"By God, is that you, Richmond?"
"It is indeed. How are you, Alfie? And what the devil are you doing in a purple coat, of all the ghastly hues?"
"It's all the crack, I assure you." Lord Alfred looked down at himself defensively, then looked up at Hugh and laughed. "Fie on you, what would you know? You've been out of the country for— what? A dozen years?"
"Something of that nature," Hugh admitted. The two men, grinning at each other, shook hands.
"We were at Eton together, you know." Lord Alfred made this observation to the trio of women, two of whom were watching with smiling complacency and the third of whom— Claire— still felt so decidedly stunned that she was having trouble taking in anything new, then turned his attention back to Hugh. His voice took on an eager tone. "Does Dev know you're back? Or Connaught? They're married now, you know, poor fools. Set up their nurseries, the both of them. Lord, the dusts we used to kick up! Then you…" He broke off, looked suddenly self-conscious, and turned what he had been going to say into a cough.
"Then I ran off with a woman old enough to be my mother, killed her husband in a duel when he came after us, and had to flee to the Continent as a result," Hugh finished for him dryly. "Don't try to wrap my sordid past up in clean linen. I'm sure it'll be the talk of the town again as soon as word gets out that I've come home."
"It's been so long, I'm sure it's all forgotten," Lady George murmured in an excusing tone, while Aunt Augusta nodded agreement and Claire looked at Hugh with widening eyes. Though he seemed as familiar to her as her own face in the mirror, she realized that, in truth, she knew nothing about him. Nothing except the way he kissed, the way his hands felt on her body, the way he…
"I fear you've shocked my new cousin with your tales of my scandalous doings, Alfie. Perhaps I should take your dance, and try to convince her that I'm really not the monster you make me out to be." Hugh looked at Claire, and to her horror proffered his arm. "Will you accept me as a poor substitute for my loose-lipped friend, Lady Claire? I am really quite harmless, believe me."
"Oh, well, seeing as it's you, I'll stand aside. But just this once, mind."
With Lord Alfred relinquishing his claim with a bow, and Lady George and Aunt Augusta both watching indulgently, Claire could think of nothing to do but tuck her hand in the crook of Hugh's elbow.
Once again the room started to spin. Claire took a firm grip on herself. She must just hold on for a little while more, until she could get out of this thrice-cursed ballroom and away from the dozens of prying eyes. Then she could collapse. Then. Not now.
"I'm sure you are," she said, for the benefit of their audience, and with a smile plastered so firmly on her face that it made her jaw ache, she allowed herself to be led onto the dance floor.
The waltz had already begun. Hugh clasped her hand, slid an arm around her waist, and swung her into the rhythm of the dance. She could feel the heat of his fingers through her glove, feel the brush of his knees against her own, feel the strength of his arm behind her back as he held her at the prescribed distance, which, since
he
was her partner, suddenly seemed far too close. Smiling with all the genuineness of a porcelain doll, she stared steadfastly at his neck, not daring to lift her eyes to his face until she was sure she had her expression— and her temper— firmly in hand. Her gold lace skirts brushed his black-clad legs with every movement of the dance. His wide chest in its pristine white shirt and waistcoat was only inches from the tips of her breasts, which, despite her best efforts at keeping all her erotic memories of him at bay, seemed to be swelling toward him. She was sure that, looking down, he had a most interesting view of the semibared white mounds and the deep cleavage between them. Her chest was rising and falling faster than even the exertions of the dance could account for, Claire realized with dismay. But hopefully he would not notice that— or the pulse that she could feel beating in time with her skipping heart just below the surface of the white skin of her throat. Claire was instantly, acutely aware of all these details, even as she willed herself not to be, willed herself to stay as detached from what was happening, as detached from him, as if she were in truth dancing with a man who was no more than the just-met stranger they were both pretending he was.
