Lord of Fire

by Gaelen Foley

  Just then, a ripple of excitement moved through the ballroom below. Lucien saw all heads turn curiously toward the entrance; then his jaw dropped as a graceful beauty in white walked in, her chin high, a strand of pearls draped artfully over her strawberry-blond hair.

  Alice!

  He stared, flabbergasted, transfixed.

  What the hell is she doing here? He couldn’t believe his eyes. Joy and panic crashed in on him from opposite directions. Oh, God, how he had missed her. What the hell is she doing in London?

  Caro sidled into the ballroom beside her. The baroness was dressed in a tight black velvet dress, but Alice commanded the room, poised, slender, and cool. With her airy evening gown of white silk wafting sensually against her skin, she was an aloof marble goddess who had just stepped down to life from atop her pedestal. She seemed an entirely different creature than the serious, shy young thing who had ventured into his library last week and had been so easily charmed by a bit of Donne poetry. Now she was a force to be reckoned with. She paused under the grand entrance, surveyed the ballroom with a lofty air of detachment, then glided forward into the ballroom.

  Instantly, a swarm of men surrounded her and Caro, young bucks and dandies and uniformed officers clamoring for her attention, offering their eager gallantries. Seeing this, Lucien’s eyes blazed with rage.

  “Marcus!” he barked, turning to look for his protégé.

  Leaning in the doorway of the stairs that led up to the balcony, the young man strode over to him. Lucien pressed his lips together in a fury beyond words and merely pointed at Alice, giving him a vehement look.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Marc said under his breath.

  “Get her out of here.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Alice was sorry that she had come. She would have much rather been curled up at home staring into the fire or reading a storybook to Harry, but it was necessary to show Society that all was normal—that nothing unusual had happened to her, nothing scandalous, nothing rapturous.

  Nothing but influenza. How fitting, she thought bitterly, that she had come back from Lucien’s with lies on her tongue.

  She had barely walked into the ballroom when her three longtime suitors—Roger, Freddie, and Tom—came rushing over to greet her and surrounded her, all talking at once. Roger Manners, a serious, high-minded young man with wavy black hair and brown eyes, would make a splendid barrister one day. Freddie Foxham was a dedicated Bond Street Lounger and a tulip of fashion; tonight he wore a purple coat with a cravat so high he could barely turn his head. Tom de Vere, a squire’s son, was the largest of the lot, with a loud guffawing laugh and the simple, loyal nature of a hunting dog.

  “Who is this prime article?” Tom exploded with a hearty grin.

  “Miss Montague, what a splendid recovery you’ve made. You look ravishing,” Roger informed her, kissing her hand with his usual, polite precision.

  Freddie merely quizzed her from head to toe through his monocle. “Hmm,” he murmured, then pronounced his judgment. “Yes, quite acceptable.”

  Alice smiled wryly at them. “Thank you for the flowers, all of you.”

  “Which did you like best?” Tom asked with childlike eagerness.

  She laughed. “I couldn’t possibly say.”

  “Come and sit down, Alice. You mustn’t tax your strength,” Roger ordered, taking charge with a businesslike air as he was wont to do. He grasped her elbow gently and propelled her across the ballroom while Freddie cleared their path by poking people out of the way with the elegant walking stick that he carried with him everywhere.

  When they reached the sitting area over by the wall, Tom pulled out a chair for her with an eager flourish. “Your throne, princess!”

  “Honestly, you three,” she scolded wryly. Her sister-in-law sat down a few feet away, blithely engaged in conversation with her male friends. Alice noticed that Caro’s odious brother, Weymouth, was hovering nearby, no doubt come to plague the baroness for another loan. He looked as unkempt and as dazed with drink and opium as ever.

  “Tom, old boy, why don’t you fetch our gel a bit of punch?” Freddie drawled.

  “Right!” Tom said, as though struck with divine inspiration. When he went lumbering off through the crowd to find the punch table, Freddie and Roger sat down on either side of her.

  “I’ll have you know you gave us quite a scare,” Roger told her with a chiding frown.

