More distressing still were the odd tinglings in her body and daft flutterings of her heart. She dropped her gaze, startled and annoyed by her own intemperate reaction.
But unable to help herself, she stole another secret glance at him—and it was then that her gift for noticing people in pain drew her attention to the guarded, angry lines around his eyes.
The bitter intensity behind his practiced smile.
And it dawned on her that he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to all those women around him.
Not really.
In fact, he kept drawing away subtly from their efforts to touch him; Grace followed the line of his gaze and realized that he was constantly watching the door.
As if he was waiting for someone to arrive.
Hmm.
Studying him a little more closely, she furrowed her brow and began to suspect that the “famous hero” did not want to be here any more than she did.
Of course, she might be wrong, but that smile seemed little more than a thin veneer over a vortex of churning emotion, most of it rather dark.
This was not a happy man, she mused as she gazed at him standing there like a lost soul, alone in the crowd.
George interrupted her fascinated study of the stranger as he rose. “Well, my dear Polaris, it’s always a pleasure talking to you, but if you’ll excuse me, I must not neglect our other guests. And . . . I believe I shall go peek in on the card games—”
“Oh George, that is not a good idea for you,” she protested softly, taking his hand at once, as if she could stop him.
“Not to play! I’m only going to watch,” he assured her with a smile.
Grace stared at him. “Promise?”
“If you promise to dance with me,” he retorted, withdrawing his hand to fold his arms across his chest with a knowing look.
She frowned.
Stubborn pup.
“Oh, come, one dance. I’ll suffer if you will.”
“Fine,” she muttered, but inwardly, she shrank from the thought of parading herself across the dance floor, a spinster in a plain, provincial gown, sporting a toe in front of the ton.
She didn’t even know anyone here except for George, Papa, and, to a lesser extent, Lord Lievedon himself. It was easy to picture all these glamorous aristocrats taking one look at her, wrinkling their haughty noses, and asking each other:
“Who is
that
and what is she doing here?”
But if that was what it took to keep George on the straight and narrow, then so be it. She’d sacrifice her dignity in front of Society if she must—and even in front of
him.
That disconcerting gentleman-assassin on the other side of the room.
Not that a man like that was ever going to notice her.
In any case, the way he watched the door made her think he was already waiting for a particular lady to arrive.
“Excellent, then!” her rakish friend declared. “I’ll be back soon to claim you for our dance.”
Grace nodded.
Be strong, George,
she thought, as he bowed to her, then walked away. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help wishing that Callie were here.
The bubbly young belle, with her constant demand for attention, might have kept her beau distracted from his gambling habit. Then Grace could have comfortably fallen into her usual, safe role as the respectable chaperone, quietly standing behind the vivacious, golden flirt and keeping both young people in line.
She supposed she had better go check her appearance and do what she could with herself before George came back, provided his demons did not suck him down into their familiar snare.
Rising from the bench, she withdrew from the ballroom. Nobody noticed her exit.
Gliding through the marble hallways, she passed the noisy music room, full of laughter and song. Everyone here seemed to be such great friends.
She lowered her gaze and turned away, seeking a quiet room away from the crowd where she might find a mirror.
As the sounds of the ball receded, at last she peered into an empty sitting room at the end of a marble corridor. This would suit. Stepping into the dimly lit chamber, she pulled the door closed behind her with a low sigh and finally let her guard down.
There was nothing like being a stranger in the middle of a loud, lavish party to make one feel unutterably alone.
L
ord Trevor Montgomery kept an eye on the doorway of the ballroom, but feeling more restless with every passing moment, he was starting to think that dragging himself here tonight had been a bloody waste.
Still no sign of Laura.
Faithless bitch.
Maybe she was hiding from him. Maybe she feared if she showed up here tonight, he’d start something with her new fiancé.
As if he couldn’t kill one idiot dragoon with his eyes closed.
Well, she needn’t have flattered herself.
He was already over Laura Bayne.
That was all that she or anyone else in London needed to know.
Hell, it wasn’t as though he had been waiting the past few years to marry the feckless beauty or anything stupid like that. It wasn’t as though he had been building her a bloody fucking dream house for them to live in once his service to his stupid bloody country was finally done.
But what the hell. He’d have probably hated being married to her, anyway, he told himself. He barely even knew her. He had wanted it that way, had purposely kept her at arm’s length.
Still, being jilted, even by mistake, was more humiliation than he intended to stand for. So as much as he did not want to be there tonight, he had no choice.
What was left of his pride demanded he make an appearance and show the world he did not give one damn about how all his future plans had crashed and burned.
The whole ton knew how he had been written off for dead by his gorgeous fiancée while he’d been away at the war. In his own mind, Trevor had been jilted.
Thus, it was a matter of male pride. If she had had any faith in him at all, she should have known that he always came home alive. She should have believed in him.
She should have at least waited for confirmation he was dead. But she had not. She had washed her hands of him and moved on with her life.
In a way, he supposed he couldn’t blame her. But he was too furious that at last, after years of faithful service, just when victory was in sight, his long-hoped-for reward had slipped through his fingers.
He felt like naught but the butt of a grand joke. Not that he was laughing.
All he knew was that there was no way in hell he would countenance anyone’s pity. And so he had put on an evening coat and, he hoped, a not-too-cynical smile, and had come to show the world that he was perfectly fine.
Easy come, easy go.
All he really wanted was to be left alone, but since his horrible, newfound fame made it clear that
that
wasn’t going to happen, he did the proper British thing and went about keeping up appearances.
He had come out tonight to show Laura most of all that he could move on with his life just as easily as she had.
Indeed, there were far too many women around him even now who could barely wait to comfort him in his, ahem, heartbreak.
Trevor rather hated them all at the moment.
