“I believe you owe me this dance, Miss Whitney,” was all he said.
She raised a brow. “I’m sure I don’toweyou a dance, Lord Ravenscroft,” she returned. “However, I will give one to you, just the same.”
Julian had to admit he found her cheek oddly endearing. As he led Clara into the glittering crush of dancers and they took up their places opposite each other, he once again experienced an irritating surge of appreciation for the plucky girl. Irritating because he wasn’t meant to like her. Lottie had cured him of any misguided notions about the finer emotions that supposedly distinguished men from beasts. The sad truth of it was that men and beasts were all the bloody same. The eyes of their fellow revelers were upon them, sudden and curious, as if to underscore his presumption.
“After this dance,” he felt compelled to warn into her ear, “my interest in you will become common knowledge.”
“What shall happen then?” she asked, her Cupid’s bow bearing an amused slant, as though she were privy to a joke shared by no one else in the chamber—certainly not him.
He inhaled her intoxicating scent and wished she preferred something cloying and floral, something less earthy and inviting and bright. Something that didn’t make him mad for her. “You’ll be watched. Your every action will be fodder for the gossip mills. In short, you’re about to experience firsthand the folly of your decision to enlist my aid in your schemes.”
“But my lord, I have no schemes.” She said the last with the ease of a practiced coquette.
He bowed, feeling grim and altogether too appropriate. They linked hands, palm to palm, and she turned her face up to his as he settled his other hand high on her waist, drawing her nearer than was entirely polite but he didn’t give a damn. Her corset was a cuirass beneath her silk gown, keeping him from knowing the lush nip of her waist. He couldn’t help but imagine her lovely form without the stiff girding. He would trace her soft curves, come to know the swell of her hips. A swift surge of lust kicked him in the gut, right there on the ballroom floor as the orchestra struck a waltz and they began the obligatory steps.
Waltzing involved too damn much whirling for his peace of mind. While his dancing proficiency had improved over the years, his appreciation for the art most certainly had not.
“I beg your forgiveness, Miss Whitney, in the event I prove a less than nimble dance partner.” He smiled as though he hadn’t a care in the world, keeping his tone equally light and low.
Several ladies and lords had actually begun making spectacles of themselves in their effort to stare. He longed to quit the ballroom, but fleeing wouldn’t do a thing to further his cause. It would only invite more speculation, more whispers, more gossip to fly. Thetonwas a complex machine, powered by scandal and built upon unforgiving ruthlessness. He possessed too many black marks against him to count by now, his presence within polite society suffered for his association with the prince and the Marlborough House set.
But for Clara this would all be new. He didn’t wish to make her a scapegoat, and the realization had a chilling effect upon his ardor. Then again, the urge to protect her, he supposed, was likely innate—some sort of remnant response from the days of ancient man. For there was nothing about the vibrant American beauty in his arms that made him feel differently for her than any other woman who had come before.
Or was there?
He stared at the pale, silken skin of her throat, the delicate hollow beneath her earlobe, the waterfall of golden curls spilling from her coiffure, the diamonds winking from her hair and ears.Mine, came an unsettling thought from deep within him.She will be mine.From the tip of her upturned nose to her wild eyebrow, to her red lips and small hands, her full bosom and responsive nipples…all of her. Every bit of her. He’d lay claim soon enough, and yes, he had to admit that their marriage would make her different from all the other women who had come before, whether he liked it or not. For that matter, whether she liked it or not.
Round and round they went, twirling by rote. Then he saw a flash of glossy, dark curls, a familiar profile—too handsome for conventional beauty, her patrician nose a bit long, her cheeks high slashes charged with color as she danced ever nearer in the arms of her partner. Lottie. Julian felt, for just a breath, the careening slide of anger, followed by a return to the bottomless pit of self-loathing where she’d cast him.
Jesus, her partner was leading her astray, making a fool of them all, and they were on a path to collide. Before he realized what Lottie was about, he’d pulled Clara closer, her skirts brushing his legs, nearly tangling in his feet. He turned her neatly so that it was his back that bore the brunt of the collision and not Clara’s smaller and more delicate frame as Lottie and her partner jostled into them.
Despite his attempt to shield Clara, the damage had been done. This altercation, however apparently innocent and accidental, would be remarked upon by all. Lottie smiled at him, acknowledging him with a nod of her head. It was a knowing smile upon her lips. A satisfied one.
“Do forgive me, old chap,” drawled her partner, equally insincere, enjoying their little farce. The Marquis of Ashburn hadn’t changed a great deal since Julian had seen him at one of their set’s wild house parties. It had been the very last wild house party he’d attended, in fact.
For a moment, he returned to that day, to Lottie’s chamber. She’d been nude beneath Ashburn, mid rut. The unwanted image of the marquis’s pale, hairy arse and thin, spider-like legs thrusting into her flashed briefly through his mind. A year had passed, but the bile in his throat was just as real and bitter as if it had been that very morning that he’d blithely walked in upon the woman who claimed to love him being fucked by a man he’d once counted as a friend.
“You’ll need forgiveness, Ashburn, but not from me,” he forced himself to quip with a lightness that was far from the true, dark ugliness festering within him.
Ashburn threw back his head and barked out a laugh. “Ever the ready tongue, Ravenscroft. One ought not to be surprised with all the practice you’ve had, eh?”
The orchestra ended its set, leaving the other dancers milling about them in a sea of colorful silk, perfect evening clothes, gleaming jewels, and unabashed curiosity. He bowed to Clara, who watched him now with a questioning expression upon her unguarded face. Damn it, he couldn’t allow Lottie and Ashburn to rattle him. Nor would he allow them to insult his future countess.
“Some of us use our tongues wisely, my lord, and others do not.” He kept his tone mild and cool, but his meaning was apparent, as was his deliberate slight in return.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Lottie murmured, pursing her lips as she raked a rude stare over Clara. “Ravenscroft, won’t you do the honors?”
There was something inherently wrong about the business of introducing one’s former mistress to one’s future wife, whether or not the former mistress was a peeress. Lottie was a duchess and a favorite of the Prince of Wales, which allowed her entrée into the best parties. However, all polite society knew damn well that, aside from the heir and spare, not one of her children belonged to her husband. Just as all polite society knew damn well that he and Lottie had indulged in a very lengthy and public affair. He’d foolishly imagined he cared for her and she for him. She’d tossed him away like a dress from last season.
“No,” he said with deliberate calm.
Lottie faltered. She was not the sort of woman who had ever been denied. She’d been raised in a life of privilege, cosseted and spoiled, adored for her beauty, sought after for her charms. Men fought to win her. Even Bertie, as the Prince was known, had fallen for her with an unusual haste.
Her lips thinned and her nostrils flared, betraying her ire. “You’ll not introduce me to your little nobody?”
“Oh, I daresay I’m not a nobody,” Clara interrupted then, her tone as august as any peeress in her own right. She bestowed a slow, withering glance upon Lottie. “Nor am I particularly little. Iama Virginian, however, and we Virginians are a fierce lot. I can shoot an apple off a man’s head from fifty paces.”
Lottie stiffened. “How…accomplished you must be.” Her tone belied her words.
