“Di, if you seek to turn me away from him, you will fail.” Teresa’s face looked perfectly calm now.
“Turn you
away from him
? But, you have only just
seen
him. You’ve looked at him
once
.”
“Now wait another moment.
You
go off on an epic adventure to save your mother but
I
am not permitted to like a gentleman that catches my eye?” Teresa folded her gloved hands before her. “You are a thorough hypocrite, Diantha Lucas.”
“I am.”
“You admit it?”
“Of course I admit it. But, T, you really mustn’t consider that gentleman. You see, I am acquainted with him. Slightly. And I don’t think—”
“Oh!” Teresa’s eyes grew filmy again. “Do introduce me to him!”
“Introduce you to whom, dear gel?” Much like the ceiling and walls, the lady who approached wore cascading yards of tulle. Upon her head perched a turban topped with a gilded ostrich feather and a large bejeweled pin, and between a thumb and forefinger encased in peacock-colored gloves she wielded an Oriental fan painted with a gentleman’s portrait.
“Now, to whom do you wish an introduction, child? That lanky pole over there isn’t worth your shortened breaths—my fourth cousin thrice removed and an inveterate gambler. But any other gentleman present tonight would be worth the adoration of a girl of such ample charms.”
Teresa peered around Lady B. “He is standing by those doors, my lady. A very”—her breath hitched—“tall, large man with long hair.”
Their hostess clucked her tongue. “That, dear gel, is the Earl of Eads and a penniless heathen. He’s barely been in society since he returned from the East Indies some seven years ago. I wonder that he’s here tonight unless it is to scout out husbands for his countless sisters. Half sisters. Must be at least seven of them, the poor man. But he does have remarkably fine legs.”
Teresa and Lady Beaufetheringstone nodded in sober agreement.
“I shan’t introduce you, Miss Finch-Freeworth.” Lady Beaufetheringstone pursed her lips. “You are far too young and innocent to be thrown into the mouth of the lion . . . just yet.” She took Teresa’s arm. “Now come, child. I will make you acquainted with more suitable gentlemen. That addlepated ninny Hortensia Piffle will succeed in finding you a satisfactory husband when pigs fly. Like two peas in a pod, she and your mother . . .”
Diantha watched them move away. She didn’t worry for Teresa. If one of society’s greatest hostesses took her friend under her wing, it could be only to Teresa’s benefit. And her mind and heart were filled with someone else entirely.
What had Wyn known about Mr. Eads—
Lord
Eads—that he hadn’t told her? It hurt. And she did not want to hurt, not because of a man who had apparently abandoned her to her fate.
Why hadn’t he come?
She turned about and blindly walked toward the French windows. She must speak with Lord Eads. She must make certain Wyn was safe, even if he did not want her. She realized this now rather belatedly. And hopelessly. She would have forgiven him if he had come to London. She would have forgiven him everything. And begged his forgiveness in return.
Her brother stepped in front of her, his smile broad. “There you are, sis. You look very pretty this evening. Musgrove and Halstead here have been begging me all night to make introductions.”
She greeted Tracy’s friends, smiled at their flatteries, and promised them sets, but she barely attended. Weak inside with a strange sort of tragic longing, she allowed her gaze to wander and, through a break in a cluster of guests, met Lady Emily Vale’s stare. She forced her lips into another smile she did not feel.
Emily’s green eyes remained sober as she turned them directly across the dance floor toward the door to the ballroom. Diantha shifted her attention there and the bottom fell out of her heart.
For it was most certainly her heart that Mr. Wyn Yale commanded. And whether he sat on a stool in his shirtsleeves milking a cow or stood in a ballroom dressed in formal attire and so breathtakingly handsome that she could not breathe, she knew whatever he chose to do with that tangled organ, it would be thoroughly at his mercy.
