by Regina Darcy
“You do Worth’s proud,” he said. “Now, we shall greet the guests. Please remember, under pain of ostracism, that you must not dance more than two dances with any gentleman. If you dance a third dance, you are regarded as engaging in scandalous behaviour that can only be remedied with an engagement.”
“What utter nonsense,” Prudence replied with a frown.
“It may be nonsense, but it is the way of the ton and not to be scorned. Your reputation will suffer if you flout the rules.”
“The Earl is correct,” the Duchess said, standing on the other side of the girls. “The rules of society are quite rigid, I am afraid, and a young lady who breaks them is at risk of ruining her prospects.”
“But how can that be, when the people who lead society are known for the abandon with which they flout the rules themselves?”
“Never mind,” said the Earl, quite aware that it was to him that Prudence Connolly referred. “Two dances, no more, and I warn you that even the second dance is liable to gather the wrong sort of attention. I shall be watching, I assure you.”
Prudence tossed her head. The action, and the way that her hair shone in the candlelight did not go unnoticed by the young gentlemen who had accepted the invitation.
“Viscount Lewis,” the Duchess murmured after one young man passed through the line, his gaze glued to Prudence. “A good family. Not a lot of money, but a respectable line. A possibility.”
She continued her assessment as each gentleman went by, her words spoken in an undertone so that they could not be overheard. By the time that all the guests had arrived, Prudence felt as if she had been privy to an exclusive lesson on which of the males were possible husbands, which were to be avoided, and which were, as of yet, uncertain.
Phoebe’s attention was captured as the sound of the musicians preparing their instruments for the dancing rose over the noise of the chattering guests.
“Miss Connolly,” inquired a young man who seemed to appear out of nowhere, “may I have the honour of this dance?”
Phoebe looked to the Earl, who merely nodded, unused to playing the part of chaperone at a ball. She smiled at the young man.
“Lord Warmen’s eldest,” Georgette observed.
The Earl nodded again. A prospect.
“Miss Connolly? May I have this dance?”
It was the Viscount. Prudence gave him a smile of assent, not asking the Earl for permission. His eyes narrowed and his jawline tight, Christopher watched as his ward was whisked off in the arms of the young puppy who had apparently been ready to pounce upon her as soon as the dancing began.
“It seems, my lord, that your wards are having no difficulty in attracting suitors,” Georgette said in a congratulatory tone.
“So it would seem,” he said.
“You do not approve?”
“Oh, the Baron’s son is a likely candidate, but the Viscount . . . do you not think he has a weak look to him? I think there is something in the chin that pertains to a family flaw. Is there madness in the line?”
“The Lewises?” Georgette laughed. “I have never heard of it. They are, from all accounts, well respected; she could do worse, your ward, than to accept the Viscount.”
“The Viscount has not offered,” Christopher retorted peevishly. “And should he offer, I am not at all convinced that I should permit his courtship. If there is madness in the line—”
“There is not.”
“Drunkenness, then. Perhaps it is that which I am thinking of.”
“My lord,” Georgette said in a no-nonsense inflexion, “if you look for drunkenness in family lines, you will find no husbands left for the young girls to marry. Who, even among our most honourable names, does not have, somewhere, a relation enslaved by drink?”
“As their guardian, I have a duty to look out for them.”
“Yes, my lord,” the Duchess said. “To look out for them.”
He had no idea why the Duchess placed an emphasis on her pronunciation of the word “for them” in her sentence. That was the very point he was trying to make.
“I shall watch for the girls,” she said. “Why don’t you go over to James, across the room? He looks to be on the losing end of a discussion with George Devon.”
“Lord Gilberton? What on earth is he doing here? I thought he was in Portugal.”
“He seems to be everywhere.”
With one backward glance at his ward, who appeared to be engrossed in an animated conversation with the puppy Lewis, Christopher crossed the room. Gilberton could be very amusing when he chose, and there was no end of the secrets that he was reputed to know. If Summersby was failing to hold his own in the conversation, it was no wonder. Few men could keep pace with the sophisticated, worldly Earl of Gilberton and his mysterious network of confidantes.
The Duchess watched as the sisters danced. They did so with a natural ability that made their movements so graceful as to cause other young ladies to appear clumsy in comparison. Their dancing master had done his job well.
She smiled when Viscount Lewis returned after a few dances to ask if he might once again partner Prudence.
“You are so popular,” he said, “that I have waited here to catch you in between dances before someone else asks.”
Prudence, her lovely skin heightened by her dancing, laughed and accepted his request. Phoebe had also been sought after as a dancing partner and was again on the dance floor.
From across the floor, the Earl’s expression darkened as he saw Prudence return to the ballroom floor accompanied by the Lewis puppy.
“Excuse me, pray,” he said to Gilberton, who was explaining to Summersby why the Russians were a necessary ally against Napoleon. “I must see to my ward.”
Gilberton watched the exit of the Earl. “His ward . . . ”
“He has two of them,” supplied the Duke, relieved that the conversation topic had switched to something other than international politics.
