Читать книгу Rogue's Lady - Julia Justiss - Страница 8

THREE WEEKS LATER, Will sat at Lady Domcaster’s dinner table, a smile stamped on his lips as he cut his gaze to the head of the table, trying to catch his cousin Lucilla’s eye while giving nominal attention to the young lady seated beside him.

“I declare, Lord Tavener,” Miss Benton-Wythe exclaimed in her flat, nasal voice, “when the governess opened her door and the chicken Harry had hidden flew out, flapping and squawking, she shrieked so loud we were like to die laughing!” Apparently envisioning that occasion, she went off into a fit of giggles.

Wincing, Will turned to his other side to address the honoree of the evening, Miss Cecelia Rysdale, daughter of Lucilla’s friend Lydia. “Miss Rysdale, do you recall any similar amusing events from childhood?”

Color came and went in the young lady’s cheeks as she hastily dropped her eyes to her plate, muttering an unintelligible syllable Will took to be “no.” ’Twas about the extent of the response he’d been able to eke from her during the course of this interminable dinner.

Having no idea what one talked about with young ladies, he’d first mentioned the progress of the peace accords in Vienna, then asked about the current offerings of the Philharmonic Society, then attempted to elicit opinions on the performance of Hamlet now at Covent Garden. After these conversational overtures evoked puzzled silence, a rather desperate compliment about the young ladies’ bonnets finally drew a response from Miss Benton-Wythe.

Though not even the mention of fashion managed to entice Miss Rysdale into speech, her companion more than made up for her silence. Miss Benton-Wythe launched into a detailed description of the design and construction of her headgear, and having begun, needed no encouragement whatsoever to keep on chattering.

Will calculated that over the course of this dinner, Miss Benton-Wythe had produced enough words to fill three conversations, all delivered in a penetrating voice and punctuated by high-pitched giggles that were giving him the headache. He wished he’d stuck to a monologue about diplomacy.

Finally catching Lucilla’s attention, he cast her a beseeching look. Though she returned him a stern glance, the corner of her mouth twitched as she rose, signaling it was time for the ladies to leave the table.

Will leapt to his feet. “Ladies, my pleasure,” he told the two girls as he bowed.

“La, my lord, ’twas my pleasure, too,” Miss Benton-Wythe said, giving him a frankly assessing look.

Hard-pressed to suppress his relief, Will watched Lucilla lead the women from the room. Thank heavens all the attendees at this dinner were proceeding to other engagements, sparing him the necessity of sharing brandy and cigars with the male guests, mostly fathers of Miss Rysdale and her friends and mostly unknown to him. He understood now why Domcaster, despite his obvious affection for his wife, had chosen to return to the country.

Even as Will nodded and smiled, the gentlemen started to follow the ladies out. When the last one exited, Will sat back down and took a long, fortifying pull on his wineglass. It appeared this business of finding a rich wife would be even more distasteful than he’d envisioned.

He had just finished the wine when Lucilla returned. “Bless you, cousin,” he said. “Two more minutes and I would have cast myself facedown into the syllabub.”

Though Lucilla clucked in disapproval, her eyes danced. “I’ll allow that Miss Benton-Wythe’s voice is a trifle…grating.”

“I should have enjoyed hearing more of Miss Rysdale’s. But after I delivered a very mild tribute to her appearance, she looked as if she thought I meant to ravish her upon the spot and spent the rest of the meal communing with the china.”

Lucilla sighed. “Someone must have carried tales to her about your wicked reputation. She is rather timid.”

“Perhaps I should have reassured her that I do not seduce children,” Will returned. “I must warn you, grateful as I am for your support, if this is a sample of what I can expect in the Marriage Mart, I’d rather resign myself to my rooms in Chelsea.”

Lucilla shook her head. “Not all the eligible young ladies are being fired straight from the schoolroom, as Cecelia and Miss Benton-Wythe are. You shall encounter a much larger variety shortly at Lady Ormsby’s rout. Besides, you promised to be my escort for the Season and I’m not about to let you wiggle out of that! Let me collect my cloak and we can be off.”

“Will there be a card room? Winning a few hands of pique would help restore my good humor.”

