Well, what was he supposed to do?
* * *
Clun was confused, Elizabeth could see that. His actions contradicted all his ill-tempered grumblings put together. And when he started growling about having a second dance, she’d wisely withheld comment even as her heart took wing.
After their first waltz at Lady Jane’s birthday ball, she’d danced a country set with Mr. Wilder and wished to take the air after the rigors of the reel. He escorted her from the ballroom to the terrace outside. Whereupon Clun emerged looking murderous, scowled, growled and chased Mr. Wilder away.
It was a primitive male display that called up an equally primitive response in her. After he led her into the garden, she followed Constance’s advice instinctively. Whisper, wait and see.
At first, he retreated from her, looking stone-faced. When she whispered, he did lean closer. He looked her over, perused her carefully, with dark, restless eyes. So she tilted her head up to wait, just as Constance suggested. He blinked. His Adam’s apple bobbed. She inhaled his clean, masculine scent and sighed. Well, it was more of a low moan that escaped her. She couldn’t help it. Even in London, he smelled perfectly right somehow.
When Clun grasped her upper arms, her heart raced. He stared at her lips as though he might eat them, but she forced herself to wait. He bent closer until his mouth hovered a hair’s breadth above her own.
In the next instant, he closed his eyes and put her away from him, shaking his head slowly.
Oh!
Her eyes burned. Through the blur, Clun stepped away, scraped his hair off his forehead and shot his cuffs. The parts of her body warmed by his heat now cooled. His impassiveness chilled her further when he offered to escort her back to the ballroom.
“Do you need a moment to compose yourself?”
She blinked back the sting in her eyes and smiled brilliantly, “Don’t be silly, Clun, I’m fine. If you still want your second dance, I’ll oblige you.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
* * *
Once inside, she withdrew her hand from Clun’s arm. He caught it, held it and said, “If it’s trouble you seek, behaving that way will guarantee it.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Lord Clun,” she replied.
“If you’re not careful, Lady Elizabeth,” Clun explained, “I will demonstrate exactly what I mean.”
By God, if the time ever came, Clun seethed, he’d seduce her till she knew how it felt to find one’s skin two sizes too small to contain all the sensations racing along every nerve and jangling every sense. He’d torment her. He’d bring her to the edge of release and then deny her. Over and over. All night. He’d taste her everywhere and make her cry and mew and beg him for mercy before he sated her. He would, damn it, if he had the self-control.
Clun knew better at this point. He might intend to torment her only to end up doing whatever gave her pleasure because every particle of his being wanted to bring her to ecstasy. He wanted to pulse and stroke within her till she trembled, gathered and broke apart with him. Him.
His possessiveness also infuriated him. Fortunately, with anger came rational thought. This mad desire was the most dangerous part of his reaction to her.
He let her hand go. Without a word, they parted.
Lord Clun left the ball long before the strains of the evening’s second waltz began.
Chapter 22
In which our heroine meets the Fury.
Clun arrived fashionably late to the Denbeigh ball, preceding his mother by minutes. She materialized without warning on the Earl of Morefield’s arm wearing her signature nest of dyed ostrich plumes writhing over her turbaned head. From the far side of the ballroom, Clun watched in horror as Lord Morefield waved his daughter over and introduced the two women. Elizabeth curtseyed to the baroness. His stomach dropped promptly when the Fury spoke to her for some time after which both turned to stare at him. Whatever she revealed displeased his betrothed for Elizabeth’s expression tensed and her smile became a stiff compression of lips.
Clun turned away.
Percy and Seelye were somewhere. He might as well wait among friends for all hell to break loose.
* * *
After Lord and Lady Denbeigh greeted Elizabeth and her father in the receiving line, the earl excused himself. Elizabeth continued to the stairs leading down to the ballroom. From that vantage point, she searched the crowd for Constance and Lady Petra.
Instead, Elizabeth was treated to the sight of Clun moving along the edge of the dainty, over-ornate ballroom like a fairy tale giant. His monochromatic evening attire emphasized his height and breadth. Her pulse quickened at the sight of him.
