Lady Whistledown Strikes Back (5 page)

But it is well-known that his father, Lord Stoughton, is not among the wealthier of the barons,

and furthermore, Mr. Thompson
is a second son, and as his elder brother has already seen fit to
procreate, he is a mere fourth in line for the title.

And so if Mr. Thompson hopes to
live in any manner of style once he departs the army, he will need to
marry a woman of some means.

Or, one could speculate, if one was of a mind to do so, obtain funds in some other manner.

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS,
31 MAY 1816

If Peter had known the identity of the elusive Lady Whistledown, he would have strangled her on the spot.

Fortune Hunter. He detested the moniker, viewed it
more as an epithet, and could not even think the words without nearly
spitting in disgust. He’d spent this past month in London behaving with
the utmost of care, all to ensure that the label was not applied to him.

There was a difference between a man who sought a woman with a modest dowry and one who seduced for money, and the differential could be summed up in one word.

Honor.

It was what had governed his entire life, from the
moment his father had sat him down at the appallingly tender age of
five and explained what set apart a true gentleman, and by God, Peter
was not going to allow some cowardly gossip columnist to stain his
reputation with a single stroke of her pen.

If the bloody woman had an ounce of honor herself,
he thought savagely, she would not coyly cloak her identity. Only the
craven used anonymity to insult and impugn.

But he didn’t know who Lady Whistledown was, and he
suspected no one ever would, not in his lifetime, anyway, so he had to
content himself with taking out his foul mood on everyone else with
whom he came into contact.

Which meant that he was probably going to owe his valet a rather large apology on the morrow.

He tugged at his cravat as he navigated the
too-crowded ballroom at the home of Lady Hargreaves. He couldn’t refuse
this invitation; to do so would have given too much credence to Lady
Whistledown’s words. Better to brazen it out and laugh it off and take
some solace in the fact that he wasn’t the only one savaged in this
morning’s edition; Lady W had devoted a fair bit of space to five
guests in total, including the poor beleaguered Miss Martin, whom the
ton would surely turn upon, as she was merely Lady Neeley’s companion
and not, as he had already heard someone say, one of their own.

Besides, he’d had to come tonight. He had already
accepted the invitation, and furthermore, every eligible young miss in
London would be in attendance. He couldn’t let himself forget that
there was a purpose to his presence in town. He could not afford to
finish the season without a betrothal; as it was, he could barely
manage to pay the rent on his humble bachelor lodgings north of Oxford
Street.

He imagined that the fathers of those marriageable
misses might view him a little more carefully tonight, and several
would not allow their daughters to associate with him, but hiding at
home would, in the eyes of society, be tantamount to admitting guilt,
and he would be far better off acting as if nothing had happened.

Even if he wanted rather desperately to put his fist through the wall.

The worst of it was that the one person with whom
he absolutely couldn’t associate was Tillie. She was universally
acknowledged as the season’s biggest heiress, and her good looks and
vivacious personality had made her quite the catch indeed. It was
difficult for
anyone
to pay court to her
without being labeled a fortune hunter, and if Peter were seen to be
dangling after her, he would never be rid of the stain on his
reputation.

But of course Tillie was the one person—the only person— he wanted to see.

She came to him in his thoughts, in his dreams. She was smiling, laughing, then she was serious, and she seemed to
understand
him, to soothe him with her very presence. And he wanted more. He
wanted everything; he wanted to know how long her hair was, and he
wanted to be the one to release it from the prim little bun at the nape
of her neck. He wanted to know the scent of her skin and the exact
curve of her hips. He wanted to dance with her more closely than
propriety allowed, and he wanted to spirit her away, where no other man
could even gaze upon her.

But his dreams were going to have to remain just
that. Dreams. There was no way the Earl of Canby would approve of a
match between his only daughter and the penniless younger son of a
baron. And if he stole Tillie away, if they eloped without her family’s
permission…. Well, she’d be cut off for certain, and Peter would not
drag her into a life of genteel poverty.

It wasn’t, Peter thought dryly, what Harry had had in mind when he’d asked him to watch out for her.

And so he just stood at the perimeter of the
ballroom, pretending to be very interested in his glass of champagne,
and rather glad that he couldn’t see her.

If he knew where Tillie was, then he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from watching for her.

And if he did that, then he’d surely catch a
glimpse of her. And once that happened, did he really think he could
take his eyes off her?

She’d see him, of course, and their eyes would
meet, and then he’d have to go over to offer his greetings, and then
she might want to dance….

It occurred to him in a sharp flash of irony that he’d left the war precisely to avoid the threat of torture.

He might as well just yank off his fingernails now.

Peter subtly adjusted his position so that his back
was more toward the crowds. Then he gave himself a mental smack when he
caught himself glancing over his shoulder.

He’d found a small group of men he knew from the army, all of whom, he was sure, had come to

London for the same reason he had, although with
the exception of Robbie Dunlop, none of them had had the misfortune of
having been invited to Lady Neeley’s ill-fated dinner party. And Robbie
hadn’t been chosen for scrutiny by Lady Whistledown; it seemed that
even that wizened old crone knew that Robbie hadn’t the guile to
concoct—much less carry out—such an audacious theft.

“Bad luck about
Whistledown,”
one of the former soldiers commented, shaking his head with honest commiseration.

Peter just grunted and lifted one shoulder in a lopsided shrug. It seemed a good enough answer to him.

“No one will remember by next week,” said another.
“She’ll have some new scandal to report on, and besides, no one really
thinks you stole that bracelet.”

Peter turned to his friend with dawning horror. It had never even occurred to him that anyone might actually think he was a
thief.
He’d been merely concerned with the bit about being a fortune hunter.

