“Oh, tosh,” said Lady Arden with a smile. “As I said, I enjoy a challenge.” She craned her neck a little. “Ah, I see Lord deVere bearing down on us. I shall head him off at the pass while you ladies make your escape. We do not wish to emphasize that connection any more than necessary tonight.”
She sailed off through the crowd like a warship into battle.
Hilary and Rosamund threaded their way through the guests to the other side of the room, where a group of chairs ranged against a wall.
Rosamund sank down on her chair with a small sigh of relief.
Hilary wished she might feel more enthusiasm for Lady Arden’s news. But what did Almack’s matter when she was so afraid for Davenport all the time?
Where was he?
Davenport had more important things to think of than attending a ball; she knew that. They were no longer betrothed, and he was trying to stay away from her for her own good.
Foolish of her, but those considerations didn’t make her feel better.
“There is Lydgate now,” said Rosamund on a note of relief. Her brows twitched together and her fan stilled. “But Jonathon is not with him.”
Hilary’s heart bounded into her throat. “Oh, I shall go mad, I think.”
Lydgate strolled up to them in time to hear her. His brows rose. “There is no cause for alarm, Miss deVere. Davenport is hale and hearty and shortly to arrive.” He assessed her. “What you need is a drink. Champagne. That’s the ticket. I’ll get you some.” He grinned down at Rosamund. “Feeling the heat, Rosie? Lemonade for you, I think.”
“Oh, yes,” said Rosamund. “That is what I need. Thank you, Lydgate.”
Despite her brothers’ hard-drinking proclivities, Hilary had never so much as tasted champagne before. She’d been careful to only drink lemonade or a few sips of wine when in company so as not to give the impression she was one of those deVeres. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than falling into a stupor like the one to which she’d seen Mrs. Walker succumb.
Tonight, however, she no longer cared about all of that. When Lydgate pressed the glass into her hand, she took a tentative sip and repressed a sneeze when the bubbles tickled her nose.
“Treat that with respect,” said Lydgate, laughing at her reaction. “It’s a fine drop.”
“Montford never stints when it comes to champagne,” agreed Rosamund.
“The only thing he does stint on is my quarterly allowance,” Lydgate muttered. “He’s a positive miser when it comes to doling out other people’s money.”
“Poor Lydgate,” teased Rosamund. “Are you short of cravats? Have you been reduced to using ordinary blacking on your boots instead of champagne?”
Hilary took another appreciative swallow of the fizzy wine. “This,” she said positively, “ought not to be wasted on shining boots.”
Lydgate had hit the mark. The champagne was just what she’d needed. As she made her way through the glass, she became conscious of relaxation slowly spreading through her body. The strict guard she usually kept on her tongue seemed to melt away. Rosamund and Lydgate seemed entertained by her chatter. For the first time that evening, the future didn’t look so bleak.
Even when Lady Maria Shand promenaded past on the arm of her partner, Hilary didn’t feel the slightest barb of jealousy.
Her glass had been empty for some time and Hilary was hoping for more when Davenport came in. His head turned sharply, as if he’d scented her on the wind. In blatant disregard of his resolve not to draw attention to their association, he made a beeline for her.
Her senses heightened instantly. Heart pounding, she set down her glass and rose at his approach.
He was so vividly handsome, everyone else in the room seemed to fade beside him. Her heart did a slow, hard tumble in her chest.
She loved this man. When she saw the toll the past few days had taken on him in his drawn face, she wanted to take him in her arms.
She loved him. There. After all of her struggles against it, she could finally admit that to herself.
He leaned down to kiss Rosamund’s cheek, then bowed to Hilary. “Miss deVere, would you care to dance?”
His dark eyes burned into hers, fierce and tortured and somehow pleading at the same time. Even if she’d wished to spurn him, she could not resist the need to give him everything he desired.
She placed her hand on his arm and allowed him to lead her to the floor. A waltz. It was a waltz and she went into his arms as easily and inevitably as if she were coming home.