“Elizabeth,” the earl spoke behind her, “I’d like you to meet Lady Clun.” He presented an icy-eyed older woman in a profusely plumed crepe turban. She schooled her features and executed a curtsey to Clun’s mother.
“My son is very fortunate,” the baroness said, her pale eyes making an unhurried survey of Elizabeth from head to foot. She turned to the earl to add, “She’s lovely, Morefield. And she has your stature.”
Elizabeth did not enjoy the baroness’ cold scrutiny nor did she appreciate her comment which felt like a snub despite her neutral tone. Lady Clun held out a cool hand and clasped one of Elizabeth’s to bring her near enough to murmur, “I wish you the best of luck if you embark on this marriage, my dear, and I offer a mother’s shoulder to cry on when the time comes.”
Elizabeth straightened up to stare down at her and with a taut smile in place, she gritted out, “I do not anticipate such a time, your ladyship.”
“Well, none of us do, but it comes as winter follows autumn. De Sayre men cannot help wounding the tender hearted. It’s simply their nature. Cold and distant, I’m afraid.” The baroness’ tone dripped caustic sympathy. “Like father like son, as they say.”
Elizabeth tried to hold her tongue. Then she looked into Lady Clun’s frosty eyes. Her hackles rose instinctively. “I beg to differ. Lord Clun has not disappointed me, nor will he.” Elizabeth slipped her hand from the other’s grip. “He is admirable in every regard.”
The baroness shook her head slightly, compressed her downturned lips and sighed, “So naïve. So quaintly naïve.”
“Pray, do not matronize me, your ladyship, I know my mind and your son well enough,” Elizabeth replied and with false sweetness added, “Although I’m young, I am quite able to judge another’s character.”
The baroness narrowed her eyes and said nothing more, much to Elizabeth’s satisfaction. Next, Elizabeth scanned the ballroom and found Clun watching her from across the crowded room. She tried to smile at him but almost wept instead. To think this woman was the only model Clun had for love. No wonder he anticipated the worst. It was the baroness — not Clun — who lacked a capacity to love.
Poor man, poor, dear man.
She pitied Clun almost a full minute until she noticed all the lingering glances he received from the women he passed. She instantly detested each female mooning after him. She held the married women in greatest contempt as they admired his person brazenly after he moved past them with polite bows of acknowledgement. Their bold stares lingered outrageously on his fine legs and buttocks. If only she could, she would break the fan spokes of all the aged vixens who cooled themselves ostentatiously, grinning and whispering to one another with fans aflutter, after he walked by.
Women afraid of him? Ha.
Although it wasn’t his fault that he was exceedingly masculine, he needn’t parade himself in a leisurely circuit of the ballroom, giving every hussy present an opportunity to ogle him from head to toe. And ogle him they did! They eyeballed him like street urchins watching a muffin man roll past with his cart piled high with fresh baked goods. Until that moment, she thought ‘to slaver’ described male misbehavior exclusively, ha. Nor could he be oblivious to his effect on those lusty old crones. Not with all that ridiculous fan flapping and cooing going on.
Gone was the wild-haired gentleman ber
serker she’d met in Shropshire. His valet had trimmed his black mane of hair to a becoming length just brushing his collar. His evening clothes were impeccable. His linen cravat snowy white and beautifully tied, his waistcoat a cream embroidered silk that somehow deepened the midnight blue of his dress coat with black velvet collar. The coat’s double breasted style accentuated the width of his chest and the mass of his shoulders. His buff breeches advertised his strong thighs. Silk hose sheathed muscled calves. His feet were properly shod in black leather slippers with discreet sterling buckles. Despite his outsized scale, or perhaps because of it, Lord Clun epitomized the well-dressed, superbly athletic ideal of manhood.
Just as she’d predicted, he was quite presentable with minor adjustments. She was annoyed at him for having made the adjustments she’d suggested and furious with herself for having suggested them in the first place.
Let that be a lesson.
