by Mary Balogh
Before Edgar could realize that he was staring and proving himself to be indeed less than a gentleman—Sir Webster was saying something complimentary about Cora—the woman’s eyes alit on him, held his own for a moment, and then moved deliberately down his body and back up again. She lifted one mocking eyebrow as her eyes met his once more and pursed her lips into something like the O that had just made Miss Grainger’s lips look kissable. Except that there was nothing this time to remind him of his niece and nephews. He felt heated, as if there had been a hot hand at the end of her eyebeams that had scorched its way down the length of his body and back up again.
If he had not been standing in the Earl of Greenwald’s drawing room, he would have been convinced that he was surely in the presence of one of London’s more experienced and celebrated courtesans.
“Ah, yes, indeed,” he said to Sir Webster, feeling that it was the correct response to what had just been said, though he was not at all sure.
Sir Webster seemed satisfied with his answer. Lady Grainger smiled and Miss Grainger lowered her gaze to the floor again.
The scarlet lady had moved into the room and was being greeted by the Earl of Greenwald, who was bowing over her hand.
2
HELENA STAPLETON WAS INVITED EVERYWHERE. She was quite respectable, even though the general feeling seemed to be that she was only just so. She had been a widow for ten years, yet apart from the first four of those years, when she had gone to stay with cousins in Scotland, she had adopted neither of the two courses that were expected of widows. She had not retired to live quietly as a dowager on the estate of her dead husband’s son, and she had not shown any interest in remarrying.
She had gone traveling. Her husband, more than thirty years her senior, had been besotted with her and had left her a very generous legacy. This she had conserved and increased through careful investments. She traveled to every corner of the British Isles and to every country of Europe, the wars being long over. She had even been to Greece and to Egypt, though she would tell anyone who cared to ask that she thought too highly of her creature comforts to repeat either of those two experiences. Sometimes she rested from her travels and took up temporary residence in London, where she proceeded to amuse herself with whatever entertainments were available. This was one of those occasions. She almost always avoided the crush of the spring Season.
She was always careful to travel with companions, with congenial female acquaintances and with gentlemen to serve as escorts. She always set up house in London with a female companion, usually an aunt, whom she sent into the country to visit a nephew and a brood of great-nephews and great-nieces as soon as respectability had been established. And so she almost always arrived alone at entertainments, making her aunt’s excuses to her hosts. There never had been such a sickly aunt.
Ladies—even those of six-and-thirty with independent means—were not expected to move about town or about ton parties alone, even when they had the misfortune to have female companions who were always catching chills or suffering from headaches. And ladies of six-and-thirty were not expected to dress as they pleased, unless it pleased them to wear such colors as purple or mulberry and to cover their hair with large turbans decked out with waving plumes. They were certainly not expected to favor scarlet gowns or emerald green or sunshine-yellow ones—or to go bareheaded into society.
Lady Stapleton did all that a lady of six-and-thirty was not expected to do. But there was a confidence and a self-assurance about her that seemed excuse enough for the absence of escorts or companions. And she had a beauty and arrogance of bearing, coupled with an impeccable taste for design and elegance, that made one hesitate about describing her appearance as vulgar or even inappropriate to her age.
She had few, if any, close friends. There was an air of aloofness, even of mystery, about her, even though she conversed quite freely about her travels and experiences. Everyone knew who she was—the daughter of a respectable but impoverished Scottish gentleman, the widow of Sir Christian Stapleton of Brookhurst. She was amiable, charming, sociable—and yet she gave the impression that there was a great deal more to be known about her than she had ever revealed.
She was invited everywhere. Gentlemen found her fascinating despite the fact that she was long past her youth. Ladies were secretly envious of her, though her age protected her from their jealousy. Yet the feeling was—though no one could quite explain it—that she hovered dangerously close to the edge of respectability.
She knew it. And cared not the snap of two fingers. She had decided long ago—six years ago, to be precise—that life was to be lived and enjoyed, and live it and enjoy it she would. She had earned her enjoyment. She had been snatched from the love of her life—or so she had thought with the foolish sensibilities to which very young people were so prone—at the age of nineteen in order to be forced into marriage with the wealthy, fifty-four-year-old Sir Christian Stapleton. She had lived through seven years of marriage to him with bright smiles and determined affection and feigned eagerness in the marriage bed. She had lived through—but she would not remember what else she had lived through during those years. She had punished herself after her husband’s death for her widowhood and her youth and her human frailties by retiring to a quiet life in Scotland, where she had seen her former love himself married with five children and an eagerness to begin an affair with her. Although she had longed to give in, she had resisted and had in general become a dull and abject creature, as if she believed that she deserved no better.
She deserved better. She deserved to live. Everyone deserved to live. No one owed anyone else anything. She owed no one anything. And if she did, then she had more than paid with eleven years of her life—seven with Christian and four after his death.
At the age of thirty—perhaps it was the nasty shock of that particular number—she had thrown off the shackles. And though she was always careful to cling to the semblance of respectability, she did not care that she hovered close to its edge. Indeed, she rather enjoyed the feeling of being almost, but not quite, notorious.
