“Have you siblings named Antony and Cleopatra?”
Two pair of identical eyebrows immediately shot upward.
So . . . apparently she wasn’t supposed to say that. The palms of her hands went clammy inside her gloves. She wondered if her waltzes could be revoked.
She was so tense that when the twins burst into peals of laughter, she jumped.
A cascade of bells, the laughter was, merry and abandoned, nearly buckling their petite frames. Lady Marie laid her fingers on Phoebe’s arm familiarly, so overcome with mirth was she, and her curls wobbled as though they were laughing, too.
She turned to her sister. “He was right!” she said cryptically to her sister, as her sister was saying to her, “Antony and Cleopatra! Ha ha ha!”
They turned identical expressions of such wicked delight upon Phoebe it was difficult not to feel warmed. She approved of wicked delight. Though she could not for the life of her understand what on earth had charmed them so.
A dream, she reminded herself, doesn’t have to make sense.
Lisbeth looked as though she’d swallowed an insect.
“We should so enjoy your company at the card table after the dancing, Miss Vale. And never fear. We don’t play very deep.”
“I adore playing shallow,” Phoebe gushed.
Where on earth had that statement come from? She’d never gambled in her life with anything other than walnuts with other teachers at Miss Marietta Endicott’s academy, and she had only five pounds in her reticule with which to do it. She could ill afford to lose it.
“She adores playing shallow!” Lady Marie and Lady Antoinette repeated rhapsodically into each other’s pretty faces. As if Phoebe was quite simply too endearing to be endured.
“Excellent. We shall collect you during the ball,” Lady Marie vowed, and they departed in tandem, trailing little waves of their kid-gloved hands, leaving her alone with Lisbeth.
“I shall look forward to it,” Phoebe called after them gaily.
She might be at the mercy of the tide of events, but she felt as giddy as a seal being tossed about in the sea. It was lovely to be so fervently wanted, whatever the reason. It was balm after the wall the marquess had thrown up with his wary expression.
Lisbeth stared after the Silverton sisters, a faint puzzled crease in her brow. “I told them you were a schoolmistress . . .”
The unspoken part of the sentence being, “But they wanted to meet you anyway.”
“Perhaps they feel a lack in their education, and hope I can tutor them over the card table.”
Lisbeth was, as usual, literal. “I shouldn’t think the Silverton sisters have ever felt a lack of any kind. And they are very popular.” Lisbeth’s tone was still abstracted. “Very.”
“I am not surprised, as they seem charming, indeed.”
Lisbeth didn’t appear to be listening to her. “With whom shall you be waltzing, Phoebe?” Lisbeth asked suddenly.
“Lord Waterburn and Sir d’Andre.”
She nodded absently. “Mmm. The orchestra will play three waltzes this evening. I’ve given away two of mine already, too.”
The moment was so peculiarly taut they could have plucked a note from it. And as if on cue, the crowd parted, and their view was of the marquess again.
Lisbeth smiled at him.
Which meant he was forced to abandon his brooding and the cherubs and come forward to make his bow to both of them.
Phoebe was shocked her heart didn’t echo like a drumbeat over the hum of the salon conversation.
“Miss Vale and I were just discussing how we’d each bestowed two of our waltzes already. And we’ve each one yet to give away.”
He didn’t look at Phoebe. And she knew that he didn’t because he would not be able to stop once he did.
“I should be more than honored if you would share the waltz with me, Lisbeth.”
“I am delighted to do it.”
“And oh, look, there’s Jonathan. Perhaps we can persuade him to dance the other waltz with you. Since you will only be here until tomorrow, you might as well enjoy the night, wouldn’t you say?” she asked brightly, suddenly, as if she was coming to terms with the peculiar notion that Phoebe would be waltzing at all, and including Jules in this magnanimity, as if Phoebe was their shared problem. “And then I can wave to you as we whirl by in the ballroom!”
Persuade. As if Jonathan would need to be bribed to take a schoolmistress for a twirl.
