“I have no problem with the marquess, but rather your unbridled interest in the gentleman.” Her brother spoke with a bluntness that deepened his wife’s frown.
Well, she knew to certainly never mention her chance encounter with the gentleman in the street. Not that she’d been considering it. Now, she just knew to carefully guard her secret all the more.
“Hush, Jonathan,” his wife quietly scolded. She looked pointedly about at the guests milling around them.
The orchestra concluded the reel and the ballroom erupted into excited clapping and cheers, blotting out whatever it was her brother intended to say. As the couples filed off, and the next pairs filed on to their respective places for the next dance, the haunting strains of a waltz filled the ballroom.
Her brother looked to his wife and held out his arm but then froze. He made to offer his elbow to Prudence.
Ugh, if that weren’t the height of humiliation. To be partnered in pity by one’s brother. She snorted and shoved at his elbow. “If you offer to partner me in a waltz, I swear I will clout you over the head right here before all of Society,” she warned. Then there would truly be a Prudence Tidemore scandal to speak of. “Go,” she urged the couple, still as in love as they’d been when she had been a girl of fifteen.
“Are you—?”
“Go.” She gave him another playful shove and with a wave for her sister-in-law, watched as Sin escorted Juliet onto the ballroom floor.
Prudence stared after them. A stirring of envy turned within her once more. As the couples twirled by in a kaleidoscope of colorful skirts, she remained standing so she might better see the lords and ladies present. Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. She searched out the towering gentleman with the look of Apollo to him.
Lord St. Cyr bowed to the Marquess and Marchioness of Drake, ending the exchange, and then continued on. More than a foot taller than her five-foot three-inch frame, he cut an easy path through the ballroom. Periodically, he’d tip his head in greeting to the lords who raised a hand or sketched a bow. It was not, however, the response of the gentlemen that she so cared about but rather the ladies who were not saddled with white gowns, instead wearing crimson satins and wetted silks. She wrinkled her nose. Those same ladies daringly moved into the gentleman’s path and skimmed their fingers over their low décolletages. One overly bold sapphire skirt-wearing beauty managed to halt his determined path—Lady Gemma Torrent, a young widow who’d recently abandoned her widow’s weeds. Prudence pursed her mouth. And the lady appeared to be in the market for the marquess’ affections.
She detested this insatiable urge to gape at the lovely pairing they made, with the young woman and her midnight black curls loosely piled atop her head. Whatever the widow said earned a half-grin from the marquess that caused a maddening flutter in Prudence’s chest. Then, Lady Torrent brushed her fingertips along the swell of bosom spilling from the top of her gown.
Prudence stole a discreet peek down at her rather less impressive décolletage and then back to the marquess with a scowl. White skirts and a non-existent décolletage. Scandal be damned, she’d little hope of garnering any gentleman’s attention with such a meager showing.
The marquess quickly disengaged himself from the attentions of the widow that set the lady to pouting. A trill of pleasure ran through Prudence under the very obvious dismissal. Why, he appeared wholly uninterested in the lady’s blatant self-offering. She drummed her fingertips together and continued to study his movement through the crowd away from those improper ladies. Away. Not toward. From all she recalled of her roguish brother in the gossip columns, gentlemen tended to court those ladies’ favors, and yet this one did not. A slow smile formed on her lips.
But then that small, happy grin promptly died. From across the ballroom the Marquess of Westfield introduced his sister, the golden-haired, perfectly beautiful Lady Beatrice Dennington to the Marquess of St. Cyr. The lady, who was neither scandalously clad nor wearing white, dipped her gaze and blushed at something the marquess said.
Bitterness tasted like acid on her tongue. What did you expect, silly, that he would sense your presence here, the way you sensed his and come rushing over? Though, in actuality, the sliver of her that dreamed of romance had, in fact, hoped that very thing. She reclaimed her seat and adjusted her white satin skirts and forced her gaze away from the marquess and out onto the dance floor with twirling ladies in gowns of crimson and blue and all colors vibrant. If she’d not been ruined before her Season started, she’d likely have failed to drum up a single suitor for the sheer tedium of her gowns alone.
