As George eyed his target, the lady with the golden hair turned so that he could see her face reflected in the huge mirror on the wall before her.
A heart-shaped face, topped by a pair of strong, expressive eyebrows and framed with spiral strands of hair that glimmered with the same sheen as the gold braid edging her dress. She was wearing blue, sky blue, and George had rarely seen any woman look as well in that colour as Lady Anthea Balfour did that evening. A lovely diamond brooch sparkled on her chest, almost matching the light in her eyes.
But it was not her looks that stole his attention from his quarry. It was the expression on her face. The gleam of intelligence in her gaze, the ironic smile that played on her lips while the gentlemen battled for her attention, the way she covered her mouth with her fan from time to time as though she were overcome by shyness, though the true reason, George immediately surmised, was to disguise her laughter from the two ardent gentlemen.
His aim for the evening immediately changed. Or, rather, split in two.
He would carry out his mission assiduously, of course. But hadn’t he warned Julian that he was there for pleasure as well as business?
Lady Anthea Balfour was under the hot pursuit of two dashing earls. George intended to make it three. And he did not make a habit of coming last.
“The Earl of Streatham!” announced the footman, bashing his decorative pole against the floor. “Sir Julian Stuart!” George stepped into the ballroom, enjoying the sensation of every eye turning towards him.
Every eye except the two darkly mischievous ones belonging to Lady Anthea Balfour. But that would be remedied soon.
3
“We are at an impasse, my lords.” Anthea fluttered her fan to distract Lord Wetherton and Lord Shrewsbury from the fact that she could not help but laugh at them. “I cannot give both of you the next dance, and I would never dream of being so callous as to choose between you. You must decide the matter between yourselves.”
She had to admit that, despite everything, she was enjoying herself. Anthea had spent several Seasons trawling the London marriage mart, and she had not accumulated many admirers to show for it.
She had always put her lack of success down to her tendency to expound her opinions rather than make the polite chatter expected of young ladies. If she had been the slightest bit inclined to marry a man too lily-livered to hold his own in a debate with her, she would have shuddered to think how many suitors she had scared off with her sharp tongue.
Not to mention the fact that she found most eligible young gentlemen either laughable or painfully dull.
Lord Shrewsbury, unfortunately, fell into both categories. A short man with watery eyes and a clumsy way on the dancefloor, he had developed a distressing habit of flexing his fingers while he spoke to her as though he were continually deciding whether to grasp her arm or make a grab for her jewellery. If it were not for the fact that his mother, Lady Shrewsbury, was such a popular figure among the powerful ladies of the ton, Anthea would not have given him a moment more of her time.
But the threat of Lady Shrewsbury’s ill favour was enough to give any woman pause. Anthea was spirited, she would freely admit, but she was anything but stupid. She had no desire to make enemies.
So, until such time as she could distract Lord Shrewsbury’s attention with a less discerning heiress, his admiration would be endured.
Lord Wetherton was quite a different proposition. He gave one of his sly smiles and extended his hand to Anthea. “In your innocence, my dear, you have already made your choice. Lord Shrewsbury is an honourable man, and I regret to say that, in the face of your beauty, I am not. I claim the next dance as mine.”
Drat! If Shrewsbury did not discover his backbone, she might be forced to let Lord Wetherton accompany her in to supper.
Anthea was not sure why, but the thought of an evening spent in Wetherton’s company was disquieting. She was not one to trust her gut over her head – she had spent so many years stuffing her head with as much education as she could manage, after all – but in this instance, despite Wetherton’s smooth words and the glitter in his eyes whenever he looked at her, it was her gut that made the final decision.
Wetherton made her stomach roil.
She covered her frown with her fan. “As I said, my lord, I leave it entirely up to you and Lord Shrewsbury. I really will not decide.”
“Perhaps what the lady requires is a third option.”
