Give me an honest brothel in the Sierra Morena any day. The girls there would steal the fillings from your teeth, but they are still less mercenary.
Victor was catching his breath under the musicians’ gallery when another girl crashed into his chest. He had a moment to appreciate her pretty face, golden hair, and curvy form before he saw her dance card, and he scowled. He grabbed his temper by the tail, gave the girl the dance she had obviously been dared to take, and stormed away.
It was the only dance that he had asked for that night, and as poorly as the evening was going, he was leaving straight after, no matter how hard Charles had worked to get the vouchers.
Princess Esterházy called the assembly to order and announced the dancing was about to begin. For a moment, Victor thought he had lost the girl whose card he had signed, and then he caught sight of her on the sidelines, composed and with a slightly arrogant lift to her chin. She was an old-fashioned kind of beauty, he thought grudgingly, fair as cream. When he approached and bowed slightly, she inclined her head in a regal nod and took his hand. Victor felt a strange shock run through his body when they touched, and some voice inside his head said, quite clearly, ah, I have been waiting for you.
He brushed both off and escorted her onto the dance floor as the musicians struck the first notes of the waltz. Despite the intimacy of the dance, she said nothing, and Victor began to feel bad.
“I apologize if I was short with you earlier.”
“If you were? Do you mean you do not know, your grace?”
“You are sharp-tongued with me.”
“I can be. You do not know who I am, and it can hardly come back to me if I am.”
Victor found himself smiling a little at her tart response, and she was proving to be a better than fair dancer. They traced the figures of the waltz easily, and Victor remembered a little reluctantly that he did after all like dancing.
“That’s hardly appropriate for a woman who is looking to make a good match. You called me your grace. I assume you must know who I am.”
“My aunt has told me all about you. You are quite the catch.”
“And yet you still will not tell me your name.”
“I am Lady Emily Allensby, not that you bothered to get a proper introduction before asking me to dance, and I have decided, your grace, that you are not a catch for me.”
Victor wondered why that stung a little. He had to assume that it was sheer perversity that made him even more intrigued with the chit.
“And why is that?”
“Why, because I am very particular about the husband I will have, your grace, and you meet none of my requirements.”
“Then your requirements must be very high indeed.”
She batted her long surprisingly dark eyelashes at him, giving him a dry smile.
“How very perfect for you that a woman who finds you undesirable must have requirements that are ‘very high.’“
Instead of being offended, Victor laughed, the first time he had done so, it felt like, since he’d returned to England and discovered the mess of inheritance waiting for him.
“And I don’t think you find me so undesirable as all that.”
He watched in fascination as her cheeks turned bright red, and she looked away.
“No sharp words?”
“Not... at the moment.”
“Well, then.”
The waltz ended, and as the other gentlemen guided their partners to the sidelines, Victor stood still in the center of the room with Emily. He found himself reluctant to let her go, and he tried to tell himself it was only because she was nearly the first person to talk to him as if he were a real person in ages.
“Thank you for the waltz, Lady Emily.”
“You’re very welcome, your grace.”
For a single mad instant, instinct got the better of him. Victor stepped forward, hand curling around Emily’s lower back. He could sense the way she bent toward him for a moment, warm and pliant. He wanted to kiss this girl, kiss her, taste her... Dear god, this was the middle of the Almack’s dance floor.
“Your grace!” Emily hissed, two patches of rosy color high on her cheeks, and he drew back at once, blinking at his own impulse.
“Forgive me,” he said stiffly.
He escorted her back to her fretting guardian, aware the whole time of the way the assembly was watching them, their eyes heavy and bright. Victor didn’t give a damn about the censure of the ton, but he abruptly decided that he was done. This evening had been a disaster, and there was a chance he had harmed an innocent girl’s reputation on top of it. Charles could make his apologies. With a curt nod, he strode toward the exit.
* * *
Emily didn’t know what had happened. For a moment, on the dance floor, the Duke of Wellford looked as if he was going to... she didn’t even have a word for it. He looked as if he wanted to devour her, and in his gaze, there was a kind of immolation that drew her in. She felt shaky on her feet at the memory, and she clung to Winnie for a moment before letting go to stand on her own two feet.
“My goodness, what were you talking to the Duke of Wellford about?” asked Winnie, wide-eyed.
“Nothing,” Emily insisted, but had it been nothing? He was quite out of the question as a match for her, so perhaps she had left her tongue more unguarded than she should have, but surely, that wouldn’t have created such a stir.
“Well, you have not any dances for the next set, so perhaps we should get you some more water.”
That proved easier said than done. Before, Emily had been variously invisible and the subject of indifferent contempt. Now it seemed that the attention of the Duke of Wellford had raised her to the level of public notice. All eyes were on her, and everyone wanted to speak with her. She said over and over again that she had no association with the duke, no prior experience. Yes, he was a good dancer. No, she didn’t think the scar was terrifying. He had been perfectly kind.
