“Er … good.” What was the matter with him? She seemed pleased to see him yet he could barely manage a coherent sentence, let alone a charming one. Damnation, he needed to demonstrate that he was a gentleman of wit and fashion, the kind of creature she admired.
She looked at him quizzically, as though she could tell the thud of his heart was drowning his thoughts. “What do you think of the play?” she said after an endless silence.
He’d had some opinions on the performance of Richard the Third and expressed them cogently to his companions in the box. Now he couldn’t remember a single one.
“We’ve been having very fine weather for October,” he said. “It must be a full week since it rained.”
Chapter 13
Considering the slightly motley collection of guests, Diana thought Minerva’s first dinner party was going well. Her birthday gift for her sister, the latest edition of the peerage, had settled the vexing question of precedence. Diana, as lady of the house, had been led into dinner by the Marquis of Chase who, according to Mr. Debrett, outranked Lord Blakeney.
Around the table, conversational balls were happily rolling. Marianne’s husband, Robert MacFarland, entertained the youngest members of the party, Minerva and Lady Esther. Juliana Chase was talking to Blakeney about fifteenth-century printing, and Blake was listening with every appearance of enjoyment. Diana might have been more impressed had Lady Chase not been wearing a new and very low-cut gown of silver tissue, ordered on Chantal’s recommendation. With her tousled golden curls she looked like a tiny and delectable fairy queen. Diana could hardly blame Blake for giving her his undivided attention.
“Your wife looks beautiful tonight,” she whispered to her neighbor.
“Blakeney seems to think so,” Chase said.
“I don’t believe Lady Chase is at all impressed with Blake.”
“I am absolutely sure my wife has no idea that he keeps eyeing her chest. She thinks he’s actually interested in Gutenberg.”
“All things are possible, although not, I grant you, likely.”
Chase stopped gazing at Juliana and gave his hostess his full attention. “She says Blakeney’s intentions lie elsewhere. That’s why I invited him down to Markley Chase.”
Diana lowered her eyes demurely. “That was very good of you.”
“We have plenty of room. Now tell me, what do you think of Sebastian’s transformation? You knew him before he acquired a viscountcy and a new wardrobe.”
“It’s quite a change. I always thought him a good-looking man but I had no idea how handsome. He pays for the dressing.”
“What of his manners?”
“They are certainly much more polite.” Diana wasn’t about to admit that she found them rather repulsive.
“And he’s become quite a talker. He used to be economical with words, even when discussing books. On any other subject he was miserly. Now, just listen to him chatter away.”
Diana had listened. Sebastian had warmed up a trifle since accepting Minerva’s invitation. He’d crossed paths with her in the crowd at the theater earlier in the week and, instead of excusing himself with a polite nod, he’d engaged her in conversation. They’d enjoyed a scintillating ten minutes discussing the unusually dry autumn weather. Now she listened again, straining her ears to overhear what he had to say to Marianne.
“The duchess has departed for Devonshire? How very singular,” he said in a fashionable drawl. Marianne looked quite amused but Diana strongly suspected her friend was enjoying his broad chest more than his discourse.
“I think he disposed of his brain along with his old clothes,” she said.
Lord Chase laughed.
“Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. I know he’s a friend of yours.”
“I had the impression most ladies like a man to present a good appearance and a polished address.”
“Are you suggesting we prefer style over substance? That doesn’t apply to your own wife.”
“You think not? She married me after all.”
“Quite,” Diana said, giving the well-tailored marquis a mocking examination. Though he was a very good-looking man and certainly not lacking in style, she suspected Chase of possessing a sharp intelligence. Why else would he have attracted the scholarly Juliana?
She looked down the table at Sebastian who responded to some remark of Marianne’s with a cynical-looking grin. She couldn’t tell if his bespectacled eyes matched the rest of his expression. His clothing and linen were impeccable and he leaned back in his chair with the relaxed air of a man at home in his surroundings. She had a sudden recollection of a very different man: shabby, a little awkward, never glib, not even articulate, but always sincere.
