As for the rest of it—
Maggie’s melancholy thoughts were arrested by the sound of the terrace door opening and closing again. Footsteps echoed on the stone as someone approached.
She went still, a shiver tracing its fingers down her spine.
It was St. Clare.
Maggie sensed him before she saw him, too afraid to turn and look lest he disappear in a puff of smoke. Indeed, it seemed like another dream. As if she’d conjured him out of the ether. A manifestation of her unrequited longing.
But he was no dream. He came to stand beside her at the rail, his body big and warm and breathtakingly real. His arm brushed hers. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“Nor should you,” she said with creditable calm. “Your partner will be waiting for you.”
“Miss Steele? She’s seated quite comfortably in the dining room. Lord Mattingly is looking after her.”
“I wasn’t aware Lord Mattingly was here.”
“He’s been in the card room. As have I, until the waltz.”
“Ah yes. The waltz. You dance it very well.”
He brushed the back of his knuckles over the small expanse of exposed skin that resided between the bottom of her sleeve and the top of her elbow-length glove. “I’d rather have been dancing it with you.”
Butterflies fluttered wildly in Maggie’s stomach. That anyone’s touch should have such an effect on her! “You might have been. If you’d asked me.”
“I didn’t know you’d be here. You said that you no longer attended balls.”
“I don’t. That is, I haven’t. Not since my illness. But Madame Clothilde made this dress for me, and I thought—if there was a chance that you and I—” She stopped herself.
“You look beautiful this evening. You always look beautiful.”
“How kind of you to say so,” she replied dryly. “And how spontaneous.”
“I mean it. I’ve never known any lady who shines as brightly as you do. When I saw you in the ballroom—”
“You may keep your compliments. Save them for Miss Steele, or whoever else you—”
“Miss Honeywell.” His voice deepened. “Maggie.”
“Don’t.”
“I want to explain. About Miss Steele. About my absence these past days. There are things you don’t understand.”
“Undoubtedly,” she said. His fingers fell from her arm. She felt the loss of his touch too keenly for words.
“My grandfather has very specific plans for my life. He doesn’t allow for any deviation. And I have deviated since coming to London. First by dueling, and then by paying court to you.”
At last she looked at him. “He classes courting me in the same column as dueling?”
St. Clare’s brows lowered. “Unfortunately, yes.” He paused. “My grandfather’s concern—his sole concern—is securing the title with as little talk as possible. He wants me to marry and sire an heir. It’s the only thing he can think of.”
“What about you?”
His mouth quirked. “All I can think of is you.”
Maggie’s chest constricted on a pang of unutterable longing. She so wanted to believe him. “I’d never know it. It’s been, what? Three days since I saw you last? Four?”
“And every one of them a misery.”
“Please do me the courtesy of being honest. You haven’t been miserable. You’ve been squiring Miss Steele about. All of London is talking about it. Even this evening, when you were waltzing—”
“That wasn’t real,” he said. “None of it’s real.”
“It looked very real to me.”
“It’s…it’s a game.”
Her brows lifted. “And what is Miss Steele in this game of yours? A pawn? A prize?”
“She’s nothing. Just a child. A silly, spiteful chit of a girl. I have no interest in her save pacifying my grandfather.”
Maggie hesitated to ask. “And what am I in your game?”
An inexplicable emotion crossed St. Clare’s face. “You’re everything,” he said. “Everything.”
They were pretty words. Just the sort designed to pacify a jealous female. Maggie didn’t want to believe them. And yet…
Every instinct within her told her he was speaking the truth.
She could see it in his face. In his gray eyes, soft as smoke. The way he looked at her, so very different from the way he looked at anyone else. But she didn’t dare trust her instincts. Not entirely. “How very flattering. Three days ago, I might have believed you. But that was before I saw you dancing with Miss Steele.”
He studied Maggie’s face. “You’re not jealous?”
She laughed—a hollow sound in the cool, torch-lit darkness. It was an answer in and of itself.
“You have no reason to be,” he said.
“No reason except that she’s young and vital, with her whole life in front of her. Except that she was able to dance the waltz with you. I’d hoped that I—” Maggie broke off. She straightened one of her long gloves on her arm, smoothing it back over her elbow. “It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t have waltzed anyway. One must face facts.”
His expression softened a fraction. There was deviltry in his eyes. And something else, too. Something from the very depths of him. It brought a huskiness to his words that hadn’t been there before. “You wanted to waltz with me?”
Her stomach trembled with longing. “I said it didn’t matter.” She stood from the railing. “I must go down to supper. I promised Jane—”
“Miss Honeywell.” St. Clare extended his hand to her.
She gave it a guarded look before slowly, cautiously sliding her hand into his. “You can’t escort me down. Not when you’re already bound to Miss Steele.”
“I don’t want to escort you to supper. I want to dance with you.”
Her gaze jerked to his. “Don’t be absurd. The orchestra is gone for the hour. There’s no music.”
“We don’t need music.”
