by Mary Balogh
She looked at him, exasperated. Why was she finding him ever so slightly likable? Why was she finding his company more stimulating than that of any of the worthy gentlemen she knew?
“It was a no,” she said.
“You are a coward,” he told her. “I shall be forced to engage in a unilateral wager, then-that I can bring you to love me… ah, let me see, before the summer is out. Before the first yellow leaf flutters to the ground.”
Her nostrils flared.
“If I should hear,” she said, “that there is another bet concerning me in any of the infamous gentlemen’s betting books-”
“Ah, no,” he said, smiling with sudden warm charm. “This will be a private wager between you and me, Miss Huxtable. No, pardon me-between me and me since you are unsporting enough to refuse to participate.”
“I see,” she said testily. “I am to be harassed, then, am I? For your private amusement? You must be very bored indeed, Lord Montford.”
“Harassed?” He raised one eyebrow. “I would call it being wooed, Miss Huxtable.”
“And left with a broken heart if you succeed,” she said. “Which you will not, I am happy to say.”
“But I might be left equally brokenhearted,” he told her, moving his head slightly closer to hers as the waltz tune appeared to be coming to an end. “The other half of the wager is that you will cause me to fall in love with you.”
She clucked her tongue.
“I would not waste my time even trying,” she said. “Not even if I wanted you in love with me. Which I do not. In fact, it is the very last thing I want.”
They had stopped dancing. So had everyone else. The dance floor was slowly clearing.
“But just imagine how it would be, Miss Huxtable,” he said, his voice low, eyelids drooped over his eyes, those eyes fixed keenly on hers, “if we were both to win. We could have a grand wedding at St. George’s in Hanover Square with every member of the ton in attendance and then proceed to a lifetime of sleepless nights, making babies and passionate love, not necessarily in that order.”
Her nostrils flared again at the same moment as her knees threatened to disintegrate under her. Oh, how dared he?
“And how do you know you will not win my wager?” he asked her. “Many ladies have tried to woo me-or rather my position and wealth-and have failed. Per haps not trying will have better success.”
“If you choose to amuse yourself with such foolish delusions, Lord Montford,” she said, turning away from him, “I cannot stop you. Nor do I have any interest in doing so.”
“Ah, cruel heart,” he said, taking her hand and setting it on his sleeve to lead her across the floor in the direction of Meg and Stephen. “Mine is already in danger of shattering into a million pieces.”
She turned her head to look up at him and found him smiling down at her just as if they were engaged in the most trivial of social conversations.
Gracious heaven, had she really just been having such a conversation with Baron Montford ? After all these years of demonizing him in her mind, had she just been almost enjoying matching wits with him?
He was going to lay siege to her heart-merely for the pleasure of doing what she had told him was quite impossible.
It was impossible.
As impossible as it would be to capture his.
Ooh, if only it could be done. If only she could make him love her and then spurn him, laugh in his face…
“Was not that a lovely waltz?” Meg said as they came up to her. “You dance it very well, Lord Montford. So does Lord Allingham.”
“It is possibly,” Lord Montford said, “the most romantic dance the world has ever known, ma’am, especially when a man is privileged to dance it with one of the two loveliest ladies at the ball. Allingham danced with one, I with the other.”
He spoke with warm charm and not a trace of mockery, but with enough humor not to sound ridiculously fawning. Katherine looked up at him reproachfully, and he took her hand from his sleeve with his free hand, bowed over it, and carried it briefly to his lips.
Sensation licked up her arm, down into her breasts, and on down to pool between her thighs. Well, she had never tried to deny to herself that he was impossibly attractive, had she? That did not make him lovable.
“Merton,” he said to Stephen, who was grinning from one to the other of them with open good humor, “would you care for a hand of cards in the card room? But no, of course you would not. There are too many young ladies demanding your attention here. Stroll that way with me anyway.”
He released Katherine’s hand and did not look at her again as he walked off with Stephen.
“Oh, Kate,” Margaret said as soon as they were out of earshot, “what a very charming gentleman Lord Montford is. And exceedingly handsome. I do not believe he took his eyes off you even once while you danced.”
“I have it on the most reliable authority,” Katherine said, “from Constantine, in fact, that he is a shocking libertine, Meg. And is the Marquess of Allingham still devoted to you? How many times have you refused his hand?”
“Oh, only once,” Margaret protested. “And that was three years ago. He does not seem to hold any grudge against me, though. He is a very amiable gentleman.”
“Only amiable?” Katherine pulled a face.
They smiled rather ruefully at each other before having their attention taken by the arrival of their partners for the upcoming set of country dances.
7
JASPER was not as totally self-absorbed as his behavior in London often suggested. He was carelessly fond of his elder sister, Rachel, who was now married to Laurence Gooding and living in the north of England with him. But he had a deep affection for Charlotte, his young half-sister. So deep, in fact, that he sometimes suspected that she had perfected the art of winding him about her little finger whenever she wanted something badly enough.
