The Rebel Heir (2 page)

She would no doubt pay a high price for her behavior on the carriage ride home, but her two cousins were worth the browbeating. The three of them had become quite close over the three years since Victoria and Isabelle's father had unexpectedly inherited his title and estate. Evangeline mourned the lost years when she and her older sister hadn't been allowed to visit
such common gentry
. Even if they were family. But at least she'd had Sue for a sister…until last season.

The only correspondence she'd received from her sister in the past year had been small sketches of sights Sue must have seen while on her wedding trip with Lord Steelings, and even those had been few in number. There were no messages or locations—nothing but the drawings. Evangeline understood Sue's reasons for such distance, but it made her heart ache all the same. She drowned the maudlin thoughts in a large swallow of lemonade. She had her cousins for company now, as well as her new friend Roselyn, and she would not make a mess of things as she had with her sister last season.

“Who's next?” Victoria asked, grabbing the card from Evangeline's wrist and squinting at the names written there. She winced. “You'll want to watch your toes for the remainder of the evening. Not a single good dancer—or interesting conversationalist, for that matter—in that lot.”

“Victoria,” Evangeline admonished through teeth clenched in a polite smile. “Even with us standing here, someone could hear you.”

“I'd be doing them and all the other ladies here a kindness. Someone should tell these gentlemen that they dance an awful waltz, and that their conversational skills are no better than their abilities on the dance floor. Have you heard Lord Herring drone on about his crop rotations? I almost drifted off to sleep on the floor mid-twirl.”

“Victoria does have a fair point, Evie,” Isabelle mused, investigating her cousin's dance card for herself, a frown on her pouty lips. “You seem to have selected your dance partners based on their ability to make a girl nod off.”

Evangeline pulled her wrist away from her cousins' inspection. The gentlemen in question had been selected based on rank, wealth, and good standing in society. Her mother would consider no other factors. “Really, Isabelle. I expected you to understand. Exceptions must be made.” She hid a grimace behind her glass of lemonade. “Such things matter little in the game of marriage.”

“In the game of marriage, even I place no bets,” Victoria said with a shake of her blond head.

Evangeline eyed her cousin. “We're expected to play a hand or two at least. Show some effort, Victoria.”

“I don't care for the odds.” If Victoria was anything, it was sure of her own opinions on everything around her. Evangeline admired her strength. There was no place for such talk in her own life, of course, but her cousin's words always made her smile.

“I, on the other hand, want to play this game forever. Isn't it wonderfully romantic here tonight? The candlelight, the roses, all the gowns and dashing gentlemen…” Isabelle sighed and looked out across the ballroom as if soaking in a particularly beautiful sunset.

“You would find romance in being paraded about town like a cow at the local harvest festival. I'm sure you'll get the winning ribbon this year, Isabelle, worry not.”

Isabelle huffed and turned her back on her sister, her perfect blond ringlets bouncing as she moved.

“A cow at the local harvest festival? Really, Victoria.” Evangeline shook her head. Although they bickered, her cousins truly did adore each other. Evangeline thought the comfort of their relationship gave them the ability to say such things. They could say what they wished, but she'd seen them laugh and cry together over the last three years. She knew their true nature.

Victoria chuckled, as unrepentant as always, enjoying the situation even more when Isabelle shot a murderous look over her shoulder.

Evangeline watched the gentleman she was to dance with next move past them, treading on a lady's toes when she came too close. Leaning toward Victoria, she whispered, “Perhaps you were right about my next dance partner.”

“Of course I was. What you need to survive the remainder of this evening is champagne. What you were thinking with that lemonade, I have no idea.”

“I was thinking that I had a thirst,” Evangeline replied as she set her lemonade glass on the tray of a passing footman.

Isabelle spun back around, apparently having followed their conversation while acting put out. “Are we going in search of champagne? I believe there's a parlor with refreshments nearby.”

Evangeline looked around to answer her cousin, but at that moment the crowd parted, and there he was. She blinked, not trusting her own eyes.

It couldn't be. Perhaps she'd imagined him.

She craned her neck to see through the crush of people to the ballroom's main entrance.
He
looked into the room, his eyes sweeping across the dancers, before he turned and moved away into the hall. He was here. He'd left her with empty promises a year ago, and now he was back. She was already moving in his direction.

“Will you excuse me? My gown is in need of repair,” she murmured without taking her eyes from the door.

“Your gown is fine, Evie. You always fuss so. Let us go and find some champagne so you'll be fortified before your next dance.”

“I really must repair my gown.” Evangeline was crossing the room before Victoria could reply.