Her mind immediately leapt to that long-ago dancing lesson in the clearing at Beasley Park. They hadn’t had music then either. She searched St. Clare’s eyes, wondering if he was thinking of that day, too. Did he remember how they’d twirled about the clearing? How they’d laughed?
She cleared her throat. “If you’re trying to placate your grandfather—”
“My grandfather is at supper. And no one else is about. Not here. We have the whole terrace to ourselves.”
“I suppose…”
“Waltz with me, Maggie. I’ll claim it as my second forfeit if I have to.”
She exhaled. “Very well. For a forfeit. Though it seems silly. You know we can’t—” Her breath caught as his right arm circled her waist.
Heavens.
This couldn’t be a good idea. Not when his very touch turned her limbs to melted treacle.
He held her left hand tight in his. “Put your other hand on my shoulder.”
She did as he bid her. Her heartbeat quickened into a gallop. “I’m afraid you’re too tall for me.”
“Nonsense. We fit each other perfectly.”
“I mean it. You’ve grown too big. And I haven’t grown at all— Oh!” She gasped as he spun her into a turn.
He grinned down at her. “You do know how to waltz, don’t you?”
“Do you?” she countered. “This isn’t the way you were waltzing with Miss Steele.”
“That was an English waltz. Not exciting at all.” St. Clare tipped his head to hers. “The waltz is danced differently on the continent. A man and woman hold each other close.” His arm tightened around her. “Like so.”
Her pulse fluttered at her throat. “Goodness. How daring.”
“It is, rather.” He spun her round.
A thrill went through her as he waltzed her across the terrace. Her skirts swirled abo
ut his legs in a cloud of glittering blue silk. There were no missteps. No clumsy fumbles. It was easy. Effortless. Like something from one of her girlhood daydreams.
She gazed up at him in the torchlight, a smile spreading over her face. “We’re waltzing together.”
He looked steadily back at her. There was nothing cold in his countenance now. It was warm and open. “That we are, my darling.”
The casual endearment sent a flush of warmth through her. She wanted to fling her arms around his neck. To stretch up and kiss him. To call him Nicholas.
But she didn’t do any of those things.
She merely danced with him, letting him guide her through steps quick and slow, through turns that made her stomach quiver with excitement. All the while he stared down at her with single-minded attention, holding her in an unyielding grip—strong and sure and safe.
“Is a continental waltz longer than an English one?” she asked at last.
A look of immediate concern crossed his face. “Have I tired you out?”
“On the contrary.” The giddiness of the dance made her bold. Foolishly so. “I wish it might last forever.”
He smiled. “Until you wear through the soles of your dancing slippers?”
“Like a princess in a fairytale.”
They both laughed, so consumed by their own pleasure that Maggie didn’t hear the sound of one of the terrace doors opening. It was only as St. Clare steered her into another swooping turn that she saw Fred. He was standing at the door, frozen to the spot, watching them.
He looked just as he had so many years before when he’d discovered them laughing and dancing in the clearing. His brawny fists were clenched at his sides, his brow clouded with equal parts anger and resentment. And in his eyes—
But no. The look in Fred’s eyes wasn’t the same as it had been so long ago. This time, there wasn’t murder in his gaze There was something worse.
Maggie very much feared it was recognition.
St. Clare followed Maggie’s startled stare. The smile faded from his lips as he brought their dance to an untimely close. “Mr. Burton-Smythe. This is an unexpected pleasure.”
Fred’s muscular bulk filled the doorway. The light from the ballroom illuminated his reddening face. He was angry, and getting angrier by the second. A big brawny bully unchanged by time or circumstance. “Get your hands off of her.”
St. Clare was slow to obey, only gradually loosening his arm from Maggie’s waist. He still held her hand in his. He was loath to let it go. “How is your shoulder these days?”
“I said unhand her.” Fred’s voice was practically a snarl.
Maggie’s hand slipped free from St. Clare’s as she moved between them. “Don’t be ridiculous, Fred. We were only waltzing.”
St. Clare stood behind her, towering over her small frame. The tableau the three of them presented was visually ludicrous. Both he and Fred dwarfed Maggie in height and breadth. Yet she behaved as if she were physically strong enough to prevent the two of them from coming to blows. As if the mere fact of her feminine presence could restrain them.
In other circumstances, St. Clare would have been tempted to laugh. But he didn’t feel much like laughing now. Indeed, he was glad Maggie couldn’t see his face. All traces of warmth were gone. He felt quite cold to the heart. “A wound like that, it must be exceedingly painful to move your arm. Any luck yet driving your curricle? Holding your whip?”
“I’m recovered enough to protect what’s mine,” Fred replied through gritted teeth. “Come here, Margaret.” He beckoned her to him with an imperious flick of his fingers. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the way a farmer might summon his dog.
“Really, Fred,” she objected. “I—”
“Now.”
Maggie reluctantly crossed the terrace, her spine stiff with dignity. “You needn’t make a scene,” she said under her breath. “Nothing untoward was going on.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Fred caught hold of her arm and hauled her the rest of the way to his side.
She sucked in a sharp breath at his rough handling.