The music was intoxicating, a haunting, romantic invitation to lose oneself in the dance. The scent of flowers combined with the ladies' perfume to sweeten the air. The candles overhead cast a soft glow over the assembled company, and flickered like hundreds upon hundreds of fireflies as they were reflected in the mirrors that lined the sides of the room. All around them couples swayed and twirled in a vast, swirling ballet. Claire got a glimpse of Beth, looking radiant as she laughed up into the face of her partner, before a movement of the dance swept her out of sight again. Then someone stepped on the trailing hem of her gown and she stumbled a little, clutching at Hugh's shoulder for balance as she scooped her skirt higher out of harm's way. Even as Hugh's arm tightened reflexively around her, she made the mistake of looking up at him. As she met those cool gray eyes, all thoughts of her surroundings faded away.
She had forgotten how tall he was, she realized. Forgotten how broad his shoulders were. Forgotten the steely strength of his muscles, and the sensuousness of his mouth, and how easy it was to see the shadow of what would be the morning's beard darkening his lean cheeks even when he was freshly shaved, as he was tonight.
Then she realized that she had forgotten other things as well. Like how to breathe.
As she let herself acknowledge that the man holding her was Hugh, really, truly Hugh, her heart skipped a beat. Then she remembered all that he had withheld from her and how he had lied, and the anger already coursing through her veins took on a sudden searing heat.
"You cad," she said.
"Careful, your smile is slipping."
There was a teasing glint in his eyes, but she thought she saw tenderness for her there as well. Perversely, that only served to feed her anger. His tenderness, she felt, was no longer to be trusted. He was no longer to be trusted. She had told him everything about herself, given him everything she had to give, while he had taken and taken and taken and said nothing.
But this crowded ballroom was not the place to air her grievances. Her focus must be on keeping her composure, and keeping their secret. Everything else— like calling him the lying dog he was— could wait.
She stretched her lips into that ghastly-feeling smile again.
"Did you really," she asked, far too politely, "run off with a married woman and kill her husband in a duel?"
"I was nineteen and foolish," he replied with a shrug, "and her husband would have killed me if he could. I just happened to be the better shot. In any case, he deserved it. He had been beating her."
"And what became of this lady?"
"I have no idea. She ditched me for a better prospect as soon as I rid her of her husband." A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "Thus teaching me a valuable lesson that I find instructive to this day."
"And what lesson is that?"
"Women are the very devil." That sounded heartfelt, but there was a twinkle in his eyes as his gaze met hers.
Claire couldn't help herself. For the briefest of moments her smile slipped again and she glared at him. He laughed, seeming suddenly very carefree, far more carefree than he had any right to be under the circumstances, and swung her around in a movement of the dance with rather more vigor than was called for. To her annoyance, she was forced to cling even more tightly to his broad shoulder. Which was what he had intended, she guessed. Gritting her teeth against all she wanted to say to him, she recollected their audience and once again pinned on that blatantly false smile.
They reached the far side of the room. A welcome breath of cool air was blowing through the long windows that someone had finally opened to help cool the overheated dancers. The gauzy undercurtains that had been pulled back to lie in tandem with the heavy velvet drapes fluttered like pale moths in the breeze. Beyond the windows, there were couples strolling on the terrace. Flaming torches in ornate iron holders had been set at intervals of a few feet along the low stone parapet. Beyond the torches, in the just-beginning-to-bud gardens, all was darkness.
"I think this conversation needs to be continued in private." He looked down at her with a lurking grin. "Before your face freezes in that terrifying smile."
At that, the smile slipped dangerously before she caught herself. Even as she kept it in place, she looked daggers at him. He laughed, a low, genuinely amused sound that under any other circumstances she would have found absolutely charming. Before she quite realized what he would be about, he whirled her through the window and across the terrace. Then, grabbing her hand so that there was no possibility of escape, he pulled her after him down the shallow stone steps into the moonlit garden.
Chapter 25
"Did you miss me, puss?"
The question, uttered with a sideways smile as Hugh tucked her hand securely under his arm and led her down a brick-paved path that twisted out of sight of the terrace, was absolutely the wrong thing to say. Claire had vowed that she would confine herself to polite conversation for the duration of the ball. There was no reason, after all, to even open herself up to the possibility of creating what could easily, if she gave free rein to how she really felt, be a very ugly public scene. But for him to ask if she had missed him— which of course she had, madly, a fact that was infuriating enough in itself under the circumstances and that she now never meant to admit to anyone even under pain of death— and call her puss to boot was the verbal equivalent of waving a red flag in front of an already infuriated bull.