Prudence found the marquess once more. The muscles of her stomach tightened as he signed Lady Beatrice’s dance card. Of course, a duke’s daughter, so lovely and respected, should be the recipient of his attentions. Unlike her, whose meeting with Lord St. Cyr did not come within a proper ballroom but upon an empty street.
At that, a memory flitted in of their meeting. Her stolen secret on the streets of London outside Madame Bisset’s. That magical moment in the snow had given her hope for the Season and an excitement…of… of… She located Juliet and Sin. Her brother leaned down and whispered something into his wife’s ear that brought a pink blush to the lovely woman’s creamy white cheeks. A little sigh escaped Prudence.
…and an excitement of finding love. And being in love. That is what she’d hoped for, all the while knowing by her mother’s frequent bemoaning an advantageous match was unlikely; a love match impossible. The Tidemore girls could not be particular where offers were concerned. A wry grin turned her lips. In fact, she suspected as long as the offer was a proper one from a gentleman free of scandal, the match would be considered a good one by her mother.
For a moment, amidst the quiet of the London streets with a gentlemanly rescue from a bucket of refuse, some silly, inexplicable sense of something more had gripped her, and dogged her through the weeks, and then sustained her during her mortifyingly pathetic entrance into Society.
While she’d laid abed unable to sleep with dread for the polite ton events, she’d held on to the prospect of seeing Lord St. Cyr with his disarming grin. He may as well have been as elusive as those winter flakes since that December day—until now.
The orchestra struck up another round. Shoving aside her pathetic musings, she tapped her feet to the rhythm of the orchestra’s playing.
A flurry of giggles from down the line of wallflowers carried over to her ears.
“…her sister eloped…”
Perhaps it was some other young lady whose sister had the misbegotten sense to dash off to Gretna Greene. If so, she’d dearly like to meet that young woman, call her friend, and keep company with her for the duration of the Season.
“…and then married not even…several months after…” Well, that did seem remarkably close to her own family’s circumstances. But still it really could be another young woman who—“…my mother said no one will wed the Tidemore girl who just made her Come Out.” Well, it was her. She sighed. Of course it was her.
That set her shoulders back and she turned the full force of her scowl on the unkind young women who were clearly wallflowers for altogether different reasons than Prudence’s scandalous family. Nasty creatures. She rose slowly and turned the full force of her glower on them, delighting in their slow, widening eyes.
“Woman.”
The two, also white-wearing young gossips looked at one another and then back to Prudence in silent confusion.
“Your mother said no one will wed the Tidemore woman who just made her Come Out.” She gave a toss of her head. The garish strip of lace interwoven with her curls fell limply over her eye, hopelessly ruining that effect. With a snap of her skirts, Prudence stalked off. It really was a good deal less impressive and dramatic when there was no particular someone or someplace to stalk off to.
“Good God, man. In requesting an introduction to the Duke of Somerset’s daughter, you’ve clearly signaled to all the mamas with matches on their mind that you are in the m
arket for a wife.”
From where Christian stood alongside the Doric column in the corner of Lord and Lady Drake’s ballroom, he went taut and turned a frown on his friend, the Earl of Maxwell. “That is because I am in the market for a wife,” he stated under his breath, favoring the other man with a glower for chuckling at Christian’s circumstances.
He’d been compiling a list of all those title-grasping, experienced, not at all innocent women with sizeable wealth attached to them, but hadn’t, as of yet, to his solicitor’s chagrin, settled on the future Marchioness of St. Cyr.
Yet, interestingly in the Marquess of Drake’s ballroom, he’d not paid a jot of attention to all the respective ladies upon his list. By a rule, he avoided a lady in white skirts. White skirts implied innocence. Innocence required marriage. As such he did not dally with, admire, or so much as speak to those ruffled, more girls than women, ladies who had just made their Come Out.
