“Manage what?”
“To keep us friends.”
He straightened the camellia in his buttonhole and smoothed his lapel. “My charm? My wit? My—”
“Enough,” Denys cut him off. “Any more of that, and I’ll be sick. How much do you need?”
“Can you spare a thousand?”
“All right, but I’m charging you interest. Four percent.”
“Per annum?”
“Per month.”
“That’s extortion.”
“No,” Denys corrected, folding his arms. “It’s justice.”
He was in no position to negotiate. “Four percent it is. Are lodgings at your house included in this offer?”
“What? Allow you to live in my house for the foreseeable future?”
“This isn’t your house. It’s Earl Conyers’s house. You, Viscount Somerton, live here due to your father’s goodwill.”
“And my mother’s. She won’t like it, you know, having you here with all the scandal attached to your name.”
“Couldn’t she see her way clear for the man who saved her son’s life?” Ignoring Denys’s sound of exasperation, he added, “And I won’t be staying forever, just until the end of the season.”
“Only if you’ve found a wife by then. If you don’t, we shall be stuck with you for God knows how long.”
“You said yourself the odds are in my favor. But if I am to find a wife, I simply must have a respectable address. And, anyway, you have a bet riding on this, so it’s in your best interests to assist me as much as possible.”
“Lease a house. Let a flat. Find a hotel.”
“This is London, Denys, and it’s the season. A house, or even a flat, is rare as hen’s teeth this time of year, meaning that even if I could find one, I couldn’t afford the rent. And hotels are so inconvenient if one wants to entertain.”
“Is there anything else you need? Seats in my father’s box at Covent Garden? An evening of cards with the Prince of Wales? Use of the carriages?”
“All those would be splendid,” he said, jumping on the offer and ignoring the sarcasm. “And if you could persuade Montcrieffe to invite me to his ball tonight, I believe I’ll be on my way to a smashing season.”
“Lovely. I think I shall go to the country.”
“Nonsense.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder. “You’ll enjoy yourself enormously with me for company. You always do. C’mon.”
“Are we going somewhere?” Denys asked, as Nicholas began leading him toward the door.
“White’s.”
“But I’ve just come from there.”
“I want to see who else has been suggested as a bride for me besides Lady Harriet and Lady Idina. Feel free, by the way, to offer the names of any wealthy heiresses you can think of who might be open to the idea of marrying a broke, down-on-his-luck marquess.”
“I thought you’d already set your sights on Miss Harlow?”
“There’s no guarantee we’ll suit, so I need other alternatives in case Miss Harlow doesn’t pan out. I say, that’s an idea.” He stopped, bringing the other man to a halt as well.
“What’s an idea?” Denys asked.
He turned toward his friend. “Is your sister still as pretty as I remember?”
Denys scowled. “Don’t push your luck.”
Chapter 5
Nicholas had the good fortune to encounter Lord Montcrieffe at White’s, and with Denys’s assistance, he was able to finagle an invitation to attend the ball that evening with his friend. While dressing for the event, however, a note from Lady Montcrieffe was brought to him by one of Lord Conyers’s footmen, a note that told him he wasn’t the only one doing a bit of finagling. “Lady Featherstone has been busy, Chalmers,” he told his valet as he scanned the letter. “She has brought out the heavy guns against me.”
“Indeed?” The servant’s tone was polite but uninterested. Chalmers was a tall, cadaverous fellow who looked more like an undertaker than a valet and took the proper knotting of a man’s tie far too seriously. It made him an excellent valet but a poor conversationalist. “If you could lift your chin a bit?”
Nicholas complied, lifting the letter as well so that he could keep reading while Conyers formed his white silk tie into a proper bow. “I’m told other members of the ball committee would be appalled if they knew Montcrieffe had issued a verbal invitation, especially at this late date. She begs that I not attend in order to spare her husband censure from the others on the committee. The implication, of course, is that if I refuse the lady’s request, I am unchivalrous.”