She had wanted very badly indeed to come to London with him this year after Easter, and he had brought her. But there were strict conditions attached, one of which being that she spend her days glued to the side of Miss Daniels, her erstwhile governess, now her companion, who could be relied upon to see to it that she behaved with the proper decorum at every moment. Another condition was that she clearly understand that this visit was in no way a sort of premature come-out. She was still only seventeen years old.
Her eighteenth birthday was in August. Next year she would make her debut in society. All would be done right and proper when the time came. He was still not quite sure how it would be done since Rachel was adamant in her refusal even to think about coming to London for a full Season in order to sponsor her half-sister when she had her own home and husband and family to occupy her days. And Aunt Florrie, his mother’s only sister, was an invalid and living somewhere in Cornwall. The only other possibility-Lady Forester, Charlotte’s Aunt Prunella on her father’s side of the family-was really no possibility at all. He would rather keep Charlotte as a permanent resident of the schoolroom than hand her over to the tender mercies of that particular lady. By next year he would have to think of something-some decent way of launching Charlotte into society and onto the marriage mart.
But he had brought her to town this year, bowing to her wheedling arguments that it would be to her advantage next year if this year she learned her way around London, got to know which were the best dressmakers and the best shops, acquainted herself with all the best galleries and museums and libraries-he had pursed his lips at that particular argument-and perhaps called privately upon a few older ladies who had been their mama’s particular friends.
Charlotte was his mother’s daughter by her second husband, who had died when she was not quite eight. Their mother had survived him by only five years.
Jasper lay awake thinking about Charlotte’s upcoming birthday the night after the Parmeter ball, his fingers laced behind his head, his legs crossed at the ankles. Or, to be more accurate, he was thinking about her birthday party.
It was no new thought. H
e had promised even before bringing her to town that she might have some sort of birthday celebration in August, after she returned home. She had concocted a happy scheme of inviting all the young people of the neighborhood for miles around to a day of frolicking in the park and an evening of charades and country dancing in the drawing room. He had been quite prepared to indulge her. One’s young sister turned eighteen only once in her life, after all.
And since that was so, he thought now, then perhaps something altogether grander than her idea would be more the thing. Something far more lavish.
His generosity of spirit did not arise entirely from a selfless motive, of course. There was another.
He gazed up at the pleated silk of the canopy over his head.
He must be mad. Not that that was any new realization.
What the devil had got into him? Why ever had he even asked her to waltz? Because she had looked so prunish?
Probably that had been it.
And why had he spent the half hour of their dance trying to wheedle her into agreeing to a double wager with him? Just to see if she could be goaded? She almost had been too, by Jove. Her interest and her pride had certainly been piqued. But she had got cold feet at the last moment.
Why had he then proceeded to pledge himself to winning his side of the nonexistent wager? Only to prove to them both that he could?
No doubt.
Did he want her in love with him, though? Of course he did not. The very thought alarmed him. It would be embarrassing for him and possibly painful for her. For all his sins, he had never set out deliberately to hurt anyone. Though he had almost done just that on their first encounter, of course.
Was that what had made him stop?
Damnation! What was it about the woman?
But he knew the answer. Of all the females he had ever known, she was the only one who had ever been able to hold her own with him verbally. He could still remember that masterly setdown she had given him at Vauxhall when she must surely have been just about expiring from shock and humiliation. She had kept pace with him earlier this evening too.
And you underestimate me! You are about as likely to persuade me to love you, Lord Montford, as I am to persuade you to love me.
Ah, yes, that was what had done it.
The woman was irresistible.
He still did not want her in love with him, though, did he?
But he did want her to admit… oh, that she was infatuated with him, perhaps.
He was attracted to Katherine Huxtable, an admission that surprised him since he never allowed himself to be attracted to any female he had no hope of bedding. What would be the point, after all, since he was certainly not looking for a leg shackle? He was attracted to Miss Huxtable, though-a strange fact when he remembered how assiduously he had avoided even thinking of her for the last three years. Was it as long ago as three? She had said it was, and women were usually good at such details.
Odd to think that he might have had her with the greatest ease three years ago. Would he still want her this year if he had had her then? Of course, this year it would not be nearly so easy. For one thing, she would now know what he was up to. For another, she was older and wiser. She was no green girl, she had said earlier. And he believed her.
It was unlikely that she could ever be persuaded to admit that she loved him-or even that she was infatuated with him. As far as he was concerned, they were one and the same thing anyway. But of course, she would be too stubborn to admit either.
He had suggested an unwinnable wager.
A quite irresistible one, in fact.
Which perhaps explained why his thoughts had strayed to Charlotte’s birthday and the idea of giving her a party on a far grander scale than he had hitherto intended.
He lay awake for a while longer, plotting and planning and yawning.
It would be diabolical, he decided just before falling off to sleep. But he would not be taking away from her even one iota of her power to tell him that he had lost his wager, would he? She could say no even before that question arose, in fact, and put an end to the wager before it started.
Like a soggy firework.
She would not say no. He would see to it that she did not.
