by Merry Farmer
“And I thought dressing in this ridiculous cage would help me to fit in,” she sighed aloud.
“It’s not that,” Lavinia told her with a sympathetic look. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
“Do I?” Elaine glanced down at herself with a sniff. “It makes my breasts look fuller, but I can’t breathe.” Only when she glanced up to find Lavinia staring at her in shock did she realize that probably wasn’t the wisest thing to say aloud. She let her shoulders drop as much as they could and sighed. “I don’t belong here, no matter what I’m wearing. I don’t know what I was thinking to come after Basil like….” She snapped her lips shut as she realized what she’d revealed.
The wonder in Lavinia’s expression had doubled. “You came here to pursue a man?”
Elaine bit her lip. She’d said too much to keep the rest a secret. “I love him,” she said. “And he left me. But I’m not having it.”
Lavinia clasped her hands to her chest. “How romantic.” She paused, studying Elaine for a moment, then said. “You have to meet Lady Stanhope, and my dear friend, Mrs. Croydon. I spotted them on the other side of the room, near the windows.” She shifted to loop her arm through Elaine’s, then glanced around the room. “Mama is occupied elsewhere, so she won’t see us if we slip away.”
“How exciting.” Elaine smiled, her sense of fun returning. She knew Lavinia was a similar soul and someone she could count on. “I’ve always wanted to slip off during a grand ball to do something wicked.”
“Lady Stanhope is terribly wicked,” Lavinia confirmed. “She’s every bit as outspoken as you are, but she’s also a countess. She’s deeply involved in politics and has been friends with the men who run the country forever.”
“She certainly sounds like someone I should know, then.”
They dodged through groups of men and women and couples gliding out to the dance floor as the orchestra started into the first song of the evening.
“They say she’s had a whole string of lovers,” Lavinia continued to whisper, “but that her heart has only ever belonged to one man.”
“Oh? Which one?” Elaine liked the woman more by the moment.
“Nobody knows,” Lavinia answered with round eyes.
“Outstanding,” Elaine said with a grin.
“There she is.” Lavinia steered her toward a large group standing near one of the French doors.
But it wasn’t any of the ladies in the group that stunned her to stillness and pushed the air out of her lungs.
There, right in front of her, stood Basil. He was dressed to perfection in a suit that highlighted his lean body and broad shoulders. He’d cut his hair, which was brushed back in the latest style. But he wore the same blue ascot tie that he’d worn when they were invited to Lord Ramsey’s house, the tie that highlighted the blue of those eyes so magnificently. Elaine didn’t know whether to burst into tears of joy or tremors of pleasure now that she’d found him at last.
Until he took the hand of the woman who stood in front of him and promptly pressed his face into her breasts instead of kissing her hand.
With a flash, her storm of emotions broke into a single stab of lightning that filled her with regret more intense than anything she’d ever felt.
“I’m sorry,” she burst. “This was a terrible mistake.”
Basil glanced up at her just as the wave of fury within her reached its crest. She turned and fled before she could burst into tears.
Chapter 13
“Elaine!”
Basil lunged after her, oblivious to the lack of propriety and the shock, both of his friends and others who were standing nearby. If he never spoke to Sarah Creswell again, it would be too soon, May Flower or not.
He caught Elaine’s wrist, wrenching her to a stop and spinning her to face him. She stumbled close, eyes downcast. He touched a hand to her side to steady her.
“My God, you’re beautiful,” he said, voice and hands shaking. The sight of her in the elaborate ball gown, her breasts pressed tantalizingly against the neckline, curled tendrils of her hair brushing her neck, had him trembling with desire and emotion.
But when Elaine dragged her eyes up to meet his, he saw nothing but anger and wariness. “I shouldn’t have come,” she whispered. “This was a terrible mistake.”
He opened his mouth to deny that, to tell her that the sight of her was the first thing that had given him joy since returning to London, but murmurs were spreading around them. They were standing too close. He could feel the heat that surely had his face flushed for all to see. They were in a ballroom packed with his peers, friends, rivals, and, God help him, former lovers, and he’d done the least discreet thing possible. Even the orchestra fumbled their waltz as its members looked to see what was happening.
Behind him, Katya cleared her throat. “Perhaps it would be wise to take this reunion elsewhere?”
Cautiously, afraid Elaine would try to bolt again, Basil took a step back and cleared his throat. “Yes, that would be best. Miss Bond, would you accompany me…elsewhere?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and glancing away from him, toward the main door. “I shouldn’t be here at all.”
“Yes,” Basil insisted. “You should.”
He offered her his arm, as he had so many times when they went out for a stroll around Lake Brynswater. She bit her lip, glancing mournfully up at him. The rush of whispers around them was like the buzz of hornets ready to strike. At last, slowly, she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.
“This way,” Katya said, walking ahead of them as she scanned the sea of faces looking on. “I know this house, and I know where you won’t be disturbed.”
The ball resumed around them, though Basil was sure he and Elaine would be the center of gossip for the rest of the evening.
“Hurry,” he urged Katya. “For some reason, Turpin is coming this way.”
