by Gaelen Foley
“Come, Aunt, our coach is waiting!” Felicity said impatiently, peering in again after a moment.
“That girl really needs to relax,” Lord Roland remarked as he sauntered toward Trinny with a lazy smile.
“Pardon, that girl is my friend,” she chided playfully, though her heart beat faster as he neared.
“It’s nevertheless true.” He shrugged, calm, cool, and unflappable, with naught but a telltale sparkle of roguery in his eyes.
Trinny gazed into them, the mystery of their color solved now. Dark green with shades of gray and deep blue…like cloud shadows moving over wooded hills on a warm summer day.
“So,” he drawled, looking her over discreetly, “this is what you look like in the light. Not bad. I hardly recognize you without your nose all swollen.”
“How now!” she retorted, yet she was grateful. His irreverent jest had instantly dispelled the awkwardness between them.
“Well, it seems we meet again,” he added. “How’s the ball?”
She shrugged, amused. “Same as every week.”
“You’re not leaving, too, are you?” he asked, glancing at the door through which her friend had gone.
“No.”
“Good. I was hoping I’d run into you,” he said.
“Likewise. I’ve been quite eager to talk to you,” she said with a grin. “I have news.”
“Hmm, so I hear. Let me escort you back to the ballroom if you’re headed that way. You must tell me all.” He offered her his arm as they drifted back toward the staircase. They had not been formally introduced yet, but she could not resist the invitation. The man was practically a stranger, but he was the only person on earth who knew the real truth behind her unconventional decision.
Besides, after his kiss that night, she had thought of him often. She wondered if he’d thought about her, too.
“So…it’s quite the talk of the square this week. Congratulations are in order for Glendon girl number two, I understand?”
“Yes. My sister Lady Abigail and her Freddie.”
“What happened?” he murmured.
“You did,” she said, taking his arm when they reached the staircase.
“Pardon?”
She lifted the hem of her skirts, and they proceeded up the steps.
“I decided to take your advice,” she whispered. “I thought about it for two days straight, then broke the news to my parents.”
“How’d they take it?” he asked in a confidential tone.
“My father was an angel. My mother was distraught. But she’s better now that she gets to plan Abby’s wedding.”
“And your sisters?”
“Very happy.”
“And most importantly, you?” he asked, studying her.
“Thrilled,” she averred. “I feel as though an anchor has been lifted off my shoulders. I don’t expect it will be easy, especially at first. People seem to feel sorry for me, and I hate it. But at least Lady Kirby understood.”
He was shaking his head. “I can’t believe you did it. Took my advice. God, I feel responsible for this!” he said as loudly as he dared.
“No, it was good advice!” she assured him heartily, though keeping her voice down as well. “You said to make myself happy, and that is what I’ve set out to do. I’m very excited about it, actually.”
“Well, since it seems you changed your whole existence based on something I said off the top of my head, then I daresay we should undertake a proper introduction, if it’s not too improper at this point. I am Gable Winston-McCray, Viscount Roland. And I hear you are Lady Katrina Glendon.”
“My friends call me Trinny in private. You may do the same, considering the circumstances,” she added meaningfully.
His slow, intimate smile needed no words to assure her he had not forgotten about the kiss.
“Well, Lady Trinny, it is very nice to meet you. And for the record, I already knew who you were, generally speaking. But I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise, my lord.”
His gaze dipped to her lips as though he, too, were remembering what they had shared.
“I trust your lady friend was happy to have her earring back,” Trinny said as they continued up the stairs.
The dismissive flick of his eyebrows admitted that she was, but he looked away. “I was grateful for your help.” As they reached the upper landing and walked into the ballroom, he lightly grasped her elbow. “Dance with me?”
Trinny jolted at his touch but furrowed her brow and eyed him in suspicion. “Why?”
“Er, because we’re at a ball? I thought that much was obvious.”
“Yes, but if this is some sort of charity demonstration—”
“My God, you say the funniest things, my fair Jupiterian or Martian or whatever you are. Are you hiding tentacles under there?” He glanced down at her skirts.
She arched a brow, and then tilted her head. “I don’t want you feeling sorry for me.”
“Don’t be daft. I asked you to dance because I want to dance with you. Why do you always assume I have some sort of ulterior motive?”
She shrugged. “You never noticed me before.”
“I didn’t know you then, and now I know I’m safe with you. From the vicar’s mousetrap.”
“Ahh.”
“To tell you the truth, it’s nice to be in the company of a lady who doesn’t have designs on one. Besides,” he added, “you impress me.”
“I do?” she asked in surprise.
“What you did takes fantastic courage, making a stand like that. It would be my honor to dance with such a woman.”
She blushed a little, in spite of herself, and smiled. “Well, in that case, I accept.”
He offered her his hand, she slipped her own into his, and then let him lead her toward the dance floor as the music started.
If the announcement of the second-born Glendon girl’s engagement had startled Society, now the onlookers were totally confused. Everyone probably thought Lord Roland was only dancing with her out of charity, but Trinny’s decision to live an independent life included no longer caring what other people thought.
