His friend studied him. He appeared ready to say an additional piece on Harry’s succinct admission, but the carriage rocked to a halt in front of a pale yellow townhouse ablaze with candlelight, cutting into the other man’s words.
The driver pulled open the carriage door. Harry leapt out and started for the handful of steps leading into the luxurious Mayfair townhouse. His friend hastened to match his stride. They entered the palatial townhouse and made their way to the now empty receiving line. From his vantage at top of the ballroom, he scanned the dance floor and frowned.
“Are you per chance, looking for a particular young lady?” His friend asked with entirely too much humor. “Perhaps, a young lady who means absolutely nothing to you?”
“Stuff it,” Harry said as the host and hostess rushed forward to greet the two newly arrived gentlemen. He stalked off just as the couple reached him. Lady Huntly rocked back on her heels with an indignant huff. Edgerton, ever the charmer remained behind to speak to the couple with matching stark white hair and wizened cheeks.
Harry walked the perimeter of the ballroom. A servant stepped forward. The liveried footman bore a silver tray with bubbling French champagne. Harry rescued a glass and continued his search. Where in hell was she? He paused beside a Doric column and leaned against the white, towering structure, scanning the rows of couples performing the lively steps of a reel. He’d taken care to find out the precise details of the lady’s plans for the evening. Perhaps the information his servants had obtained from her servants had been erroneous.
The music came to a rousing conclusion, followed by a wave of applause and laughter from the crush of dancers upon the dance floor. He sipped his champagne as gentlemen escorted their respective partners back to their chaperones, methodically running his gaze through the crowd for the ringlet-wearing, cheeky, young miss.
“Lord Stanhope,” a sultry voice purred.
He froze as a figure sidled up to him. He glanced down disinterestedly as the Viscountess Kendrick brushed herself against him. The generous swells of her breasts crushed hard against his arm. She peered up at him through sooty black lashes.
Harry yawned. “Lady Kendrick.” Had he really once desired the over-blown, pinch-mouthed viscountess?
A catlike smile turned her thin lips up at the corners. Though, if she knew the exact direction of Harry’s thoughts, she’d be spitting and hissing like a wounded feline. “Are you bored, my lord?” She stroked a bold finger over the sleeve of his coat. “I can imagine all manner of delicious ways to drive away your tedium.”
Three days ago, he’d have jerked his chin toward the back of the ballroom and led the scandalous widow to one of the rooms in his host’s home. He’d have tugged up her skirts and made fast and hard love to her and then returned to the ball with a still-bored grin. Now, he shrugged free of her touch and continued to survey the milling guests.
“I missed you the other night, my lord.”
“Did you?” he murmured.
“Have you heard a word I’ve said?” she snapped, the waspish bite to her question at odds with the husky, sultry tone she adopted in most of her exchanges.
“No,” he said. He beat a quick bow. “If you’ll—” The air exploded from his lungs on a rush. The viscountess forgotten, he took a step forward. Then another. And froze.
An Athena with hair dipped in pure gold stood at the edge of the crowded dance floor. She tapped a hand against her thigh as if in time to the one-two-three beat of the orchestra’s tune.
Close your mouth. Breathe. Do something. Do anything.
The glorious beauty, somehow familiar, and yet not, brushed back a long wisp of honey-blonde hair, away from her cheek. Glorious tresses hung in loose waves about her cream-white shoulders. Athena stiffened. She angled her head as if aware of his scrutiny. Or mayhap she registered the interest of every, single gentleman with red blood coursing through his veins, fixed on the perfection of her body, bathed in the soft candlelight.
Then their gazes caught and held.
Harry jerked, as if Gentleman Jackson had delivered a swift, well-placed jab to his midsection.
The pale blue irises of her fathomless eyes, danced with fury.
Anne.
~*~
If Anne was perhaps as good with words as Aldora, she’d have something far more potent, more powerful than spitting mad. But blast and hell…she was spitting mad. She yanked her attention away from Harry.
The blighter.
First, there was the whole business at his clubs, the Forbidden Pleasures two nights past. It had taken her the better part of the afternoon following her trip to Gunter’s with the Duke of Crawford to squint her way through the page about just how Lord Harry had spent his evening after he’d left the recital. Then, if that wasn’t enough to boil a lady’s blood, he’d not come ‘round for the whole of a day. She tossed her loose waves. Waves not ringlets. As he’d suggested.
The bounder.
And the only reason she cared about his absence was the whole business of his lessons on seduction. A lesson each day, he’d pledged. Well, now he owed her two lessons for this nearly completed day.
Only… she looked back to the spot he’d been a moment ago, now vacant. He was assuredly with that scandalous Viscountess Kendricks. The very same woman whose assignation Anne had interrupted five days ago.
