“Sarah, how lovely to see you.” The exuberant woman embraced Sarah as if she were a dear friend.
Sarah blushed at the warm welcome. “Good evening, Lady Exley. This is my aunt, Mrs. Anna Dearing.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Dearing, this is my cousin, Mrs. Rebecca Devane and she is dying to meet you. Do you mind if I steal Sarah away from you for a moment?” Before her aunt could formulate an answer, the smaller woman whisked her away. “I’m sorry if that was rather rude, but I simply must introduce you to my husband and I’m afraid Adam isn’t good for more than one or two introductions per evening, and you will be his second.”
Sarah laughed. “I’m honored, Lady Exley.”
“Do not tell me you mean to stand on ceremony?” the other woman demanded, all but dragging Sarah toward the large drawing room. “We have consumed too much wine together and exchanged naughty secrets. I thought I told you to call me Mia?”
The marchioness was referring to the first time they’d met at Lady Ramsay’s. They had indeed consumed too much wine and exchanged too many confidences. The small redhead was quite irrepressible, and even Daphne, usually the voice of reason, had laughed until tears sprang to her eyes at the marchioness’s amusing gossip.
Mia Exley barely came up to Sarah’s shoulder and was built like a fairy—a very sensual fairy. Her dress clung indecently to her small, shapely form. And she didn’t merely walk; she flowed. Sarah knew she was older than she appeared and that she’d lived for many years in a harem; it was something of an open secret among the ton.
“Adam has been dying to meet you,” Mia said, leading her toward a slim man standing by himself. “Adam, here is Miss Fisher.” Several other guests turned their heads at the sound of her overly loud voice.
Daphne’s description of the Marquess of Exley had been accurate: he looked like a marble statue come to life. He was also the most perfectly dressed and coiffed man she’d ever seen. What Daphne hadn’t shared was how perfectly cold he was. It was easy to see how he’d come by his notorious sobriquet: the Murderous Marquess.
“This is my husband, the Marquess of Exley. But you must call him Adam.” The marchioness smiled up at her husband, her face tilted toward him like a flower. He looked at his wife for a long moment before turning to Sarah. His eyes were an extraordinary pale blue that seemed to flay the flesh from her bones. Sarah wished she’d kept her wrap.
He bowed over her hand. “It is a pleasure, Miss Fisher. I understand you come to us from Africa. No doubt my wife will have much to discuss with you.” As if he, personally, would have nothing to say to her.
“Adam, you are being obtuse.” Mia hit him with her fan. Sarah could have sworn the marquess almost smiled.
“I’m afraid I must persist with my behavior. Exactly how am I being obtuse, my dear?”
“Sarah lived in West Africa; I lived in North Africa. They could not be more different. Also, Sarah lived with her parents, who were missionaries. Don’t you think that sounds fascinating?”
“One can only imagine,” Exley murmured, as if he put such information on a list somewhere between a tooth extraction and a trip to Lady Exley’s milliner. The killing smile he bestowed on his wife would have been enough to make any normal person crawl under a rock. A small dimple appeared in the redhead’s cheek, and Sarah realized she was baiting her austere spouse.
“Oh, look, here is Gabriel.” Lady Exley transferred her attention to the young man who’d just joined them.
“Good evening, Mother.”
“This is Miss Fisher, Gabriel. Sarah, this is my son, Gabriel.”
His dark auburn hair and tilted green eyes would have proclaimed his relationship to Lady Exley even without an introduction. His charming accent, high cheekbones, and prominent nose must have come from his father, the deceased Sultan Babba Hassan.
He gave Sarah a warm smile and bowed. “I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Fisher. I understand you have recently arrived from the Gold Coast.”
They were conversing about West Africa when Daphne and Hugh arrived.
“Sarah, my dear, you look lovely,” Ramsay said, kissing her hand with a teasing smile.
“Captain Martín Bouchard,” the butler’s voice boomed behind them. Sarah started so violently she jostled the baron’s arm.
