“Goodness. What could he be saying to make Father look so cross?” Mia asked.
“Whatever it is, Father deserves it.”
Before she could ask her brother to explain his cryptic comment, the marquess raised his glass and fixed it on her.
Cian swore. “What bloody cheek.” He edged his body in front of her.
Mia took her brother’s arm. “I do not require your protection, Cian.”
He ignored her and inched even closer. “Damnation,” he hissed. “He’s coming this way. Don’t speak to him, Mia. Let me handle this.”
Aunts, cousins, and prospective suitors vanished into the nearby furniture like quail into tall grass as the Marquess of Exley came toward them, moving with the languid grace of a predator on the prowl. He was no more than medium height, his body slim, but sleekly muscled. His austere black-and-white clothing looked as if it had been stitched to his graceful frame. His coat tapered from broad shoulders to narrow, compact hips and well-developed thighs and calves—the legs of an active man. By the time he reached their side of the room, only Mia and Cian remained to greet him.
Mia wrenched her gaze away from his snug black breeches and looked up into eyes that were a startling pale blue—an unusual color made even more striking by the thick, dark lashes that fringed his lids. He smiled slightly at her obvious scrutiny and turned his unnerving eyes on her brother. “Perhaps you would introduce us, Abermarle?” His voice was low, velvety, and precise—as attractive as his person.
Cian stood mute, his hands fisted at his sides. The marquess scrutinized the younger man the same way he might study a spot on his cravat. The longer his eyes lingered, the more Cian’s face mottled.
Mia itched to cuff her brother. What was wrong with him?
Instead, she stepped around him and held out her hand, hoping to interrupt the hostile tableau vivant before Cian attacked the other man. “I am Euphemia Marlington.”
The marquess bowed low over her proffered hand. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady Euphemia. I am Exley.” His lips, which looked as hard and cold as stone, left a burning imprint on the cool satin of her glove.
Mia dropped into her lowest curtsy, the one she’d reserved for the sultan. When she rose, it was to find his icy eyes glinting with approval.
His lips flexed into something that almost passed for a smile. “Are you pleased to be back in the bosom of your family, my lady?” It was an innocuous question, but she sensed the irony behind it.
Mia glanced at her father; the duke was watching her with eyes every bit as stony as his bosom. Did every person in the room—every person in London—know how much her return had mortified her father?
If they did, there was no point in letting them all know how much it hurt her.
She beamed up at the marquess. “Very much so, my lord. I am especially thrilled to be reunited with my little brother.” They both turned to Cian. Her brother was glaring at the marquess as if he were a dangerous and unpredictable reptile.
Mia’s smile began to falter and she grasped at the first thought that came to mind. “My brother tells me your presence here tonight is something of a rarity, Lord Exley.”
His dark brows arched, as if he was surprised to hear Cian could actually speak. “I do not care for this type of social occasion in general, but your father convinced me I would miss tonight at my peril.”
In case she might misunderstand his meaning—that her father was conducting a public auction with Mia on the block—Exley began a deliberate examination of her person, the same way he might inspect bloodstock at Tattersall’s. His eyes licked over her like blue fire, burning her skin through her clothing, scorching her from head to toe and leaving no part of her body unscathed. He dwelt longest on her chest, which was rising and falling as if she’d just run a footrace. His expression shifted subtly from cruel and calculating to . . . pleased, but still calculating.
The brazen appraisal was enough to bring Cian out of his trance, and he stepped toward the marquess. “Look here, Exley, just what the devil—”
“Dinner is served!” the duke’s butler proclaimed in a stentorian voice.
Exley extended his arm. “May I claim the honor of escorting you to dinner, Lady Euphemia?”
Mia bowed her head and laid her hand on the cool, smooth fabric of his sleeve. She could not have resisted the quiet note of command in his voice even if she’d wanted to—and she did not want to.
Chapter Three
They made the short journey from the drawing room to the dining room in silence. Exley was no more than average height, but even so, Mia’s head barely reached his shoulder and he had to fit his longer stride to hers. They paused in the double doorway, staring along with several other couples at the magnificent sight before them.
The panels between three rooms had been opened to create a massive dining room. Gargantuan chandeliers lighted the vast expanse, each fixture blazing with enough candles to illuminate half of London for a week. Although the duke was conservative, tonight he’d set aside his personal preferences and embraced the newest dining fashion, service à la russe. To that end, a table draped in acres of white linen held forty covers, each comprised of dozens of pieces of silverware, china, and crystal along with numerous personal cruets and condiments.
The glittering exhibition was hard to look at directly and the guests—jaded and inured to opulence as they were—approached the display with hushed reverence.
The marquess led her to a chair near the head of the table. “You are here, my lady.” He glanced at the placard beside her and his lips twitched. “Ah, what a surprise,” he said in a tone the antithesis of that emotion. “I have the excellent fortune to be seated beside you.”
Was it the appalling reception he’d received from her family and guests that made him so contemptuous or was he always that way? Mia mentally shrugged. Contempt was far more appealing than the insincere fawning of the other men pursuing her hand and money. In fact, Exley was the first of her father’s suitors she’d not taken in immediate disgust; quite the opposite. The man was almost shockingly handsome.
