Rosalie laughed. “I can’t. I’d be breaking a confidence.”
“Ah, but confidences are made to be broken. Isn’t that right, Lady Featherstone?”
Belinda tensed, but thankfully, he didn’t press the point. Instead, he stepped forward, moving closer to the girl.
Belinda was quick to move with him, protective, watchful, and terribly afraid. She strove to think of a way to get Trubridge out of here before he could begin working his wiles on Rosalie, though the expression on the girl’s face told her it might already be too late. Rosalie was staring up at him as if she’d just found a knight in shining armor, but Belinda knew the girl couldn’t be more wrong. If he’d ever possessed a sense of chivalry, Trubridge had lost it long ago.
“I believe I detect a trace of American in your accent, Miss Harlow,” he was saying. “Are you from New York? Or Philadelphia? Or perhaps you are one of those exotic creatures from the hinterlands of the Middle West?”
“Middle West?” Rosalie laughed at that very British turn of phrase. “I am from New York, my lord. Schenectady, to be exact. But I’ve been in France for the past year, at finishing school.”
“And how do you find London?” he asked, taking another long, appreciative glance over her person that made Belinda want to kick him.
“Quieter than I’d expected,” Rosalie answered. “I thought the season here would be more exciting.”
“Well, it has barely started,” he told her. “Things don’t really become lively until after the Royal Exhibition, and that opened yesterday. From now until August, you’ll be happy to know, things will move at a pace that’s absolutely frantic. You won’t be able to catch your breath.”
Jervis entered the drawing room before the girl could reply. “Mrs. Harlow has come in her carriage to fetch her daughter, my lady,” he announced, and to Belinda, it was as if angels had begun to sing. “She apologizes most profusely for not coming up, but she’s in a bit of a rush. She just remembered that she is supposed to be taking Rosalie to luncheon with the Dowager Countess of Esmonde, and she fears they will be late.”
“Of course,” she said at once, ignoring Rosalie’s groan of dismay. “Tell Mrs. Harlow that her daughter will be down at once.” She turned to Rosalie as the butler bowed and departed. “Time to be on your way, dearest.”
“Must I? I was hoping to have luncheon with you.”
“As Jervis just informed us, your mother had forgotten you have a prior engagement.”
“Oh, but does it matter? Mama can convey my regrets to Lady Esmonde.”
“That would be rude, Rosalie, and you do not want to be rude to Lady Esmonde.”
“Maybe not, but I think she was quite rude to me when I was there a few days ago. She barks out questions, then answers them for you. And she makes remarks about how healthy American girls look and how nice our teeth are. It’s very disconcerting. And she thinks we all live in teepees and wigwams.”
Trubridge chuckled at that, causing Rosalie to laugh as well.
Belinda, the only one not amused, sent him a withering glance as she took the girl by the elbow and began pulling her toward the door. “Enough of that,” she said, overriding the girl’s protests. “It’s nearly one o’clock, and if you linger here any longer, you’ll be late. Being late to luncheon with a countess would be unthinkable.”
“I don’t see why. We are supposed to be late to balls. Why not lunch? And speaking of balls . . .” She stopped allowing herself to be propelled out of the room and turned toward Trubridge, yanking her arm from Belinda’s grasp. “Are you attending Lady Montcrieffe’s ball tonight, my lord?”
“I am, Miss Harlow,” he said at once, causing Belinda to utter a sound of indignation, for she knew perfectly well Lady Montcrieffe would never invite a man like him to one of her balls. “I shall look forward to seeing you there. And I hope you will allow me the honor of claiming a dance with you?”
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said before Belinda could think of a way to intervene. “The third waltz on my program is still open.”
Belinda again reached for Rosalie’s arm, but the girl evaded the move and took a step toward Trubridge. “I’ve been saving the third waltz for someone special.”
“I am honored,” he said, taking up her hand, “that you would choose me to be your someone special.”