A feral scowl flashed across Wetherton’s face as he turned to allow the speaker into their circle. Anthea recognised George Bonneville, the Earl of Streatham, at once, though they had never been introduced. And for good reason. He was the man who drove her brother to distraction every time the House of Lords was in session. Alexander often complained that whatever he proposed, Streatham disagreed with, and whenever a scheme of outright lunacy was suggested, Streatham was the first to back it.
“He does not take his duties seriously,” was Alexander’s complaint. Alexander, of course, was painfully scrupulous about his responsibilities. Anthea had always thought that the Earl of Streatham sounded like rather good fun.
“Streatham.” Wetherton’s tone was so pleasant that, if she had not seen his brief scowl, she would never have imagined it was ever there. “How good to see you. You have made rather a goose of yourself, I’m afraid. Shrewsbury and I are competing for Lady Anthea’s hand in the next dance. It is hardly the done thing to intrude.”
“My word! I do apologise.” He bowed to Anthea. “If only we had been properly introduced, I would make amends properly.”
“Oh, of course!” blustered Lord Shrewsbury. “Lady Anthea, may I present Lord Streatham?”
She extended her hand to the newcomer. “I am very pleased to meet you.”
Lord Streatham took her hand and kissed it with a loud smacking noise that made both Shrewsbury and Wetherton twitch. “Charmed! Now, since I have offended your honour by suggesting you ignore two fine offers in favour of my own, do allow me to make it up to you by accompanying you in for supper.”
“Really, Streatham!” Wetherton’s laugh was tinged with annoyance. “You are too much!”
Lord Streatham clapped a hand to his forehead. “Have I offended again? My, my. I really ought not to be allowed out of the house.”
Anthea feigned a gasp of sympathy and pressed her hand to her chest, touching the diamond brooch Aunt Ursula had lent her for luck. “Poor Lord Streatham! Of course I am not offended.” She had never simpered before, but she attempted it now as she fluttered her eyes at Shrewsbury and Wetherton. “My lords, I really cannot refuse an offer put on such terms.”
Lord Shrewsbury was expending so much energy working out where he had gone wrong that it almost turned him cross-eyed. Lord Wetherton, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what had happened.
“In that case, my dear lady, you really cannot refuse me this dance.” He extended his hand. Anthea hesitated.
It would be a direct cut not to take it. She could not do something so drastic without any real motive. Wetherton had been nothing but charming to her. Insistent, yes, but charming. It was not his fault that he had the dead eyes of a reptile.
“Then everything is settled,” she said, smiling, and placed her hand lightly on top of his.
“Settled?” Shrewsbury spluttered. “What about me? What about my dance?”
“Don’t be a bore, Shrewsbury,” Wetherton sighed, as he led Anthea towards the dance floor. “I’ll speak with you later.”
Anthea shot him a sharp glance. There was a hint of a threat in that final pronouncement. He suddenly sounded more as if he were giving orders than chatting at a ball. And why on earth should that be? Shrewsbury was an earl, just as Wetherton was. They were equally matched for rank and fortune.
As Wetherton turned towards her and she glanced away, hoping her smile was demure enough, she noticed that Lord Streatham’s attention had been caught by Wetherton’s strange tone, too. His easy smile was replaced by a firm jaw and a steady-eyed gaze that hi
nted at a danger Anthea would never have suspected lay beneath his light-hearted manners.
She was glad the gaze was directed at Wetherton and not at her. She fancied the Earl of Streatham would be difficult to withstand.
“Lord Streatham is a charming man, is he not?” Wetherton smiled slyly at Anthea, as though aware that he had just spoken her thoughts aloud. “Be careful with that one, my dear. Charm often conceals hidden depths. Depths which a lady of your standing would not wish to explore.”
“Are we well-acquainted enough for you to offer me advice on the company I keep, my lord?” It was not the rudest thing she could have said. Rudeness would have been informing Lord Wetherton that he must simply be jealous, having no charm of his own. Still, it was an ill-judged remark considering they had to spend the entire dance together. To her relief, Lord Wetherton merely laughed.
