by Lynne Barron
“He’s risked it all on the mere possibility Mr. King might actually wish to marry Annalise?”
“Annalise is a lovely young lady and terribly sweet,” Kate chided gently. “Why shouldn’t Mr. King wish to marry her?”
As the reasons were too numerous to tally, Harry ignored the question altogether. “Has Annalise met Mr. King?”
“Not yet. He is something of a recluse.”
“He might very well be a corpulent octogenarian prone to bugger the footmen.”
“A what?”
“A fat old lecher.”
“Dunaway would not marry his daughter to a fat old lecher. Or even a young one, for that matter.”
“That man would marry his daughter to Beelzebub for ten bob.”
“Mr. King is not Beelzebub.”
“What if he is a grotesque toad with a wart the size of Wales on his nose?”
“Dunaway would have mentioned a wart,” Kate replied with a giggle, turning away to watch the two men beating the tar out of one another. “He does like to poke fun at a good wart, mole or goiter.”
“And if Mr. King is dangling a string of mistresses?” Absentmindedly trailing one finger across her bottom lip, Harry followed Kate’s gaze in time to see the raven-haired gentleman go down hard after a solid hit to his solar plexus. “That man would hardly mention it, let alone poke fun.”
“Mr. King is said to be something of a rake, but if he is dangling mistresses on a string, he is exceedingly discreet about it.”
“Is he rumored to have been diagnosed with the pox? Whispered to be a bit mad? Does he wear lady’s undergarments in the privacy of his own home?”
“No, no and how on earth would I know such a thing?” Kate cried, nearly choking on her laugher. “Better still, how do you know about such a thing?”
“Are you telling me Mr. King is an obscenely wealthy, handsome and charming gentleman?”
“I never said he was handsome and charming.”
“All rakes are handsome and charming, darling,” Harry replied. “Where was I?”
“Wealthy, handsome and charming.”
“He is intelligent enough to keep his predilections, whatever they may be, and paramours, however many he might be dangling, from both the papers and prying eyes. He is not noticeably mad or pox-riddled.”
“That about sums it up,” Kate agreed.
“And yet, Annalise does not wish to be wed to this paragon of perfection.”
“I never said she didn’t wish to marry him.”
“I hardly think you would have sent around a note asking to meet with me today if Annalise were thrilled with the proposed match.”
“You are too clever.”
“Who has captured the silly girl’s heart?”
“Mr. Arthur Maxwell,” Kate whispered, as if the dockworkers might be even remotely interested in their conversation.
“The grandson of Lady Dunaway’s godmother?” Harry couldn’t recall having met the man, but she vaguely remembered Annalise droning on endlessly about him when last they’d sat down to dine together.
Mere minutes before, Harry had been laid low by a vicious pounding at her temples which had nearly forced her to forego her regularly scheduled Friday night at the theater; irrefutable proof that no good deed goes unpunished.
“Mr. Maxwell has been hired on as steward at Camden Manor, but seeing as the countess’s dower property is mortgaged, he will lose the position should Dunaway not make good on the loan. And I gather his lordship’s only hope of doing so lies in marrying his daughter to the mysterious Mr. King.” The words tripped off Kate’s lips with all the innocence of a lamb cheerfully bleating all the way to the slaughter pen. “Do you see how difficult the situation is for Annalise?”
“Difficult,” Harry repeated, nearly giddy at the gift which had all but fallen into her lap. “Difficult is getting your heel stuck between uneven floorboards during a lively reel.”
Delightful is what it was. Wickedly, wondrously delightful.
“Are you plotting even now?” Kate posed the question with the sort of hushed reverence customarily reserved for gossiping in church and peering into the cradles of sleeping babies.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harry replied around a giggle she could not contain. “I’ve already got it all plotted out but for the when, where and which gown I’ll be adorned in when I see it done.”
“I rather hoped you might consider seeing it done at Madeline’s come-out ball while adorned in one of the many gowns you’ve had run up, but which you rarely have occasion to wear.”