She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. She gasped and slapped her hand to the injured area.
“Is there a problem, my lady?”
At the dry, far-too amused baritone she bit down hard on the same poor piece of wounded flash. She gasped, again. “Blast, don’t you know to not sneak up on a lady?” She despised the manner in which her heart sped up at Harry’s sudden appearance.
He’d not followed his viscountess. Instead, he’d come to Anne. Why should that cause this fluttery warmth to unfurl inside her belly, she did not know. Anne continued to study the couples as they performed the delicate steps of a quadrille. “And there is no problem,” she said as an afterthought to his earlier question. There are several problems, you rogue. Your absence, your interest in the viscountess, your promise to school me in the art of seduction, your—
“You’re frowning,” Harry pointed out, a smile in his words.
“Am I?” Which meant he studied her, at least enough to notice whether she frowned or smiled.
“You are. As is your mother. In fact, she has a rather nasty glower trained on the both of us.”
“With good reason,” Anne muttered under her breath. “You’re an unrepentant rogue.”
He grinned as though she’d handed him the finest compliment. Which she hadn’t. She’d intended her words to sting an apparent conscienceless gentleman. “Shall I wave to her?”
Anne stole a glance at her mother, who stood conversing with the Marchioness of Townsend. “You’ll do no such thing.” Though there was some merit to Harry’s observation about Mother. The truth of the matter was that the countess had been furious since Anne had appeared in the foyer with her golden ringlets gone and her loose tresses partially pinned up, the other locks draped about her back and shoulders. The black look in her mother’s eyes suggested she knew very well who to blame for the scandalous arrangement.
And it hadn’t been her maid, Mary.
In fact, if they’d not already been extremely late to Lady Huntly’s’ soiree, Anne suspected her mother would have ordered her above stairs and stood over Mary until each strand of hair was restored to a proper ringlet.
She fingered one of the flowing locks. This is how you should wear your hair, Anne. Not in tight ringlets, but beautiful and free, just as you are. They should caress your shoulders and breasts…
Her mouth screwed up. Yet, for all his opinion of her silly ringlets, he’d not made a mention of her hair. Not that she cared about Harry’s opinion of her ringlets or lack thereof. After all, her intention was to secure the Duke of Crawford’s hand. She merely wanted to know whether she’d affected the appropriat
e look.
Liar.
Harry leaned ever closer and whispered into her ear. “What has so captivated you, sweet, that—?”
“Do not call me sweet. Especially not here.”
All traces of his relaxed humor fled. “You won’t even deign to look at me?”
She clasped her hands primly in front of her and stole a peek at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m merely trying to better study…” He quirked a golden eyebrow. “The dancers,” she finished lamely. The set concluded.
Lord Forde, a pleasantly handsome, young viscount rumored to be in the market for a wife came forward to claim his set. A waltz.
“Forde?” Harry drawled, the single word a lazy whisper close to her ear.
“Lord Forde is an entirely congenial, honorable,” his eyes narrowed at her deliberate emphasis, “gentleman who would make a—”
The tall, lean gentleman in a sapphire coat drew to a stop before them.
“Get the hell out, Forde,” Harry snapped, not so much as sparing a look for the viscount.
The other gentleman opened and closed his mouth like a fish plucked from a pond. He tugged at his lapels and spun on his heel. “Well,” he mumbled.
Anne closed her eyes. “You cannot go cursing in the middle of the ballroom and running off my dance partners.”
“The hell I can’t,” he muttered.
The orchestra struck up the beginning chords of a waltz. Harry held out his arm.
She stared at the corded muscles that tightened the black fabric of his coat and blinked rapidly. “What are you doing?”
“Claiming your next set. You don’t have a partner.”
Anne pointed her gaze to the ceiling. “Because you ran him off, my lord.” Goodness, the unmitigated gall of him. He’d avoided her for several days, brazenly seduced the viscountess in the midst of Lady Huntly’s’ ball, ran off Lord Forde, a perfectly respectable partner, and now demanded her waltz.
“Anne?”
“Yes?”
“Take my arm,” he commanded through gritted teeth.
“Charming,” she muttered and placed her fingertips along his coat sleeve.
“What was that?” he asked as they reached the dance floor. He guided her hand to his shoulder and placed his long, powerful fingers at her waist.
Her skin burned at his touch upon her person. Her mouth went dry. “I merely was wondering that you’d ever be considered charming. Boorish. Rude. Pompous.”
His gleaming white teeth flashed in a smile. The orchestra plucked the beginning strands of the waltz and Harry guided her through the ballroom in long, sweeping circles.
She directed her gaze to the folds of his cravat, determined to not let him bait her. Something which he seemed remarkably proficient in doing in the year they’d known one another. He applied a gentle pressure to her waist, forcing her stare upward.