Belinda almost gagged, but neither of the other two seemed to notice, and she could only watch as Trubridge kissed Rosalie’s gloved hand. As he let it go, he gestured to the door with his hat. “I was just on my way out. May I walk you down and see you and your mother safely to your carriage?”
“Of course,” she answered, and took his offered arm.
“An escort is hardly necessary,” Belinda pointed out in desperation as she followed them toward the door. “The carriage is sure to be right outside.”
Again, she was ignored.
“Good day, Lady Featherstone,” Trubridge said, looking over his shoulder to give her a parting smile as he ushered Rosalie out of the drawing room.
In that moment, Belinda was shocked to discover the depths of rage that she was capable of feeling. No one, not even Featherstone, had ever caused the . . . the eruption of outrage she was feeling at this moment. Her palm itched—absolutely itched—to slap that satisfied smile off his face.
The two of them left the drawing room, but though Belinda was right behind them, she could only follow as far as the stairs, for she could not go all the way down without being forced to introduce Trubridge to Rosalie’s mother. An introduction would convey her approval of him as an acquaintance to the daughter, and she most certainly did not approve. She had to content herself with hovering at the top of the stairs, watching as Rosalie performed the introduction she refused to make. When he and the ladies departed, she was racing back toward the drawing room before the door had closed behind them, and as they paused on the sidewalk outside her front door, Belinda watched from the window above.
Mrs. Harlow had indicated she was in a rush to reach Lady Esmonde’s, but it was clear she seemed willing to postpone that visit for a bit. They lingered for what seemed like hours, and as she watched them through the window, as she watched Trubridge work on the girl with his charm and his smile, Belinda felt sick at heart.
Rosalie was such an innocent. If he chose, he could manipulate her into being alone with him easy as winking, subjecting her to his improper notions of courtship and leaving both of them open to scandal.
Equally awful was the possibility that Rosalie would lose her heart to him. Belinda knew how quickly girls fell in love, and Rosalie’s temperament made her particularly vulnerable to the machinations of a rake. She could become infatuated with Trubridge before Belinda even had a chance to convince her of his reprobate character. Even the one dance they were to have could be enough to captivate the girl and close her ears to anything Belinda might say. In fact, the harder Belinda tried to keep her away from Trubridge, the greater her fascination with him might become. Girls could be so contrary.
She frowned, struck by a sudden thought. Just how did he plan to attend Lord and Lady Montcrieffe’s ball? Crashing it would hardly help him regain the company of good society. She couldn’t imagine Nancy inviting him, but he’d seemed awfully sure of his ground.
She decided to pay a call on Nancy straightaway and clarify the matter. If he hadn’t yet been given an invitation, she could at least try to prevent him from finagling one at the last minute. She might not be able to openly come out against him without hardening Rosalie’s resolve, but she had to do something. The idea of her romantic, naive young friend being disillusioned, heartbroken, and chained for life to a man like Trubridge didn’t bear contemplating. Somehow, this romance had to be nipped in the bud before it could flower into disaster.
IF IT WERE physically possible for a human body to burn with rage, Nicholas had no doubt Belinda Featherstone would be
a smoldering mass of coals by now. He was well aware of her gaze boring into his back through the window above, and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction to know that every moment he made conversation with Miss Harlow and her mother increased her ire and her anxiety. Good, he thought. Now she knew what he’d felt as she had insulted his character and impugned his honor.
And it wasn’t as if lingering here was a torture. Quite the contrary, for Rosalie Harlow was a pretty girl. With her honey blond hair, brown eyes, and plump cheeks, her prettiness was rather of the chocolate-box sort, and her lavish gown of pink-and-white-striped silk with its frothy white lace trimmings only served to emphasize that impression, but though she wasn’t the sort of woman he usually preferred, he could not afford to be picky, and pretty was always better than plain. Nicholas began to think this visit to Lady Featherstone hadn’t been a mistake after all.
