“However, a good deal of effort goes into finding a suitable wife, and that, my new friend, is the true purpose of the Season. Each ball is a marriage market. You look the offerings over, make your selection, charm her, so that by Season’s end she is wearing your ring rather than someone else’s.”
“So if I’m not looking for a wife, I could skip all this nonsense.”
“I thought Lauren was planning to return to Texas.”
“She is.” That didn’t mean Tom had given up on her completely. He took another puff on his cigar. “I know she’s unhappy here.”
“I can’t speak to that. I only met her last Season. Before that, I was somewhat of an…outcast.”
Tom narrowed his eyes at Rhys, studied him. “How does one become an outcast?”
“A bit of family scandal, which to my way of thinking, doesn’t make me the ideal choice for instructing you in proper behavior. However, supposedly all is forgiven, and I’ve regained my good standing, but only because Lydia made it so.”
“She’s happy here.”
“Incredibly.”
“How did you make that happen?”
“Don’t think I really had much to do with it. She simply thrives on all the ceremony that I find tedious.”
“If you find it tedious, then why are you in London?”
“Because she loves it so, and I love her. Besides, I must begin laying the groundwork so that our children, when they come along, will be accepted and loved by all who know them.”
Tom grimaced. “I’m used to a man being judged on his own merits.”
“A man can rise above his family’s scandals. A man’s scandals can also bring his family down. Improper behavior is not tolerated well, especially by the older ranks. As much as I wish it were otherwise, I would advise you to take Lauren’s lessons seriously. A soiled reputation is not easily washed clean.”
“Lauren says it takes courage to thrive here.”
“Indeed, and probably of a sort you’re not accustomed to. I suspect the dangers you faced in Texas were exceedingly clear, visible, without question. Here, they are not always so blatantly obvious.”
“I’d been thinking that if I could figure out what was really making Lauren unhappy, I could fix it so she might decide to stay.”
“Ah, then you wouldn’t have to wife hunt.”
Tom looked out at the darkness. If Lauren left…“How can you marry someone you don’t love?”
“My father did. He and my mother spent a good deal of their lives miserable, and it rained down on their children so they, too, were miserable.”
“Yeah,” Tom said quietly. “I could see where it could make a lot of people unhappy.”
“Speaking from experience,” Huntingdon said, “a marriage of convenience need not always be miserable. I married for money and was fortunate enough to gain love as well.”
“Still, you must admit that among the aristocracy, marrying for reasons other than love is usually the case,” Rhys said. “Politics, prestige, money…they are more often sought after than love. I suppose that’s the reason so many take lovers.”
“I can’t imagine marrying for any of those reasons,” Tom said.
“Are you telling me that love is the only reason that people marry in Texas?”
Tom finished off his brandy, shook his head. “No. Men need helpmates, women need security. Sometimes it’s to fight the loneliness. I guess it just seems that our reasons are more honest than yours.”
Rhys chuckled. “You’re going to have to stop thinking of yourself as not one of us. That won’t sit well among your peers.”
“And you think that’s something I need to worry over? What sits well with my peers?”
“If you do one day take a wife, if you do one day have children, then yes, you’d better give a damn that your peers think well of you. That’s not to say that you can’t be your own man. You simply do it within the confines of our society.”
Tom was beginning to understand why Lauren was miserable there. It wasn’t a place where a girl would let a boy unbutton her bodice. It wasn’t a place where a boy would even presume to ask. With their chaperones and strict behaviors, it was a wonder a man could figure out who he might enjoy spending the rest of his days with, let alone who he might love.
Three dark-haired lords had sat at the table during dinner. Observing them, based on their behavior, Lauren had been unable to distinguish the two who had been raised in England from the one who hadn’t. Only when Tom spoke did evidence surface that he’d journeyed a serpentine path to his destination.
Yet even when he spoke his drawl was not quite as pronounced as usual, as though he was working to keep his differences at a minimum. She’d been sitting beside him so she could quietly comment on his manners when appropriate—and had spent most of the meal uttering few words, other than insisting he keep his fork in his left hand.
“I thought dinner went smashingly well,” Lydia said, as the ladies sat in the drawing room, drinking tea while the men drank brandy in the dining room. “Don’t you agree, Lauren?”
“What? Oh, yes,” Lauren said, trying to focus her attention on the conversation rather than her thoughts during dinner. She knew Lydia and Gina would probably disagree, but she’d thought Tom had been the most handsome of the three, and watching him had certainly been no hardship.
“Tom seemed to be very comfortable in our company during dinner,” Gina said. “I still break out in hives when Devon even mentions attending some sort of large affair.”
Lauren thought it interesting that the two ladies she trusted most of all had such different views on etiquette: Gina abhorred anything to do with it, while Lydia thrived on it.
“You worry about it too much,” Lydia said.
“Strange words from someone who thought it was important enough to write a book about,” Gina responded.
The one thing they both had in common was that neither was shy about expressing her opinion.
“Lauren, you seem miles away,” Lydia said.