Whilst she fended off his unpleasant mother, he had the temerity to give her a hard look and stalk off in a sulk. On what account? There was no roomful of men making lubricious comments and cow’s eyes at her, for heaven’s sake. No one was adjusting their clothes because she overheated their blood. No one stared openly at her posterior with mouth curled in an eloquent smirk. Not a one.
He had to be lapping it up.
She turned her attention to the musicians as they prepared to play the evening’s first set. A few of her beaux came to entertain her and Elizabeth was only too happy to let them distract her. Her face revealed so much of her thoughts, she feared she would be indiscreet without uttering a word.
* * *
To Clun’s great disgust, Elizabeth left the Fury’s side to stand where her pack of fawning faradiddles could mob her more easily. He prowled the edges of the room and eventually found his cavalry friends.
Now in a truly execrable mood, the baron had two options: he could stand around getting roasted by those friends for his foul mood thus worsening it tenfold; or he could wade through the crush toward his scowling fiancée.
Clun excused himself and cut through the crowd to request a dance. Rather than insult him by refusing, she agreed to give him his waltz. He knew she begrudged it, and he didn’t care a jot or a spangle. His fiancée’s popinjays and ne’er-do-wells sensed her displeasure and grumbled until he silenced them with a slow, heavy-lidded glance.
Before the waltz came a quadrille and a country set. The first she danced with Wilder, daring Clun to take exception with a militant look. The second she danced with Viscount Speare who had arrived with Mr. Traviston, Lady Petra and Miss Constance Traviston. The young man had such happy manners it was hard to detest him, but Clun made every effort so long as he danced with Elizabeth. When the music ended, Speare and she rejoined Lady Petra’s party.
Clun went to claim his waltz and they stood together to await the music.
“I have met your mother,” Elizabeth finally said.
“So I noticed and you’re happy not to marry me for an additional reason,” he replied.
“Your mother doesn’t signify, Clun,” she said. “Not in the least.”
With those few words, his heart wafted heavenward, buoyed up by hope.
“I am not marrying you,” she continued, smacking her closed fan on his gloved wrist, “because of you.”
The fan’s sharp crunching sound could have been the crashing of his heart on its doomed maiden ascension. So he retreated behind nonchalance.
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” came his retort. “Clarify this for me, my lady. If you will not marry me and you will not cry off, how will your despised betrothal to me ever end?”
“I apologize. Have I delayed your acquisition of another heifer, Lord Clun?”
“Bess—”
“Ah yes, our betrothal. Soon, Clun, soon. Now that our engagement is common knowledge, I am meeting more charming men than ever before,” she laughed and snapped open her fan to flirt. “Extraordinary how attractive one becomes when pledged to another and no longer available, silly men.”
Clun failed to read between the lines of her brittle retort. He overlooked the shadows beneath her eyes. He was too angry about — and jealous of — the men stalking her night after night.
“Have a care,” he growled, leaning closer as the musicians prepared to play. “There are men who hope to play spoiler.”
His friend Seelye had pointed out wagers in the betting book at White’s that involved several sets of initials stealing a march on a Lord C. with Lady E.D. Already all manner of adventurers pursued her. That irritating earwig Wilder, for one. Before their betrothal was widely known, those scoundrels sought to woo and win her by fair means. The longer she dithered now, the greater the likelihood of serious mischief, just as the earl had foreseen
Until safely married, she was courting disaster, however, Clun would not lecture Elizabeth or otherwise imply she was popular for purely mercenary reasons. He’d learned that lesson.
From now on, he planned to protect her from bounders with the sincere threat of physical violence. At minimum, Elizabeth’s fiancé had the right to call a man out for attempting to sully her reputation. And illegal or not, he would. He was a decent shot and deadly with sword, having developed the habit of killing whomever he unsheathed it for during the war. Clun doubted any man in the ton would risk his life by causing an actual scandal while she remained his betrothed.