“Yes, there should be some play. And I don’t mean to be unreasonable. Once I’ve introduced you around—and you have stood up with me twice, for I must dance!—if you meet no lady who engages your interest, I will cede you to the card room.”

“In that case, I am yours to command,” Will said.

AN HOUR LATER, wearing the most beautiful gown she’d ever owned and knowing she looked her best, Allegra stood in the shadows of Lady Ormsby’s entryway. A Lynton footman had caught up with them just as they arrived with a note for Rob from his estate manager that, Rob said, apologizing to them for the delay, required an immediate response. Retreating out of the press of arriving guests, she waited with Mrs. Randall for Rob to complete his business so they might go up.

She should be giddy with anticipation at attending her very first ton party. Instead, she was tense and wary despite the promise of having Rob beside her all evening, looking, she thought, a pleasant flutter in her chest as she gazed over to him, handsomer than a prince in his elegant evening attire.

Unfortunately, in the three weeks since Rob had dramatically altered her life, it had quickly become evident that Mrs. Letitia Randall, the cousin he had invited to London to fill the roll of chaperone, was no match for the cunning—and malice—of Sapphira Lynton.

Beginning soon after the slamming of the door and the wail of weeping that had followed Rob’s proclamation of Allegra’s change of status, Lady Lynton had done all within her power to circumvent and frustrate Rob’s intention to raise Allegra to a place within the ton. With a feminine guile that was impossible for Allegra to prove and would be difficult for Rob’s masculine mind to comprehend, her intervention had been by indirection or subterfuge.

“La, I’m much too cast down to traipse all over town spending Lynton’s blunt,” Sapphira had proclaimed when the meek Mrs. Randall asked her to advise them on the acquiring of Allegra’s wardrobe. “I suppose I could pen a note to the modistes I favor, recommending styles, colors and fabrics for Allegra’s gowns. Fitting her out fashionably is going to be difficult, though, Tall Meg that she is.”

And write she had, Allegra thought, clamping her lips together as she wondered just what exactly Sapphira had penned. For had Allegra not insisted upon following her own judgment, honed by years of observing costumes in opera and the theater, the modistes would have persuaded Mrs. Randall into purchasing Allegra a wardrobe of pink and white frocks profusely trimmed in lace and ribbon that would not have become her in the least.

While Lady Lynton also proclaimed herself too ill to accompany them paying social calls, she expressed an avid interest in discovering from Mrs. Randall each morning where they planned to visit. On numerous occasions, as they alighted from a hackney at the house of one or another of the ton’s hostesses, Allegra spied Lady Lynton’s carriage just leaving.

When they entered the drawing room thereafter, Allegra was met with stilted politeness, speculative looks—or outright silence, as conversation ceased while the ladies already present turned to stare at her.

Sapphira’s heavy floral perfume hanging in the air like the scent of smoke after a candle is snuffed, it was obvious from the careful omission of any inquiry about Allegra’s parents that someone had just re-illumined all the details of Lady Grace’s scandal. At times, annoyed and frustrated by the hypocrisy, only Allegra’s desire not to embarrass poor Mrs. Randall prevented her from boldly asking if her hostess had met Lady Grace after her marriage…and had that lady ever had the privilege of hearing her father play?

Even more dispiriting, since returning her to the family, Rob had left her entirely in Mrs. Randall’s care. She’d seen him but seldom and until tonight, had had no champion to stand beside her in the glare of society’s faintly hostile scrutiny.

She wouldn’t have minded the female disdain had she felt she was making some progress in luring Rob to act upon his observation that his little cousin had become a desirable woman. Though on the few occasions they’d met at home, she’d seen the same heated appreciation in his eyes, she could hardly bewitch him if he was so seldom present to be bewitched.

Thanks again to Sapphira, she thought with irritation. Apparently not content with her initial attempt to entice Rob, the first night he’d dined at home with them, Sapphira had been at her most alluring, gazing up at Rob, soliciting his comments and opinions, leaning down to display her bosom while passing him dishes, letting her fingers rest on his during the exchange. Grimacing with a distaste that was thrilling to Allegra, Rob had pointedly pulled his hand free, then quit the dining room as soon as dessert was served. He’d not eaten a meal with them since.