Lisbeth was already tripping lightly off in pursuit of her handsome cousin, who looked unnervingly more and more like his older brother Lyon Redmond every day, and who took one look over his shoulder and picked up his pace, looking very much as though he was fleeing Lisbeth.
The marquess was gone. Without him, the cherubs on the mantel now seemed smug and sinister, as if they knew secrets she did not. As if they’d stolen him away and were holding him for ransom.
Ironically, now that she at last seemed free to find a sandwich, she’d lost her appetite.
She wouldn’t mind a drink or two . . . or three . . . of ratafia, however.
After all, she told herself ironically, it was a party.
Chapter 16
She’d nearly forgotten how to waltz.
She’d been stiff at first. And then her body recalled that the key to the whole thing was surrendering the lead to someone else. This did not in any way come naturally to her. And there had been a moment when the toe of her slipper had snagged in the hem of her dress, but Waterburn was so large he didn’t seem to notice at all. He’d flexed his big arm, like a man steering a boat might make an unconscious adjustment to an oar, and suddenly she was balanced again.
She felt less like a partner than an accessory, like a reticule.
She decided she didn’t need to make conversation. He was the gentleman. It would be up to him. She would listen to the music and allow the ratafia and the twirling to conspire in making her feel very pleasantly drunk.
“Your . . .” he examined her person, and apparently decided upon “. . . ribbon . . . is very fetching.”
“Are you at a loss for compliments, Lord Waterburn? I mean to say . . . it’s a ribbon.”
She smiled winsomely at him. She’d stood over the table and drank three cups of ratafia in rapid succession, and this, and the likelihood of never seeing Waterburn again after this day, and the marquess and Lisbeth gliding and spinning in almost criminal splendor in her peripheral vision was making her a trifle reckless.
“But no one else here is wearing a ribbon,” he pointed out.
“No, they’re wearing diamonds and pearls. Oh, apart from that bloody great ruby round the throat of that large woman over there. It is a ruby, isn’t it?” She craned her head inelegantly.
His eyes went wide when she said “bloody.” He craned his head, too, suddenly curious. “I should say so. That’s Lady Copshire, after all.”
“Mmm. Of course. Lady Copshire.”
“It suits your eyes. The ribbon.” Perhaps he thought grunters would naturally say things like “bloody” and had come to terms with it.
She gazed up at him so limpidly he seemed startled. “Lord Waterburn?”
“Yes?”
“It strikes me that life is very short, and I fear I cannot bear any more talk of my ribbon. I might in fact do something desperate to stop it.”
He barked a shocked laugh. “You are an original. My apologies, Miss Vale. I fear I became mired in my compliment. My admiration was sincere, if clumsy.”
Well, that was very nearly a pretty speech. She was perilously close to being charmed.
“Why don’t we discuss something else, then? What is it like, being a teacher?”
His eyes glinted, and his voice lowered to a hush, as if he’d asked something taboo.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. She nearly rolled her eyes. “Oh, every day is like a day in Eden. I can imagine nothing more glorious and satisfying than shaping young minds and reforming young characters.”
He consid
ered this somberly. “I believe you are teasing me, Miss Vale.”
“I might be,” she allowed just as somberly. “I just might be. What is it like, being a viscount?”
He seemed surprised. “I have never given it any thought. I suppose it’s like asking, ‘What is it like being human?’ I just . . . am one.”
She noticed he hadn’t seized the opportunity to think about it now, either.
“Oh, I believe I understand, Lord Waterburn. Why would one reflect upon one’s role in the universe when one can instead be racing a phaeton at breakneck speed or losing copious amounts at the gaming tables or just generally having a wonderful time?”
He was so pleased with their accord that he tightened his grip on her hand, which made her wince a little. “Too right, Miss Vale! Too right! Life is for living, not for pondering. I might add that as a viscount I find that I am ever seeking new . . . diversions.”
