That Scandalous Evening

by Christina Dodd

  Seeing the chance to be close to Blackburn, she said, “How about this one?”

  Melba gasped beside her.

  Lord Athowe jumped, too, but he gathered himself and offered his arm. “Refreshing and unique,” he said.

  Jane didn’t care what he thought. She only cared about dancing near Lord Blackburn.

  On the floor, lines formed, one for the men, one for the women, and Lord Athowe took his place opposite Jane. She was supposed to look only at him, but Blackburn stood almost within her range of sight, only two down, and she couldn’t resist letting her hungry gaze wander his way.

  The candles illuminated his high cheekbones and left his lower face in shadow, and Jane committed that characteristic to memory. There were so many facets to him, fascinating her in the variety of his emotions. She could willingly dedicate her life to catching his image, and still never get him right.

  An elbow dug into her ribs. She turned and saw the lady next to her gesturing, and realized the music had begun. She was holding up the dance. Obediently she picked up her skirt and bustled to catch up.

  Her skirt. It was a midnight blue velvet. Melba had not wanted her to have it, saying such a hue did not complement her coloring, but Jane had insisted. Although Blackburn did not know she was alive, each glance from him stroked her like velvet, and this gown was her own, private homage to the magnificence of Blackburn’s fine midnight blue eyes.

  As she looped through the dance, her nerves tightened. Each couple would change partners until they had danced with everyone in their set. That meant she would get to partner Blackburn. She would get to bow to him. She would get to touch his hand again, to look into his face again, as she had done on those rare and precious moments when she had shared the floor with the indifferent lord.

  And that moment was fast approaching. Starting from opposite ends of the opposing lines, they advanced on each other. Jane distinctly noticed a tick of annoyance when Blackburn recognized her, but this time, she resolved, she would do nothing to embarrass him. She curtsied. He bowed. He offered his hand. She took it. And the excitement almost brought her into his arms.

  But no. She recovered with nary a stumble. They stepped to the end of the line and separated. And the evening lost its savor.

  She had seen him. She had touched him. She wanted to go back to the town house and work.

  “Thank you for the dance, Miss Higgenbothem.” Lord Athowe led her toward her sister. “It is always a privilege.”

  “You flatter me,” Jane said with automatic civility.

  Melba would be proud.

  “Dear Jane,” Lord Athowe said. “I wish I could once have your full attention.”

  Jane blinked at him. “My full attention?”

  “You’re here, then you’re gone, flitting off into another world where none of us dare follow. You look at me with those big, green eyes…”

  Early in the season, when she had first met Blackburn, Jane had anxiously examined herself in the mirror. She was tall, thin, small-bosomed, rather muscular, with skin that tanned when exposed to the sun. She also had a pleasant smile, good teeth, and an abundance of long black hair which defied all efforts of the iron curler. She was not, and never would be, fashionable, but she had decided her eyes were jade, not green, and yes, even pretty surrounded by their dark, curled lashes. But they were not enough.

  “Jane.” Pressing her hand between his, Lord Athowe called her back. “You’ve done it again. Won’t you stay here with me?”

  She looked around. He’d led her into an alcove where lovers visited when they could. But she was not his lover, nor did she wish to be. He was comely, wealthy, and seemed a kind man. He should have been a maiden’s dream. But after eight years of observing Melba and her husband, Jane had no trouble recognizing a man both shallow and easily swayed. She would not have Athowe as a husband, nor any other man, for that matter. She had other, less conventional dreams. And her art. “Lord Athowe, I should go.”

  “You’re correct to worry about the propriety.” He leaned closer. “If you understood how I felt about you, you would tremble at the idea of being alone with me.”

  Jane thought he was trying to look dangerous and sensual, and failing badly. He ought to take lessons from Blackburn.

  Then he unbuttoned her glove and pressed a wet kiss to her wrist, and she realized she had to escape.

  She jerked her hand back, leaving her glove dangling between his fingers. Snatching it from him, she hurriedly replaced it. “Lord Athowe, please.”