He had a wager to win, by Jove, and he never lost a wager. Not even that once. Not really.
“I have been thinking, Char,” Jasper said at breakfast the morning after Lady Parmeter’s ball, “about your birthday.”
She glanced up from her plate.
“Have you, Jasper?” she asked rather warily.
She looked very different from Rachel and him. She was golden-haired, hazel-eyed, small, and dainty. And she seemed to have grown overnight from a girl into a young lady-one who was already turning heads on Bond Street and in Hyde Park. Male heads, by thunder. He had caught a few young bucks at it one morning and had stared them into bumbling confusion without even having to resort to the use of his quizzing glass. If he had to crack a few heads together, he would not hesitate to do it.
She was seventeen, for the love of God.
Charlotte was also shy, modest, eager, impulsive, occasionally given to excited chatter-a bewildering mix of contradictory characteristics, in fact.
“I have been thinking,” he said again now, “that it might be a good idea to have more than just neighbors at Cedarhurst for your birthday. A few of the new acquaintances you have made in town might perhaps be persuaded to join you there for a week or two. You will turn eighteen only once, after all. Why not have a full-blown house party for the occasion?”
She had made some acquaintances even though she had attended no ton parties. She was not the only young person languishing in London under the stricture of being slightly too young to attend any real social events.
She leaned slightly toward him across the table, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining.
“Oh, Jasper, I would like it of all things,” she said. “Might I ask Miss Clement and the Misses Dubois? Even perhaps Lady Marianne Willis?”
“I can think of no objection to any one of them,” he said, trying to recall who their parents were-friends of his mother’s, probably, or friends of friends. Her companion would have made sure that all were thoroughly respectable. “What do you think, Miss Daniels?”
“Miss Clement and the elder Miss Dubois have already made their come-out,” she said, “and so will be valuable friends for Charlotte to have next year-though rumor has it that Miss Dubois is about to be betrothed. Miss Hortense Dubois and Lady Marianne will be making their come-out with Charlotte next spring. I think the idea of a house party a splendid one, my lord. It would be a good idea to invite some young gentlemen too, perhaps, and possibly a few slightly older guests who are more established in society.”
Jasper nodded his agreement. She had taken the words out of his mouth.
“But what gentlemen will we invite?” Charlotte asked, leaning back in her chair. “And what older people? I know hardly anyone. It is most frustrating to be seventeen and more than ten months and yet-”
Her brother held up a staying hand.
“You and Miss Daniels may discuss the guest list between the two of you,” he said. “I have other things to do this morning. Miss Daniels is to have the afternoon off to call upon the Reverend Bellow’s sister, is she not? It would be a pity for you to be confined alone to the house on such a fine, warm day, Char. I will come home for luncheon and then take you out with me, shall I?”
“With you, Jasper?” She beamed at him, her complaints about the frustrations of her age instantly forgotten.
“The young Earl of Merton is a friend of mine even though he has only just come down from Oxford and has not quite reached his majority,” he said. “He is a cousin of Con Huxtable’s. His sisters have recently joined him here in town. They grew up in the country as daughters of a clergyman before Merton inherited the title. They are both older than you, but their friendship would certainly do you no harm at all. They are, in fact, just the sort of slightly old
er, more established members of society Miss Daniels just spoke of. We will perhaps call upon them at home this afternoon. I have an acquaintance with them, and I believe you will like them.”
“Oh, Jasper,” she said. “I will look forward to it ever so much. I will be with you. I could not possibly be happier.”
Sometimes he felt uncomfortably unworthy of such unconditional worship. That was especially true today, for of course he had an ulterior motive in the planned visit-and the planned house party-despite the fact that he really did believe the Huxtable sisters would be kind to Charlotte and would not look askance at being called upon by someone so young.
“Charlotte,” Miss Daniels said, setting her napkin down beside her plate and getting to her feet, “we had better go up to your sitting room and put our heads together over this list. How many guests are there to be, Lord Montford?”
“A dozen?” he suggested. “Five dozen? As many as the rooms at Cedarhurst will hold? As many as you and Charlotte can persuade to come?”
“Carte blanche, in other words?” She smiled at him. “I believe we can make do with carte blanche, can we not, Charlotte?”
“Oh, this is going to be the best birthday ever,” Charlotte said as she followed her companion from the room. “And you are the best of brothers, Jasper, and I love you.” She hugged him about the neck and planted a noisy kiss on his brow as she passed his chair.
Before next Season was out, he thought ruefully as the door closed behind them, her thoughts were going to be stuffed full of beaux, and Jasper was going to be relegated to the role of rather dull elder brother. But those beaux had better be worthy of her, by thunder!
He hoped the Huxtable sisters would be at home this afternoon.
He drummed his fingertips on the table, pursed his lips, and stared off into the middle distance.
She still used the same soap for washing her hair. He had noticed that last evening as soon as he started to waltz with her. He had not realized before how powerful the sense of smell could be in evoking memories. Not all of them unpleasant, strangely enough.