Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride

by Mary Balogh

  “They look rather like something come straight down from heaven, do they not?” Sir Francis Kneller said at Lord Thornhill’s side. He nodded in the direction of Kersey and Miss Winwood. “While the rest of us ordinary mortals have to settle for what is left. A lowering thought, eh, Gabe? Though there is nothing ordinary about you, it must be admitted. The choice of black tonight was inspired, old chap. You look positively satanic. The ladies will think it very appropriate—and will doubtless be panting all over you.” He chuckled merrily.

  “One wonders,” the earl said, his eyes following the couple as they began to dance, “what Kersey has done to be so in favor with Nordal that he has been granted such an honor. Apart from being rather beautiful, of course.” He did not try to hide the contempt in his voice. It really was not difficult to understand why Catherine, married to his elderly and infirm father, had fallen so recklessly in love with the viscount.

  Sir Francis laughed again. “You have not heard?” he said. “It is a crying shame, if you were to ask me, when she is one of the few beauties in this year’s crop. But it is ever thus, is it not?” He sighed and raised his quizzing glass the better to watch Miss Winwood dance.

  “What is ever thus?” the earl asked. “Never tell me she has the pox, Frank. What a waste.”

  “Betrothed to Kersey,” Sir Francis said gloomily. “Wedding to take place some time before the end of the Season, if gossip has the right of it. At St. George’s with the flower of the ton present, I would not doubt. Of course, there is still her cousin, the equally delectable Miss Newman. More delectable, in fact. I have always had a soft spot for blondes, as what red-blooded blade has not? She has a more than respectable dowry too, so I have heard. It may be just a lure, of course, and will dwindle alarmingly as soon as one has committed oneself to showing a definite interest.”

  “The blonde is spoken for,” Sir Albert said. “I spoke her name—though actually I did not know it at the time—in the park two weeks ago, did I not, Gabe? Do you think I should slap a glove in Graham’s face at the end of the set?”

  “Why wait until the end?” Sir Francis asked and the two men chuckled with hearty amusement.

  The Earl of Thornhill was not listening to them. Betrothed! Poor girl. He pitied her deeply. And felt a certain anger on her behalf. She deserved better. Though perhaps not. He did not know her, after all, and had been given the impression of a certain haughty reserve both in the park and in the receiving line tonight. Perhaps possessing Kersey’s title and fortune and beauty would be enough for her. Perhaps she was in love with him. Probably she was in love with him. There was something in the way she looked at him that suggested it.

  And perhaps he loved her, the earl thought cynically, or the dowry that would come with her. Nordal was reputed to be wealthy enough. Perhaps Kersey was now ready to settle into a dull and blameless married life. It would not be difficult to settle for the redhead of the long legs, the earl thought, his eyes watching that last feature as she danced. Long and obviously shapely as outlined against the soft silk and lace of her high-waisted gown. And surely it would not be difficult to be satisfied with such loveliness and such voluptuousness for a lifetime.

  Yes, perhaps it was appropriate, he thought, as he continued to watch them dance. They matched each other in beauty and in a certain icy aloofness.

  And then his eyes met the girl’s across the room as she danced. She did not immediately look away and he deliberately held her eyes with his own until she did. Lord, she was a desirable woman. There was a certain incongruity between that glorious red hair and well-endowed body on the one hand and the virginal white and the air of aloofness on the other. Miss Jennifer Winwood did not look either virginal or cold. At least, she did not look as if she should be. That hair should be loose and spread over a pillow. Those breasts should be bared and lifting from a bed to touch a man’s chest.

  Of course, she would not be virginal for much longer. That hair would indeed be released and those breasts bared and those legs twined—about Kersey’s. There was something almost obscene in the thought, and definitely unseemly. His mind was not in the habit of wandering into other men’s beds.

