by Gaelen Foley
The girl was outrageously rude—or perhaps she had a toothache, he thought sardonically. Or perhaps his male ego was merely piqued at being ignored by a pretty young woman, never mind that she was on the verge of becoming engaged to Edward Lundy.
And yet there was something strangely familiar about her. He wished she would lift her head and look at him so he might figure out where he had seen her before.
Answering Mrs. Clearwell’s next round of prying questions about his sister Georgiana’s recent marriage to the Marquess of Griffith, he covertly studied Miss Balfour’s ramrod spine and demure, white-gloved fingers.
Done with her tea, she set the cup and saucer aside and clasped her hands on her lap again.
Her prim, buttoned-up manner touched him somehow.
Her figure was slender and lithe; she had light blond hair all wound up tightly in a neat chignon on the crown of her head. Little wispy tendrils framed her face and played about her nape, which, in turn, was wrapped in lace from the high-necked collar of her day-gown.
Very pretty, he admitted to himself. Who’d have thought a clod like Lundy could’ve had such excellent taste? He was impressed.
At that moment, as if she had been acutely aware of his study all the while and simply could not take it anymore, Miss Balfour lifted her head and ventured a small, cautious glance in Derek’s direction.
Their gazes met.
Locked.
The air exited his lungs with a whoosh. His eyes widened.
Good God.
Recognition unfurled in a flash.
It was she! Mary Nonesuch—his mystery girl from the garden folly!
Surely he was mistaken.
He could not move.
The two older ladies prattled on. Lundy was picking his thumbnail, and Lily Balfour stared at Derek in dread, in warning, indeed, in a silent plea for mercy, her face alabaster.
He could not believe his eyes.
His stunned stare traced the elegant line of her neck, that lovely neck he had memorized so carefully last night. It caressed the pale blond of her hair, her ivory skin.
She was Lundy’s fiancée?
But how—?
He did not want to believe it was true, but as the seconds passed, he realized with a sinking feeling that there was no mistake. No, he recognized the gleam of those lavender-blue eyes from behind the pale satin half-mask she had worn at the ball; the memory of their bright sparkle was seared into his brain. And her mouth. He had memorized its shape too carefully to be mistaken…and its taste.
His gaze skimmed the lips that she had offered and he had claimed so passionately just last night.
She shot him a warning glare, as though reading the sensual direction of his thoughts. Now it was Derek’s turn to drop his gaze.
His heart pounded as he did his best to conceal his growing bewilderment. What the hell was going on?
Considering the morning he’d had and all the people trying to play games with his mind, he couldn’t help but be suspicious of her, too. Had last night been some kind of a setup? A deliberate trap to entice him? Was she a part of this mystery, the huge sum missing from the army’s fund?
Lundy had already told him her family was bankrupt.
He remembered the diamond earring that he had in his keeping for her. Well, if she wanted it back, she was going to have to answer a few questions, plain and simple.
When Derek ventured another brief, wary glance in her direction, her eyes flashed out a warning plea not to expose her. He stared at her, obscuring his lips casually with his hand. He was sure their guilty wanting must be obvious to everyone in the room, but nobody else seemed to notice. It amused him to realize now that she had been sitting there not ignoring him, but trying desperately to escape his notice, as if she could hide from him.
Well, at least now he knew why last night she had refused to tell him her name. “Mary Nonesuch” had snared herself a rich nabob—and had risked it all last night for a few stolen kisses with him.
The realization pleased Derek and certainly helped to allay some of his mistrust, but he would not be content until he’d had the chance to interrogate her personally.
“Let us get you some refreshments, Major. Lily, would you mind—?”
“Oh, er—of course.”
“That’s all right, I can help myself,” he said, rising to join her at the refreshment table some ten feet away. It was probably his only chance to get closer to her.
Tense awareness thrummed between them as he stood casually beside her at the table, surveying the display of various biscuits and finger sandwiches. Their backs were turned toward the others.
“It all looks delicious,” he drawled, needing nothing more than that to make her feel the innuendo in his words.
