"He's rather good at that, isn't he?" Helena observed. "The charming-everyone-in-the-room thing."
"He's a duke."
"There are plenty of dukes. Most of them are bores." Helena tilted her head, studying the tableau. "But Montehood... peoplewantto be near him. Have you noticed? Watch how they angle toward him, even when they're pretending to talk to someone else."
She was right. The crowd flowed around Martin like water around a stone, everyone oriented toward him, everyone hoping to catch his eye, his attention, his favour. Even people who were ostensibly engaged in other conversations kept glancing in his direction, as though checking to ensure he was still there, still within reach.
It was subtle, but once Vanessa saw it, she could not erase it from her memory. The entire room was aware of Martin Hale. The entire room was responding to his presence, whether they acknowledged it or not.
"He has presence," Vanessa said. "It's not just the title."
"No. It's something else entirely." Helena's voice was thoughtful. "Charisma, I suppose. Or perhaps it's simply that he doesn't care whether people like him, which paradoxically makes everyone desperate for his approval."
"He cares."
Helena glanced at her. "Does he?"
"He simply doesn't show it." Vanessa watched as Martin extracted himself from the group with a few graceful words, only to be immediately intercepted by another cluster of admirers. "He's performing. All of this…the charm and the ease…it's a performance."
"How do you know?"
Because I've seen him when he's not performing, Vanessa thought. In a park, on a bench, with his hands on my ankle and his voice rough with emotion. That was real. This is theatre.
"I simply do," she said.
***
Lady Portsmith reached Martin before anyone else could claim him.
She was a widow of perhaps five and thirty, possessed of considerable beauty and even more considerable wealth. Her late husband had been elderly and obliging enough to die within two years of their matrimony, leaving her with a fortune and no encumbrances. She had spent the subsequent decade enjoying both with enthusiasm.
Her interest in Martin was well known. She made no secret of it, approaching him at every social occasion with a proprietary air that suggested their relationship was far more intimate than mere acquaintance. The gossips whispered that she had been his mistress, once. Others said she wished to be and had not yet succeeded.
Vanessa watched as Lady Portsmith laid a gloved hand on Martin's arm, leaning close to murmur something in his ear. Her body language was unmistakable, the tilt of her head, the curve of her smile, the way she positioned herself to display her décolletage to best advantage.
Something hot and unpleasant coiled in Vanessa's stomach.
Martin smiled at whatever Lady Portsmith had said, but it was his society smile, Vanessa noted. The one that curved his lips without reaching his eyes. The one he deployed when he was bored but too polite to show it.
"She's been trying to catch him for years," Helena said. "Everyone knows it. It's become rather embarrassing, actually."
"Has she... succeeded?"
"In catching him?" Helena shrugged. "There are rumours, but there are always rumours where Montehood is concerned. Half the women in London claim to have shared his bed, and half of those are lying."
"And the other half?"
"Are probably lying too, but more convincingly." Helena shot her a knowing look. "Why? Are you jealous?"
"Don't be absurd."
"You're jealous. Your face has gone all pinched."
"My face has not…" Vanessa stopped, forcing herself to relax the muscles that had, indeed, tightened with something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy. "I simply find her obvious. That's all."
"Mm-hmm."
Before Vanessa could respond, another figure joined the tableau around Martin: Miss Arabella Aldridge, this season's reigning diamond.
