Dowagers and matrons sat around the edges of the room, gossiping behind their fans. Little Thurston might be a quiet village, but that did not mean residents were without town connections to send them news and scandal. Every likely source was mined for gossip.
By the time Steyne and Lydgate strolled into the room, the company knew everything about them, including what they’d eaten for dinner.
The gentlemen paused on the threshold. The crowd hushed. Some of the dancers lost a step. Lizzie lifted her chin and grimly danced on.
The Westruther cousins were impossible to ignore. It had been difficult to imagine how the two Westruther men could appear more magnificent than they’d seemed in breeches and riding boots that afternoon. Yet in formal attire, they surpassed even themselves.
Their tailoring was as exquisite as it was unobtrusive. Both gentlemen wore black coats and white waistcoats and dove gray pantaloons. Lydgate sported a complicated cravat, his waistcoat was embroidered with subtle gold thread, and a single fob hung from his watch chain. Steyne’s sole adornment was a blazing diamond pin.
Memory came on a rush of emotion that was all the more powerful for being locked away so long. The air seemed too thin to draw into her lungs.
Dear Heaven, it was hot in here. Too close, too many people. She needed to escape, but the set was ending and now Lydgate made his way through the crowd toward her to claim his dance.
Of Steyne, there was no sign.
The effort cost Lizzie greatly, but she did not spin around to search the room for him. She greeted the viscount with every appearance of calm.
“Good evening, my lord,” she murmured. “How delightful to see you again.”
His grin flashed out. “Miss Allbright, I’ve been counting the seconds. Shall we?”
They made up a four with Clare and Mr. Perkins. There was no opportunity for extended conversation as they moved through the figures of the cotillion, a circumstance for which Lizzie was grateful.
Perversely, she began to wish she might get the forthcoming confrontation with Steyne over and done—for confrontation there must certainly be. She ought to have agreed to dance with the marquis, loath though she was to pander to his arrogant assumption of authority over her.
He stood with Lady Chard, the squire, and the squire’s wife. Steyne seemed to converse with them civilly enough, but his face bore its usual expression of cold indifference. With a stab of apprehension, she realized that his attention never left her.
Which was nothing out of the ordinary; most of the crowd watched either Steyne or Lydgate and, by extension, her. Strangers were uncommon in Little Thurston. Even rarer were two single gentlemen. Two single, wealthy, aristocratic gentlemen as blindingly handsome as fallen angels, to boot.
Miss Worthington, dancing in the next set, threw Lizzie a look so loaded with venom, it was a wonder Lizzie didn’t collapse at once, foaming at the mouth. Wryly amused, Lizzie suffered the envious glances of other young ladies, knowing that she’d pay the price for being singled out in this manner. She resolved to keep Lydgate fully occupied and dancing with all the local belles in the hope that would soothe any ill feeling her good fortune might cause.
She would even introduce his lordship to Miss Worthington. Truly, Lizzie deserved a sainthood for such generosity.
Too occupied with her thoughts to engage in much conversation, Lizzie watched Lydgate’s laughing exchanges with Clare as the dance progressed. Mr. Perkins, on the other hand, threw the viscount a suspicious glare.
Mr. Perkins excused himself with a bow as soon as the dance ended and departed from the group with a wounded air that had no effect whatsoever upon its intended audience. Lizzie would have left Lydgate and Clare together also, since they appeared to like each other so well, but her escape was cut off.
The Marquis of Steyne materialized before her. Lizzie barely repressed a start of dismay. Plague the man! His power to disconcert her seemed almost supernatural.
He bowed. “Miss Allbright.”
He was like a cat—no, a panther—with a mouse.
Lizzie marshaled her defenses and curtsied deeply. “Good evening, Lord Steyne. I must present to you my friend, Miss Beauchamp.”
“Charmed,” said Clare as he bowed over her hand. She stared up at Steyne in her open, appraising way. “Lord Lydgate was just telling me of a picnic he has planned for tomorrow. Do you join us, my lord?”