But he noticed her. And he’d been noticing her for the better part of the evening. He’d only happened to note her because one of the Marquess of Drake’s liveried footmen bearing a silver tray of champagne stepped directly into his path and inadvertently drew his attention to that ignominious row of wallflowers. Which had drawn his attention to her. He’d finished two glasses of champagne trying to process what was familiar about the hideously ruffled young lady. And then he’d finished another two glasses trying to figure out what it mattered that there was something familiar about the hideously ruffled young lady. Yet staring at her, it was driving him utterly mad.
“You do realize if you continue to gawk at the wallflowers, it will be whispered that one of those young ladies has snared your attentions and you’ll find yourself truly caught.”
“Shove off,” he said over the rim of his fifth champagne flute. Still, this time, with the arrival and unerringly accurate observation made by his friend he managed to force his attention away from the young woman. “Don’t you have a widow to seduce?” Except, his gaze wandered back to where she sat tapping her feet to the orchestra’s music. He took in that rhythm. The lady was horribly out of tune. Not at all the kind of beauty who attracted his notice, there was still, well a prettiness to her.
His friend plucked a flute of champagne off the tray of a passing servant. “And don’t you have a wife to find?”
That jerked Christian’s attention away from the hideously attired miss and he glowered at his friend. It mattered not that he’d fought alongside this man on the fields of Europe when they’d been more boys than men, what his friend uttered would be ruinous. To both his reputation and his plans for the Season. A wife. He shuddered. Yes, everyone surmised that any gentleman who put in an early appearance in the Season was in the market for a…a…wife. God help him. He downed the contents of his glass in a long, slow swallow that elicited a rumbling laugh from Lord Maxwell.
“So, is she the one?”
“Is who the one?” he bit out.
“The one you’ve settled on for your marchioness.”
“I have not settled on anyone for my marchioness,” he said from the side of his mouth. For when Maxwell put it that way, it made the truth of his circumstances all the more real and all the more awful and all the more reason he needed more champagne.
His friend, at least, had sense enough to say nothing else on it. They stood in the kind of companionable silence that could only come from two men who’d stood alongside one another in battle and learned that oftentimes saying nothing was more valuable than filling voids of quiet. Christian motioned over a servant and swapped his empty glass for a blessedly full glass of the marquess’ fine, French champagne. He grimaced. Egads, if that wasn’t a phrase he’d thought he’d ever utter in life: fine, French anything.
After the days he’d spent on the battlefield, he’d even taken to swearing off French mistresses and courtesans but attending a formal ton event, with the marriage noose hanging over him, well, desperate times called for, at the very least, French champagne. Or brandy. Or some other stiff spirit to distract him from the fact that he was in dun territory.
The hideously attired lady with an odd strand of lace plastered to her forehead had proven a much welcomed diversion until Maxwell had to go and bloody ruin it. No, there was no reason he should know such a woman.
The lady flew to her feet, drawing his attention once more. Even with the span of the ballroom separating them, he detected the flash of fire in her eyes as she glowered at the two, wide-eyed young ladies in front of her. At the bold, if peculiar, showing, his interest redoubled and the woman with her impressive fury became somewhat interesting—for a virginal debutante, that was.
“I daresay it is wise choosing one of those wallflowers. They are the desperate ladies most eager for a match.”
At his friend’s choice of words, he turned a frown on the other man. “None of those wallflowers have attracted my notice.” Which wasn’t altogether true. One had, but not for the reason of marriage. It had more to do with the spirited young woman’s peculiar behavior. “What in blazes is she on about?” he muttered to himself.
Maxwell looked about, his brow furrowed. “Who?”
He ignored Maxwell, as the lady gave a flounce of her curls and sailed away from the row and over to the edge of a Doric column. Christian took another slow sip. He’d already resolved to avoid binding himself to a white skirt-wearing miss. His inevitable bride would be coolly reserved and perfectly content to allow her husband his pleasures, while taking her own pleasure where she would. He’d little use for any other complicated emotion beyond desire.
