the time. I have two younger sisters, in fact, and after my father died, I sent both of them away to live with our aunt.”
“You could hardly have done otherwise. You must have still been in school.”
“University,” he confirmed. “I am not so harsh on myself that I think I should have tended to them myself at that point, but I should have been a more involved guardian.”
She placed her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. “I am sure you did your best.”
Richard was sure he had not, but he said, “Thank you.”
“How old is your other sister?”
“Marie-Claire is almost fifteen.”
“Fleur and Marie-Claire,” Iris murmured. “How very French.”
“My mother was a fanciful woman.” He flashed her a smile, then added a little half-shrug. “And she was also half-French.”
“Are your sisters now at home?”
He gave a nod. “Yes. In Yorkshire.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I have never been so far north.”
This surprised him. “Have you not?”
“I live year-round in London,” she explained. “My father is the fourth of five sons. He did not inherit land.”
Richard wondered if she was issuing a warning. If he was a fortune hunter, he should look elsewhere.
“I visit with my cousins, of course,” she continued lightly, “but they are all in the south of England. I don’t believe I have ever traveled past Norfolk.”
“It’s a very different landscape in the north,” he told her. “It can be quite desolate and bleak.”
“You are not proving yourself an enthusiastic ambassador for your county,” she chided.
He chuckled at that. “It’s not all desolate and bleak. And the parts that are are beautiful in their own way.”
She smiled at the description.
“At any rate,” he continued, “Maycliffe sits in a rather pleasant valley. It’s quite tame compared to the rest of the county.”
“Is that a good thing?” she asked with an arch of her brow.
He laughed. “We’re actually not too far from Darlington, and the railway that is being built there.”
Her blue eyes lit up in wonder. “Are you? I should love to see that. I read that when it is completed, one might be able to travel at fifteen miles per hour, but I cannot credit such a speed. It sounds frightfully dangerous.”
He nodded absently, glancing over at Daisy, who was still interrogating poor Winston about the Russian prince. “I suppose your sister thought that Miss Elizabeth should not have refused Darcy’s first proposal.”
Iris stared at him blankly before blinking, and saying, “Oh, yes, the book. Yes, you’re correct. Daisy found Lizzy to be most foolish.”
“What do you think?” he asked, and he realized that he truly wished to know her opinion.
She paused, taking the time to choose her words. Richard did not mind the silence; it gave him the opportunity to watch her as she thought. She was prettier than he’d supposed at first sight. There was a pleasing symmetry to her features, and her lips were far rosier than one might guess, given how pale the rest of her was.
“Given what she knew at the time,” Iris finally said, “I don’t see how she could possibly have accepted him. Would you wish to marry someone you could not respect?”
“Certainly not.”
She nodded officiously, then frowned as she regarded Winston and Daisy again. Somehow, they had managed to get quite a bit ahead. Richard couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but Winston had the look of a man in trouble.
“We will have to save him again,” Iris said with a sigh. “But this time you must do it. I’ve exhausted my knowledge of Russian politics.”
Richard allowed himself to lean toward her, close enough so that he could murmur in her ear. “The Treaty of St. Petersburg defined the boundary between Russian America and the North Western Territory.”
She caught her lip between her teeth, clearly trying not to smile.
“Iris!” Daisy called out.
“It appears we won’t have to stage an interruption,” Richard said as they closed the gap between the two couples.
“I have invited Mr. Bevelstoke to the poetry reading at the Pleinsworths’ next week,” Daisy said. “Do insist that he attend.”
Iris stared at her sister in horror before turning to Winston. “I . . . insist that you attend?”
Daisy gave a petulant snort at her sister’s lack of resolve and turned back to Winston. “You must attend, Mr. Bevelstoke. You simply must. It is sure to be uplifting. Poetry always is.”
“No,” Iris said, with a pained frown, “it’s really not.”
“Of course we will be there,” Richard announced.
Winston’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Richard assured Daisy.
“The Pleinsworths are our cousins,” Iris said with a pointed look. “You might recall Harriet. She played violin—”
“Second violin,” Daisy cut in.
“—in the concert last night.”
Richard swallowed. She could only be talking about the one who could not read music. Still, there was no reason to think this boded ill for a poetry reading.
“Harriet’s a bore,” Daisy said, “but her younger sisters are darling.”
“I like Harriet,” Iris said firmly. “I like her a great deal.”
“Then I am certain it will be a most pleasant evening,” Richard said.
Daisy beamed and looped her arm once again through Winston’s, leading the way back to the Cumberland Gate through which they’d entered. Richard followed with Iris, setting their pace more slowly so that they might be able to speak privately.
“If I were to call upon you tomorrow,” he asked in a quiet voice, “would you be at home?”
She did not look at him, which was a pity, because he would have liked to see her blush again.
“I would,” she whispered.
That was the moment he decided. He was going to marry Iris Smythe-Smith.
