Читать книгу A Most Indecent Gentleman - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 7

Chapter One

One visual sweep of the ballroom was enough to confirm Cassandra Burroughs’s initial suspicion, but she looked twice just to be sure. She only needed one, as long as he was the right one. In this case, the right one was Jocelyn Eisley, heir to an earldom. That was the reason every woman in the ballroom was looking for him. But not her. She was looking because he was the key to her uncle’s revenge. First, she had to find him.

Cass ran through the checklist in her mind; broad-shouldered, blond, taller than most, full-bodied in a muscular robust way familiar to those who are acquainted with the well-built Englishman in his prime. She’d never met Eisley before, but surely she’d recognize a man in possession of such a stunning array of attributes on sight. He shouldn’t be hard to spot, especially against the rather dismal backdrop of men on display in Lady Martin-Burke’s ballroom. Unless, of course, such a man didn’t exist or her uncle had exaggerated his physical attributes.

The latter would be most disappointing. The thought of a man meeting Eisley’s purported description was a rather exciting one. Men were usually predictable creatures; flatter them and they’d do anything for you. Even the newest of debutantes knew that much. Eisley might prove to be refreshingly different. Hopefully, not too different though. She had a job to do, after all. It would be a bonus if Eisley turned out to be the stuff of dreams in the interim.

Not that it mattered. Cass immediately dismissed the thought as disloyal. Having an affinity for the so-far-elusive Eisley was definitely an inappropriate attachment of her emotions. Whether she liked it or not, she owed her loyalty at present to her uncle. It was her uncle who had called her up to town for the Little Season and who was paying for her expenses, wardrobe included. Otherwise, she’d still be languishing in the Dorset countryside, a casualty of her own headstrong nature and the quirk of fate that saw her father born the second son of a baron and not the first. She was twenty-one. She would soon be on the shelf and there just weren’t that many men to pick from in Dorset. Although all it seemed London had on Dorset at the moment was quantity, her uncle had given her a second chance.

In return, she was to ferret out Eisley’s supposed secrets, of which her uncle was sure there were many. Her uncle had given her an agenda: to determine Eisley’s association with the scandalous and currently absent Nicholas D’Arcy and by extension, the truth behind the rumored existence of the League of Discreet Gentlemen, an organization reportedly dedicated to the fulfillment of a woman’s pleasure. Last spring, her uncle had been cuckolded in his own home by D’Arcy, and D’Arcy hadn’t been seen in London since, although news of his sudden marriage to a fabulously wealthy Sussex heiress had circulated through the ton at the end of the Season.

That had been in August. Now it was November, the Little Season; one last chance for parliament and society to gather before Christmas holidays drove everyone to their country estates. Her uncle was certain with society in town, the league would be busy and visible, thus the need for her presence. She was to be Eisley’s enticement.

If Eisley wasn’t in the ballroom, he might be in the card rooms, where he could potentially stay for a very long while. If so, she’d miss him entirely unless she went to him. Card rooms were not terribly ladylike venues, but she didn’t have a choice. It was either search him out or report back empty-handed to her uncle.

The card rooms were not hard to find. Lady Martin-Burke had set them up in a pair of adjoining rooms down the hall from the ballroom. The corridor was dark, perhaps to discourage young misses from wandering down it to the dens of gentlemen’s iniquity, but one could hardly overlook them, dark hall or not. The rooms announced themselves in a spill of masculine laughter that filled the dim hallway. Cass hurried toward the sounds, careful to keep out of sight of the door. It wouldn’t do to be spotted.

She knew very well she was only one scandal away from being sent home to Dorset in eternal shame. Her uncle had made it clear she was to be discreet in her dealings with Eisley. Her uncle would not tolerate any “funny business,” as he called it, the way her father had. In his opinion, it had been years of tolerance that had led to her current situation. It was politely hoped among her family that her liveliness would fit better in London where living was generally faster and there were more entertainments to provide outlets for all that vivacity. She’d been far too “lively” of a girl for the bucolic life of Dorset. Less politely put, her family hoped her latest scandal wouldn’t arrive in London before she’d had a chance to catch a husband who had yet to hear of the exploits of Cassandra Burroughs. London was her last bid for respectability and well she knew it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be respectable, she just didn’t want it bad enough.