And St. Clare saw red.
He strode forward. “Let go of her.”
“Don’t!” Maggie turned to block his path. “You’ll only make things worse.”
St. Clare came to an unwilling halt. A smoldering rage built within him, long banked but never extinguished. It wouldn’t have taken much more provocation for him to pitch Fred straight over the rail of the terrace. “Let go of her,” he said again. The fingers of his right hand curled into a fist. His knuckles cracked. “I dislike repeating myself.”
Fred relinquished Maggie’s arm. “Go back inside, Margaret.”
“She’s not yours to command,” St. Clare said.
“And there you’re wrong.” Fred’s eyes glinted with smug satisfaction. “I stand as her guardian. The man who holds power over her home—her very existence. She’ll do as I say if she knows what’s good for her.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Maggie said.
“You have an advantage on me there,” St. Clare said. “I’ve never had to blackmail a lady to my side. They generally come willingly.”
Maggie shot St. Clare a warning look. Don’t provoke him.
It was too late. Fred was already puffing himself up like an enraged toad. “Blackmail?”
“You heard me.”
“You dare to insult my honor?”
“I’d be happy to offer you satisfaction,” St. Clare said.
“You, a man who no one has ever seen before? Who may be an imposter for all we know?”
“Or to demand satisfaction of my own.” St. Clare took another step forward. “If you keep talking.”
“Enough.” A note of exasperation sounded in Maggie’s voice. “The two of you are not going to engage in another duel.”
“I say, is everything all right out here?” Lionel Beresford appeared behind Fred in the doorway. He wore an expression of vague surprise. As if he’d stumbled upon the scene purely by chance.
St. Clare brought his anger under ruthless control. It wasn’t easy. His heart was still pumping heavily, his muscles bunched with tension. The realization of what he’d almost done—what he’d very nearly put at risk—ricocheted through his consciousness like a rifle shot.
Good lord.
What had he been thinking? Another second and he’d have throttled Fred in plain view of Maggie, the Parkhurst servants, and Lionel Beresford, too.
The knowledge shook St. Clare to his core. He’d lost his temper. He never lost his temper.
What in blazes was wrong with him?
“A minor disagreement,” he said.
Fred regarded St. Clare with all-too-familiar contempt. “There’s nothing minor about a man’s honor. A gentleman would know that.”
“Enough.” Maggie placed a staying hand on Fred’s sleeve. “I mean it. I’m bored to tears with all this bluster. You will oblige me by escorting me down to supper.”
“Have no fear,” Fred replied tersely. “I’ll look after you.” Tucking her hand into his arm—an unmistakably proprietary gesture—he cast a malevolent look at St. Clare. “You and I will meet again.”
“Undoubtedly.” St. Clare watched them depart through the terrace doors. Maggie was saying something to Fred, her voice too soft to be heard. St. Clare made no attempt to discern her words. He walked to the rail of the terrace, conscious of Lionel following behind him.
“An old enemy of yours?” Lionel asked.
St. Clare leaned back against the railing, his arms folded. “What do you think?”
“What I think, Cousin, is that you’re not the man you seem.”
“And you are?”
Lionel removed his enameled snuffbox from an inner pocket of his coat. He flicked open the lid. “The difference being that I can produ
ce evidence of the legitimacy of my birth. While you”—he took a pinch of snuff—“cannot.”
The torches that flanked the terrace flickered and snapped in the darkness. St. Clare’s anger flickered, too. This time he managed to contain it. “Is my grandfather’s word not enough for you?”
“No,” Lionel answered. “I’m afraid it isn’t.”
And there it was. The unvarnished truth of the matter.
St. Clare had suspected as much, but he hadn’t anticipated his cousin would admit it quite so plainly—or quite so offensively. “I should call you out for that.”
“You should,” Lionel agreed.
“I might, if I was confident you knew how to hold a pistol straight. As it stands, I may as well be calling out a child. And I don’t engage with children in affairs of honor, offensive as they may be.”
“Your father had no such scruples.”
St. Clare drew himself up to his full height. For a moment, he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“He had a temper too, they say.” Lionel extracted his handkerchief to wipe the remaining snuff from his nostrils. “I’ve heard the stories. He was reckless and foolish. Wasting his fortune on whores and drink and gambling. Playing ridiculous pranks. According to Madre, your grandfather had had enough of him. And when your father shot Penworthy’s boy—”
“Penworthy’s son was no child. He was a man grown.”
“In years, perhaps. But not in reason. Madre says the boy hadn’t the sense of an addled pea goose. By consenting to a duel with your father, he all but signed his death warrant.”
“Your mother knows nothing about my father. Nor do you.”
Lionel shrugged. “Merely stating the facts.”
St. Clare shot a narrow glance back toward the ballroom. A few footmen and housemaids were busy tidying up near the glass doors. Conspicuously busy. There didn’t appear to be any guests lurking about, but one never knew. “By the by, where is your esteemed mother?”
“Enjoying her supper when I left her. Madre’s found a kindred spirit in your Miss Steele. They’ve become fast friends.”
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