When she ended it and threw off his protection, however, the likelihood of caddish tactics quadrupled. Impoverished second and third sons of nobility weren’t particularly noble when it came to securing their comfort. So some scoundrel was bound to try maneuvering her into a scandal that only a quick marriage could remedy. He alarmed himself with this line of reasoning.
So Clun focused instead on dancing with the object of his anxiety, relieved to know she was safe in his arms for the time being.
They danced their customary waltz. It was not pleasant. He held her at the proper distance and stared over her head. She spoke of nothing consequential to his cravat. She did mention casually her plans to attend Covent Garden’s Thursday opera night that week. He scowled. She noted his scowl with a fleeting frown of her own. When the music ended, he bowed, she curtseyed. He led her back to Lady Petra and did what he ought about refreshments for the ladies before taking his leave.
In frustration, Clun tried to drag his overlong hair away from his forehead and came up short. And wavy. He forgot that he’d had Fewings cut his hair off because Elizabeth had once — only once, mind you — observed that he should. So he clawed over his scalp and tugged at whatever he could grip between his fingers.
Rrrrgh!
For the balance of the night, Clun made an effort to be more sociable despite his foul mood.
Lord Seelye helped in his own, ungentle way, telling Clun he was an imbecile to lean against a wall glowering. Next, his lordship led the baron toward Lady Jane Babcock and her circle of friends. The debutantes froze in place as Clun approached. With starting eyes, they looked every bit like fawns in the forest hoping to evade a dangerous predator’s notice. A few sidled away. Only one stood with her back to the men as they approached. Lady Jane spoke to this friend from behind her fan.
“But Jane,” Clun heard the oblivious girl whisper in a voice clear as a clanging bell, “he’s such a monstrous large man, I’d be terrified to dance with him.”
Clun chuckled. Lord Seelye cleared his throat and bowed to Lady Jane. Lady Iphigenia Thornton finally turned around.
“Oh dear!” was all the mortified young woman could squeak out as she craned her neck to look up at Clun. After the introductions, Clun bowed over Lady Iphigenia’s hand and asked for her next open dance. Her card was half empty, so in a quavering voice, she gave him the next but looked to her friend to save her. Instead, Lady Jane commended her to Lord Clun’s care so she and Seelye could snipe at each other uninterrupted.
As the music began, poor Lady Iphigenia’s mortification struck her dumb. Clun soon teased her into inconseq
uential conversation.
Lady Iphigenia’s natural tactlessness soon got the better of her and she exclaimed, “How fine a dancer you are, my lord. So nimble for a man your size.” A moment too late, she recalled her earlier gaffe and colored to the shade of a persimmon.
“I am rather sprightly for a monstrous large man, aren’t I?” Clun asked and smiled at her conspiratorially. “But I must swear you to secrecy or I will wear my legs to nubbins dancing with all the young ladies.”
“I’m sorry for my earlier, intemperate language, my lord.” Lady Iphigenia said meekly.
“I’m not! You’re an Original, my lady. And I am happy to be among the many who seek a place on your dance card.”
“Now you’re bamming me,” she reproached the baron.
“On my honor, I am honored, my lady,” he teased before the two dancers separated. When they returned, he added, “and I’ll challenge anyone who dares contradict me to a duel — even you.” They separated to circle others, and at the return, he leaned near to say, “Goose feathers at dawn.” Rejoining her, he concluded solemnly, “Hampstead Heath. Physician on hand. Seconds to examine the gander, all of it.”
She laughed at his whimsy and said, “Isn’t it customary for the challenged to have choice of weapon?”
“I stand corrected.” He smiled down at her, pleased to have put an awkward girl at ease.
Though she was too young, too timid and too little like Elizabeth to suit him, Clun imagined for a moment marriage to Lady Iphigenia. Nothing much came of it. The life he supposed lacked sparkle. Still, he hadn’t succeeded with Elizabeth so he would have to contemplate an alternative. The notion sank to the pit of his stomach.
“Tell me, my lady, do any of your suitors suit?” He inquired. She blushed and missed a step. He caught her up easily and set her to rights, with no one the wiser.
The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) Page 19