“It seems quite a conundrum, my lord.” Chalmers stepped back to consider his handiwork. He tweaked the bow a bit, then brushed a speck of lint from Nicholas’s black tailcoat and dressed his buttonhole with a pristine white gardenia. Satisfied at last, he reached for the ice poultice reposing in a silver bowl on the dressing table, an action Nicholas was impelled to protest.
“Good God, not again.” He turned his face to the side as his valet attempted to apply the ice to his left cheek where Denys had hit him. “My face is already numb from your efforts. Surely the swelling has abated by now.”
“Only for the moment. Ice must be applied for several minutes every half hour, or the swelling will return. You wouldn’t wish to appear in public with a goose egg on your face. What would the ladies think?”
Desperate, he turned his face the other way to evade his valet’s ministrations. “A swollen face and a black eye might be considered romantic to the ladies.”
“The black eye won’t appear until at least tomorrow. But though there’s nothing I can do about that, it is my duty as your valet to ensure you not attend an important social event with a swollen face.” He pressed the poultice gently but firmly to Nicholas’s eye, seeming in no doubt that his master would attend the ball despite Lady Montcrieffe’s request.
Chalmers knew him well. The letter was Lady Featherstone’s doing, and Nicholas had no intention of playing along. He’d have his waltz with Miss Harlow despite that woman’s machinations.
Two hours later, however, he wondered if his decision to forgo Lady Montcrieffe’s goodwill had been a futile sacrifice. As all charity balls were known to be, the ballroom at Montcrieffe House was packed with people. Rosalie Harlow, however, did not seem to be among the crowd. He circled the ballroom twice, but even with only a few minutes remaining before the third waltz, he still had not found her.
He started round again, but before he could resume his search for his quarry, he came face-to-face with another woman, the one he’d thought only yesterday would be the answer to all his problems. Unfortunately, Belinda Featherstone was proving to be his nemesis.
Despite that, his gaze slid downward, and he noted with both chagrin and masculine appreciation how her ball gown of ice blue satin clung to every luscious curve of her body. The deep, square neckline emphasized the exquisite shape of her breasts. The fashionably tight skirt scattered with seed pearls sheathed her shapely hips and trailed behind her in a train edged with ivory lace. Pearls peeked from amid the tendrils of dark hair piled atop her head and wrapped her long, slender neck, pearls so well matched they couldn’t possibly be real. Nicholas stared at the generous expanse of creamy skin that warmed those pearls, and his throat went dry. Only half a dozen feet away from him, and yet, she seemed as distant and untouchable as the glittering, starlit sky.
Despite that impression—or perhaps because of it—he could feel arousal flaring up within him as he looked at her. It quickened his pulses and thrummed through his veins and spread through his body before he could even think to check it.
Damnation. Of all the things he ought to be feeling at the sight of her, lust shouldn’t have been one of them. He tried to gather his wits, not an easy thing to do given the sight before him, and as the seconds ticked by, he realized that while he was standing h
ere gaping at her like a randy adolescent, she was staring back at him with all her usual polished composure.
Nicholas took a deep breath, working to tamp down desire and don the mask of indolence he’d always found so effective at hiding inconvenient vulnerabilities. It was a mask he’d had plenty of practice putting on throughout his life, but at this moment, he was finding it a rough go. He felt naked, and in a way that was not the least bit pleasant. What was it about this woman that always seemed to throw him off his trolley?
“Lady Featherstone.” He gave her his deepest bow, and by the time he straightened, he was smiling, but he felt as if even the widest smile and most carefree air he could put on wouldn’t convince the perceptive woman before him.
She didn’t move to respond in kind, and he tensed, wondering if she intended to give him the cut direct. With her influence in society, that would be a serious blow to his chances, but there was nothing he could do about it, so he tried to adopt a nonchalant air as he waited to be snubbed.