“Yes,” Gilberton said thoughtfully. “I had heard.”
The Viscount was startled to find his dancing interrupted by a yank on his shoulder. When he turned around, he saw the irate face of the Earl staring at him.
“Are you trying to make my ward into an object of gossip?” Christopher demanded.
“N-no, my lord,” the Viscount protested. “I merely asked for a second dance.”
“A second dance, and then it will be a third and the next thing I know, I’m galloping to catch up with you before you head off to Gretna Green!”
“Sir!” the Viscount exclaimed. “I meant no dishonour.”
“How dare you,” protested Prudence, less deferential than her dance partner. “To inflict such an affront as this, in such an assembly, upon such an occasion, shows a very unbalanced state. Are you drunk?”
“I am not drunk. I am considering whether or not to challenge this puppy to a duel!”
“My lord!” said the young man, backing away. “I swear that I meant no harm to Miss Connolly or to her reputation. I hold her in the highest esteem. I intend to ask for your permission to court her.”
“Don’t bother, I refuse.”
“How dare you?” Prudence exclaimed stomping her slippered foot.
“You are overbearing, my lord and I will not soon forget this embarrassment,” she whispered furiously.
Fan in hand, she closed it and slapped him smartly before leaving the dance floor, her cheeks burning with humiliation and outrage.
EIGHT
To ruminate upon an evening of abandon after the effects of liquor had worn off was one thing. To consider one’s behaviour when there was no excuse offered by way of overindulgence was quite another. As Christopher, who had sent the girls home in the carriage alone while he rode back in the Summersby carriage, sat in his study on the day after the ball, he pondered his actions.
What on earth had possessed him to behave in such an overbearing manner? What spirit had claimed him as he watched the Viscount lead Miss Connolly onto the floor the second time?
To see his hand clasping hers as they danced, watching as their eyes met, affording the young pup a smile that she had never bestowed upon Christopher—
“Jealousy,” he muttered to himself.
The touches were, he knew, innocent, and the smiles blameless. But they were not for him and those innocent handclasps and smiles were like swords cutting into that part of his mind which understood, all too intensely, the wellspring from which desire could spring.
It did not matter that the Viscount was the very model of propriety or that Miss Connolly had exhibited no mannerisms or artifice which indicated that she was susceptible to seduction. All that Christopher had seen was the welcoming response from Prudence.
Was there no way out of this hell? He, a man who had always had what he wanted in any woman who caught his eye, was now imprisoned by the disdain of a young woman who did not want him and never would.
A woman, moreover, who despised him and omitted no opportunity to tell him so. Never had a woman of his acquaintance, regardless of the level of intimacy in their relationship, been so forthright in dispensing her opinion of his character as this young debutante. The seductive arts were understood to be composed of layers of artifice, where the double entendre was an invitation to violate one’s vows in the expectation of sublime pleasure, however fleeting.
Whether one was an unmarried earl or a married aristocrat, men and women understood those subtle rules under which the beau monde conducted its assignations, fornications, and adulteries. Once a woman was married and had performed her role in providing her husband with an heir, she was free to take her pleasures where she found them.
A bachelor seeking pleasure could not fail to find a disenchanted wife to provide him with amusement. Men knew that the debutantes were off-limits. They were so inexperienced and unworldly that no man of the ton sought them for the blissful delights which the flesh enjoyed.
What was the matter with him?
What possible interest could he have in a debutante who had no knowledge of the world and no awareness of the charade with which men and women conducted their affairs?
She was unfamiliar with the ways of the world; he was an experienced player in the bedrooms of the ton.
She made no effort to entice a man, there was no artful conversation or clever gambits meant to say one thing and mean another.
She spoke frankly and without guile. She was no coquette.
She had nothing in common with any of his previous mistresses and moreover, nothing in common with the random females who had attracted his momentary lust and been forgotten.
He had given orders that he was not to be disturbed, so when the knock came to his study door, he ignored it. Benton knew better than to disobey those instructions.
The door opened. Prudence Connolly entered. The siren of the night before was dressed once again in black mourning.
“I did not tell you to enter,” he said, refusing to rise although it was a gentleman’s obligation to do so when a lady entered a room.
“I don’t care,” she replied. “I have come to tell you what I think of you.”
“Spare yourself the waste of time, as I am quite cognizant of what you think of me, having been lambasted on more than one occasion with your scorn.”
“As I am forever being presented with new reasons for the lambasting, I am here to tell you that your behaviour last night was entirely boorish.”
“And loutish and caddish, yes, you are overusing the terms and the concepts they bring to mind and I beg you to select new ones. If you must revile me, pray do so with some originality.”
“How can I when you persist in behaving in the same fashion?”
“I am at work here and not inclined to attend to the feverish complaints of a schoolgirl.”
“You had no cause to create a scene at the ball last night.”
“I had every cause. Two dances, as I told you before the ball began, would be disallowed. You ignored my wishes and accepted the second dance with a youth who may have what unknown hereditary flaws in his lineage. Do you wish to have children who are mad?”