Thank heavens Sapphira had such overweening confidence in her own appeal that, since Rob resisted her, she’d not be able to conceive of him admiring any other woman. For if she ever discovered Allegra’s secret hope, she’d make life even more miserable for her.

But possessing the Antinori fierceness, Allegra wasn’t about to give up yet. Somehow she would find more opportunities to be with him—and make the most of the ones she had, like tonight.

Cheered by that resolution, she gave Rob her most glittering smile when at last, his instructions to the footman complete, he returned to offer each of them an arm.

“Are the loveliest ladies at the party ready to greet their hostess?”

“With you beside me, I’m ready for anything,” Allegra said, and put her hand firmly on his arm. Together they mounted the stairs to Lady Ormsby’s ballroom.

IN THE RECEIVING LINE upstairs, after smiling and bowing through a long round of introductions, Will led Lucilla toward the ballroom, doing his best to look as if he were interested in the proceedings. To his greetings, he’d received mostly blushing monosyllables from the younger maidens, speculative looks under veiled lashes from the older ones—and boldly inviting glances from two well-endowed widows.

“Perhaps my wicked reputation has preceded me,” Will told his cousin. “I seem to terrify the infants.”

“They will find you charming enough once they converse with you. But upon first meeting, you tend to wear a stern, rather intimidating look. Please remember that the young ladies you are greeting are not rival pugilists you are about to confront in the ring! Smile, speak only of something unexceptional and you will put them at ease.”

“I have confined myself to the unexceptional!” Will protested. “‘Miss Westerly, what a charming gown. The blue quite lights up your eyes.’ I daresay I’ve never uttered so much treacle in a single evening. Now, several of the matrons seemed much more…rewarding of my efforts.” He sighed and looked at Lucilla, a twinkle in his eyes. “Having bowed before innocence all evening, I find myself thirsting for a taste of plain, straightforward sin.”

While Lucilla batted him on the arm and called him “incorrigible,” Will scanned the room, looking for the two widows who’d given him come-hither glances. Once he’d danced with Lucilla, he might seek out their company. He deserved some amusement after enduring an entire dinner with Miss Benton-Wythe.

As Will paused at the entrance to the ballroom, his gaze drifted to a trio of guests who had just ascended from the entry below. He was about to turn away when the image before his eyes registered in his brain and he froze in midstep.

Outlined against the black-garbed older lady leading the group was a much younger woman in a diaphanous gown of pale gold. The burnished glow of the material set off the faintly olive hue of the skin perceptible above her gloves and the modest décolletage of her dress. Staring now with avid appreciation, Will noted the lovely line of shoulder and neck—and the voluptuous curve of bosom concealed beneath the gown.

Throat drying and fingers curling in his gloves, he spent another instant regretting the neckline hadn’t been cut lower, allowing bystanders a better look at that tempting lushness. All his senses humming, he forced his eyes upward.

Her face, with its high cheekbones, narrow nose and wide forehead, was the same exotic tint as her chest and shoulders. If she’d not deigned to try to mask her unfashionable coloring with rice power, very likely she’d employed no artifice to thicken the luxuriant lashes that framed those large dark eyes. Whether or not the ripe apricot hue of her full lips stemmed from nature or artifice did not affect his immediate, powerful desire to kiss them. His body tightened at the thought.

Who was she and what was she doing here? he wondered. Looking like an exotic Eastern princess, she seemed as out of place among this crop of pink-and-white-gowned debutantes as if one of the glasshouse orchids his classics professor used to grow had suddenly sprouted in a field of demure English daisies.

A jerk at his arm pulled him from his rapt contemplation of the newcomer.

“Will, what is wrong?” Lucilla asked.

“That girl in the saffron gown.” Will angled his chin toward the doorway. “Who is she?”

His cousin looked in the direction he’d indicated. “The one walking with the woman in widow’s black?” When he nodded impatiently, she continued, “Miss Allegra Antinori. Despite the foreign name, she’s from the Montesgue family—Viscount Conwyn is her grandfather. She’s the ward of a distant connection of her mother, Lord Lynton—” Lucilla indicated the blond gentleman escorting the two ladies “—whose cousin, Mrs. Randall, is her chaperone.”