“Steady on,” Ramsay murmured.
“What a pleasure to see you, Martín,” Lady Exley called out, greeting Martín with the same affectionate manner she seemed to use with everyone. Sarah shot a surreptitious look around the little group. The marquess appeared even more supercilious, Gabriel Marlington looked openly annoyed, and Daphne was as inscrutable as ever. Only Ramsay and Lady Exley seemed truly pleased to see the man.
Well, and Sarah.
Martín turned to Sarah after relinquishing Lady Exley’s hand. “Good evening, Mademoiselle Fisher. It is a pleasure to see you looking so well.” He subjected her to a piercing visual inspection. Heat and desire flared in her abdomen as his lips pressed against the back of her gloved hand.
“What a pleasant surprise,” she murmured.
“An unexpected pleasure indeed,” Lord Exley said, giving his wife an unreadable look before turning to greet his guest. “It’s been a long time, Bouchard.” The unspoken message being: not long enough.
Martín flashed a grin. “To me it seems like only yesterday, my lord.” He turned to Mia’s son and looked him up and down. “Well, look at you, boy—all grown up, eh?”
“Captain Bouchard.” The younger man’s exceedingly handsome face darkened, and he glanced at his mother. “If you will excuse me, I will go see what is keeping Eva.” He gave Martín a narrow-eyed glare as he left.
Ramsay, predictably, burst out laughing. “Come now, Martín, you must behave. You are among civilized people here.”
Martín smiled roguishly at his mentor.
The group split into smaller parts, and Sarah was surprised to see Martín move off with the Marquess of Exley. Rather than look annoyed, the reserved peer engaged in a quiet, but earnest conversation with the exotic captain. Sarah burned with curiosity. What could the two men possibly have to talk about?
“I’m sorry, Sarah. I should have told you he might be here tonight,” Daphne said from beside her. “Hugh told me that he’d gone to see Captain Bouchard to deliver the invitation.”
“No doubt he found him in some bordello or other.”
Daphne neither confirmed nor denied Sarah’s claim. “Coming here tonight is a big step for him. You must try to understand that this is a world he is completely unprepared for, no matter that he possesses the correct clothing and the only real requirement for membership—money.”
“Until a short while ago I lived in a jungle.”
“But you are a woman, and we are much smarter.”
Sarah laughed at Daphne’s quiet certitude.
“Captain Bouchard is very much like my two sons, Sarah. You cannot tell them what it is you want them to do. You must make them believe the idea was theirs to begin with. I expect he is rather intimidated by your recently elevated status. Don’t be surprised if he is somewhat prickly.”
“He was prickly before he learned of my family connections. He’s behaved rudely from the first moment I met him.”
“I believe that is his usual way of going on. He exhibited shocking rudeness when I first met him. When he wasn’t actually going out of his way to taunt me, he was completely dismissive.”
“That is exactly how he’s behaved toward me.”
“I doubt he has behaved exactly the same way toward you.”
Sarah’s face burned as she recalled three episodes when he’d been anything but dismissive.
“Daphne.” Mia’s voice came from behind them. “I must interrupt you two for a moment and introduce Miss Fisher to the Misses Manton and their brother, Viscount Danforth.”
Mia stood with two elegant older women and a handsome younger man.
“We understand you are only recently come from Africa, Miss Fisher. We are m
ost eager to hear all about your experiences,” the taller of the two sisters said.
“You’ll have to excuse my sister, Miss Fisher. If you don’t have a care, she will have you trapped in a corner the entire evening, extracting every detail of your life,” Viscount Danforth warned with a good-natured smile.
“I should be glad to tell you anything you like, Miss Manton. I, too, wish to extract some information from you.”
“Oh? What kind of information do you seek?”
“Lady Exley told me you are associated with several charitable endeavors.”
Miss Manton’s eyes warmed. “Indeed we are. We are always looking to swell the ranks of our volunteers.”
