by Balogh, Mary
“I am sorry for your loss, sir,” she said.
“Thank you.” He bowed to her again. “Her Grace, the dowager duchess, your mother, has informed me that you have already granted the first two sets of dances to other gentlemen, who I trust are fully aware of their great good fortune. May I beg for the third?”
Dash it, Jessica thought. “That too is spoken for,” she told him. “And the set after that is a waltz, which I have promised to Lord Jennings.”
“Perhaps I will challenge him to pistols at dawn,” he said with another wide smile as his sleepy blue eyes continued to gaze into her own. “Better yet, I will beg for the fifth set.”
It would be the supper dance, she believed. Perfect. That would mean she would also sit with him at supper.
“I shall be happy to reserve it for you, sir,” she said with an inclination of the head, and this time she noticed that her court did not erupt with the usual grumbles but maintained what might have been a sullen silence.
By then the receiving line was breaking up as the last trickle of new arrivals moved into the ballroom, and Mr. Gladdley was stepping up beside Jessica and pointedly clearing his throat.
“The dancing is about to begin,” Jessica’s mother said, and Mr. Rochford, with a final bow, moved away. Mr. Gladdley crooked his arm for Jessica’s hand, and she placed it inside his elbow.
The gentleman from the inn was joining the end of one of the lines of dancers with a thin girl who looked not a day over sixteen. He was regarding his partner with what could only be called a proprietary smile. Then he looked up, caught Jessica’s eye, and gave her a curt nod.
Mr. Rochford was also leading out one of the white-clad new debutantes, who was blushing and looking nervous and very much in need of reassurance while he smiled and gazed at Jessica. But he dipped his head at last to say something that drew a grateful, worshipful glance from his partner.
Well, Jessica thought as the orchestra struck a chord and the dancing began, this Season was already showing considerable promise.
Four
Gabriel had come to the Parley ball alone, though he had been invited to join Bertie Vickers and a group of his friends for dinner at White’s Club before proceeding here with them later. But he had not wanted to be late arriving. Rather, he had wanted a chance to look about at his leisure. This was not just entertainment for him, after all. He needed a wife—or, rather, the Earl of Lyndale needed a countess—and what better place was there to look than the first grand ton ball of the Season? Lady Vickers had suggested a few young ladies she knew to be both eligible and available. She had promised to make sure Bertie introduced him to any that were at the ball, since she was unable to be there herself.
In addition to that main motive, though, Gabriel had hoped the ball would afford him a chance to catch a glimpse of Anthony Rochford, his second cousin once removed, if he remembered the relationship correctly.
Coming here alone had not been a comfortable thing to do, since he recognized only one or two men and no women. He was half hoping Lady Jessica Archer would be here. It would be interesting to see her again, to assess whether she was as perfect for his needs as she had seemed at their first brief meeting—and whether it might be possible to like her a little better than he had then. He was not even sure that she had come to London, however.
Numerous young girls had arrived even before he had, Gabriel saw—and girls seemed a more appropriate word than women. He must be getting old if he found them so alarmingly young. And all of them, almost without exception, were dressed in virginal white, as was Miss Parley, who looked all bright and flushed and pretty standing between her mother and father in the receiving line, greeting her guests. All of them looked pretty to him, though some were admittedly lovelier than others. All of them looked hopeful and eager, though a few tried to hide the fact behind unconvincing expressions of ennui. He felt an unexpected tenderness for them all and the dreams and aspirations they had brought to a London Season and what was undoubtedly their first grand ton ball. An almost avuncular tenderness.
He must be getting old.
A young debutante would certainly not do for his purpose, though all the young ladies Lady Vickers had suggested were in their first Season and almost certainly no older than seventeen or eighteen. He had been older than that when he went to America, for the love of God. A lifetime ago.
And then his eyes came to rest upon one particular woman. She was wearing a gown of vivid rose pink, startlingly noticeable even though she was half hidden within a cluster of men—or perhaps because of that. The men were all talking and laughing, but it was very clear that it was being done for the benefit of the woman and was designed to draw her looks and her smiles. She was very definitely the focus of their admiring attention. They were all vying to outdo one another. What popinjays, Gabriel thought. Did they have no pride? Then one of the men moved slightly to his right at the same moment as another moved slightly to his left, and Gabriel had a clearer line of vision to the woman herself.
She was of average height, slender, graceful, elegant, beautiful. Not pretty, but beautiful. She was definitely not a girl. Neither was she clad in virginal white but in that rich rose he had noticed first about her. It was a low-cut gown, short sleeved, high waisted, the Grecian lines of the skirt hugging her hips and slim legs and yet flowing about her at the same time. It was undeniably the handiwork of a skilled—and expensive—dressmaker. Her dark hair was piled high and arranged in intricate curls on her head, with a few tendrils of ringlets over her temples and along her neck. She was fanning her face slowly with a lacy fan, looking half amused, half bored.
Lady Jessica Archer.
