‘You might know one of her older brothers,’ Aunt Susan was persisting, valiantly. ‘George Inskip? Major the Honourable George Inskip? He’s a Light Dragoon.’
‘Sadly, no,’ said Ulysses, though he didn’t look the least bit sad. ‘The cavalry rarely fraternises with the infantry, you know. We are far, far, beneath their notice, as a rule.’
So he was in the army. No—had been in the army. He was not wearing uniform, whereas men who still held commissions, like the group still milling around in the doorway to the refreshment room, flaunted their scarlet jackets and gold braid at every opportunity.
So, that would account for the tanned face. And the lines fanning out from his eyes. And the energy he put into the mere act of walking across a room. And the hardness of his body. And the…
‘Oh, I’m sure you are no such thing,’ simpered Aunt Susan. Making Harriet’s gorge rise. Why on earth was she gushing all over the very last man she wished to encourage, when so far she’d done her level best to repulse every other man who’d shown the slightest bit of interest in her?
‘And probably too far beneath Lady Harriet to presume to request the pleasure of a dance,’ he said. Placing a slight emphasis on the word beneath. Which sent her mind back to the moments he had been lying beneath her, his arms clamped round her body as he ravaged her mouth.
Which made her blush. To her absolute fury. Because Aunt Susan gave her a knowing look.
‘But of course you may dance with Lady Harriet, Lord Becconsall,’ trilled Aunt Susan, who clearly saw this as a coup. For a man notorious for not dancing with debutantes was asking her protégée to do just that. ‘She would love to dance with you, would you not, my dear?’
Ulysses cocked his head to one side and observed her mutinous face with evident amusement. Just as she’d suspected. He was planning on having a great deal of fun at her expense.
‘I do not think she wishes to dance with me at all,’ he said ruefully. ‘In fact, she looks as though she would rather lay about me with a riding crop to make me go away.’
Harriet was not normally given to temper. But right at this moment she could feel it coming to the fore. How she wished she were not in a ballroom, so that she could slap that mocking smile from his face.
‘Oh, no, not at all! She is just a little…awkward, in her manners. Being brought up so…in such a very…that is, Harriet,’ said Aunt Susan rather sharply, ‘I know you are very shy, but you really must take that scowl off your face and tell Lord Becconsall that you would love above all things to dance with him.’
Ulysses schooled his features into the approximation of a man who had endless patience with awkward young females who needed coaxing out of their modest disinclination to so much as dance with a man to whom she had only just been introduced.
While the twinkle in his eyes told her that, inside, he was laughing at her. That he was enjoying taunting her with those oblique references to their previous meeting. And, she suspected, that he was going to enjoy holding that episode over her head every time they met from this time forth.
Oh, lord, what was she to do? What would happen if Aunt Susan found out she’d been caught, in the Park, by a group of drunken bucks and kissed breathless by this particular one? When she should have been in her room, in her bed, recovering from the exertions of the ball the night before?
Disgrace, that was what. Humiliation. All sorts of unpleasantness.
If she found out.
Therefore, Aunt Susan had better not find out. Had better not suspect anything was amiss. Or she would start digging.
That prospect was enough to make her draw on all those hours she’d spent in front of the mirror, perfecting that insincere smile. And plastering it on to her face.
‘Lord Becconsall,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I would love above all things to dance with you.’
With a triumphant grin, he held out his hand, took hers and led her on to the dance floor.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Lady Harriet,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.
‘Lord Becconsall,’ she replied tartly.
He grinned. Because addressing him by his title had not managed to convey the same degree of censure at all. But then, as she very well knew, lords could get away with staggering around the park, drunk. Or riding horses bareback for wagers.
Whereas ladies could not.
Not that she’d been doing either, but still.
‘I suppose you expect me to feel flattered by your invitation to dance,’ she said, ‘when you are notorious for not doing so.’
‘Flattered?’ He raised one eyebrow. And then the corner of his mouth, as though he was biting back a laugh. ‘No, I didn’t expect that.’
‘Do you want me to ask what you did expect?’
‘Well, if we are about to delve into my motives for asking you, then perhaps I should warn you that you might not like mine.’
‘I’m quite sure I won’t.’
‘But would you like me to be completely honest?’
‘Yes, why not,’ she said with a defiant toss of her head. ‘It will be a…a refreshing change.’ At least, in comparison with all the other encounters she’d had in Town, where people only talked about trivialities, in what sounded, to her countrified ears, like a series of stock, accepted phrases they’d learned by rote.
‘Well then, if you must know, I felt so sorry for you that I felt compelled to swoop in to your rescue.’
‘My rescue?’ That was the very last motive she would have attributed to him.
‘Yes.’ He looked at her with a perfectly straight face. ‘You looked so miserable, sitting there all hunched up as though you were trying to shrink away from the silly clothes and hairstyle you are affecting tonight. And I recalled the impulsive way you dropped to your knees beside my prone body, to give what succour you could. And I thought that one good turn deserved another.’