Chapter Four
Later that evening
A London ballroom
“THEY’RE NOT HERE yet,” Daisy said.
Iris pretended to smile. “I know.”
“I’ve been watching the door.”
“I know.”
Daisy fussed with the lace on her minty green dress. “I do hope Mr. Bevelstoke likes my gown.”
“I do not see how he could find it anything less than charming,” Iris said quite honestly. Daisy drove her utterly mad most of the time, and Iris did not always have kind words for her younger sister, but she was willing to give compliments when they were deserved.
Daisy was lovely. She had always been lovely, with her bright golden curls and rosebud mouth. Their coloring really wasn’t too terribly different, but what shone like gold on Daisy left Iris rather bleached and washed-out.
Her nanny had once said that Iris could vanish in a bucket of milk, and really, she wasn’t too far off the mark.
“You shouldn’t have worn that color,” Daisy said.
“And just when I was having benevolent thoughts,” Iris muttered. She liked the ice blue silk of her gown. She rather thought it brought out her eyes.
“You should be wearing darker colors. For contrast.”
“Contrast?” Iris echoed.
“Well, you need some color.”
One of these days, she was going to kill her sister. She really was.
“Next time we go shopping,” Daisy continued, “let me pick out your gowns.”
Iris stared at her for a moment, then started to walk away. “I’m getting some lemonad
e.”
“Fetch some for me, would you?” Daisy called out.
“No.” Iris didn’t think Daisy heard her, but she didn’t much care. She’d figure out eventually that no refreshment was forthcoming.
Like Daisy, Iris had been watching the door all evening. Unlike Daisy, she’d been trying to do it surreptitiously. When Sir Richard had returned her to her home earlier in the day, she had mentioned that she would be at the Mottram ball that evening. It was an annual affair, and always well attended. Iris knew that if Sir Richard did not have an invitation, he would be able to procure one with ease. He had not said that he would be in attendance, but he had thanked her for the information. Surely that meant something?
Iris skirted around the perimeter of the ballroom, doing what she did best at events such as these—watching everyone else. She liked standing at the periphery of the dance floor. She was an avid observer of her friends. And her acquaintances. And the people she didn’t know, and the people she didn’t like. It was entertaining, and truly, most of the time she enjoyed it more than she did dancing. It was just that tonight . . .
Tonight there was someone she actually wanted to dance with.
Where was he? Granted, Iris had arrived unfashionably on time. Her mother was a stickler for punctuality, no matter how often she was assured that the time listed on a ball invitation was merely a guideline.
But the ballroom was now bustling, and anyone concerned about arriving too early would have no cause to worry. In another hour, it would be—
“Miss Smythe-Smith.”
She whirled around. Sir Richard stood before her, strikingly handsome in his evening clothes.
“I didn’t see you come in,” she said, and then proceeded into mental self-flagellation. Stupid stupid. Now he’d know she’d been—
“Were you watching for me?” he asked, his lips curving into a knowing smile.
“Of course not,” she stammered. Because she’d never been a good liar.
He bowed over her hand and kissed it. “I would be flattered if indeed you were.”
“I wasn’t watching for you exactly,” she said, trying not to let her embarrassment show. “But I did look about from time to time. To see if you were here.”
“Then I am flattered by your ‘looking about.’”
She tried to smile. But she was not good at flirtation. Put her in a room of people she knew well, and she could carry her end of a conversation with flair and wit. Her deadpan sarcasm was legend in her family. But put her before a handsome gentleman, and her tongue twisted in knots. The only reason she had performed so well that afternoon was that she had not been sure that he was pursuing her.
It was easy to be oneself when the stakes were low.
“Dare I hope you have set aside a dance for me?” Sir Richard asked.
“I have many unclaimed dances, sir.” As she usually did.
“That cannot be.”
Iris swallowed. He was gazing down at her with an unnerving intensity. His eyes were dark, almost black, and for the first time in her life she understood what people meant when they said they could drown in someone’s eyes.
She could drown in his eyes. And she’d enjoy the descent.
“I find it difficult to believe that the gentlemen of London are so foolish as to leave you at the side of the room.”
“I do not mind,” she said, then added, “Truly,” when she saw that he did not believe her. “I very much like to watch people.”
“Do you?” he murmured. “What do you see?”
Iris looked out over the ballroom. The dance floor was a swirl of color as the ladies spun about. “There,” she said, motioning toward a young lady about twenty feet away. “She is being scolded by her mother.”
Sir Richard leaned slightly to the side for a better view. “I see nothing out of the ordinary.”
“One could argue that being scolded by one’s mother is not out of the ordinary, but look more carefully.” Iris pointed as discreetly as she could. “She’s going to be in much more trouble later. She’s not listening.”
“You can tell this from twenty feet away?”
“I have some experience with being scolded myself.”
He laughed aloud at that. “I suppose I must be too much of a gentleman to inquire what you did to warrant such a scolding.”