  He edged closer. “Dear Jane, I know this is precipitate, but I ask, I beg—”

  At that moment the orchestra gave a bleat much like a fanfare.

  “What is that?” she quickly asked.

  She snapped him out of his ardent performance, and his eyes narrowed with annoyance. “What?”

  She stepped around him and looked into the ballroom.

  “What…” Lord Athowe looked, also. “Oh, it’s Frederica.” He gave the name a particularly scornful intonation. “We don’t need to be concerned about her. Not when we have each other.”

  Jane edged farther into the ballroom. “What is she doing on the orchestra stand?” She didn’t really care, but curiosity about Frederica had just saved her from a very unpleasant scene.

  Having concentrated attention on herself, Frederica smiled and gestured the crowd closer. “I have made the most extraordinary discovery.” Her voice carried throughout the ballroom. “There is one among us who hides a pure, true talent.”

  Her gaze sought out Jane, then skipped to Athowe with a predatory hunger.

  Four footmen struggled out of the door from the entry. They carried a square table on which was draped a large, upright, man-shaped form. Jane’s heart gave an appalled thump. Could it be…? And if it was, how she regretted doubting Melba’s warnings about Frederica!

  Bitterly Jane realized what a fool she was. A total unmitigated fool.

  “It should not be hidden from society.” Frederica smiled. “Not when it can bring us all such…entertainment.” Malice lingered in the curve of her smooth, colored lips.

  “So let me present you with”—she pulled the drape away—“Miss Jane Higgenbothem’s own creation!”

  Silence struck like a bolt of lightning. Like the thunder that follows, the ton gasped. Then, like the rustle of wind before a killing storm, Jane heard the whispers slip across the room. “Blackburn.” “Lord Blackburn.” “It’s Blackburn.” “He’s naked!”

  For one brief moment of gratification, Jane admired the statue she had created. Seen in the light of a thousand candles, it was superb. The features were firm, full of pride and disdain. The classic pose displayed every muscle, and they seemed to move sinuously beneath the smooth clay skin. It looked so real, she wanted to shout with pride.

  This was her work. Her best work. The work into which she had poured her heart and soul and used her all her skill to create. Surely these people would recognize art and beauty when they saw it. Surely they would treat her statue with the reverence it deserved.

  Dragging her gaze from her creation, Jane blinked hopefully around her.

  But she saw no admiration. Only horror. Titillation. Contempt.

  Then a path opened between her and Blackburn.

  In the abstract, detached manner of one living a nightmare, she noted that Blackburn’s forehead throbbed with a bright red vein. His beautifully generous mouth was compressed into a tight line. His hands, clad in snow white kid, flexed and unflexed as if Jane’s neck rested between them. He was the incarnation of pure rage.

  She swallowed convulsively and stepped back, reaching to steady herself against Lord Athowe’s arm.

  He was not there.

  “Lord Blackburn, confess all.” Frederica paused to snigger. “Did you…pose…for this statue?”

  “No,” Jane said. “Oh, no.”

  Blackburn whipped his head around and glared at Frederica.

  She was insinuating that Blackburn had stood patiently,
exposing himself to Jane’s artistic scrutiny, when nothing could be further from the truth. The sculpting had been drawn from furtive observations and vivid imagination.

  “I did not,” Blackburn snapped.

  But an amused, anonymous male voice called, “Blackburn won’t admit to it. What man would?”

  Like a dam breaking, the comment shattered the crowd’s composure.

  Laughter blasted forth from every throat. The lords and ladies of the ton pointed, their fingers trembling, at Jane’s finest work. They laughed until dark threads of kohl dripped down the women’s cheeks, until men’s cravats withered under the force of their amusement, until Blackburn swore without caution, until Jane burned with mortification.

  Until Jane’s reputation was in shreds.

  Chapter 5

  Laughter. Jane could almost hear its echo in Lady Goodridge’s ballroom. She would never forget. Could never forget. Not the laughter, nor the dreadful shattering of the Ming vase, nor the thump of Melba’s body as she fainted.

