Kaleidoscope: A Regency Novella (5 page)

She only had to adjust the settings a little and the patterns would change. She smiled and began to make her plans.

 
  

Luke surveyed the ballroom. Tomorrow’s papers would proclaim the Hazelton’s ball a great success. Everyone with even the pretense of being anyone was there. When his half-brother discovered the theft, Luke would be the immediate suspect, but he would have the entire ton to testify he had been dancing the night away.

He planned to make himself obvious by asking a number of debutants to dance. The chaperones of these virginal misses would be aghast, but the girls themselves would eagerly add his name to their dance cards. Nothing was as attractive as the forbidden—and he was confident most had been warned against him. After all, he was the bounder who had compromised Lady Belinda Fuquay and then refused to marry her.

Lady Belinda had named him as the father of the child she carried, and everyone took her word as the truth. Since he’d only conversed with her on two occasions, and never alone, he wasn’t sure how this miraculous conception was supposed to have taken place. But no one had believed his protestations of innocence. No lady would admit to such ruin if it weren’t true.

He had no idea why she’d chosen him. Perhaps because he was studying for the church at the time and she imagined him so filled with the milk of human kindness that he would happily make a nest for both her and her burgeoning cuckoo. Lady Belinda hadn’t taken into account that the son of an English marquess and a French countess would have too much pride to be a dupe.

He’d lived to regret not marrying her. How could he have suspected that desperation would lead Lady Belinda to hang herself in her dressing room? Her false accusation and suicide had alienated him from his family, rendered him unfit for the clergy, and set him firmly on the path to becoming a wastrel.

But, ironically, notoriety carried its own allure, and he continued to be invited to most of society’s events. He was tolerated as long as he restricted his perceived predatory behavior to those widows and bored wives of the fast set. Tonight, he would prowl the debutants, however, and
that
would be remembered.

He could only hope that Tremaine and his tame safecracker would find his mother’s unset jewels in his eldest brother’s safe. The infusion of such wealth would enable him to buy a small stud farm somewhere in a distant county. There he could make himself into a different person. Perhaps he could become someone he liked better than he did his present self.

He had the will to change. He just needed the means.

He greeted his host and hostess, then headed unerringly toward the cluster of pale gowns that delineated tonight’s quarry. His steps slowed at the sound of laughter from a cluster of men to his right. Two of the men shifted so he could see the object of their interest—a shapely woman in brilliant green. Ladies dressed in bright colors weren’t his present goal, but his feet unconsciously turned in that direction.

Between the bodies of the adoring group, Luke caught only quick flashes of the surrounded lady. Hair as dark as night arranged in an elaborate design. A long, graceful neck. Gently sloping shoulders. Skin the color of weak tea with milk. Intermittent shimmers of fine silk that sparkled like green fire. And then the lady turned, and he gazed into the fathomless depths of Carolyn Rydell’s dark eyes.

He was surprised that he was
not
surprised. It seemed that he had known from the first that it was she. The men between them seemed to melt away like wax in the sun. He bent over her hand and kissed it. “Mrs. Rydell.”

One of her dark brows arched slightly, but she too seemed unsurprised at his arrival, almost as if this meeting had been planned or inevitable. “Lord Lucien. I’m delighted to see you looking so well.”

“I didn’t realize you two were acquainted.” Templeton’s dry, disapproving voice broke into what had seemed to be a private conversation. Interesting. His oh-so-married, elder half-brother was one of the swarm gathered around Carolyn Rydell. His middle brother David would have been less of a surprise, since David had married for money and found his amusement elsewhere. Temp, however, had always seemed to adhere to the straight and narrow. Luke kept his face composed, but inwardly he smiled. He wouldn’t have to worry about having a firm alibi for the robbery that was, hopefully, taking place at this very moment at Templeton’s house.

“Mrs. Rydell was the good Samaritan whose servants plucked me from the Thames when I was accosted last month.” Luke turned his attention back to Carolyn, as Templeton mumbled something about low places. “I hope you have a place for me on your dance card. Perhaps the supper dance?” He suddenly very much wanted to spend time with this intriguing woman. His sexual desire must have been as battered as his body while he was in residence in her home. He remembered her only with kindness and not the lust that was currently roaring through his blood.

She examined the card that dangled from her wrist. “Alas, that dance is Lord Penhurst’s, but the first set after supper is open.”

Well into the evening. No doubt a quadrille. Not even a waltz. Disappointment rode him, but Luke dutifully signed his name and took his leave. At least his presence was established and he would not have to terrorize any of the young misses and their mothers. With relief, he headed toward the card room.

Tremaine found him there an hour later. The look on his friend’s face told him everything, but he still excused himself and met Tremaine at the side of the room.