One black eyebrow quirked up. “That depends on the business I must execute while I am here.”
Lydgate said to Clare, “Oh, he’ll come, never fear. Will you need to seek permission from your aunt?”
“Yes, of course,” Clare said. “Let me take you to Aunt Sadie and we’ll ask her.”
She slid her hand into the crook of Lydgate’s arm and led him away, oblivious of Lizzie’s predicament. On the one hand, Lizzie was dying to learn what Steyne meant by arriving unannounced in Little Thurston. On the other, she was afraid to be alone with him.
Steyne observed Lizzie with that disconcertingly penetrating stare of his. “You are flushed, Miss Allbright. Perhaps you’d care for a glass of wine.”
He held out his arm to her, but she pretended not to see it and moved ahead of him to the refreshment parlor. In any other circumstances, she’d never be so rude, but she couldn’t afford scruples when she fought such a formidable adversary. She feared that if she touched him, her emotions would overcome her. The last thing she wished to do was make a scene.
Steyne procured champagne for her and claret for himself. When he handed her the glass, she nearly dropped it in the effort to ensure their fingers didn’t brush.
How many casual touches had she suffered from men of her acquaintance and thought nothing of it? Now the slightest contact with Lord Steyne seemed likely to stir up all sorts of feelings she needed to keep at bay.
He raised his own glass to his lips and sipped. The faintest grimace sketched across his face. He set the glass down.
He probably allowed only the finest wines to touch those exquisitely sculpted lips. Everything about him spoke of a man who demanded the best and got it. Or no, he didn’t demand the best. He accepted it as a matter of course.
Lizzie decided to challenge him. “Is there something amiss with the claret, my lord?”
“Not at all,” he said, but he did not take another sip. “You interest me, Miss Allbright.”
“I … Indeed, sir? In what way?”
He bent his attention to his wineglass and traced its rim with the very tip of a gloved finger.
Those fingers, she thought, with an inward shiver. The things they had done to her that night …
In the intervening years, she’d often wondered whether her imagination painted Steyne more vividly handsome than he’d been in reality. Whether her youth and inexperience with men had multiplied his impact beyond logic or reason.
Now he was older, broader, and harder, more assured and more devastating than ever. He’d lost the glow of youth, but his potency had increased.
She cursed the ability of men to mature so handsomely, while females were considered to lose their bloom by age five-and-twenty. By her age, in fact.
His gaze lifted to hers, and the seconds ticked by as neither of them spoke. Was he remembering, as did she, the night they’d last met? How vivid was that memory for him? He’d undoubtedly had many, many lovers since then.
“Forgive me for staring,” he said. “I feel that I have met you before. Long ago.”
So it began. She swallowed hard, remembering she had a part to play. “I don’t think so, my lord. You’ll forgive me if I say that you are not someone I would be likely to forget.”
He tilted his head. “Have you always lived in Little Thurston?”
Drat the man! She hadn’t banked on him creeping up on the subject from behind like this. “A little less than eight years.”
“Eight years,” he repeated. “Do you know, I believe it was that long ago that I met this, ah, young lady. She looked so very like you. And
if I may make so bold, Miss Allbright, yours is not a face I’d be likely to forget.” He paused, then added softly, “Nor anything else about you.”
She flushed at the implication, wholly at a loss for how to respond.
He let the silence spool out between them until the musicians broke it, striking up for the next dance.
Almost laughing with relief, Lizzie set down her unsampled champagne on the table next to his claret. “I must go. My partner will wonder where I—”
“We must talk privately, Miss Allbright,” said Steyne. He spoke in an undertone with a swift look around. No one was within earshot at this moment.
She gave the best performance of affronted surprise she’d ever managed in her life. “My lord! You can have nothing to say to me that requires privacy.”
He regarded her in silence for several moments. She licked her lips, which were suddenly dry, and wished she’d drunk the champagne.
