‘My home is here. Val and Philippa are my family now,’ Lilya said simply.
‘And me, too. I hope you consider me family as well,’ Beldon added.
‘Of course,’ Lilya amended hastily. ‘But you’ll be starting your own family soon and your life will be even less centred around your sister’s.’ They were bold words from an unmarried girl. Unmarried girls did not speak to eligible bachelors about their matrimonial plans. But it was a good way to establish distance between her and Beldon. She was family, after all. He’d said so himself. Let him regret the remark if he didn’t like the permissions it gave her.
From the tight set of his jaw, she could see he didn’t.
‘Yes, wedding bells are in my future’ was all he said before kicking his horse into motion and returning to the path.
What was wrong with him? A day ago, that pronouncement would have flooded him with satisfaction; another goal achieved, another step forwards for the Pendennys legacy. He had decided on his most likely choices. All that remained was deciding who it would be, something he could accomplish within a month.
He’d need a few weeks for dancing, for drives in the park and other social avenues to get to know the women in question before making an official offer. It would likely be Miss Braithmore. He would not be rejected. He’d danced with her later last night and she’d been amenable to his conversation, staring up at him with dark brown eyes. He would be the one to win the heiress. He could not have hoped of such a match a few years ago.
The prospect did not fill him with the usual contentment and he laid the reasons for it at Lilya’s door. Last night she’d been a potent and uncharacteristic distraction for his customary good sense. She’d been vibrant and alive in a ballroom full of pattern-card girls. There was nothing wrong with the pattern card, he reminded himself. It was a template of virtuous womanhood. The pattern card just wasn’t very exciting.
Lilya was exciting.
There was a level of wit to her conversation and her lively eyes suggested a well-formed mind full of opinions and beliefs behind them. Last night had not been an anomaly. Whatever portion of him that hoped he’d merely been dazzled by the magic of a ballroom last night had been disappointed this afternoon.
Even in the bright light of day, Lilya exuded an extra ordinary beauty. The delicate line of her jaw mixed with the fire of her eyes and the sensual set of her mouth to create a combination that was both utterly feminine and yet bespoke strength. For all her looks, one should not overlook the subtle power of her, a very attractive power nonetheless. It had taken a large part of his self-control to keep his attentions focused on Lady Eleanor today when he’d have liked nothing better than to follow the conversation between Lilya and Mr Agyros.
Perhaps he’d merely been too distracted by Mr Agyros’s attentions towards Lilya. The man’s eyes had nearly undressed Lilya with their perusal, his stare bordering on scandalous.
Beldon knew all too well from personal experience the kinds of thoughts Lilya’s person could awaken in a man. Last night he’d not been immune to her charms. He was a man and he knew how men thought. Years ago, he’d spent the better part of a Season making sure Philippa didn’t run afoul of ballroom bounders. He was more than well armed for the role of protector. But Lilya did not seem to need a protector. She had dealt aptly with Agyros’s questions and with his own probe afterwards, making it very clear she was more capable than the usual débutante.
The last provided some level of intrigue. She’d thwarted Agyros’s questions and that raised a question of its own—why would she want to avoid answering in the first place? What was she hiding? If she did have something to hide, it went some distance in explaining that attitude of worldliness he’d noted last night, that indefinable something, that subtle aura of power that set her apart from the other girls. People who kept secrets for a long time had to be successful at deflection.
He was making enormous assumptions. For a man who prided himself on his logic, these speculations were beyond the pale of reason. First, he had no significant grounds on which to found his suppositions. He knew very little about Lilya’s life before she’d come to live with Valerian. He might do well to keep it that way, too.
His behaviour last night had been totally unlike him. The consequence was obvious. He was distracted and tempted away from his plan, his whole purpose for coming to town. This would not do, but it was no less than he deserved for straying from the course. This is what one got for giving in to temptations. An antidote was in order. He must find a way to secure his wayward thoughts in her presence. Failing that, he must avoid her altogether until the details of his marriage were settled.
