by Jade Lee
Except when he looked at her, his breath was stolen away, and he couldn’t figure out why. Her face was pleasing with clear skin and a pert nose. Her figure was delightfully curvy, but not overly so. Why was he struck dumb when she entered a room? And why did he watch as she murmured her thanks to the butler and smiled earnestly up at his sister?
Because she was honest, he realized. No coyness, no games. She looked directly at one when she spoke, and he saw no deviousness in her words or form. If she was embarrassed, he knew. And if she wanted something, he knew that as well. Her body was strong, telling him she labored. It didn’t matter to him whether she was a farmhand or the grandest duchess in the land. She was not idle, and that appealed to him. But most of all, when she looked at him, he felt it. He felt her. Her attention, her perception, and even her desire.
He saw that all in her eyes and face when he offered her his arm. He felt her self-possession as they walked calmly toward his phaeton. And when he turned her around to lift her onto the seat, he felt her body tremble and saw her tongue dart out to wet her lips. That was desire, he thought. And it matched his own.
He set her on the seat but did not release her. “I don’t like the idea of introducing you to other men. I don’t like where this might lead.”
She blinked. “You fear someone might recognize me?”
He frowned. In truth, the idea had never occurred to him. “Not at all. I don’t want you looking at anyone but me.” This was not an unusual thing to say among the ton. The flirts bandied about the phrase nearly every hour. But it was not typical of him, and he wondered if she knew that. Worse, he wondered what that meant for him. He was not a man to say silly things. He had more important worries on his mind. Affairs of state, the management of a nation. And yet, he was completely consumed by the idea that Miss Amber Gohar was shopping for a husband.
It upset him enough that he stomped his way around the phaeton before jumping up on the other side. Fortunately, she was still there, and this time her smile was teasing as her gaze locked with his.
“Will you feel better if I promise to look at you every moment we are together? At least one second for every minute.”
He snorted. “And who shall get the other fifty-nine?”
“Someone who dresses with more flair,” she responded tartly. “Like him, perhaps.” She gestured across the street at Mr. Dennis Shaw. A young popinjay fresh out of school with more money than sense. Elliott wondered if the riot of colors in his attire made his valet physically ill.
“You cannot mean for me to dress like that.”
She laughed, a truly lovely sound. “Not you. You haven’t the mannerisms to carry it off. But he is worth a gander, don’t you think?”
“Not even a gosling,” he retorted as he got the horses moving. “I shudder to think what he paid for that monstrous attire.”
“Enough to make the tailor very happy.”
Well, he supposed he’d never thought of it that way. If Mr. Shaw had money to burn, then there were worse places to spend it than on a tailor who was feeding his family on the one purchase.
“You see,” Amber said as she turned to look at him. “Fifty-nine seconds of incomprehensible color, and one second to rest my eyes with your unending, monotonous black. She frowned for a moment. “Did you wish to be a clergyman when you were a boy?”
“What? No! My fondest wish was to be a hussar. I wanted to ride a horse into battle with my sword flashing in the sun.”
“Their uniforms are quite spectacular.”
“Quite. I was a boy and easily impressed by such things.” He shook his head. “I used to think military glory was the most exciting thing in the world.”
“What changed you? I sincerely doubt you own a crimson coat or gold epaulets. Something happened to make you choose black, more black, and then a little white with your black.”
“It wasn’t ever the clothes that drew me. I wear black because it’s convenient and doesn’t show the dirt.”
“Very practical,” she agreed. “But what of the boy who dreamed of glory?”
“He met men who went to war.” He looked at her. “My father used to visit the military hospitals, and he brought me along. I grew up listening to their stories. After my father died, I went in his stead. It’s something I do to honor him and the men who fight for England.”
She sobered. “So that is why you are working so hard for your resolution.”
“Don’t you see them?” he asked. “They’re in every corner of London. The maimed, the hungry, the angry. If we are to avoid the fate of the French king, then we must take care of our people. Surely you see it, too.”
She touched his arm, and he felt his muscles flex in reaction before relaxing beneath her heat. “I see it,” she said. “And it does you credit that you do as well. So many of your set do not.”
He nodded, startled that he had spoken so passionately to her. As a rule, talk with ladies was of the weather and the latest play. “I beg your pardon. I find myself frustrated with politics of late. This is your first outing to Hyde Park at the fashionable hour. I should not darken it with my ill temper.”
She snorted. “This is not my first visit. I have spent many afternoons strolling at the outskirts to watch the fashionable go by.”
“What?” he asked. “Where?”
“I’ll show you my favorite place when we pass it. As for your ill temper, I find it interesting. It is not about losing money on a horse or a roll of the dice. It is not about how your first mistress is angry with your second or that your wife is spending your money faster than you can gamble it away.”
“You must find better company,” he groused.
“That is the whole purpose of this ride, is it not? To find me better company to marry?”
Well, that soured his temper even more, but he had to admit that he wanted her to find a better life than endless nights at the Lyon’s Den. That wasn’t much of a future for anyone, much less a fascinating woman.