This man understands me, she mused. She barely knew him, but she knew that he was on her side, and that felt wonderful.
Matchmaking mamas watched them pass in startled alarm. After all, Trinny’s abandonment of the marriage game would have meant that there was one less competitor for their own daughters. So what was she doing standing up to dance with one of the most eligible—and evasive—catches in the ton?
Ah, well, they needn’t have worried. Gable was right; she did not have designs on him. She would not have minded another kiss, to be sure, but in the main, she would much rather have a friend.
When the music started, he smiled at her and chased any last anxious thoughts right out of her head. The line of ladies curtsied, and the gentleman bowed in compliance with the dance, but Trinny had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when she spotted her sisters arrayed along the wall.
They were gaping at her.
Then her partner strode nearer and slipped his arm around her waist, and Trinny gasped in delight as he pulled her close.
# # #
Gable was fascinated to hear she had taken his advice, and privately, he reflected on how much he had thought about her kiss ever since that night. To be sure, it had preoccupied him far more than had his tryst on the same day in the same place with another woman, Lady Hayworth, of earring fame. Guilty pleasures of that sort were quickly consumed and just as quickly forgotten.
But this, now, this was something different.
He paid no attention whatsoever to the people watching them, enjoying her obvious pleasure in the dancing, and, inevitably, wondering what it would be like to bed her. He had never actually deflowered a virgin…
“So what have you been doing?” she asked cheerfully as she passed, brushing by him as the line of dancers wove about.
“The usual lot of nothing,” he replied.<
br />
“Anything interesting going on in the night sky these days?”
He grinned, recalling their conversation. “Lunar eclipse coming up, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac,” he said.
“Hmm. Isn’t that an ill omen, by tradition?”
“I believe so. Could be the end of the world,” he warned in a spooky tone.
“It had better not be!” she said, laughing. “I’ve got things I want to do!”
Gable chuckled. I genuinely like her. She amused him with her unexpected ways. And she was even prettier than he had thought at first, now that he could see her in the light. The kind of pretty that only grew more beautiful the more he got to know her. The soft lavender hue of her gown flattered her pale complexion and strawberry hair, and the shimmer of the chandeliers slid over the satin as it hugged her curves. He could not imagine for the life of him why she was still unattached.
She kissed well enough, God knew.
His thoughts drifted back to that bit of naughtiness. He had taken a huge risk that night, making a move like that on an unmarried young lady. But, of course, Gable liked risks, and secondly, he had wanted to show the teary-eyed little sweetheart that she in no way lacked appeal. Not to him, anyway, and he was fairly discerning.
Those tears of hers must have got to him.
Now he was all the more intrigued by her after hearing she had heeded his advice, which was always terribly flattering. In truth, he envied this freedom she had seized for herself.
As the heir to an earldom, he knew he would not have that luxury, no matter how much he might scoff at the mention of marriage.
Still, he hoped she wouldn’t regret it within a fortnight. He hoped he hadn’t ruined her life.
Meanwhile, some girls around the ballroom looked daggers at her, which puzzled him. Gable did not dance often, but he had the right, surely, to choose his partners as he wished. Lady Katrina was openly enjoying herself, smiling from ear to ear, her blue eyes shining with merry warmth.
He couldn’t seem to peel his gaze away from her. Having watched her cry, it was good to see her happy.
“Oh dear,” she murmured when she brushed past him once more as the dancers switched sides.
“What is it?” he inquired.
“Don’t look now,” she said confidentially, “but the cad who tossed me aside is staring at us. I daresay he’s looking quite perplexed.”
“For what it’s worth, he’s an idiot,” he whispered as they circled, holding both hands.
“Well, he’d have to be, wouldn’t he?” she said.
Gable’s smile widened; he decided on the spot that he loved her frankness and this sense of mutual understanding he felt with her.
Very strange indeed.
But alas, when the figures of the dance turned him around again, he saw that the fool who’d rejected her wasn’t the only one whose gaze was pinned on them.
So was Lord Hayworth’s. Only, his was more of a murderous glare.
Gable felt his stomach clench when he noticed the older man watching his every move. Usually, Hayworth was busy leering at the debutantes and making all the young girls uncomfortable, but at the moment, Gable could practically feel the drunkard’s hatred aimed at him like a spear.
Right, he thought with a slight, grim gulp, instantly aware of what was coming. Ah, well. Obviously, he had brought it on himself.
His cool smile wavered only for a moment as he continued dancing with the fair Katrina, saying nothing about the unpleasantness that he had a feeling was about to descend.
He scanned the ballroom briefly and noted that Lady Hayworth wasn’t there. Could it be the old goat had found out and finally put his foot down with his lusty wench of a wife?
Ah, damn. Why me? Everybody had dallied with Lady Hayworth. Having hit her early forties, she was having all the fun she could cram in before her beauty faded. But it seemed that Gable was to be the lucky chap who had caught her lord and husband on the day the old drunk had had enough of her antics.
How the devil had Hayworth found out, though? Gable wondered. Had they been seen? Or had the marquess perhaps intercepted the earring when he had sent it back to her? Of course, it was possible they’d got into one of their famous rows and she had told her husband everything just to throw it in his face.
