Love and Other Scandals (11 page)

Chapter 11

T
he next day Joan got a better idea of what life with Evangeline would be like.

Her aunt’s trunks arrived, along with her maid, Solly. Solly turned out to be a tall, statuesque African woman. She was missing two fingers on her left hand and spoke with a melodic accent that seemed to make her words flow like honey. She smiled and laughed with Evangeline in a familiar way that would have sent Janet into fits.

But Joan was most dazzled by her aunt’s wardrobe. Evangeline’s dress upon arrival had been no exception: everything she owned was bright, daring, and unconventional. And she invited Joan to examine all of it, promising they would call upon her dressmaker that very day.

“Be sure to let me know if you see something you particularly like,” Evangeline told her as Solly unpacked, laying out a veritable rainbow of finery. “Federico will decide what he wants to make for you—that’s how he is, vexing man—but if he refuses to listen, Solly can alter any of my gowns to fit you. We’re of a height.”

That was true, although Joan was fairer than her aunt. She touched a luxuriant vine embroidered across the bodice of a deep red gown. Most of Evangeline’s gowns were in colors and styles far too bold for an unmarried woman of Joan’s age. That didn’t stop her from wishing she could wear them, but if her mother heard she was wearing orange or scarlet around London . . . “How did you discover Mr. Salvatore, Aunt Evangeline? I’ve never heard of a man modiste before.”

“He is Sir Richard’s tailor. We met in passing, and a few days later he sent me a sketch of a gown. He hadn’t much liked what I’d worn when we met, so he suggested a better design.” Evangeline laughed. “I thought it highly amusing, so I ordered the gown—and oh my, it was so much more flattering! Sir Richard agreed, and I’ve patronized Federico ever since.”

“Isn’t it . . . immodest to discuss such things with a man?”

Her aunt made a face. “Immodest! He doesn’t require you to stand in your shift. He’s got a perfectly respectable and accomplished female assistant. And what is modest, anyway? Ten years ago girls your age wore sheer white dresses that would hardly be sufficient for a shift now, and more than one lady’s modesty was violated by a strong breeze. And you must know gentlemen talk about ladies’ garments. I daresay they think about them almost as much as ladies do.”

You should wear gold
, echoed Lord Burke’s voice
. You look like a half-opened umbrella.
Joan flushed. “Yes, I suppose they do,” she muttered. “That doesn’t mean they know anything.”

“Federico does.” Evangeline rose. “Let me write to him now. And do ask Solly to show you anything you want to see.”

Solly proved herself a willing accomplice. She shook out and displayed morning dresses and evening gowns, pelisses and shawls. There was a wonderful variety to Evangeline’s clothing, quite unlike Joan’s own wardrobe.

“These are just lovely,” she said wistfully, stroking a walking dress of cream silk with narrow, dark blue stripes. It would have made a perfectly fashionable man’s waistcoat, but was bold and unexpected as a dress.

“Lady Courtenay likes to look her best,” said Solly fondly.

Joan sighed and handed over the walking dress. She also wanted to look her best. No, she wanted to look
lovely
, which might be, she feared, better than was possible. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and tried to see any potential. She was still tall, still plump, and her hair was still straight and brown, suitable only for binding up in braids or torturing into ringlets with a hot iron. But then again . . . Evangeline was almost as tall, and just as plump. So far she hadn’t worn a single ringlet. And while her clothing obviously hadn’t come from the latest pages of Ackermann’s, it nonetheless made her look ravishing instead of umbrella-like. Perhaps there was hope.

Solly was putting away the hatboxes. “Do you wish to see, miss? You will like this one, I think.” She opened one of the boxes.

Joan lifted it out. As bonnets went, it was on the plain side, and not as unconventional as she’d expected. She held it above her head, trying to get an idea of how it would look on her. The current mode in bonnets invariably made her look like a giantess.

“Try it,” murmured Solly. “She will not mind.”

