A Gentleman Always Remembers

by Candace Camp

  Stewkesbury had seen his cousin and Lady Vivian the moment he stepped into the ballroom. Indeed, he thought, it would have been hard to miss her. She was dressed in rich black satin overlaid with a filmy material of the same color, a stark contrast to the pale white skin of her shoulders and elegantly narrow neck above it. Her flame-red hair burned like a beacon.

  It was one of the many annoying things about the woman, he thought. She never blended in, never entered a room quietly. She was always immediately, flamboyantly there. He started across the room toward her, wondering as he did so how she managed to make a simple black ball gown look so thoroughly elegant yet also seductive. Vivian Carlyle was never anything but a lady, stylish and tasteful, though there was something about her that made one think of secret, illicit passion. Oliver was not sure if it was the way her lips curved up in a slow smile, her green eyes lighting, as if only the person she looked at shared in her humor, or perhaps it was the way the delicate hairs curled upon the milk-white skin of her slender neck, or maybe the way she carried herself, without stiffness or shyness, her curvaceous body pliant and soft.

  Whatever it was, Oliver was certain that only a dead man could look at Vivian and not imagine, at least for an instant, having her in his arms, that soft skin beneath his hands. He had imagined so himself on more than one occasion, and he was more immune to the lady’s charms than most. After all, he had known her when she was a gawky girl, all sharp angles and giggles and mischief, that wealth of fiery hair tamed into bright orange braids down her back. She had been the bane of his summers down from Oxford, always up to some trick or other with his cousin. And she still had the ability to annoy him as almost no one else could.

  His resolve was tested the moment Vivian turned to greet him and he received the full impact of her dress up close. The heart-shaped neckline was low and wide, skimming the soft tops of her breasts and leaving much of her chest and shoulders bare. The rich satin hugged her breasts, and the jet bugle beads that adorned the neck seemed designed to draw one’s eye to the swelling creamy white tops. Desire slammed through him, fierce and immediate, and it was only years-long training that kept his face expressionless.

  “Stewkesbury.” Vivian smiled at him in that way she did, a way that hinted of secrets and laughter.

  Oliver was aware that Vivian considered him a hopelessly dull sort, and he often had the faint suspicion that she was laughing at him, a fact that served to make him even more unbending in her presence. Now, in response to her greeting, he gave her a punctiliously correct bow. Despite his best efforts, his gaze kept returning to Vivian’s bosom. Damn the woman—the way she was dressed was bloody distracting.

  “I am surprised to find you here alone,” Vivian said. “I know how infrequently you are wont to visit London.”

  He wasn’t sure why her assumption irritated him, but it did. “On the contrary, my lady, I am often in the city. I don’t know why people persist in thinking that I am always stuck away up at Willowmere.”

  “Because no one ever sees you around.”

  “I am in London. I simply do not spend my time at parties.”

  “Ah, I see.” A smile twitched at the corner of Vivian’s mouth. “No doubt you are occupied in far more useful activities.”

  Sometimes he thought how delightful it would be to do or say something outrageous, just to see the surprise that would flare on Vivian’s face. But, of course, that would be an entirely silly thing to do, so he said only, “I am usually here on business.”

  His cousin, who had been watching their exchange, spoke up for the first time. “Oh, Oliver, surely that does not take up all your evenings as well. You might at least go to a dinner or to a ball or two.”

  Vivian glanced at Oliver, her eyes glinting a little. “I suspect, dear Charlotte, that your cousin finds such things as balls or dinners tedious. Isn’t that true, Stewkesbury?”

  “Not at all,” he responded drily, meeting Vivian’s glance with something of a challenge in his gray eyes. “I find them much too stimulating for someone of my sedate nature. I might be utterly overcome.”

  Vivian let out a little laugh. “Now, that is something I should like to see. I have always wondered what it would take to overcome you.”

  “Ah, Lady Vivian, you should know that ’tis easily done. You have accomplished it on many an occasion.”

