She was dimly aware that the musicians were tuning up to resume the dancing when Lady Arlsley said, ‘So good to see you again, Lord Dellamont. I believe that’s a waltz I hear? I’m sure Miss Cranmore would be delighted to dance it with you.’
Would he be delighted to dance with her? After Lady Arlsley’s leading comment, it would be awkward for him to refuse.
And he didn’t. Bowing, so she couldn’t really see his face to gauge his reaction, he held out his arm. ‘If you would do me the honour, Miss Cranmore?’
‘Of course, my lord.’ She placed her hand on his sleeve, a tingle running up her arm as he led her on to the floor.
As the music began and he placed one hand at her waist and took her hand with the other, the rush of pleasurable sensations coursing through her body once again momentarily paralysed all thought. They’d taken several turns around the floor before she recovered wit enough to look up at his face.
With a frisson of alarm, she noted the rigid jaw, the expressionless face, and the gaze that looked not at, but through her.
Her excitement vanished as swiftly as it had arisen. If he hadn’t wished to acknowledge her, why had he consented to be presented?
Maybe she was wrong to assume he’d danced with her unwillingly. Either way, she simply had to know for sure.
Gathering up her courage, she said, ‘It was a pleasant and unexpected surprise to see you here tonight, my lord. I know you are frequently out of London.’
‘It was a surprise to see you as well. More of a shock, actually.’
She couldn’t really tell anything from his tone. ‘A shock to me, too. I certainly hadn’t intended to be here.’
‘So you said earlier. I seem to remember you telling me something about your mother’s aspirations. How you yourself had no interest in attaining an “elevated status” and preferred mathematics to marriage?’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘You certainly took me in, didn’t you? Or was all that palaver just a ploy to intrigue me, knowing you were going to meet me again in London?’
She gasped with outrage. ‘You think...you think I deliberately misled you?’
‘You’re here, aren’t you? Swanning about at a society ball surrounded by company a good deal more elevated than can be found in an engineering office. With all of them knowing your goal is to trade your vast dowry for as high a title as it will buy.’
‘You think I intend to sell myself for a title?’ she asked, truly enraged now. ‘I’ll have you know I had absolutely no desire to be here in this so-called “elevated” company! And what about you?’ she asked, suddenly struck. ‘The only titled men who’ve sought introductions to me have been fortune hunters. Yet I seem to recall you pronouncing how “detestable” it would be to marry for wealth or advantage. Or were you trying to “intrigue” me, too, back in Bristol?’
She was furious—and much more hurt than she should be. She’d always known that meeting in Bristol was singular, that if he were to encounter her somewhere else, there was a good chance he’d cut her. It was because he’d induced her to hope for more from him that she was so disappointed now.
She felt a rising sense of outrage that he’d led her to talk about herself and what she found important, made her think he shared her views on industry and progress. When at heart, he’d just shown himself as cold, calculating and arrogantly dismissive as all the other aristocrats she’d ever encountered.
The fact that she’d been completely bamboozled by his charm cut her to the quick. Feeling suddenly unable to endure another moment of his traitorous hands touching her, she pulled away from him and stopped short, compelling him to halt also. ‘You will return me to my chaperon now.’
‘That would suit me perfectly,’ he said icily.
Ignoring the exclamations of annoyance and distress of the other couples who had to swerve to avoid them, he offered his arm. She could barely bring herself to place her hand on it, but did, holding her head high, willing the tears that threatened not to fall while he escorted her off the dance floor, more or less shoved her towards her chaperon, gave her a stiff bow, and stalked off.
‘What have you done? Everyone in the ballroom is staring at us!’ Lady Arlsley hissed.
The hurt and disappointment layered on top of the strain of the last few days was finally just too much. If she had to remain in this room one more minute, she would suffocate. ‘Let them look,’ she cried. ‘I... I must go to the ladies’ retiring room.’
Breaking away from her chaperon, she hurried towards the exit of the ballroom.