Oh, dear. He’d lingered suggestively on the last word. When he glanced down at her bosom and up again her suspicions were confirmed: he’d meant it as an innuendo.
This was a man who thought she was a grunter, who’d scarcely even noticed her as a person, let alone as a woman. What had happened between this afternoon and this evening to change his opinion of her? It was the marquess who had sustained an injury to his head, after all. Not Waterburn.
He would need to be considerably less sober to compliment her breasts outright, she suspected, but for one reckless moment she considered steering him down that road, for it would be almost too easy to do it. What had she to lose?
She sighed so gustily it seemed impossible he wouldn’t feel her ribs rise and fall beneath his hand. For it was exhausting to contemplate. Like treading water. He was simply too . . . simple. A cipher, upon which she could manufacture an entire conversation.
Though she knew she probably shouldn’t make such careless assumption. Not everyone or everything was as they appeared on the surface. If naught else, she’d learned that during this house party.
“Do you enjoy having a lot of money?” she asked him instead.
He gave another woof of startled laughter. “How can one not enjoy having a lot of money?”
“I cannot say, as I’m content with what I have.” She thought she sounded pleasingly and loftily enigmatic. Of course this wasn’t necessarily true. She was certainly grateful for what she had. But she’d never even considered returning the bonnet to Postlethwaite’s, for example.
She simply wanted to tax Waterburn’s big blond brain to make the waltz more interesting for her.
Alas, apparently she’d said something so provocative he fell pensively silent.
For a moment it was pleasant to be spun around, to hear graceful music played by competent musicians and not have to speak to him. But then out of the corner of her eye she again saw the marquess and Lisbeth sweeping across the floor, the two of them in black and white, their two shining dark heads elegantly matched, Lisbeth’s dress floating out behind her like so much mist over the moors. She could have sworn everyone on the periphery of the ballroom floor had clasped their hands in beaming indulgent admiration of the two of them.
I am content with what I have? It was a bald lie. A lie with talons. She savagely envied Lisbeth the hand resting on her waist, enfolding Lisbeth’s hand as though Lisbeth was something precious and worthy.
She jerked her head back to her dancing partner.
Her cheeks were burning now, and the ratafia was beginning to churn as they turned round and round. Perhaps a circular dance on the heels of too much drinking hadn’t been the most sensible choice she could make.
The viscount’s eyes were gleaming at her. “I have never known anyone like you, Miss Vale.”
She sighed. She almost pitied him. “Likely because I am a teacher,” she pointed out. “And you are a viscount. And viscounts tend to meet other viscounts and the like.”
Even this bit of practicality he seemed to find profound. “And you’ve never married?” He sounded mystified.
“I am twenty-two years old. It is perhaps a bit too soon to use the word never.”
Every time she said something, he blinked as though she’d shone a bright light in his eyes. And there was always a peculiar moment’s hesitation before he responded. She was reminded of a young Italian girl she’d once tutored, who needed to carefully translate English words into Italian and before she spoke aloud her English answers, so conversation with her always featured a bit of delay. Clearly there was nothing in Waterburn’s experience to prepare him for someone like her. He needed a Rosetta stone for translating Rabble into Aristocracy and back again.
“But come now, Miss Vale . . . wouldn’t you rather be wealthy? To be showered with gifts and—”
She halted his sentence with the hike of one shoulder: a shrug. Simply because she knew it would make his eyes widen in astonishment.
They did.
“And . . . have you . . . suitors?”
He might as well have been a naturalist along the lines of Mr. Miles Redmond interviewing a native. He seemed almost afraid to hear the answer, suspecting it might call into question his entire existence.
“Countless,” she lied.
It was while Waterburn was absorbing the troubling notion that she might be inundated with suitors because of her laissez-faire attitude toward wealth that Phoebe at last caught the eye of the marquess.
The chandelier struck light from his guinea-colored eyes. They saw her, flared swift with surprise, then went hot. She would have given a guinea to be able to toss her head insouciantly and look away again, to laugh merrily up into the face of her partner and then heave an obvious and contented sigh.