  Vivian hesitated, looking faintly surprised. Then she furled her fan and reached out to tap him lightly on the arm with it, her eyes twinkling, a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. “A very pretty compliment, my lord. I am shocked.”

  “You do not think me capable of it?”

  “Oh, no, you are capable enough. You forget, I have heard you talk to others. But I would not have thought you willing to hand a compliment to me.”

  He raised his brows. “What a picture you hold of me, my lady. Do I appear such a boor?”

  “Indeed, no, not a boor. But not capable, perhaps, of polite flattery.”

  It was Oliver’s turn to look surprised. Polite flattery? Could Vivian possibly think that he was not aware of her beauty or her powerful effect on men? Did she not realize that even now, as he stood here, chatting, carefully keeping his features composed, his nerves tingled with an awareness of her? That her perfume teased at his senses and his very blood hummed? He presumed that she had chosen her dress and styled her hair, dabbed a scent behind her ears, in the hope of eliciting this exact response. She must know how men reacted to her. The only possible reason for her surprise was that she did not expect him to react as a man.

  The idea galled him. Did he appear so sober, so boring to her?

  “Dearest Vivian,” he said, his tone taking on a sharper edge, “I suspect you would be surprised what I am capable of.”

  Her eyes rounded a little, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that his words had taken her aback. Ignoring his cousin’s indrawn breath of surprise, he went on, extending his hand to Vivian. “Perhaps, my lady, you would favor me with this dance.”

  What in the world had come over the man? For an instant, Vivian could only stare at Stewkesbury in astonishment. It wasn’t as if he had never asked her to dance or even that he had not paid her a compliment. But there was something different about tonight. Something in his eyes, in his tone, when he spoke to her. The compliment he had paid her had not been extravagant, but neither had it been the bland, customary acknowledgment of her looks that one heard at every turn. It had been . . . almost flirtatious. And his words before his invitation to dance had carried a dare. Indeed, his very invitation to her seemed almost a challenge.

  Well, a challenge was certainly something Vivian never turned down.

  And if you missed the first book

  in Camp’s delightful series . . .

  here’s a special look at

  A LADY NEVER TELLS

  Now available from Pocket Star Books

  Mary Bascombe was scared. She had been frightened before—one could not have grown up in a new and dangerous land and not have faced something that set one’s heart to beating double-time. But this wasn’t like the time they had seen the bear nosing around their mother’s clothesline. Or even like the way her heart had leapt into her throat the day her stepfather had grabbed her arm and pulled her against him, his breath reeking of alcohol. Then she had known what to do—how to back slowly and quietly into the house and load the pistol, or how to stomp down hard on Cosmo’s instep so that he released her with a howl of pain.

  No, this was an entirely new sensation. She was in a strange city filled with strange people, and she had absolutely no idea what to do next. She felt . . . lost.

  Mary took another glance around her at the bustling docks. She had never seen so much noise and activity or so many people in one place in her life. She had thought the docks in Philadelphia were busy, but that was nothing compared to London. All around them were piles of goods, with stevedores loading and unloading them, and people hurried about, all seemingly with someplace to be and little t
ime to get there.

  There were no women. The few whom she had seen disembark from ships had been whisked away in carriages with their male companions. Indeed, all the passengers from their own ship were long gone, only she and her sisters still standing here in a forlorn group beside their small pile of luggage. The shadows were beginning to lengthen; it would not be long until night began to fall. And though Mary might be a naïve American cast adrift in London, she was smart enough to know that the London docks at night were no place for four young women alone.

  The problem was that Mary didn’t know what to do next. She had expected there to be an inn not far from where they left their ship. But as soon as they disembarked, she had realized that the area around these docks would not house an inn where a respectable group of young women could stay. Indeed, she was reluctant for them even to walk through the narrow streets she could see stretching out in front of her. A few hacks had come by and Mary had tried to stop one or two, but the drivers had simply rolled past, ignoring her. No doubt they presumed from the rather ragtag pile of luggage that Mary and her sisters would not be a good fare.