“Er, didn’t mean to bring it up,” the fellow
stammered, stepping back at what must have been a ferocious expression
on Peter’s face. “I’m certain it will turn out to be that companion.
That sort never has two shillings to rub together.”

“It wasn’t Miss Martin,” Peter bit off.

“How d’you know?” asked one of the men. “Do you know her?”

“Does anyone know her?” someone else asked.

“It wasn’t Miss Martin,” Peter said, his voice hard. “And it is beneath you to speculate with a woman’s reputation.”

“Yes, but how do you—”

“I was standing right next to her!” Peter snapped.
“The poor woman was being mauled by a parrot. She hadn’t the
opportunity to take the bracelet. Of course,” he added caustically, “I
don’t know who will trust my word on the matter now that I’ve been
labeled as the prime suspect.”

The men all rushed to assure him that they still
trusted his word on anything, although one was foolish enough to point
out that Peter was hardly the
prime suspect.

Peter just glared at him. Prime or not, it appeared that
much of London now thought he might be a thief.

Bloody hell.

“Good evening, Mr. Thompson.”

Tillie. The night only needed this.

Peter turned, wishing his blood weren’t racing with quite so
much energy at the mere sound of her voice. He shouldn’t see her. He shouldn’t
want to see her.

“It is good to see you,” she said, smiling as if she had a
secret.

He was sunk.

“Lady Mathilda,” he said, bowing over her proffered hand.

She turned and greeted Robbie, then said to Peter, “Perhaps
you might introduce me to the rest of your compatriots?”

He did so, frowning as they all fell under her spell. Or
possibly, it occurred to him, the spell of her dowry. Harry hadn’t exactly been
circumspect when he’d spoken of it on the Continent.

“I could not help but overhear your defense of Miss Martin,”
Tillie said, once the introductions had been completed. She turned to the rest
of the crowd and added, “I was there as well, and I assure you, the thief could
not have been she.”

“Who do you think stole the bracelet, Lady Mathilda?”
someone asked.

Tillie’s lips pursed for a fraction of a second—just long
enough to inform someone who was watching her very closely that she was
irritated. But to anyone else (which consisted of everyone except for Peter)
her sunny expression never wavered, especially as she said, “I do not know. I
rather think it will be found behind a table.”

“Surely Lady Neeley has already searched the room,” one of
the men drawled.

Tillie waved one of her hands through the air, a blithe
gesture that Peter suspected was meant to lull the other gentlemen into
thinking she couldn’t be bothered to think about such weighty questions.
“Nevertheless,” she said with a sigh.

And that was that, Peter thought admiringly. No one spoke of
it again. One “nevertheless” an d Tillie had maneuvered the discussion exactly where she wanted it.

Peter tried to ignore the rest of the conversation.
It was mostly inanities about the weather, which had been a bit
chillier than was normal for this time of year, peppered with the
occasional remark about someone’s attire. His expression, if he had any
control over it, was politely bored; he did not want to appear overly
interested in Tillie, and while he did not flatter himself to think
that he was the main topic of gossip at the ball, he had already seen
more than one old biddy point in his direction and then whisper
something behind her hand.

But then all of his good intentions were spoiled
when Tillie turned to him and said, “Mr. Thompson, I do believe the
music has begun.”

There was no misunderstanding that statement, and
even as the rest of the gentlemen rushed to fill the subsequent slots
on her dance card, he was forced to crook his arm and invite her onto
the dance floor.

It was a waltz. It would have to be a waltz.

And as Peter took her hand in his, fighting the
urge to entwine their fingers, he had the distinct sensation that he
was falling off a cliff.

Or worse, throwing himself over the side.

Because try as he might to convince himself that
this was a terrible mistake, that he shouldn’t be seen with her—hell,
that he shouldn’t be
with
her, period—he
couldn’t quite quash the pure, almost incandescent tingle of joy that
rose and swirled within him when he held her in his arms.

And if the gossips wanted to label him the worst of all fortune hunters, then let them.

It would be worth it for this one dance.

Tillie had spent her first ten minutes of the
Hargreaves’ Grand Ball trying to escape her parents’ clutches, her
second ten looking for Peter Thompson, and her third standing at his
side while she chattered about nothing at all with his friends.

She was going to spend the next ten minutes with his complete attention if it killed her.

She was still a little irritated that she’d practically had to beg him to dance with her,
and
in full view of a dozen other gentlemen. But there seemed little point
in dwelling upon it now that he was holding her hand and twirling her
elegantly around the dance floor.

And why was it, she wondered, that his hand on her
back could send such a strange rush of desire straight to the very core
of her being? One would think that if she were to feel seduced, it
would be from his eyes, which, after ten minutes of studiously ignoring
her, burned into hers with an intensity that stole her breath.

But in truth, if she was ready to throw caution to
the wind, if she now required every last ounce of her fortitude not to
sigh and sink into him and beg him to touch his lips to hers, it was
all because of that hand on her back.

Maybe it was the location, at the base of her
spine, just inches through her body to her most intimate place. Maybe
it was the way she felt pulled, as if any moment she would lose
herself, and her body would be pressed up against his, hot and
scandalous, and aching for something she didn’t quite understand.

The pressure was relentlessly tender, drawing her toward him, slowly, inexorably … and yet when

Tillie looked down, the distance between their bodies had not changed.

But the heat within them had exploded.

And she burned.

“Have I done something to displease you?” she
asked, desperately trying to shift her thoughts onto anything besides
the heady desire that was threatening to overtake her.

“Of course not,” he said gruffly. “Why would you think something so absurd?”

She shrugged. “You seemed … oh, I don’t know… a bit distant, I suppose. As if you did not welcome my company.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he grunted, in that way that men did when they knew a woman was right but had no intention of admitting it.

She’d grown up with two brothers, however, and knew
better than to push, so instead she said, “You were magnificent when
you defended Miss Martin.”