Only to halt as she reached the door. She might find solitude in the retiring room—or she might encounter a clutch of disdainful females who’d delight in ignoring her or offering more of the slyly insulting compliments she’d received so often these last two nights.
Worse, as soon as the dance ended, the room would probably fill with ladies eager to gossip about her sudden departure in the middle of the waltz.
She couldn’t endure that.
Suddenly her gaze caught on the brightness of a burning torch. A terrace ran outside the length of the ballroom, she realised, visible through a series of French doors. The torches burning at intervals along it indicated the hostess had had it lighted so that dancers might escape the heat of the ballroom and refresh themselves in the cool night air.
At the moment, it appeared deserted. Heedless of her lack of wrap or escort, Marcella strode through the nearest door and out on to the terrace.
With tears falling now, she sought out the dimmest corner. Wrapping her arms around herself, she gave in to silent sobs of misery and disappointment.
She’d really wanted to meet Dellamont again, wondering how he might react. Well, now she knew.
He might have looked and sounded like the hero out of a storybook in Bristol, but in the brilliant candlelight of a London ballroom, she’d discovered what he truly was—just as high in the instep, dismissive and condescending as all the rest of them. It was probably best that her silly illusions about the sort of man he was had been shattered.
She should have known better. She knew better now.
After this, like she had with the girls at Miss Axminster’s, she would be polite but distant. Play her part, ignore the provocations, smile, dance, endure the coldness and spite of the women, dismiss the entreaties of the supplicants. For a month. Then she’d hold her father to their bargain, go back where she belonged, and shake the dust of this world from her shoes for good.
‘My, my, what have we here? Did all the adulation in the ballroom become too much for you?’
Marcella whirled around—to find herself confronted by her least favourite of all the unfavoured gentlemen. Though Lord Hoddleston was elegantly turned out, there was something about him beyond the mocking undertone of his voice that made her wary.
He was probably thought handsome, although in the brighter light of the candelabra last night she’d noted a bleariness in his eyes and lines on his face that hinted a life of excess was beginning to catch up to him. Not wanting Lady Arlsley to infer he interested her, she’d not enquired any further about his background or circumstances than the short summation her chaperon had given. But Marcella figured his finances must be truly desperate for him to be pursuing the likes of her, when she’d been told his title dated back almost four hundred years.
‘I found the room...overwarm.’
‘By contrast, it’s rather chilly out here. And you without a wrap! Allow me to offer you...comfort.’
He stepped towards her. She sidestepped away. ‘I’m doing quite well on my own. I just needed a little air. I’ll return to ballroom presently. Please, go back in. I wouldn’t want to keep you.’
‘I might want to keep you,’ he murmured, leaning closer. ‘You’re a pretty little thing, which is a bonus beyond the tidy sum you’ll bring. You might as well take me, you know. You’re not going to get a better offer. Cert
ainly not from someone with a father as discriminating as Dellamont’s.’ He chuckled. ‘Abandoning your partner and flouncing off the floor in the middle of a dance? After that charming little scene, even those in dire need of your blunt will think twice about pursuing you.’
So he’d been watching after all. As if the prospect of being abandoned by the other fortune hunters would make her look more favourably on this one! ‘Kind of you to warn me, but unnecessary. And I must ask you to leave me in peace.’
‘And if I don’t want to?’ he asked, stepping close enough to crowd her against the balustrade as he took her hand.
‘It would create an even more shocking scene if I were to start screaming,’ she retorted, trying to tug her arm free.
Hoddleston laughed. ‘Scream if you like. I doubt anyone will hear you. Even if they should, by then, the damage will be done. Because I am going to kiss you.’
Panic beginning to well up, Marcella was calculating whether she should try gouging his leg with her sharp heel or kneeing him in his nether parts when a voice at her ear made her jump.
‘I believe the lady asked you to leave, Hoddleston.’
Dellamont’s voice. She was so relieved, for the moment, she forgave him for hurting and disappointing her.
