The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (63 page)

Even more unsettling than her uncharacteristic reaction to him had been the knowing look she’d read in his dark, sensual gaze. It had flickered there for just a moment and then was gone. It had made her feel as if he knew her smiles and flirts were as fake as the jewels in Aunt Lettie’s necklace.

But she was being ridiculous, wasn’t she? How could
he
know anything beyond what she’d showed him? After all, she knew so very little about
him
.

His emergence on the London scene about a year ago had caused quite a stir. The Town tabbies were still all atwitter about it. The eleventh Viscount Carew had died without an heir. His widow, the Viscountess, had led a lengthy and extensive search to locate a relative who could save the Carew line. And yet, she’d failed. All of the Carew property and assets were in the process of reverting back to the king when this mysterious stranger appeared on the widow’s stoop clutching a family Bible and various other bundles of paperwork that proved he was the one and only heir to the Carew title. Apparently, he was a distant cousin to the former bushy-haired, hawk-nosed Carew. A
very
distant cousin.

Unlike his predecessor, this newest viscount was as handsome as sin.

Well, certainly he wasn’t
that
handsome. No man was
that
handsome. Or worth the bother.

Lia searched where she’d last seen him lounging like a careless roué against a pillar. Sure, he had a certain indefinable luster. He was dressed much like every other gentleman present that night, with a high-collared black dress coat and tails that fell to the backs of his knees, snowy white waistcoat, gleaming ankle boots, and matching breeches. His shirt wasn’t as frilled as many of the gentlemen’s. But the frills, Lia decided, wouldn’t have suited the hard angles of his jaw. His neckcloth, the purest of whites, was folded in a quite pleasing and elaborate horizontal Ballroom Tie knot that, like his clothes, were the height of style. There was nothing overtly special about his outfit. He simply filled out his clothes with superior grace, especially his breeches.

It was wrong for a lady to notice a man’s muscular thighs. But how could she not? His exquisite legs made her yearn to write sonnets, which was very, very unlike her.

She frowned.

His hair, as black as the midnight sky, was longer than fashionable. It made him look as if he’d fallen out of the pages of a maudlin Minerva Press novel. That dratted gothic hero image again. A troubled, romantic lord, hiding some deep and convoluted secret. What a ridiculous thought.

The blasted man was turning her into a fluff brain.

He’d attracted quite a crowd since the end of that last set. Some of the loveliest and most eligible ladies on the marriage mart now surrounded him, all properly chaperoned of course. He said something that made the older matrons in the group giggle and blush.

Lia worried her lower lip and swallowed a lump of jealousy. What in blazes was wrong with her? She
did not
want anything to do with him. She
did not
want him flirting with her the way he was currently flirting with a certain pretty little blonde over there. And she certainly
did not
want to be giggling or blushing like a ninny.

His gaze lifted above the blonde’s head and briefly touched Lia’s. All of the sudden, her mouth went dry.

“Well? What do you think?” Lord Duncan asked.

“I think… I think…” She sighed. “Actually, I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lord Duncan’s brow lifted slightly. “You haven’t been attending to a word I’ve said, have you?”

“I…I…” This is what that blasted Carew had done to her, reduced her to a stammering dolt. She did not like the man, not one bit.

Lord Duncan’s gaze followed hers over to where Carew held court. The crowd around him had grown.

“
Him
? You ignore me for
him
?” Lord Duncan spat. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that bounder is a fraud, a scheming gypsy, a scraping nobody.”

“Somehow I don’t think it would matter. He’s this year’s darling of the
ton
. Look at him. The matrons adore him.” At that very moment, Carew flashed a dimpled smile, showing off his dazzling white teeth. Lia found it impossible not to smile in response. She shook her head and forced herself to look away. “He knows how to charm without overdoing. It’s a rare thing.”

Lord Duncan grimaced. “There’s something about him.” His grip on her arm tightened. “I do not trust him. And I do not like the way he looks at you. Promise me, Lia. You know I think of you as a sister. And with your parents out of town until the end of this week, I feel responsible for you. Promise me you’ll stay away from him.”

