“Under duress?” said Lady Tatton.
“My son twisted his arm,” she answered, turning to Esmée. “Hello, Miss Hamilton. How lovely you look tonight.”
But Lady Tatton was still focused on MacLachlan. “Yes, he is a friend of Devellyn’s, isn’t he? I had forgotten.”
“Have you never met Sir Alasdair?” asked the duchess.
Lady Tatton hesitated. “Once, briefly,” she said. “We are, I believe, distantly related.
Very
distantly.” She paused to smile tightly. “Scots, you know! We are all kin if you go back far enough.”
“Distantly related?”
whispered Esmée as they walked away. “What can you be thinking?”
Rowena paused and made a fuss over rearranging her shawl again. “Esmée, I’ve reconsidered our strategy,” she whispered. “What if Sorcha’s situation becomes known? He has told his staff, you said, that Sorcha was the child of a deceased cousin—”
“Oh, no one believed that Banbury tale!” said Esmée.
“Nonetheless, it is our story now, and we must all stick to it,” she answered. “It is always possible your name could yet get dragged into it. At least he is respectable enough to be invited
here.
And he probably
is
a cousin, were we to dig back far enough. We walk a fine line with this mess your mother has got us into. Now,
do
stop staring at him!”
“Aunt Rowena, I certainly am not!” And oddly enough, she wasn’t. Once she’d gotten past the shock, she had torn her eyes away and forced herself to focus on the other gentlemen—the
practice
gentlemen—in the room. After all, she had already practiced on Sir Alasdair MacLachlan as far as she dared. The very thought of what they had done together cast a fine blush over her cheeks. And so it was that when her aunt dragged her at little deeper into the withdrawing room, and introduced her to two handsome, almost foppishly dressed young men, Esmée was looking quite her best.
“Lord Thorpe. Mr. Smathers.” Esmée curtseyed at the introduction. “A pleasure.”
Lord Thorpe bowed over her hand. “It is indeed,” he said. “My dear Lady Tatton, town is so deadly dull this time of year. Why have you hidden this diamond from us?”
“Is this your first visit to London, Miss Hamilton?” interjected Mr. Smathers. “If so, please let me introduce you to my sister. She is an expert on all the not-to-be-missed sights.”
The lady behind him turned round and smiled. Lady Tatton sent Lord Thorpe to fetch two glasses of sherry. Miss Smathers began to rattle on effusively about the British Museum. Esmée set her hand on Mr. Smathers’s arm and did her best to ensure that Sir Alasdair MacLachlan saw that she was enjoying herself. She would be damned before she would let that arrogant devil imagine that she was wearing the willow on his account.
Lord and Lady Devellyn were watching the little drama which was unfolding across the ballroom, and wondering if they had heard Alasdair correctly.
“Good Lord!” said Devellyn.
“That
is your shrew?”
“The sister, yes,” muttered Alasdair. “Miss Esmée Hamilton.”
“Damn,” muttered Devellyn. “Not quite what I had imagined.”
“Why, she’s lovely!” said his wife. “Have you ever seen such flawless skin and so much rich, dark hair? What must it look like down?”
Alasdair did not have to wonder. He knew all too well what it looked like down, a recollection which was making his palms sweat and his pulse race. He watched Esmée move through the crowd, her spine perfectly straight as she inclined her head and smiled, first in one direction, then the other, with more than one pair of male eyes following her as she did so.
Already that upstart Smathers had her hand on his arm, as if he meant to escort her to some empty corner of the room for a quiet little tête-à-tête. Alasdair watched in irritation as Lord Thorpe fetched her a glass of sherry and, with an ingratiating smile, moved to flank her other side.
“She puts me in mind of a sculpture I once saw in Venice,” Lady Devellyn murmured. “A marble Madonna. Serene and lovely—but a little unyielding.”
“Dressed a tad plainly,” remarked Devellyn. “But elegant. Very composed.”
She did indeed look composed, Alasdair would give her that. Her back was straight, her hair was twisted high to expose the slender turn of her neck, and despite her small stature, she moved like a duchess.
Just then the real duchess appeared at Esmée’s side. Mr. Smathers and Lord Thorpe fell away, their smiles fading. Devellyn’s mother took Esmée on one arm, Lady Tatton on the other, and started across the length of the room. Too late he realized they were heading in his direction.
“Lady Tatton,” said the duchess brightly, “You remember my son, the Marquis of Devellyn?”