  Those sounds had signaled the end of Jane’s reputation, her ambitions, and her life. Everything since had been grief and duty, and now every time she heard the laughter of merrymakers, she flinched, then turned to see if they were pointing at her.

  They weren’t. No one even looked at her. They all stared at Adorna.

  And why not? Adorna’s blond hair had been shaped by an artist’s scissors and now curled cunningly around the nape of her long, slender neck. Violet’s modiste had created a gown of simple white muslin, tied with a gold cord beneath Adorna’s generous breasts. Her white kid slippers displayed her tiny feet, and silk stockings rustled against linen petticoats.

  And as always, the curves of her body undulated in a natural feminine rhythm as she walked, and that rhythm sounded the mating call to the male of the human species.

  “Ma’am.” A man of good height and close-cropped brown hair approached Jane and boldly took her hand. “If I were so forward as to introduce myself to you, and acquaint you with my credentials, would you introduce me to your ward?”

  A chorus of boos from the other men distracted her from his pleasant, imploring face. Amused, she said, “Your friends scarcely approve.”

  “They’re not friends, they’re turncoats.” He glanced around. “But I have the approval of a peer of the realm. Blackburn, tell this honorable chaperone who you are and explain that I’m respectable.”

  Jane didn’t move, didn’t look, but froze like a London street urchin who scented danger. From the corner of her eye, she noted a tall man step out of the pressing crowd while the other gentlemen fell back deferentially. She noted, too, that Blackburn stared at her as if she truly were a street urchin, streaked with soot and out of place.

  She was. Oh, heavens, she was.

  “I could hardly swear to your respectability, Fitz, without perjuring myself.”

  Blackburn sounded stiff and impatient, and Jane waited, quivering, for him to impugn her.

  “But I have met this…lady before, and I can introduce you, if you like.”

  That was all.

  Quietly he performed the courtesies, and his companion, Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald, seemed unaware of anything unusual in Blackburn’s demeanor. Of course, that was because Adorna fixed his attention. Dear Adorna, who had blossomed beneath the concentrated fascination of so many men.

  When he had done his duty, Blackburn did not step away. The well-remembered scent of lemon clung to him as he pulled her apart from the company. In a voice low and intense with contempt, he asked, “Stop quivering so! Did you expect me to denounce you?”

  Slowly she looked up at him.

  She could have sworn she hadn’t forgotten anything about Ransom Quincy, the Marquess of Blackburn, but she must have, for his Viking beauty took her breath away. He seemed taller, although that was perhaps a function of her dismay. His blond hair seemed lighter, less golden, as white streaked it. He gazed through the silver quizzing glass she remembered so well, and his midnight blue eyes pierced her until she thought she must be bleeding.

  “I would not explain to that crowd that you single-handedly exposed me to ridicule and humiliation.” His upper-class accent grew more clipped as he spoke, and his voice deepened as he added, “For the most part, they have forgotten, and I have no wish to raise the specter of that scandal.”

  He probably hoped she would turn tail and run. He didn’t comprehend that worse things had happened since that long-ago ball.

  Her spine straightened, and flush with aplomb, she said, “You seem to forget, the scandal mortified more than one person.”

  “Who?” His gaze swept the babbling Fitz, the entire ballroom, before returning to rest on her.

  Was he really so uncaring, or was he simply oblivious? “Such an inconvenience, my lord, to think of someone other than yourself,” she said crisply. “So unusual for you, also.”

  His nostrils flared as he considered her. “You are impertinent.”

  “Following your example, my lord.”

  His rangy litheness had given way to a broader, more muscular build, and now he looked as cold and solid as marble. He didn’t care what she thought or what she had suffered, but even for that, Jane was glad. Glad that she’d seen her nemesis. Glad that she’d found her tongue, uncovered her wit, and answered him smartly as he deserved. Any additional disgrace would be worth the self-respect she’d gained.

  Then Adorna’s beguiling voice shattered Jane’s triumph. “Aunt Jane, would you introduce me to his lordship?”