The questions went on and on, and soon Emily felt as if she were drowning. The weight of the crowd was too much. It was as if a hot wet blanket had been thrown on top of her, and now it was pushing her down.
“I have to get out of here,” Emily whispered, and her nerve broke entirely.
By some trick of providence, a punch bowl across the hall was dropped at just that moment, splashing a few unlucky girls badly. Their shrieks drew every eye, and Emily ran out of the hall entirely. She didn’t have her wrap, and she didn’t have her chaperon. All she had was a terrible urge to get away from it all, to run and to never look back.
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CHAPTER THREE
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The trouble, Victor decided, was that he expected the world to run on a military discipline. Or, at least, he expected to be able to shape the world as it wished to be shaped. Neither of these expectations served him well when the street by Almack’s was clogged with carriages and his was nowhere to be seen. He had given out the word that he expected to be picked up, and he was assured that that was going to happen, but he had his doubts.
God, being on the battlefield in Spain was better than this. All he had to do was survive and help as many of his men as he could to survive as well. There, he was Colonel Sommerset, and no one cared what he did so long as he played his part in the battle formation. Here, he was the Duke of Wellford, come into his title with the death of his uncle and the unexpected defection of his brother, the next in line. To everyone’s surprise, Hugh had converted and joined the priesthood, and that left Victor to take up the title. It was wealth far beyond what he could have dreamed of back in the army, but it was a legacy as well.
Victor supposed he had thought he could approach his duties the way that he’d approached his life in the army, but that was proving to be incredibly foolish. As long as the Beau Monde looked at him like he was some kind of frightening monster
, he might as well let the title pass back to the throne.
His dismal thoughts were broken by a commotion at the doors to Almack’s, and as he turned, a figure in green dashed out far too fast to be safe. With a start of surprise, he recognized Emily, and he stepped forward.
“Lady Emily...”
She pulled back in her headlong rush but not quickly enough. She crashed into him and this time, his arms came up to pull her close and hold her steady. She looked up at him with eyes that were wide and surely too dark, and Victor thought of girls who panicked as their villages were surrounded by soldiers. He cursed softly and pulled her toward the shelter of a nearby alley. It was narrow enough that he could span it with both arms out, but his first instinct was to bring her someplace where she wouldn’t be so exposed.
“Lady Emily, what’s the matter? You’re shaking. Where’s your coat?”
“There were just so many people, and they all wanted to talk...”
“I’m not a fan of that myself,” he said dryly.
She buried her face in his chest, shaking her head.
“I can talk just fine. It’s just that they wanted to know about you and me, and there is no you and me, but I don’t know if they believed it.”
“Ah. I created a scene. Lady Emily, you have my deepest apologies. I should not have done what I did.”
To his surprise, she gave a tiny wet chuckle.
“That was awfully contrite, your grace. Are you making fun of me?”
“I promise you, I am not. Look up; see how serious I am.”
She did, inspecting his face carefully. Then the joke fell away. and she was just looking at him, and he was looking at her. God, but she was a beauty. There was something strange and wild in her face when she looked at him, and he wondered how she could bear to carry such loveliness with her.
This time, nothing could stop them from kissing.
His lips touched hers almost gently, and Victor could feel her shaking. He tried to tell himself that a proper gentleman would never take advantage of a young lady like this, but those protestations drifted away like smoke. All that mattered was the hunger that fired in his belly, spreading through his skin until he gave in to its demands and deepened the kiss. He tilted her head back, and now he could taste her lips more fully, because God above, she tasted good.
It was as if he had been hungry his entire life, and now he understood what real nourishment was. She made a small sound, one hand coming up to cling to his jacket, fanning the flames inside him. He wanted her with a fierce need that had never come over him before, not for the first girl he bedded in London, not for the women he’d had in Spain. This need left everything else in the dust, more akin to starvation than it was to anything he had experienced before.
“Please,” she murmured against his mouth, and he uttered a sound that was nearly a growl.
“Tell me,” Victor murmured. “Tell me...”
“Please more,” Emily said, and God only knew what he would have done if an older woman hadn’t appeared at the mouth of the alley.
“What in the name of God are you doing?” Thankfully, she hissed it rather than shouted it, and she walked toward them quickly, a dark gray pelisse in her hands.
Victor stepped back with a pang of guilt as she wrapped the pelisse around Emily, and he recognized her as Emily’s guardian, whose name he had never caught.
“How dare you?” the older woman snapped. “Emily, darling Emily, are you all right?”
“I am, Aunt Winnie, there is no reason to fuss. The room was just so crowded, and there were so many people...”
