Читать книгу The Secrets of the Heart - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 8

Society is now one polished horde,

formed of two mighty tribes,

the Bores, and Bored.

Lord Byron

LADY UNDERCLIFF HAD BEEN sadly out of sorts for a month, or so she informed anyone who applied to her for the reason behind her perpetual pout.

She was incensed because her thoroughly thoughtless husband had adamantly refused to return from his hunting box in Scotland until the second week of the Season, thus delaying the annual Undercliff Ball, which, as everyone was aware, had been held the first week of the Season these past sixteen years.

Not that she could not have pressed on with her plans for the ball without Charles, for heaven only knew the man had never lifted a finger for any but his own pleasure in all his life. But her ladyship was very conscious of appearances, and opening the ball without her husband at her side would only cause speculative gossip, especially since that sad interlude the man had indulged in most publicly three years past with that absurd Covent Garden warbler.

Besides, Lady Undercliff considered herself to be a perfect wretch at recollecting names, and she had grown to rely on his lordship’s guidance during those tedious hours spent in the receiving line, complimenting friends on the birth of another grandchild or remembering to inquire as to the welfare of another acquaintance’s old-as-God Great-aunt Imogene.

And Charles knew she counted on his memory, damn his hunt-mad, philandering hide to perdition!

In the end, there had been nothing else for it but to live with the consequences of her mate’s selfishness, and Lady Undercliff had been forced to take her pleasure where she found it, which is the same as to say that the tradesmen’s bills her dearest husband Charles would find falling like snow upon his study desk in the next weeks would much resemble a blizzard.

Lady Undercliff had always taken great pride in her ability to delight both her guests’ eyes and stomachs with her lavish entertainments, but she had definitely outdone herself in her preparations for this particular ball.

The delicately draped bunting that hung everywhere, the dozens and dozens of ceiling-high plants, the hothouse bouquets, the rented gilt-back chairs, the painted cherubs and other statuary, the hiring of a score of servers, the presence of musicians in three drawing rooms in addition to those in the ballroom, the luscious sliced salmon, the dazzling variety of Gunther ices, indeed, even the silver-on-silk gown and flashing diamonds worn by the lady herself—all had been ordered with a glib “And have all bills forwarded directly to my husband, the earl.”

And yet, with the hour relentlessly creeping toward midnight on the evening of the ball, and with the compliments of the happy partygoers still ringing in her ears as she remained adamantly at the top of the stairs, Lady Undercliff continued to pout.

“This is entirely your fault, Charles,” she sniped at her husband, who was most probably wishing himself away from the receiving line and safely ensconced in the card room, a drink at his elbow, although she’d not give him that satisfaction. “He isn’t coming.”

“Prinny?” Lord Undercliff asked, frowning. “Who wants him here anyway, Gert? We’d have the servants scraping rotted eggs from the windows for a week if the populace caught sight of him rolling his carcass in here. Ain’t the least in good odor with the masses, you know—or you would, if you weren’t always worrying about all the wrong things.”

“Not his royal highness, Charles,” Lady Undercliff gritted out quietly from between clenched teeth, “as if I’d want that terrible old man lumbering in here with his fat mistress and shoveling all that lovely salmon down his greedy gullet. And don’t call me ‘Gert’! The man I am speaking of is St. Clair.”

Lord Undercliff looked at his wife down the length of his considerable nose. “St. Clair? That pranked-out mummer? Thunder an’ turf, now you’ve gone and slipped your moorings, Gert. What is he to anything? He ain’t but a baron. You’ve got three marquesses, a half dozen earls, and two dukes cluttering up the place already. What do you need with St. Clair?”

“You don’t understand,” Lady Undercliff spat. “But then, you never do. He must be here!”

“Yes, yes. He’s amusing enough, I’ll grant you that, but I can’t say I like what he’s done to our young men. Everything poor Beau has taught them about proper dress seems to have flown out the window thanks to St. Clair and his colored satins. Soon he’ll have us all powdering up our heads, Gert, and if he does that I just might have to call him out myself. Demmed nuisance, that powder, not to mention the tax. Besides, didn’t we turn the powder closet into a water closet just a few years past?”