"Why, no," she said with studied disinterest, her chin in the air. "I've been very busy since we last met, you see. Why?" And here she glanced up at him with a little trill of amused laughter. "Did you hope that I would?"
"Don't lie." His smile widened, causing his eyes to narrow and the lines bracketing his mouth to deepen charmingly. "You missed me."
He sounded so certain of it that, even as the last remnants of her smile died, Claire's eyes began to snap. She stopped walking to glare at him, luxuriating in the freedom to do so without restraint, and pulled her hand from his arm with something of a jerk. From where they were standing, in the lee of a tall, just budding lilac, she could see couples on the terrace backlit against the ballroom. It was a safe bet that more were wandering the garden's shadowy paths. But no one was near; she and Hugh were, to all intents and purposes, alone. Still, she kept her voice carefully low.
"Besides being an utter cad, a churlish lout, a mannerless oaf, and a conscienceless blackguard, you are also possessed of a truly remarkable degree of conceit, I perceive. I did not miss you." She said it almost pleasantly, with a little pitying smile of which she was pardonably proud. Then her anger got the best of her and she added with considerable heat, "In fact, I have just been reflecting on what a great pity it is that the French didn't shoot you."
"Believe me, they tried." His eyes twinkled at her. He caught her hands, holding them so that she stood directly in front of him with their linked hands between them. "I missed you, angel eyes. More than I ever would have believed possible. James is quite outdone with me over it. You've intruded on my thoughts a dozen times a day and haunted my dreams at night. No other woman has ever done as much, I assure you. Thus I left Boney to the tender mercies of another operative as soon as I conceivably could and hurried to your side."
He lifted one gloved hand to his mouth, then the other, kissing the backs of her fingers even as he watched her over them.
Their gazes met. The warmth in his eyes touched a chord deep inside her that was quite out of the control of any rational part of her mind. Despite herself, Claire could not help the sudden quickening of her pulse. That she had been in his thoughts and in his dreams was music to her ears. He had been in hers, too, almost unceasingly since they had parted. She had missed him, oh, she had! When she'd thought that she would never see him again, the pain had been almost unbearable. Had he felt the same…? No, of course he hadn't, she concluded acerbically. He had known all along that they would meet again, and probably precisely where and when. He could have saved her all that misery with a word. The thought made her fury boil over.
"You, sir, are a lying dog," she said through her teeth.
He straightened, but kept his grip on her hands as he studied her face through the darkness.
"You're beautiful when you're angry." The merest hint of a teasing smile curled the corners of his mouth as he took in her rigid stance and deepening scowl. "Actually, you're beautiful any way at all. When you're soaked to the skin. When you're green with seasickness. When you're dressed in naught but my valet's second-best shirt and curled up snug in my arms. When you're not dressed in anything at all.
Especially
when you're not dressed in anything at all. Come, Claire, quit shooting dagger looks at me and cry friends. I've traveled halfway across two continents to find you again, after all."
Claire narrowed her eyes at him. "I can't tell you how flattered I am— or at least how flattered I would be if I truly believed that you had left behind a life of skullduggery with its threat of constant death to return to a luxurious, pampered existence in your own London home solely to reunite with me. Which I don't. Why should I? All you've done is lie to me from the beginning."
"I did not lie to you."
"Indeed,
Your Grace
?" She purposefully put heavy emphasis on the honorific as she tugged at her hands, which he obstinately refused to release. "I seem to recall being held prisoner by a terrifying brigand who, when he was quite through threatening and brutalizing me, eventually introduced himself as Colonel Hugh Battancourt. Not as the Duke of Richmond, whose family name, as I happen to know from my own personal use of it, is Lynes. And I would be very much surprised if your given name is even Hugh. I've heard your given name— the duke's given name— and while I can't quite recall what it is, it isn't Hugh, I am almost certain."