“A pleasure to meet you, Your Gra-er-Annick,” Liz stammered.
“Tell me you haven’t already promised the next set. Nay, even if you have, you will dance it with me instead.”
Inclining her head, she replied, “The dance is yours.”
“Shall we step out for fresh air during the first dance of the set and return to dance the remaining two?” Annick asked, his head dipping closer to be heard over the music.
Walter winked at her and walked away, leaving her alone with the duke.
Taking swift advantage of Walter’s departure, the masked man did not wait for her consent but instead guided her the remaining steps to the balcony railing, still in sight of the ballroom but cast in shadow.
Was this him? Was this the man from the library? She was sure it was.
“Meet any Pamelas this week?” she jested, wishing she could see beyond his mask, wishing she could see his eyes.
Basked only in moonlight, his face remained a mystery.
He chuckled, “No Pamelas that I’m aware. I was more intent on securing an introduction to you. Why would I desire a Pamela when there is a Miss Trethow of such beauty before me?”
Well, then.
She flushed, not from the flattery but from discomfiture to the overtures.
“Read anything of note lately?” She asked the first insipid question that came to mind, rerouting the direction of discourse.
Resting a hand on the railing behind her, he angled closer. “I didn’t request the set to talk books. I’d much rather remark on how attractive I find you.”
For half an hour, days before, she met a kindred spirit, a lover of knowledge, someone who wouldn’t judge her or patronize her. His words in this moment proved her mistaken. Her anticipation for the reunion faded, replaced with an edgy self-consciousness.
Fidgeting with her Elizabethan ruff, Liz fixed her focus on the parquet floor in the room beyond.
“The moment I saw you, I knew your beauty couldn’t be rivaled,” he intimated. “I hope you’ll give us a chance to become… better acquainted.”
With a gauging, anxious laugh, she shied away from him by leaning against the balustrade. “I’m surprised to learn you’re not only an aristocrat, but a duke.”
“Do you find my title intimidating? Don’t. I may have any woman I desire, despite humble origins or age. In fact, I find your maturity advantageous.”
He might have flirted with her in the library, but nothing about his words or behaviors had sounded this lascivious, this pompous. Before, his words had seemed defensive rather than genuinely flirtatious, as if he had wanted to shock her or test her mettle.
His tone tonight doused her in cold water.
Shivering, her eyes darted from him to the ballroom. During their first encounter, she hadn’t felt awkward, tongue-tied, or agitated. Now, she suffered all three. To top off her discomfort, she was sure that behind the mask, hungry eyes glazed her with honey and pineapple.
“I disagree, Your Grace. You may desire whomever you like, but if the woman in question doesn’t return your affection, you will not have her.” She punctuated her sentence by crossing her arms over her chest in an unladylike manner.
“Mmm. I like a challenge,” he intonated, reaching into his cloak to pull a small box from his pocket.
Her stomach clenched. “Perhaps, I did not make myself clear the first time? I’m a spinster by choice and wish to remain so.”
“The first time?” he asked absently, distracted by his struggle with the lid of the gold box. “To what first time are you referring, Miss Trethow?”
Popping the lid at last, he reached in to finger the contents.
“Do you meet so many women in libraries that you can’t recall what I said at Lady Starling’s ball?” she spat, increasingly vehement to be in this situation, to have thought about him all week, to have looked forward to seeing him, to be misremembered, to be turned into an object rather than an intellectual equal.
More to himself than to her, he muttered, “The devil.”
“I beg your pardon?” she demanded more than questioned.
Chuckling, he removed his mask, held his fingers to his nose, and delighted in a pinch of fragrant snuff from his box. Looking up at her, he flashed a devilish smile and smoldering sapphire eyes.
“Miss Trethow, we’ve not met before tonight. I do believe you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
Chapter 4
Liz’s hand flew to her mouth.