She was tempted, he could tell, but after a moment, she gave a quick nod of acknowledgment and a slight curtsy. It was probably the briefest, most inconsequential acknowledgment ever given by a lady to a peer, but she’d given it.
Astonished, he turned to watch her as she stepped around him and walked on, still not quite able to believe it. They were at war, weren’t they? Granted, cutting him would cause gossip, but this was the perfect opportunity for her to show he was unworthy of notice by respectable society and demonstrate to any young ladies who might be watching—or at least to their mamas—that he was not a man to be trusted. So why hadn’t she taken that opportunity?
As he watched her move toward the doorway, Nicholas was forced to set aside his speculations about Lady Featherstone, for the woman he’d actually come here to see had just arrived in the ballroom.
Rosalie was standing inside the doorway with her mother, greeting Lord and Lady Montcrieffe and various other members of the charity-ball committee. Dressed in blush pink silk, her blond hair a mass of soft curls and ringlets, she made quite a pretty picture—that is, he amended as his gaze strayed to the shapely backside of Lady Featherstone, if a man kept his eyes on her and not on a certain raven-haired she-dragon.
He returned his attention determinedly to the girl, but he waited until the musicians gave the cue that the third waltz was beginning before he moved toward her. Rosalie greeted his approach with a radiant smile, and he gave her an answering wink as he passed her to speak with the viscount. “Montcrieffe,” he greeted for the second time this evening. “Thank you again for your kind invitation.”
“Not at all,” the viscount assured, though he cast an uneasy glance at his wife, just as he had upon Nicholas’s arrival. For her part, the viscountess gave him the same frosty nod she’d greeted him with earlier, and when he glanced at the ladies beside her, she gestured to them with obvious reluctance. “Lord Trubridge, I believe you are already acquainted with my friends Lady Featherstone, Mrs. Harlow, and Miss Harlow?”
“I am. In fact, I believe Miss Harlow has promised me the next dance.”
Rosalie’s smile widened even more. “So I have, my lord.”
“Then may I claim it?” He glanced at her mother. “With your permission, of course, madam?”
It was clear that Lady Montcrieffe was not the only one who had been warned about him. Mrs. Harlow’s displeased toss of the head was a far cry from her friendliness earlier in the day, but she made no protest as he offered his arm to her daughter and led her to the floor.
“I was sure Mama wouldn’t let me dance with you,” Rosalie told him as the waltz began.
He pretended obtuseness. “Why ever not?”
“She’d been warned about you by Auntie Belinda.”
“Auntie Belinda?” he echoed, surprised by the address. “I did not realize Lady Featherstone was your aunt.”
“Oh, she isn’t a blood relative. But she’s very close to our family. I’ve known her since I was a little girl, and although I call her Auntie, she’s more like an older sister, really.”
“And did she give you the same warnings about me that she gave your mother?”
Rosalie rolled her eyes. “Heavens, yes, and before I’d even met you. I was there when you first called on her yesterday, and she sent me home at once. She didn’t want to introduce us.”
“So that explains why she had me cooling my heels in the library. She wanted to keep us apart.”
“Yes. She told me you were an odious man.” Rosalie laughed. “And that you were fat. And that you had gout from drinking and bad breath from smoking cigars.”
If Belinda Featherstone was so desperate as to tell easily provable lies about him before she’d even known his purpose, she must be absolutely frantic now. He found the notion reassuring in the wake of his own tendency to let his wits go to pieces when she was anywhere near him.
“I do not smoke, Miss Harlow,” he said, “and though I do drink, it is seldom to excess, for I’ve found it’s not worth the suffering on the day after. So on those points, at least, your Auntie Belinda is quite wrong. As to the rest, well, you shall have to judge me for yourself.”
The laughter left her face. She gazed up at him, her brown eyes shining. “I think you’re splendid.”