‘Lady?’ Hoddleston echoed. ‘I see no ladies here. Just a jumped-up cit’s granddaughter who doesn’t know her place. An opinion you demonstrated you share when you dragged her off the dance floor. Why don’t you just take your leave, then—and leave her handsome dowry to me.’
Marcella gasped as Dellamont whipped out a hand to seize Hoddleston’s lapel and jerk him backwards, away from her. ‘Although I don’t see any other gentlemen present here, save myself, I’d advise you to take your leave before I’m forced to resort to the crude sort of persuasion your behaviour merits. I know you’d be distressed to have that nose bleed all over your oh-so-pristine cravat.’
For a moment, the two men stared at each other, Hoddleston’s face uncertain, as if calculating whether or not the Viscount would make good on his threat, Dellamont’s stony with resolve.
The Baron must have believed him, for he took another step backwards. ‘You threaten fisticuffs on the terrace outside a ball and still call yourself a gentleman? How...ill bred of you. I wouldn’t stoop to that—not for the likes of her. But though your elevated sense of honour might prompt you to intervene now, I’m confident of reaching my goal. The high and mighty future Earl of Comeryn has no intention of aligning himself with a female like this one. In the end, I doubt any other men of breeding will either. I need merely bide my time.’
Glancing over at Marcella, he said, ‘Because, in the end, you will have me.’ Turning from her to the Viscount, with a look full of loathing, he growled, ‘I won’t forget this, Dellamont.’
‘I assure you, neither will I. Are you in need of further encouragement to depart?’
‘I believe I am sufficiently encouraged—about everything.’ Making Marcella an elaborate bow, he said, ‘Goodbye—for the moment, Miss Cranmore.’
Refusing to answer him, she turned her face away, listening for the sound of his footsteps fading.
She looked back up to see Dellamont watching Hoddleston, his alert vigilance not relaxing until the Baron disappeared back into ballroom. Then he turned to her.
‘Are you all right, Miss Cranmore? He didn’t harm you?’
She shook her head, shaken and close to tears again now that the unpleasant interlude was over. ‘He threatened me with his attentions. Insulted me. Though in that regard, hardly more than most of the guests tonight.’
Since he’d been kind enough to get rid of Hoddleston, she didn’t add Like you did, too.
To her surprise, he said it instead. ‘As I did? Please, let me apologise. I had no right to be indignant with you for doing what every female must do—marry, and marry as well as she can. As you said in Bristol, a woman has little alternative. You’d already told me your mother had been pressing you to make a good match. It was just...’
‘I’d assured you I didn’t want to marry into the aristocracy, and yet there I was? The Factory Heiress!’ She spat out the term bitterly.
‘I can hardly complain. I assured you I’d never marry for money either, yet here I am.’
‘Did your family coerce you as well?’
Dellamont sighed. ‘My father. Having heard about the arrival of a fabulously wealthy heiress and with the estate in need of cash, the Earl decided it was my duty to win and marry her. I have cash in hand if the estate needs it, but far be it for a d’Aubignon to accept money made in trade!’
‘Although it is perfectly acceptable to marry it?’
‘It makes no sense, I agree. The thing is, the Earl never allows my mother to spend the Season in London, and she does so love it. He would only allow her to stay if I agreed to go about in society, supposedly to court the Factory Heiress. Of course, I had no intention of actually doing that, but hoped agreeing would buy my mother some time to enjoy the city before Comeryn figured it out, delivered me a lecture, and dragged Mother back to Montwell Glen. I had no idea the “Factory Heiress” would be you.’
‘When we met in Bristol, I had no idea it was going to be me, either,’ she said wryly. ‘I didn’t discover until I returned to London that Sir Thomas, my mother’s father, had made me his heir. Or that he’d accepted the baronetcy solely to help make my mother’s fantasy of having me marry into the aristocracy come true. Grandda told me then that he’d arranged—manoeuvred is more accurate—to have a well-born lady introduce me. I hated the idea, but both Mama and Grandda begged me to go along. When even my father added his urging to theirs...