The man before her was not Mr. Roddam. Even unmasked, however, there was a startling and eerie resemblance. Both men shared the same slender face and aristocratic nose, the same dark features, height, and deep voice. All except the eyes. Mr. Roddam had dark, brown eyes with fathomless depths, but this man had deep, blue orbs beneath half-lidded lashes. They could be brothers, and perhaps they were.
Her cheeks heated in mortification.
Removing his tricorn, he unveiled heavily pomaded hair spiraling in stylish disarray, cut short in a Brutus style except the unruly top. “My apologies, Miss Trethow. I will not retract my words, for I spoke in earnest of my attraction to you, but I know a distracted woman when I see one. Your mind is on someone other than me, and that simply will not do.”
“The misunderstanding was my own,” she admitted, pressing her gloves against her hot face and looking wistfully towards the ballroom.
“Allow me to return you inside. I believe my pursuits have fallen flat this evening, and I can only hope you have a keen sense of humor. Shall we finish the set on the dancefloor to make amends?”
She nodded dazedly as they walked the length of the balcony back to the room. Nothing sounded more dreadful than dancing the remainder of the set with him, but she couldn’t very well say no, especially not to a duke.
Oh, how humiliating.
And how like her, adamant about remaining unmarried, yet throwing inhibitions to the wind after a single encounter. So excited about Mr. Roddam, as though she’d discovered a new favorite book, she’d even mistaken this man for him, though it seemed a reasonable mistake given their similarities. But was she so desperate for a friend she’d risk entanglement with a stranger?
When she returned to the ballroom on the duke’s arm, she scoured the room for signs of her family or of the real Roddam, but all she saw was the swirl of dancers as they finished what remained of the dance. She didn’t have to wait long for the next dance to begin.
“Miss Trethow, our dance?” His Grace directed her to the floor for the allemande.
Discarded on a chair by the balcony doors were his hat and mask. Lizbeth fought the queasiness of what happened on the balcony as she looked up into her partner’s face, his blue gems studying her with interest.
And then she saw him. Her breath caught.
Out of her peripheral, Liz caught sight of a pair of dark eyes beneath furrowed brows watching her. The voices around her funneled to distant mumbles.
Mr. Roddam stared at her from across the room. Unmistakably Mr. Roddam.
A red ribbon tied back his hair, except for the windswept strays falling around his ears. A knee-length red coat with gold embroidering molded as a second skin across imposing shoulders. His coat opened to a white shirt contrasted by three daggers in a waist pouch, a thick gold chain with a cross, and a sword sheathed at his waist. Gold knee breeches, tied at the side with red ribbons, accentuated muscular thighs.
A pirate.
If she thought him animalistic before, it was nothing to now. He towered above those around him, powerful and primal. How could she have confused the man in front of her for Mr. Roddam? As similar as their features and height, there was a lifetime of difference in their bearing and physique, not to mention their movements. The duke swaggered; Roddam prowled.
Exhaling, she looked to her partner and curtsied as the dance began, at once chagrine
d to be caught dancing with him. Was she worried her stranger would think her unfaithful? How absurd!
With the first enchaînement, she earned a waft of the duke’s scented pomade. With the second passé, she felt his signet ring dig into her palm. He flashed her a light-glinting grin as they interlaced arms and hands.
She suspected most of the room watched them, not only because a duke chose to dance with a wallflower, but also because he galloped during the promenade. The other dancers followed suit with his figure changes rather than censuring him. Ah, the power of a duke.
Try as she might, she couldn’t catch another glimpse of Mr. Roddam. Was he, too, watching? Or had he bowed out to find a hiding place?
The two remaining dances of the set, during which she was trapped in the company of the Duke of Annick, lasted a half hour collectively. A half hour of sheer hell, as far as she was concerned. The man was a pompous windbag.
His title alone would make him the most eligible bachelor in the room. His looks aided in that status. In the eyes of the beau monde, he was dashing, far more handsome than Roddam, despite their resemblance.