Chapter Three
Avoidance was proving impossible. Lilya Stefanov was a woman who needed watching. It was the only reasonable explanation for why Beldon found his gaze drifted towards the Latimore dance floor repeatedly where she spun in the arms of Christoph Agyros. There were other less reasonable explanations as well, but Beldon quickly discarded them. As a rule, he did not deal in the unreasonable.
He’d become the de facto chaperon tonight. Philippa had pled yet another headache and Val had taken her home earlier. Beldon wondered about the legitimacy of those ‘headaches’ just as he wondered if he’d have watched Lilya anyway.
He was developing an uncanny ability of knowing when Lilya was in a room and when she had left a room; a good ability for a chaperon to have especially when one’s responsibility looked like Lilya. Positively entrancing in rose silk, she had drawn the gaze of more than one man in the ballroom tonight, Mr Agyros notably among them. The man practically had his eyes glued to her bosom, another reason why Beldon had his attentions riveted on them. It was a chaperon’s job to cull the wheat from the chaff when it came to inappropriate attentions. If Mr Agyros didn’t avert his gaze, he would soon find himself ‘culled’. Agyros looked like the proverbial hungry man at a feast.
Agyros and Lilya whirled by the ballroom entrance and Beldon noticed the Braithmores enter as they passed. Lady Eleanor and her mother saw him and began the slow move his direction. Beldon tried to imagine that Lady Eleanor was already his wife. What would it be like to spot her across a room and know she was his? Certainly looking at her now did not conjure up a host of husbandly feelings. Would he develop an awareness of her presence, knowing when she left a room without actually seeing her go?
Their affections would grow over time as their companionship deepened. In theory that was how it was supposed to work. To date, the reality had been somewhat disappointing with Lady Eleanor. After all, what was the purpose of drives in the park and rounds of balls if not to get to know one another? He’d had several opportunities to meet with her and he still felt he knew nothing about her.
Lady Eleanor and her mother approached as the set ended. Lady Eleanor would want to dance and he ought to oblige. Tonight, Lady Eleanor was dressed prettily in a gown of pastel pink with thin white ribbons for trim. She looked like a strawberry ice from Gunter’s, smooth and unruffled. She always looked smooth and unruffled.
‘Good evening, Lady Eleanor. You look delicious enough to eat.’ Beldon bowed graciously over her hand. A man should be more than satisfied with such a lovely woman to call his wife. ‘I believe the next dance is a waltz. Would you do me the honour?’
‘It would be my pleasure.’ Lady Eleanor blushed, looking so very young to his eye and yet there couldn’t be more than a year or two between her and Lilya.
Lady Eleanor leaned forwards a little and said in a small whisper, ‘Almack’s granted me permission last week. May I confess? You’ll be my first waltz at a real ball.’
‘I am doubly honoured.’ Beldon offered her his arm and escorted her on to the floor. He most properly placed his hand at her waist and felt her delicate touch at his shoulder, her flush deepening at the supposed intimacy of the contact.
‘Do not worry over a thing, Lady Eleanor, I will make sure your first waltz is most memorable,’ he reassured her.
>
Lady Eleanor danced with perfunctory correctness. There was nothing wrong with her steps; still, Beldon couldn’t help but compare her textbook movements with Lilya’s fluid grace, his waltz with Lilya suddenly and vividly clear in his mind. There were other comparisons, too, that rose unbidden. He rather wished they hadn’t.
Both women were as equally unknown to him, but there’d been nothing mechanical about his conversation with Lilya. She had looked him in the eye instead of over his shoulder. Their conversation topic had been nothing out of the ordinary and yet their conversation had flowed easily. There had been wit and laughter and something else indefinable he wasn’t willing to name. He was using that word ‘indefinable’ quite a bit lately when it came to Lilya. For a man who liked a very defined world, it was an uncomfortable adjective.