“Tell me of your proposed law, my lord. Does it prosper? Will the resolution pass, do you think?”
“No,” he muttered, thoroughly downcast. “I lost a vote yesterday. One that carries others, and I cannot see how to regain it.”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Who defected?”
“Baron Easterly. He’s in a monstrous foul mood, and he never agrees to anything when he’s like that. I swear, he votes nay merely because he is angry with the world, and I cannot fathom what has happened or how to turn it around.”
She chuckled. “His wife found out how much he spends at the brothels and has locked him out of her bedchamber in fury.”
“What?”
She frowned at him. “Baron Easterly, right? He’s the fat one with the bushy mustache. The one who frequents all the ladies just so they will crow about his prowess.”
This was not a proper discussion to have with a lady, but he needed the information too much to worry about the niceties. “Yes, that’s him. And his…appetites are rather legendary.”
“They are indeed,” she said with a grin, her eyes dancing in the sunlight. She was begging him to ask, daring him to continue with this topic, and he could not resist her when she looked so delighted.
“What do you know?”
“He has not touched a woman other than his wife in decades.”
He blew out a breath. It was sweet that she was this naive. Sweet and a little disappointing. “Of course,” he said placatingly. All men visited the brothels so that they could go home and make love to their wives.
“Listen!” she said. “He pays the women to tell his cronies how good he is. Then he sits in the chair and reads. Sometimes he talks about hunting with his dogs. We have had regular updates on how his son fares. The boy gets ill in the fall, but it always clears up by Michaelmas.”
Could it be true? Interesting gossip to be sure, but he didn’t know how to use it to his advantage. He would never threaten to expose the man for something so silly. If Easterly wanted to pay
women to make him legendary, it was no business of Elliott’s. Or anyone else’s for that matter.
“The thing is,” she continued, “it would be so much better for him to pick a single mistress, someone thought to be unattainable. He could pay her a pittance of what he spends all over town and still have the same illusion of prowess. More, in fact, if it could be arranged.”
“That is not generally how mistresses work.”
“And that is not generally how the upstairs ladies work. But it could be arranged, and then he could pay court to his wife, still appear manly before his cronies, and have a great deal more money with which to pamper his family. It would work all the way around and likely put him in an excellent mood.”
Elliott wanted to argue. He wanted to claim that no man would spend his blunt on a mistress without taking advantage of what was offered. But he knew Baron Easterly. The man was short, fat, and balding. He took great pride in his reputation with women, and it wasn’t impossible that he had spent a great deal to maintain an illusion.
“But could it be done?” he wondered. “What unattainable woman would agree to such a bargain?”
“The Abacas Woman,” Amber said. “She’s mysterious, gentlemen have been vying for her attention since she came to the Lyon’s Den, and no man has claimed her.”
The woman who sat in a cage with Amber and her grandfather? The one who was responsible for the money that flowed through the den. “Would she do it?”
Amber smiled. “What woman wouldn’t? It is easy money.”
Her reputation would be destroyed, but what reputation was that? No one knew who the Abacas Woman was. And for Easterly to land her would boost his reputation to legendary status.
Meanwhile, Amber cast him a coy look. “I should think Lord Easterly would be very grateful to the man who arranged that for him. Perhaps enough to vote his way on a resolution to aid veterans.”
“He would indeed,” Elliott breathed. “As I would be grateful to the woman who helped me arrange such a thing.”
Amber grinned. “Would it be enough, then?”
“Enough what?”
She gestured ahead to the edge of the fashionable throng. “Enough to repay you for taking me here today? To sponsoring me tomorrow night at Almack’s?” She looked at him, and when he didn’t answer, she blew out a breath. “I am trying to be of service to you, my lord. To pay you back for the trouble of introducing me to the ton.”
Of course, she was. Of course, she was bartering for his time with her. Because that is what people in her world did. They paid her for her time and her jewelry. “Does no one do things for you merely because they wish to help you?”
She stared at him in surprise, but he would not be deterred.
“Do all men of your acquaintance require recompense for your time?” As if she were no better than an upstairs lady, as she called them?
“I…” She began. “I thought…” But what she thought was not clear, at least not in her words. Elliott had no trouble understanding.
“Let me explain,” he said firmly. “I am pleased to introduce you to the ton,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie. She was a delight, and he thought all worthy people would enjoy her company. “I am honored to escort you this afternoon and tomorrow night. I do not require payment nor barter from you. It is what a gentleman would do for a…” He was about to say a gently reared lady, but of course, she was nothing of the sort. “For you,” he finally said. “Any gentlemen would be happy to sponsor you into his set.”
She sighed. “I think we both know that is not true.”
That he wasn’t a gentleman? He wasn’t, given what he’d tried to do with her last night. But he knew what she meant. Most of his set would disdain her simply because of her birth. “Well,” he finally said, “perhaps my sister and I are cut from the same cloth. I do not find you in the least bit objectionable.”
“Not objectionable,” she drawled. “Damned by faint praise.”