Joan hesitated, then smiled broadly. “Just for a moment,” she agreed, and rushed to sit at the dressing table. She put on the bonnet, and turned her head from side to side. The crown was softer, not as high as was fashionable; the brim was wider and not so peaked. The only plume on it curled around the crown, adding no height at all. And best of all, it didn’t make her face look round. A pleased smile touched her lips. Yes, there was definitely hope.

There was a light tap at the door. “You’ve a caller, Miss Bennet,” said Smythe.

Admiring herself in Evangeline’s bonnet, Joan barely glanced at the butler. “Yes? Who is it?”

“Viscount Burke.”

She nearly sent the hatpin into her scalp. “Who?”

“Lord Burke.” He held out the silver tray to prove it with the plain calling card. Joan gazed at it in alarm. What the devil could he want?

“Shall I tell him you are not in?” inquired Smythe after a long moment.

“Ah . . .” She set the bonnet back in its box. “No, I’ll see him.”

She told herself it was just curiosity that drove her. It had been five days since The Kiss, after all. As much as she wanted to deny it, Joan had wondered, with a bit of nervous hope, if he might call on her. If perhaps he’d found the kiss just a little more than the means to silence her for a moment. If, by some rare chance, he had been as struck by it as she had been.

From his absolute absence, she had concluded he had not, the cursed libertine.

And yet, today he was here in her drawing room. In the corridor she took a quick look in a nearby mirror. Nothing on her face; her teeth were clean; and her hair lay flat, thankfully. Lifting her chin and hoping a cool composure would hide the sudden thumping of her heart, she went into the drawing room.

“Good day, Lord Burke.” She made the barest curtsy.

He was standing on the other side of the room, staring out the window, and whipped around at her greeting. For a moment he seemed frozen, staring at her with an expression perilously close to a glare before bowing. “Miss Bennet.” There was a long pause. “I want to offer my most sincere wishes for Lady Bennet’s full recovery.”

“Thank you.” He’d come to say that? Joan waited, but he merely stood there looking at her, far too attractive for her peace of mind. “Have you brought a message from Douglas?” she asked at last.

His mouth tightened. “Of a sort. He didn’t send you a note, then.”

“No, why would he? I understood he was to leave for Norfolk—in fact, I thought he already had. I can’t think what he would have needed to say to me before he left.”

Lord Burke closed his eyes for a moment, as though reining in his temper.

“Is something wrong with Douglas?” she asked, perplexed beyond measure by this visit.

“I am here to offer my escort,” he said shortly. “If you wish to go out.”

Joan’s jaw dropped. “Escort!”

“At your brother’s behest,” he added. “Bennet feared you’d sit at home alone in your parents’ absence.”

Douglas?
Douglas
had sent him to squire her about? He was only here as a favor to her brother?

Joan drew a furious breath. How dare Douglas send his reprobate friend to dog her heels around town? And how dare Lord Boor agree to it, after the way she had made clear her dislike of him and his manners? She would show them both, she would . . . she would . . . A fiendish thought hit her, and instead of lashing out at Lord Burke, she smiled. Sweetly. She would teach them both a lesson, and have a cracking good time doing it. “Did he? How very solicitous and thoughtful of him! And how very kind of you to devote so much time to my amusement.”

He had obviously expected a different reply. His vivid green eyes seemed to stare right through her. “Yes, it was very benevolent of me, wasn’t it?”

“And conveyed with such solicitude and enthusiasm!” She laid one hand on her bosom, still smiling brightly. “Your reputation for charm is well earned, sir.”

He gave a little huff. “I should hope so. You had better keep it in mind.”

Joan made herself giggle like one of the simpering girls who always seemed to snap up husbands in their first season. “How could I forget? After our last encounter, I mean.”

“Oh?” He crossed his arms and looked interested. “What, particularly, about our last encounter struck you so deeply?”