  They could not stay here. Unless a carriage happened by soon, they would be forced to pick up their bags and walk into the narrow, dingy streets beyond the docks. Mary glanced uncertainly around her. Several of the men loading the ships had been casting their eyes toward Mary and her sisters for some time. Now, as her gaze fell on one of them, he gave her a bold grin. Mary stiffened, returning her most freezing look, and pivoted away slowly and deliberately.

  She studied her three sisters—Rose, the next oldest to Mary and the acknowledged beauty of the family, with her limpid blue eyes and thick black hair; Camellia, whose gray eyes were, as always, no-nonsense and alert, her dark gold hair efficiently braided and wrapped into a knot at the crown of her head; and Lily, the youngest and most like their father, with her light brown, sun-streaked hair and gray-green eyes.

  All three girls gazed back at Mary with a steadfast trust that only made the icy knot in her stomach clench tighter. Her sisters were counting on her to take care of them, just as Mama had counted on her to get the girls away from their stepfather’s house after their mother’s death and across the ocean to London, to the safety and security of their grandfather’s home. Mary had managed the first part of it. But all of that, she knew, would be for naught if she failed now. She had to get her sisters someplace safe and proper for the night, and then she had to face a grandfather none of them had ever met—the man who had tossed out his own daughter for defying his wishes—and convince him to take in that same daughter’s children. Instinctively, Mary clutched her slender stitched-leather satchel closer to her chest.

  At that moment, a figure came hurtling toward them and careened into Mary, sending her sprawling to the ground. For an instant, she was too startled to move or even to think. Then she realized that her hands were empty. Her satchel! Frantically, she glanced around her. It wasn’t there.

  “My case! He stole our papers!” Mary bounded to her feet and swung around, spying the running figure. “Stop! Thief!”

  Pausing only long enough to cast a look at Rose and point to the luggage, Mary lifted her skirts and took off running after the man. Rose, interpreting her sister’s look with the ease of years of familiarity, went to stand next to their bags, but Lily and Camellia were hot on Mary’s heels. Mary ran faster than she had ever run, her heart pounding with terror. Everything important to them was in that case—everything that could prove their honesty to a disbelieving relative. Without those papers, they had no hope; they would be stranded here in a huge, horrid, completely strange town with nowhere to go and no one to ask for help. She had to get the satchel back!

  Her sisters were right behind her; indeed, Camellia, the swiftest of them all, had almost caught up with her. But the wiry thief who had taken her case was faster than any of them. As they rounded a corner, she spied him half a block ahead, and realized, with a wrenching despair, that they could not catch him.

  A few yards beyond the thief, two men stood outside a door, chatting. In a last, desperate effort, Mary screamed, “Stop him! Thief!”

  The two men turned and looked at her, but they made no move toward the man, and Mary knew with a sinking heart that her sisters’ future was disappearing before her eyes.

  Sir Royce Winslow strolled out of the gambling hell, giving his gold-headed cane a casual twirl before he set its tip on the ground. A handsome man in his early thirties, with blond hair and green eyes, he was not the sort one expected to see emerging from a dockside gaming establishment. His broad shoulders were encased in a coat of blue superfine so elegantly cut that it could only have been made by Weston, just as the polished Hessians on his feet were clearly the work of Hoby. The fitted fawn trousers and white shirt, the starched and intricately tied cravat, the plain gold watch chain and fobs all bespoke a man of refinement and wealth—and one far too knowing to have been caught in the kind of place frequented, as his brother Fitz would say, by “sharps and flats.”

  “Well, Gordon, you’ve led me on another merry chase,” Sir Royce said, turning to the man who had followed him out the door.

  His companion, a man barely out of his teens, looked a trifle abashed at the comment. Unlike Sir Royce’s, Gordon’s clothes evinced the unmistakable extremes of style and color that branded him a fop. His coat was a yellow reminiscent of an egg yolk, and the patterned satin waistcoat beneath it was lavender, his pantaloons striped with the same shade. The shoulders of the coat were impossibly wide and stuffed with padding, and the waist nipped in tightly. A huge boutonnière was thrust through his lapel, and his watch chain jangled with its load of fobs.