Lauren looked at her cousin, looked at her friend, shook her head. “I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“By what?” Gina asked.
“I’m afraid I’m as guilty as the ladies of London in thinking that Tom is going to behave like a barbarian.”
“There’s not a lot that one can get wrong during a dinner,” Lydia said.
“Not a gentleman, anyway,” Gina said. “The arrangement of the seating, the courses to be served, everything of any importance is left to women. Men just have to sit where they’re told and eat what’s placed before them.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true enough.” Still, something bothered Lauren about to night. “He seemed so sure of himself.”
“Why wouldn’t he? He was among friends,” Lydia said.
“You didn’t give him a lesson when you went to visit him this morning?”
“Of course not. I only wanted to make him feel welcome.”
“What does it matter if he’s getting lessons elsewhere?” Gina asked.
“It doesn’t, except I could be on my way to Texas if not for my promise to teach him.”
“I can’t believe that you’d want to miss the Season,” Lydia said.
“Only because you love it so,” Gina said.
Lauren shook her head. “After turning down Kimburton, my Season will be most boring. I suspect I’ll have very few dances.”
“You’re an heiress, Lauren,” Gina reminded her. “You’ll have dances and plenty of them. His friends may feel sympathy for Kimburton, but there isn’t a lord in London who wasn’t glad to know he might have an opportunity to fill up the family coffers with what marriage to you will provide. Trust me, I know all about how desperately some want to fill the coffers.”
It was filling the Huntingdon coffers that had led to her marriage to Devon. A marriage of convenience that had unexpectedly turned into a marriage of love. Whereas if Lauren had married Tom long ago, their marriage of love would have be
come a marriage of convenience. Although she couldn’t help but wonder how different her experiences in England might have been if she’d had him at her side, exuding confidence even when he wasn’t sure of himself. To constantly have his kisses, his touch—
“So what are your plans regarding Tom?” Lydia asked.
Swallowing hard, Lauren stared at her cousin. “Pardon?”
“Tom. What other lessons do you plan to teach him?”
“Oh, lessons, yes. Umm…well, there’s your ball next week, of course. We’ll need to review the protocol there.”
“Did you want me to have a small ball, so you might practice?” Lydia asked.
Lauren laughed. “No, that won’t be necessary. I can explain what he needs to know. He wants to be seen as not being a barbarian. I suppose an outing to the theater might suffice.”
“Are you really going back to Texas?” Gina asked, effectively altering the direction of the conversation, before Lauren could completely compile a list of lessons.
She smiled warmly. “Indeed I am. Does it make you jealous?”
“Strangely, no. Going to Texas would mean leaving Devon. I can’t imagine my life without him in it. You loved Tom once—”
“I was a child. We’ve both changed considerably.”
“What if while spending time with him, you fall in love with him again?” Lydia asked.
Ignoring her cousin’s question, Lauren got up, walked to the window, and looked out on the garden. “It looks as though the gentlemen have gone outside to smoke cigars.”
“Should we join them?” Gina asked. “I’ve always thought separating the sexes after dinner was silly.”
“You think everything is silly,” Lydia said.
“Because most of it is.”
“What do you think they talk about when they banish us from their presence?” Lauren asked quietly.
“Rhys assures me that it’s nothing of any importance,” Lydia said.
“We could always sneak up on them and eavesdrop,” Gina said.
“That would be highly improper,” Lauren reminded them.
“We’re Texas ladies,” Gina said. “We’ve earned the right to be improper.”
Lauren spun around, smiling. “Earned the right?”
Gina shrugged. “Maybe earned isn’t the right word. What ever the word is, however, is unimportant. If we want to know what they’re saying, we should just go listen.”
“I’m trying to teach Tom proper behavior.”
“Boring behavior if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Lauren snapped. “And do you think I want to watch him change, do you think I want to be the one responsible for caging up everything about him that I once loved?” She buried her face in her hands, fighting back the tears.
“Lauren?”
She felt both her friends at her side. Sniffing inelegantly, she dropped her hands to her side. “I’m sorry. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself, and I promised to teach him, and I know it’s silly, but I miss the boy he was.”
“That would be the case even if you weren’t teaching him,” Lydia said. “He stopped being the boy you knew a long time ago. Maybe it’s time you took a good, hard look at the man.”
“That was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be,” Tom said, as the carriage traveled through the quiet streets.
He sat across from Lauren but she could smell the faint scent of a richly aromatic cigar and the barest hint of the brandy he’d sipped and the incredibly, wonderful masculine fragrance that was him. He took up so much space inside the carriage, not because he was huge, but because she was simply so aware of his long legs and hard muscles and broad chest and wide shoulders. Take a good, hard look at the man her cousin had suggested. As though Lauren had any choice. As though every aspect of his appearance didn’t draw her eye, wasn’t pleasing. As though she wasn’t aware of each breath he took. As though she couldn’t make out the outline of his hands in the dark resting on his thighs, couldn’t clearly envision them reaching for her buttons—
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Lydia”—she cleared her throat hoping to make her voice stop sounding like a hinge in need of oiling—“will be hosting the first ball of the Season next week. I was simply making a mental list of everything we need to address before then.” Liar, liar. “I suppose we should make arrangements for dance lessons—”
“I know how to dance.”
