by Mary Balogh
She went further. Some instinct—some long-suppressed, quite unsuspected instinct of femininity—made her deliberately raise her fan to her nose so that she could laugh at him with her eyes over the top of it. He did not smile back. But he raised his eyebrows and made her a slight bow with his head and held her eyes until a woman as startlingly gorgeous as he took his attention by laying a hand on his sleeve.
Anna had partners for every set and proceeded to live this magic night to the fullest, consciously enjoying every single moment of it. And yet she was constantly aware of the gentleman in scarlet and gold as he danced and conversed and moved about with an elegance and a grace that had been obvious from the start. Would he effect an introduction? she wondered. Would he ask her to dance?
She hoped so. Shamelessly she sought him out with her eyes as she danced with other partners. And shamelessly she smiled at him whenever she caught his eye. Shamelessly she flirted with him from afar.
It felt wonderful to flirt, she thought. And even the use of that particular word in her mind could not make her feel ashamed. Her moment of youth and freedom would be complete if he but asked her to dance.
• • •
Luke had watched his sister dance and behave quite properly toward her partners and toward other young men who obviously had an acquaintance with her and came to converse with her between sets. He had observed Ashley dance once and then disappear, presumably in the direction of the card room. And of course he had danced himself and conversed and kept an eye on Lady Sterne’s goddaughter.
Instead of dancing one set he wandered into the card room and observed that the stakes were not high and that Ashley was winning—and drinking. It was not a good combination. He had discovered that for himself early in his career. He would not have made his fortune if he had not played with all his wits about him, unbefuddled by alcohol. He would keep his eye on his brother over the next few weeks, he decided. But his attention was distracted now by two gentlemen who began a conversation with him.
It was in the card room that Lord Quinn found him. He joined the group for a few minutes and then took Luke’s arm and strolled away with him, leading him casually in the direction of the ballroom.
“Enjoying yourself, are ye, lad?” he asked. “Egad, but you have turned some heads tonight. ’Tis the fan that has done it—again.” He chuckled.
“I thought,” Luke said, taking the offensive, “that I might get you to present me to Lady Sterne’s goddaughter, Theo. She is the older one? The one wearing green?”
The look of suppressed triumph on his uncle’s face was almost comical. “Aye, lad,” he said. “And all my fears were for naught. The gel has not missed one set. You have noticed her, then?”
“Only because you mentioned her,” Luke lied. “I will dance with her if I may, Theo—as a courtesy to Lady Sterne.”
The dancing was between sets in the ballroom. Luke followed Lord Quinn across the room to where Lady Sterne was standing with her two charges. The elder of the two stopped fanning herself when she saw him approaching and then began again at an almost furious speed. She lowered her eyes for a moment and then raised them again boldly. They were large green eyes, he saw as he drew closer, made more green by the color of her mantua.
“Well, Marjorie, m’dear,” Lord Quinn said in a loud and hearty voice, “lookee here at whom I ran into in the card room. And I was saying to you not half an hour since that in all the crush it seemed I was not going to have a chance to exchange a word with my own nephy.”
“Harndon,” Lady Sterne said, smiling graciously, “I am pleased to see you again. And lud, what a happy chance it was that took Theodore past the card room.”
Ah yes, indeed, Luke thought, a co-conspirator without a doubt. “Madam?” He made his bow to her.
“May I present my goddaughter to you?” Lady Sterne asked. “Lady Anna Marlowe, daughter of my dear late friend, the Countess of Royce. And Lady Agnes, her younger sister. His grace, the Duke of Harndon, Anna.”
He bowed deeply while both young ladies dipped into curtsies. He included both in his bow, but it was on the elder that his whole attention was focused. “Charmed,” he murmured.
A Parisienne would have considered herself half naked without cosmetics quite heavily applied and without patches artfully placed. Lady Anna Marlowe wore none. Her complexion was delicate and clear and healthy, he noted. Her lips were curved in a smile and her eyes sparkled. There was no pretense of indifference now that he was close. A flirt she might be; a coquette she was not.
“His grace has recently returned to England after spending a number of years in Paris,” Lady Sterne was explaining.
“Lady Anna has recently arrived from the country after a lengthy term of mourning for her parents,” Lord Quinn was explaining almost simultaneously.
Lady Anna, looking as if she had never mourned or entertained one sad thought in her life, smiled at him.
“My condolences,” he said, including both sisters again in his bow.
“How fascinating that must have been,” Lady Anna said at the same moment. Her voice was light and as eager as her expression.
She smiled. He inclined his head.
His dealings for years past had been almost exclusively with sophistication. The woman’s open appraisal of him and her very obvious delight in her surroundings made him feel slightly dizzy. Slightly dazzled. Lines were forming for the next dance, a set of country measures.
“Madam.” He bowed once more, but directly to Lady Anna this time. “May I hope that you have not promised this set? May I have the honor of leading you out?”