B
eneath hundreds of chandelier candles she sparkled, dressed not in maidenly white but gold like the firelight sparkling in her hair. The layers of her skirts glittered by some seamstress’s skill, fluttering about her toes in the breeze from the dancers passing by. She seemed unaware of the other guests, and that she was staring at him, her berry lips parted and the pink stain on her cheeks flushing down her neck and across the soft mounds of her breasts.
He went to her, regretting that he had not come directly to London, and abruptly understanding the truth of why he hadn’t. Because he could not think when he saw her, and he greatly feared that—not thinking—he might do something precipitous for her.
To
her.
She moved toward him, her brow pleating. “Lord Eads is here.”
“Good evening, Miss Lucas.” He bowed and could not withhold his smile. Even cloaked in displeasure she dazzled him.
“Did you hear what I said?
Lord
Eads?”
“Naturally I heard. I am standing right in front of you.” Yet not close enough. Her scent of wild sunshine twined about him, her slender hands that had been so confident upon his body now clenching in her skirts.
“I knew you did. I was simply emphasizing my point to say
Lord
Eads twice. Now thrice.”
“I understood that.”
“I am emphasizing in this ridiculous manner, you see, because I am endeavoring to employ irritation to distract myself from alarm caused by the fact that he is
in the same place as you
. What are you doing here?”
“Watching you dazzle those gentlemen you just walked away from without a backward glance. No, don’t look. They may not like you to see them licking their wounds.”
She expelled a hard breath. “And you say I am nonsensical.”
“Who are they, Diantha? Your brother I know, but the others I don’t recognize. Is one of them Mr. H?”
“Tracy only now introduced us.” A spark of intention lit her eyes then. “But I am surrounded by scores of suitors every day, so it is difficult to keep their names straight in any case.” She gestured with an airy hand. “So I simply call them all George.”
“And does this system suffice?”
“Suffice?”
“To put them all in their places as you are attempting to put me in mine?”
“You did hear me say thrice that Lord Eads is
here
?”
“I believe I recall you mentioning that, yes.”
She twisted her dance card with fraught fingers. “And why don’t you seem as concerned about it as I?” Her tone had altered, her distress quite real now. Wyn’s smile faded.
“I’ve known Duncan Eads for years, Diantha. If he truly wished to harm me, he would have in Wales.”
She blinked rapidly, quick, short breaths lifting her breasts to press against the bodice of her gown. Her dimples were invisible. “You are a dishonest person.”
“I have been so.”
“I should not have trusted you.”
“You should not have. But you did, and we must both now live with that.”
Her cheeks paled, her gaze seeking, but a spark in it dared him to contravene her again. And Wyn knew he wanted that—
her
—tenderness and need matched with strength and determination. He wanted to pick her up and carry her from the ballroom and sink himself into her and remain there, lost together until he discovered every secret she held close and until she knew every truth of his life, every villainous deed and heroic desire.
Her eyes shuttered. “I have something to tell you.”
“I am listening. Always.”
“It seems that Mr. H does not care about my virtue, or lack of it. He thinks that a lady of spirit is bound to have had some adventures of the amorous sort, just as he has.”
Jealousy, hot and fierce, gripped him, which she intended, the minx. Carlyle had not mentioned Highbottom in his letter, but perhaps her suitor had applied to Tracy Lucas. But this game of coquetry was new and he would know why she played it.
“A free-thinker, is he?” he said between clenched teeth.
“I’m not entirely certain. I should have asked him, but it’s been a remarkably busy fortnight since I came to town.”
He tried to read her eyes. “I arrived only today.”
“How nice for you.” She smiled politely, as though it meant nothing to her, but there was a brittleness about her raillery that caught at his chest.
“I went to Yarmouth, Diantha.”
“Yarmouth?”
She visibly controlled her surprise. “And how is the duke?”
“I did not see him. I delivered Lady Priscilla and came here as swiftly as I could.”
“Oh.” Her brow tightened, then her luscious lips, and her facade collapsed. “Don’t imagine you can saunter in here looking outrageously handsome in all of your London elegance and I will forget everything. I think I am still angry with you.”