Perhaps her eyes were bewitched. She'd thought she would never see him again. And yet at the same time, she had never stopped looking for him. She'd found herself searching crowds for his face countless times over the past year. Her mother had accused her of madness when she'd abandoned their shopping last month to follow someone down Bond Street. That gentleman had turned out to be Lord Wellsly, to her everlasting embarrassment. Evangeline gave a mental shudder at the memory. This time was different. This time it wasn't simply another tall gentleman with the same lean build or coal-colored hair. This time she'd seen his face.

She slipped from the Dillsworths' ballroom without her family taking notice, which was a wonder in itself. Now, if she could only discover which direction the dratted gentleman had gone. Dillsworth House was a large home on the outskirts of the city. Its opulence made it the perfect location for such a large ball. But its size also made it a challenge to find a single gentleman in the crush of guests wandering the vast halls.

Evangeline turned at the end of the hall, delving deeper into the less-populated areas of the home. Perhaps she'd lost his trail. Who would wander a dim hall during a ball? But even as she thought it, she knew Lord Barnish would do exactly that. She'd first met him in just such a location at a ball last year.

Her eyes narrowed on the flicker of light coming from the crack under the door just in front of her. She lifted her hand to the edge of the door, her palm sweating beneath her snug glove. What would she find inside? What if the gentleman she'd seen wasn't even Lord Barnish? Or worse, what if he was? Taking a breath to regain her usual calm facade, she opened the door.

Across what appeared to be a small library, she saw him again. He had his back to her as he flipped quickly through papers on a desk. The room was lit by a few candles placed in ornate sconces on the walls, but they shed only enough light to dissuade one from tripping over furniture—hardly enough to read by. A lantern burned bright on the desk though, throwing dancing light across his hands. He lifted one piece of paper and studied it in the light. His head tilted and she could see the edge of a triumphant smile—the same smile she'd searched for since last season.

“My Lord…it
is
you,” she muttered, trying to gather her wits about her. For all the rehearsing of what she would say if she were ever to see him again, now, in this moment, all she could manage were benign niceties? “I didn't expect to see you here this evening,” she continued, inwardly rolling her eyes at her own words.

“Nor I you,” he replied as he turned toward her, lowering the paper in his hand, but not replacing it on the stack on the desk. “It is, however, a pleasure to see you now.” He was as handsome as ever. The nonchalance that seemed threaded through every fiber of his body had him leaning a hip on the desk. His eyes raked over her body before landing on her face. His quick blink was the only sign that she'd surprised him. The rest of him remained suspended in a show of languid enjoyment.

After quickly checking the hall behind her, she stepped into the quiet of the library. Licking her lips, she searched for the words she wanted to say to get the answers she needed to hear. Closure, that was what she wanted of him. That was
all
she wanted of him, and then she would leave without looking back. After all, the gentlemen on her dance card were approved matches, and he was not. “When I last saw you…”

“I was unavoidably detained, my lady.” His voice was as smooth as his appearance—smooth like glass. And just like glass, anyone in reach was likely to be sliced to pieces at a moment's notice.

Evangeline winced at the slight. He acted as if he'd only stepped outside for some air and not disappeared completely both from society and from her life for a year. Did he have her confused with a dance partner from earlier in the evening? Perhaps, unlike her, he didn't remember their time together at all.

She shouldn't have come here. She shouldn't have ever looked for him on the crowded London streets. And she certainly shouldn't have kissed him that night after knowing him only a short time.

“Allow me to make amends,” he added. The corner of his mouth quirked up, the promise of a smile hidden beneath the surface.

“Unavoidably detained,” she repeated as she balled her hands into fists at her sides. “For a year.”

“A year. That does sound rather damning, doesn't it?” He made a face of dismay. “My lady, has anyone ever told you how candlelight reflects in your eyes like the stars on a cloudless night?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, you told me just that—last year.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. Was that to be his only acknowledgment of his obvious misstep? “Still, it's no less true today.”

It would seem he wasn't the sort to offer an apology. And she'd spent a year pining for this man! She shook her head as her mind rushed to make sense of what was happening. “Lord Barnish, I can see I've made a horrible error in my judgment of you. It seems time has also served to make me wiser in my dealings with rakish gentlemen.”

He pushed from the desk at the mention of his name, something akin to concern filling his eyes. “Well, now I know the issue. This Lord Barnish seems a rather unreliable and foolish fellow since I take it he abandoned you. His loss, the daft prick.” He smiled in that way that haunted her memories, his clear blue eyes twinkling with humor. “I'm Lord Crosby.”

She blinked. He was going so far as to give a new name? No. This was not the manner in which their reunion would take place.