The duke had paraded eligible men before her for months; why was she only meeting the marquess now? She nibbled her lower lip. Perhaps she’d misread matters and he wasn’t a potential suitor at all. But why would he be seated beside her if he wasn’t? Maybe he was—
“Good evening, Mia.”
Mia winced at the loathsome voice and forced a smile onto her face before turning to greet its owner. “Good evening, Mr. Chambers.”
The Honorable Horace Chambers—the Duke of Carlisle’s current favorite for son-in-law—chuckled, causing his chins to jiggle. “Oh come now, we are great friends, Mia. You must call me Horry.”
Mia made a noncommittal noise and smiled.
He beamed, his eyes moving over her skin like the sticky feet of a bluebottle fly. “You look ravishing, my dear.” The sheen of sweat on Chambers’s upper lip made it hard not to snatch her hand away when he placed his damp, spatulate fingers on her wrist. Chambers was perhaps a decade older than Mia but his heavy body and florid countenance made him appear older than her father. His avuncular manner was belied by his eyes, which held a look she had last seen in the sultan’s when she’d been a very young girl.
Mia reached for her linen napkin, using the movement to free her arm from his soggy grasp. Chambers’s protuberant orbs slid past her and landed on the marquess. His eyes narrowed and he grunted, as though he’d encountered something both unexpected and unpleasant.
When Mia turned to gauge the marquess’s response, she saw the woman on his left had pushed her chair so far away she was in danger of sitting in her neighbor’s lap. Heat crept up her neck at the woman’s outrageous behavior. What the devil is wrong with these people?
“Do you come to London often, my lord?” Mia asked, hoping to distract the marquess from both Chambers’s rude, unblinking stare and the woman’s terrified retreat.
Exley took the roll of linen from t
he top plate on the tower of china, his movements unhurried and graceful. “My country seat is in Hampshire but I spend most of my time in Town.”
Mia’s brain scrambled to recall Hampshire’s location on the map. Was it near the water? Was it in the south? She could hardly ask the man if there were any convenient ports where she might secure passage to Oran and escape.
Instead she said, “You prefer town living yet you shun society entertainments? Tell me, my lord, what is it you do enjoy?”
His gaze locked on her. “I am enjoying myself right now.”
The inflection in his cool voice was so slight Mia thought she might have imagined it. Was the beautiful block of ice flirting with her? If so, he was very subtle about it. He behaved nothing like her other suitors, who’d gone after her generous dowry like a pack of baying, slavering hounds hunting a fox. Was the man a potential suitor, or not? She had no time to employ the usual delicacy.
“And your wife, does she join you in London, my lord?”
“My wife died several years ago.”
Mia was disgusted by the way her heart capered at the news. What kind of beast was she? What if the man had loved his wife and was still brokenhearted? She searched his face for signs of emotion and found nothing. But at least she now knew he was a widower seeking a wife. Did he want Mia for her dowry or an heir or both?
“Do you have children, my lord?”
“I have three daughters.” He spoke abruptly, as if female offspring were hardly worth mentioning.
“How old are your daughters, my lord?”
“My eldest is seventeen and the other two are still in the schoolroom.” He turned to examine the individual menu beside his saltcellar, apparently more interested in the meal than his daughters—or her conversation.
Mia didn’t mind. In fact, she was glad for a brief reprieve from his uncomfortable gaze. The man burned with an intensity that was both exciting and exhausting. He was also so perfect she itched to stroke his smooth, angular jaw and feel the tickle of his black, spiky eyelashes. And that mouth . . .
Her skin prickled with awareness and she looked up to meet her father’s eyes.
The duke’s hard green gaze flickered between Exley and Chambers before returning to Mia. The message was clear. He was done bringing her suitors, like a cat offering up dead mice. Mia would either make her choice from among these men, or he would make it for her.
She had known for months this day would come and she’d not spent her time idly. One by one she’d ferreted out information about the parade of impoverished peers who sought her hand. Not an easy task when she was both short of money and connections.
Mia wasn’t overly fussy when it came to choosing a husband but she’d have to bed the man—at least until she escaped. As such, she preferred not to contract the pox from the impoverished but genial Lord Herringford, or nurse bruises and broken bones from Horace Chambers, who enjoyed beating his lovers.
The most recent suitor she’d investigated was Viscount Maugham. Unfortunately, the young peer’s country estate was too far inland to be suitable for Mia’s escape plans. On the positive side, the viscount was so effeminate Mia doubted he was capable of bedding her, an assumption that made Maugham her favorite candidate.
Until tonight.
Mia studied the marquess’s austere profile from beneath lowered lashes. Bedding such a beautiful man did not look like it would be a chore, but what lurked below his attractive surface? If she judged him solely by the reception he’d received tonight, his past must be horrible indeed. But people treated her much the same way and she had done nothing to merit such behavior. As far as the ton was concerned, being different was enough reason to be an outcast.
Mia gave his handsome profile a thorough inspection, as if his secrets would reveal themselves if she examined him closely enough.
Exley chose that moment to look at her. His cold eyes blazed at her obvious scrutiny and his lips twisted.
