“It isn’t necessary to see a man to judge his worth. Indeed, sometimes assumptions based on physical appearances can unduly influence one. I assume he is unexceptional?”
“Ah, yes. Quite unexceptional.”
Hart nodded, scanning the gathered guests quickly. “You must point him out to me. The elderly woman in the burgundy dress, she is the Dowager Duchess?”
“Yes.”
“If you’d be so kind as to introduce me?”
Richard, who’d just been reaching for a cake on the silver tray a footman was presenting him, quickly withdrew his hand. “Of course.”
Richard led Hart through the throng of irritable- and weary-looking travelers. They stood in little queues engaged in desultory conversation, sipping lemonade and nibbling on toast and cakes, one and all impatient to be appointed their rooms so that they could cleanse themselves and rest before the evening festivities.
The stout old fellow with the grizzled muttonchops and the rigid bearing must be the ex-major. The tall, emaciated-looking gentleman with a luxuriant shock of silver hair who was flanked by two equally thin young men had to be Baron Coffey.
A loud peremptory voice suddenly called out. The footman in front of them started, turning too quickly. The tray he was carrying collided with Hart’s elbow and the champagne flutes slipped across the smooth silver surface. Reflexively, Hart grabbed the tray with one hand and caught the unbalanced footman’s elbow with the other.
“Have a care, man,” he snapped at the flustered servant, steadying him. He brushed at the wine droplets dotting his sleeve and tensed. Someone was watching him. He looked up.
A woman in a dun-colored riding outfit on the far side of the room was regarding him. She was openly amused. Her face—a winsome arrangement of large, dark eyes; slender, straight nose; and full, soft lips—was alive with mirth. He could not tell the color of her hair, hidden as it was by a short black veil fluttering from the brim of the fashionable hat she wore at a jaunty angle. And he was too far away to be able to discern the color of those heavy-lidded eyes. He suddenly realized that if he was staring at her, she was doing the same to him.
Brazen creature. She did not even pretend that she was not looking. She met his gaze boldly. Apparently no pretty sense of modesty went along with that pretty face.
For a second more their gazes locked, and then she broke off her study of him and turned back to the young man at her side—one of the Baron’s heirs, by the reedy look of him. From the dust that powdered the black pleats hemming her sweeping skirts, it was clear that she had traveled as hard and long as any of the other guests. How, then, did she contrive to look so fresh?
The man beside her bent closer. She turned her head, listening attentively, and then she laughed. Her lips parted, her eyes crinkled at the corners. Hart watched, telling himself he did so indifferently. His sisters had been trained to laugh decorously; a musical, closed-mouthed trill. This woman’s mouth opened, revealing a glimpse of even white teeth, a dimple—
“Hart?”
Startled out of his preoccupation, Hart looked at Richard.
“Shall we?” Richard motioned toward the Dowager Duchess.
“Lead on,” Hart said, glancing back at the unknown woman.
She was watching him again, and when she saw that he was looking at her, she feigned a start of shock, as though she’d read his mind about her lack of decorum and it amused her. With what could only be called a playful toss of her head, she pursed her lips and silently mouthed a tch tch of reproach in his direction.
How dare she mock him? Without giving her the satisfaction of a response, Hart turned, following the direction Richard had taken through the crowd.
Richard was waiting for him beside the Dowager Duchess. She was a tiny, ancient woman; wizened, white haired, with deep-set, opaque eyes beneath tissue-thin lids. There were faint circles of rouge on her sallow cheeks and the age-narrowed line of her lips could not be hidden beneath a coat of pink salve.
Richard cleared his throat. “Your Grace, may I present Hart Moreland, Earl of Perth?”
“Perth, how pleasant of you to come,” the Dowager Duchess said in a raspy soprano. “We feel quite honored to have secured your presence. Apparently, from what my son tells me, few do.”
There was an edge of irony in the polite words and instantly Hart reassessed the Dowager Duchess. She might look like a superannuated porcelain doll, but there was intelligence here. She would make a worthy opponent—and a worthier advocate.