How difficult it was to keep the proper distance when she yearned to hold him tight, to kiss away the trouble on his brow. She wanted to take him inside her and harness all the passion and fierce longing she saw in his eyes.
“I—I thought you might not come,” she said.
A quirk of the lips briefly lightened his features. “What, and miss your triumph? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“What is it?” said Hilary. “Has something happened? You look…” Desolate. Furious. Lost.
“Let’s not speak of it now,” he said. Leaning in, until his mouth almost brushed her ear, he said, “Honey, I need you. God, I need you so much. Let’s get away from here.”
On a gasp, she tilted her head back to stare. “Now? But … but we can’t.” Gracious, Lady Jersey would arrive soon. How could she possibly face the patroness of Almack’s after doing … that with Davenport?
“Tonight,” she said softly, so no one would overhear. “Later, in Half Moon Street.”
“I can’t wait that long. Can you?”
There was no wicked glint in his eye now. Gone was the laughing cavalier who shrugged life’s cares from his shoulders as easily as if they were a cloak. He was a man in pain with a great burden to bear and Hilary’s heart would need to be made of stone for her to deny him.
Her heart was his already.
“I have no right to ask; I know it,” he said huskily into her ear as he whirled her down the room. “But I want you so much I’m aching for you. I’ll die if I don’t have you. I want to be inside you, feel your hot, wet—”
“No, stop!” she hissed. How could he say such things in the midst of this elegant crowd?
Her body trembled, his urgency feeding her own. “But how?” She darted a glance around her at the crowd of dancers, spinning down the room. “Where? It’s impossible. Even you could not seduce a lady in the middle of a ball.”
With a laugh that seemed to ring hollow, he said, “My dear, sweet Honey. You should know me better than that by now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Following Davenport’s directions, Hilary had escaped the ballroom on the pretense of finding the ladies’ retiring room and instead made her way to a little-used parlor on the first floor.
The parlor seemed to be a music room, with a harp and a pianoforte and a group of chairs. An elegant chaise with serpentine scrollwork on the back stretched languidly in the window bay.
Her heart pounded against her ribs. What she was doing now jeopardized everything she’d striven so hard for. But when she’d glimpsed Davenport’s pain, she couldn’t deny him. More than that, she wanted him with a desperation that equaled his. A thrill shivered through her body.
Minutes ticked by. She wondered if something had prevented him from coming.
Finally, the door she’d left slightly ajar opened and he walked in.
He didn’t see her at first, for the pianoforte lid obscured most of her form from that angle. After one swift glance around, he leaned his shoulders against the wall, his face drawn. His chest heaved and his throat worked, as if he found it difficult to swallow.
A wave of sorrow swept over her. He seemed so desolate, so alone.
Considerations of propriety, virtue, even plain common sense seemed paltry and trivial when the saucy pirate who had so tormented her on the journey to London could seem lost and broken.
“Did you think I would not come?” she whispered, stepping out of the shadows and moving into the circle of light cast
by the candle he held.
His head jerked up. “I thought…” He blew out a breath. “It took me some time to get away. I thought you might have given me up and left. Or done the sensible thing and stayed clear altogether.”
“You thought I’d desert you when you needed me,” she corrected softly. Now she knew he needed her and not simply physical release. Knew with a simple, clear conviction she was loved, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Nothing else mattered to her now.
He needed her because she cared for him. He needed her because there was no one else who understood.
She thought of the way his family rallied around him. Perhaps they had tried to understand him, but he’d pushed them away, repelled them with his flippant charm. Davenport’s careless veneer was a tough one to crack.
She put a hand up to touch his cheek. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me what made you look so haunted just now.”
He caught her hand and pressed his lips to her palm in a passionate kiss that scintillated down to her toes. “I thought you weren’t coming,” he said.
No, it was more than that, but his lips cruised down her forearm to the sensitive skin inside her elbow and she almost lost her train of thought.