Lady Undercliff gripped her kid-encased hands together tightly in front of her, knowing that if she did not win this struggle to control her overset emotions she would soon plant her beloved but woefully obtuse husband a wisty facer straight on his mouth.

“Charles, I don’t care a fig if St. Clair has all you gentlemen shaving your heads and painting your pates purple. No party is a success unless he attends. No hostess worth her salt would dare show her face in public again if Christian St. Clair deigned to ignore her invitation. Now do you understand, Charles? And it’s all your fault—you and your stupid hunting box. I’ll never forgive you for this, Charles. Never!”

“Females!” Lord Undercliff exploded, slapping his thigh in exasperation at his wife’s outburst. The single life was much preferable, he had often been heard to remark, if only there existed some way of setting up one’s nursery without having to shackle oneself with a bride who was never the sweet young beauty you thought she’d be but only a female like any other, with contrary ways no man could ever fathom, shrewish voices, and feathers for brains.

He peered past his wife and into the crowded, overheated ballroom. “You’ve got Lord Buxley, Gert. He’s popular enough. And that Tredway chit as well. Wasn’t she the toast of London last Season?”

“Yes, Charles—last Season,” Lady Undercliff informed her husband tersely. “Lady Ariana Tredway lends the party some cachet, as does Lord Buxley, but my primary coup for this evening seems to be the presence of Gabrielle Laurence, although I cannot for the life of me understand the attraction. Red hair, Charles. I mean, really! It’s not at all à la mode.”

Peering around his wife once more, Lord Undercliff caught sight of a slim, tallish girl waltzing by in the arms of the thrice-widowed Duke of Glynnon. He could not help but remember the chit, for he had bowed so long over her hand during his introduction to her in the receiving line that his wife had brought the heel of her evening slipper down hard on his instep to bring him back to attention.

Miss Laurence’s lovely face, he saw now, was wreathed in an animated smile as she spoke to the duke, her smooth white complexion framed by a mass of lovely curls the color of fire that blazed almost golden as the movements of the dance brought her beneath one of the brightly lit chandeliers. He grinned, remembering her dark, winglike brows, her shining green eyes, and, most especially, the small round mole he’d noticed sitting just to the left of her upper lip. Ah, what a fetching piece!

“Your judgment doesn’t seem to be bothering the duke overmuch, Gert,” Lord Undercliff remarked in an unwise attack of frankness, sparing a moment to catch a glimpse of Miss Laurence’s remarkably perfect bosom, which was modestly yet enticingly covered by an ivory silk gown. “As a matter of fact, I believe old Harry is drooling.”

“Oh, go back to Scotland, Charles, until you can learn to control yourself,” Lady Undercliff spat out, then broke into her first genuine smile in a month. “He’s here! Charles, darling, he’s here! Stand up straight, and for goodness sake don’t say anything stupid.”

Lord Undercliff, once a military man and therefore accustomed to taking orders, obeyed his wife’s command instinctively, squaring his shoulders and pulling in his stomach as he turned to greet their tardy guest and his small entourage of hangers-on, a wide, welcoming smile pasted on his lordship’s pudding face.

“Lady Undercliff! Look at you! Voyons! This is too much! Your beauty never ceases to astound me! I vow I cannot bear it!” Lord Christian St. Clair exclaimed a moment later, having successfully navigated the long, curving marble staircase to halt in front of the woman and execute an exquisitely elegant bow, while gifting her hand with a fleeting touch of his lips.

Lord Undercliff’s own lips curled in distaste as he watched this ridiculous display, taking in the baron’s outrageous costume of robin’s-egg-blue satin swallowtail coat and knee breeches, the elaborate lace-edged cuffs of his shirt, the foaming jabot at his tanned throat, the high collar that by rights should have sliced off the fellow’s ears by now.