HELENA ARRIVED RATHER late at Lady Greenwald’s soirée, as was customary with her. She liked to arrive after everyone else so that she could look about her and choose the group to which she wished to attach herself. She hated to be caught among people who had no conversation beyond the weather and the state of their health. She liked to be with interesting people.
She was acquainted with most of the people, she saw, standing in the doorway, looking about her. But then one usually was at ton events in London. And it was even more true of events outside of the Season. There were not a great many families in residence at this time of the year. Inevitably, all who were, were invited everywhere. Equally inevitably, all who were invited attended every function.
The Marquess of Carew was there, she saw, in the midst of a group of his particular friends. She had met the marquess for the first time just the week before. She had not sought out the introduction since he was a very ordinary-looking man with a slightly crippled hand and foot and a smiling placidity of manner that usually denoted dullness. He had spoken to her about his passion, landscape gardening, a dull topic indeed. And unexpectedly he had held her fascinated attention. The extremely elegant, almost foppish Lord Francis Kneller was part of the same group. Whenever she saw him, Helena felt regret that he was a married man. He had married a cit’s daughter, who went with him almost wherever he went. She was with him now, laughing with quite ungenteel amusement at something someone had said. What a waste of a perfectly lovely man.
And then her eyes, moving on to another group, alit on a man whom she did not know—and paused on him. At first she looked only because he presented the novelty of being a stranger. And then she looked because he looked back and she would not glance away hastily and in apparent confusion. Though in reality there was more reason to look at him than stubbornness. He was a very tall and very large gentleman. Large not in the sense of fatness. She doubted that there was one spare ounce
of fat on his frame. But he was certainly not a slender man. It was a perfectly proportioned frame—she looked it down and up again in leisurely fashion, noting at the same time the simple yet very expensive elegance of his clothing. And he had a head and face worthy of such a body. His brown hair was short but expertly styled. His face was strikingly handsome. He gave an impression of strength and power, she thought. Not just physical power. He looked like a man who knew exactly who he was and what he was and was well satisfied with both. Like a man who knew his own mind and was comfortable with his own decisions and would not be easily moved by anyone who opposed him.
She felt a wave of pure lust before he looked away to pay attention to the Graingers, with whom he stood, and the Earl of Greenwald arrived almost simultaneously to greet her. She explained that her aunt had been persuaded to stay at home to nurse a persistent cough.
Who was he? she wondered. She would not ask, of course. It was not her way to signal so direct an interest in a man. But she set about maneuvering matters slowly—there was no hurry—so that she would find out. And not only find out who he was. She was going to meet him. It was quite soon obvious to her that the man was not married, even though he must be very close to her own age. There was no strange lady in the Greenwalds’ drawing room. And it was unlikely that he had a wife who was absent. The Graingers took much of his time, and it was an open secret that they had brought their daughter to town in the hope of finding her a husband before Christmas. They were not wealthy. They could not afford to bring their daughter to town during the Season, when there would be the exorbitant expenses of a court dress and innumerable ball and party gowns. And so they had come now, hoping that there would be a single gentleman of sufficient means to be snared. The girl was twenty and perilously close to being on the shelf.
The unknown gentleman must be both single and rich. He certainly looked rich—wealthy and self-assured enough not to have to make an obvious display of his wealth. He was not bedecked with jewels and fobs and lace. But his tailor doubtless charged him a minor fortune to fashion coats such as the one he wore tonight.
She talked with Lord Carew and Lord Francis Kneller and their wives for a while, and then sat with elderly Lord Holmes during a musical presentation. She told Mr. and Mrs. Prothero and a growing gathering of other people about some of her more uncomfortable experiences in Egypt while they all refreshed themselves with a drink together afterward and then accepted Sir Eric Mumford’s invitation to join him at the supper table. He did not even realize that she led him rather than submitting to being led once they were inside the dining room. She seated herself beside the still-unknown gentleman, but turned her head immediately away from him to speak with her partner.
She was an expert at maneuvering matters to her own liking. Especially where men were concerned. Men were so easily manipulated. She laughed with amusement at something Sir Eric said.
HER LOW LAUGH shivered down his spine. It came straight from the bedchamber, even though she was sitting in a crowded dining room beneath brightly lighted chandeliers.
She had seated herself in the empty chair beside his and was reacting to something her supper companion had said to her. She was totally unaware of him, of course, Edgar thought, as she had been all evening after that first assessing glance. She had not once looked his way after that. She was Lady Stapleton, widow of Sir Christian Stapleton of Brookhurst. Brookhurst was not so very far from Mobley Abbey—not above twenty-five or thirty miles. But she did not live there now. Sir Gerald Stapleton, the present owner, was only her stepson.
Edgar had been introduced to three marriageable ladies during the course of the evening, all of whose parents had clearly been informed of his own possible interest and had acquiesced in allowing their daughters to be presented to a man whose immense wealth would perhaps compensate for the fact that he was not a gentleman. All three ladies were amiable, genteel, pretty. All three knew that he was a prospective bridegroom and they appeared docile and accepting. His sister and her cohorts had done a superlative job in so short a time, he thought. They had gone about things in the correct way, choosing with care, preparing the way with care, and leaving him choices.