  “Well, I’m quite recovered now.”

  “Recovered enough to dance with us?” Freddie asked with a lazy grin.

  “Perhaps,” she answered archly. “That’s quite a waistcoat.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  “Have I missed anything exciting in Town?”

  They chatted idly, Roger describing the latest Shakespearean performance of Drury Lane’s exciting new star, Edmund Kean; then Freddie tried to top that with a description of the latest equestrian spectacles at Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre.

  Alice’s mind wandered. What was she to do now that she was no longer a virgin? How was she going to explain that fact to her future husband, or trick him into not noticing? She could marry Tom and dupe him easily enough, but he was such a dear, dumb thing. She could never really love him, and that would be heartless to do to a friend. Worldly-wise Freddie would be the hardest to fool, but perhaps would be the most willing to accept her fallen state philosophically. She had heard a rumor, however, that Freddie had an unusual, perhaps unnaturally close friendship with one of his fellow dandies. After what she had seen in the Grotto, she understood what those rumors implied. Sometimes she felt he had only courted her all this while because he had to court some young lady and, deep down, he knew she had no intention of accepting. Ah, well, she thought. She adored him anyway as a friend.

  Roger was probably the best choice. No doubt a virgin himself, he might not even notice her missing innocence, for he was so blinded by his devotion to her. He had placed her on the very highest pedestal, for she had always been such a perfect Goody Two-Shoes, she thought cynically.

  When Tom returned with her punch, Freddie turned away to greet one of his arrogant, smirking friends, and Roger leaned toward her, murmuring in her ear, “I must speak with you. Alone.”

  She nodded, wondering what was the matter, when she heard a voice insistently calling her name. “Miss Montague!” She looked up; then her eyes widened as Marc and the rest of Lucien’s young hellhounds came striding toward her in a pack.

  “Miss Montague! A word with you, if you please.”

  “Hullo, there,” Talbert said. “Don’t you look stunning?”

  “Mademoiselle!” O’Shea chimed in with a bow.

  “Well met, my dear Miss Montague! How smart you look this evening,” Marc said, his eyes dancing with mischief.

  “I say!” Roger snorted as Lucien’s rakish protégés gathered around her, crowding her three suitors out.

  “Our mutual friend is most displeased to see you here,” Marc said under his breath.

  “He’s here?” she breathed, going motionless. “Where?”

  “Watching,” Kyle murmured with a sly wink. “Argus of a thousand eyes.”

  “How is his wound?” she asked quickly, keeping her voice low so her suitors would not hear.

  “What do you care?” Marc taunted her.

  She glared at him, feeling her cheeks flood with a heated blush. “I don’t. Where is the cad? He wouldn’t come and talk to me himself?”

  “You know full well why.”

  Alice gave him a sulky look. Marc lifted his gaze up to the gallery above them. She followed his glance discreetly and caught only a flicker of a motion amid the gloomy shadows there, but she saw no one. Lucien had vanished like a cat into the night.

  Marc looked at her soberly. “He gave me a message for you. Leave London. Go home to Glenwood Park at once. There is great danger for you here, as you surely know.”

  “You may give him a message in return for me. He is not my husband. He has no au
thority over me. I shall do what I please.”

  “She’s got some fight in her yet!” O’Shea said with a grin.

  “I say, sirs, this is really quite enough,” Roger declared, pushing his way between Kyle and Talbert. “Alice, come with me.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Marc started to say to Roger indignantly, when Freddie planted his walking stick squarely on the center of Marc’s chest.

  “Keep. Your. Distance.” He poked Marc backwards a step with great aplomb. “I do not believe you have been properly introduced to the young lady; therefore, you have no right to speak to her.”

  “Freddie!” Alice exclaimed in shock.

  Marc narrowed his eyes in warning. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Not a thing. Why should I wrinkle my clothes when Tom can see to you quite nicely? Sic him, Tom,” Freddie said, dusting off his elegant hands.

  Marc turned around, and there was big, brawny Tom. Marc’s courage appeared to falter by a hair as he tilted his head back to look up at the big young man. Tom’s ruddy face darkened with a glower.