“A scheme this grand calls for a certain finesse.” Harry clasped Kate’s hand and tugged her across the floor, dust motes and assorted dirt drifting on the air all around them. “It cannot be rushed but must be well thought out, carefully orchestrated and perfectly executed. It certainly cannot be set in motion by this evening.”
“But we aren’t likely to have so perfect an opportunity again,” Kate protested even as she skipped to keep up with Harry’s long strides. “Seeing as Mr. King rarely puts aside his business interests except to dicker with his lordship over the terms of the marriage contract.”
“And attend debutant balls, it would seem.”
“Precisely my point.”
“What would you have me do?” Harry asked, amused by the possibilities that popped into her head even as she tossed out the question. “Ask the man for a spot on his dance card and twirl him into a compromising position? Lead him out to the gardens for a quick gander at my bosom?”
“Of course not!” Kate exclaimed around a splutter of merriment. “Though that particular strategy worked wonders when Lilith set out to save Sissy from a marriage not to her liking.”
“Lilith’s breasts are truly awe-inspiring, as you may recall.”
“Perhaps you’d best keep your bosom discretely tucked away,” Kate teased as they came alongside a scuffed and smeared line of the square chalked on the dirty floor to separate brawlers from spectators. “After all, Lilith did wind up married to Lord Malleville. You needn’t go so far as all that.”
“Katie darling, you’ve no idea how far I’d go.” Perhaps it was years of habit that had Harry stepping on that smudged white line, throwing her hands out for balance and gingerly following it across the dimly lit, smoky little room. More likely it was sheer lunacy, as it put her not six paces from the brawling brutes when, in a patently ridiculous singsong voice, she called out, “Yoo-hoo, Mr. King! Care for a quick peek at my bosom?”
The handsome, dark-haired pugilist’s head whipped around.
Eyes the color of fresh honey and surrounded by thick, long lashes widened comically. The prettiest, lushest lips Harry had ever seen on a man lifted into a slightly lopsided and all too cheerful smile.
At which point a fist connected with one corner of that lovely mouth, followed by another to the sculpted cheek just below one of those extraordinary golden eyes.
The man went down without so much as a whimper, the remnants of the silly smile still on his lips.
“Oh, Harry,” Kate whispered, her voice laced with laughter. “How many times have I told you your inability to put names to faces will one day land you in trouble?”
Chapter Two
As luck, or some perverse deity intent upon wreaking havoc, would have it, the felled gentleman was not Mr. David King but rather Viscount Knighton, London’s reigning rake and, if Harry were to judge by the well-plotted path he wove through the ballroom, the undisputed successor to the Earl of Dunaway’s gilded, debt-ridden throne.
After nearly an hour spent making numerous circuitous preambles around the crowded room, smiling and nodding and otherwise greeting every pretty woman with the slightest claim to a dowry, Lord Knighton halted amongst half a dozen similarly frivolous gentlemen. The lot of them were rather reminiscent of a muster of peacocks in all their gaudy plumage. Lounging, leaning and otherwise reclining in the desultory fashion all rakes and rogues must master before they were let loose on
the female population, they’d all but taken over the space surrounding the punch bowl.
All the better to determine which innocent young lady had partaken of just enough ratafia to be easily led off into the gardens or a dark alcove.
Harry found it altogether too fascinating, and not a tad disorienting, watching Lord Knighton in his natural habitat after having seen him stripped down to the waist, his chest glistening with perspiration as he ducked and jabbed his way around the dirty little back room of a pub.
Raven curls had been tamed into the artfully tousled style all the gentlemen of the ton apparently favored of late. His garments, from the gray brocade jacket stretching across wide shoulders, to the waistcoat of burgundy silk shot through with silver threads, to the crisp white cravat perfectly starched and tied into whichever convoluted knot was all the rage this week, to the tight black trousers tucked into tall boots polished to a high sheen, all combined to proclaim the man to be all that was fashionable and elegant.
The viscount was too handsome by half, never mind the swollen, mottled lavender-hued flesh around his right eye, which only served to draw attention to the astonishing color of his irises. And his smile ought to be illegal, all smooth self-assurance with just a hint of mischief lurking at the corners.