“You seem more surly than usual, Anne.”
“I’m not pleased with you, Harry,” she said between gritted teeth.
“I gathered as much,” he said dryly.
Suddenly, his high-handedness and worse, his singular lack of interest or notice boiled like a fresh brewed pot of tea. “You did not come ‘round.” She curled her toes into the soles of her slipper at the revealing admission. And promptly stumbled.
Harry easily caught her. He righted her in his arms. “It’s been a day.” A gentle admonition underscored his response.
Pain slapped at her heart. Fool. Fool. Fool. Why should I care about his singular lack of notice when he should be so indifferent toward me? But blast and double blast…she did care. And she hated that she cared. She dipped her gaze to his cravat. “There are my lessons,” she said. “You pledged to help me—”
He nudged her chin up. “And I am—”
“Each day.”
He shook his head ruefully. “Did I truly say every day?”
Anne nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes. I’m certain of it.” Though in actuality, she couldn’t remember whether they’d settled on a specific number of visits or lessons. She pinched his shoulder. “You owe me a lesson.” She dropped her voice to a hushed whisper. “On seduction, Harry.”
Chapter 10
You owe me a lesson on seduction, Harry…
Harry swallowed a groan as her huskily whispered words conjured all manner of delicious images that involved Anne Adamson spread out in all her naked glory in his bed, atop satin sheets, with her golden hair a silken waterfall about them. He strove for the indifferent, affable grin he’d affected through the years.
Anne frowned. “Why are you grimacing?”
Apparently, he failed in his attempt.
She pinched his arm again. “You didn’t grimace with your viscountess,” she said, voice as tart as if she’d sucked on a slice of lemon peel.
“My—?”
“You know,” she said on a furious whisper. “The lovely widow you’re too busy carrying on with to honor your obligations to me. The one with the dampened gown. And your glasses of champagne.”
So, Anne had noticed his exchange with the young widow? His lips twitched. “I—er, gathered which particular…uh viscountess you spoke of.” The same woman he’d left furious at the edge of the ballroom, all to seek out Anne. He’d never been filled with this desperate hungering for the viscountess. “And how was your visit with Crawford?” he asked, turning the questions back on her.
She blinked. “Crawford?”
He angled her body closer to his and dipped his head down. “As in the Duke of Crawford, your future bridegroom.”
“Oh, do hush.” She pinched him again. “You’ll be overhead by someone if you’re not careful.” A beatific smile wreathed her cheeks. “You were correct.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m correct on any number of scores. Which matter do you refer to?”
Anne laughed. “Oh, you’re insufferable. I referred to your lesson on song.”
She may as well have drawn back her leg and kicked him square in the gut. She’d sung to the duke. Her bow-shaped, red lips had parted in song for the damned, pompous prig, Crawford. An image wrapped its tentacle-like hold about his mind. Anne’s lovely mouth open as she sang to a captive audience in the Duke of Crawford. The other man’s eyes trained on her mouth and lower… Harry wanted to hunt him down and shred him with his bare hands for knowing whether Anne possessed a light, airy lyrical tone when singing or the sultry, husky timbre that men waged wars over, when Harry himself did not.
He fixed his gaze on the top of her lush, golden-blonde curls, only to recall every blasted word he’d uttered about her luxuriant tresses being arranged exactly as they hung about her shoulders and this moment. And hating he’d ever dared such a seductive coiffure that now earned the attention of every living, breathing man in the room—from footmen to gentlemen.
“Is something wrong with my hair?” Anne continued. She touched the side of her head searching for wayward strands. “I’d thought, that is, you’d indicated…” her words trailed off on a sigh. “I thought you might like it.” She gave him a small smile. “No more of my silly ringlets.”
Had she been any other woman, he’d have believed her grasping for pretty compliments. With her matter-of-factness about everything from marriage and security to those neat little rows of ribbons she stacked, she continued to defy every idea he’d carried of her.
“There is nothing silly about you,” he said quietly.
Anne snorted. “Now, you’ve gone all serious on me. Is this part of your next lesson?”
For the closeness between them these past four days, she still believed his every thought, his every action driven by the damned scheme to bring her duke up to scratch. He’d embraced the image of rogue, worn the societal label with a deal of pride, for it sent a clear message to all— Harry, the Earl of Stanhope did not possess a heart that could be broken. He’d embraced the image.
Until now.
She waggled an eyebrow, unaware of his inner strife.
“Smile
with your eyes,” he said, when it became clear she saw in him nothing more than a means to a duke. “And your lips as one. A sultry, sweet smile, Anne. A smile that convinces a man he’s the only one in the room. And eyes that beg to know all the forbidden things a lady has no right knowing.”
More Than a Duke (Heart of a Duke Book 2) Page 11