Drawing nearer, the marquis murmured, “Would you like me to say what I must in public? I assure you, it makes no odds to me where we have this discussion, but I thought you’d prefer not to create a scene.”
A footman passed close enough to hear their conversation. The footman departed again with a tray, and it took all Lizzie’s discipline not to fly at him with accusations of her own. His abandonment of her was something she would not easily forgive.
“I don’t understand you,” she said with the best semblance of calm she could manage. “You are insulting, my lord. Please leave me alone.”
Before she could retreat, he gripped her hand in a gentle but implacable hold. “If you won’t grant me a waltz, meet me in the garden at midnight, when everyone moves in to supper.”
Again, a flash flood of emotion crashed through her. That night, he’d held her hand as he joined her in bed. A hot, unwilling sensual awareness flowed through her body.
As if he sensed the reason for her disquiet, his eyes darkened with intent. He drew her back toward him, seeming to forget their surroundings altogether.
“Unhand me, sir,” she said through her teeth. “Or I will be the one to make the scene.”
“Midnight in the garden.” He raised her hand and brushed her knuckles with his lips. “Don’t forget.”
Before she had time to recover from the horrifyingly melting sensation this gesture caused, he released her. Perhaps three seconds passed, in which she stared up at him, bemused, the skin of her knuckles tingling beneath her gloves.
“Go now, or you’ll miss the set,” he said in a low, husky tone.
Lizzie came to herself with a start. What a silly chit she was, to be so befuddled by a simple kiss on the hand.
He doesn’t want you. He might want her breeding equipment or her fortune or her cooperation in some devious scheme, but he didn’t want her. No matter what loverlike gestures he might make, no matter how her blood heated when he was near, she must remember that.
She made herself turn and walk away from him with calm, regal grace while her heart beat a wild tattoo in her chest.
Chapter Four
Later that evening, Mr. Huntley’s deep voice rumbled behind her. “Our dance, I believe, Miss Allbright.”
That was all she needed! Lizzie took a moment to compose her features into an expression of happy acceptance before turning to Mr. Huntley.
The clock hands edged their way toward midnight. After this set, everyone would move into the dining room for supper. She was tempted to ask Mr. Huntley if they might sit out the dance, but the prospect of enduring one of Mr. Huntley’s endless monologues was worse than the prospect of waltzing with him.
Preoccupied by her conversation with Lord Steyne and debating with herself about whether to admit to her identity, Lizzie scarcely heard a word Mr. Huntley addressed to her.
“Miss Allbright? Lizzie?”
Her attention commanded, she noticed he seemed to be puffing slightly, as if he’d run a fast mile. Or was he annoyed about something? Lizzie tilted her head in mild inquiry.
“I say, Miss Allbright, I did not think you, of all people, would entertain the attentions of a man with Lord Steyne’s reputation,” said Huntley.
Had he observed their exchange in the refreshment parlor? “The attentions?” said Lizzie. “Why, whatever can you mean, sir?”
“The fellow cannot take his eyes from you,” Mr. Huntley fumed, his hand flicking in the direction of Lord Steyne. “He’s been propping up the wall staring at you for the past fifteen minutes.”
“Has he?” Lizzie fought a stern battle with herself to avoid looking in the direction Huntley indicated. “I cannot think why.”
“Perhaps I shall go over there and remind him of his manners,” said Huntley with a pugnacious set to his jaw.
Lizzie clutched his shoulder harder. “And leave me on the dance floor? Make a spectacle of all three of us? Pray, sir, I beg you will not.”
A low growl rumbled in Mr. Huntley’s throat. “I ought to draw his cork, the rake. Coming here and turning innocent girls’ heads.”
“If by ‘innocent girl’ you are referring to me, sir, then let me tell you, the Marquis of Steyne has not turned my head,” Lizzie snapped. “Please do not glare at him so. You will only create a stir.”