Roddam had a raw, harsh beauty with his sun-bronzed skin, hard eyes, and muscular build, more in keeping with a laborer than a gentleman. Annick, while sharing similar features, boasted an ivory complexion, a lithe frame beneath the domino costume, and the devil-may-care roguishness that would send most women in the room into a swoon.
Liz found him a nightmare. While he interjected compliments of her mature beauty throughout the dance, he mostly bragged about himself. His art collection, the number of his estates, his prowess with a sabre, his personal friendship with the Prince of Wales, and various and sundry other vanities. More than ever, she desired the scholarly reflections of Mr. Roddam.
After making a cake of herself with this buffoon, she would hardly blame Roddam if he avoided being introduced to her. Even without the oafish duke, he may not wish for an introduction, as he could disdain bookish spinsters. Who wouldn’t, when it came down to it?
Once the dance ended, he returned her to her family, all of whom were affecting over-dramatized ennui to see her on the duke’s arm. The duke, to make matters worse, preened like a peacock.
Walter was the first to speak when they reached the bosom of her family. “Annick, would you allow me to introduce my mother and youngest cousin?”
All devilish smiles, the duke turned to Aunt Hazel and Charlotte.
“Lady Collingwood and Miss Charlotte.” Pivoting to the duke, Walter said, “The Duke of Annick.”
All focus on Lizbeth abandoned, the duke turned his attention to admire unabashedly a bashful Charlotte who, much to Liz’s dismay, greeted him with, “What big blue eyes you have!”
With a throaty chuckle, he reached for her hand. “All the better to see you with, my dear.” He bowed over her knuckles before turning to Aunt Hazel with no less an admiring gaze. “This cannot be your mother, Collingwood. This is quite clearly your sister. The pleasure of this meeting is all mine, your ladyship.”
Aunt Hazel touched her fan to her chin, simpering as though she weren’t thirty years his senior.
After soliciting Charlotte’s hand for the next set, Annick took his leave, taking Walter with him. Hazel poked Liz in the arm with her fan, then made her way to the refreshment room with a few fellow matrons. Not but a few moments passed before Charlotte’s friends descended on Liz, full of questions and curiosities about her dance with the duke.
She humored them but soon grew tired of the interaction. Their heads were filled with cotton, and she found their company tedious.
One young lady, barely out of the school room and appropriately dressed as a shepherdess, said to Lizbeth, “This is Charlotte’s first Season, but she says you aren’t married?” Her words lilted innocently, long lashes batting around green eyes.
“Correct,” Liz hedged, not sure how this was polite conversation.
“Isn’t it terribly embarrassing to have your sister come out before you’ve married? It’s customary for the eldest to marry before the sister is out, you know.” She smiled slyly.
The familiar oppression weighed on Lizbeth’s chest. The room grew uncomfortably warm. As proud as she was of her decision to remain independent, judgment nevertheless cut deeply.
She’d stayed in the ballroom too long. She’d mingled when she knew better. Anxious to escape further criticism, she glanced to the safety of the double entry doors.
And there he stood, talking with Annick and Walter.
Their eyes met.
Vaguely, distantly, she heard Charlotte’s friends moaning about something, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from Roddam long enough to return to the conversation.
“My mother told me about him,” said one of the girls. “She said he has the manners of a toad. My grandmama says she doesn’t care if he’s rich as Croesus, for he’s a radical and a brute.”
The girls tittered.
As the pounding of her heart drowned out their words, the three men walked over. She was instantaneously surrounded by flirtatious squeals and batting eyelashes.
“The big bad wolf has come to collect Little Red Riding Hood for the supper dance.” Annick bowed, wiggling his eyebrows at Charlotte.
Roddam cleared his throat, his eyes leveled on Lizbeth.
Annick smirked. “May I introduce Collingwood’s cousins? Miss Charlotte Trethow and her sister Miss Trethow.” He ignored the other women milling around Charlotte. With a wink to Liz, he said, “And this grumpy pirate is my cousin, the Earl of Roddam.”