Cass leaned forward from her unobtrusive post to the left of the door, a rich baritone rising above the general noise of conversation. “I give you, ‘Nick the Prick, Part Deux.’”

This announcement was met with hoots and whistles and a boisterous round of applause.

Nick the Prick his wick did dip

In sweetest nectar it did sip.

Until one June, it met its doom,

a Sussex rose in full bloom.

A maid he laid and true love his

soul did save. And that is the end of

our lover brave.

There was more applause, the men acting as if this was the finest poetry ever written. “I say, would this be a limerick or a cinquain?” someone shouted.

In the darkness of the hall, Cass rolled her eyes. It was rubbish was what it was and they were treating it like bloody Shakespeare.

“Give us another, Eisley.”

That got her attention. The “poet,” and she used the term loosely, was Jocelyn Eisley? Cass crept nearer to the door, hoping for a look to confirm it.

“No, no, too much of a good thing isn’t healthy for you, lads!” the baritone called out in good humor. “I’m off to do the pretty for my lady hostess then it’s to the clubs. Perhaps I shall see some of you there later this evening.”

Cass could imagine him winking as she watched him grace his followers with a low bow. From her vantage point she couldn’t make out his face, his back was to her and the door, but she was treated to her first confirming glimpse of those shoulders, which were just as broad as described. When he straightened, she couldn’t help marveling at his height, at how those shoulders tapered to a lean waist shown to advantage in a superbly tailored dark evening coat, which unfortunately hid a better view of his buttocks. She could only suppose they were as well done as the rest of him. From the back, he was magnificent, all the darkness of his attire topped with a head of guinea-bright hair. Her uncle had been right, after all; broad shoulders, check; gold hair, check; a well-built physique, check. Make that a double check. Eyes the color of sharp jade... Eyes? Wait a minute!

But she didn’t have a minute. He had been backing toward the door, but while she’d been cataloging his finer points, he’d reached the door and turned around. There was nowhere for her to go. Before she could move, her nose made intimate contact with his chest.

“Ouch!”

“What the deuce!” Eisley stumbled against her, his bulk propelling them to the wall. She could feel his hands on her arms, his grip a bit rough as he tried to steady them both. She hit the wall, imprisoned, not unpleasantly, between it and Eisley. “I beg your pardon,” Eisley managed to say once they stopped reeling from the impact. “Are you all right? I didn’t see you standing there. Can’t see anything in this blasted hallway. Don’t know what Lady Martin-Burke was thinking to keep it so dark.”

“It’s a regular Vauxhall down here.” Cass ventured a little saucy tongue in cheek as if she’d ever been to Vauxhall. “Who knows what kind of trouble guests could get up to if they strayed from the well-lit path?” There was just a hint of suggestion in her tone and it wasn’t hard to imagine all sorts of decadent answers when she looked up into those sharp green eyes.

“That being the case, miss, what are you doing down here?” Eisley smiled back, a wide, infectious grin that made the most of his mouth with its slightly fuller lower lip, a mouth made for kissing. It took a moment for her to realize he wasn’t scolding. He was flirting, just a little, something she supposed came naturally to him. From the looks of it, he probably couldn’t help it.

“I was looking for something.” Cass allowed herself to smile back, her eyes holding his for a long moment, far longer than decency allowed. Instinct told her, he would not be impressed with a decent girl who shunned dark hallways and subtle overtures from the handsome men one met in them. And she did have to impress him, right here, right now. One had so little time to make a first impression, especially when there was a ballroom of others to compete with. She was not leaving this hallway without him.

“Did you find it?” Eisley sounded amused. He didn’t quite believe her. “With the hallway being so dark, I would think finding anything quite impossible, particularly the sorts of things ladies are known to lose—tiny earbobs and the like.” He said “ladies” as if he’d already taken her measure and she’d come up lacking in that regard. Well, Cass supposed that was fair. She wasn’t a “lady” in the sense the girls in the ballroom were. She wasn’t the only woman hoping to dance with Jocelyn Eisley tonight. The ballroom had been abuzz with his name since she’d walked in. The difference was that she’d done something about it. She’d gone looking for him while the others merely waved their fans and kept hoping he’d come to them, as if wishing would conjure the man out of thin air.

“Did I find it?” Cass boldly looped her arm through his and angled them toward the ballroom, setting off at a strolling pace. She cocked her head to the side and gave him a coy half smile. “I most certainly did.”