She laughed lightly. “The dancing here is a bit different than what you’re used to, Tom.”
“I know how they dance over here. Lydia’s stepfather gave a bunch of us cowboys a few lessons right before her eighteenth birthday. I think that was part of his birthday gift to her: making sure she didn’t get her toes stepped on.”
“Oh, yes, she’d mentioned that you’d danced, she just hadn’t indicated that you were very good at it.”
“I don’t know why she would.”
Because it was a part of him that Lauren wanted to know about. She was greedy for any little tidbit of information. Glancing out the window at the night, she didn’t know why it bothered her to think of her cousin dancing with Tom, being held in his arms, feeling the warmth from his body…of dancing with him when Lauren never had. Surely she wasn’t jealous. No, of course not. She was simply mystified that there were so many aspects of Tom with which she was unfamiliar, things that he had experienced that she had no idea about.
Picking at the fabric of her skirt, she considered all that she didn’t know. Finally, she said, “Before coming here, you could have asked Grayson Rhodes to teach you what you wanted to know.”
“I didn’t have time, except to get on a steamship and try to figure out what all this mess was about. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t get over here and discover it was all a mistake. Then wouldn’t I look like a fool, going around telling people I was an earl when in fact I wasn’t?”
She’d never realized before how much he worried about the impression he made on people, and she wondered what aspects of his life were responsible for that.
“So you feel you can handle a ball quite satisfactorily?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“Then I’ll arrange a few other outings between now and then. It’s important to be seen, and if Lydia and Rhys accompany us, you should be able to have a few introductions before the ball so you won’t feel as though you’re walking among strangers.”
“I like Rhys,” he said, as though he’d grown bored of talking etiquette. She’d tried to warn him.
“Lydia loves him so much.”
“I think the feeling is mutual.”
“Last Season he tried to send her away, but she refused to go. She stood by him when no one else would.”
“For a town that has so many rules about proper behavior, there sure seems to be a lot of scandal going on.”
“Imagine how much more we’d have if we had no rules.”
“Maybe it’s having all the rules that causes all the problems. Some people just feel a need to break rules, or at least to see how far they can bend them.”
“Is that what you do, Tom? See how far you can bend them?”
“Don’t you know me well enough, Lauren, to know I’m not content with bending? I much prefer to break them.”
“What if someone gets hurt?”
“I don’t see how using a fork in my right hand is going to hurt someone.”
“Are there rules you wouldn’t break?”
“Of course there are.”
“I should tell my mother that. It might put her mind at ease.”
“I doubt it.”
A dangerous undercurrent shimmered through his voice, warned her that she needed to change the course of the conversation. “Did you know that here ladies are expected to swoon? Lady Blythe once had a swoon party where all the girls—this was a while ago—had to practice swooning and gave each other advice on how to make it look more convincing.”
Tom chuckled. “I can�
�t see you swooning.”
“I never have. I think it’s silly, to appear helpless when you’re not.”
“Maybe the ladies swoon because they think it makes the men feel strong, like they’re protecting them.”
“It’s still silly. Would you want to marry a woman who was completely helpless?”
“No. I want a woman who could stand up to me, who could take my teasing and tease back. A woman who would put me in my place if I got out of line.”
“Maybe I’ll write a book like Lydia’s, but I’ll call it A Lady’s Guide to Taming a Cowboy. It should sell quite well as long as you’re not married and every lady in London thinks she has a chance at capturing your heart.”
“Rhys said they don’t necessarily marry for love here.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t try to capture hearts. It’s part of the game. And you will need to marry, Tom. You’ll need to provide an heir.”
“Ravenleigh hasn’t. Is he worried about it?”
“It seems contradictory, but he never has pressured Mother to give him a son. At least not that I’m aware of. As a matter of fact, he seems quite content to pass everything on to his nephew.” She yawned. “All in all you did very well to night.”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“That was the beauty of having dinner with Lydia. No one would have cared.”
“I think I could consider Rhys a friend.”
“Yes, you probably could, considering you both have a bit of wickedness in you.”
“I think you like wickedness.”
“Don’t tempt me into proving you wrong, Tom.”
“I think you’re afraid you’ll prove me right.”
He moved across the carriage until he was sitting beside her.
“A gentleman isn’t supposed to sit beside a lady—”
“I know.” He touched his finger to her lips. No gloves. When had he removed his gloves?
“Don’t you get tired of spouting rules?” he asked.
“It’s what you’re paying me to do.”
“When it’s just you and me, I don’t give a damn about the rules.”
Before she could even contemplate objecting, his mouth was covering her, his tongue delving deeply, hungrily. She could taste the brandy he drank earlier, could taste the unique flavor that was him. She should shove him aside, insist that he stop…and she would in a few more seconds. She would allow one more sweep of his tongue, one more groan, one more whimper, one more—
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