Alasdair stood in numb silence as all the introductions were made. When the duchess came to him, Lady Tatton acknowledged their acquaintance with a curt, “We’ve met.”
He bowed low over her hand, then Esmée’s, saying little beyond what was required. At first, he thought Esmée would not lift her gaze from the floor. Then, at the last possible instant, she did so, looking directly into his eyes, just as she had on the night they first met. The result was much the same. That disembodied slam, as if the wind had just been knocked from his chest. Her pure, green gaze, seeing through him. Stripping away his defenses in a chilling rush. It was as if she knew his every thought. Knew him perhaps better than he knew himself.
“’Tis a pleasure to see you again, Sir Alasdair.” Her faint burr melted over him, warm and evocative. He had missed the sound of it, he realized. Disconcerted by the contrast, he dropped her hand, and stepped abruptly back. She turned to Quin, and offered him a smile that was not altogether false. Then the trio moved on, leaving Alasdair to simply trail after them with his eyes.
The meal which followed was one of the most miserable affairs Alasdair had ever endured, so he spent the first three courses eyeing Dev nastily for having dragged him there. The crowd was small by Mayfair standards, and most were well acquainted. Around the long table, the dinner conversation was merry, punctuated by laughter so boisterous it would have been unseemly at a more formal affair. The duchess did know how to throw a party, Alasdair admitted.
He was seated between Sidonie and Isabel, Lady Kirton, the duchess’s girlhood friend. Alasdair liked the matronly Lady Kirton immensely. She was a philanthropist who had friends from all walks of life, and despite her age, she was droll and full of mischief. Just a few months earlier, she had helped him perpetrate a hilarious hoax on the
ton—
a hoax which had laid to rest the notorious Black Angel, and enabled Dev and his bride to enjoy a marriage unburdened by the fear of Sidonie’s past returning to haunt them.
Still, even Lady Kirton’s amusing company could not pique Alasdair’s interest tonight. He responded to her questions mechanically, until at last she turned her attention to the gentleman on her left, leaving him alone in the hubbub of dinner conversation.
Esmée, Alasdair noticed, had been seated between Smathers and a fellow by the name of Edgar Nowell, a bland, prosy fellow, who was known to be the duke’s political protégé and topmost toady. Esmée’s smile never faltered as she turned back and forth between them. Who would have dreamt such a dry stick could turn into a regular
bel esprit?
Esmée was laughing at some jest Nowell had murmured rather too near her ear. Not to be outdone, Smathers attracted her attention by covering her hand where it rested on the table. It was rather a bold gesture. Esmée turned to him with a look of candid interest. Alasdair felt something strange twist and tighten in the pit of his stomach.
“Lovely, is she not?” murmured a voice near his ear.
Recalled to the present, Alasdair turned to Lady Kirton. “I beg your pardon?”
Her ladyship’s eyes were bright and lively. “Miss Hamilton,” she clarified. “I see she has caught your eye.”
“Actually, my eye was drawn to her gown,” he said coolly. “I cannot quite make out the color. It is not really black, is it?”
“Aubergine, I believe,” murmured Lady Kirton. “The poor girl lost her mother in the spring. I met her last week at the duchess’s tea, and again at a literary salon in Park Lane. We had a long chat, Miss Hamilton and I.”
“I daresay she’s charming.”
Lady Kirton sipped delicately from her wineglass. “Lady Tatton tells me her niece shan’t dance after dinner. Miss Smathers is to play a few country tunes on the pianoforte, you know.”
“I was unaware,” he answered.
Lady Kirton smiled. “I am sure the young lady would not be averse to taking a turn about the room instead.”
Alasdair looked at her pointedly. “Again, I am afraid you’ve mistaken my interest.”
Lady Kirton’s eyes seemed to twinkle. “Oh! Did I?” She sounded suddenly dithery. “I should have worn my spectacles, I daresay. But there is no doubt the chit is a pretty thing—her mamma was a famous beauty in Scotland, you know—and her grandfather settled ninety thousand pounds on Miss Hamilton in his will, so I think she will do quite nicely, don’t you?”
Alasdair thought his ears were failing. “I beg your pardon?”
Lady Kirton blinked owlishly. “Her mother was a famous beauty,” she repeated. “Why, it’s said the Earl of Strathan and the Duke of Langwell dueled over who was to get the last slot on her dance card at her come-out.”
Alasdair shook his head. “No, the
will.