“He’s my uncle,” Elaine said, searching for him over her shoulder.
Basil nearly missed a step. “Turpin is your uncle in London?”
She whipped to face him as they crossed through the doorway and into a quieter hall. “You know my uncle?”
Ahead of them, Katya let out an ironic laugh. “What kind of interesting friends did you make up there in the wilds of Cumbria?”
“You never told me that Daniel Turpin was your uncle,” Basil went on as Katya rushed them down a smaller hallway that led off of the main one.
“You never asked,” Elaine said. “How was I supposed to know you knew him?”
She had a point. One that was far down on the list of questions he had just then. Katya turned another corner, then opened a door that led into a dim and dusty library.
“You won’t be disturbed in here,” she said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“How do you know about this place?” Basil asked, letting go of Elaine’s arm long enough to take up the box of matches on the table by the door so he could light a pair of lamps.
Katya sent him a saucy grin. “How do you think I know about it?”
He returned her look with a twitching grin of understanding. After all, George Margate was exactly the kind of man she preferred to dally with.
“I’ll stand guard,” she said, leaving and shutting the door behind her.
That left Basil alone with Elaine, who was busying herself lighting two more lanterns deeper into the room. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” he said with all the emotion brimming in his heart.
He marched across the room to her, sweeping her into his arms as soon as she put the box of matches down.
“Basil,” she said, both pleading and upset.
She didn’t get further. He pulled her close, slanting his mouth over hers and drinking in the kind of kiss he’d been dreaming about every sleeping and waking moment since he’d left her. Her taste and scent were just as fresh as he’d remembered them. Her body felt strange with a corset encasing it, but it was still her.
Best of all, with a plaintive whi
mper, she kissed him in return. Her arms slid around him, gripping his back through the layers of finery he’d been stuffed into. He groaned at the relief of connecting with her once more, blood surging through him like a flood of fire.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered, voice shaking. “I’ve missed you so desperately.”
“Then why did you leave?” she whispered in return, then yanked away from him. The passion clouding her expression quickly shifted to fury. “Why did you leave me like that, with hardly a word?”
A swoop of guilt swirled in his stomach. “I had to go. The stakes are so high in this election that—”
“You didn’t have to leave without saying goodbye,” she cut him off, her face pinching with grief and betrayal.
“Time was of the essence, and Lord Malcolm—”
“The election is ongoing,” she cut him off again. “Was it so desperately important for you to drop everything and run to it? Would the empire have fallen apart without you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” he snapped, going on the defensive. Instantly, he regretted it, especially when she fixed him with an incredulous look. “I mean, no.” He let out a breath through his nose and scrubbed a hand over his face. “We haven’t seen an election with stakes this high in decades. The fate of too many things hangs in the balance. Not only is the country on the verge of economic ruin if reforms are not made, the rights of the underserved could be decimated if the wrong men continue in office.”
“Is all of London obsessed with this blasted election?” she demanded.
“Yes,” Basil answered. “There is a group of women, wives of prominent voting men and other high society mavens.”
“The May Flowers. I know.”
Basil gaped at her, taken completely by surprise. “How do you know about the May Flowers?”
“My uncle wants me to befriend them,” she said. But before he could even think of asking for more details, she glared at him and asked, “Is that what you were doing with your face in that woman’s breasts?”
“I…er….” He floundered, feeling the heat blazing from his face. “Lady Creswell has a questionable sense of humor. We were acquainted once and—”
“Acquainted once?” Elaine’s voice rose an octave and her eyes went wide. Then they narrowed in understanding. “I see,” she snapped.
He was mincemeat. Everything he’d feared about returning to London and then some had descended upon him. “I love you,” he said. “Regardless of what it might have looked like in there.”
Elaine crossed her arms and clenched her jaw, turning her face away from him. He could hear her foot tapping under her skirts.
“Malcolm upended my life and dragged me back here because he and a great many of our allies believe these May Flower women are the key to winning the election.”
“I see,” Elaine said in clipped tones. “Women are vital to winning an election, but none of you has the decency to let us vote outright.”
Basil’s jaw flapped and all the wind went out of him. That was the last thing he’d expected Elaine to say. She was right, though. As usual. But the fire in her eyes told him he wasn’t out of the woods for being caught in a compromising position with Sarah.
He straightened, tugging at his jacket, and cleared his throat. “I despise everything I’ve been called back here to do, but I recognize the importance of wooing—” It was the wrong word, and he knew it in an instant. “Of gaining the support of this inner circle of society ladies.”
The way Elaine pulled herself to her full height, chin held high, made him and everything he’d just said seem small. “And all of that is more important than love?”
“No,” he sighed, taking a step closer to her. “Nothing is more important than the way I love you.”
Her resolve wavered, and her chin dropped. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were from the beginning? At least that way I would have been prepared for this duty to take you away.”
“I am your Basil,” he said, knowing that any argument he made would ring hollow, to her and to him. “I am the man who loves you.”