She took a step forward, looking up into the face she would know anywhere. “Crosby, are you? It's odd that you would possess the same tall, athletic build as Barnish, the same tan coloring from too much time spent outdoors. Why, even the lift of your brow as you study me, the quirk of your lips as if amused by your own thoughts, your coal-black hair tousled in the same careless manner. Tell me, did you just emerge from a lover's bed, or do you simply enjoy making proper ladies envision such…” Evangeline stopped herself, realizing too late that she was rambling on about his appearance and causing the heat of a blush to rush to her cheeks.

“My lady…”

Clenching her fist so as not to cover her mouth at her carelessly spoken, horribly inappropriate words, she watched him. “You don't remember my name, do you?” She couldn't believe how wrong she'd been about him. “I've spent the past year chasing a wisp of smoke that vanished into the air.”

He took a step toward her. “Smoke from embers that burn still, judging by your anger now.”

“Smoke from a foul fire I now wish I'd never encountered.”

“Lady Emily,” he offered with a hint of an apologetic smile, clearly attempting to get back in her good graces. He took another step toward her, wincing when she narrowed her eyes. “Lady Ethel?”

“Good day, my lord,” she ground out.

“It's actually night at the moment—not that we'll quibble over such nuances at a time like this.”

She shoved him hard in the chest, annoyed when he didn't budge, but only looked down at her gloved hands.

He looked back up at her, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight. “
Good evening
would be appropriate though…Lady Elizabeth.”

“You”—she hit him again, putting the force of her body behind the blow, but he still didn't flinch—“do
not
have leave to use my given name, therefore it scarcely matters if it is Irene or Penelope!” She realized after the fact that she was yelling.
A lady never yells.
The words played in her mind in her mother's voice.

Giving her gown a tug, not so much to straighten her skirts as to calm herself, she said, “You may call me the lady who left you standing alone in the library.”

And with one final fluid motion—one that would have made her dance instructor quite pleased—she plucked the paper from his hand and glided out the door. For all the upset he had caused her, she would not allow him to steal from Lord Dillsworth on her watch. She was Lady Evangeline Green, daughter of Lord Rightworth, and that was simply not how things were done in good society.

Ashley Claughbane had done many things in his life, but chasing impulsively after an ill-tempered lady wasn't one of them. Still, he muttered a curse and took off after her.

He'd known London would be a troublesome bear of a job, and this was why. All right, perhaps this wasn't why. How could he have anticipated this turn of events? But the task was proving troublesome nonetheless. What were the odds that the chit would remember him from last year, let alone that she would be in attendance tonight? Truly. A hundred to one? A thousand, perhaps? He'd only been in town one week last year. Yet here she was, fleeing with the document he needed for his plan to move forward.

He reached the hall and spotted the flick of her skirt as she moved out of sight. What the devil was her name? When he thought back, he could remember the soft caress of her lips against his, that her dark hair felt and smelled like rose petals, that she'd worn yellow. But her name was a mystery. He shook his head and rounded the corner after her. She was walking toward the crowded ballroom. He had to stop her. She could destroy everything. He would have to leave town, and there was no way he would be able to return. “I've waited too long for this to walk away now,” he growled to the empty hall.

Diving through a door that looked like it led to an unlit service hall, he ran to the opposite end. If he could cut her off before she reached the ballroom, all would be well. He simply had to get to her in time.

He found the door at the end of the hall and flung it open, the passage leading directly back to the ballroom. He blinked into the candlelit room, his eyes adjusting from the dimness of the service corridor. There she was. She was smoothing her skirts and looking the part of an angry ice queen, the paper he needed still clutched in her hand. She was searching the room, and he would venture a guess it wasn't to find him again.

There was no time for thought. There was no time to consider his options. Leaning out from the doorway, he grabbed a fistful of her gown and pulled her backward. She staggered on her heels, recoiling into the dark hall with him. He gave her gown a final tug and shut the door on the ballroom, throwing them into relative darkness.

She gasped. Would she scream? One never knew if a woman was a screamer or not, at least until the opportunity presented itself. This sort of event was his least favorite means of having that question answered.

“What do you think you're doing?”

Not a screamer, it seemed. “Saving you from making a horrible mistake,” he replied.

“Saving me? I don't require saving. And certainly not by you.”

“Ah, but if I'm not wrong—and I'm rarely wrong—you were about to hand this paper over to our gracious hosts.” He ran a finger down her arm to the gloved hand where she held the document.

There was a telling pause before she pulled her arm out of his reach. “You're wrong. Everything about this situation is wrong.”

“It is, isn't it?” He lowered his voice to a suggestive rumble, grinning as he spoke.