However it had happened, Gable shuddered at the whole bad business. With marriages like that all around him, was it any wonder he was in no rush to wed?
With the final bars of the music stretching out, Katrina curtsied to him, and he bowed as the song ended. He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles through the white satin of her gloves.
“Thank you for the dance,” he whispered. “Ciao, bella.”
He tried, he really did, to get away from her before the ugliness exploded, but he failed. Hayworth wanted his blood, and came pushing toward Gable through the crowd before he’d put much distance between himself and Trinny. The instant he was in arm’s reach, the marquess drew back his hand to strike Gable across the face with the traditional glove.
Gable caught his wrist in midair. “Sir—please, don’t do this,” he ground out in a low tone.
“What, you’re a coward as well as a dishonorable cur?” the marquess slurred in red-eyed fury, then flicked a disgusted glance over him. “No accounting for taste.”
Gable quirked a brow, but refrained from pointing out that Lady Hayworth had married him.
Unfortunately, the angry husband read the irreverent humor in his look and lost his mind, shoving Gable in the chest. “You find this amusing?”
Gable took a step back, catching himself. “Don’t touch me, old man,” he warned quietly.
“I’ll kill you, is what. You are without honor, Roland! Your father should be ashamed. Name your second, and we’ll settle this at dawn.”
Gable glanced grimly across the crowd at Netherford. His friend gave him a regretful nod. Both of them had served in the capacity of seconds for each other before. “Netherford.”
“Figures,” Hayworth muttered, then spun about a trifle drunkenly and stormed off, pushing curious gawkers out of his way.
Netherford extracted himself from the knot of females surrounding him and left the room. Gable avoided the many aghast stares, but when he, too, took a step toward the exit, a hand clamped down on his arm. Still half expecting some attack, he jerked away roughly and pivoted, ready to strike.
Instead, he found Katrina.
“What was that about?” she cried, staring up at him in alarm.
Jaw clenched, Gable shook his head. “Not here.”
# # #
Still in shock after what she had just witnessed, Trinny lurched into motion, hastening after Lord Roland. He strode ahead, the stunned crowd parting before him. She followed, her stomach in knots.
She did not wish to deepen this newfound scandal of his any further by involving herself, but she was panicked by the thought of him dueling. On the other hand, how much more scandalous could it get, considering who he’d chosen for his second?
Trinny spotted the dark-and-dangerous Netherford waiting for him on the landing outside the ballroom.
She caught up to Gable there herself, but got hold of him before he reached his friend. “Wait a moment, would you? Please!”
He stopped and turned to her, his chiseled face taut. “I apologize for that bit of unpleasantness, but I must bid you adieu for now, my lady.”
“What just happened in there?” she exclaimed.
“I thought you saw the whole thing.”
“Does this have to do with the earring?” she whispered.
Gable looked away.
Disappointment filled her. How could you?
She swallowed the reproachful words, but he caught the dismay in her gaze and scowled. “I don’t have time for a lecture right now, so if you’ll pardon me—”
“Wait. I’m not going to lecture you.” She took a step closer. “Please listen, just for a moment. You gave me your advice the other night whether I wanted
to hear it or not, and now I shall do the same for you. We all know this lady’s reputation. Whatever mischief you got up to with her, it’s not worth dying for, surely. You must apologize.”
When his gaze flicked to hers, she was taken aback to find it steely. “No.”
“But you’re in the wrong!”
“Exactly. It would be dishonorable to grovel now and pretend I’m sorry, just because we got caught. So, no. I knew what I was doing. It was stupid, but I did it anyway. I shall delope, of course. That is apology enough.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll do the same. You could be killed!”
“I play for high stakes, darling. If you’ll excuse me.”
She huffed, at a loss, when he simply walked away, joining his friend. The two rakehells immediately headed for the stairs.
“Let me know how it goes—if you’re still alive!” she called after him angrily.
He sent her a sardonic glance over his shoulder, but he made her no such promise. Trinny got the feeling his kind never did.
As he went striding off with Netherford, she stared after him, then shook her head, throwing up her hands.
I don’t believe this! I finally meet a nice fellow, and he goes off to get himself killed.
On second thought, nice fellows didn’t get called out to duel against outraged husbands in the first place. Just another reminder that, as smooth as he was, Lord Roland was a rakehell.
Please keep him safe, Lord. Yes, yes, I know he’s a wicked sinner and doesn’t deserve it, she thought, but please…
Surely Gable was sensible enough to swallow his pride when it came down to it. If not, she could only hope the marquess was so drunk, he’d miss.
Abigail came rushing over to her side just then. “What was all that about?” she asked breathlessly.
Distraught with worry for her wild new friend, Trinny merely shook her head.
Chapter 3
The Rake’s Progress
Gable watched the sunrise and wondered if it would be his last. His palms were sweaty, but his pistol was loaded. The medic stood by, and all that remained now was the waiting. He refused to pace, instead standing immobile, arms folded across his chest.