There was only one problem—well, two actually, but the second was not in the nature of a real problem, only of an annoyance. The problem was that all three ladies appeared impossibly young to him. It struck him that any one of them would be a perfect choice for just that reason. All three had any number of breeding years ahead, and breeding was one of his main inducements to marry. But they seemed alarmingly young to him. Or rather, perhaps, he felt alarmingly old. Did he want a wife only so that he might breed her? He wanted more than that, of course. Far more.
And the problem that was not a problem was his constant awareness—an uncomfortable, purely physical awareness—of the lady in scarlet. Lady Stapleton. His mouth had turned dry as soon as she seated herself beside him and he smelled her perfume—something subtle and feminine and obviously very expensive.
And then she turned his way, leaned forward slightly, ignored him completely, and spoke to the young lady at his other side.
“How do you do, Miss Grainger?” she said. “Allow me to tell you how pretty you look in blue. It is your color.”
Her bosom brushed the top of the table as she spoke. And her voice was pure warm velvet. Edgar could see now that he was close that the red highlights he had noticed in her dark hair were no reflection of her gown. They were real. He could not make up his mind whether her eyes were hazel or green. They had elements of both colors.
“Why, thank you,” Miss Grainger said, blushing and gratified. “It is my favorite color. But I sometimes wish I could wear vivid colors as you do.”
Again that low bedroom laugh.
“Oh,” Miss Grainger said, “may I present Mr. Downes? Lady Stapleton, sir.”
Her eyes came to his. She did not move back, even though she was still leaning forward and was very close to him. He resisted the urge to move back himself. She looked very directly at him, a faint mockery or amusement or both in the depths of her glance.
“Ma’am,” he said, inclining his head.
“Mr. Downes.” She gazed at him. “Ah, now I remember. Lady Francis Kneller was a Downes before her marriage, was she not?”
“She is my sister,” he said.
“Ah.” She made no immediate attempt to say anything else. He could almost sense her remembering that Cora was the daughter of a Bristol merchant and realizing that he was no gentleman. That half smile deepened for a moment. “You are from the west country, sir?”
“From Bristol, ma’am,” he said. And lest she was not quite clear on the matter, “I have lived there all my life and have worked there all my adult life, first as a lawyer and more recently as a merchant.”
“How fascinating,” she murmured, her eyes moving to his lips for a disconcerting moment. He was not sure if it was sincerity or mockery he heard in her voice. “Pardon me. I am neglecting Sir Eric quite shamefully.”
She turned back to her companion. Obviously it had been mockery. Lady Stapleton had found herself seated beside a cit and conversing with him before realizing who he was. She would not repeat the mistake.
He set himself to making Miss Grainger feel comfortable again. He felt quite protective of her. She so clearly knew why she was in London, why she was here tonight, and why she was spending a significant portion of the evening in his company. The Graingers, he guessed, were going to be more persistent in their attentions to him than either of the other two couples. Miss Grainger’s pretty blue gown, he noticed, was neither new nor costly. Nor was it in the first stare of fashion.
HELENA SAT WITH Mr. Hendy and a few other guests after supper. The others mainly listened while the two of them exchanged stories and opinions about the land-crossing from Switzerland to Italy. They both agreed that they were fortunate indeed to have lived to tell of it.
“I admire mountains,” Mr. Hendy said, “but more as a spectator than as a traveler
crawling along a narrow icy track directly above a sheer precipice at least a mile high.”
“I do believe I could endure crawling with some equanimity,” Helena said. “It is riding on the back of one of those infernal mountain donkeys that had me gabbling my prayers with pious fervency.”
Their audience laughed.
Mr. Downes had left his group in order to cross to a sideboard to replenish the contents of his glass. There was no one else there. Helena got to her feet and excused herself. She strolled toward the sideboard, her own empty glass in hand.
“Mr. Downes,” she said when she was close, “do fill my glass with whatever is in that decanter, if you please. One becomes mortally sick of drinking ratafia merely because one is female. I would prefer even the lemonade at Almack’s.”
“Madeira, ma’am?” He looked uncertainly at the decanter and then at her with raised eyebrows.
“Madeira, sir,” she said, holding out her glass. “I suppose you do not know about the lemonade at Almack’s.”
“I have never been there, ma’am,” he said.
“You have not missed anything,” she told him. “It is an insipid place and the balls there are insipid occasions and the lemonade served there is insipid fare. Yet people would kill or do worse to acquire vouchers during the Season.”
He half filled her glass and looked into her eyes. She had the distinct feeling that if she ordered him to fill her glass he would refuse. She did not issue the order. He was a lawyer and a merchant. He had freely admitted as much. A prosperous merchant if her guess was correct. But a cit for all that. If his sister had not had the good fortune to snare Lord Francis Kneller, he would never have gained entry to such a place as the Earl of Greenwald’s drawing room. But she understood now the aura of confidence and power he exuded. He was a wealthy, powerful, self-made man. She found the idea infinitely exciting. She found him exciting.