She hadn’t meant to say that, he knew, for she blushed, biting her lip and lowering her gaze to his cravat. But though she seemed to think her comment gauche and unsophisticated, Nicholas couldn’t see it in that light. He was as happy as the next man to receive such unqualified praise, especially in light of the battering he’d been receiving of late from a certain other female.
“What a beautiful compliment. Thank you.” He pulled her a fraction closer. “And I think you are very pretty.”
She lifted her chin, rewarding him with another smile, and yet in that moment, Nicholas was swamped by sudden doubts. This girl was so terribly young. Naive, too—far more naive than her typical British counterpart. It was also plain she’d developed an unabashed hero worship for him, and he wondered if he should disengage, now, before her heart was in play. He didn’t want to hurt her, and if he kept on, he very well might. A girl like this was bound to have expectations about him, unrealistic expectations he didn’t know if he could ever fulfill. Even if they wed, could he make her happy?
Nicholas had no intention of falling in love again, but a girl like this might very well fall in love with him. In such circumstances, if he married her, it was inevitable that her romantic illusions about him and about love would eventually be shattered. How ironic that the qualities that would make winning her an easier task—her youth and her artless innocence—were now the very qualities that made him hesitate. When he looked into Rosalie’s big brown eyes, he received the distinct impression of a sweet little cocker spaniel gazing at its master, and he felt a twinge of something else, something that only made his doubts grow stronger.
It took him a moment to identify the feeling, and he realized in aggravation that it was guilt. When he thought about persuading this girl to marry him, he felt as if he was taking candy from a baby. As if he was shooting fish in a barrel. As if, somehow, he wasn’t playing fair.
Irritated with himself for this inconvenient sense of fair play, he tore his gaze away from Rosalie’s, but even without looking at her, he could still feel her adoring gaze on him. It made him deuced uncomfortable because he knew it was an adoration he hadn’t yet earned. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t him she adored, but the idea of him.
That realization had barely passed through his mind before he once again caught sight of Belinda standing at the edge of the dance floor, and resentment overcame this sudden attack of conscience. It was due to her precipitate actions that his choice of candidates was so limited, and it was that thought that enabled Nicholas to return his attention to the pretty girl in his arms. He smiled into Rosalie’s adoring eyes, shrugged off guilt, and reminded h
imself that all was fair in love and war.
BELINDA DIDN’T KNOW it was possible for a nine-minute waltz to seem like nine hours. Watching the girl fall right into his grasp like a ripe plum was infuriating, but even worse, she felt as if she were watching history repeat itself, and that was more painful than she would have thought possible.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Belinda jerked her gaze away from Trubridge and Rosalie to find Lady Montcrieffe beside her. “Oh, Nancy,” she said with a sigh, “you don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”
Nancy turned her head toward the dance floor, causing her pale hair to catch the light from the ballroom’s chandeliers overhead. “I think I can guess.”
Belinda followed her friend’s gaze. “And to think he didn’t even have an invitation when he arranged this dance with her,” she muttered. “How he managed to finagle one out of your husband this afternoon at White’s I still don’t understand. Talk about the devil’s own luck. I couldn’t believe it when you told me. What was Montcrieffe thinking to issue an invitation like that, on the spur of the moment?”
“You know men. They just don’t understand the social implications of these things. I did try to persuade Trubridge not to come, but as you can see, I was not successful.”
“Thank you for making the attempt.” She lost sight of Trubridge and Rosalie amid the couples swirling across the floor, and she leaned one way and then another, trying to find them again. “I do appreciate it.”
“It was the least I could do after you came to see me this afternoon.” Nancy gave an unexpected chuckle. “With the temper you were in, how could I refuse? You know, in the entire ten years I’ve known you, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you like that—spitting mad and muttering about finding a pistol.”
Belinda glanced at her with a smile. “And to think it was you who pressed upon me the importance of being cool and unflappable at all times when I first came to England.”
American Heiress [1]When The Marquess Met His Match Page 7