Crispin slipped into the room, then offered a half-bow.“Lady Clara, if I might?—”
She turned, revealing a flicker of weariness in her eyes and the tremble of her mouth, as if the weight of the night had finally cracked her resolve.“Lord Oakford,” she said, a warning tucked into the syllables.“This is the ladies’ retiring room.You are not welcome here.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice.“You acted with remarkable poise this evening.Most would have fainted dead away.”
“I considered it,” she said, too tired for further venom.“But it would have given you an easy victory.”
He grinned.“I much prefer you conscious, Lady Clara.Otherwise, the game is dull.”
She shook her head, her lips tugging into a reluctant smile despite herself.“You are a menace.”
“Tomorrow, then?”he ventured.“Perhaps I might call on you and your mother at ten?”
But before she could answer, Lady Oakford appeared, trailed by Alice, Eden, Lady Shipley, and a conspiratorial hush.“Nonsense, Crispin.Lady Clara needs her rest.We shall have them to tea at Oakford House at four, when she is well rested.I insist.”She patted Clara’s arm with an intimacy that brooked no argument.
Lady Shipley nodded.A delighted sparkle lit her eyes.“We would be honored.”
Crispin caught the flicker of gratitude in Clara’s gaze.She had gained half a day’s reprieve, yes, but more than that, she had steered the situation in her favor.He saw it now.She was not floundering.She was maneuvering, calculating the battlefield with every smile and curtsy.It was not surrender.It was strategy.
The mothers conferred while Alice and Eden closed in on Clara, their voices low.Eden said something about “never having seen her so brazen,” and Alice promised a detailed inquisition once she was recovered.
Clara gave her friends an impish grin.“I will explain everything later.”
“You had better,” Alice warned, voice low.
Clara endured it with a soldier’s stoicism, then allowed herself to be bundled out the side door by her mother.
He watched them go, her presence lingering like the aftertaste of a sharp, sweet liqueur—unexpected, heady, and tinged with the burn of unresolved tension.The taste lingered, not on his lips, but somewhere deeper, unsettlingly close to his heart.He would see her again soon.There would be teas and dinners and endless games of polite warfare.And beneath it all, the slow simmer of something far more dangerous than scandal.
He could not wait.
Crispin turned back toward the ballroom, a faint smile curving his lips as he surveyed the elegant wreckage he had left behind.The ton would feed on this for weeks, but he alone knew the true delight lay ahead.
He smiled, wicked and self-assured, and disappeared into the shadows of the corridor.
Chapter3
Lady Clara Mapleton sat as still as a statue on the silk-draped settee, acutely aware that visits of this nature were governed by a strict choreography, pleasantries, compliments, subtle appraisals, all delivered beneath a veil of practiced civility.That she loathed every moment of it only made her smile more fixed, her posture more rigid, her gloved hands folded in her lap, fingers tense beneath the silk, betraying more emotion than her face allowed.Her spine ached from holding her posture, and behind her carefully blank expression, her thoughts swirled.The Hallworth drawing room was oppressively perfect, all floral wallpaper and tasteful gilt, the kind of room that demanded polite conversation and stifled emotion.A tea tray sat between them, silver and sparkling, its contents untouched save for the lemon slice her mother had daintily placed in her cup.
“You must allow me to speak plainly,” declared Lady Oakford, her cheeks pink with pleasure, “how thoroughly delighted I am.I had quite given up hope that Crispin would ever settle, but then…well, here you are, Lady Clara.A marvel.”
Clara forced a smile.“You are very kind.”
Her mother beamed beside her, positively glowing with maternal triumph.“We are equally delighted, of course.”
The older ladies exchanged knowing glances.
Lady Shipley, Clara’s mother, was beside herself with pride, which in Clara’s estimation was not far from being beside oneself with madness.She had arrived thirty minutes early, resplendent in an apple-green walking gown that made her appear both younger and more severe, and had not once ceased beaming, even as Lady Oakford described her son’s various escapades in increasingly creative euphemisms.
“Such a wild spirit, my Crispin,” Lady Oakford intoned, passing a saucer with the benevolence of a Roman empress.“I have always said he needed a firm, clever hand to keep him in line, and now we have you.”
Clara accepted the cup with fingers that trembled, though whether from nerves or rage she could not say.“You give me too much credit, Lady Oakford.”
“Nonsense.I am merely truthful.You have performed a miracle, Lady Clara.Not one woman in all the ton has managed to bring my son up to scratch.”She turned to Lady Shipley, arching one silvery brow.“Did you know I had wagered a hundred pounds with Lady Marsh that he would not be married before thirty?”
Lady Shipley’s laugh was brittle.“Heavens, Lady Oakford!You did not.”
“It is true,” the Countess replied.“Now, I have lost the wager, and gladly.Only last year I told Crispin he would need a miracle.He brought home a parrot from Antigua, but never a suitable bride.And now…” She gestured grandly at Clara, who nearly dropped her spoon in mortification.