Oh, dear Heaven, how could she tempt his confidences if he did this every time they were alone?
“Something is troubling you,” she whispered.” I want to know what it is.”
He was drawing down the puffed sleeve at her shoulder, tracing a sinuous path with his tongue. “Honey, we’ll talk about it later.” He kissed along her clavicle. “Right now, I’ll go up in flames if I don’t have you. Talking can wait.”
And when he pressed a burning trail of kisses across her décolletage she knew that neither of them was in a fit state to discuss anything sensibly now.
“We have to be quick,” he muttered, taking her mouth as he maneuvered her backward, toward the chaise longue.
Before she knew it, she lay down on the slender couch with her skirts pushed up to her waist. Davenport stretched over her, one knee planted between her body and the chair back, one foot on the floor.
She could not well imagine a more compromising position. “What if someone comes?” she whispered with a quick glance at the unlocked door.
“They won’t,” he said. He kissed her urgently, freeing himself from his pantaloons, sliding inside her.
He let out a groan of need, but he paused and seemed to brace himself, holding the urgency of his desire at bay. Jaw clenched, he slid inside her, set up a steady, tantalizing rhythm that made her whimper softly and lift her hips to urge him on.
He reached down between them and with a rustle of fabric found the most sensitive part of her, teasing it, stroking it in exquisite counterpoint to his thrusts.
She met her peak with a sharp cry.
“Shh.” He covered her mouth with his and gave her what she’d craved all along, a strong, deep stroke that made her stifle a moan of pleasure in her throat.
When he reached his own crisis he gave a sharp, guttural groan in the side of her neck. Shudders rippled through his body, violent and wrenching.
They were still joined together when his breathing finally calmed. They stayed like that for some time, his face nuzzled into her neck, the weight of his big body pressing on her in a way she found immensely satisfying.
“Ah, I’m a deadweight. Sorry, Honey.” Slowly, he withdrew from her and took care of them both with a handkerchief.
She didn’t know how she would right her appearance so as to return to the ballroom. This had been a reckless, wanton act, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
He took her hand and helped her to a sitting position, then sat beside her with his arm around her waist. Turning, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. This time, it wasn’t patronizing or a careless gesture. His kiss told her she was cherished.
“What happened tonight, Jonathon?”
He blew out a ragged breath. “A man died because of me.”
Her stomach churned. No wonder he’d looked like death himself when he’d walked into the ballroom.
“Tell me.”
So he did. He told her all of it, and if she hadn’t already been crazed with worry for him, this incident brought home the full gravity of his situation, the immediacy of his danger.
“You came to the ball anyway,” she said, in wonder.
“I needed you,” he said. “Being with you was the only thing I could think of that would keep me sane.”
He took her hand and pressed a passionate kiss to her palm.
She put her arms around him and kissed him with a poignant sense of desperation and a tiny tinge of hope.
“I didn’t mean all of the things I said in the rose arbor,” she whispered.
He bent his head to press his brow to hers. “I know.”
“Jonathon, I love you. I love you so much it hurts. I never thought love would feel like this.”
He drew back to search her face, the strangest expression on his own. She read denial in those dark eyes, repudiation in the twist of his mouth.
The expression swiftly vanished, to be replaced by … what? Pity? Compassion? Oh, dear Heaven, that was even worse.
Hilary felt as if her heart had caved in, like a derelict house receiving its death blow. She tried to pull away from him, but he held her fast as everything crumbled to dust inside her.
“Wait. Honey, I—”
The door flung open, to reveal the unmistakable figure of a woman.
Lady Maria Shand.
“Damnation!” muttered Davenport. He released Hilary as if she were made of live coals. Even while she acknowledged the wisdom of his action, the alacrity with which he made it struck another blow.
Despite his quickness in disentangling himself, there was no way to make this rendezvous appear innocent. Only a simpleton would have failed to understand what had just transpired between them. Whatever else she might be, Hilary suspected Lady Maria was not a simpleton.