“Thank you.” Her answer was made almost before his question had been completed and she was reaching out a hand to set in his. “Yes, thank you, your grace.” The whole of the sun seemed to be behind the smile with which she favored him.
“How fortunate,” Luke heard his uncle say. “’Tis the supper dance.”
Ah, yes, of course. His uncle, the consummate schemer. Luke led his partner to the end of the line of ladies and took his place opposite her in the line of gentlemen. The music was beginning.
She danced with a light grace. He was accustomed to partnering graceful dancers. Dancing was an accomplishment much cultivated by the fashionable. But Lady Anna Marlowe danced with more than grace. It was almost as if she took the music inside herself as it played and became music and harmony and rhythm as she moved. Dancing was more than an accomplishment with her. It was a delight and a self-expression. And all the while she danced, except for the occasions when the patterns of the dance took her away for a few moments with other partners, she kept her eyes on his and smiled into them.
And how did he know that? he asked himself before the set ended. How could he know it unless his eyes were upon her too? She had a loveliness and a directness that he found rather refreshing, rather different. He did not know how old she was though he guessed that she had passed the age of majority. She had been kept in the country by a double bereavement. That must have been sad for her, especially if they had been a close family. But apart from that, he judged that she was a woman of little experience and therefore of little depth of character. She did not look like someone who had suffered a great deal in life.
And yet there could be something dazzling about innocence and simplicity when it was combined with smiles and exuberance. He was not sorry that his uncle had maneuvered him into leading her into the supper dance. He looked forward to the opportunity to talk with her. He hoped she had some skill at conversation. He hoped she would not merely blush and giggle, the common malady of girls with no experience in life and society.
• • •
It was an evening Anna knew she would remember for the rest of her life. It was an unexpected and priceless jewel in the dark path of her life and she clutched at it greedily, knowing that it might be the only one that would ever come her way. Tomorrow life would return to
normal and though she would be spending almost two more months here in town, she would not expect any more evenings like this one. There could be no more like this.
He had lived for years in Paris. That explained a great deal. It was said that the people of Paris were years ahead of the English in fashion and in frivolity. The lady who had approached him soon after his arrival and had proceeded to dance with him was also from Paris. Anna had found that out in the course of the evening. She was the Marquise d’Étienne. Her hair was shorter and more tightly curled than anyone else’s and her cosmetics were worn strangely. Her powder was white and heavy, her rouge very bright and worn in large circles on her cheeks, with no attempt at blending. Her lips were a corresponding red. It was the French way, Anna had been told. It was very hard not to stare at the woman.
He had lived in Paris. He was a duke. And she had been right about his eyes. Everything about him was graceful—a sort of languid grace. Everything except his eyes. They were dark gray and they were very keen despite the fact that he frequently drooped his eyelids over them. She suspected that his eyes did not miss much. And she had been right about something else too. There was an indefinable but quite unmistakable air of masculinity about him despite outer appearances. And it was not just his eyes.
He made Anna breathless. She had always thought that her dream man would be tall. This man was no more than a few inches taller than she. And yet she found herself imagining how much more comfortable it would be to be held in this man’s arms than in those of a tall man. So much more comfortable on the muscles of the neck.
She was briefly appalled when she caught the direction of her thoughts. She was not given to lascivious thinking. Besides, it was all quite pointless and only likely to give her more pain when the night was over and she realized again how very alone she was and would be for the rest of her life. And yet—she shivered inwardly—she should be thankful for aloneness. If he came back, she would not even have that. But she would not think of him. Not tonight on her magic night.
It was their turn—hers and the Duke of Harndon’s—to twirl down the full length of the empty space between lines. She would remember this, she thought, feeling his warm hands clasping hers, forever and beyond forever. They were strong and handsome hands. When she smiled up into his eyes, her lips were only inches from his. Her eyes dropped to them for a brief moment.
He was, she judged, a man who had spent his adult years in fashionable society. In Paris. A man of sophistication and charm—she had felt his charm even though she had not spoken with him yet. A man of frivolous character. Someone with whom she had flirted and was flirting without fear. Someone with whom she could relax and talk for the half hour of supper. An unthreatening man.
Someone so very different from—him. She thought for a moment about that other man, about his tall, thin body and narrow handsome face, his soft, pleasant voice. On first acquaintance she had liked him. Everyone had liked him and probably still did. She had thought him her savior. She had expected him to offer her marriage and had been ready to accept—not out of love, perhaps, but out of respect and liking and out of what she had thought would develop into devotion. But it had not been marriage that was on his mind—or seduction either. And that latter point puzzled her and disturbed her perhaps more than anything. If he did not want to marry her and did not want to use her body outside marriage, then why . . .
But no. No! He had controlled her life and haunted her to the core of her soul for two years even though he had been absent for one of those years. But not this evening. This was her magic evening and she was not going to allow another thought of him to intrude.
Anna listened regretfully as the music drew to an end. But there was still supper. Still perhaps the best part of the evening, which was already perfect. How could anything be more perfect than perfect? She smiled.