She was every bit as exquisite as he remembered her. More so, in fact. And every bit as haughty too. She was doing nothing deliberately to attract the men clustered about her. There was no sign in her manner of flirtation or teasing. There were no provocative glances or enticing smiles. Yet she was doing nothing to discourage them either. It was as though she considered herself entitled as by right to their adulation. She would condescend to stand there and listen, her manner seemed to say, but she would not favor any one of them with particular attention. She would certainly not display any need to attract them. Yet she must be several years older than all the pretty, eager, anxious girls in white. Did she feel no urgency to attract an eligible husband? Apparently not.
But why should she? She was a duke’s daughter.
She was aristocratic hauteur itself.
She was perfect.
Gabriel propped his shoulder against a pillar that was conveniently next to him and settled in to watch her for a while. The dancing had not yet begun, Bertie had still not arrived, and he knew almost no one else, though Lady Parley had smiled upon him with particular graciousness as he passed along the receiving line earlier. Another eligible bachelor, her look had said. It was what her ball was all about, after all. She had a daughter to marry off.
He wondered how many of those men were seriously courting Lady Jessica Archer. If any of them held out any hope of landing her, they were fools. She obviously cared not a toss for any of them. Although she looked amiably enough at each in turn while they talked, she did not show any obvious partiality or any heightened awareness of any one of them. He wondered if they realized it. If they did, why did they remain? Did they not understand that they were making idiots of themselves? Or were most of them not serious about her and gathered about the lovely sister of the Duke of Netherby merely because it was the fashionable thing to do?
What fools.
And then, while she was smiling over something one of those men had said and fanning her face, she turned her head to look toward the receiving line, and in doing so saw him. Her eyes paused on him and held. She was assessing him. There was no sign of recognition on her face, a notsurprising fact, perhaps, as he had only very recently stepped off the boat the last time she saw him and had not yet subjected himself to the untender mercies of an expensive London tailor and boot maker an
d haberdasher and barber. Not to mention the tyrannical ministrations of a superior valet. Gabriel had hardly recognized himself by the time they were all done with him.
Perhaps he ought to have looked away. It would probably have been the polite thing to do. One did not stare at strangers. But he was interested to note that she did not look away from him or blush or appear in any way flustered. Indeed, she responded to his continued gaze exactly as he would have expected and rather as she had behaved at that inn. She lifted first her eyebrows and then her chin as though to ask him how he dared be so bold as to raise his eyes to Lady Jessica Archer.
He was the first to look away. Bertie Vickers had arrived and had come to gather Gabriel into the fold of his particular group of male friends. Though not for long.
“Come along, Gabe,” he said, slapping a hand on his shoulder after the flurry of greetings had ended. “There is a young lady I want you to meet.” He shrugged and pulled a face when his friends made jeering noises. “M’mother presented me with a list this morning—the names of daughters and nieces and granddaughters and whatnot of all her acquaintances. She made me promise to present Gabe to any of them who are here tonight. Don’t look at me like that, Kerson—there’s a good fellow. Gabe is in search of a leg shackle but he don’t know anyone. He just came from America.”
Kerson winced. “I’ll say a prayer for you, Thorne, next time I go to church,” he said.
“Next Christmas, will that be, Kerson?” someone else said. “It will be too late for Thorne by then. He will be caught right and tight in parson’s mousetrap, and he will have Bertie to blame. I mean, to thank.”
“I shall keep it in mind,” Gabriel said with a grin. “Who is this young lady you want me to meet, Bertie?”
But someone else had joined the group of young men, and Bertie, distracted, was shaking him by the hand and exclaiming that he had not seen him in an age and a half, and where the devil had he been keeping himself?
Gabriel was not particularly interested in dancing, even though that was why he had come here. None of the young girls he had set eyes upon thus far attracted him. The only woman who did was surrounded by an army of devoted followers and did not need another idiot making a fool of himself over her.
He glanced across the room toward her while he waited for Bertie to finish slapping his long-lost friend’s back and having his own back slapped in return. Ah. It looked as though after all there might be room for another admirer in Lady Jessica Archer’s orbit. A man was being presented to her by an older lady of regal bearing, clad in royal blue. He had gone there to pay homage and was making her an elegant bow he must have practiced for hours before a looking glass. Someone ought to advise him to change his tailor or his valet or both. His gold evening coat, excellently cut and of a perfect fit, was a touch on the flamboyant side but might have passed muster if it had been worn with the right accompaniments. A waistcoat that was so covered with glittering gold sequins that it might have stood up on its own if set on the floor was not the right accompaniment. He had a thick head of dark red hair carefully shaped into the very Brutus style Gabriel himself had recently rejected.
Lady Jessica Archer, Gabriel was interested to notice, responded to his deep obeisance with a haughty inclination of her head, just as she had responded to him at that inn. A queen honoring a lowly subject.
Bertie had finished with all the back slapping. “Lady Jessica Archer,” he said, noticing the direction of Gabriel’s gaze. “Netherby’s sister. The Duke of, that is. There is no point in wasting your time on her, Gabe. She will have no man, though if she does not change that attitude soon, she will be so long in the tooth no one will want her any longer.”
“Who is that with her?” Gabriel asked.