“I have no reason to spend time with him or any gentleman for that matter. You know my thoughts on marriage.” Still, Lia’s cheeks burned at the thought of getting to know Carew better.

What if he invited her for a carriage ride? Would she refuse?

Well, she wouldn’t have to worry about that happening since she didn’t plan to make a cake of herself like those other ladies. “Let’s take a stroll outside on the balcony. It’s far too crowded in here. I can’t seem to breathe.”

Lord Duncan hesitated. His beloved Clarissa, accompanied by her parents, had joined the crowd forming around Lord Carew. So had Lord Duncan’s father, the duke. He reached out and vigorously shook Carew’s hand.

“Has the entire world lost their bloody minds?” Lord Duncan, as if unable to bear seeing another man anywhere near his beloved Clarissa, grabbed Lia’s wrist and pulled her through the double doors out onto the marble portico. Gently curving stairs led into a generous back garden. The air was cooler, clearer, under the dark sky.

Moonlight peeked through a thick gathering of clouds, and the flickering garden torches added a soft glow to the evening. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell started to chime. Several other carillons from churches spread across the town joined in.

For Lia, the need to escape pulled at her with an almost unbreakable strength at night. Lia closed her eyes and soaked in the tugging sounds of the dark and let the night’s cool air seep deep into her bones.

Her heart longed to be out there.

But where?

“I’m not a creature of the ballroom,” she confided in a low whisper.

“I never thought you were,” Lord Duncan replied.

“Then what am I?”

“I don’t know, Lia. You use your mind more than a lady should, more than most men I know for that matter. You’re too clever by half for the ballroom games in there. For as long as I’ve know you, you’ve always been too self-assured, too confident for your own good. It makes you miserable.”

“Perhaps,” Lia said, though she knew Lord Duncan was wrong. She’d met several clever, intelligent, and yes, confident, ladies who were perfectly content in their lives. The use of one’s mind didn’t necessarily doom a lady to unhappiness, despite what most gentlemen were wont to believe.

The musicians began warming up for the next set. Lord Duncan shifted from foot to foot, anxious to return inside and search out his Clarissa again.

“Go on. Off with you now,” Lia said with a smile.

“I cannot leave you.” It was beyond the pale for a young lady to be discovered sans escort. It could ruin her reputation.

“Aunt Lettie is just inside the door there. She watches over me like a hawk watches a field mouse.” The older woman’s purple turban bobbed up and down as she spoke with Lord Duncan’s mother. “She’ll come to me as soon as she sees you leave. I won’t be alone longer than a moment or two. Surely not enough time for any kind of disaster to strike. Besides, isn’t that Clarissa with her parents? And they’re no longer conversing with the mysterious Lord Carew. In fact, I believe she’s waving to you.”

Lord Duncan glanced over his shoulder. Clarissa, bless her, spotted them and actually did wave. “I won’t go far until I see your aunt has joined you,” he promised and moved toward the double doors leading back into the ballroom. Abruptly, he stopped again. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t mind staying a little—”

“Go, before Clarissa latches onto some other dashing rogue.”

With a brisk nod, he hurried off.

Lia smiled and closed her eyes, enjoying the relative solitude of the portico. Her aunt would descend soon enough. Though she loved her aunt dearly—the woman had a heart spun from gold—she was growing tired of Aunt Lettie’s stepped-up efforts at matchmaking.

“Your parents are far too permissive, allowing you to flit from one gentleman’s arm to the next like an empty-headed butterfly,” Aunt Lettie had scolded a few hours before this evening’s ball. “Your father should have married you off to a strong-willed man ages ago. You’re on a dangerous path, my dear. You know what they call women who fail to marry? An ape leader. A spinster. Is that what you want the Town tabbies to whisper behind their hands when they see you? You must to engage your heart and form an alliance before your beauty fades.”

But affairs of the heart were dangerous. Take Lord Carew, for example. Just thinking of him brought a renewed heat to her cheeks. The memory of his pleasing scent flooded her senses as if he stood right beside her. She barely knew him, and he already had too much power over her emotions.