“Certainly, you must,” she said with an arch smile. Maybe she was finally learning how to flirt. It was rather nice, actually.
“Very well,” he said with a gracious nod, “you are most observant. I shall count that among your many positive attributes. But I will not believe that you do not like to dance.”
“I did not say I do not like to dance. I merely said I do not like to dance every dance.”
“And have you danced every dance yet this evening?”
She smiled up at him, feeling bold and powerful and quite unlike herself. “I am not dancing this dance.”
His dark brows rose at her impertinence, and he immediately gave a gracious bow. “Miss Smythe-Smith, will you do me the very great honor of dancing with me?”
Iris smiled widely, quite incapable of feigning sophisticated nonchalance. She placed her hand in his and followed him to the dance floor, where couples were lining up for a minuet.
The steps were intricate, but for the first time in her life, Iris felt as if she were moving through the dance without having to think about what to do. Her feet knew where to go, and her arms reached out at precisely the right moments, and his eyes—oh, his eyes—they never left hers, even when the dance sent them to different partners.
Iris had never felt so treasured. She had never felt so . . .
Desired.
A shiver ran through her, and she stumbled. Was this what it felt like, to be wanted by a gentleman? To want one in return? She had watched her cousins fall in love, shaken her head in dismay as infatuation made fools of them all. They had spoken of breathless anticipation, of searing kisses, and then, after their marriages, it had all dropped to a low whisper among themselves. There were secrets—very pleasant ones, it seemed—that were not spoken of among unmarried ladies.
Iris had not understood. When her cousins had spoken of that perfect moment of desire, right before a kiss, she could only think that it sounded dreadful. To kiss someone on the mouth . . . Why on earth would she wish to do that? It seemed rather sloppy business to her.
But now, as she circled through the dance, taking Sir Richard’s hand and allowing him to spin her about, she could not help but stare at his lips. Something awakened within her, a strange yearning, a hunger from deep inside that stole her breath.
Dear God, this was desire. She wanted him. She, who had never even so much as wished to hold a man’s hand, wanted to know him.
She froze.
“Miss Smythe-Smith?” Sir Richard was immediately at her side. “Is something amiss?”
She blinked, and then finally remembered to breathe. “Nothing,” she whispered. “I feel a bit faint, that is all.”
He led her away from the other dancers. “Allow me to get you something to drink.”
She thanked him, then waited in one of the chaperones’ chairs until he returned with a glass of lemonade.
“It’s not cold,” he said, “but the other choice was champagne, and I don’t think that would be wise if you’re feeling light-headed.”
“No. No, of course not.” She took a sip, aware that he was studying her intently. “It was very warm out there,” she said, feeling the need to explain herself, however falsely. “Don’t you think?”
“A bit, yes.”
She took another sip, glad to have something in her hands upon which to focus her attention. “You don’t need to remain here and watch over me,” she told him.
“I know.”
She had been trying not to look at him, but the pleasant simplicity of his words caught her attention.
He gave her a mischievous half smile. “It’s quite agreeable here at the edge of the ballroom. So
many people to watch.”
She turned quickly back to her lemonade. It was a sly sort of compliment, but a compliment, indeed. No one would have understood it but they two, and for that reason it was all the more wonderful.
“I shall not be sitting here long, I’m afraid,” she said.
His eyes seemed to sparkle. “Such a statement can only demand explanation.”
“Now that you have danced with me,” she told him, “others will feel the need to follow suit.”
He chuckled at that. “Really, Miss Smythe-Smith, do you find we men so lacking in originality?”
She shrugged, still keeping her gaze fixed ahead. “As I told you, Sir Richard, I am very fond of observation. I cannot say why men do as they do, but I can certainly tell you what they do.”
“Follow one another like sheep?”
She bit back a smile.
“I suppose there is some truth in that,” he acknowledged. “I shall have to congratulate myself on having noticed you all on my own.”
She looked over at him at that.
“I am a man of discerning tastes.”
She tried not to snort. Now he was really laying it on too thick. But she was glad of it. It was easier to remain indifferent when his compliments felt too deliberate.
“I have no reason to doubt your observations,” he continued, leaning back in his chair as he watched the crowds milling about. “But as I am a man, and therefore one of your unknowing subjects—”
“Oh, please.”
“No, no, we must call a spade a spade.” He tilted his head toward hers. “All in the name of science, Miss Smythe-Smith.”
She rolled her eyes.
“As I was saying,” he continued, in a voice that brazenly dared her to interrupt, “I believe I can shed some light upon your observations.”
“I do have a hypothesis of my own.”
“Tsk tsk. You said you could not say why men act as they do.”
“Not conclusively, but I would be appallingly lacking in curiosity if I did not ponder the matter.”
“Very well. You tell me. Why are men such sheep?”
“Well, now you’ve boxed me into a corner. How am I meant to answer that without giving offense?”