All women. It was nothing personal. They were merely the spawn of Satan, the devil’s own, every last one of ’em.
He smiled at the bloodsucking harpies, disinterested, detached, only half-listening to their idiotic prattle and wondering which of them might be any good in bed.
What pretty fools.
The three on his left were trying to get him to play a childish parlor game as their means of flirting.
“If Lord Trevor were an animal, what would he be?” they teased.
“A bear, I think,” her brunette friend teased.
“Thanks a lot,” he muttered.
“A wolf!”
“No, a hunting dog.”
He arched a bored eyebrow.
Meanwhile, the three in the center were planning his social calendar for him. He was exhausted just listening to all the activities they were lining up for him. There was no way he was going to some stupid flower show, let alone the opera. No. He’d heard enough shrieking in Italian during that nasty business he and Nick had taken care of on the outskirts of Rome, thank you very much.
But, his eyes glazing over, he just nodded politely.
The two sultry adventuresses on his right, meanwhile, were a little more direct about what they had in mind.
Damn, they were sending him messages with their big, smoky eyes that had usually been reserved for his handsomer teammates.
But Beau was married, and Nick had gone to jail, so it seemed they were prepared to make do with boring, sane, reliable Montgomery.
He looked askance at the decadent pair, wondering if he should be worried.
Carnivores.
One licked her lips at him; the other smiled like she was thinking of tackling him to the ballroom floor and ripping his clothes off him.
There had been times in his past, of course, hundreds of miles from Laura, that he’d have been happy to comply, but this wasn’t one of them.
They could all go to hell for all he cared.
Newly converted to a misanthrope, he looked away with a wave of coldness washing through him. When the clock tolled eleven, he was suddenly done with all this. This night. This petty exercise was pointless.
Obviously, Laura and the major weren’t coming.
He had rather liked the notion of her walking in and seeing him surrounded by amorous women, but he had been here for two bloody hours and just didn’t care that much.
She wasn’t worth the aggravation.
He was going home.
It took some finesse, but he finally managed to extricate himself from the knot of rouged, vivacious lovelies. Shrugging off light, caressing holds designed to snare him; ignoring vapid questions meant to delay him; and impatiently lying through his teeth that of course he’d come back soon and dance with all of them, he retreated until he had gained his liberty, and fled.
As he marched off, he heard the ladies whispering to each other that he must be forgiven for his rudeness on account of his recent heartbreak.
Trevor gritted his teeth and strode out into the adjoining marble corridor, where more guests loitered. Out of habit, he glanced into the pier glass on the wall to check behind him and nearly paused midstride to find he was being followed.
The two little hussies in silk and diamonds did not intend to let him get away so easily, it seemed. He growled under his breath and walked faster, determined to escape them. When he picked up his pace, the whispers behind him turned to giggles, and they walked faster, too.
Did they think this was a game?
Apparently, they hadn’t heard that the depraved Inferno Club had been merely a front for the Order, that its members weren’t all as bad as they’d let the world believe. Especially not him.
Trevor was happy to consider himself the boring one. Responsible. Reliable. You had to be when you came from a scandalous ducal family, then were assigned for the next decade to serve on a three-man Order team with the likes of Beauchamp (flashy) and Nick bloody Forrester (bastard).
Somebody had to be the adult.
The amorous ladies hunting him obviously thought he was playing with them. He restrained the urge to turn and curtly cut them down to size.
But he couldn’t have done it even if he had wanted to. Flawless manners and an inbred sense of chivalry were the bane of his existence. Like an idiot, he had even told Laura that he understood, and he had wished her happy.
What a sot.
He could hear those hussies still following him, and it wasn’t difficult to guess what they desired.
Maybe I should,
he mused. Then at least he’d have the satisfaction of knowing the gossip would soon get back to Laura.
She didn’t love him, but she was vain enough to be gnawed with jealousy. It was one, admittedly feeble way to get back at a woman who had publicly humiliated him.
But, no. The thought of using those harlots for his own selfish pleasure sickened him. No, he was done having sex for ulterior motives. It was bad enough to have done that sort of thing for England during his spy days. He was not about to resort to male harlotry now.
He wasn’t Nick, after all.
It was time to disappear. He took a circuitous course through the marquess’s excellent house to lose them. A bit of an amateur architect, he resisted the temptation to stop and study the floating spiral staircase as he passed. Adam’s handiwork, no doubt.
He ducked into the music room, only to find a countess with a marriageable daughter who pinned him with a determined stare from over by the pianoforte. He’d barely extracted himself from her clutches last week.
Ah, shite.
Ever so casually, Trevor pivoted and headed out the nearest door.
A nonchalant glance over his shoulder revealed Her Ladyship pushing her way through the crowd toward him. Blazes, they were closing in on him from both directions now.
Never in his shy, pimply youth, cast in the shadow of his better-looking, louder-bragging friends had he ever dreamed he might have this sort of problem.
He headed for a nearby servant door, but a stream of footmen spilled out, cutting him off; trapped, he glanced about, seeking another escape, then slipped around the corner and sped down the hall. He could hear the pursuing ladies just around the corner.
“Oh, Lord Trevor, darling, where are you?”
“We want to ask you something, handsome!”
He scowled.
“Oh, Lord Trevor? Where have you gone, my dear?”
“We have a wonderful notion of how to cheer you up!”
Their giggling grew louder.
“Perdition,” he whispered under his breath. Laying hold of the nearest doorknob, he whisked into a dimly lit parlor, pulled the door shut silently behind him, and locked it. Immediately touching his fingertips to his tongue, he reached over and pinched out the flames on the nearby candle sconce.
Then he held perfectly still in the darkness, waiting for them to pass.
He held his breath as the ladies tried the door.
“No, Cecily, this one’s locked.”