  Coming down to earth with a thump, Jane apprehended she couldn’t afford the satisfaction of cutting Blackburn. He might be a rude beast, but he was wealthy, titled, and influential, and for Adorna’s sake she had to preserve the fiction of mutual respect. She had perfected the unemotional mask; now she donned it, performed the introductions, and waited, torn between satisfaction and old heartache, for Blackburn to see Adorna. To really see Adorna and fall under the spell of her womanly charms.

  The quizzing glass swept Adorna as she curtsied and murmured her pleasure at making his acquaintance. “How do you do, Miss Morant?” His smile, his courtesy, his bow, were everything a matchmaking mama could wish.

  And that was what she was, Jane reminded herself. A matchmaker, seeking the best marriage possible for her niece. If that marriage happened to be with Blackburn, well—the fates had laughed at Jane before, and she had lived. She would survive this irony, too.

  “Do you have a dance reserved?” he asked.

  Jane scarcely winced.

  Adorna lavished a smile on him, and with a wiggle of her shoulders, said, “Aren’t you lucky. I have just one left.”

  “Then pray give it to my friend Fitz.” Blackburn sighed as if the prospect of a country jig with a lovely maiden bored him beyond tears. “He’s a war hero, but he can probably still hobble around to a slow tune.”

  Jane glared at the insufferable man. Did he think to avenge himself by his petty rudeness?

  For the first time, he lowered the quizzing glass. A scar marred his face, drawing the inner corner of his eye down and streaking the brown skin of his brow with white. The disfiguration was slight, yet ten years ago he had been perfect, arrogant, and thoughtless to the point of cruelty. In her heart Jane had believed he was divine, untouchable by either emotion or injury. Now she had seen his marred face, and the earth shuddered beneath her feet.

  “I say,” Mr. Fitzgerald said, laughing in mock exasperation, “I can ask for myself.”

  “Of course, Lord Blackburn. I would be pleased to dance with Mr. Fitzgerald. He is surely the handsomest man in London.” Adorna looked at Mr. Fitzgerald from beneath weighted eyelids, while the men around them protested in hearty, disbelieving voices.

  Jane inventoried Blackburn’s chiseled nose, his finely carved cheekbones, his granite chin. That face epitomized the best and finest of nobility and temperament. Yet she couldn’t ignore the proof of his vulnerability.

  Nor could she ignore the character his s
car added to his features, or the artistic itch in her fingers.

  She sought the words to express her outrage at Blackburn’s pain, to demand to know why he had put himself into danger, to beg to worship as she had worshiped before.

  But he was already turning away.

  And thank God, she was coming to her senses.

  “Lord Blackburn.” Adorna’s suddenly no-nonsense tone startled Jane. She sounded so much like Melba. “You, in turn, must grant me a boon.”

  Blackburn halted, and his quizzing glass rose again. He gazed on Adorna as if she were a puppy who had set her teeth in his coattails. “I must?”

  “The dancing will start soon, and my aunt will be left without an escort.”

  Jane gasped. “Adorna, no!”

  The lord and the debutante ignored her.

  “You’ll care for her,” Adorna said.

  “I will?”

  “Yes.”

  Ten years ago, Jane had devoted her every waking moment to a study of Blackburn. She had hung on his every word; she had deciphered his every expression.

  Now she saw him look around, noting the silence that had fallen. She knew he was weighing the consequences of a contemptuous refusal. She realized he was wondering if this scene would be gossiped about, and if the names of Miss Jane Higgenbothem and Blackburn would again be linked.

  She saw the moment when he made his decision.

  A tight smile thinned his generous lips. He bowed gracefully and extended his hand. “Escorting this…lady would be my dearest pleasure.”

  Chapter 6

  Jane viewed Blackburn’s white–gloved hand so disdainfully he was tempted to check for a spot. “I can’t leave Adorna alone,” she said.

  “Of course you can.” Her fingers were threaded together, and he separated them with what he considered remarkable patience, then grasped one hand and pulled. “All her dances are taken; your duty is done.”

  The foolish woman set her heels. “I truly can’t. Gentlemen are not gentlemen where she’s concerned.”