The man was a menace, that’s what he was, bringing back into fashion a fashion that hadn’t been fashionable in years. And the young males of Society were following him like stunned sheep, more and more of them each day sauntering down Bond Street in clocked stockings, huge buckles on their shoes, and wearing enough lace to curtain a cathedral.

“I throw myself at your feet, beseeching mercy. A thousand pardons for my unforgivable tardiness, dear lady, please, I beg you,” Lord St. Clair pleaded, rising to his full six foot three of sartorial splendor to gaze adoringly into Lady Undercliff’s rapidly widening eyes.

“I had been dressed and ready beforetimes, eager to mount these heavenly stairs to your presence,” he lamented sadly, “but then dearest Grumble here observantly pointed out that the lace on my handkerchief—” he brandished an oversized, ornate lace handkerchief as proof “—did not in the slightest complement that of the rest of my ensemble. Imagine my dismay! There was nothing else for it but that I strip to the buff and begin again.” He sighed eloquently, looking to Lord Undercliff as if for understanding.

He didn’t receive any. “Could have just changed handkerchiefs, St. Clair,” his lordship countered, he believed, reasonably. “Or left off altogether trailing one around with you everywhere like some paper-skulled, die-away miss with a perpetual fit of the vapors.”

St. Clair’s broad shoulders shook slightly as he gave a small gulp of laughter that soon grew to an appreciative if somewhat high-pitched giggle. “Sans doute. Ah, Undercliff, what I would not give to find life so simple. Grumble,” he said, turning to George Trumble, one of his trio of constant companions, “how naughty of you not to point out that alternative to me. No, don’t say anything,” he continued, holding up a hand to silence his friend, who hadn’t appeared willing or able to answer. “I remember now. My affections lay more deeply with the handkerchief than the remainder of my costume. Forgive me, Grumble. Ah, well, no hour spent in dressing is ever wasted.”

“Only a single hour—for evening clothes?” Lord Undercliff spluttered, giving the baron’s rig-out another look, this time appreciating the cut of the coat, which was not quite that of the past century but more modern, with less buckram padding, flattering St. Clair’s slim frame that boasted surprisingly wide shoulders and a trim waist. And the man’s long, straight legs were nearly obscene in their beauty, the thighs muscular, the calves obviously not aided by the careful stuffing of sawdust to make up for any lack in that area.

“Used to take Brummell a whole morning just to do up his cravat,” his lordship continued consideringly, wondering if sky-blue satin would be flattering to his own figure. "Just pin that lace thing-o-ma-bob around your neck and be done with it, don’t you? And the ladies seem to like it. Maybe you have something here, St. Clair. Thought satins would take longer, but if they don’t—well, mayhap I’ll give them a try m’self. Rather weary of Brummell’s midnight blue and black, you know.”

“Charles,” Lady Undercliff interrupted, her smile of pleasure and triumph at having snagged St. Clair for her ball rapidly freezing in place as she listened to her bull of a husband making a cake of himself, “you are neglecting our other guests. Lord Osgood, Sir Gladwin, Mr. Trumble—we are so pleased you’ve agreed to grace our small party this evening.”

Lord St. Clair stood back to allow his friends to move forward and greet their host and hostess, which they did in order of their social prominence.

Lord Osmond Osgood, a tall though rather portly young gentleman known to his cronies as Ozzie, was first to approach, winking at the earl before clumsily bowing over her ladyship’s hand and backing away once more, nearly tripping over his own feet.

Sir Gladwin Penley, his usual uninspired gray rig-out brightened by his trademark yellow waistcoat, simultaneously apologized for his tardiness and grabbed hold of Lord Osgood’s forearm, saving that man from an ignominious tumble back down the staircase. “My delight in the evening knows no bounds, my lady,” he intoned solemnly, giving no hint to the fact that he’d been dragged to the Portman Square mansion under threat of having St. Clair in charge of the dressing of him for a fortnight if he cried off in favor of the new farce at Covent Garden.