“I danced with him,” she cried out, “We did not discuss his ancestry. If indeed his family suffers from any such deficiency of sanity, which I doubt. It was but a dance. I did not entertain a proposal of marriage.”
“You would not tell me if you had.”
“I did not. I am telling you so now. Does accepting a dance offer make me a bride?”
“In London, in our current manner of conduct, accepting a second offer of a dance is an indication that there may well be an offer made.”
“Absurd! Explain to me why it is permitted for a titled man to allow women of dubious reputation to call upon him, enter his home, and speak with him in private, but it is forbidden for a young woman of blameless reputation to dance twice with a man who has been invited to the ball where she is in attendance?”
“I cannot think how he came to be on the invitation list. And I refuse to explain the ways of the beau monde to a schoolgirl who has no knowledge of the world.”
“I think that the world owes me an explanation.”
“Do you?” Now he was on his feet, leaning forward on his desk, glaring at her. “Then I shall explain it to you in terms which you will not like. At the root of all of these dances and suppers and strolls in the garden, there is passion. You dispute my assertion and you think that merely because I have not lived the life of a monk, I am the Devil’s minion. You are short-sighted and narrow-minded. The women you refer to—I sent them away. I did not participate in the intimacies which you imagine. Each time that you have witnessed the departure of one of these females, you have wasted no time in telling me that I am deplorable and lost to vice. You have not bothered to learn the truth.”
“I would not believe the truth if you were the one claiming it to be so.”
“I am not a liar.”
“I have no proof of that.”
“I have told you the truth of what lies between a man and a woman,” he reminded her, abandoning his place behind the desk to meet her in front of it. “You do not believe that we are all creatures of our desires?”
“I speak of truth and you speak of lust,” she said dismissively.
“You cannot know the truth until you acknowledged what lies within you, Prudence,” he said. He laughed softly. “What an unlikely name for a woman who is anything but prudent. You are rash and impetuous, are you not? Your blood is stirred when we argue, is it not? You are as much enthralled by our conflict as—”
He could not finish that sentence. He dared not admit what he felt. Instead, He grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him. “If you want to learn the truth, then consider me your teacher,” he said and before she realised what his intentions were, he had enfolded her in an embrace which captured her body in his arms.
Then he kissed her.
She was not, perhaps, as unprepared as she had been the first time, but still she resisted, her body poised against him. She pushed away, but not firmly enough and then, she was not sure how, her untutored lips were answering his kiss with something inside that knew by instinct what it was that her body sought from his.
She learned that kissing was not only the positioning of lips against lips but was instead an exploratory mission which engaged the entire mouth and tongue. It was an exhilarating quest into a primitive domain ruled entirely by need, where speech was unnecessary. The kissing was so complete that it set forth emissaries to other parts of the body, rallying them to join in the overthrow of decorum and riot in the senses.
Then, inexplicably, it was the Earl who moved away, his face flushed with both ardour and embarrassment for his conduct. “I—”
But Prudence, her acuity restored to her once she was released from his embrace, escaped from the room and he was suddenly alone.
Christopher sank into his chair, his head in his hands. Why had he allowed himself to so lose control over his actions? He had compromised a young girl with his kissing, awak
ening her to responses which ought not to have been introduced until she was someone’s mistress…maybe even someone’s wife.
His wife.
The words resounded dully in his brain as if they were being rung by a clanging bell that could only strike its single, dolorous note.
His wife. And that she would never be.
He did not delude himself into believing that her answer to his kiss meant that she regarded him in a positive manner. He well remembered his own innocence, when his body answered to its own call and took no account of rules or propriety or even his own conscious will. The body was a tyrant, a dictator, a despot; it demanded and ordered and would not be sated unless its wishes were met.
Prudence, an innocent, had not been raised in the manner in which a youth came to manhood, when he was expected to take his pleasures to prove himself.
She was commanded by social custom, as were the others of her sex, to preserve her virtue and guard her virginity so that she would be a suitable mate for the man who would become her husband.
She was too innocent to understand what a transformation was brought about when physical pleasure was achieved, and entirely too moral to allow herself to succumb to those pleasures.
She was strong-willed and passionate and she would make one lucky man a dutiful wife and a passionate bed partner.
But not him.
She would never consent to be his wife. He clenched his fists.
Was it some freakish yearning within him to long for what he could not have? Or was he just jaded by a life in which his every carnal desire had easily been met?
The succession of women who had occupied his bed now mocked him with the carnage of what he had regarded as passion and now, too late, acknowledged to be no more than a selfish physical hunger for satisfaction.
He had rewarded his lust with variety, taking it as his due to answer every craving of his anatomy. He had deprived himself of nothing and now all of London repeated the tales of his exploits, most of them from the time when he had been the unbridled heir spared the responsibilities of the title who revelled in the privileges of his status. When a young man had rank and breeding and money and looks, he had no need to ration his pleasures. Women were playthings, easily obtained and just as easily discarded. The sport of amorous possession was in the moment, not meant to last.