The dinner announcement interrupted their conversation, and Viscount Danforth offered Sarah his arm. “May I have the pleasure of escorting you to dinner, Miss Fisher?”
“Thank you, my lord.”
They walked the short distance to the dining room, where the large table had settings for about thirty people.
“Hmm,” he murmured, examining the place cards. “Here you are and here am I, right next to you. How pleasant!”
Sarah was seated when Martín appeared beside her, a sardonic gleam in his eyes. “It looks as if I, too, will have the pleasure of your company, Miss Fisher.”
Sarah’s treacherous nerves tingled at his nearness, and she caught the faintest whiff of his scent as he sat beside her. He looked spectacular. The only man in the room attired more elegantly was their host. Still, Sarah found Martín’s muscular build and exotic looks far more attractive than those of the slim, supercilious peer. Martín, for all his faults—and Sarah knew they were legion—was never inhuman. Arrogant, intractable, irascible, unpredictable, moody, and vain—but not inhuman.
It wasn’t until nearly halfway through the second course that Sarah was able to turn away from the diverting and talkative viscount toward Martín. He was engaged in a lively discussion with the woman on his other side, the younger of the two Manton sisters. The woman said something that caused him to throw back his head and laugh. Jealousy clawed Sarah from stem to stern. It seemed he was fitting in quite nicely.
“I understand you came to England on Captain Bouchard’s ship, Miss Fisher?” Danforth asked, pulling her attention back to him.
“Yes, the captain was kind enough to offer me passage.”
“I’ve heard several stops along that route are quite lovely.”
“Tenerife was particularly charming. Do you travel much, my lord?”
“No, I’m afraid I have not been much of anyplace. Now that the Continent is once again accessible, I expect we will eventually make a journey—my sisters and I.”
“You are very close to your sisters, I collect.”
He smiled. “Yes, they’ve been very good to me. My parents died when I was quite young, and they gave up their own lives to raise me.”
“It must be wonderful to have siblings. I was close to several of the children in my village, but it is not the same, I think.”
Naturally the mention of her village brought the subject around to Africa. They spent some time discussing life in the jungle before his attention was claimed by the attractive young woman on the other side of him. The cold look she gave Sarah made her realize she’d been monopolizing the handsome young viscount.
“You are monopolizing your dinner partner,” Martín drawled in her ear, his words echoing her thoughts.
Sarah turned to face him directly. “Very well, Captain Bouchard, I shall monopolize you for a while.” She was proud of how level her voice sounded in spite of the thumping in her chest. “I was just discussing the subject of siblings with Lord Danforth and lamenting my lack. Have you any brothers or sisters?”
His lips twisted. “More than likely, but none with whom I am acquainted. I was born a slave, Miss Fisher—the property of another man. The people at this table probably pay closer attention to the bloodlines of their horses or dogs than my owner paid to my lineage. But no doubt my mother, whoever she was, produced reliably, just like any other of his broodmares. I would not be surprised to learn I have more than a few siblings.”
Sarah felt as though she’d been slapped; she couldn’t think of anything to say.
Luckily, he didn’t seem to expect anything. He raised a forkful of food to his mouth and regarded her with his unnerving yellow gaze as he chewed, swallowed, and then drank deeply from the ruby liquid in his glass. “Your relations are of far greater interest to me. How are you finding life as the member of such an august family?”
Was there anything she could ever do or say to shake the defensive look from his face? Why did he insist on viewing everything she said as an attack? Why could he not laugh with her as he had with Miss Manton?
“You could have met them yourself if you’d not disappeared,” she said coolly.
He gave her an amused look before raising his glass to his lips. She stared at his full, sensuous mouth, slammed by the memory of it between her legs. The vision was so powerful, so . . . physical, it rendered her blind and deaf.
“Sarah?” He was peering at her, and his voice was hollow, as if it came from the end of a long corridor.
“I . . . I beg your pardon?”
“I said, surely your guardians would not welcome a visit from one such as me?”