‘I think the decorations tonight are divine,’ Lady Eleanor was saying. ‘Pink roses are some of my favourite flowers.’
‘Yes, pink looks especially nice on you.’ Beldon turned his attentions back to Eleanor, back to the plan. He simply must try harder. It was not to his credit that he’d thought of little else except dancing with Lilya since last night. She’d felt exquisite in his arms, confident and sure of her physicality. But it had been more than that. They’d laughed together. He wanted that moment again, although he suspected once more would not be enough. Such a need was not well done of him on the eve of proposing to another.
The waltz lasted an eternity. Lady Eleanor talked of decorations and gowns, her father’s new carriage and her mama’s new hat. Somewhere in the ballroom he heard Lilya laugh, a sound throaty and mellow like an aged whisky. His eyes roamed until he spotted her rose silk, her dark head tilted, contemplating something Mr Agyros had apparently leaned forwards and said, probably while the bounder stole another glance at her bosom.
He had every intention of extricating Lilya the moment the dance was over. He was the chaperon, after all. But when the dance ended, she was nowhere to be found. She and Mr Agyros had quietly disappeared from the ballroom.
There had been no way to refuse the request politely. The gardens would be well populated tonight with couples taking the air between heated dance sets. Christoph Agyros wasn’t whisking her off to dark, unlit paths. In fact, anything remotely resembling seduction would be virtually impossible in the gardens. But there would be more privacy for conversation than what the crowded ballroom afforded. Lilya wanted to avoid that as much as she wanted to avoid the other. Too much refusal, though, would look odd.
‘Fresh air would be delightful,’ Lilya assented after they’d had taken a glass of punch on the sidelines. She’d caught sight of Beldon dancing beautifully with Lady Eleanor. There’d be no help from that quarter. She was on her own for the time being.
Outside, they walked along the paths, surrounded by others taking the night air. ‘London and all its industry intrigue me.’ Christoph waved his free arm in a generous sweep to encompass the garden. ‘Does it captivate you as well?’
‘I prefer the countryside and a quieter pace of life,’ Lilya said, firmly shutting down that avenue of conversation.
He nodded in understanding. ‘My family had a villa on Chios, before the troubles. I was fourteen, when…’ he paused for effect and drew a deep breath before continuing ‘…when the trouble came. We lost the villa and much more in the reprisals, of course.’
Lilya could not help but be touched by his disclosure. All Phanariots knew what had happened at Chios, how the Ottomans had struck Chios in deliberate retaliation for the rebellion in Negush, the rebellion her father and others had led. Families had been killed, children orphaned, countless wealth lost. It had brought the Phanar to its knees.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said with quiet sincerity. Regardless of her inherent scepticism, she knew what it meant to lose family. She should not have doubted him. She had lost her family at Negush as he had lost his at Chios. She would never forget clutching baby Constantine to her and watching in frozen horror as her aunt and Alexei were cut down. She’d feared the same would happen to her but Valerian had been a veritable berserker, defending Dimitri Stefanov’s children in that little copse of trees.
Christoph placed his hand over hers, the warmth of a private smile playing across his lips, his voice low and confidential. ‘Thank you. Only those who have experienced such devastation firsthand can truly appreciate what those days meant to us and how we’ve had to rebuild a new life. We’ve been cast to all corners of Europe these days, and still we survive, yes?’
Survival was at stake right that moment, Lilya thought, staring up at Christoph Agyros’s darkly handsome face. She worried that she’d made a tactical mistake. She had not told him where she was from when they’d met in the park. Yet he’d pushed ahead with his assumptions as if they’d been confirmed and she had not corrected him. Perhaps she should have. But a correction would have been a denial, a lie. If he discovered the truth later, he would wonder why she’d attempted the subterfuge. If he wasn’t suspicious of her now, he would be then. If he was truly a diplomatic aide with no ties to the diamond, then she had nothing to fear from the admission. If he had darker purposes, he knew who she was already. A lie would be useless at best, a confirmation at worst. Only people with something to hide lied.