“Madam.” The Duke of Harndon held out an arm for hers. “Will you honor me by taking supper with me?”
She set her own arm along the shimmering satin of his sleeve and felt the warmth of his body heat. “Thank you, your grace,” she said.
Prince Charming, she thought, and smiled gaily at her own fancies. She wondered if Cinderella’s prince had worn scarlet and gold. And then she wished she had not remembered the old fairy tale at all. At midnight all of Cinderella’s finery had turned to rags and her prince had been left behind and she had found herself sitting on a pumpkin. And there was no point in reminding herself that Prince Charming had retained one of the glass slippers and had been able to use it to find his princess again.
Cinderella had lived in a fairy tale. Lady Anna Marlowe lived in the real world.
4
“I VOW ’tis succeeding,” Lady Sterne said, laying a hand on Lord Quinn’s sleeve. “Just look at them, Theo.”
Lord Quinn had been looking. His nephew and Lady Sterne’s goddaughter were sitting at a table some distance away from their own and were focused entirely on each other even though they were surrounded by other guests. It was something he had observed before. It was perhaps what had always made the lad more sought after than almost any other gentleman in Paris, both as a husband and a lover—that ability of his to give his whole attention to the lady of the moment, almost as if he had forgotten the existence of all others. But usually his attention was given to some beauty of high rank and easy morals, some beauty he could reasonably expect to lure into his bed for as long as he cared to keep her there.
For all the animation of her ways, which might almost be described as flirtatious. Lord Quinn did not believe his nephew would have mistaken Lady Anna Marlowe for an easy or even a possible conquest. Not as a mistress, anyway.
“I warrant you, Marj,” he said, “he will have her brought to bed of a boy before ten months have passed.”
Lady Sterne sighed with contentment, too long accustomed to her lover’s manner of speaking to be shocked by his bluntness. “Lud, Theo,” she said, “I hope you are right. Anna has had a hard time of it, as witness the fact that she is almost past marriageable age despite beauty and rank. Lucy would never countenance my coming to visit her when she was ill and I never forced myself on her, but I have often wished since that I had. I wished it especially when I knew about the other troubles. Certainly Royce lost all his money and almost brought the family to ruin. By gambling, word has it.”
“Aye,” Lord Quinn said, “and word has the right of it there, Marj, though I never knew the man personally. One must not judge others, but it does seem criminal for a man to indulge in reckless living when his children are still unsettled in life. There are the boy and three gels?”
“Four,” Lady Sterne said. “There is the one young girl still at home and Charlotte, who was married to a rector just recently, a year almost to the day after Royce’s passing. It was a decent match, I believe.”
“A nasty business, that,” Lord Quinn said. “Falling off the roof and all that. Messy.”
“There is a walk up there,” she said. “I remember it well from years ago. The house is at the top of a rise and there is a splendid view in all directions from the roof walk. But the balustrade, I recall, is no more than waist high. I would never walk too close to it. It seems that Royce did. I suspect, Theo, though it may be slanderous to say so and dear Anna would never admit it even if I asked straight out, that he drank more than was good for him.”
“Aye, very like,” Lord Quinn said.
“He doted on Lucy,” Lady Sterne said. “My guess is that he went all to pieces when she became consumptive and then died.”
“Aye,” he said. “’Twould be hard to lose someone one had long loved, Marj.” He set a hand over hers on the table for a moment and patted it. But he did not keep his hand there. They were ever discreet in public.
“I do believe,” she said, “that Anna, the eldest by four years, was forced to bear all the burdens alone. She has been weighed down by them, Theo. Not just by the grief of havin
g lost both parents in such a short time, but by more than that. I wish I had known sooner so that I might have gone there to Elm Court and given her some assistance.”
“You are helping her now, Marj,” he said. “You have brought her to town and decked her out in fashionable rig and presented her to the most eligible bachelor in all England. If the lad can but be brought to heel!”
“Will you but look at him,” Lady Sterne said with a laugh. “The fan, Theo. ’Tis outrageous. ’Tis an affectation, would you not say?”
“Aye, as I live,” Lord Quinn said. “All is affectation with Luke. ’Tis what is behind the artifice that matters, though, Marj, but it is never easy to know with Luke. By my life, though, he seems taken with her. She is a lovely gel.”
“Yes.” Lady Sterne sighed. “’Twould do my heart good to see her hold her own child, Theo, and to know her settled happily for life.”
He patted her hand again.
• • •
Anna was feeling flushed and hot after the vigorous country dance and it must have shown. After filling her plate and his own and seating himself beside her at one of the long tables in the supper room, the Duke of Harndon drew out his fan, opened it, and cooled her face with it. She laughed at him.
“Do all gentlemen in Paris use fans, your grace?” she asked.
“By no means.” His eyes roamed her face. “I do not follow fashion, madam. I set it.”
“So I am like to see more fans in gentlemen’s hands in London during the coming weeks?” she asked.