But the moment their gazes brushed she felt that lightning-strike sizzle at the base of her spine. There was nothing else in the room. There was no one else in the world. They searched each other’s faces for answers to some question they could hardly formulate. She found no answers in his. But there was some small compensation in knowing he was equally in thrall, for he didn’t look away, either.
And then he was forced to look away, because he stumbled.
She winced. It was a rare and momentary hiccup in grace. Likely no one who wasn’t avidly watching him would even have noticed. He took two confident little steps forward to correct his rhythm and catch up to his partner.
Which would have done the trick, if Lisbeth hadn’t just taken two little steps backward to accommodate his stumble, all the while beaming up at him sympathetically.
Forcing him to take two more polite little steps backward to match her pace.
Just as Lisbeth, eager to correct her error, did precisely the same thing. At the same time. Again.
Forcing him to launch into a sort of lunge reminiscent of a long jumper to avoid crushing Lisbeth’s foot under his, which is where it had wound up.
While at the same time Lisbeth tried to leap out from beneath his boot by pulling with all her might to the left.
And this, tragically, was when gravity lost its patience and destiny exercised its rights and everything went straight to hell and into legend.
The marquess teetered to the left, then teetered to the right, and Lisbeth’s slippers futilely scrabbled in place, but when they began to tip in earnest, the marquess made a desperate decision: he flung Lisbeth away from him to safety.
So it was Jules who crashed to all fours on the floor of the ballroom.
Lisbeth spun past Phoebe like a blurry muslin roulette wheel. Her eyes and mouth O’s of shock.
Phoebe burst into laughter. She quite roared with it. It was rude, she knew, but she simply couldn’t help it. The ratafia . . . ! And Lisbeth’s expression . . . !
Someone gave Lisbeth a little push in the opposite direction and she had enough momentum to go spiraling back to the marquess. Who had righted himself nearly instantly and deftly caught her, sweeping her into the one, two, three rhythm of the waltz again as if nothing had happened at all. As if he indeed had planned all of it.
Phoebe was able to watch all of this thanks to her own mountainous partner, her head turned one way watching whilst her body below was waltzing. If she began to trip she imagined Waterburn would merely lift her off the floor, give her a shake to untangle her legs and set her down again.
Waterburn wasn’t laughing. When she returned her eyes to his face, his were narrowed shrewdly. He’d been watching the entire episode as if memorizing it.
“He doesn’t normally drink to excess,” the viscount mused. “So that’s not it . . .”
“Perhaps he did drink to excess for the first time.” She didn’t believe it. “Perhaps he just stumbled. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“No. He doesn’t. And he never does anything without a reason. He certainly doesn’t stumble.”
He sounded both fascinated and speculative and bitter and so utterly certain that Phoebe wondered where she fell in the spectrum of things the marquess had done.
And then it was quite sobering to know that this was what the ton at large thought of Jules, and what a burden it must be for him.
Chapter 17
If she’d had to summarize, she was forced to admit the evening had been glorious.
She’d won ten pounds—ten pounds!—at the disreputable game of five-card loo, instigated by Lady Marie and her lovely echo, Lady Antoinette. She half suspected they’d lost deliberately, as they seemed to find it charming when Phoebe won. She’d danced reels as well as all three waltzes, including the very last dance of the evening, the Sir Roger de Coverley. The young men had clamored for a chance to dance with her.
She drank too much. She laughed a good deal. And the marquess seemed everywhere on the periphery of her vision, though this might have in fact been an illusion.
She paused in the courtyard to admire the moon. Just a curved sliver of light, like the door of heaven had been left slightly ajar. She fancied it would be slammed shut after today, and today she’d slipped through. She’d had just a taste. And she’d long ago learned not to hold on to anything too tightly, for the pain when it was wrested away could not be born.
How the Marquess Was Won Page 16