“Much as I concede the improvement in his appearance,” she said, “there are things about the old Mr. Iverley I miss.”
“He used to grunt quite a lot.”
“True.”
“Is that what you miss?”
Diana laughed. “The grunt I can live without. But he was never dull.”
“Don’t tell my wife,” Chase said, “but I always liked him, too, even with the grunt.” He gave her a look of approval with flashing sky blue eyes that posed a danger to any woman whose heart wasn’t engaged elsewhere.
Diana had a vision of dark-rimmed silver eyes that the world rarely saw, gazing at her with unalloyed admiration.
She gave herself a mental shake. The servants were bringing in the second course and it was time for everyone to switch partners. She turned to the man seated on her left, easily the handsomest man in the room and one with dark blue eyes as fine as Chase’s. Blakeney. He was the man she wanted.
Sebastian wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand it. He’d managed to chat with Mrs. MacFarland for half an hour by dint of applying one of his new methods of polite social intercourse: think of a predictable observation on a commonplace subject and deliver it with enormous confidence and a cynical edge.
Watching Diana converse with Cain was bad enough. He wasn’t sure his friend was wholly on his side. Lady Chase, he knew, was firmly in the enemy camp. Now Diana had turned to Blakeney. Seeing them together stoked his resentment to white heat. His cousin looked down at her with a possessive air that made Sebastian itch to test his fledgling pugilistic skills. And Diana smiled back with that glowing look Sebastian knew too well. He could only hope she was as insincere in her attentions to Blake as she had been with him.
Thanks to Minerva’s invitation he’d carried the battle into her territory. He’d get a little closer after dinner, attempt to judge if there was a chance of her falling into his arms. Forget “chance.” Failure was not an option. To judge if she was ready to fall. And this time he wouldn’t relapse into tongue-tied idiocy in her presence.
He had no need for his planned tactics. Diana made the first move when the gentlemen returned to the drawing room for coffee.
“Would you come to the library?” she asked him. “I’d like your opinion on a book I’ve acquired.”
For a moment he was surprised she even had a library. But judging by the furnishings of the large modern house, her late husband had been a man of taste and education as well as wealth. Naturally he would own books, even if he didn’t collect the kind of rarities Sebastian regarded as necessary for a library worthy of the name. He followed her into a large well-appointed room lined with fully stocked shelves.
With a tremor of excitement he wondered if Diana’s request was an excuse. Her new friend Lady Chase was more than capable of rendering a verdict on any unusual volume. Minerva had told him about the Ladies’ Society of Bibliophilia and Fashion, or whatever ridiculous name they’d come up with.
A book lay open on a table in the center of the room. Sebastian removed his spectacles and skimmed the text. It was a copy of Debrett’s Peerage open to the entry for the Dukes of Hampton, Blakeney’s family. His anticipation ebbed a little.
“What do you want to show me?” he asked.
Instead of fetchi
ng a book, she came and stood next to him, so close he could sense her warmth and fragrance, close enough that she had to tilt her head to meet his eyes.
“Have I done anything to offend you?” she asked.
He almost reverted to the grunt. “Why would you think such a thing?” he answered cautiously.
“I thought we were friends. Then you left Mandeville without a word.”
“I was called to my uncle’s deathbed.” His grip on his spectacles tightened.
“I understand that. I’m sorry.” She touched his hand. “But I have the impression you’ve been avoiding me since. Even that you were angry. Were you? Are you?”
Blue eyes gazed into his as though seeking to read his soul. He kept his expression neutral. “Why should I be angry with you?” he asked in feigned bewilderment. “Is there a reason?”
He concentrated on her sweet, lush, lying lips. They parted, so slowly it seemed to take an age. Hardly breathing, he awaited her answer. Would she confess her perfidy?