  He wished Kersey and Miss Winwood happy in their forthcoming marriage, he thought, his eyes narrowing on them. Or rather, to the contrary, if he was to be more honest with himself, he wished their marriage to the devil. Unwilling hatred festered in him as he watched them dance and his two friends continued to chuckle over the witticisms they were exchanging.

  What he would really like was to see Kersey suffer as Catherine had suffered, Lord Thornhill thought. Or even a fraction as much as she had suffered. He would like to see the redhead break his heart or otherwise make his life miserable. Though that hardly seemed fair to her. His eyes rested on her again. He did not know her at all and should take his own advice about looking beyond outward appearances to the character within, but she was gloriously beautiful. Kersey did not deserve the happiness of possessing such beauty.

  The earl watched the girl for the rest of the set, his eyes narrowed in speculation. He was certainly going to dance with her himself before the evening was out if it could possibly be arranged. The beginnings of an idea were niggling at the corners of his mind.

  Yes, he thought, revenge would be sweet. Even just a little revenge. And there just might be a way to get it.

  “IS THIS NOT THE most heavenly night you have ever lived through?” Samantha asked Jennifer later in the evening during one of the rare moments when they were able to exchange a private word. “Four sets and four different partners apiece. Mr. Maxwell is going to dance with me again later. He is not the most handsome gentleman here, Jenny, but he does make me laugh. He says the most outrageous things about everyone around us.”

  She was glowing, Jennifer saw, and looking even lovelier than usual if that were possible. Only someone with Samantha’s modesty could possibly have doubted that she would take the ton by storm, as the saying went. There was not another lady present to match her in loveliness.

  “Yes, so is Lord Kersey,” she said with a sigh. “Going to dance with me again, that is. I hate this rule that one can dance with the same partner no more than twice. It was the first dance and I was nervous and watching my steps. I feel as if I have spent no time with him at all.” In imagination, in her dreams of what tonight would be like, she had danced the night away with Lionel, both of them aware only of each other. It had been an enchanted night—in her dreams. But of course she had known that propriety would keep them apart much of the evening. Sometimes she almost hated propriety.

  Viscount Kersey had danced with Samantha and then had disappeared, presumably to the card room, which everyone knew no one but the dowagers and elderly gentlemen were meant to use. But even if he had stayed in the ballroom, he could not have danced with her again. Or if he had, she would have nothing left to look forward to for the rest of the evening.

  In her dreams too she had pictured them alone together. Just for a short while. Just long enough so that they could smile into each other’s eyes quite privately and exchange their first kiss. Ah, it had been a wonderful dream—and a rather silly one, she supposed.

  But perhaps it really would happen later in the evening. Perhaps he would claim the supper dance—surely it would be strange if he did not, and the supper dance was next. And perhaps he would contrive to lead her from the dining room a little sooner than everyone else.

  She had looked at his mouth as they danced. She had imagined his lips touching hers and had felt hot all over at the thought. It was ridiculous. By the age of twenty she should at least know what a man’s lips felt like.

  And then her thoughts were very effectively distracted. A gentleman was bowing before her and soliciting her hand for the next set—for the supper set. A tall gentleman dressed all in black and white. The Earl of Thornhill. Jennifer looked around, startled. Her aunt had brought all her other partners to her. But Aunt Agatha was some distance away, her attention monopolized by a very large a
nd imposing elderly lady in purple.

  This was the supper dance. Where was Lionel? She had set her heart on dancing it with him. But he was nowhere in sight. How mortifying!

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said, dropping a slight curtsy. “It would be my pleasure.” She wished there had been a way of refusing. There must have been a way—but she did not know it.

  She did not enjoy the dance. He was very tall, far taller than Lionel, and somehow—threatening. No, not that, she told herself when the word leapt to mind. Disturbing was perhaps a better word. He watched her constantly, and his dark eyes somehow compelled her to look back so that for several measures of the dance, when they were face-to-face, she found herself gazing into his eyes and feeling somehow enveloped in something to which she could not put a name at all. He spoke occasionally.

  “I was beginning to believe,” he said, “that I had imagined you.”

