At first she had been a little self-conscious about his flattery and his occasionally risqué comments, but it was as if he were gently leading her into a new and pleasurable skill.By the time they met at his mother’s ball she was comfortable with the art.
He grinned at her sapphire satin gown with its tunic of fine silvery lace.“Ah, Madame Augustine,” he sighed appreciatively.
She tapped him with her silver fan—a present from Nicholas.“Are you saying, Lucien, that I owe all my charms to my dressmaker?”
He captured her fan, flicked it open, and held it in front of his face like a bashful maiden.He fluttered his outrageously long lashes.“Do I owe all my charms to my tailor?”
She took her fan back.“Your tailor owes penalties to every susceptible woman in London.”
He put on a hurt expression.“You do think my tailor makes me?”He grabbed her hand and pulled her away into an anteroom.Short of screaming and fighting, there was no way to resist.
“Lucien!I have a reputation to maintain.”
“So have I,” he said with a grin.“It will take only a moment to show my charms are all my own.”
Eleanor flung open the door of the room and covered her eyes with her hand.But she peeped, and she knew he knew it.“If you can get in and out of that lot in moments, I’m no judge,” she said.“That jacket looks skin-tight.”
He stood, hands on hips, laughing at her.“True enough.It’s all skin-tight.You could come and run your hands over me.Make sure there’s no padding.”
“I could stick pins into you too.Make sure you’re not an inflated bladder.”
He sauntered over and took her hand to kiss it.“Have pity, delight of my heart.I’m the future duke of Belcraven and my minions inflate my self-consequence with a hand pump every morning.You could do irreparable harm.”
“I could do more harm with a bullet,” said Nicholas from the doorway.However he merely looked indulgent.Eleanor would rather have liked to see him eaten by jealousy.Nibbled at least.He detached her hand from Lucien’s hold and kissed it himself.“Better late than never is the saying that comes to mind.Do you have a dance left for a mere husband?”
“Of course,” said Eleanor.“You can have the next one.Lucien won’t mind.Will you, my lord marquess?”
“Of course I’ll mind, oh perfect one.But how can I compete?‘Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes’.”He gave Nicholas what appeared to be a combative salute.“Debenham’s dinner ended early, did it?”he added as he left the room.It sounded like a parting salvo.
Eleanor looked at Nicholas, wondering what that had been about.She also wanted to know what the Latin meant, for she lacked that kind of education.
As if he read her mind, Nicholas said, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”As they strolled back into the ballroom to take their places in the next set he added, “Luce always was too clever for his own good.”
Eleanor hoped the Company of Rogues were not going to join Lord Stainbridge in disapproving of her husband’s conduct.It would make her life no easier.When the marquess joined their set she projected that thought at him forcefully, along with a severe look.He recorded it and smiled ruefully.
It occurred to Eleanor that he should not have a partner for this set after she had abandoned him.Doubtless the beautiful Miss Swinnamer, toast of the Season, had ruthlessly abandoned some other swain.For who, after all, would refuse a chance to partner the heir to Belcraven?
Except the wife of Nicholas Delaney.
The music struck up and she curtsied to her husband as he bowed.
He had taken in her long look at the marquess of Arden.“Should I be jealous?”he asked lightly.
“That would be rather ridiculous, wouldn’t it?”she replied equally lightly, and danced off into the center of the set, leaving him to take it as he willed.
Lord Middlethorpe at least remained a staunch, un-dismaying friend, and she was so at ease with him that she was only delighted when he came to see her just as she was about to sit down to a solitary dinner.
“Francis!What an hour to come calling.Shall I request another place to be laid?”
“No, no.Well, why not?I’m devilish hungry.In fact, I’m in a bit of a fix and I’m hoping you will help me out.”
It was obvious he was disturbed, as he was normally unflappable, but she waited until he had been settled beside her at the table before asking for the explanation.
“Caroline has the measles,” he declared.He saw Eleanor’s lack of comprehension.“My youngest sister, don’t you know.Badly knocked up, I’m afraid, though hopefully not in danger.Of course my mother wants all the other girls out of the way.They’re to go to Aunt Glassdale’s in Yorkshire, but Amelia doesn’t want to go.I wondered if she could stay here?”
Eleanor’s head was reeling with this assault of information.“Your sister?Here?”
“I know it’s a devilish cheek, Eleanor, but there’s nowhere else she could stay in Town, and she particularly doesn’t want to leave, not with the Season at its height.”