Huntley seemed to exert some effort to master himself. He regarded her for a moment, the hostility fading from his expression. “You are right. But you must promise me you will stay away from him, Lizzie. I know his reputation, and I would not put it past him to make you the object of his evil designs.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “You make him sound like the villain from a melodrama. I am sure he can be no danger to me.”
“That is because you are wholly untouched by vice,” said Huntley. “A young lady like you could never conceive of the depths to which a man like Lord Steyne might plunge.”
She rather wondered if she had a better idea than Huntley about Lord Steyne’s character, but she merely murmured some inanity and let her attention lapse again as Huntley expanded on the subject of her innocence and purity.
If only he knew.
She was acutely aware of the marquis throughout the dance. When their eyes met, as occasionally occurred, a pulse of excitement shot through her. She fought to pay attention to Huntley’s interminable discourse but soon the hot tangle of her worries and speculations swamped her. What would she do about Steyne?
She forced herself to pay attention to Mr. Huntley, who had leaned down as if to speak confidentially. He smelled distinctly of the scented pomade he used on his hair.
“We must count ourselves most fortunate,” he said, “for Mama has mustered all of her resources to be here tonight. Such evenings tax her strength greatly, you know.”
Lizzie murmured, “I trust Mrs. Huntley derives enjoyment from the evening, sir. I wish I could have persuaded Mr. Allbright to attend.”
“She could hardly stay away on such an occasion, much as she might disapprove,” said Mr. Huntley. “I have consulted her at length and taken her objections into account. But a man must make his own decision in such a, er, delicate matter, after all.”
“Indeed,” Lizzie agreed absently, wondering how quickly she might get away. If only she hadn’t filled the evening with dance partners. She needed to be alone, to think.
When the dance finally ended, she extricated her arm from Huntley’s possessive grasp. “Pray excuse me, sir. I must see to a few details before supper.”
When she’d made her excuses to her next dancing partner and ensured all was in train in the dining room, it wanted only a quarter hour until midnight. Lizzie hurried along to the ladies’ retiring room to stare at her reflection in the looking glass.
All the while, her mind was full of her earlier encounter with Steyne. She hated his assurance, his assumption she would fall in with whatever scheme he had in mind. If only she felt indifferent to him, it would be easier to give him what he wanted. But whenever she contemplated being with him, it made something deep inside her ache.
The
garden at midnight. That prospect seemed fraught with danger. Her reaction to Steyne’s touch tonight highlighted how susceptible she was to him.
She’d never expected to have a home and a family the way most young women did. She’d resigned herself to her strange in-between state long ago. Perhaps if she’d fallen in love with another man, she might have considered writing to the marquis to beg him for an annulment, though she doubted that would be possible after they’d consummated their union. Would he consider a divorce? The expense and scandal of such a proceeding would be powerful deterrents.
The truth was that since her wedding night, she’d never met a man who came close to touching her heart. It had not been necessary to attempt to cut her tie with the marquis, thereby endangering her freedom. By now, she’d expected him to have done the job for her, had her declared dead or procured an annulment despite what happened that fateful night.
Now that he was here, in Little Thurston, Steyne stirred such strong feelings inside her, she hardly knew herself. Good God, he’d been here less than a day, and he’d shattered her peace.
Refusing him a dance was all very well, but he was not a man who’d be deterred by polite discouragement. Not if he meant to reclaim her as his wife, as he had every right to do. And now he’d tried to blackmail her into meeting him alone in the dark.…
Before she admitted to her identity, she must be sure he didn’t intend to take her back to her father. If he did want her with him as his wife, wouldn’t he have exposed her pretense at Lady Chard’s?
She ought not to meet him if she wished to preserve the fiction that she didn’t remember who he was, or who she was, for that matter.
But if she didn’t, would he make trouble for her in Little Thurston? He did not seem to her to be a man who made idle threats. Her reputation in this village was nothing to him, after all.
In the corridor that led from the retiring room, she almost collided with Clare. Her friend took her hand and squeezed it. “There you are, Lizzie. I’ve been looking for you.”
The Wickedest Lord Alive Page 5