A familiar warmth brushed her arm even now as she thought of him. Instinctually, she recognized it. Lord Carew was nearby.

Not just nearby. She opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with the one man she suspected she’d do well to avoid, the one man she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about.

Oh, dear!
She should have never let Lord Duncan leave her alone in the moonlight. What should she say? How should she act? Her blood pounded through her veins so forcefully, she was certain Carew could hear it. Lia drew in a slow breath in an effort to calm her suddenly racing heart.

“Lady Amelia,” Lord Carew said, his voice a velvety smooth caress. “Your aunt mentioned I would find you here. She is watching us, you see, from the doorway. Would you care to dance?”

“Tsk, tsk, Lord Carew,” she said with fallacious disinterest. “If I were to dance two sets with you in one night, it would be assumed by all and sundry I have developed a fondness for you.”

The corners of his lips pulled up a fraction of an inch, softening his expression just a touch. “And you haven’t?”

“I don’t even know you.”

“Oh, but I imagine you want to.” He sounded so very confident.

Could he really read her so easily? Of course, he couldn’t. All the ladies at the ball had been fawning over him. Why shouldn’t he believe she would want him as well?

“You are too sure of yourself,” she scolded.

“And you are unhappy in your life.”

How could he—?
No one had ever guessed the truth she’d worked so hard to keep hidden in her heart. Only Lord Duncan knew of the restlessness that lurked deep inside her, and only because she’d taken him into her confidence.

“This place isn’t for you,” Carew said. “You are happier in the country, away from the glitter and noise of the city, is that not true?”

It was
. But she didn’t dare admit it. Especially not to a stranger.

“You flatter yourself and overstep your bounds. You don’t know me.” She started to move back toward the ballroom.

He caught her arm. His heat easily penetrated her gown’s fabric and spread through her body. “I know more about you than I daresay you know about yourself.” He smiled then, a disarming and altogether depreciating grin. “And yet, I don’t wish to spar with you.” His gaze narrowed as he considered her more carefully. “I wonder… What can I do to win a smile from those pretty lips?”

He released her arm and tapped his temple as if trying to puzzle out a tough riddle.

She tamped down an urge to rub away the sudden shock of cold resulting from the absence of his heated touch. She didn’t want him, or any man, touching her.

“I don’t—” she started to protest.

“I believe you wish to prove to me...and yourself...that I am nothing to you. Is that not correct?”

Yes, it was true. She didn’t want to be attracted to any man, especially not this man who could so easily muddle her mind when she most needed her wits. And she certainly didn’t approve of the warmth spreading through her belly just because he was looking at her, and only her. But oh, she dearly wanted him to stay on the portico with her and simply soak in the cool night air while bathing in the healing glow of the moonlight...
with him
.

Which was ridiculous. She certainly did not approve of the mysterious Lord Carew
or
of her own unhealthy fascination with him. Let Carew attract some other unwise maiden like a moth to a flame. Love only brought heartache for the woman because men, blast their handsome eyes, only ever desired power and money—two things that held very little value in Lia’s estimation.

Oh, botheration! Perhaps Lord Duncan was right. Perhaps she did make herself miserable by thinking too much. How wonderful it would be to lean in just a little closer, to let his lips brush against hers, to know what it would be like to mindlessly give oneself to another. What would it be like? How freeing…?

“What? No protests? Splendid, my lady. Let the game begin. Come. Prove you have no feelings for me. Prove to me you are more clever and more heartless than I.”

He took her hand and led her not toward the glittering ballroom but down the stone steps and deep into the cool shadows of the garden.

How dare he? He was arrogant and too much in command of himself and everyone around him. She wasn’t his to order about. She had a mind to—

He picked up speed as he led her in a merry chase. They dashed around a potted topiary. The stone pavers sped by under their feet. It felt wonderful to forget herself and simply run under the bright moon like a hoyden. Lia laughed despite herself.

He stopped in the middle of the path and turned her toward him, his hands on her shoulders. He took a moment to catch his breath. Lia felt a more than a little breathless herself. Her heart pounded with life in her chest, and all because she took this reckless sprint away from the crush in the ballroom.