“Lady Clare is here?” He met Nairn’s gaze and knew the man was aware of his growing involvement with his sister-by-marriage. “But the earl—”
“Is here as well. A grand attempt to patch things up.”
Iain had received word that the lady had returned, but this new development was shocking. “Is that wise?”
“They both wish their estrangement to cease. This seemed a good next step.”
A murmuring began on the other side of the ballroom. A growing but hushed wave of whispers flowed along the crowd, and Iain watched and listened as it got closer. Tall as he was, he could see couples lining up for the next dance. He caught sight of the earl and then saw Clare across from him.
This was a Lady Clare he’d not seen before.
This was Lady Clare, the earl’s eldest daughter.
This was the Lady Clare who was part of society with its feathers and silks and bobs and bits.
With its rules and its insiders and outsiders.
From the look of it, her being warmly welcomed by her father and included in the dances, Lady Clare Logan was an insider once more.
As the strains of the dance began and Lady Clare accepted her father’s hand, Iain could not help but consider what this all meant. A sense of foreboding filled him—about his need for those blocks of Leith properties and about the earl’s newly-returning influence on his daughter.
Another worry was how they had not known this was happening. Had Cairns lost his source in her household or had the woman not reported this crucial change to him? He slipped through those standing along the side of the dance floor to find a spot where he could better observe their interactions. Once there, he got his first look at the lady.
Was this the true woman behind the one he’d met? Her smile was guileless and lit her face and eyes. She... sparkled, both from the joy on her face and from the jewels around her neck, on her ears and even strewn artfully through her intricately arranged hair. This time, a few loosened tendrils outlined her face and rested on the back of her graceful neck.
And he wanted to immediately pull out every single pin holding her unruly curls and let them fall. He almost hadthatnight. His hands clenched tightly at the memory of sliding his hands into her hair and holding her while he...
“Lady Clare looks different than she has in some time,” Nairn said from behind him. Oh, hell, Iain had walked away from the marquess as soon as he’d seen her across the crowded room. “It’s good to see her happy.”
Iain watched as the lady and the earl moved effortlessly into the progression of the dance, a country reel, with the line of other couples. He noticed they engaged in conversation each time they moved together and while awaiting their turn in some of the figures. Heath even introduced her to several other men during the dance. Some were the little kind of lords—younger men, unattached men, men looking for wives. One who looked familiar was older but not as old as her father. Closer to Iain’s...
“Bloody hell!” he whispered. The chuckle over his shoulder revealed he’d cursed louder than he’d thought.
He was not the only one noticing and studying Lady Clare. Glancing around, Iain saw the stares and interested gazes as a number of more men centered on her. In spite of her social exile, those in need of a fortune knew her standing and of her wealth. Some even openly leered when she passed nearer to them in her movements of the dance.
How could they not?
The gown she wore—the fanciest he’d ever seen on her—gave every appearance of being transparent as she spun around. Trim ankles he’d touched appeared as the hem of the layers of it were lifted by the currents she made in the air. The top filmy layer of the gown was the color of her creamy skin and iridescent, as dozens of crystal beads sprinkled over it reflected the lights above and around them. Though it flowed freely around her hips and breasts, the underlayer was more fit to her curves, tucked snugly under those breasts and then tumbling smoothly over her hips and thighs. That one was the color of a pale pink blush, as if white wine had been touched with the hint of red.
His mouth watered as he realized it was very close to the same color of her flesh on which he’d feasted. She happened to glance over and caught his eyes at that exact moment. If it had not been part of the dance that placed her in her partner’s hold, she would have fallen, for her stumble was noticeable. Almost as she had the night they had dinner at Nairn’s house when she ended up in his arms.
He could not move or look away as the dance continued for several minutes more. Then, the second the music ended, she and her father were surrounded by a gaggle of supplicants, all asking for a dance or to be introduced. Her reconciliation and return to society was a success.
“I think you need that drink now, Buchanan.” Nairn tugged his arm until Iain faced him. “I will call for my coach. Caro was planning to accompany Clare home anyway.”
Iain needed that escape more now than he had earlier. The air grew thick with the odor of burning candles and the crowd pushed towards the dancing. “No coach, my lord. Let us walk. I know a place.”
“I’m certain you do.”
Iain took one last look at Clare and her beauty struck him as did her joy at this moment of triumph.
But it was not Clare he worried about for long. As the crowd closed around her, Iain could still see her father as he studied those approaching. And the expression on the earl’s face sent a chill down Iain’s spine.
He escorted the marquess down the street to the Royal Waterloo where a private parlor awaited him. Only after their first brandy, the one he’d liked so much the first time he’d had it, did he finally understand what bothered him so much about the earl’s expression.
It was that of a man counting his winnings during a game of chance rather than skill. Counting them as though he even now knew the outcome. Counting them as if they were his already.
In this case, the gold he was counting was his daughter’s and not his.