He hoped not. Because if she were honest with him now the game would be over and Sebastian wanted to keep playing to the end. The only danger was he’d play too fast. With endless patience he’d achieve the satisfaction of full and final victory.
She was the one to break eye contact. “No reason that I can think of,” she said softly, lowering her chin.
She wasn’t the only liar in the room. “There is no reason,” he said. “We had a flirtation at Mandeville. I should be grateful. Astonishing, really, that you took the slightest notice of me.”
Her blush fueled his exhilaration and lent veracity to his performance.
“I was such a bumbling idiot then,” he said.
“No,” she said faintly.
“Yes. I hate to think of how I was then, how I looked. A clodhopper!” He shuddered theatrically. “My clothes. I had to burn everything.”
“You’ve changed.”
“Of course. Why, I was almost incapable of conducting a civilized conversation.” He was warming up now, and beginning to see the appeal of the career of an actor. “I never accepted invitations or consorted with people of refinement.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth parted. He wished he could kiss her but it was surely too soon. Letting his spectacles fall to the tabletop he clenched his fist, digging the nails into his palms. Patience.
“Why did you decide to change?” she asked.
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
He said nothing, instinct telling him this was a moment to be mysterious. Still flushed, she examined his face, which he kept carefully impassive. She opened her mouth to speak a couple of times, then changed her mind.
He’d flustered her.
“I must return to my guests,” she said finally.
He followed her back to the drawing room where the two youngest members of the party played a duet on the pianoforte and Cain sat on a sofa between his wife and Lord Blakeney. Sebastian gave his friend a nod and the marquis excused himself and accompanied him out of the French doors that led to a terrace overlooking the garden.
“Cheroot?” Cain asked.
“No thanks, I don’t.”
“I thought you’d acquired all the fashionable vices.”
“Filthy habit.”
“You almost sound like the old Iverley,” Cain said, leaning against a stone balustrade, apparently unbothered by the late October chill.
Sebastian shivered. “I wish I could be. I miss him.” He also missed the flannel waistcoats he used to wear.
“You’re not the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lady Fanshawe misses him too.”
“Why should I care about that?” If it was too dark to see him shrug, he hoped the sense of it was carried in his voice. He barely restrained the urge to demand an explanation but he disdained to expose his feelings.
“Oh please, Sebastian. She’s the one you’ve been working so hard to impress. It took Tarquin and me a while to guess because we’d expected someone more brazen. But Diana Fanshawe is altogether delightful. I had quite the wrong idea of the kind of lady you’d fallen for. I congratulate you on your good taste.”
Sebastian caught himself about to acknowledge Cain’s compliment, a ludicrous impulse because it was based on a misreading of her character. Diana had them all fooled, much as he had been at first. His friends didn’t know that underneath her perfect exterior lay a heartless tease.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Cain went on, “you’ve just been alone with her. Any progress?”
“I’m not sure. Since you ask, I’d like you to find out what she thinks of me.”
Cain laughed. “And how would I go about that?”
“Be tactful. Ask her if she likes me.”
“I could torture you for another ten or fifteen minutes and amuse myself enormously. But being a man in whom the milk of human kindness flows deep, I’ll tell you that I already know. She likes you.”
“Are you sure? How do you know?”
“She told me.”
“Then it worked?” he said, astonished. “The plan worked.”
“Yes indeed. She said she had no idea how handsome you were and you pay for the dressing.”
Of course, Sebastian thought cynically. She liked his new wardrobe.
“But …” There had to be a but. It couldn’t be that easy. “But,” Cain said, “there are certain aspects of your new guise she’s not so sure about.”
“Oh?”
“She thinks you have become boring.” “That makes two of us,” Sebastian said with real fervor.
“My advice is to keep the clothes and the good manners, but return to your former mode of conversation. God know why, but I always found it entertaining.”
“Do you mean I can grunt again?”
“Definitely not. Lady Fanshawe specifically excluded the grunt from the list of your traits that she misses.”