“I would love for us to become better acquainted, my dear.”
He proved his words by rattling off a volley of questions as they danced. By the time the dance was halfway through, he had learned everything from Anthea’s literary preferences to how she took her tea.
Usually, she would have been bothered by such an intrusive line of questioning. On this occasion, there was something to distract her.
The Earl of Streatham was watching her dance, a mysterious half-smile lifting the corner of his mouth. He tracked their movements across the dance floor with such intensity that Anthea would have blushed, if she were the type to feel self-conscious.
Instead, she found she enjoyed it. Something about Lord Streatham – his irreverence, perhaps, or his unshakeable confidence – made her warm to him in a way that Lord Wetherton could never hope for.
So, he was watching her. Good. She would give him something to watch.
Anthea lifted her skirts and threw herself into the dance so vigorously that her cheeks glowed and Lord Wetherton stumbled in his efforts to keep up. Her brother’s investment in the finest dancing masters had not gone to waste.
Her energy had the added bonus of ridding Lord Wetherton entirely of the power of speech. He ended the dance breathing heavily, a hand pressed to his side. Anthea curtseyed politely and left him behind without a word.
Lord Streatham was waiting for her at the edge of the dance floor, arm extended.
“You have not made a friend in poor Wetherton, I fear,” he said, nodding to something behind her. Anthea turned to see Wetherton marching back to his friend, Shrewsbury, a bitter scowl twisting his features.
“I have little time for men who cannot keep up with me,” she said, turning back to Streatham with a smile. He grinned wolfishly.
“I hope that’s a challenge.”
Various couples were filing through into the supper room. Adoring young ladies on the arms of their sweethearts, stout dowagers being entertained by younger relations hopeful of an inheritance, giggling girls darting through the crowd together, hands firmly clasped. Anthea’s younger sister Edith was one of them – though it was not a girl she had taken by the hand, but the young Viscount Rotherham. Streatham was forced to stop abruptly as Edith and the viscount dashed in front of him.
“One of your sisters?”
Anthea widened her eyes in mock horror. “Is my family’s reputation so poor that the moment you see a girl misbehaving at a ball, you assume she is a Balfour?”
Streatham laughed. “It was the family resemblance that gave it away! Nothing more.” His eyes tracked over Anthea’s face. “Golden hair, dancing eyes, and an answer for everything.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I hope that’s a compliment.”
“Very much so.” They reached the table and Streatham pulled out a chair. As Anthea sat, his back straightened and his head jerked up, caught by something on the other side of the room. He cursed under his breath.
“Do you have somewhere else to be?” she asked, trying to sound as though she did not care whether he stayed or went.
Streatham winced. “Believe me, nothing but the most pressing duty –”
“Go.” She waved her napkin at him and laid it in her lap. “I am not such a delicate flower that I need a gentleman to prop me up at every moment. I may even dare to serve myself a slice of beef.”
She watched him hurry across the room, carefully concealing her disappointment.
So that was what it was like to be wooed by a truly charming nobleman.
In her imagination, the experience had always been a little less abrupt. It had ended in dancing – a waltz, even – two bodies pressed dangerously close together. A walk out onto a deserted balcony under the starlight. A stolen kiss.
Anthea realised that her fingers had risen to press against her lips. Ridiculous. She slapped her hand back down onto the table and reached for the serving dishes, ignoring the looks of disapproval from the older ladies around the table.
It might be the done thing to sigh in a corner waiting for an errant gentleman to return, but Anthea was not the sighing type. And she was hungry.
And however handsome, charming, and witty the Earl of Streatham might be, he was certainly not interested in her. He might just, however, make an interesting subject for a scathing put down in the next popular column by Lady X.
4
It was a rare thing for George to lose focus. Still rarer for the cause of his distraction to be a woman. There was something about Lady Anthea that was far more interesting than a trifling secret mission, but George knew better than to let himself forget his duty.