“But….” She gulped, her face pinched as though she was fighting not to cry, shifting from foot to foot. “But you’re not,” she finished. “You’re an earl, a man from a world that is so much bigger than anything I’ve ever known. You have friends, a position, a life that I know nothing about. You flirt with ladies and sniff their bosoms for political gain.”
Part of him wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. The rest of him wanted to rail at the unfairness of it all. He took another step toward her, brushing the back of his fingers down her hot cheek. “I’m no different now than the man who wouldn’t let you read naughty books in his shop.”
Elaine burst out in a laugh that she quickly stopped with a hand to her mouth. “But you’re not,” she insisted with a squeak. “You’re somebody fine and grand. Look at you.”
She raked her gaze over his form, taking him in. For a change, it felt good to be appraised so longingly by a woman. If he had his way, no woman but Elaine would ever look at him that way again.
“You’re so handsome,” she went on, a touch of awe in her voice. “So regal. I must look like a circus performer next to you.”
He caught her in one arm, resting his hand on the side of her face. “You are and always will be the most beautiful woman I have ever know,” he said with emotion. “You are an original, a work of art, whether dressed like this or in your artistic dresses or in nothing at all. In fact, I prefer you in nothing at all.”
Her answering blush was so sweet that he couldn’t help but steal a light kiss.
“You are the woman with whom I have spent the most magnificent night of passion of my entire life,” he went on, stealing a second kiss. “And you are the woman with whom I intend to spend many, many more nights of equally brilliant ecstasy.”
He kissed her more fully, melding his mouth to hers, teasing her lips and tongue with his own. She sighed and leaned heavily against him, her fingers threading through his hair. He wanted the moment to last forever. He never wanted to be apart from her again. He was an idiot for leaving her in the first place. Leaving her to turn to the likes of—
He broke their kiss and leaned back. “Why are you with Turpin?”
It took a moment for Elaine’s hazy look of passion to solidify to thought. She blinked. “I told you, he’s my uncle.”
“But why did you turn to a man like that instead of coming straight to me?”
She pulled out of his arms, glaring at him in indignation. “He’s my only family. Who else was I supposed to turn to when you left without any indication that you ever wanted to see me again?” Her chin dropped, and for a moment she looked sheepish. “And Rose told me your butler wouldn’t let me in your house, let alone speak to you.”
There was a depressing amount of truth in that. “There are so many things wrong with Daniel Turpin that it would take a book to enumerate them all.”
“Such as?” she asked, attempting to cross her arms, but giving up with a wince and raising one brow instead.
“He’s a notorious libertine, for one,” he informed her, too baffled by her apparent support for him to soften the blow. Besides which, he had never been good at holding back from her…except for when it truly mattered. “Not only was he involved in a horrific scandal over a former maid in his employ whom he disgraced, his politics are shamelessly backward-looking.”
“What do you mean? Uncle Daniel is progressive in all his views,” she insisted.
“Did he tell you that?” Basil frowned.
“He—” Elaine snapped her mouth closed and dropped her arms. “Oh. He asked me to speak on his behalf to the May Flowers. I…I suppose I assumed that his political leanings matched my own.” She tilted her head to the side. “I suppose he also assumed my political views matched his. Oh, dear. Lady Denbigh’s comments all make sense now. I’ve been a ridiculous ninny once again.” She hid half her face in one hand.
Basil arched a brow. “You assumed the best about your only living relative,” he said, not exactly approving. “That doesn’t make you a complete ninny. And from what I’ve heard, Lady Denbigh rarely makes sense.”
Elaine sent him an ironic look of agreement. For one, glowing moment, everything was as it’d been between them. They were friends, hard and fast, with opinions that agreed and outlooks that matched. And hard on the heels of that feeling came a wave of homesickness for Brynthwaite that left Basil feeling weak and powerless.
“I’m sorry I let Malcolm drag me off without saying goodbye to you,” he went on in a hushed voice when the silence between them thickened. “I tried to put him off but….” He finished with an unsatisfying sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. “The truth is, I’ve never been very good at facing conflict.”
“That’s not true,” Elaine blinked. “Why you’ve….” She stopped gazing at nothing as if searching her memory.
“I abandoned my life here in London because of a confrontation that proved to be the last straw in a string of romantic embarrassments,” he confessed.
Elaine’s gaze focused on him once more, her brow shooting up in shock. “You told me you came to Brynthwaite as a means of escaping a romance gone wrong, but…a whole string of them?”
He nodded, poking the carpet with his toe. “I’m sorry. Now you know what kind of a feckless, cowardly old roué loves you.”
Elaine huffed out an impatient breath. Basil lifted his eyes just in time to see her roll her eyes and shake her head. “The Basil Wall I fell in love with—without even knowing I’d fallen, mind you—is most certainly not a coward.”
“I’m Basil Allenby, Earl of Waltham,” he corrected her sheepishly.
“Are you?” She crossed her arms again. “Might I remind you that it takes a great deal of courage to leave an entire life behind and to start over? The string of romantic embarrassments, on the other hand….” She shook her head and made a tutting noise. “In her breasts, Basil. You had your face in her breasts. It looked like your nose was going to be wedged in there, never to be extracted.”