He hadn’t really thought he’d be allowed to retain the grunt. What mattered was that she liked him. And to his surprise there were things about his true personality she liked. The real Sebastian. The bumbling idiot, the clodhopper. For a moment a sweet melody sang in his heart, a tiny pure flame kindled in his heart, like a distant star on a moonless light. Then a triumphant gong boomed through his chest, a victorious sunrise dispelled the starlight. Total conquest would soon be his, along with the humiliation of his cousin.
Except that logic and all evidence told him that Blake was very much in the race. Most likely he was ensconced on a sofa with Diana at this moment.
Cain interrupted his thoughts. “You’re frowning. Why?”
“Blakeney. I don’t understand his appeal. If she thinks I have turned into a bore, can’t she see that he’s always been one? I’ve never heard him say anything intelligent or original.”
“There’s no better-looking man in London,” Cain said.
What a fool he was. Diana might have enjoyed his conversation, but appearances mattered more. Without his improved looks he’d never have a shot at defeating Blakeney.
“And he’s going to be a duke. But if I read the lady correctly, rank isn’t of paramount importance. I feel sure,” he continued with a grin, “she’d be content to be a viscountess.”
Momentarily nonplussed by the marquis’s assumption that his aim was marriage, Sebastian almost missed Cain’s next revelation.
“I have bad news for you. Lady Fanshawe and her sister are to be our guests at Markley Chase Abbey next month.”
“Yes?”
“And Blakeney is coming too. He agreed to come for a week on his way to Badminton for the hunt.”
“You have to invite me.”
“My wife’ll kill me. She’s firmly on Blakeney’s side.”
“Please, Cain. And I’ll be nice to Lady Chase. I’ll talk to her about books.”
“You were devilish rude to her when she was a bookseller. She isn’t one of those sweet women who refuses to hold a grudge.”
“You know I may have been wrong about her in the past.” Cain had to be appeased. “She is fairly knowledgeable about books.”
Cain raised an eyebrow.
“Very knowledgeable.” Cain waved his hand, demanding more.
“And I was very, very wrong. Completely mistaken.”
“All right, you can come to Markley Chase. But don’t say anything. I’ll wait for the right moment to break the news to Juliana. And when you arrive at the Abbey you will tell her what you just told me. You will grovel.”
“Yes, Cain. Thank you, Cain,” Sebastian said, crossing his fingers behind his back. “You won’t regret this.”
“Don’t forget what comes next. The Grand Gesture.”
Back in his own library Sebastian found his notebook and studied Tarquin and Cain’s list of grand gestures.
Sweep her into a waltz. He’d been determined from the beginning to get through this whole affair without having to set foot on a dance floor. He wrote a large X next to that item.
Diamonds, emeralds, sapphires. Diana’s late husband had a nabob’s fortune and her jewels were superb. But he hadn’t seen her in sapphires and they’d match her eyes. He put a question mark in the margin.
Dog or other pet. Sebastian disapproved of pets on principle as being bad for books. He’d once seen a perfectly nice copy of the Nuremburg Chronicle with a large hole in the cover pecked by the owner’s wife’s parrot. No. Double-underlined.
Save from socially awkward situation. Until a few weeks ago Sebastian had himself epitomized social awkwardness. He’d come a long way, but not that far. Impossible.
Save from runaway horse. Too hard to set up, since Diana was a brilliant horsewoman.
Save from footpads. Hmm.
Hire footpads if necessary. It sounded like a completely stupid idea. On the other hand, his friends’ advice had proved sound up to this point.
Chapter 14
“How much longer?” Minerva asked, peering out of the closed window at the twilit Cotswold landscape. On the second day of their journey to Gloucestershire, Minerva seemed to be losing a year of maturity every ten miles. Luckily they were in the final stretch, or Diana feared they’d reach Markley Chase with her sister a mewling and puking infant.
The Dangerous Viscount Page 12