Harriet sucked in a short, shocked breath. Though it was more in keeping with what she knew of him so far to fling insults at her, under cover of escorting her to the dance floor, than to swoop in to her rescue.
He would definitely never say anything so…rude to any other lady to whom he’d just been introduced. It just wasn’t done. Even she knew that.
But then, since he held her reputation in the palm of his hand, he clearly felt he could get away with saying anything he liked.
‘Well, if we are being honest with one another,’ she said, since what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, ‘I have to say I agree with you.’ There, that should take the wind from his sails.
‘Surely not. Or—’ A frown flitted across his face. ‘Is your duenna compelling you to wear gowns of her choosing?’
‘I wish I could say you were correct. But this display of poor taste is entirely my own doing,’ she said.
‘You are deliberately making yourself look ridiculous?’
Far from looking shocked, or disapproving, Lord Becconsall only appeared intrigued.
But the necessity of taking her place in line, and dipping a curtsy as the first strains of music blared, prevented either of them from saying anything further. Which made her grind her teeth. Because of course she had not been deliberately trying to make herself look ridiculous. She’d just never had the chance to spend whatever she wanted on clothes, that was all. And it was only with hindsight that she’d seen that modelling her wardrobe so slavishly on Kitty’s, who had always looked so fashionable and pretty whenever she’d come to visit, had been a mistake.
But from now on, she was going to ask the modiste, and her aunt—and, yes, even Kitty—if the styles and fabrics she was choosing actually suited her.
For some time the intricacies of the dance meant that he could only take jabs at her during the few seconds during which they passed or circled each other. Jabs which
she could deflect by looking blank, then twirling away as though she hadn’t heard them.
‘You are supposed to smile at your partner, just occasionally, you know,’ he informed her at one point.
‘I might do so were I dancing with someone I liked,’ she snapped back.
‘Tut, tut, Lady Harriet,’ he said dolefully. ‘You gave me to believe you wished above all things to dance with me.’
‘You know very well I had to say that,’ she hissed at him.
‘Do I?’ He looked thoughtful for a few measures. And then, with a devilish gleam in his eyes, asked her, ‘Would you mind explaining why?’
‘You know why.’
He widened his eyes in a look of puzzled innocence. ‘But…how can you have changed your opinion of me so completely? Last time we met, you flung yourself into my arms—’
‘I did no such thing,’ she hissed at him. ‘You…grabbed me—’
‘You put up no resistance, however. And you appeared to be enjoying the interlude as much as I did.’
Well, what could she say to that? Though he was wicked to remind her that she’d behaved with dreadful impropriety, he’d also admitted to enjoying kissing her. Which went a good way to soothing the sting imparted by his taunts. As well as doing something to her insides.
The same sort of something his kiss had done to them, actually.
‘No riposte?’ He sighed, looking almost disappointed. ‘I was so sure you would waste no opportunity to give me a tongue lashing.’
Since he looked at her mouth with a wistful expression as he said this, she couldn’t help licking her lips. And recalling the way his own tongue had probed at them, seeking entrance. Which made her unable to tear her eyes away from his mouth.
She cannoned into the lady to her right.
This was a disaster! Almost the first time she’d actually got on to a dance floor and he was ruining it by saying things that made her forget where she was, or which direction she was supposed to be hopping in.
‘You are determined to humiliate me, aren’t you?’ she said, next time they drew close enough for him to hear her.
‘I have no need.’ He chuckled. ‘You are doing an admirable job of it all on your own, what with the clothes and the scowls, and the growls and the missteps.’ He shook his head. ‘I cannot believe you are related to Major Inskip.’
Her head flew up. ‘You know George? But you just said you didn’t.’
He shrugged as he whirled away from her to promenade up the outside of the set. By the time she reached the head of it on the ladies’ side, she was seething with impatience.
‘Well?’
‘I only said cavalry officers don’t normally hobnob with the infantry. I didn’t say I didn’t know him. Though, to be precise, I only know him by sight.’ He eyed her with amusement before adding, ‘And what a sight he is to behold.’
She flushed angrily. George was, indeed, very often a sight to behold. For he had his uniforms made by a top tailor, out of the finest fabrics, and never looked better than when mounted on one of his extremely expensive horses. From which he did tend to look down his aristocratic nose at the rest of the world. Including her. And to her chagrin, although he’d always used to concede she was a bruising rider when they’d been much younger, the last few times he’d come home there had been a touch of disdain about his lips whenever his eyes had rested on her. Which had also, she now saw, influenced her decision to buy the most elaborate and costly gowns she could.
‘What, no pithy retort?’ Ulysses shook his head in mock reproof. ‘I am disappointed.’
‘Yes, well, that’s the thing with swooping to someone’s rescue, isn’t it? They do tend to do things you didn’t expect and make you wish you hadn’t bothered.’
He threw back his head and laughed.
‘Touché!’