“Let me see . . .” She tapped one finger against her lips, drawing out the moment. His gaze felt like a bright light shining on her. Joan knew it was very wrong of her, but she couldn’t help but enjoy teasing him. She longed to pay him back for leaving her utterly nonplussed by a kiss. She longed to pay him back for walking away from her, instead of being stunned and breathless and caught, however wrongly, by the mad hope that he might kiss her again. If he could kiss a woman like that and then walk away without a care, he deserved to be tormented. She felt positively obliged to do so, on behalf of all females. “Perhaps it was the way you asked me to dance? No, that was rather gruffly done. Was it your apology for insulting me?” He made a sound in his throat that sounded contemptuous. “No, that also was poorly done,” Joan went on, clicking her tongue in reproach. “It might have been the way you offered to return my own property.”

“I paid for it.”

“And if you’d had any cleverness at all, you would have had a servant deliver it,” she replied.

His brilliant gaze drifted over her. “I found it much more satisfactory to return it in person.”

For the flash of one intense moment, Joan felt again his fingers at her back, pulling loose the laces of her gown. Her cheeks warmed. “It showed poor planning. Anything that requires hiding behind potted trees usually does.”

Too late she remembered what else had required hiding behind potted trees. Her face grew warmer as a faint but wicked smile crooked his mouth, proving that he, too, remembered it.

“Not
everything
,” he murmured.

Joan tried to force it from her mind, truly she did, but still—the memory of his mouth on hers refused to be banished. She tried not to think how she had clung to him, how his arms had felt around her. She tried not to remember how her heart raced, how her breath grew short, and how her skin seemed to tighten at his touch—in short, how she had reacted just as Lady Constance felt with her lovers. “So,” she said to quiet the instinctive tumult inside her body just at the memory of his kiss, “does that mean you plan to kiss me again?”

“No,” he said before she even finished the question. Finally he looked away from her, releasing her from the almost-physical hold his eyes had exerted.

“Good,” she said with all the cool poise she could muster. “I didn’t much care for it.”

For a moment he didn’t move. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Slowly he turned and started toward her, one deliberate step at a time. Joan held her ground, sure she’d piqued him where it hurt. It was only fair. If he’d only kissed her to make her stop talking, and couldn’t even be gentlemanly enough to let her think he enjoyed it a little, she had no qualms in disdaining his skill at it.

But the closer he came, the more she wished she hadn’t said it. She didn’t dare retreat, but it took a great deal of will not to. Finally, barely a foot away from her, so close she could smell the faint scent of cologne he wore, he stopped.

“That sounds remarkably like a challenge,” he said, his voice low and silky. “Challenges, Miss Bennet, are mother’s milk to me. Take care how you issue them.”

“Still a boy with something to prove?” She gave him a patronizing look. “First climbing out windows to get roses; now kissing spinsters? I suppose you’d do it again quickly enough if someone laid you a wager on it.”

Now his smile grew dangerous. “I’ll take that wager. A shilling says I can kiss you and you’ll enjoy it.”

“I thought you didn’t plan to kiss me again.” She opened her eyes wide in mock innocence. “Now you want to kiss me
and
take my coin?”

His shoulder shook a little, as if he was laughing at her. He leaned forward until she could see the sparks of gold in his eyes. “I said I didn’t
plan
to kiss you again,” he whispered. “I never said I
wouldn’t
kiss you again.”

Her throat had gone dry. “That’s the same thing,” she tried to say.

This time he did laugh. “We’ll find out, won’t we?” He stepped back and gave a crisp bow, never taking his eyes off her face. “Good day, Miss Bennet.”

And he walked out the door before she could move, or breathe, again.

T
ristan walked out of the drawing room with every sense tingling. Good Lord, she was dangerous. He felt an unwarranted sense of elation at conjuring that breathless look on her face. She’d wanted him to kiss her, right then and there; he knew it. Unfortunately, he’d felt the same thing, which meant he had already failed a key test. No matter how much he told himself he was supposed to attend her like a brother, his mind and body refused to recognize her in any way that might be deemed ‘sisterly.’