She huffed but made no move to put more distance between them. “You're despicable.”

“True.”

“And I'm guessing not on the guest list this evening.”

“Also true.”

She studied him, her soft blue eyes reflecting the sparkle of a lone candle on the wall. “Then why are you here?”

“The more interesting question is why you haven't yet left. For someone who finds my company so unpleasant, you've now followed me into two darkened spaces.”

“I did
not
follow you here,” she stated, her eyes flashing with ire.

“Details,” he countered.

“A rather important detail, if you ask me.”

“Is it? At the end of the story, we're here either way.”

“So we are. Lord Barnish…I mean, Crosby…or whatever you call yourself these days, I am sorry to leave you alone once again, but I really must return to the ball.”

“To turn me in for appearing here uninvited,” he finished for her.

“Among other things.” Her gaze fell to his mouth, and she blinked her focus back to his eyes. It was a small glance, but he noticed nonetheless.

“Oh, we shouldn't forget the other things,” he said, closing the gap between them by a fraction.

“No, we shouldn't.”

“You're right, of course.” He reached up and traced the line of her jaw with his fingers. “It would be wrong.”

“Quite wrong,” she whispered.

“Yet irresistible,” he murmured as he slid his hand over her cheek.

She took a quick breath. He could feel the tension in the delicate line of her jaw. He hadn't read her interest incorrectly. When it came to charm, Ash knew no equal.

When he touched his lips to hers, her eyes drifted closed and she pressed forward into him. Suddenly, what he'd planned as a stolen kiss, meant to distract, didn't seem stolen at all. This kiss was freely given. And if something was offered, he was a smart enough fellow to take it.

Her mouth was lush and willing beneath his. He deepened their kiss, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue. A hint of lemon lingered there. Her kisses were sweet yet tart, matching the lady in question. Damn. He still didn't remember her name.

He slid one hand into the dark hair that hung in shining ringlets at the back of her neck, pulling her closer with the other. She rose to her toes, pressing a hand to his chest. Where had this minx come from, and how had he possibly forgotten about her?

He slipped his hand down her arm to the hand where she still held the document. He twined his fingers with hers as he plundered her mouth. He now had what he'd come for in his grasp, but he didn't want to leave—not now.

This had not been part of his plan. What had begun as
his
winning move in this game of theirs had somehow become
hers
. He needed to leave. He couldn't stay here with her—too much was at stake. He broke their kiss. The next minute passed on a tide of blinks, questioning looks, and ragged breaths.

Finally, he gave her a small nod and took a step away. “I appreciate the kiss…even more than the document you returned to me.”

“What?”

He leaned in and kissed her once more for good measure. She didn't fight the touch, but a second later when his actions clearly registered, she made a different type of contact—her palm against his cheek.

A loud slap filled the hall, or perhaps it only echoed in his own ears. Either way, it stung like the devil.

“At least tell me your true name,” she demanded. “You owe me that much.”

He waved the piece of paper in the air in farewell. “You may call me the gentleman who left you standing alone in a servants' hall.”

He opened the door to leave her there as promised. All had worked out quite well this evening—unexpected, but well.

A grin was still on his face when she ducked her head beneath his arm and tried to stop him from fleeing. Was the lady mad? She was a fine-boned woman, though the smallest woman he'd ever seen, but she could hardly stop someone his size. His hand was on the door behind her. She was pushing and still sliding backward on the polished hardwood floor as he moved forward.

“You will not get away with this. Not again, not this season.”

Again
. The word caught him off guard. He paused to look down at her, seeing some emotion shining behind her eyes—emotion that had nothing to do with a stolen document.

He wasn't certain of her meaning, but he knew he couldn't linger to find out. He grabbed the hand splayed on his chest and lifted it, spinning it in the air and sending her twirling into the crowded ballroom. Her hair was a bit mussed at the back of her neck where he'd delved his hands into it. He hadn't noticed in the darkness of the hall. Perhaps his hadn't been a well-thought-out plan, but a few hairs out of order were surely a forgivable offense. He stuffed the paper into his pocket and shook his coat into place.

“Evangeline!” an older lady said, stopping her movement into the crowd. “Your hair looks a sight. I knew that new maid didn't pin it properly.”

That was her name. Ash recognized his cue to run as clearly as though it had been waved on a great red flag. “Lady Evangeline,” he said with a grin and a bow just before he tore toward the front door of the Dillsworth home and fled into the night.