Harry had been intimately acquainted with too many charming, indolent libertines not to recognize one when he prowled around a ballroom in search of his next conquest. Still, she found herself unable to look away from his lordship’s all too obvious ploy to garner the attention of every comely unmarried lady with a fortune at her disposal.
And dispose of it he would, in brothels and pubs and gaming hells across the width and breadth of London. In pursuit of pleasure, a purse to replace the one he’d lost the previous night, or a moment’s oblivion from the life into which he’d been born.
Knighton smiled on cue, preened for the crowd, stared soulfully into the eyes of this heiress or that, even winked at one or two when their chaperones were otherwise engaged.
Honestly, the man hadn’t an ounce of shame or a smidgeon of subtlety.
Why, Harry fancied she could plot out his next move before he even thought to make it.
Hover just there by the punch bowl only long enough to survey the room and map out his next circuitous route through the crowd.
Toss out a few ribald innuendos to his cohorts before wandering away with studied nonchalance. Bypass the ladies too plain, plump or poor to be worth his notice as he strolled by them clustered together in the shadows.
Entirely ignore the perfectly pleasant men who were in turn ignored by those same silly ladies his lordship blinded with his brilliance.
Stop to linger awhile with the pudgy matron in an unfortunately ruffled, flounced and bejeweled saffron-yellow gown. Scribble his name on the dance card belonging to her equally unfortunately trussed up daughter who’d recently inherited a tidy sum from some distant relation.
Move on to the next passably pretty girl in possession of a fortune. Beam, bow or otherwise bid good-evening to this one and that one.
That Knighton’s path would soon cross Kate’s was a foregone conclusion, seeing as she possessed a dowry to rival that of any other lady in the ballroom. Still, he had a few stops to make along the way, the next being a titian-haired woman whose name escaped Harry at present, but whose marriage portion was rumored to be upwards of twenty thousand pounds
“Rake, rogue, reprobate,” Harry murmured with a shake of her head. “Debauched, degenerate, dandy.”
“Has Dunaway arrived, then?” An extremely pregnant Lilith Grimley, Baroness Malleville, came up behind Harry, nudging her in the back with the great mound of her belly. “Do make a modicum of effort to be civil to him tonight.”
Harry glanced at the acknowledged beauty in a family of beauties only long enough to take in the ever-present smile on her lips and the gleam in her green eyes, the very same eyes Harry saw in the mirror every day, an odd sort of constant which kept her grounded in ways she couldn’t begin to put to words.
“Why should tonight be any different?” Harry tossed the question over her shoulder as Lord Knighton moved on to his next victim—a pretty brunette with breasts the size of melons and a father whispered to be richer than Croesus.
“Harry, Dun is launching his youngest daughter into the world tonight,” Lilith whispered in her ear. “It is a traumatic thing for a father to accept that his little girl is all grown up.”
Harry rolled her eyes even as she blindly reach for Lilith’s hand. “For an otherwise sophisticated woman, you are absurdly naïve when it comes to that man.”
“I don’t expect you to make nice, or even smile, if all you can manage is the version you wield to keep impertinent boys at bay.”
“I rather like that particular version. After all, I copied it from you.”
Viscount Knighton turned just then, catching her eye from a good two dozen feet away and offering up a slow, crooked grin. Rather similar to the expression he’d worn when he’d been felled by Mr. Posey’s ham-sized fists.
“Rake, rogue, reprobate.”
“I don’t see Dunaway anywhere,” Lilith said, giving Harry’s fingers a little squeeze. “You don’t suppose he’s in the gardens with some silly chit, do you?”
“A dark alcove, more likely.”
“Goodness, the devilishly handsome Viscount Knighton is looking at you as if he’d like to gobble you up,” said the Countess of Southerby, coming up on Harry’s other side. “Have you been keeping secrets from us, you naughty girl?”
“Leave the risqué remarks to Lilith,” Harry suggested. “You simply haven’t the knack for it, Sissy. Never mind you’ve been wedded and, from the looks of your coiffure, recently bedded.”