George Trumble was the last to bow over Lady Undercliff’s pudgy hand, keeping his comments brief and hardly heartfelt, for everyone was aware the only reason an invitation had been delivered to his door was the usual one: If George Trumble were not one of the party, then the hostess could go cry for St. Clair’s presence. “How good of you to invite me, your ladyship,” he said quietly, then turned his back on the woman before she could be sure she’d seen cold disdain in his eyes.

But if George Trumble knew he was here on sufferance, and Sir Gladwin Penley may have already been wishing himself elsewhere, and Lord Osmond Osgood might be wondering how soon they could leave without causing a stir, Baron Christian St. Clair’s posture showed him to be in his element.

He turned back to Lady Undercliff and offered her his arm, telling her without words that it was no longer necessary for her to stand at the top of the stairs now that the premier guest had arrived.

And if the Prince Regent did dare venture out of Carleton House under cover of darkness to attend, well then, he could just find his own way into the ballroom.

With her ladyship at his side, and Lord Undercliff following along behind with the remainder of the St. Clair’s entourage, the baron entered the ballroom just as the clocks all struck twelve, stopping just inside the archway to gift the other occupants of the room with a long, appreciative look at the magnificence—indeed, the splendor—that was Baron Christian St. Clair.

MISS GABRIELLE LAURENCE was enjoying herself immensely, as befitted both her hopes for her debut and the reality of the past ten days that had found all her most earnest wishes coming true. For her instant success within the rarefied confines of Mayfair and the select members of the ton was not the result of mere happenstance.

Gabrielle had planned for it—indeed, trained for it—and if her smile was brighter than most, her manner more ingratiating, her conversation more scintillating, her behavior, her gowns, her air of vibrancy more interesting than was the case for any of the other hopeful debutantes, those young ladies who were not enjoying a similar success had only themselves to blame.

The Undercliff Ball had proven to be another feather in Gabrielle’s figurative cap of social success, the evening thus far a never-ending whirl of waltzes with dukes, cups of lemonade brought to her by adoring swains, effusive compliments on her “ravishing” gown, her “glorious” hair, her “rosebud” lips, and even a single stolen kiss on the balcony, especially when she considered that the “thief” had been no less than Lord Edgar Wexter, heir to one of the premier estates in Sussex.

All in all, Gabrielle Laurence was at this moment a very happy young woman, which explained her sudden chagrin when she belatedly realized that the young viscount she had been regaling with the latest gossip about Princess Caroline was no longer listening to her but instead staring in the general direction of the doorway, his usually vacant blue eyes glazed over with slavish admiration.

Gabrielle sighed, snapping open her fan to furiously beat at the air beneath her softly dimpled chin. “I’d look,” she said to herself—for the viscount certainly didn’t hear her, and probably wouldn’t if she screamed the words at him—“but I already know what I would see. It’s that overdressed ape St. Clair, isn’t it?”

No matter where she was, Gabrielle knew she could not for long escape hearing about Baron Christian St. Clair, arbiter of fashion, purveyor of inane wit, and the single man who held the power of social life or death over the members of the ton.

No matter what she was doing, her enjoyment of the moment could be instantly reduced to ashes by his entrance onto the scene, where he immediately became the cynosure of all eyes, the center of the social universe.

The man wielded more power than the Prince Regent, held more social consequence than Beau Brummell had ever commanded, and was more sought after than the Duke of Wellington, hero of the late war against Bonaparte.

It was indecent the way Society fawned over the man, adopting his ridiculous fashions, aping his effeminate ways, shunning green peas on Tuesdays because he did, strolling rather than riding in the park because he abhorred horses, eagerly hopping through each foolish hoop he set up for them as if his every drawled inanity were gospel, his every soulful sigh to be worried over, his every smile to be cherished as if a gift from the gods.

It was enough to make Gabrielle Laurence wish she could dare turning her back on the man.

Which, of course, she couldn’t, not without risking social disaster.

But that did not mean she would fawn over him the moment he entered a room the way those giggling debutantes and their hovering mamas were doing now as St. Clair leisurely made his way down the long ballroom, his loyal trio of dull wrens undoubtedly freed to go their own way now that their leader was in his glory.

