A tingling tiptoed up Bethany’s spine, and she glanced around.
Ah, yes. There he was.
Triston Aaron Corbet, the Baron of Chaswick.
Chase. The person attached to said brilliant blue eyes.
His toffee-colored hair stood out from the rest. Since she had pined for him for just over seven years, all of her senses had become finely tuned to his presence.
From the first night her brother had brought Chase home, Bethany had wanted to know everything a person could know about him.
When one obsessed over a certain gentleman for as long as Bethany had, no detail was ever considered inconsequential. Born on the thirteenth of April, year of our Lord, 1799, he was due to turn thirty this spring. As heir and only child to the late Lord Chaswick, his birth and lineage was prominently recorded inDebrett’s. Which made no difference to Bethany. Had he been born a pauper, she would have regarded him with just as much adoration.
This evening, he wore a maroon satin waistcoat beneath a perfectly fit black jacket. His face was freshly shaven, and his thick hair that sometimes looked brown and other times almost a caramel color had been cut recently. He’d kept it tied in a queue at the back of his neck when she’d last had the opportunity to bask in his proximity at her mother’s house party earlier that year.
Either way, he was beautiful.
Half sitting, half leaning on an ornamental pedestal, he turned and studied the room with hooded eyes. Bethany sat up straight but his gaze didn’t so much as waver when it drifted over her.
The joy she’d initially felt upon seeing him flagged. Should she be concerned?
The angle of his head and the slight curl of his lip gave away his less-than-sober state. Not that the casual onlooker would notice. As his ardent admirer, she noticed more about him than others would. But in the past year, a subtle change had come over him. He was wound too tight.
He threw back his head and laughed at some comment made by Mr. Stone Spencer. Likely, she was worrying over nothing.
Her brother, the Earl of Westerley, and his companions from school were all inclined to consume a good deal of spirits when together.
At least Westerley was married now—to Miss Charlotte Jackson, the daughter of an American whiskey distiller. Except Charley was a Fitzwilliam now. She was Lady Westerley.
Bethany wished she could be more like her new sister-in-law—daring, brave, and more than a little irreverent.
Chase’s gaze swooped back to her. Catching her eye, he elbowed Stone Spencer and winked.
Oh, dear. She was not mistaken. Both of them were jug-bitten, and they were coming her way. She was grateful her brother was absent this spring, providing her with one less vulnerable bachelor to worry about. Didn’t they realize what some of these ladies would do to land a wealthy and titled gentleman? Even worse, what some oftheir motherswould do? Even Stone Spencer, the only Mister amongst them but the second son of an earl, wasn’t safe from the traps.
Idiots.
“They’re coming this way!” Delia announced unnecessarily. “I’ll positively swoon if one of them asks me to dance. They’re your brother’s friends, aren’t they? How do you stand it? All those handsome men coming around? And most of them titled?”
A valid question, certainly. Because even though Chase possessed a considerably rakish reputation, Bethany could do nothing to calm her racing heart as the man of her dreams approached, Mr. Spencer behind him.
“My dearest Lady Bethany and Miss Delia!” The adorable reprobate swooped into an exaggerated bow, periwinkle eyes twinkling.
Mr. Spencer echoed him and bowed as well, exhibiting only half the feigned enthusiasm.
Bethany went to rise but forgot she was holding the shawl and reticule and sent the contents of the latter tumbling onto the parquet floor, bouncing and rolling about in all directions.
“Don’t move, My Lady, I am at your service.” Chaswick dropped to his knees to gather her mother’s belongings. Mortified at her clumsiness, Bethany sat stiffly and watched as he gathered perfume, a pencil, a tin of comfits, a handful of hairpins, and a miniature of her deceased father, then stuffed them into the small velvet pouch.
“Have I missed anything?” He brushed around the hem of her dress in his search for other feminine paraphernalia.
“No. No,” she replied breathlessly as he presented her mother’s belongings to her. She hadn’t even realized he’d gathered the shawl up as well. Why would she? She’d been so intent upon staring at the top of his magnificent head, noticing that some of the strands were almond-colored, several a deep chestnut brown, and a few a dark mahogany. Would the shiny strands feel as soft as they looked?
“Stone here—” Chase rose and continued as though she hadn’t just made a spectacle of herself. “Mr. Spencer, that is, has promised your brother he would keep an eye on Lady Tabetha but cannot locate the minx. I told him that we could always count on Good Old Bethany to help a gent out. Your sister is in attendance tonight, is she not?”
Good Old Bethany.
Bethany gathered her composure enough to address the gentleman at Chase’s side. “As she won’t be having her come-out for another ten days, she is not. You may rest at ease knowing she is safely ensconced in my brother’s home.”