“The honor is all mine, madam.”
She allowed him to carry one heavily veined, beringed hand to his lips. “We have grown quite fond of your young sister, Perth.”
“I am pleased to hear it. I trust she has made herself pleasant?” he asked, confident of the answer.
“Very pleasant. But how could one fail to appreciate so agreeable a young lady?”
“Indeed. I am gratified.”
She was about to add another comment when a small commotion near the entry caught her attention.
“Fie!” Her thin lips pressed into a tighter line, smearing her lip salve. “The Countess Marchant, no doubt. Demanding immediate attention. I expect I’d best go do what I can about soothing her offended dignity. Gentlemen.” Both Hart and Richard snapped sharply forward at the waist as she left.
Hart straightened slowly, his thoughts on the Dowager Duchess’s veiled remark about his exclusivity. He had been careful, always circumspect, always proper. In the past five years he had lived his life so that not one aspect of his behavior would reflect poorly on his sisters—or their futures.
Richard fidgeted, craning his neck this way and that as he looked around and then leaning close. “Who is she?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The woman you were staring at.”
Hart tensed, his gaze following Richard’s to where the elegantly garbed woman appeared and disappeared among the ever-shifting, ever-increasing throng. She moved too swiftly, he thought.
Her pale hands sketched fleeting stories in the air, her head dipped and tilted—quick, bright movements—as she listened and replied to those about her. Yet, he allowed, there was nothing awkward in her haste. She was as graceful as a dancer. No, nothing so choreographed as a dance. Perhaps some agile forest creature. Some forest prey, he amended harshly, too feckless to realize its danger and thus happy to gambol about the forest.
It concerned him he had been so gauche as to have been caught staring. If even Richard had noted his interest, he must have been near goggle eyed.
“Well?” Richard prompted.
“I don’t know who she is,” he answered in a tight voice.
“You don’t?” Richard asked.
“No,” Hart clipped out. “I know it was mannerless of me to … watch her so intently”—he refused to say stare—“but I do not claim the acquaintance of every woman I chance to spend a few seconds regarding.”
Richard waved away his words. “No. No. It’s not because you were staring that I thought you knew her. She’s as pretty as a newborn filly. Lord, I’d stare at her myself if I weren’t so devoted to Fanny.”
Somehow, Hart thought, he must convince Fanny to break Richard of his bucolic cant.
“—It’s because she’s been asking after you ever since she arrived this morning.”
“What?”
Richard nodded vigorously. “It’s true. Heard her asking the Dowager Duchess myself. ‘Has Lord Perth arrived?’ she asked, clear as spring water. Fanny said she’d heard her ask another lady, too, and a gentleman.”
“Who is she?”
Richard did not trouble masking his exasperation. “I don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”
Hart frowned. “Well, since the lady is so eager to make my acquaintance, I mustn’t keep her waiting.”
“Too late, old boy.” Richard clapped him on the shoulder. “She’s just left. Ah, well, you’ll see her soon enough. She’s probably some nabob’s daughter or the wife of one of your
old calvary chappies.”
Wife. She didn’t look like a wife. For some reason that thought was even more disagreeable than the notion of having a woman he had never met asking about him.
“Might as well enjoy the mystery while it lasts,” Richard continued, blithely disregarding Hart’s scowl.
“I,” said Hart tightly, “do not like mysteries.”
Chapter 2
“She’s an American,” Richard said triumphantly, returning to Hart’s side after a short trip around the room.
The evening festivities had begun. Hart had come down from his guest room a quarter of an hour earlier, the thought of the unknown woman having driven him here earlier than he would have normally arrived.
He did not pretend to misunderstand Richard. “Well, that explains her demeanor,” he said.
“How so?”
Hart shrugged. “American women: undisciplined, impulsive, intractable.”
Richard’s homely mien took on a pensive, troubled expression. “I don’t think she has given any cause to support such an estimation—”
“What is her name?” Hart broke in. He’d had experience with American women. Richard, kind-hearted as he undoubtedly was, had not.