  Alice drew breath to stop the brawl that seemed imminent, but suddenly Marc swore under his breath and the young men parted, backing out of the way before a looming presence. As they cleared a straight path toward her, Alice blanched and tilted her head back, pinned in the cold, commanding stare of Lucien’s identical twin brother.

  It was Colonel Lord Damien Knight, the national hero.

  He was unmistakable in his crisp scarlet uniform and gold epaulets, white gloves, glittering dress sword. Precisely the same height as Lucien, he towered head and shoulders over the other men, but for some reason he seemed more massive than Lucien, imposing in his bearing, inspiring fear and instant submission, while Lucien affected an idle, easy, unthreatening posture, as though not to scare off the prey. Alice stared at him in amazement, astonished by the likeness. As Damien clicked into motion and closed the distance between them, his plumed shako under his arm, she saw that they moved very differently, too. Lucien moved at a languid saunter; Damien advanced head-on at a controlled, rigid march.

  It was rather terrifying.

  Damien stopped in front of her and cleared his throat. From behind him, another uniformed man hurried out. The colonel was so broad-shouldered, standing at attention, that the man behind him had not been visible until now. His shock of red hair and elaborate mustachio seemed familiar; then Alice noticed the officer was missing an arm and suddenly realized he was her brother’s old friend, Major Jason Sherbrooke.

  “Why, Major Sherbrooke!” she exclaimed in surprise.

  “Miss Montague, it’s been a long time,” he said warmly, though he looked rather sheepish. “What a shock it is to see Glenwood’s little sister so grown up.”

  She smiled, but Damien glared at him impatiently.

  All the boys watched in varying degrees of trepidation as Major Sherbrooke nodded. “Ahem, Miss Montague, please allow me to present Colonel Lord Damien Knight. My lord, the Honorable Miss Alice Montague.”

  “How do you do?” she said faintly, curtsying to him.

  The boys watched in varying degrees of dismay. A short distance away, Caro sat up, suddenly paying attention. She looked daggers at Alice.

  Lord Damien bowed to her. “Miss Montague, will you do me the honor of a dance?”

  She heard Caro gasp at his request and looked over at her sister-in-law just as the baroness snapped her mouth shut.

  Alice glanced at the colonel suspiciously once more. Lucien had emphasized that neither of them were to tell a soul about their time together at Revell Court, but obviously he had told his twin. How else would Damien know to come looking for her? She had no doubt that the colonel’s sole motive in asking her to dance was to repay Lucien in kind for having seduced Caro away from him.

  She hesitated, knowing how vulnerable Lucien was when it came to his celebrated twin. If Lucien was indeed watching from above, he would be incensed.

  “I’m not sure it is a good idea,” Alice said in a low tone, loath to oppose such an intimidating personage.

  “It is a very good idea, Miss Montague,” he answered tersely. “I would speak with you.” It was an order, not a request. He held out his hand to her, his steely gray eyes full of forceful command.

  Well, another overbearing Knight brother! she thought, her nostrils flaring with indignation. On second thought, Lucien deserved some kind of punishment for having chosen to pursue his enemy over her. Let him gnash his teeth over it, she decided.

  She gave the stone-faced hero a brilliant smile, rested her gloved hand lightly upon his, and walked with him to the dance floor.

  Behind her, the brawl that had seemed on the verge of exploding promptly fizzled out. Her three suitors, Lucien’s five young rogues, and even Caro watched in crestfallen silence as Alice and Damien joined the minuet.

  “This is a most unexpected honor,” Alice remarked.

  “I’m rather surprised myself,” he replied. “As a rule, I hate dancing, but I had to speak with you.”

  “Oh?”

  She could not fail to notice the many pairs of eyes on her. Women who vied for Lord Damien’s attentions watched her jealously, as did Alice’s affronted suitors. She only wondered if Lucien was watching. It pained her to glance at his brother, for Damien looked exactly like him, and she missed that devil so much. There were only two small differences that she could discern—Lucien wore his hair a bit longer than Damien’s close-cropped style, and Damien’s eyes were a deeper shade of gunmetal-gray, while Lucien’s were silvery, like the flash of a steel blade.