Mia bristled. How dare he look down his elegant nose at me in such a manner? And just when I’d begun to feel sorry for him. She returned his scathing stare with interest, giving her napkin a savage snap before laying it across her lap. She’d allowed his pretty face to soften her judgment. He was just another odious fortune hunter who viewed her as low-hanging fruit. No doubt he expected her to tremble with gratitude at the chance to marry a marquess, even one who was some sort of vile social outcast.
Mia helped herself to oysters on the half shell from a hovering footman. If the marquess wanted her, or her money, he would have to earn it, just like the others. Because she had run out of time to investigate him with more subtle methods, he would have to endure a more direct, and brutal, approach.
“Tell me, my lord, is your eldest daughter out and enjoying the Season?”
His lips thinned at the resurgence of the vexatious subject of daughters. “No. She is in Hampshire with her sisters.”
So, he was one of those horrid men who believed women and children should be left in the country while he cavorted in London? In other words, he was exactly the kind of man Mia was looking for.
He was also the kind of man who—inexplicably—brought out her devilish, teasing side.
“Your children live alone in the country while you entertain yourself in London?”
The marquess snorted, a sound that was dangerously close to a laugh. “They are not being suckled by wolves, Lady Euphemia. My sister lives with them.”
“How convenient for you, Lord Exley.”
He lifted one elegant shoulder. “Many people would say I render my children a service with my absence.”
“And your wife, did you render her a similar service?” Mia bit down on her lower lip so hard the tangy, metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. What was she doing? She had begun this conversation to spare him from rudeness, not inflict more. Instead she’d lost sight of the point of her questions and had allowed his cool dismissal of his daughters to goad her into foolishness—and cruelty.
Twin slashes of color appeared high on his cheekbones and his eyes bored into her. “Unfortunately, the only person who could tell you what services I render in my capacity of husband is no longer available.” His eyes dropped to her décolletage. “Perhaps that will soon change.”
Mia’s face heated. Was she actually blushing? The notion was so diverting she almost missed his next words.
He turned his entire body toward her and his smile made the hairs on the back of Mia’s neck stand up. “But my life is such a tedious, well-trammeled subject, my lady. I would rather speak of you.”
“Oh?” Her mouth insisted on uttering the encouraging syllable in spite of the warning her brain was shrieking.
“Yes, I understand your skill on the dance floor is . . . entrancing.” He watched her like a little boy who had just kicked over an anthill and was eager to witness the results. “Stories of your prowess are what lured me here tonight.” His voice was almost caressing as he set the hook deeper.
Mia dropped her eyes, suddenly struggling to catch her breath. How dare he?
She stared at the table without seeing her plate. Her chest rose and fell like a cornered rabbit’s as the horrid memory crawled from its hiding place and filled her mind. He was referring to Lord and Lady Charring’s ball, the first society event she’d attended. It had been an intimate affair with only three hundred or so of the ton’s finest in attendance.
Rebecca had given careful thought to Mia’s first dance partner, an older man who was one of the duke’s cronies. A few minutes into the dance—a Scottish reel—the man’s face had turned an alarming shade of red. Concerned for his health, Mia suggested they rest. The moment they stepped off the dance floor, the duke had descended like the winged hangman of death. He’d clutched her arm hard enough to leave bruises and hustled her from the ballroom under the eyes of half the ton.
Mia had been stunned. What had she done? She loved dancing and it was one of the few things she had always excelled at. Even when Babba Hassan had
no longer wanted her in his bed, he’d still summoned her to dance for him.
Her father’s ice-cold rage that night had been unlike anything she’d ever witnessed. Mia shuddered at the memory. It had also been the turning point for her, the moment she’d decided she could not live in this country.
Mia looked up at the man who’d just rubbed her nose in the humiliating memory. He stared back, his face unreadable. It occurred to her that perhaps she shouldn’t have probed into his past quite so crudely. Mia crushed the unwelcome notion like an annoying insect.
Rather than stab Exley with her fork—her preferred response—she gave him a silky smile. “It is a shame you were not there, my lord, perhaps I could have taught you something.”
His pupils flared and he leaned toward her. “Perhaps you can teach me something tonight. Do you have any dances remaining—maybe a reel?”
Hateful, odious wretch.
“If entertainment is what you seek, you shall have it, my lord. I will reserve no less than the opening set for you.” She punctuated her words by turning her back on him.
Chapter Four
Adam stared at her stiff shoulders and rigid back and grimaced. She’d baited him and he had reacted without thinking, his response brutal and unsporting—something he never did.
She laughed at something Horace Chambers said and the older man grinned as though his horse had just won the Gold Cup at Ascot. The old roué had watched Carlisle’s daughter with the eyes of a jealous lover from the moment they’d all sat down at the dinner table. The instant she turned away from Adam, Chambers had descended on her like a boar in rut.
The older man was a repellant deviant with an evil reputation, but was Adam any better? He’d behaved toward Euphemia Marlington like the cruel beast he was reputed to be. He was sitting at this table, a party to this farce. No, Adam wasn’t any different from Chambers or any of the other degenerate horrors Carlisle had assembled.
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