“Oh no, is my hair mussed?” Sissy exclaimed, patting the spiral curls at her temples. “Thomas said… Well, never mind what my husband said. Why is Lord Knighton looking at you that way?”
“I suppose he thinks it is one of his better looks, all innocent and abashed to have been caught staring.”
“It is rather a good look,” Lilith said, “though I see nothing innocent in it.”
“Precisely,” Harry answered.
“Nor anything abashed,” Sissy added, fanning her face with one gloved hand. “It’s quite a dangerous look.”
It occurred to Harry that the three of them were staring at Lord Knighton, quite unabashedly, in fact.
Lady Madeline, Dunaway’s youngest daughter, soon to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world, joined them, making their numbers four. “What are you looking… Oh, Viscount Knighton. Isn’t he dreamy?”
“And vaguely amusing to watch as he prowls around in search of an heiress,” Harry replied.
“I wish I were an heiress.” Madeline sighed, long and forlorn.
“What’s captured your attention?” Lady Annalise of the Doom and Gloom Prophesies stretched up on her toes to peer over Harry’s shoulder. “Nothing good will ever come of a man that pretty.”
“Shame on you, ogling a man when you are soon to be betrothed.”
“Annalise is soon to be betrothed?” Madeline asked, not once looking away from the splendor that was Viscount Knighton. “To whom?”
“To Mr. King,” Kate called out two octaves too loud as she joined them. “With his boats, bullets and bedcovers.”
“Ships, rifles and textiles,” Harry corrected. “And mines, most recently. Has Mr. King arrived this evening?”
“He sent his regrets,” Kate replied. “Something to do with a muddle at his mill in Manchester, or perhaps Middlesex.”
“Morocco,” Annalise chirped with something rather like good cheer. “Mr. King is on a mission to maintain his mills in Morocco.”
“Speaking of imminently eligible bachelors…” Kate began with a mischievous grin aimed Harry’s way.
“We weren’t speaking of bachelors,” Harry retorted, right on cue. “Imminently eligible or otherwise.”
“We weren’t?” Annalise asked, clearly c
onfused.
“You’ll never believe who is in attendance tonight.” Kate pushed between Harry and Sissy and froze. “Oh, I see you’ve already found him.”
Thus, six beautiful blonde ladies stared across the ballroom at the handsome rascal until his crooked smile slipped just a tad. For a moment, no more than a tiny sliver of time immeasurable but for the queer skipping of a single beat of Harry’s heart, Lord Knighton appeared confused, if not downright discomfited, by their collective attention.
It was a good look, far better than any he’d displayed thus far. Almost boyish and somehow lost. Vulnerable.
With her heart racing as if to make up for that one missed beat, Harry made a valiant attempt to repress the smile slowly curling her lips. Truly, the sight of Viscount Knighton discomfited, perhaps even discombobulated, was a thing of rare beauty.
“Thomas says Knighton’s grandfather all but bankrupted the estate before he passed on last year.” Sissy’s voice quivered with what might have been sympathy but was more likely a certain relish, Sissy being…well, Sissy. “And now Knighton hasn’t the wherewithal to pay the outstanding debts, let alone set things to rights.”
“Oh, but how sad,” Annalise murmured. “His poor sisters will surely wind up spinsters.”
“He’s only come to Town for the Season in order to choose a bride with a handsome dowry, so Thomas says.”
“Honestly, Sissy,” Madeline snapped. “One would think you hadn’t a thought of your own since you married. It’s Thomas says this and Thomas says that every time you open your mouth.”
“Thomas says a great deal,” Sissy answered, not the least put out by the accusation she might have given up her brain along with freedom. Or perhaps it was the loss of her virginity that had addled her wits. “And Thomas says if Viscount Knighton doesn’t marry by autumn, he won’t be able to pay the pickers or scythers or what have you to bring in the harvest.”
“I think you mean reapers,” Harry said.
“Thomas says even with a healthy harvest, Lord Knighton will only just manage to squeak by until the end of the year. And a middling harvest or no harvest at all will render him as poor as a church mouse.”