Their unwelcome guest stepped into the candlelight. “Davenport, you are so predictable. You always pick the music room. I wonder why that is.”
“What are you doing here?” Hilary had never heard Davenport sound so cold.
Lady Maria’s clear blue gaze flicked over them. “So it is true. My father said it was, but I didn’t believe him. You are entangled with this deVere female.”
“What does your father know of it?” Davenport’s voice was sharp.
“Oh, merely that you escorted Miss deVere all the way from Lincolnshire to London without a chaperone. That you spent a night on the road as husband and wife.”
A feline smile spread across her features. “I have enough ammunition against you to create a scandal that will sully Miss deVere’s good name from here to Edinburgh.”
All the blood drained from Hilary’s head. She was ruined. Her recklessness had finally caught up with her. She was guilty as charged and could offer no excuse except love. Love did not qualify as a defense in the court of the ton.
She waited for Davenport to speak, to find the way out of this mess. She could only think of one.
Davenport sucked in a breath. He didn’t so much as glance at Hilary.
“Miss deVere has done me the honor of accepting my hand in marriage.” The words came out smoothly, but without any inflection of happiness or warmth.
“So she’s the one,” said Lady Maria. She gave a scornful laugh. “Good God, Davenport, are you mad? A country mouse without style or beauty to wed a Westruther heir? And a deVere into the bargain.”
Hilary stood and drew herself up. She was shaking with hurt and fury, but she’d die before she allowed this spiteful wretch to see it. “I may be a deVere, but at least no one has ever accused me of vulgarity, Lady Maria.”
“Oh!” The astonished affront in those ice blue eyes made Hilary want to laugh, despite the ache in her heart. “Davenport, are you going to let her speak to me like this?”
“Yes,” said Davenport simply. “You canno
t conceive how much I enjoyed that.”
He made a sweeping bow. “And now, if you have quite finished being vulgar, my lady, I have to inform you that you are also de trop.”
“Oh, I’m going,” said Lady Maria, her cheeks flying spots of color. “You, Miss deVere, are about to be ruined. I shall tell the world what I’ve seen tonight, the things my father knows about you. Let’s see who will be called vulgar then.”
Lady Maria swept from the room, leaving Hilary in a state of shock. The house of cards she’d built with such painstaking care was about to be set aflame.
Davenport stayed only to take her hands in his. “It will be all right, Honey,” he said. “I’ll make it right. She won’t talk. You will not have to marry me.”
It was as if he spoke to her through a wall of ice. Cold flooded Hilary until she wasn’t sure if she could move or speak. She felt herself nod in acknowledgment when she really wanted to scream denials, to cling to him and never let him go.
He lifted her freezing hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to them. Then he bolted after Lady Maria.
Fingers shaking, Hilary tried her best to put herself to rights. It was all she could do at this moment, when planning one step beyond the present seemed a feat too taxing for her frozen brain.
Her hands dropped to her sides. What was the use? Her gown was crushed, hair a messy tumble, shouting her disgrace to the world. Even if she were adept at arranging her hair, there was no looking glass in the music room to assist her.
Trixie was in the retiring room with the other maids. If only Hilary had thought to ask Davenport to send the girl up to her, she could at least get herself out of this place without appearing to the world as the fallen woman Lady Maria called her.
Suddenly she knew she couldn’t wait for Davenport’s return. She didn’t have the courage to sit here and listen to him explain to her that he didn’t love her, that he’d always said he wouldn’t marry her, that he didn’t intend to do so now.
Lady Maria would spread the news of her ruin far and wide. Davenport had no power to stop her. By now, everyone at the ball downstairs would have heard of her disgrace. She thought of Lady Arden’s excited anticipation of procuring her vouchers for Almack’s and a bitter smile twisted her mouth. There would be no Almack’s for her now.
London's Last True Scoundrel Page 28