At least, he had always thought he knew better. Apparently, he was more vulnerable to a certain type of ironic smile than he liked to think.
He cursed himself as he wound through the crowd towards the side door he had seen Lord Wetherton slip through. It was mere luck that Julian was too focused on his own task to notice George’s error. It was one thing to make a mistake, but quite another to be castigated for it by his friend.
He’d thought, naturally enough, that Wetherton was so interested in Anthea that he would stick at her side all evening. All George had to do was feign interest in her, and Wetherton would remain within easy reach.
But he had miscalculated. Something that had not happened in more time than he could remember. Hadn’t he seen enough dancing blue eyes in his time? Wasn’t the ton packed to bursting with witty young women?
Get a hold of yourself, Streatham, George muttered to himself as he came to a halt beside the side door. He listened for a moment to check that Wetherton was not standing behind it, and then cautiously pushed it open.
As he crept into the dark corridor, it did not escape him that in dividing his attention between Anthea and Wetherton he had not only lost his quarry but snubbed the lady to an embarrassing degree.
He could not help but smile at the thought of Anthea muscling her way through the gentlemen to fork herself a slice of beef. Somehow, he suspected she would manage to eat supper alone. Or, more likely, she would swiftly be surrounded by her notorious sisters, and would be able to regale them with tales of the insolent earl who had abandoned her in the supper room.
But low voices were murmuring ahead of him, one of them with undeniable menace, and now was no time to be distracted by a woman. George moved forwards, padding his booted feet silently across the carpet, until he had his ear pressed against what seemed to be the door to an anteroom.
“I’m telling you, I can pay you back!” That weaselly tone was undoubtably Lord Shrewsbury. “I can get the money! There is no need to be so unpleasant about it!”
Lord Wetherton, equally unmistakable, answered in a dry monotone, “If you are hoping to pay your debt with Lady Anthea’s fortune, you are sadly deluded. Even if she were interested in you – which she is not – her brother would never permit her to marry a fortune hunter.”
“She was interested enough before you came along!” There was a thump, as though the grown man were stomping his feet. “Really, Wetherton, must you take everything from me?”
“That is the nature of the relationship between
debtor and creditor, Shrewsbury. Don’t be surly. We can still come to a mutually beneficial agreement.” Wetherton cleared his throat. “How is that little task coming along? The one you promised to perform for me?”
“It is excessively difficult! I wish you would ask me to do something else.”
“If only I could. As it is, however, the difficulty does not signify. You must persuade your assigned lords – by any means necessary – to –”
Wetherton stopped talking abruptly. “Who’s there?” he called, voice sharp and dangerous.
George stiffened.
“My apologies, my lords!” A frightened voice, that of a footman, perhaps, sounded through the door. George let himself relax.
“Can’t you see we are having a private conversation?” Wetherton snapped. “Back downstairs with you!”
“Excuse me, my lord, but I –”
“Insolence! How dare you treat your master’s guests in this manner! Be off with you at once, or I shall have you thrown out on your ear.”
The footman stuttered further apologies. George heard a second door close and footsteps stumble down an inner staircase. He guessed that Wetherton and Shrewsbury had chosen an anteroom leading to the servants’ quarters for their tête-à-tête.
“Come, Shrewsbury,” Wetherton snapped. George eased back from the door. “This is no place for a delicate conversation. You must call on me tomorrow night. We will discuss your strategy then.”
“But, Wetherton –”
“Unless you want me to call in the debt at once?”
George paced slowly backwards, Wetherton’s sneer growing fainter as he went.
“Or perhaps I could write to your mother? I’m sure she could cover the sum.”
“Wetherton, please!”
George reached the door to the ballroom. As the handle turned on the door hiding Wetherton and Shrewsbury, he slipped back into the noise and the crowd. He glanced around quickly to check that no one had seen him come in and slipped off around the side of the room, putting as much distance as possible between himself and Wetherton.
The Last Earl Standing Page 2