“Oh, my poor dear. The other men on your dance card... well, never mind that. We will get you home, and we shall never speak of this again. Is that clear?”
The last was directed at Victor with a glare so sharp he held up his hands and nodded.
“I assure you, Madame, that I have no intent to harm Lady Emily in the least.”
“No.”
Both Victor and Winnie turned to look at Emily. In the dim light from the windows above the alley, she looked pale, but determination burned in her face. It made her somehow even more lovely, and Victor almost reached for her again before she spoke.
“You may not mean me harm, your grace, but you should think very hard about whether I might mean you harm.”
“I... beg your pardon?”
“You nearly disgraced me on the dance floor at Almack’s, in front of the very eyes of the ton. Half of the people in there were wondering if you had insulted me, and the other half were wondering darkly if you would hurt their daughters.”
Victor stiffened, glaring at Emily. She was tall for a girl, not tall enough to meet his eyes without looking up, but she refused to be overlooked.
“Well? What are you getting at, Lady Emily?”
“I heard some of the things you were saying. You are looking for a wife just as much as I am looking for a husband. If you want to do your duty, you need one. What will happen if I run back in there, crying my eyes out and saying how you pulled me into a dark alley? Do you think you could get a Society girl as a wife then?”
Winnie said Emily’s name in shock, but Victor ignored her. His heart beat a fast tattoo in his chest; everything she was saying was right.
“You are playing a very dangerous game, Lady Emily. You would be ruined.”
“Perhaps. But I am Lady Emily Allensby, daughter of the late Marquess of Ellsford. They know me. They don’t know you.”
“And what are you gaining by bringing all of this up? What could you hope to get for holding your ruination and mine over my head?”
She took a deep breath.
“I want your help,” she said, tilting her chin up. “My aunt is doing her best, but her influence is limited.”
“I have been out of the social circles for some little while, I am afraid,” murmured her aunt.
“And I have been on the continent fighting a war.”
“I need your name. I need you to introduce me to a better class of man than I can meet on my own. I want a husband, your grace, and I need you to help me.”
Victor shot her a look of pure disgust.
“You are husband-hunting, and you want me to show you where the best birds to be plucked roost.”
She gave him a grim smile.
“Just so, your grace. So. what will it be?”
* * *
In the carriage, returning to Winnie’s townhouse, Emily still vibrated with shock at her own audacity. When she held up her hands in front of her face, they still shook.
“Emily, do you know what you are doing?” her aunt said fretfully. “He is a duke, but I spoke with Lady Brentwood. She said he has spent most of his adult life fighting in the wars. Not commanding like a proper gentleman but actually fighting. He should never have become the duke; it was meant to go to his brother, not a man like him.”
Emily took a deep breath to make sure that her voice did not tremble when she tried to speak.
“I don’t know if this is the right path or not,” she admitted. “I’m afraid it might be the only path, however. You saw what happened there. Almack’s is the proving ground of the ton, and I performed terribly.”
“You weren’t so bad. There were some bites, some interest...”
“Perhaps, but it would take time. I... I do not have much time to waste, Aunt Winnie. You know why.”
Winnie did, and she nodded even as she sighed gustily.
“I wish there were more options for you, my dear.”
“Believe me, so do I.”
Emily went to her bedroom where her maid, picking up on her mistress’ somber mood, helped her out of her clothes and into her nightgown without a word. Though she should have been exhausted, she found that she could not drift off at all. She thought with a pang to the time when she had been content with her life as her aunt’s companion. Then it seemed that she never had any trouble sleeping at all.
Now she paced in her room, finally going to her writing desk and
pulling out a locket from the drawer. When she opened it, there was no miniature picture inside. Instead, there were two locks of hair, carefully curled on either side of the hinge. One was a deep ruddy gold, and the other was soft, fine, and fair. Emily touched the longer, thicker strand of gold before running her fingers over the softer tuft.
“I wonder if your hair will darken as you get older. Your father’s did.”
She knew that she had to keep her mind on the matter at hand. If she spent too much time thinking about what needed to be done, what was at stake, she would simply freeze, and then everything could only end in disaster. She couldn’t afford to freeze.
She crawled back between the cold sheets, and as she finally drifted off, she found that she could not stop herself from thinking of the duke. He held the key to her salvation, but he was a dangerous man. She had to have her wits about herself when she went to speak to him in the morning.
Despite that, she couldn’t help thinking of what had almost happened on the dance floor, what actually had happened in the alley. She had heard her friends talking in delighted hushed whispers about their husbands, that rogue or that gallant, but she had never quite understood the appeal herself. Apparently, it had taken the Duke of Wellford to wake those feelings inside her, and she fell asleep thinking about his lips claiming hers.
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Natalia’s Secret Spinster’s Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book) Page 24