  He was referring to that afternoon in the park, she supposed.

  “Until tonight,” she said, “I have not been out and have been unable to attend parties.”

  “I gather that after tonight,” he said, “you will be seen everywhere. I must make sure, then, that I am everywhere too.”

  Perhaps she should tell him that she was betrothed, she thought uneasily, but she stopped herself from doing so. His words were the typical gallantry that she must expect in London. He would be amused if he thought she had misunderstood.

  “That would be pleasant,” she said.

  He smiled suddenly, and his severe, satanic features were transformed into an expression that was undoubtedly attractive. “I can almost hear you saying the same words to a tooth-drawer,” he said. “In just the same tone of voice.”

  The idea was so ludicrous and unexpected that she laughed.

  “I was wrong,” he said softly. “I thought that perhaps you had never been taught to smile. But better than that, you know how to laugh.”

  She sobered instantly. He was flirting with her, she thought. And she found him a little frightening, though she had no idea why. Perhaps because at heart she was still just a gauche little schoolgirl and did not know how to handle gentlemen who had a great deal of town bronze.

  Soon after they had started to dance, she caught sight of Lord Kersey, who had returned to the ballroom. Their eyes met briefly and she fancied that he looked annoyed. Indeed, that was perhaps an understatement. For one moment he looked furious. But he had no right to be either. He had not asked for this set and had come late to claim it. Surely he must know how she longed to be dancing it with him. Oh, surely he knew. She tried to tell him so with her eyes, but he had looked away.

  A few moments later she saw that he was dancing with Samantha—again. She could have cried with frustration and disappointment. And quite unreasonably she hated the dark gentleman—the Earl of Thornhill—though he could not have known that she had been waiting hopefully for just this set with her betrothed.

  He led her in to supper when the set came to an end. She had hoped against reason that somehow he would excuse himself and Lord Kersey would come to take his place. But Lionel, of course, was obliged to lead in Samantha, having danced with her. She could stamp her foot in bad temper, Jennifer thought, but fortunately the foolishness of the mental image of herself doing just that restored her sense of humor and she had to struggle with herself not to laugh aloud.

  The Earl of Thornhill found her a seat at a table in one corner that was so crowded with flowers that there was not really room for anyone but the two of them. Indeed, it seemed that the table had not been intended to be sat at at all. Aunt Agatha had intended that she sit at the central table with Lord Kersey and Samantha and her escort, Jennifer knew, but somehow the plan had gone awry. Her aunt was frowning at her now, but what was she to do? Aunt Agatha should have been attending to her duty before the last set and then this would not have happened. Samantha and Lord Kersey sat together at the central table.

  “I gather,” the Earl of Thornhill said, “that a presentation to the queen is easily the worst ordeal of a young lady’s life. Is it true? Do tell me about your presentation.”

  Jennifer sighed. “Oh, the ridiculous clothes,” she said. “I will never know why we are not allowed to wear the sort of clothes we would wear to—well, an occasion like this, for example. All those fittings and all that expense for a few minutes of one’s life. And the curtsy, practiced over and over again for months on end and all over and done with in a few seconds. Perhaps it was the worst ordeal of my life, my lord. It was also the most ridiculous.”

  He looked amused. “You may find yourself in a closely guarded cell in the Tower awaiting execution at the chopping block if you shout that opinion into the wrong ears,” he said.

  She felt herself coloring. What on earth had possessed her to speak so candidly?

  “Tell me about it,” he said. “I have always wanted to know what happens at those drawing rooms, and I believe I have always been rather thankful that I am male.”

  She told him all about it and he told her that he had been traveling for the past year and more and described parts of France and Switzerland to her. There could be no part of the world lovelier than the Alps, he told her, and she believed him, listening to his descriptions.

  She was unaware of what she ate or did not eat during supper. And she was unaware of how much time passed or did not pass before the people around them began to leave their tables and wander back in the direction of the ballroom.