Counting slowly to ten, and waiting until the last possible moment, until she could absolutely feel the man’s presence behind her, Gabrielle blinked rapidly to put a sparkle in her wide, tip-tilted green eyes, spread her mouth in a welcoming smile, and turned, her hand extended gracefully as she trilled, “La, St. Clair, I would know you were approaching even if I were to be suddenly struck deaf. The visible stir your presence makes in a room is almost akin to that of a Second Coming. All in blue this evening, I see. I believe the viscount is nearing tears, so overcome is he by your exquisite presence.”

“Miss Laurence, I vow you bid fair to unman me with your sweet compliments,” St. Clair intoned, bowing over her hand, the touch of his firm, dry lips searing her skin, a shiver of awareness, of stubborn, defensive dislike skipping down her spine as his blue-green gaze lifted and met hers, holding her in thrall for several heartbeats. “Zounds, but I can yet again feel my puny attempts at brilliance fading into nothingness, faced with your overwhelming beauty.”

“Which you have so very kindly served to bring into fashion, my lord,” Gabrielle replied sweetly, inwardly gritting her teeth at the infuriating knowledge that she was speaking the truth. If St. Clair had used his seemingly bubbleheaded yet razor-sharp wit to comment disparagingly on her red hair she might as well have retired to the country and taken the veil for all her chances of ever becoming a success in Mayfair.

For despite Gabrielle’s planning, all her careful preparation to take London by storm, she knew she owed the man considerable thanks for his unexpected championing of her, and it galled her no end to admit it.

Yet admit it she did, tonight and every time she was in his company, for if she was young and somewhat sure of herself, she was not stupid. Her ritual obsequiousness was the unspoken price she nightly had to pay for St. Clair’s continued public favor. Shylock, in comparison, could not have been more insidiously demanding than Baron Christian St. Clair when he had called for his “pound of flesh.”

“I’ve visited your tailor just this afternoon, my lord,” the young viscount piped up after nervously clearing his throat, for he had been hovering around Gabrielle for the past quarter hour, partly because it did him no harm to be seen with her, but mostly in the hope St. Clair would appear, for everyone already knew St. Clair had been making it a point to single out Miss Laurence first at any engagement he favored. “I’ve commissioned an entire wardrobe from the man, paying him double if he has half of it complete next week,” the young man ended, clearly proud of himself.

“Indeed.” St. Clair inclined his head apologetically to Gabrielle for having to desert her to speak with the viscount, then turned to the young man, inspecting him through the stemmed, gilt-edged quizzing glass he leisurely lifted to his left eye. “How commendable of you, my lord, and how woefully overdue. Ah, that was too bad of me. Please, my lord, forgive my naughty tongue. However, if I may be so bold as to inquire,” he drawled, allowing the quizzing glass to fall to midchest, for the piece was suspended from his neck by a thin ivory silk band, “would you tell me what colors you selected?”

The viscount swallowed down hard, making it painfully clear to everyone that his throat had gone desert dry. “Green, Clarence blue—and dove gray, I believe. Did I choose correctly?” he asked dully, as if already sorrowfully convinced he had erred in his choices.

St. Clair allowed time for the silence to grow and for their near neighbors to lean closer to hear his pronouncement when it came. “Bien. Excellent choices, my lord,” he exclaimed at last, beaming at the young viscount. And then he frowned. “Oh dear, how do I put this delicately? I fear you will have to shed a few pounds in order to do credit to the cut of the jacket, my lord, not that anything I say is of the slightest consequence. Still, may I suggest you stable your mount and walk yourself briskly through the park each day for the promenade? That should rid you of your, um, bulges in no time. Don’t you think so, Miss Laurence?”

Longing to tell him that she thought it would be lovely if the visibly wilting viscount were to quickly search out his backbone and summarily stuff St. Clair’s quizzing glass down the baron’s gullet, Gabrielle smiled and said, “I have always believed judicious exercise to be healthful, sir.”