She glowered at him. Far from showing the slightest sign of contrition, he was clearly thoroughly enjoying himself. At her expense.
‘Come, come, don’t look at me like that,’ he said. ‘I conceded the point. And far from being sorry I swooped, I have to admit I am glad I did so. No, truly,’ he said, just as he whirled away from her.
‘Well, I’m not,’ she said as the interminable music finally gasped its last and everyone bowed or curtsied to everyone else in their set. ‘I’m tired of being baited.’ At least, she would very soon be if he kept this up for any length of time. It was just one more vexation she was going to have to endure. On top of everything else she was struggling with, it felt like the last straw. ‘Why don’t you just get it over with? Hmm? Go on. Tell Lady Tarbrook where you found me, two weeks ago, and what we were doing. And then…’
Her mind raced over Aunt Susan’s inevitable disappointment and her tears, and the scolding and the punishment. Which might well, if Uncle Hugo had anything to do with it, involve being sent back to Stone Court.
Which would mean her ordeal by London society would come to an end.
Which would be a relief, in a way.
At first. But then she’d have to live, for the rest of her life, with the knowledge that she’d failed. Which she most emphatically did not wish to do.
She lifted her head to stare at Lord Becconsall who, though being thoroughly annoying, had at least made her see that she was nowhere near ready to throw in the towel.
He was shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what I have done to make you think I would behave in such a scaly fashion,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Only that I would never betray a lady’s secrets.’
‘Not if it didn’t suit your schemes, no,’ she said uncharitably.
Which made him look a bit cross.
‘It wouldn’t be in either of our interests for anyone else to hear about that kiss,’ he snapped. And then went very still. And then he turned a devilish grin in her direction.
‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said, leaning close and lowering his voice to a murmur, ‘if you aren’t playing a similar kind of game to mine.’
‘Game?’
‘Oh, very nicely done. That touch of baffled innocence would have fooled most men. But I met you under, shall we say, very different circumstances. Revealing circumstances.’
‘Revealing?’ Her heart was hammering. What had she revealed? Apart from rather too much of her legs. And what game was it he suspected her of playing?
‘Oh, yes. You are a rebel, aren’t you?’
Well, that much was true. She had rebelled against Mama and Papa’s wishes to come to London for this Season.
And since she’d been here, she’d been rebelling against all the strictures imposed upon her behaviour.
‘Ha! I knew it. Your guilty expression has given it away. You are merely pretending to go along with all this…’ He waved his hand to include not only the ballroom, but by extension, the whole society it represented. ‘But the fact that you felt the need to go galloping round the park at dawn, unfettered by all the restrictions society would impose on you, coupled with the dreadful way you are dressed, hints at a cunning scheme to avoid falling into the trap of matrimony.’
‘Absolutely not,’ she retorted, stung by his continuing references to her poor choice of clothing. ‘If you must know…’ she drew herself to her full height, which meant she only had to tilt her head the slightest bit to look him straight in the eyes ‘…I dressed like this because…because…’
She paused, wondering why on earth Aunt Susan had permitted her to buy so many things that didn’t suit her. When she was doing so much to make her a social success.
And it came to her in a flash.
‘This is the first time I have ever been anywhere near a fashionable dressmaker and my aunt didn’t want to ruin the pleasure of being able to feel satin against my skin, or picking out lace and ribbons and fea
thers by objecting to every single gaudy thing I set my heart upon.’
‘But—’
‘And I do want to get married. That is why I’ve come to London. To find somebody who will…value me and…admire me and talk to me as if what I have to say is…not a joke!’
He flinched.
‘Oh, there is no need to worry that I will ever set my sights on you,’ she said with a curl of her lip. And, as a fleeting look of relief flitted across his face, she had another flash of insight. ‘That is what you meant, isn’t it, about playing a game? You are avoiding matrimony. Like the plague.’
He started and the wary look that came across his face told her she’d hit the nail on the head.
And then, because he’d had so much fun baiting her, she couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to turn the tables on him. It wouldn’t take much. He’d practically handed her all the ammunition she needed.
‘What devilish schemes,’ he said in alarm, ‘are running through that pretty head of yours?’
Pretty? She looked up at him sharply.
And met his eyes, squarely, for the first time that night.
And felt something arc between them, something that flared through all the places that he’d set ablaze when he’d crushed her to his chest and kissed her.
‘You think I’m pretty?’
What a stupid thing to say. Of all the things she might have said, all the clever responses she could have flung at him, she’d had to focus on that.
Fortunately, it seemed to amuse him.
‘In spite of those hideous clothes, and the ridiculous feathers in your hair, yes, Lady Harriet, you know full well you are vastly pretty.’
The words, and the way he said them, felt like being stroked all the way down her spine with a velvet glove. Even though they weren’t true. She’d had no idea anyone might think she was pretty. Let alone vastly pretty.
Even so, she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.
Convenient Bride for the Soldier & the Major Meets His Match & Secret Lessons With the Rake (9781488021718) Page 26