“Diantha—”
“I wish you would not address me in that manner. I am Miss Lucas to these gentlemen, and no doubt it would have been better if I had remained that to you too.”
“These gentlemen, I suspect, have never seen you three sheets to the wind.”
“Of course they haven’t.”
“Or on your knees on a dusty floor in prayer.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “You saw that? I did not mean for you to see that.”
“What were you praying for, minx? That I would die swiftly and you could continue on with your mission?”
She did not reply at once, and about them music swirled and dancers cavorted. “I prayed that I would stay strong for you. That I would be what you needed.”
Wyn’s heart stumbled, the most disconcerting sensation. But he’d been disconcerted since the moment he encountered Diantha Lucas in a Mail Coach. “I daresay the fruits of your prayer merely gilded the lily.”
Her eyes shone. With the return of that light, she was again the woman he had watched climb a tree, the woman who had finagled her first kiss in a stable, the woman who had changed his life though he’d fought every moment of it.
“You seem well,” she said.
“I am. Now.” Better than he’d ever been.
“I mean, you look well. You look . . .” Her gaze slipped over his shoulders and chest and her cheeks flushed again.
“ . . . well.”
“I intend to call on you tomorrow. I have a question to ask you.”
“A question?”
“Yes. But now is not the best moment for it. Your brother is looking daggers at me.” And if he had to endure her eager perusal much longer he would be hard pressed not to take her off to a secluded alcove so that perusal might turn into something much more satisfying.
Her brow dipped. “I don’t know what is wrong with him.”
“Perhaps he does not like it that I have distracted you from his friends. I will retire and leave the field to your eager suitors. For the moment.”
“But—” She laid her hand on his arm, and his body flooded with heat. “What of Lord Eads?
Are
you telling me the truth?”
Wyn grasped her fingers, blessedly gloved, bowed over them and whispered, “Minx, if you touch me again inappropriately in a crowded ballroom—if you touch me in any manner at all in this ballroom—I will not hold myself accountable for what I do to you before the watching eyes of hundreds of people.”
Her throat jerked delicately. She withdrew her hand. “Please tell me the truth about him. I want to help if I can.”
“I have told you the truth. I don’t believe he poses a threat to me.”
“But you don’t know that for certain.”
“That I am now alive is excellent evidence.”
“Perhaps he has only been waiting for opportunity.”
“He would have had it at countless moments upon the road to and from Yarmouth.” Despite her brother’s glare, Wyn stepped closer to speak quietly below the music and voices. “Diantha, be at ease about this.”
“I’m afraid I cannot be. My nerves are rather high on the matter. When you did not come to London immediately, I imagined all manner of—all manner . . .” She turned her face from him.
Wyn’s chest tightened. He did not want her confusion or distress. He wanted her exuberant smile, her open laughter, and her hot, generous body in his possession at the earliest convenience.
Then her lips opened in a little O and she whispered, “Good heavens!”
He should follow her attention to the source of her surprise, but he could not look away from that perfectly round, soft, berry-pink opening. Her parted lips released a soft breath; he imagined it brushing his skin. He could taste her already, feel her body in his hands, her hands upon him. The memory of those fantastically capable hands blotted out all but the urgent need to have her beneath him.
“The Misses Blevinses!” she uttered.
He wrenched his gaze aside. Two ghostly ladies from a bygone era tottered into the place in draping yellowed lace and dull jewels.
“I never would have thought to see them
here
.” Diantha laid her palm impetuously upon his chest, and Wyn saw but one solution to both of his pressing needs.
“Mrs. Dyer, would you care to dance?” He grasped her hand, wrapped his other about her waist, and swept her onto the floor. Diantha might have laughed except for the persistent prick of worry inside her. But the thrill of happiness welling up proved stronger. He had come, he was not in danger, and he was dancing with her.
His arms were strong and his direction, she soon realized, purposeful. With effortless grace he maneuvered them around other couples across the floor toward the crowd opposite—away from the Misses Blevinses. This was not really a dance; it was an escape.