“Ah, exactement, Miss Laurence,” St. Clair responded just as Lady Undercliff’s overpaid musicians struck up yet another waltz. “And, so saying, perhaps you would honor me with your participation in the dance, another highly desirable form of healthful exercise?”

As social suicide was not on Gabrielle’s agenda for this or any evening, she dropped into a graceful curtsy and then allowed St. Clair to guide her onto the dance floor even as other couples joined them, the floor rapidly becoming crowded with persons eager to prove their agreement with the baron’s prescription for “healthful exercise.”

At last they were alone—or as alone as any two people could be on the dance floor—and now their private war could recommence. St. Clair lightly cupped Gabrielle’s slim waist with his right hand while she rested hers in his left, their bodies precisely two and one half feet apart. A slight pressure from St. Clair’s hand moved Gabrielle into the first sweeping turn of the waltz, and she smiled up at him, saying, “I do so loathe you, St. Clair.”

His smile was equally bright as he appeared to enjoy her opening salvo of the evening, for they had been throwing verbal brickbats at each other from their first meeting, exchanges Gabrielle could not remember which one of them had begun and which she still could not decide if she enjoyed or dreaded.

“Encroaching mushrooms, my dear,” he answered smoothly, sweeping her into another graceful turn, “usually do dislike their betters. Tell me, please—as I am all agog to know—do you lie awake nights, Miss Laurence, planning sundry vile terminations to my existence?”

“I wouldn’t care to waste my precious time thinking of you in any way at all, my lord,” Gabrielle countered, nodding a greeting to a female passerby, who was looking at her in undisguised envy for having snagged St. Clair yet again for his first waltz of the evening.

“Too true, Miss Laurence, too true,” St. Clair said, his hand on her waist gripping just a hair tighter than it had before, causing another unwelcome, disturbing frisson of awareness to sing through her blood. “You are much too occupied in forwarding yourself to think of others. Fame is fleeting, dear girl, and you are clever to enjoy the pinnacle of popularity upon which I have placed you while you can. Consider this: I may deign to cut you tomorrow, and all your fine success would come crashing down around your ears. Wouldn’t that be dreadful? Perhaps you should encourage our fuzzy-cheeked viscount to offer for you while you still bask in the sunshine of my approval.”

“I am visiting this fair city only to enjoy the Season, my lord. I am not on the hunt for a wealthy husband, not in the least,” Gabrielle bit out from between clenched teeth, still maintaining her smile, but with an effort, for she knew she was lying. Lying, and desperate, not that she could ever allow St. Clair to know.

“You don’t wish to marry? Gad, there’s a shocker! Feel free to perceive me as astonished!” St. Clair countered. “Then I was wrong to take one look at your meticulously constructed facade of gentility and see an empty-headed, fortune-mad beauty out to snare a deep-in-the-pockets title? Forgive me, Miss Laurence. I should have realized that you are in hopes of setting up an intellectual salon, or perhaps intent upon conquering Society in order to gain their cooperation with some private agenda you have yet to reveal—a series of good words, perhaps?”

Gabrielle opened her mouth to argue with him, but he cut her off.

“But, no. That isn’t it. Why, do you know what I think? I think you loathe and detest men. Don’t you, Miss Laurence? You hate us and wish to have us all fall in love with your beauty so that you might, one by one, grind our broken hearts in the dust. Why didn’t I see it before? How deep you are, Miss Laurence. How very deep.”

“Oh, cut line, St. Clair!” Gabrielle declared hotly as, the waltz over, he took hold of her elbow and guided her toward the balcony. “I may as well admit it, for it is obvious to me that you will keep mouthing inanities until I do. Yes, like every other unattached young lady here this evening, I am on the hunt for a rich, titled husband. The deeper his pockets and the loftier his title the better. I am mercenary, hardheaded, strong-willed, and so depraved by my ambition as to be capable of debasing myself by being polite to you in order to advance my standing in Society. Fortunately for my plans, in general I enjoy the company of gentlemen. It is only you I despise. There! Are you happy now?”