  When the patterns of the minuet partnered them once more, Alice laid her hand on Damien’s and slid him a wary look askance as they proceeded through the graceful movements.

  He hesitated, attempting friendly conversation. “Lady Glenwood mentioned to me once that you are a great favorite with young Master Harry.”

  Alice smiled at him in spite of herself. “As he is with me.”

  “You like children, do you?”

  “Most of them,” she replied, turning with him. He eyed her with a speculative gleam in his eyes that reminded her entirely of Lucien—and made her ache for that scoundrel.

  “How is Harry these days?”

  “Recovering from a bout of chicken pox, I’m afraid.”

  “I am sorry to hear it.”

  “We must all go through it sometime, I suppose.”

  “Miss Montague, you must permit me to call on you,” Damien said abruptly, gripping her hand with a slightly harder pressure. “We have much to discuss, but this is not the place. May I see you tomorrow?”

  “Why?” she asked candidly.

  The figures of the dance separated them before he could answer, but she had a fair idea that she knew what he wanted. A single dance for the sake of vexing Lucien was one matter, but his insistence on a private meeting implied something else entirely.

  She paled as her mind filled with unbidden imaginings of Lucien drawling out the tale to his brothers of how he had seduced a virgin and made a wanton of her. Would all the dashing Knight brothers regard her now as fair game?

  “You have nothing to fear from me,” Damien said quickly, taking in her ashen countenance as the figures of the dance partnered them again.

  “Don’t I?” she asked coldly, feeling as though Lucien had betrayed her all over again.

  “Miss Montague, there is no need for terror. No further harm shall come to you. I give you my word on it. Tomorrow I will explain—”

  She wrenched her hand out of his light hold. “No explanation is necessary, my lord. Believe me, I understand perfectly.” She pivoted and strode away just as the music ended. Her heart pounded and her legs trembled beneath her as she shoved her way through the crowd. I have to get out of here. She could not face her suitors right now. She needed a moment to collect her whirling thoughts. What had she done to her life? What had he done to her? Oh, she wanted to throttle that silver-eyed fiend!

  Miss G
oody Two-Shoes! Sensible Alice! Somehow she had proved to be a bigger fool than Caro.

  Hastening out the other side of the ballroom, she ducked out the door to the veranda. The nip of the air was cold, but she walked out to the stone balustrade, determined to clear her head before facing them all again. Worse than her guilty conscience, worse than Lord Damien’s suspicious attentions, was knowing that Lucien was here tonight and really had not the slightest intention of acknowledging her. It really was over.

  She closed her eyes in a wave of pain, then looked pleadingly at the heavens when she heard the French doors creak open behind her.

  “Alice!” Roger’s insistent call intruded upon her solitude. “What on earth are you doing? Come in at once! You’ve been ill—”

  She turned around and stared at him, the wind rippling through her gossamer white skirts and lifting tendrils of her hair. He stopped abruptly and let his gaze travel boldly over the length of her. “My God, you’re beautiful.”

  She rolled her eyes and turned away. Resting her hands on the cold stone balustrade, she lifted her chin and searched the dark sky as though the answers she sought might be written in the stars. They were not.

  “What did you wish to speak to me about?” she asked wearily.

  “Alice . . . are you quite sure you had the influenza?”

  She spun to face him, her heart in her throat. “Why do you ask that? What are you implying?”

  He furrowed his brow at her snappish tone. “You seem so changed. Maybe it was something more serious, a brain fever. Did you see a proper Town doctor? I’m worried about you. Alice, you know how I feel about you.”

  She stared at him, taken aback; then she let out an inward groan as she intuited the reason he had wanted to speak to her alone. The man had, after all, asked for her hand in marriage on three separate occasions in the past.

  No doubt misreading the desperation in her eyes, he took her hand gently in both of his. “When I saw you walk in tonight looking so beautiful, I knew I couldn’t wait anymore. Alice, either marry me or tell me it will never be. This is torture.”