“Mr. Dyer, we will draw attention.” She could not resist her joy. “The patronesses of Almack’s have not yet given me permission to waltz.”
“Lady B is a far more liberal hostess.” He guided her off the dance floor and swiftly between clusters of guests, tucking her hand beneath his arm. “Case in point.” A French window was propped open, cool air streaming in. He tugged her through, grasped her hand, and she tripped along behind him into a garden. The half-moon was bright, the night air shedding gooseflesh across her bare arms as they skirted a fountain flanking a row of tall rosebushes. It seemed a remarkably ornate place, crowded with robust statues and high hedges and deep shadows everywhere.
“What are we doing?”
“It’s a dark garden.” He spoke low. “Guess.”
She could not think, only feel his hand surrounding hers. “
Tell
me.”
“Making a start on those children the Misses Blevinses encouraged us to have.” He pulled her around the corner of a trellis and to an abrupt halt. But he released her.
Diantha swallowed her cry of disappointment. “You are not serious.”
“A stable is one thing. A ball with half of society in attendance is quite another.” But he stood very close and his eyes glimmered in the crisscrossing shadows of twining vines. “We need a plan.”
She gulped. “A plan for finding a stable?”
“A plan to deal with the Misses Blevinses,” he said patiently, but she could barely hear for the raucous pounding of her heart. His gaze slipped over her neck and shoulders, coming to rest upon her mouth quite as though he did in fact intend to kiss her. Her breaths petered. He wanted her. Still, surrounded by all the elegant ladies of London, he truly wanted
her
.
“I shall plead a megrim and ask Serena to take me home,” she barely managed.
“That will suffice until I devise a more lasting solution.”
“We are not in a ballroom now.” She could not help herself. “If I touch you inappropriately here will you do things to me for which you will not be held accountable?”
“I misspoke.” His voice was rough. “I must remain accountable. Always with you.”
She laid her palm on his chest and the swift, hard beat of his heart shot heat through her. She slid her fingers down fine fabric to his waist and he remained very still. “Always the gentleman,” she murmured.
“Not a gentleman at present.”
Her hand dipped lower. “Because you have dragged me into a dark garden to hide?”
“Because I am not going to stop you from doing what you are about to do.”
She slipped her palm over the fall of his trousers. He was hard already, from only looking at her, dancing with her, and it made her hot inside. Her eyelids fluttered down as she settled her hand around him. He grasped her arms, his cheek bent to hers. She stroked and his body responded, a sound coming from his chest of pure masculine pleasure. She could not contain her own soft moan. It was
so
good
to touch him.
“Oh, Wyn,” she breathed, “do you think we might get to work on those children right now after all?”
His mouth was so close to hers, his body thoroughly rigid. He grasped her hand and trapped it to his erection for a moment that seemed wonderfully to last forever. Then, with a harsh breath, he detached her and took a step back. His eyes were heavy with desire. “I will call on you tomorrow, Miss Lucas.”
“Wyn—”
“Diantha, if you do not return to that ballroom this moment, find your stepsister, and depart—”
“You will ravish me here and leave me to be discovered by half of society, like a proper villain would?” She flashed a hopeful smile.
“Something like that, except for the leaving part. Go. Now.” Tension locked his jaw and shoulders, but his heated gaze was laughing.
Diantha’s heart did a series of delicious little trills. She grabbed the lapels of his coat, pressed herself fully to him and tilted her face up to whisper against his neck.
“I like you like this. I like you . . .” she whispered, “without the brandy.” The darkness was gone, the desperation of the hunter that had haunted his eyes through Shropshire no longer behind the silver. Before Knighton, the glimpses she’d seen of this man, the man who could laugh with his eyes, had made her long for him. Now he was entirely that man, and she was mad with wanting him.
Needing
him. He made her feel desired. He made her feel treasured, not because of liquor or responsibility but simply because of
her
. She feathered soft kisses along his jaw, her hands delving beneath his coat, reclaiming the hard contours of his body.