“Ecstatic, my dear,” St. Clair answered genially, drawing her toward a small stone bench and motioning for her to be seated. He then spread his lace-edged handkerchief beside her and, carefully splitting his coattails, sat down himself. “I had begun to wonder if you were to be content merely trading barbs as we have done this past fortnight. But we have progressed. We are becoming, at long last, entirely open with each other. You despise me, and I return the compliment.”

“Which in no way explains why you have deigned to bring me into fashion,” Gabrielle said, studying Lord St. Clair out of the corner of her eye, taking in the sight of his expressive winged eyebrows above eyes that turned from blue to lightest green with his moods, the straight, aquiline nose he looked down to such effect, the shape of his generous mouth, the marvelous way his longish, light, golden mane was tied back in a small queue.

The man wasn’t simply handsome, drat him. He was beautiful! What a pity the Fates, which had gifted him with such beauty, had somehow neglected to stuff his handsome skull with a brain. Or was she as wrong in assuming that as she was in her protestations that she couldn’t abide him?

“So, as we are being honest this evening—why have you chosen to bring me into favor, my lord?” she dared to ask outright, wearying of their constant fencing.

St. Clair produced a small enameled box from his waistcoat and went about the business of taking snuff, his expertise in the movements of the procedure marred only at the last, when he screwed up his handsome face most comically, pinched two fingers against the bridge of his nose, and then gave out with a prodigious sneeze.

She giggled, unable to help herself, for he looked so silly. Almost adorably silly.

“Ah, please forgive me, Miss Laurence,” he said, drawing a more serviceable handkerchief from his sleeve and wiping delicately at his nose. “Deuced evil habit, snuff. I’ve seen men with half their noses eaten away from the stuff.”

He gave a horrified shiver, then smiled. “Do you know what, Miss Laurence? I believe I will forswear the nasty habit beginning this very evening, if only by way of a public service, as no one will dare take snuff if St. Clair does not. Am I not wonderful to use my elevated stature for the betterment of mankind? Indeed, I am confident I am, especially when I consider my vast and most costly collection of snuffboxes. Too small to make into posy pots, I imagine I shall just have to give them all away to needy snuff takers in Piccadilly. And then I believe I shall reward myself with a new waistcoat. I saw the most interesting fabric the other day—silver, with mauve roses. Now, dear girl, what were you saying?”

“Never mind, my lord.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes, giving up any notion that she would ever understand this man, and telling herself that she didn’t want to understand him. He was probably only what she saw before her: a paper-skulled, imbecilic clotheshorse with more hair than wit, more self-consequence than a strutting cock, and all the mental acumen of a cracked walnut. She would be the world’s greatest fool to believe otherwise, no matter how pretty he was, no matter how many times his smiling face had invaded her dreams these past two weeks.

Besides, she believed she already knew why he had undertaken to champion her. He had done it simply to prove that he could take what he considered to be an unknown, fire-headed country bumpkin and raise her to the level of a Lady Ariana Tredway. The only thing she couldn’t understand was why he allowed her to speak so uncivilly to him—and why he found it so necessary to be mean to her whenever no one was about to overhear them.

And one more thing bothered her, unnerved her, haunted her in the night long after she should have found her rest. Her reaction to each touch of his hand, each penetrating look of his oddly intelligent, impossible-to-read eyes. Why, she could almost think herself attracted to him, if she didn’t believe herself above such nonsense.

“Yes, well then,” St. Clair said as the silence between them lengthened, rising and holding out his hand to her after retrieving his lace handkerchief, “as we seem to have run out of cutting things to say to each other, may I suggest we return to the ballroom? We have been absent for a sufficient length of time for those who are inclined to low thoughts to have taken it into their heads that we have been indulging in a romantic assignation. Why I continue to be so kind to you I do not know, but once again I have served to raise your consequence. Now, I fear, I must reward myself by twirling a less unwieldy partner around the floor and then take my leave. I wouldn’t wish for Lady Undercliff to preen overmuch at having snagged me for an entire evening.”