I thought…well, I thought her family was penniless?”
Again, the innocent blink. “Why, no indeed!” she said. “Oh, ’tis true her father wasted his fortune and died insolvent. But her maternal grandfather made a fortune in shipping. When he died, Rowena was already wed to the very wealthy Lord Tatton. And Rosamund, her sister, was married to—well, what can I say? To yet another pretty ne’er-do-well.”
Alasdair smiled faintly. “That can be an expensive habit.”
“Just what her father thought!” whispered Lady Kirton. “So being a good and prudent Scot, he put his disposable assets in trust for Anne and Esmée, his granddaughters, to be theirs upon their marriage, or their thirtieth birthday, whichever came first. So, which do you wager on?”
“Which do I wager on what?” Alasdair was confused.
“Which do you wager will come first?” her ladyship pressed. “Do you think there is even the slightest chance that so pretty a girl will remain unwed until she’s thirty, now that she has finally come to town? To be sure, I do not!”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” he answered. He prayed to God she would wed. And the sooner the better.
Lady Kirton touched him lightly on the forearm and leaned nearer. “Someone really should warn her, though, about Mr. Smathers, do you not think?” she murmured. “She might be as green as she is pretty. And Lady Tatton may not know that Smathers recently had to mortgage his estate in Shropshire. I’m told he has suffered dreadful losses on the American stock market.”
Finally, it dawned on Alasdair what she was saying. Smathers was a fortune hunter. And Esmée had a fortune. Good Lord! The chit would be like a lamb to the slaughter if her aunt did not keep both eyes firmly fixed upon her.
“Of course, there is always Lord Thorpe,” whispered Lady Kirton. “A fine title, but his mother is
such
a dragon, and he is thoroughly cowed by her. Not being yourself on the marriage market—”
“Good Lord, no!”
“I thought as much,” admitted her ladyship. “Therefore you would not know that Thorpe has been jilted by no less than
three
young ladies in as many seasons—driven away, they say, by the dowager, who provoked them to tears in turn. Can you imagine a more miserable existence for a wife?”
No, he could not. It sounded grim.
“And then there is Mr. Nowell,” said Lady Kirton. “Just look how taken he is with her. Nowell is to stand for Stippleton next election, and it is a given that he will be elected to the Commons. Now,
that
is whom I should choose for her.”
Alasdair dropped his fork. “I cannot believe you serious!”
Lady Kirton set her fingertips to her chest. “Why, I could not be more earnest.”
“Nor could Nowell!” Alasdair returned. “Good Lord, Isabel, he is the single most boring human being I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Whoever marries him will likely fall asleep and drown in their tea before the wedding breakfast ends.”
“Oh, dear, you might be right,” she murmured. “What about Mr. Davies, then? He’s Welsh, I know, but so devastatingly handsome.”
“He has a mistress and three children in Spitalfields.”
“Oh, dear! Mr. Shelby, then?”
“Hopelessly foppish.”
“True, true! Sir Henry Bathstone?”
“He’s bent in a different direction, Isabel. I hope you take my meaning.”
Lady Kirton’s cheeks turned pink. “Dear me! I think I do. Oh, I have it! Your friend Wynwood!”
“Out of the question,” snapped Alasdair. “Quin has sworn off love.”
“Oh, pish!” Lady Kirton struck him lightly on his arm with her fingertips. “Love has nothing to say in the matter. He
must
marry. I play whist with his mother every Wednesday.”
“Do you indeed?” he said stiffly.
“Indeed, I do,” said her ladyship with asperity. “And depend upon it, Quin will wed, and it will be soon. With his poor papa so recently in the grave, Lady Wynwood is quite beside herself. If Quin dies without an heir, everything goes to some third cousin once removed—a singularly unpleasant relation named Enoch Hewitt. A horrid name, is it not? It sounds as if one is trying to cough up something disagreeable.”
“I don’t think Quin cares who inherits what, Isabel.”
“No, but his mother cares!” she returned. “And Quin would never leave her in such a precarious position. Nor will he deny her the grandchildren she yearns for, now that she’s been widowed. Indeed, he has all but promised her he will marry next season, if not sooner.”
“Good Lord!
Quin—?”
“Quin,” said her ladyship firmly. “Indeed, now I think on it, they are perfect for one another! Lady Wynwood, you will recall, is Scottish on her mother’s side. She will adore Miss Hamilton and her little eccentricities. I shall speak with Rowena at once.”