“No loose gemstones in your brother’s safe,” Tremaine immediately said.

“Half-brother.”

The older man waved away the objection. “Semantics. We found a lot of papers that indicate Templeton has made some well-paying investments in shipping, an emerald necklace I remember his wife wearing for years, and a small packet of bank notes. I took a few odd bills to pay Sharp for his time, but left everything else. We buttoned everything up, and it’s possible Templeton will never know the safe was opened.”

“What about the missing money?”

Tremaine laughed. “I doubt your
half
-brother counts his coins as carefully as you do. This was just cash on hand, and he probably doesn’t know the exact amount he’s put in there. But I’m damned sorry we didn’t find your legacy.”

“As am I.” Just saying the words pierced him with loss. He’d allowed himself to hope, to imagine another life. He’d been so damned sure the jewels would be in the safe. He again saw the gems tumbling through his own boyish hands, catching the light and making him laugh at the sparkling patterns they made. He knew his mother had owned them then, and she’d mentioned the jewels at the end. His father had to be wrong about their being used to help other French émigrés.

“But what are you doing hiding in the card room? I thought the idea was to make yourself conspicuous by dancing with the debutants.”

“I ran into Templeton early on, so he knows I’m here. I decided to spare those making their come-out. Right now I’m just killing time until I can claim my dance.”

An incredulous look froze Tremaine’s mobile face. “Good God, Luke. You’re on someone’s dance card? This is taking conspicuous behavior to the limit. Who’s the unfortunate chit?”

“No chit. Mrs. Rydell.”

“Your delectable rescuer is here? Now there’s someone I wouldn’t mind standing up with myself.”

The use of the word
delectable
irked Luke. “I’d prefer if you didn’t,” he said in a tight voice.

Tremaine grinned and slapped him on the back. “Not a bad plan. Your Mrs. Rydell has the worth of more than a few bags of gems in her possession—and the packaging is superb. You’d come out much better than your half-brother David did when he married for coin.”

Luke hadn’t thought of Carolyn in those terms. He’d simply wanted to dance with her. To again feel her small, soft hand in his, to again see a smile in her dark eyes. And he’d do so as soon as the interminable supper ended.

The pall of disappointment over not finding the jewels loosened its grip on his shoulders and floated away.

 
  

Caro was sure she was developing a tic in her right cheek. She’d spent the entire evening smiling at idiots, and the false, frozen expression was taking its toll. As with her earlier forays into English society, she was surrounded by men interested in either marrying her money or enjoying an illicit tumble in the sheets. As examples of British manhood, she found them universally wanting. There certainly wasn’t a discrete lover in the entire group. Actually, she couldn’t envision any one of them as a lover, discrete or otherwise.

While she lacked experience, Caro was not without knowledge. No one who grew up in India could be ignorant of what went on between men and women. She’d spent hours studying the carvings on temples and trying to reconcile the basics she knew to the convoluted couplings illustrated in stone. Much of this still eluded her, although she well remembered the heady rush when that young officer had kissed her in the garden. But then he’d grabbed her and squeezed her breasts. She’d been frightened and was trying to push him away when Charles found them. She’d fled to Charles’s encircling arms and felt safe there.

Charles’s embrace had been filled with the sweetness of coming home. But before it had gone so wrong, the young officer’s kiss had been like running down a steep hill, knowing that at any moment she could fall, but enjoying the exhilaration of the danger. If she were going to rid herself of her virginity, then she wanted the fervor she’d briefly experienced. She didn’t feel even a glimmer of this emotion for anyone in the milling crowd of men around her.

And then she saw Lucien Harlington coming toward her, weaving his way through the throng like a tiger stalking prey through the forest. He was all controlled power and subtle grace. Something within her whispered
maybe
.

Luke wasn’t frightening. He was a known quantity. As he lay injured in her house, she’d watched him and had held his hand when fever terrors haunted his mind. She was comfortable with him. Yet something pulsed beneath the surface.
Maybe
?

“I believe this is my dance,” he said, gently taking her hand and separating her from the herd.

In that brief space of privacy as they walked to take their places in the waiting set, she could feel the beat of his pulse where her fingers rested on his wrist. The scent of clean male—and something more—surrounded him and called to her.
Maybe
became
yes
.

She leaned toward him and quietly asked, “Could you call on me tomorrow morning, well before visiting hours?”

He was the one to utter the word she’d been thinking. “Yes.”

 
  

Changes in the Patterns for May 1825

“
C
aro paced the drawing
room and wondered if she were a fool. What had seemed sensible and inevitable beneath last night’s flickering candles appeared ridiculous and impossible in the light of day. Oh, she had no doubt that Lord Lucien would be happy to make her his mistress. Even the little she knew of his reputation assured her of this.