She edged away from him a bit.
“What do you recommend, Miss Balfour?”
With a haughty look, she turned her attention to the tray of biscuits and finger sandwiches. “You’d probably like most of it, Major. You don’t seem too picky. Edward, dear, what can I get for you?”
“Give me the same as the major,” he grunted.
Derek arched a brow at her, for he doubted very much that she had ever given Lundy what she’d given him last night. Lily Balfour slanted him an icy look of warning.
Derek fought back a devilish smile. “May I have the lemonade?” he asked gravely.
“I hope you choke on it,” she said under her breath as she handed him the pitcher, an angelic smile pasted on her face.
“You’d better be nice to me—Miss Nonesuch,” he taunted in a whisper.
She closed her eyes, pausing, as though she were still clinging to one last hope that he did not recognize her.
“Put some extra sugar in the lemonade for me,” her suitor ordered. “I like it sweet.”
Derek wryly handed her a spoon with which to do her future husband’s bidding. But the moment their fingers touched, she yanked her hand back and the spoon clattered down onto the floor.
“Oh, my!” she gasped.
“No matter,” Derek soothed, but they both bent down at the same time to pick it up and nearly bumped heads.
Lundy laughed with great, loud gusto at the near-miss.
“You have a talent for losing things, don’t you?” Derek murmured under his breath as he picked up the spoon and offered it to her.
She looked at him sharply, a question in her eyes.
He gave her the subtlest smile, confirming his find at the garden folly. “Hyde Park in an hour,” he breathed.
She acquiesced with the merest trace of a nod, though her look brimmed with worried mistrust.
They both rose again.
While he set the dropped spoon aside, she took a fresh one, plunking an extra rock of hard sugar into her suitor’s lemonade. She stirred it noisily while Derek helped himself to a few biscuits and a cucumber sandwich.
They returned to their respective seats nonchalantly, but before long, Derek rose and took leave of their little gathering. It was turning into quite a busy day.
As his host showed him out to the front, where the same carriage and driver waited to take Derek back to the Althorpe, Lundy could not resist gloating over his latest acquisition. “She’s somethin,’ ain’t she?” he boasted, grinning from ear to ear. “Beauty like I told you and a lady through and through.”
“She’s something, all right,” Derek answered, climbing into the coach. He pulled the carriage door shut.
You have no idea.
The ladies left shortly after he did, riding with the top down on Mrs. Clearwell’s pink barouche, the better to enjoy the summer’s day.
Lily held a parasol over her head as the carriage rumbled down the country road leading back to Town. It was all very well to enjoy the sunlight, but a lady on the marriage mart had to have a care for her complexion.
God only knew she had so few assets of her own.
Mrs. Clearwell pointed out a pretty lake half hidden by some woods in the midst of the meadows
as they drove by, but while Lily nodded and managed to smile, her heart still pounded after her unexpected reunion with Derek Knight. Once more, the man had left her wits in an uproar.
Oh, she could not bear it. The suspense was agonizing. She had to know if he intended to tell Edward about her indiscretion last night at the garden folly.
Whatever happened, he could not be permitted to wreck her marriage plans—and she would tell him so at their upcoming meeting in Hyde Park.
Of course, it was dangerous to risk being seen in public with such a notorious womanizer, famous for breaking ladies’ beds, but if they could talk privately, clear the air, perhaps she’d finally have some peace of mind.
There seemed to be reason for hope. After all, he had said nothing to incriminate her back at Edward’s house, when he very easily could have. Indeed, he had looked as shocked at finding her there as she had been upon seeing him step out of the carriage. Perhaps she need not fear him, after all. But she was not taking any chances.
It was bad enough that she had put herself at his mercy this way. The old Balfour luck—all bad—had clearly struck again.
In the meantime, Lord, she could not believe the blackguard had managed to get himself invited to the garden party! Now that day was going to be all the more unpleasant.
“What did you think of the major, dear?” Mrs. Clearwell asked oh-so-casually.