“That is a trick question, right?” Bertie said with a guffaw of a laugh. “Half the male guests here tonight are with her, as they almost always are. Or do you mean the woman in blue? Her mother, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby?”
“The man in gold,” Gabriel said.
“Don’t know.” Bertie shook his head, but one of his friends provided the answer.
“He is Lyndale’s heir,” he said. “The Earl of Lyndale, that is. Or soon-to-be earl. The ladies cannot get enough of him. They think him a handsome devil.”
“Ah,” Bertie said, “so that is Rochford, is it? I have been hearing his praises being sung all week. Mr. Perfection. Mr. Charming Perfection. One would think someone would change the subject once in a while.”
“Soon-to-be earl?” Gabriel said, his eyes narrowing as he looked upon the distinctive figure of his second cousin once removed.
“The old earl died almost seven years ago,” Bertie explained, “and his son with him. The nephew who got the title after him never claimed it and is almost certainly dead. If he is not found very soon, he will be called dead whether he is or not and there will be a new earl—that idiot’s father.”
“Idiot, Bertie?” someone asked. “Just because he is Mr. Charming Perfection?”
“Well, I ask you,” Bertie said, “who but an idiot would wear that waistcoat in public? It is an abomination—that’s what it is. Come along, Gabe—let me make that introduction, or the dancing will be starting and you will not have a partner for it and I will never hear the end of it after m’mother asks tomorrow.”
The girl in question was the daughter of a dear friend of Lady Vickers, a viscountess. She—the girl, that was—was almost painfully thin and pale of both hair and complexion. It was nothing short of a crime that she had been clad in white, surely the worst possible color for her. And it was a shame that someone had tried unsuccessfully to powder over the outbreak of spots that plagued her chin. Gabriel bowed to her and her mother when Bertie introduced him, and he smiled and made conversation until, when the time finally came, he led the girl out to join the first set, still with that odd feeling that he was an uncle fondly humoring a beloved niece. He led her to the end of the line of ladies, took his place opposite her in the line of gentlemen, and tried to convey reassurance in the way he looked at her. He glanced away to see if the orchestra was about to start playing and found himself looking at Lady Jessica Archer, who was vivid and lovely among the delicate whites and pastels to either side of her in the line. She caught his eye, and he nodded to her. It would be disrespectful to his partner to look longer. But he did notice that her partner was not Rochford.
That one glance confirmed everything he had thought about her.
She was perfection.
He danced the second set with Miss Parley herself, her mother having summoned him with one white-gloved hand and an imperious nod of her tall hair plumes. It was during that dance that he realized he was no longer virtually invisible as he had been at the start of the evening. Word had apparently spread about who he was—Mr. Thorne from America, as though the from America was part of his name and perhaps the most fascinating part of it. Lady Vickers, it seemed, had done her work well and aroused interest in this man who was her kinsman and godson and who had made a fortune during the years he had spent in America before coming home.
After he had returned Miss Parley to her mama’s side when the set was over, Lady Parley suggested she introduce him to someone else. “I know you are new to town and know virtually no one, Mr. Thorne,” she said. “That will change after this ball, I do assure you. But in the meanwhile, perhaps I may present you to Miss—”
“Perhaps Lady Jessica Archer, ma’am?” he suggested before she could finish. He had spoken impulsively. There were even more men gathered about her now, after the second set, than there had been at the start. Why would he wish to swell their numbers? He did not wish it, of course. He had no intention of becoming one of her hangers-on, vying with a dozen others for one of her glances or—pinnacle of all happiness—one of her smiles. His only intention was to marry her.
But first, an introduction.
“Of course,” Lady Parley said, and like a ship in full sail she set off across the ballroom, her hair plumes announc
ing her approach so that the cluster of men split apart to allow her access to the lady in their midst. Ladies, that was. There was another young woman with Lady Jessica, a very slender, dark beauty dressed in a gown of pale spring green.
Both watched their approach. Lady Jessica Archer closed her fan and slightly raised her chin. It was clear to Gabriel that by now she had recognized him as the man who had given up the private parlor for her use at that inn, albeit somewhat ungraciously.
“Lady Jessica, Lady Estelle,” Lady Parley said, “I have the pleasure of presenting Mr. Thorne, who has recently returned from America. Lady Jessica Archer and Lady Estelle Lamarr, Mr. Thorne.”
“Lady Jessica. Lady Estelle.” Gabriel bowed to them, though with none of the ostentation his cousin had displayed earlier.
Lady Estelle Lamarr greeted him with a smile and a curtsy before turning to a blushing young man who had touched her arm and seemed intent upon inviting her to dance the next set with him.
Lady Jessica acknowledged Gabriel with the same slight inclination of the head he had seen twice before. “Mr. Thorne,” she said.
Lady Parley was hailed by someone to their left and hurried away with a murmured apology.
“For how long were you in America, Mr. Thorne?” Lady Jessica asked.
“For thirteen years,” he told her.
“A long time,” she said. “You must be delighted to be back home.”
On the assumption, perhaps, that America was a wild and lawless land? “I suppose I must,” he said.