So, what in blazes was so intriguing or so blasted familiar about the woman?
“You can always marry one of my sisters.”
Now that was an offer born of either true friendship or desperation. “Very generous,” he drawled. After all, what man would gladly turn over the care of his sister to a notorious rogue, who more often than not battled bad dreams and drank too much? “But I will have to pass on one of your, er lovely sisters.” Maxwell had saved his life, quite literally, upon the battlefields of Waterloo several times. He also knew the myths perpetuated about him after that bloody battle. Such a man deserved more for his sister than Christian’s pathetic self.
Maxwell’s lips ticked up in the corner. “It would spare me the bother of squiring the lot of them about.”
“You would still have two Seasons to see to. What is one more?”
His friend snorted. “That is far easier for you to say as the brother of just one of those bothersome creatures.”
Yes, there was merit to that charge. Christian himself possessed of a single sister, approaching her sixteenth year and inevitably her London Season, did not envy the other man the three he was responsible for wedding off. It was that whole older brother business that made his dire financial circumstances more than a matter of his own material comforts. With a sigh, he ran his gaze over the crowded ballroom. Surely there was a single lady of some experience here, in possession of an immense dowry, a need to wed, and a willingness to overlook a roguish husband in dun territory.
Unbidden, his gaze wandered over to the young woman. She tipped her head back and forth in a jaunty little manner, in what he suspected was supposed to be in time to the music. He’d wager the little left of the St. Cyr wealth that lady could no more carry a rhythmic tune than he could carry the Marquess of Drake’s townhouse away from the foundation of its fashionable, Mayfair address. Yet, a sudden, inexplicable urge filled him to stride over and sweep the partnerless lady into the movements of that once-forbidden dance. It really was a crime for a young woman who so clearly loved music to be isolated to the side of the dance floor.
“Since you do not intend to rise to my bait and instead carry on with your grating silence that would impress a monk,” his friend said dryly at his side, “allow me to supply the identity of the young woman who’s captured your attention.”
Christian slowly shifted his focus to Maxwell. “She has not captured my attention,”
he barked, and then flushed as his unwitting admission earned a chuckle from his friend. “There is however an air of familiarity to the chit,” he conceded. A familiarity, which he could not explain. He took another small sip of champagne, all the while studying her from over the rim.
“She should look familiar,” Maxwell said with a grin. “You know her.”
“I know her?” He swung his gaze back to the solitary figure, nodding away. She was just one quick movement from dancing herself off amidst the twirling waltzers. “I assure you, but for my sister, Lucinda, I don’t know a single white skirt-wearing young lady.” It was no effort to inflect the droll amusement into his tone over his friend’s preposterous words.
“Oh?” Maxwell waggled his brown eyebrows. “Would you care to make a wager?”
“Absolutely,” he replied with an automaticity that made the other man laugh. He had long been one to take a wager. Even when they proved to be bad ones.
“A dance with the lady when I prove you incorrect.”
He hesitated, a frown playing on his lips. There was something underhanded in wagering on a partnerless debutante, and yet staring at her, it really was a travesty that some sod didn’t just dance with the blasted, eager young lady. “What is her name?” he said at last, the urge to know winning out over that slight gentlemanly guilt.
“Lady Prudence Tidemore. You met the lady in the street two months past when we were on our way to your solicitor’s office.”
Christian widened his eyes and looked to the young woman once more. That was the lady in the muslin cloak. “By God, you are correct,” he said under his breath, ignoring his friend’s bellowing laughter and the curious stares shot their way. The unchaperoned young woman in a blue muslin cloak that had brought out the piercing blue of her eyes had momentarily stunned him in the streets. Young ladies did not wander the streets of London without an escort and yet, there she’d been.
Captivated by a Lady's Charm Page 4