Lizbeth hoped they hadn’t heard her sharp intake of breath. Mr. Roddam wasn’t Mr. Roddam at all. He was Lord Roddam. She should have been far more shocked to learn he was an aristocrat, but after spending a quarter of an hour believing him a duke, an earl didn’t seem quite so intimidating.
Still. He was a noble for crying in a chamber pot! She could feel her skin flush with the horror of having called him Mr. Roddam to his face.
Without averting her eyes from his, she held her poise and curtsied. Those dark eyes, those dark pools of dreams held her own, unflinching.
“Queen Elizabeth, I presume?” His voice caressed her ears.
“Blackbeard?” she queried.
“What gave it away? My lack of a long black beard?” His sarcasm made her laugh, despite her self-consciousness. “Captain Bartholomew Roberts.” He bowed.
Lizbeth bounced in her excitement. “Oh, I’ve read about him!”
“Why am I not surprised?” He arched his eyebrows.
“Yes, in a General History of the Pyrates. My mother gave it to me.” Oh no, she thought. Here I go again. She bit her bottom lip to silence herself from not only dominating the conversation once more but from carrying on about books. Again.
“Let me get this straight. When you’re taking a break from reading Locke, you read about pirates?” His expression and voice remained unaffected, but his eyes sparkled with mischief.
Faintly, she could hear the voices of her sister, Walter, the girls, and the arrogant dandy. Their presence was easy to forget. Apparently, Lord Roddam thought the same since he hadn’t yet acknowledged her sister or the other girls.
“I hope you have yet to reserve the supper dance, my queen,” Lord Roddam said.
Sharing the supper dance meant he would also be her partner for the meal after the dance. Dinner and a dance—oh, how divine!
“The dance is to be the scotch reel, I believe,” he added.
“I would be honored.” Her heart fluttered as she placed her hand on his proffered arm and let him lead her to the dance floor.
Chapter 5
Sebastian led Miss Trethow to the dance floor, anxious to share with her both a dance and dinner. While assuming their positions, he admired her hair’s auburn tint, distinguished against the white neck ruff, and the teased style, resembling a crown.
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When every other woman in the room favored short hair, her preference for long locks differentiated her. Since meeting her, he had entertained the vision of her hair flowing around her shoulders, imagined unpinning the strands and running his hands through the silk. Long tresses weren’t the only enticing feature this evening, for her long-waisted dress emphasized inviting hips, something he hadn’t been able to admire in the library.
Having her dancing with him now set his mind somewhat at ease after an hour of unwarranted anxiety. Not only had he spotted her in private and shadowed conversation with Drake, looking flushed, but then he watched her dance with him. For a woman who supposedly preferred the library to a dance floor, she appeared to enjoy his cousin’s company.
He had felt murderous when they stepped out from the balcony. He had been disgusted by their flirting. He recognized these feelings for what they were. Jealousy. Ridiculous feelings for a woman he had met only once.
This intelligent and poised woman surely couldn’t fall for the rakish charm of his cousin, could she?
But why shouldn’t she flirt with Drake? The duke was perfectly eligible. More to the point, Drake was seriously shopping for a duchess, a command given by his mother who threatened to choose his bride herself if he didn’t bring home one of his own choosing by the end of the Season. Drake may be a libertine, but he was imminently desirable by marriage minded females.
And Sebastian? Anything but. His title and wealth recommended him, but little else.
Unlike his cousin, he was not in the market for a wife. A friend, perhaps. A mistress, possibly. But not a wife. The dilemma he’d faced throughout the week was how to proposition this woman for the role of mistress. She expressed a disinterest in marriage, so that eliminated any concern of being trapped, but one didn’t take in innocents as mistresses. Widows, courtesans, actresses, all acceptable. Not innocents. She would be ruined.
He would need to tread carefully, for the only way it could work is if she allowed him to support her, if she undertook the role as a life position, changing her plans from being a lady’s companion to being his companion. Ah, but it all sounded so sordid and insulting to a woman of her intelligence.
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