“Allegra,” Will repeated, the music of her name lingering on his tongue. “And she’s unmarried?” If unwed and possessed of an entrée to this gathering, she must definitely be on the Marriage Mart. Lucilla’s idea of beguiling a well-bred maid suddenly seemed much more appealing.

Lucilla glanced at his face, no doubt perceiving the avid interest in his eyes. Thankfully she didn’t cast her glance lower, or she might have discerned rather pointed evidence of the strength of that interest.

“Yes, she’s unmarried and eligible—I suppose. Though I don’t know if the dowry left her by the late Lord Lynton would be adequate to your needs.”

Ignoring for the moment the matter of wealth, the hesitation in Lucilla’s voice prompted him to ask, “You ‘suppose’ she is eligible?”

Lucilla sighed. “’Tis a rather old scandal. Her mother, Lady Grace, Viscount Conwyn’s youngest daughter, ruined herself by running off with a foreigner. After her parents’ deaths, the girl returned to live with the Lyntons, who were the only of her mother’s relations who did not shun the connection after her mother’s misalliance. But for that one blot upon the family escutcheon, Miss Antinori’s breeding is unexceptional—though the highest sticklers would probably not agree. Still, if her fortune is sufficient, she has a chance of making an acceptable match. At least I hope so, not being one for holding the sins of the parent against the child.”

“You never did so in the past,” Will murmured, feeling another level of connection to the alluring Miss Antinori.

Just then, the girl looked up and caught him staring at her. As her dark eyes locked on his, Will’s nerves tingled and a warmth swept through him, as if he’d suddenly stepped from shadow into sunlight.

Despite the information Lucilla had just given him indicating Miss Antinori’s reception by society might be uncertain, at discovering herself to be the object of scrutiny, the girl neither blushed nor looked away. For a long moment, she held his gaze coolly. Will felt the charged force of the link between them, like the tension on the lead between a trainer and the green colt he is trying to master.

Then, lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, she turned her face away, took Lord Lynton’s arm and walked with him into the crowd of guests.

Shaken by that wordless encounter, Will turned back to Lucilla. It seemed there was not enough air in the room, for he had to catch his breath before he could speak. “Despite a childhood spent banished from society,” he said at last, “the girl seems poised enough. Where did Lady Grace and her daughter end up?”

“Her father was a musician, I’m told, so—”

“Don’t tell me she’s the daughter of Emilio Antinori!” Will interrupted, the vague flicker of recognition in his brain suddenly flaming into focus.

“Why, yes. You’ve heard of him? Well, of course you would have,” Lucilla concluded, “as interested in music as you’ve always been. He was good, I take it?”

Will laughed, his gaze following the girl as she made her way through the room on her escort’s arm. “‘Good’ is hardly adequate to describe the work of Emilio Antinori. The man was a genius, not just the most talented violinist since Haydn, but also a composer whose works rival in depth and complexity those of Bach and Beethoven. I once had the privilege of watching him play. Amazing.”

Though he’d attended the concert more than ten years ago, Will could still hear the high, pure vibrato notes, see the flying fingers that made the intricate progression of arpeggios seem effortless while the intensity of melody held him mesmerized. If he’d had a fraction of the talent of the great Antinori, he would have turned his back on his heritage and become a professional musician.

With an ache of regret that the world had lost such a talent, Will came back to the present to find Lucilla watching him, a faint smile on her lips. “Do I get my dance now?” she asked. “Or, given that look in your eye, must there be introductions first?”

“You can present me to Miss Antinori?” he asked eagerly.

“I met her while paying afternoon calls. She seems nice enough. Her cousin and sponsor, Robert Lynton, the new Lord Lynton, was a classmate of Domcaster’s at Oxford.”

“Rob Lynton? Yes, I remember him from school. Present me then, if you please.”

Lucilla’s smile faded. “There’s one other complication you should know about. With Lynton sponsoring Miss Antinori, one would expect Lady Lynton to be her chaperone, but apparently the two do not get on. I don’t know Robert’s stepmother—she made her bow after Domcaster and I retired to the country. I’m told that after several years as society’s reigning Diamond, she married the late Lord Lynton only last year.”