* * *

The correct thing to do was to forget that the entire evening had occurred, of course. Nothing had happened last night. She hadn't seen the gentleman she'd been searching for since last season. She hadn't followed him into the library to confront him. Kissing him in the servants' passage
certainly
hadn't happened. And Evangeline's mother had not spent the following three hours ripping her to shreds for her disappearance from the ballroom and her less-than-perfect hair.

She straightened her spine against further thought on the matter and tried to focus on the shop windows as they passed. After slipping from her home this morning while her mother had met with their housekeeper, Evangeline had gone in search of Isabelle and Victoria. Her mother would have a fit once she discovered Evangeline had left home, having left only a note that she was shopping for new gloves for the next ball. Her excuse would gain her a few hours away from her life anyway, and she found that she required some extra time this morning. Evangeline glanced over her shoulder as they moved down the street to make certain they were alone. Mother's fit would be even worse if she heard news that the three of them were
walking
, of all things, to visit their new friend Roselyn Grey. But Isabelle had declared today too fine for closed carriages, and Evangeline had agreed.

Evangeline had met Roselyn when she'd first arrived in town. It was her friend's first season and the poor dear wasn't off to the best start, considering the recent passing of her fiancé. The circumstances around both his death and their brief period of engagement were all hush-hush, of course, but Evangeline knew the unfortunate truth about the Duke of Thornwood's sister. Like many other ladies, she was sure, Roselyn had been served a foul dish to swallow in her come-out season. With one season beyond her, Evangeline wasn't in much better condition.

Passing a small shop filled with gloves, fans, and ribbons of every color under the sun, she paused, her gaze falling on a display of ornate hairpins. They appeared the sturdy sort in spite of their pearl, jet, and glittering paste ends. Perhaps those pins would have held her hair in place last night. Then her mother would not have seen it slip from its confines.

Having known the true reason her hair had fallen, and that it had nothing to do with the poor maid who'd arranged it, made the news of the maid's dismissal at first light this morning even more painful for Evangeline to hear. But Evangeline couldn't risk speaking up on the matter, a situation she was unfortunately accustomed to bearing the burden of. All Evangeline could do now to help matters was to send a glowing reference for the maid without her mother's knowledge, and she would do so. If only he hadn't touched her hair when they'd kissed, but he had. And shamefully, she'd enjoyed it.

Evangeline bit at her bottom lip, the memory of his lordship's touch lingering there like a burn from scalding tea on one's tongue the next day. Burn, indeed. The heat of that kiss had singed her to the core. His hands in her hair, on her skin, were what her dreams had been made of since she'd first met him. Closing her eyes, she wished she could relive the past day, though with a few differences—the gentleman in question would remember her, for one.

Following him had been a terrible idea. What had she been thinking? The entire series of events that had transpired was so unlike her. She was the proper one, the perfectly behaved one, the one everyone could count upon to be sensible… She had to be. But there was no rewriting the past now. The very sight of that man had caused her to act impulsively and go where she ought not to have been, where she would never go again. She hadn't been the ideal lady last night and now, just like during that terrible childhood summer, she would pay the price for her poor behavior.

I hope that kiss was well worth your current regret, Evangeline.

Heaven help her, it had been. She would never admit it aloud, but Lord Crosby—or whatever he was calling himself now—was a wicked gentleman in all the ways that mattered. Which was precisely why she needed to stay far away from him. Assuming he hadn't already disappeared once more.

“Are you wearing the rouge we found in that shop last year?” Isabelle asked as she peered at Evangeline's reflection in the glass of the shop window.

“Of course not. I'm not joining a theatrical troupe, Isabelle.”

“You're delightfully rosy today for no good reason, then.”

“Am I?” Evangeline lifted her chin and continued down the street, hoping to have a moment for the color in her cheeks to calm.

Isabelle, however, added a small skip to her already pert steps and caught up with her. “You're not so pink-cheeked that a life in the theater is in your future, but the morning air agrees with you. Wouldn't the theatrical life be grand, though? Traveling to cities far and wide…”

“Staying in questionable establishments and singing for food?” Evangeline added. “I fail to see the appeal.”

“Oh, Evie, must you see the dreadful reality of every situation?”

“Apologies, Isabelle. I find I'm out of sorts this morning. Please, continue your romanticizing of an otherwise seedy form of employment. I find it refreshing.” It was certainly a better place for her mind to dwell than where it had been since last night. Even after the tongue-lashing she'd received from her mother over her disappearance and the state of her hair, not to mention her guilt over the dismissal of yet another maid, her thoughts kept returning to his lordship and his sinful mouth.

“Is she going on again about the demimonde?” Victoria asked as she caught up to them, and the ladies crossed a small street. “How many times must I tell you, Isabelle, that there's more to the life than scandalous clothing and masks at parties?”