He was happy to remain a few more moments, but only a few. A man who wanted to intrigue a woman never arrived too soon or stayed too long. After a few words of desultory conversation, he murmured something about another engagement, conveyed his regret that he could not remain in their company all afternoon, and expressed the hope he had not made them late to luncheon. The latter comment evoked exclamations of dismay from the two women and spurred them toward the luxurious brougham parked at the curb. He followed, assisted the ladies into the carriage, and closed the door behind them.
Rosalie immediately pulled down the window. “The third waltz, my lord?” It was meant to be a clarification, but Nicholas knew it was a hopeful reminder.
“The third, Miss Harlow.” This assurance earned him a radiant smile and as he studied her happy countenance through the glass, he decided that Rosalie Harlow was a very pretty girl indeed. She was also charming, amiable, and obviously wealthy. And she seemed to like him, which was a pleasant contrast to the virago upstairs.
“Walk on,” he told the driver, and he tipped his hat to Miss Harlow as the carriage pulled away from the curb. He waited on the sidewalk until the vehicle had turned the corner before he turned in the opposite direction. He took a glance at the window as he started toward the hansom cab waiting for him, but Lady Featherstone was no longer there.
In declaring war to her this afternoon, Nicholas hadn’t dreamed his first opportunity to win a battle would come so quickly. As she had introduced him to her young friend, he’d sensed a vulnerability in her that he hadn’t seen before, a definite chink in her cool, polished armor that told him Rosalie Harlow wasn’t just an acquaintance. She was a friend.
That thought brought with it a vague sense of disquiet, but he forced himself to shove that aside. He didn’t have time for a consideration of Lady Featherstone’s feelings, and truth be told, he wasn’t particularly inclined to do so after what she’d done to him. It wasn’t as if she’d spare him any such regard had their situations been reversed. Besides, he couldn’t eliminate every woman who might be a friend of hers. No, he would have his dance with Miss Harlow, and if she proved amenable to him and he to her, there was no reason he could see not to pursue her.
A cough brought him out of his reverie, and Nicholas realized he was standing on the sidewalk with a hansom in front of him, and a driver up on the box who was no doubt charging him a fortune for each additional moment he lingered. Before he could give the driver a direction, however, he had to decide where to go from here.
His most pressing need was money, and thanks to Belinda Featherstone, his options for obtaining it had dwindled considerably, so he really had only one choice left, and that was Denys. He ordered the driver to take him to his friend’s South Audley Street residence.
Denys, unlike most of their other friends, had decided to become respectable. He wasn’t wealthy by any means, but like most bachelors of the aristocracy, he had a quarterly allowance, and he no longer strove to spend every cent before the next quarter’s allotment came in. In addition, he had full use of his father’s carriages, staff, and London house. Having mended his spendthrift ways, he’d surely be able to spare a few quid for an old friend.
Nicholas could only hope Denys had gotten over that silly business with the cancan dancer. After all, it had happened three years ago, and they’d been friends far longer than three years. Denys surely wouldn’t hold a grudge.
“YOU SON OF a bitch.” The fist hit him in the face before he had time to duck, sending Nicholas staggering back a step.
Damn, he thought, touching his cheek with a grimace. He’d forgotten Denys had such a smashing right hook. “Still a bit peeved about Lola, I take it?”
“Peeved? Not at all.” Denys’s dark eyes narrowed on Nicholas, warning him that another blow was coming.
He ducked in time. “Then why did you hit me?”
“Because you’re here, and you’re breathing.” He swung again, but Nicholas had already jumped backward, out of reach. “Stand still, you bastard.”
“I rather hoped Lola would be water under the bridge by now.” Nicholas glanced around the other man’s drawing room, looking for a barrier to put between them. Deciding the stout mahogany pedestal table nearby would do, he moved to stand on the other side of it. “I hoped we could let bygones be bygones.”
“Did you?” Denys began circling the table, forcing Nicholas to do the same. “You were wrong.”
“I can see that.” He edged away as Denys came closer, but when the two men’s positions were reversed, he gave it up.