He blew out a breath. “Worthy, Miss Gohar. I find you worthy.” And wasn’t that a surprise? He wasn’t one who thought the lower classes should be suppressed. He certainly wasn’t one to bargain harshly one minute, then sneer at the crassness of it all in the next breath. But she was generally considered beneath him. And yet, he found her more engaging, more irresistible, and generally more worthy of his attention the more time he spent with her.
Which made it all the harder for him to turn his attention outward to the fashionable throng to acknowledge all the greedy gentlemen who came looking for an introduction. But that is exactly what a ride in Hyde Park was about, and that was quite explicitly what he had promised to do.
So he did. He smiled and made her known to every eligible bachelor who had come to London this season looking for a wife. He kept his smile in place while she greeted them with the kind of composure absent in schoolroom misses and sheltered ladies. And he watched with growing anger as one gentleman after another was charmed by her.
She was his companion, she was his find, and she was absolutely, one hundred percent not for them! And yet, within the space of an hour, three gentlemen found a moment to ask if applications for her hand in marriage should go to Elliott or if there was a different relation at hand.
They weren’t declarations, of course. There was a great deal of business to investigate before a proposal was in the offering. But the process had begun, and with his family’s sponsorship, Amber could very well find herself choosing between suitors by week’s end.
It was enough to make him invent an excuse to cut the ride short. But he could not do that to her. Anyone could see that she was enjoying herself immensely. This was the dream of a lifetime for a girl like her. And so, he bit back his growl and made yet another introduction. And they stayed there until the last eligible bachelor left.
Chapter Twelve
Amber never imagined that Almack’s would be so boring. She’d been to one party. One! And already, she was tired of discussing the weather, fashion, and the latest play. No one wished to discuss politics or a secret passion. And the men seemed to think she would be fascinated by effusive compliments of her hair, her eyes, and even her teeth.
She enjoyed the dancing. And she especially loved being in a gown of palest blue just like she’d imagined that night before all this began. She wasn’t dripping with sapphires, but she did wear the gold lion in her hair. After a few minutes, even that grew boring. She missed her sketchbook, her family, and most especially, she missed working metal into a piece of art. She had seen more ugly jewelry in the last few days to make her itch to design something beautiful.
She wasn’t complaining. Heavens knew this had been her dream since she had first heard of pretty dresses. She just hadn’t expected reality to disillusion her so soon. There were only a few moments when her dreams felt as if they were as wonderful as she’d imagined, and those seconds were fast ticking away. It was when he danced with her, when he smiled at her, and when he said she was lovely, that she felt happy.
Elliott Rees, Lord Byrn. The man who had stayed away all day and offered no explanation of his absence when he came to fetch them for Almack’s. The man who owed her nothing, and yet she was peeved when he didn’t dance with her but once and anxious until he looked at her again. She was being illogical. He couldn’t look at her while he was dancing with every girl in this wretched place. And he couldn’t talk to her while he was saying pretty things to all those other richer, titled, or more beautiful girls.
“Thank you for the dance,” Amber said to a gentleman with buck teeth and watery eyes. In truth, he was one of her better dance partners. He moved beautifully and spoke of something other than the weather, and it wasn’t even about his dogs. He asked about Berlin and her life there, which, of course, was complete fabrication. She’d been grateful that the movements of the dance prevented her from anything but the most generic responses. She knew what to say, of course. She’d developed an elaborate past in the last few days, pulled from her very rich imagination. But i
t turned out that lying about who she was also paled over time.
Daydreams, it turned out, were never meant to come true. And that made her more depressed than she had ever been in her entire life.
“Amber, you should have told me!” Diana said as soon as Mr. Buck Teeth retreated. “I could have seeded the field so much better if I’d known.”
Amber frowned. She had no idea what that meant.
“Don’t look like that. It causes wrinkles,” Diana said as she pulled her to sit in a nearby bench. The orchestra was taking a break, thank heaven, and Amber was grateful to get off her aching feet. “I just heard it from Lady Waterford, who heard it from her son who heard it from… Oh, I don’t know who. But it’s the talk of the evening and the reason you haven’t stopped dancing all night long.”
“What is the reason?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended.
“Your dowry! I had no idea that you had one, much less twenty thousand pounds! That’s enough to overcome your lack of a title. In fact, it’s enough for you to be much more discerning as to your dance partners.”
Twenty thousand pounds? But that was ridiculous. “I don’t have a dowry,” she said. And even if she did, it certainly wasn’t any twenty thousand pounds. The amount was exorbitant!
“Actually, you do,” said the one voice she’d been straining to hear all day. Elliott stood beside them, holding out two glasses of lemonade. “I spoke with your father this afternoon. He seemed honored to bestow a dowry upon his only child. In fact, that was his exact word, honored.”
Amber stared opened mouthed at the man. She saw his blank expression and his long fingers where they held her glass. She saw his black attire and a stickpin for his cravat shaped like a flame. It was the pin that jarred her out of her shock, for it was one she had fashioned herself.
“I made that pin,” she said stupidly. “Did you buy it today?” It was a ridiculous thing to focus on, but he was wearing something of hers. Something she had fashioned with her own hand, and for some reason, that stood out as significant to her.