“Unwieldy?” Gabrielle angrily snatched her hand from his, stung by this latest in a string of insults even as she relaxed in her resurgence of anger, which was much easier to deal with than any softening of her feelings toward the inane dandy. “I’ll have you know I am considered to be a wonderful dancer. Why, the viscount has only this evening vowed to pen an ode to my grace in going down the dance.”

“That unpolished cub? Odds fish, m’dear, what is that to the point?” St. Clair responded as they reentered the ballroom. “The sallow-faced twit also seriously believes he will cut a dash in dove gray. He’ll probably insist upon a pink waistcoat as well, a thought that nearly propels me to tears! Ah, look, the gods have smiled! I do believe my poor trammeled-upon feet are saved. Lady Ariana approaches, smiling a greeting to me, her dear friend. You would be wise to observe her, Miss Laurence. Lady Ariana is a veritable gazelle on the dance floor. To quote the illustrious Suckling, ‘Her feet beneath her petticoat, like little mice, stole in and out as if they feared the light. And oh! she dances such a way, no sun upon an Easter day is half so fine a sight.’”

“You quote so often, St. Clair,” Gabrielle shot back, inwardly seething. “It is so sad that you never have an original thought.”

“Oh, I am mortally wounded by your sharp tongue,” he responded theatrically, “and needs must retire the field at once.” He gave a subtle signal to the viscount, who had been hovering nearby, painfully conspicuous in his hopes for another moment’s notice from the popular baron, and that man hopped forward sprightly to take Miss Laurence off St. Clair’s hands.

“How exceedingly amicable of you, my lord,” St. Clair intoned, bowing slightly in thanks. “It is the true sign of a Christian to be willing to graciously take back a young lady who has just recently deserted him for the better man. Miss Laurence, I leave you in good company. If you will excuse me?”

Gabrielle’s smile beamed brighter than the chandelier hanging above their ballroom, the chandelier she secretly wished would slip its moorings to come crashing down on St. Clair’s arrogant head.

“Will we be seeing you at Richmond tomorrow, for her ladyship’s garden party?” she asked, praying for a drenching rain on the morrow so that the baron would not dare attend and chance ruining one of his exquisite ensembles. If the painted popinjay refused to ride because he considered hacking jackets too barbaric for words, he most certainly would not deign to appear at a picnic in anything less than his usual outlandish satins.

“Point du tout, Miss Laurence. I fear you all shall simply have to make do without me,” he replied, lifting the lace handkerchief to his lips. “I abhor picnics, and can think of nothing more uncivilized. If I wished to be crudely rustic I should never have fled the countryside for London in the first place, which I did the moment I realized there existed an entire lovely segment of the populace that did not believe the pinnacle of their existence to be an afternoon spent lying on their backs in the fields, chewing hay. Why, just think, Miss Laurence: Can you really imagine me pushed into a tent with the milling crowd, or forced to sit on a blanket spread on the grass?”

“And pray why not, my lord?” Gabrielle could not resist asking. “After all, I hear most idling, wastrel grasshoppers flit about in the grass quite happily without benefit of a blanket at all.”

St. Clair gave a small, trilling laugh just as the viscount winced, evidently convinced Miss Laurence had said something dreadful and wondering why he had thought being in her company would do his own reputation any good.

“C’est merveilleux! But you are so droll, my dear girl,” the baron continued, smiling broadly. “You almost make me believe you have some sort of sense for amusing repartee. I shall leave you now, my heart light that you have said something brilliant. Good evening all,” he said, bowing once again, this time lifting Gabrielle’s hand to his lips before turning to Lady Ariana and leading her onto the floor, at which time the musicians immediately halted in the midst of the Scottish air they were playing and broke into another waltz.

“Isn’t he magnificent, Miss Laurence?” the viscount gushed, his tone filled with awe, earning himself a speaking look from Gabrielle as she excused herself, wishing her skin didn’t still tingle from the touch of St. Clair’s lips, and, mumbling something about having a crushing headache, asked to be returned to her chaperone.