Lily hadn’t noticed her eagle-eyed chaperone watching her all the while, studying the play of emotions on her face, but now she looked over and saw Mrs. Clearwell’s canny observation, almost as though the woman could hear the reckless thunder of her pulse.
Lily paled and dropped her gaze, trying to summon up an innocent tone. “He seems—pleasant enough.”
“Pleasant? I thought he was perfectly charming. Honestly, I don’t know why you can’t find a man like that instead of Edward. Brave, well bred, and so impossibly handsome—”
“Mrs. Clearwell,” Lily interrupted, finding her recitation of his virtues intolerable, “don’t you know he has the most wicked reputation?”
Her chaperone’s frown gave way to a chuckle. “As well he might, my dear. As well he might.”
Lily looked at her, appalled. “Mrs. Clearwell, I fear you have been taken in by a rake’s charm,” she said severely.
“Haven’t you heard, gel? It’s a known fact. Reformed rakes make the best husbands.”
Lily harrumphed. “Ridiculous cliché,” she muttered as Mrs. Clearwell’s carriage gained the genteel environs of Mayfair.
Airy laughter was her godmother’s response.
Upon reaching Mrs. Clearwell’s house, Lily hurried up to her bedchamber and leaned before the vanity, taking a hard look in the mirror. Well, she thought, meeting her own grim gaze in the reflection, he had unmasked her now.
There was no point in denying that she was attracted to him, but it did not signify. She only wished that she were not quite so eager to run off and see Derek Knight again.
It was nearly time for their meeting. She would have to hurry or she would be late.
Trying to tell herself that her urgency was born merely of her keen desire to rescue her poor earring from being held hostage by that barbarian, she smoothed her hair, pinched her cheeks to brighten their color, then ran back downstairs on slightly wobbly legs.
Mrs. Clearwell looked over in surprise. “Where are you off to, dear?”
“I should like to take my daily constitutional,” she lied, ignoring a familiar jab of guilt for her lack of honesty. “I ate too many biscuits at the Lundys’. A bit of exercise would do me good.”
“Ah, the energy of youth. For my part, I shall take a nap. That Mrs. Lundy is a dear thing, but she quite talked me senseless.” Mrs. Clearwell offered her cheek, which Lily dutifully kissed. “Don’t forget to take Eliza with you,” her chaperone ordered. “This is not the countryside where you can walk alone.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Mrs. Clearwell retired to her chamber, Lily summoned the freckled housemaid, Eliza, who had been assigned to attend her.
Before long, she and her maid were in Hyde Park, awash in all the hustle and bustle of the Ring, though it was not yet as crowded as it would be by five. They stopped at the railing to watch the smartly dressed bucks and beauties pass in their fine equipages.
Lily scanned the park in search of Derek Knight.
Within a few moments, she spotted him. He came riding out from around a curve in the lane astride a glossy black stallion. The trace of a wistful smile touched her lips in spite of herself as she watched him. The consummate cavalry officer looked as proud as that high-stepping bit-of-blood that he sat with such splendor. The horse seemed to dance beneath him.
Ah, but she did not need a hero in shiny knee-boots and gold epaulets. The only kind of rescue she desired was of her family’s dwindling bank account, and since she highly doubted that mighty Zeus was going to come raining down on her in a shower of gold, Edward Lundy was going to have to do.
“Lor,’ look at ’im!” the maid uttered as the magnificent pair came closer. “He’s beautiful, Miss.”
“Yes,” Lily murmured, thrusting aside a quiver of desire, vexed anew by her unwanted attraction to the man. She turned away to stop herself from staring at him. “Actually, Eliza, I’m afraid he is the real reason we are here.”
“To ’ave a look at ’im, you mean?”
“More than that. I have to talk to him.”
Eliza tore her gaze away from the major and turned to Lily in wide-eyed apprehension. “Is that quite proper, Miss?”
Lily looked at her in silent distress.