“I don’t know. The few people I know well enough to ask are as in the dark as we. Can’t ask a stranger about a stranger, now, can I? Would seem forward. If Annabelle’s to be a duchess I’d best start behaving properly.”
“What did you find out?”
“She was apparently added to the guest list at the last minute at the Dowager Duchess’s behest. It’s all the thing, you know. Adopting American gels and chaperoning them about society. Quite the rage.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Anyway, the thing is that none of the chappies I know have been presented to her yet. They’re all anticipating that privilege. Fetching little piece.”
“I see,” Hart said, forcing the American girl from his thoughts. “Is Fanny not coming down?”
Richard colored. “She can’t. This heir-producing thing has her most indisposed. Most. Poor little thing.”
Hart studied Richard carefully to see if he was attempting a jest at his sister’s expense. Fanny, though handsome and dear, was in no way “little.” She was tall and buxom and round. “I’m sure she’ll survive,” Hart said.
“Oh, doubtless, doubtless. Just wish she needn’t be so wretched doing so. Poor old Fan,” Richard answered miserably. “I say, here’s your mystery woman now.”
Hart looked up. A few feet away “his” woman paused at the threshold of the room.
Dark red. Her hair was deep, dark red. The color of an autumn deer’s coat, rich and vibrant and sleek. The sumptuous pine-green dress she wore acted as a foil for it. Her locks spilled over the soft velvet like rare strands of gleaming garnet laid out for display.
She turned and her gaze found his. They might as well have been alone. Leaf-green and gold, he thought, her eyes sparkled like a sun-dappled woodland pond. Shifting pale amber lights bedded between dark, mahogany-colored lashes; curling lashes, long lashes. So thick that from a distance they had made her eyes look dark.
She paused and lifted her chin above the glistening silk net shawl draped around her shoulders. It was a trifling movement, but it made the slender column of her throat look longer. It made a man want to measure its length with his hands.
“As the Dowager Duchess is acting as her chaperone, and she has yet to arrive,” Richard whispered, “I’m afraid we’ll simply have to wait before an introduction can be made.”
Hart would have thought he’d be adept at waiting by now. For years he had schooled himself in patience, never jumping the gun, always awaiting the most opportune moments to act. But now he didn’t want to wait for the Dowager Duchess. The woman was flirting with him, her gaze drifting deliberately over him, a languid perusal followed by a question in the form of a dark, arched brow.
“Damnation,” he muttered. “Someone must know the chit’s name.”
“True. But I’ve never seen her before. Acton and I hardly travel in the same set, you know. Maybe Beryl knows.”
“And where the deuce are Beryl and Annabelle?”
“Delayed,” Richard said. “Meant to tell you. Had a note waiting for me in the room. They’ll be arriving tomorrow.”
No Fanny, no Beryl, no Annabelle. He might as well go back upstairs himself and save himself the interminable evening of scrutiny and speculation his brief appearances in English society always provoked.
But then, he wouldn’t be able to solve the enigma of the American woman.
With that odd, liquid swiftness, she moved past him, walking toward the library. There she stopped, turning and looking him directly in the eye. She lifted a hand, brushing it forward along the edge of her shawl in a open invitation for him to join her. Alone.
She glanced about, a circumspect and rapid survey of the room. Satisfied that no one was watching, she pinned him with one more compelling glance and slipped into the darkened library, closing the door behind her.
Hart’s eyes narrowed. Occasionally women, challenged by their fool notion of him as some sort of cold-blooded eunuch, tested his purported impassiveness. He appreciated the irony. Right now, his body was reacting as aggressively as that of a buck in rut. He was amazed by the force of his longing. It had been years since the talons of sexual desire had pierced his control over his thoughts and body.
“Think I’ll go get a plate of something to take to Fan,” Richard was saying. His tone was innocent. “A custard or some toast and tea. You’ll excuse me?” He didn’t wait for an answer, leaving Hart studying the library door.