Will recalled a well-curved blond beauty with blue eyes and a coquettish manner ill-suited to her status as a new bride. “I believe I have met Lady Lynton.”

“As a handsome man with a rakish reputation, I imagine you have,” Lucilla retorted with a sniff. “Though she makes quite a display of mourning, I’ve heard Sapphira Lynton has never gotten over being society’s darling, the only child doted on by her papa. The Lyntons are quite wealthy, which I suppose explains why she accepted that offer out of the scores she’s reputed to have received. Though I also understand that while her husband lay dying, ’twas Miss Antinori who nursed her relation while Lynton’s ‘distraught’ wife consoled herself with her cicisbos.”

Having already formed a dim opinion of a lady who’d been casting out lures to other men when the wedding ring had scarcely settled on her finger, Will could readily believe it. “And the happy family resides all together? Quite an accomplishment.”

Lucilla chuckled. “It must be indeed. I’ll present you if you insist, though I’d much rather your interest were piqued by a chit of more…conventional upbringing.”

“Like Miss Benton-Wythe?” he asked dryly. Before Lucilla could answer, he grinned and added, “Didn’t you say you’d not hold her mother’s lapses against Miss Antinori?”

“One always hopes the brave soul risking censure by doing the good deed will not be one’s friend or relation.”

“Given my past, I can hardly hold the prospect of scandal against her,” Will pointed out.

“Which is precisely why you need to approach only girls of unquestioned reputation!” Lucilla retorted. “Very well, I’ll present you. Although—” she gave him a rueful look “—for the reasons we’ve just mentioned, Lynton might well prefer that I not present you to his ward.”

“So the two black sheep do not further sully each other’s wool,” Will surmised.

“It would be more prudent,” Lucilla agreed.

His cousin was right. For a long moment, Will hesitated, torn between Lucilla’s sensible advice…and the remembered force of Miss Antinori’s gaze.

It was only an introduction, he reasoned. The girl might turn out to be a beautiful widget, as feather-brained as Miss Benton-Wythe or as tongue-tied as poor Miss Rysdale. Though given the cool confidence with which she had held his gaze, he didn’t think so.

Enough pondering. He would do it, Will decided. Nodding to Lucilla, he offered his arm. Together they set off toward where Miss Antinori and Lord Lynton had disappeared into the crowd.

“One final matter,” Lucilla murmured as they approached. “If after the introductions, Lynton allows you to converse with the lady, I beg you will not distress her by inquiring about her scandalous father—no matter how much you admired him as a musician. I imagine that’s one topic she wishes to strictly avoid.”

In the next instant, they reached their party and Lucilla called Lynton’s name. With his ward on his arm, he turned toward them—and Will sucked in a breath.

Miss Antinori seen close up was even more enchanting than Miss Antinori viewed from a distance. Her glossy dark hair, piled atop her head in an intricate arrangement threaded through with gold ribbon and pearls, just reached his chin. Her perfume, a spicy waft of lavender, enveloped him as she gazed up, those dark, extravagantly lashed eyes wary. His gaze roved across the satin plane of her cheeks down to the lush fullness of her apricot lips.

Sweat broke out on his brow and he had to remind himself to keep breathing. But then he couldn’t help himself, he simply had to sneak a quick glance downward, across the elegant curve of neck and shoulder down to that voluptuous, mouth-watering swell of bosom.

Oh, that he might repeat that journey of the eyes with his fingertips, his tongue!

While the rush of sensation in his body threatened to overwhelm him, Will tried to remind himself that Miss Antinori was a lady—an innocent, virginal maiden. He must not think of her in this way, no matter how much she reminded him of the delightfully passionate and inventive ballerina he’d once had the pleasure of loving, before a peer with a larger purse had stolen her away.

As if in a daze, he heard himself murmur a greeting to Lynton and the chaperone, who responded in turn. Not until Lucilla presented him and he saw Miss Antinori curtsey was he finally able to wrench his mind free of the sensual fantasies. Seizing the hand she offered, he bowed and touched his lips to the air above them, rich with her potent scent.

“Miss Antinori, it is my profound pleasure.”