Eliza reconsidered, ducking her head with a humble glance that seemed to express her recollection that none of the staff had ever known Miss Balfour to do anything improper. “Well,” she conceded at length, “if you must speak to that gent’l’man, then I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for it.”
“Thank you, Eliza,” Lily said softly. “I shan’t be long.”
With another wary glance in his direction, Lily saw that Derek Knight had spotted her. Just like in the ballroom, his watchful stare had picked her out of the crowd in the park and now homed in on her.
Her heart beat faster.
Sending her a forceful look from across the green, he turned the horse around and rode off at a handsome trot toward the graveled promenade that girded the Serpentine.
Lily noted the place he selected for their meeting. Tall bushes and stands of trees obscured parts of the walking path around the man-made lake. It was not as secluded as the pineapple folly, but then again, there would not be any kissing going on.
Pity, a cheeky part of her remarked. She repressed it with a twinge of self-directed shock. “Right,” Lily said at length, her manner turning businesslike. She drew a deep breath and braced herself for the meeting.
While Eliza hung back obediently, Lily walked on toward the Serpentine to do battle with Derek Knight.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
“Well, well, Miss Lily Balfour,” Derek greeted her, savoring her name now that he finally knew it. “We meet again.” Smoothing his reins to the side, he leaned forward slightly in the saddle and surveyed her with an appreciative gaze as she marched toward him.
Having recovered from his initial shock of finding “Mary Nonesuch” at Edward Lundy’s house, Derek paused to reassess his earlier suspicion that Lily Balfour might have something to do with the committee’s missing funds. Sinclair’s strange behavior and Lundy’s shocking revelations must have made him a bit paranoid for a while there, but now he was in a much clearer frame of mind.
Looking at her now, seeing her for what she was—an impoverished aristocratic miss on the marriage mart—he realized his prior suspicion of her was absurd. What did well-bred young ladies know about embezzlement?
Besides, the whimsical girl he had flirted with last night at the garden folly was too much of an innocent to be involved in anything so nefarious.
No, she was mer
ely a fortune hunter, he thought sardonically. Little fool. A garden-variety schemer, armed only with her feminine wiles.
She was making a big mistake, of course, throwing herself away on that clod, but Derek now dismissed the idea that Miss Balfour might know anything about committee business. He decided on the spot not to mention it to her. If he broached the subject, it would very likely yield nothing. It would only give her cause to go to her dear Edward and ask questions, and that, in turn, would make Lundy more suspicious of him.
Best to keep her out of it.
“Dare I hope you’ve come looking for another kiss?” he taunted with a guarded smile.
“Hardly.” The two clipped syllables were terse, no-nonsense. She stopped a few feet away from where he was seated on his horse and looked up at him. “I’ve come to get my earring back, as you well know.”
“You shall have it,” he assured her as he swung down off the horse, then turned to her, looking deeply into her eyes. “Just as soon as we’ve had a little chat.”
She stiffened. “Major, please. Those earrings belonged to my great-great-grandmother.”
“Patience, darling. Don’t you trust me?”
She eyed him skeptically. “How do I know you really have it?”
Derek fished it out of his pocket and showed it to her. Relief flickered in her lavender-blue eyes as she stared at the diamond sparkling between his finger and thumb, but then she lifted her chin and merely let out a prim, “Humph.”
He fought back a smile. “Come. Let us take a promenade.” He offered his arm, but she did not accept it.
She hung back when he started to walk. “I cannot go far,” she warned. “My maid is waiting. She’ll report back to my chaperone if I’m gone too long.”
“Oh, I don’t think Mrs. Clearwell will mind,” he said with a knowing half-smile.
Lily Balfour scowled at him.
Derek laughed. “You worry too much.” With a gentle tug on his horse’s bridle, he began strolling down the graveled lane, exasperating his companion but leaving her no choice but to follow.
When Miss Balfour fell into step beside him, Derek did not look at her, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead. He spoke in a measured tone. “So, you have set your cap at the encroaching toadstool, Mr. Lundy.”