  It was not fair, she thought as the Earl of Thornhill conducted her back there and then bowed over her hand before removing himself both from her presence and from the ballroom, that that time and that splendid opportunity for conversation should have been wasted with him when she might have been with Lionel. She grudgingly admitted that she had enjoyed both talking and listening to him. But it was what she had dreamed of doing with Lionel. And now the opportunity was gone for the night. Lord Kersey would dance with her again, but there would be no chance to talk with each other, to laugh together, to get to know each other a little better.

  The evening was spoiled. The Earl of Thornhill had spoiled it for her, though that was an unfair condemnation. It was not his fault that Aunt Agatha had been delayed by the lady in purple and that Lord Kersey had been late returning to the ballroom. And he really had made an effort to make himself agreeable to her. Under any other circumstances she might have been gratified by his attention, for he was without a doubt as handsome in his own way as Lionel was in his.

  Devil and angel. No, that was not fair.

  Oh, but she had so longed for a conversation of just that nature with Lionel. He was approaching her now with Aunt Agatha. She smiled at him and felt her heart flutter.

  4

  HOW COULD SHE POSSIBLY BE FEELING DEPRESSED? She was not, Jennifer told herself firmly late the following morning. It was just that she was still a little tired. The downstairs salon was almost laden with flowers, roughly half of them hers and half Samantha’s. But despite all the excitement of the day before and the very late night, Sam was bubbling with exuberance.

  “So many gentlemen sending us flowers, Jenny,” she said, her arms spread wide eventually so that she looked as if she were dancing in a garden. “Some of the names I can scarce put faces to, I must confess. This is so very wonderful. I know it is the thing to send ladies flowers the morning after their come-out, but at least some of them must have come from genuine admiration, must they not?”

  “Yes.” Jennifer touched her fingers lightly to a leaf on the largest bouquet of all. She felt a little like crying and could not at all understand herself—or forgive herself. She had every reason to be gloriously happy. The evening had been a wonderful success—for both of them. There had not been enough sets to enable them to dance with all the gentlemen who had asked them.

  “That one, for example.” Samantha laughed. “Lord Kersey must have ordered the very largest bouquet the shop was able to provide. You must be ecstatic. You looked very splendid toget
her, Jenny. Everyone was saying so. And everyone knows that you are betrothed. The announcement might as well have been put in the papers already.”

  “He looked marvelously handsome, did he not?” Jennifer asked wistfully, thinking back to her disappointment of the evening before—though she would not openly admit anything had been disappointing. As she had expected, Lionel had danced with her again after supper, but there had been little opportunity to talk. Dancing was not conducive to conversation, except perhaps the waltz. But there had been no waltzes last night because she and Samantha and many of the other young ladies would not have been allowed to dance it. There had been no chance yet for them to be approved by any of the patronesses of Almack’s. A lady was not allowed to waltz until one of them gave the nod.

  “And he even sent me a nosegay,” Samantha said, lifting one and smelling its fragrance. “Was that not kind of him? I am sorry I ever called him cold. I shall never do so again. A gentleman who sends me a nosegay cannot possibly be cold.” She laughed once more. “Do you suppose we will have callers this afternoon? Aunt Aggy said it is to be expected. I keep wanting to pinch myself to prove this is all real, but then I stop myself from doing so in case it is not.”

  Jennifer touched one of her own nosegays but did not pick it up. Roses. Red roses. It must not be easy to find roses at this time of year.

  He had not returned to the ballroom. He must have gone home after supper or else spent the rest of the evening in the card room. She still resented the fact that the half hour or so she might have spent with Lionel during the supper break had been spent with him instead, that the conversation she might have been having with her betrothed had been had with the Earl of Thornhill instead. But then, if she had been with Lionel they would have been at the central table and would still have had no chance for private conversation. And Viscount Kersey had not been traveling in Europe for the past year and more and would not have been able to entertain her with all those stories and to fill her with longing to see it all for herself.