‘Like you with your mother, I just couldn’t refuse. But Father did agree that if I found the experience truly awful, he’d intervene to get me out of it. I’m going to try to make it for a month, but on nights like tonight—’ she shuddered as she recalled the repellent confidence of Hoddleston, the cold contemptuous gazes of the people in the ballroom ‘—I’m not sure I can stand a whole month! I can’t wait to get back to that engineering office!’
Dellamont laughed. ‘I promised Mother I’d stick it out as long as I could, too. Or until my father realised he’d been hoodwinked and that I’d had no intention from the first of courting anyone. He lectures me frequently, but I suspect the rant I’ll be subjected to on that occasion will be the most blistering ever. But it will be worth it, to let Mama enjoy town for a few weeks.’
Marcella sighed. ‘The things we endure for family. But... I’m awfully glad to find I was mistaken about you tonight. That you really are the gentleman you appeared to be in Bristol.’
‘As I am glad to confirm that you are truly the unusual lady I met in an engineer’s office. But now, I’d better return you to the ballroom before you freeze.’
‘Not that it will make much difference. As Hoddleston obligingly pointed out, after the “charming scene” I created by fleeing the dance floor, no one else is likely to want to stand up with me tonight. Maybe I can induce Lady Arlsley to let me go home.’
Marcella shook her head. ‘I tried to tell her from the first that I was no more happy about the idea of going into society than she was at being saddled with presenting me. Of course, she didn’t believe me. How could any female not be eager to join her precious exclusive little circle? But we made an uneasy truce. If she would not condescend to me or deliberately expose me to insult, I would endeavour not to embarrass her. I’m afraid my behaviour tonight didn’t live up to that bargain.’
Dellamont had been walking her in, but at that, he halted. ‘What if we were to make a bargain?’
‘A bargain?’ she repeated, angling a glance up at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Neither of us want to be here, wasting our time idling around a society in which neither of us has any interest. What if we join forces? It would placate my father and allow my mother to enj
oy the maximum amount of time in London if the Earl hears I’m spending time with the Heiress. While your chaperon will be pleased that a gentleman of good reputation and family is paying attention to you. I enjoy your company and would like to know you better—as a friend. At the least, I can keep reprobates like Hoddleston away from you.’
‘Friends? To chat and dance together at the balls and routs I’m forced to attend? That would be wonderful!’ she cried, energised by a vision of replacing the miserable evenings she was expecting with the delight of his company. With the one man in London who truly knew who she was and found her unique and interesting.
‘Then, after a month or so, I can break off the relationship and go back where I belong. It will show Mama and Grandda that I made an effort—as you can show your father. We can then tell them we discovered we would not suit. It would be perfect!’
‘It might be better if you let me break it off, rather than have you look like a jilt. I’ll be thought a bounder, but no matter. I’m not interested in marrying soon anyway. I’m quite certain that once duty forces me to it, with the lure of a countess’s coronet beckoning eligible females and their mamas will forgive me the lapse.’
Marcella shook her head. ‘I’d not have you badly thought of. What do I care if society thinks me a jilt? Most already believe that, with my low birth, I possess no breeding. Once I make my escape, I devoutly hope never to encounter any of these people again, whereas they comprise the society you were born into, the one in which you will always move. Much better to let me break it off.’
‘We can argue about that later. But for now...do we have a bargain?’
‘For a month or so...we’ll make what would otherwise be an ordeal much more pleasant for us both?’
‘Exactly,’ he confirmed.
‘Then we have a bargain.’ She held out a hand—and felt a little shiver go through her as he shook it.
‘Back to the ballroom for you now. I’ll tell Lady Arlsley that you became faint on the dance floor and needed some time alone to revive yourself on the terrace. That I waited to escort you back in.’
The Railway Countess Page 6