‘My family was killed in Negush,’ she admitted quietly, her decision made. They’d somehow managed to find a place slightly off the path. They were alone in the brightly lit garden.
‘You are hesitant to talk of the past,’ he said softly. ‘Do not be ashamed. We have thrived. Like a phoenix, we have risen from the ashes.’ His voice carried a quiet intimacy, his words attempting to bind them together. She could allow herself to take comfort in the moment, but she could not take more, could not trust him more. Not yet.
‘Lilya,’ he whispered her name, his hand gently cupping her cheek, his intentions unmistakable. He was going to kiss her. They both knew it. He was a handsome man and so far she had no reason to feel threatened. There was no motivation for her alarm, but it was there all the same.
A voice intruded, terse and sharp. ‘Miss Stefanov, there you are.’
Beldon.
Lilya breathed a relieved sigh and stepped back out of reach at the sound of the familiar voice.
‘We’ve got a dance coming up.’ Beldon’s tone brooked no disagreement. His eyes were cold as he took in Christoph Agyros. How much had Beldon seen? For no particular reason, it didn’t sit well with her that he might have spied them on the brink of a kiss, unwanted as the kiss might have been.
Beldon held out his arm for her, offering her a reason to cross the pathway to join him. ‘Give me a moment with Mr Agyros, please. There are a few things I need to explain to him.’ His eyes were hard, looking past her to Christoph. Lilya complied, sensing argument would only serve to make her look foolish and to encourage Christoph. If she protested, Christoph would think she’d welcomed the kiss. With what she hoped looked like dignity, Lilya walked a discreet distance up the path and left Beldon to his ‘business’.
Beldon’s explanations did not take long and he soon materialised by her side. ‘What, precisely, did you explain to Mr Agyros?’ Lilya enquired, trying to sound affronted. The idea of Beldon meddling in her affairs left her feeling foolish in his presence. No doubt he considered her lacking in all sense to be caught almost-kissing an almost-stranger, especially when he knew she’d been wary of Mr Agyros in the park. He would wonder what kind of woman kissed a man she didn’t trust or necessarily know.
‘I explained to him that in our part of the world, a gentleman does not steal kisses on such short acquaintance and that a woman’s reputation is taken most seriously.’
She heard the message hidden there for her. Real gentlemen protected a woman’s reputation for her, but a woman had to guard her reputation as well. Lilya flushed at the subtle scolding.
Beldon’s demeanour relaxed slightly. ‘It’s only that Val left me in charge. I would see you treated with the respect you
deserve.’ He paused, leaning his head close to her ear, his breath against her ear lobe sending a skittering sensation to her stomach. ‘And I could see that you did not wish for things to progress further.’
She heard forgiveness in his words. He had not missed any of the nuances. He’d understood perfectly what had happened in the garden.
‘No one kisses a woman against her will under my protection.’
There was a surprising ferocity in the hard set of his features that mirrored the power of his words. He was studying her with a male intensity that went beyond the scrutiny of a chaperon. For a moment, she envisioned she saw desire in his eyes, a desire for her that went beyond protection. Then it was gone. Of course, she must have been mistaken. He meant to pursue another. She’d seen him dancing with Lady Eleanor, all manners, nothing at all like the feral male who strode beside her now, his vaunted self-control threatening to slip its leash. All for her.
‘Exactly what dance are we dancing?’ Lilya attempted levity, hoping to restore her senses. She and Beldon were not themselves tonight. Beldon was a caged tiger, bristling with barely leashed fury. And she was no better, shivering at the sound of his voice near her ear, imagining hot desire in his eyes and, worse yet, welcoming it, wondering over it like the gaggles of women in the ballrooms who followed him everywhere with their eyes.
Secret Life of a Scandalous Debutante Page 3