He lasted less than a minute before he went to her.
He told himself he was going to discover how she knew him. But it was more than that. There was something about her boldness that quickened his pulse. Some elemental attraction, an imbalance of humors or blood, that must be accountable for the sudden awakening of his benumbed body. If he found her eager for a tryst, maybe this time he would let down his guard and oblige.
After all, she was obviously an American adventuress. She could do no real harm to his reputation or, more important, his sisters’ expectations. A quick tumble—which she was highly unlikely to report—and back she went to New York, or Boston, or San Francisco, or wherever the hell she came from, and he would have assuaged this unaccustomed urgency in his loins.
He opened the door and, once inside, closed it behind him. He didn’t want any distractions. He was distracted enough.
She was standing beside the window. The gaslight from the wall sconces picked out sepia highlights in her hair, burnishing the satiny smooth curve of her cheek. She straightened as he approached pulling, her shawl closer about her as though cold. Her green-gold eyes held his.
“You know me?” he asked.
“Yes.” Definitely American. A husky, low-pitched voice. Her lips, plum-stained and plush, trembled. Was she trembling with eagerness—or was she afraid? Abruptly, he stopped, disappointed and suddenly weary. It was just another game. This was no true desire, no honest attraction. He was just a challenge she’d set herself.
“You want something from me.”
“Yes.”
“What?” He would make her say it.
She swallowed, took a deep breath. Her hands, clutched in the netting at her throat, looked white. “Your … cooperation.”
He closed his eyes. She sounded anxious, not passionate.
“Why?”
“Your reputation, I want—”
Well, there was honesty. “No,” he said in a low voice. “You do not want. You do not know the first thing about want.”
Her creamy complexion paled even further. Despair touched him with pity. She had not done anything a dozen other women in a half dozen past years hadn’t. It was not her fault she had aroused him where those others hadn’t.
“Leave,” he said softly. He didn’t want to hear her, didn’t want to see her trying to wrap herself aga
inst his legendary coldness with her pitiable shawl. “Leave now. Tell yourself it wasn’t worth the price. Tell yourself I was as coldblooded as a serpent. Tell yourself anything you like. Mark it all down to experience.”
“I don’t understand.”
She frowned. The scowl did not cause the faintest line to traverse her smooth forehead. Perfection.
“Just leave,” he said, his frustration growing in measure with each moment of unslaked desire. “Please.”
“I won’t go. Not yet. Not until—”
He was on her in a second, moving so swiftly and silently that she gasped. She raised her hands to ward him off and he took hold of her wrists, jerking her face within inches of his.
He cursed, revolted by his impulsive brutality. He’d never used physical force to dominate someone as weak as she. It sickened and angered him. And it made him angrier still that she didn’t seem to realize how trifling her strength was, how effortlessly he could snap one of the delicate wrists his hands encircled, could take what she’d so carelessly offered.
“Until what?” he asked in a purposely deadened voice. “Until you get a little thrill?”
“No!” she said, twisting. He couldn’t let her go. Not yet. This close, he could see a pale white scar high on a silk-textured cheek, feel each agitated breath fan his mouth. He stood, impaled by want, denying himself for no other reason than some misspent notion of honesty.
He’d thought—God help him—he’d thought she wanted him. For some damnable reason it hurt that she hadn’t.
“Until what, then?” he demanded, giving her a little shake.
Anger flashed in her eyes. She bared her teeth and with a feral little growl wrenched around, twisting free of his grasp. Her shawl caught in his signet ring and was jerked off her shoulders. In the sudden silence the shimmering net drifted down between them, the lost plumage of an arrow-struck bird. He stared at her.
A few inches above her low décolletage, beneath the jointure of arm and shoulder, a circular pucker of old scar tissue the size of a pence marked her pale skin.
He heard her voice, as if from a long distance. “Not until you have heard what I have to say—Duke.”
A Dangerous Man Page 2