“This is absurd,” he said, and as the other man came the rest of the way around the table, Nicholas turned to face him, palms up in a gesture of truce. “Before you beat me to a pulp, can we take a moment to talk?”
“Talk about what? About you needing a loan?”
Nicholas sighed, lowering his arms. “I see you’ve read today’s issue of Talk of the Town.”
“I’ve no need to read it, not when everyone else already has, causing you to be the main subject being discussed at White’s today. So Landsdowne’s cut you off, has he? And now you need a loan, so you’ve come to me. Why me?”
He told the truth. “You’re the only friend I’ve got who has any money.”
Denys shook his head with a laugh. “God, you have gall, Nick, I’ll say that for you.”
“Well, yes,” Nicholas agreed, “but in my defense, I did save your life once.”
“Oh, please.” Denys derided that notion with a snort. “Pongo would not have shot me.”
“Only because I jumped between the pair of you and took the bullet on your behalf.”
“Which was a stupid thing to do. When you came between us, it startled him, and he fired. He wouldn’t have done so otherwise. He was just drunk and stirred up.”
“Over a woman,” Nicholas was quick to point out. “Pot,” he added with a bow, “my name is Kettle.”
Denys scowled at this reminder of his own past sins.
“That was different,” he muttered. “Pongo didn’t care tuppence for that barmaid. I loved Lola.”
It was Nicholas’s turn to offer a disbelieving snort. “You were in love every week.”
“That’s not true.”
“No? Shall I take you back three years? Before Lola, there was Julianne Bardot, the opera singer. Before her, you had a passion for the Contessa Roselli. Before her, I believe it was that Scandinavian courtesan—what was her name? Anika? Angelica?”
“All right, all right, you’ve made your point.” Denys squared his shoulders and straightened his tie with a little cough. “But I’ve changed since then. You haven’t.”
“That’s absurd. Everyone changes.”
“Not you, Nick. You are just the same at thirty as you were at twenty. Do you read what’s said about you in the scandal sheets? I do, and your name crops up at least once a week. I vow, the London gossip columnists spend half their time across the Channel, following you and Jack around Paris, detailing your exploits. Hedonists, the pair
of you. Why any woman should want you, I don’t know, but odds at White’s are that you’ll be engaged by the end of the season, in spite of Talk of the Town.”
“Really?” Nicholas’s spirits brightened a bit. “Did you place a wager on me?”
“Only a small one. I picked Lady Idina Forsyte.”
“The Earl of Forsyte’s daughter?” He made a grimace. “Doesn’t she have adenoids?”
“At least I didn’t say Lady Harriet Dalrymple. She was one of the choices. Long odds on her, though. Most chaps think you’ll do a bit better than that.”
He gave the other man a wry look. “I wonder if Landsdowne placed the bet. Lady Harriet is his choice, which means that even if she were Helen of Troy, Sappho, and Aphrodite all rolled into one, I wouldn’t have her.”
“You really do hate Landsdowne.”
“Do you blame me?”
“I suppose not. Still, Lady Harriet is horrid, and it would be no more than you deserved to end up with her.”
“How vengeful you are. But, no, I can assure you that my bride will not be Lady Harriet. I’d never give Landsdowne the satisfaction. Besides, I’ve other, more delectable fish to fry.”
“You’ve already set your sights on someone?”
“Perhaps. What do you know of Miss Rosalie Harlow?”
Denys whistled. “That’s going for high game. She’s one of the season’s acknowledged beauties, and her father is one of the richest men in America. Of course, you’ll have to make it past the dragon at the gates.”
“Lady Featherstone being the dragon in question? She’s already breathed her fire on me. I came away quite singed by the encounter.”
“Good on her.” Denys grinned. “That pleases me more than words can say.”
Nicholas grinned back. “Pleased enough to give me a loan?”
The other man stared at him in amazement, shaking his head, laughing as if in disbelief. “How do you manage it?”
American Heiress [1]When The Marquess Met His Match Page 6