His words worked like a magnet on her scattered thoughts, and Sarah gave vent to the sigh of irritation this topic deserved.
“It is inconceivable to me why your past as a slave should influence any forward-thinking person. It is the person who owned you who should be ashamed. I find it beyond irksome that you would ever think me, or a member of my family, capable of such thoughts. I am also disappointed you think learning I have august relations would change me. I am the same person as ever.”
Martín merely smiled.
Sarah found his condescending smirk more than a little galling. She could no longer hold back the question that had been burning a hole in her mind for days. “And where have you been these past weeks?”
He laughed. “I, too, am the same person I have always been.”
She jerked her eyes away from his taunting face and gazed sightlessly at the plate before her, unable to hide her misery. That was as good as an admission that he’d spent the past weeks in a brothel. She was a fool to care for him. His behavior proclaimed his feelings for her all too plainly: he had none. What had happened between them meant less than nothing to him. He’d hardly been able to get away from her quickly enough when they reached London, and now she knew he’d spent the entire time in the arms of another woman. Or several, more likely. The sour tang of bile flooded her mouth, threatening to choke her.
“Are you quite all right, Miss Fisher?” Lord Danforth’s handsome brow wrinkled with concern.
She was making a spectacle of herself.
She blinked hard several times. “I must have inhaled a piece of pepper. I will be fine,” she assured him, drinking deeply from her water goblet.
The meal lasted several hundred years. Sarah answered the viscount’s questions and made the requisite inquiries, the entire time aware of the low rumble beside her that indicated Martín was engaged in conversation with his other dinner partner, oblivious to what his words had done to her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Martín regretted the words even as they left his mouth. Once again he’d behaved like an obnoxious boor. He did not understand this urge to offend and disgust her. Why had he snapped at her so viciously when she’d asked about his family? Why did he have to tell her where he had been? In the past he had never hidden his behavior from anyone, but neither had he flaunted it as he did with Sarah.
“How long will you be in England, Captain Bouchard?”
Martín realized he’d not been paying heed to his dinner companion. “I have no fixed plans, merely a few matters that need my attention.”
“Where will you go next?”
“I will go to Paris.”
“Indeed, how exciting! You a
re French?”
Martín eyed the woman beside him. She was perhaps ten years older than he. Although she was by no means attractive, she had an intelligent sparkle in her wide gray eyes and a very engaging manner. The way her gaze roamed his face and body was suggestive. He wondered if the unmarried sisters of a viscount were permitted to engage in carnal adventures. He made a note to ask Ramsay about such matters when they were next alone.
“No, mademoiselle, I am an American.”
Her expressive brows rose at this information.
“Oh, then you are recently our enemy. Tell me, are you the spearhead of some new invasion? An advance force of handsome men come to turn Englishwomen’s heads?”
He smiled, amused by her provocative question. “I’m afraid I have little to do with my country. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to call me an agent of your government as my ship operates under a British letter of marque and reprisal.”
“Goodness! Does not your country consider you a traitor?”
“No, mademoiselle, they do not. In fact, my country does not even consider me a human being.” He watched as the truth came to her, her eyes flickering across his face and features, as if suddenly seeing beyond his fine clothing.
“I see.” Her smile, if anything, was warmer than before. Martín found her response intriguing. But not quite as surprising as her next words. “You must come to our house and visit my sister and me. Will you call on us, Captain? The Marquess of Exley is one of our greatest supporters and has told us of your association with Baron Ramsay. I understand you and the baron both have a great interest in the subject of slavery?”
Had the woman really not known of his past? Or was she merely prodding him to see if he would disclose anything of interest? Martín knew the women of Ramsay’s class had nothing better to do with their time than shop and gossip, so it was entirely possible this woman knew a great deal about him. The last thing he would allow was a woman—any woman—mucking around in his past for her own amusement. He certainly had no plans to present himself at her house so she could wheedle gossip out of him.
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