  Gordon drew himself up in an exaggeratedly dignified manner, though the picture he hoped to create was somewhat marred by the fact that he could not keep from swaying as he stood there. “I know. I beg your pardon, Cousin Royce. Jeremy should never have told you.”

  “Don’t blame your brother,” the other man replied mildly. “He was worried about you—and rightly so. You were being fleeced quite royally back there.”

  Gordon flushed and started to argue, but the other man stopped him with an adroitly cocked eyebrow and went on, “You’d best be grateful to Jeremy for coming to me instead of going to the earl.”

  “I should think so!” Gordon admitted in shocked tones. “Cousin Oliver would have prosed on forever about the family dignity and what I owed to my parents.”

  “With good cause.”

  “Here, now, don’t tell me you and Cousin Fitz never kicked up a lark!” the younger man protested.

  A faint smile curved Sir Royce’s well-formed lips. “We might have done so, yes—but I would never have gotten myself kicked out of Oxford and then gone to town to throw myself into yet more scrapes.” He narrowed his gaze. “And I would never have taken it into my head to wear that yellow coat.”

  “But it’s all the crack!” Gordon exclaimed.

  However, his companion was no longer listening to him. Sir Royce’s attention had been caught by the sight of a man tearing down the street toward them, clutching a small leather satchel. What was even more arresting was that running after him was a young woman in a blue frock, her dark brown hair loose and streaming out behind her and her gown hiked up almost to her knees, exposing slender stocking-clad legs. Behind her were two more young women, running with equal fervor, bonnets dangling by their ribbons or tumbling off altogether, their faces flushed.

  “Stop him!” the woman in the lead shouted. “Thief!”

  Royce gazed at the scene in some amazement. Then, as the thief drew almost abreast of him, he casually thrust his cane out, neatly catching the runner’s feet and sending him tumbling to the ground. The man landed with a thud and the case went flying from his hands, skidding across the street and coming to a stop against a lamppost.

  Cursing, the runner tried to scramble to his feet, but Royce planted a foot on his back and firmly pressed him down.

  “Gordon, fet
ch that leather satchel, will you? There’s a good lad.”

  Gordon was gaping at the thief twisting and flailing around under Sir Royce’s booted foot, but at the older man’s words, he picked up the case, weaving only slightly.

  “Thank you!” The woman at the head of the pack trotted up to them and stopped, panting. The other two pulled up beside her, and for a moment the two men and three women gazed at each other with considerable interest.

  They were, Sir Royce thought, a veritable bevy of beauties, even flushed and disheveled as they were, but it was the one in front who intrigued him most. Her hair was a deep chocolate brown and her eyes an entrancing mingling of blue and green that made him long to draw closer to determine the precise color. There was a firm set to her chin that, along with her generous mouth and prominent cheekbones, gave her face an unmistakable strength. Moreover, that mouth had a delectably plump bottom lip with a most alluring little crease down the center of it. It was, he thought, impossible to see those lips and not think of kissing them.

  “You are most welcome,” Sir Royce replied, pulling his booted foot off the miscreant’s back in order to execute a bow.

  The thief took advantage of this gesture to spring to his feet and run, but Royce’s hand lashed out and caught him by his collar. He glanced inquiringly at the women.

  “Do you want to press charges? Should we take him to a magistrate?”

  “No.” The first woman shook her head. “As long as I have my case back, that is all that matters.”

  “Very well.” Sir Royce looked at the man he held in his grip. “Fortunately, the lady has a kind heart. You may not be so lucky next time.”

  He released the thief, who scrambled away and vanished around a corner, and turned back to the group of young women. “Pray, allow me to introduce myself—Sir Royce Winslow, at your service. And this young chap is my cousin, Mr. Harrington.”