Prologue
The Grosvenors’ ball, Mayfair, March 1819.
By eleven o’clock,Miss Laura Peyton had danced every dance. She’d promised to take supper with Lord Wadsworth and danced once with the Earl of Debnam. Now she was in Debnam’s arms again for the waltz. As they turned during the dance steps, she glimpsed the disapproving looks from the dowagers. With no mother to advise her, and only her brother Robert, who spent most of the evening in the games room, to accompany her, she’d believed herself safe from censure when she’d accepted the earl as her partner. Now, doubts crept in, especially when she recalled the gossip about him. But surely, at her age, she could dance with anyone? It had surprised her when he’d asked her. There were so many pretty young debutantes in need of a partner.
Whispers seemed to follow them around the room as they danced. Curious, she raised her chin and studied the enigmatic earl at close quarters. A few golden sun-streaks dared to lighten his wavy, brown hair, and his lightly tanned skin confirmed her opinion that he liked to be outdoors. His straight nose looked as imperious as a Roman general’s, and the cynical cast to his mouth completed the picture of someone it would not be wise to cross. His smoky-gray eyes gave away little and added to the air of mystery which seemed to follow him, and the reason thetoncalled him “the Phantom Earl.”
A sensual gleam lit the gray-blue depths of his eyes and an amused smile tugged at his lips. “Have you had your fill of me yet, Miss Peyton?”
“I suppose you stir my curiosity, my lord.” Laura bent her head and studied his white, embroidered silk waistcoat stretching across his wide chest.
“Do I? In what way?” he asked.
“You are very much talked about. Do they not call you ‘the Phantom Earl’?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve heard it said.” His gaze roamed over her face. “Are you aware your beauty eclipses that of every other lady here tonight, Miss Peyton?”
It was a ridiculously overblown compliment. Her simply styled blue gown, made for economy’s sake, and her dainty, gold jewelry in no way rivaled the loveliness of the other ladies present. Perhaps he intended to lead the conversation onto safer ground. “That is prettily put, my lord.” Laura knew her worth, but youth was valued at the marriage mart. She was familiar with the way society worked. Marriages carefully arranged between families for financial reasons, or the addition of a title. Seldom for love. She had learned that lesson cruelly when their neighbor, Edward Ryland, who had been her beau since she’d emerged from the schoolroom, had bowed to family pressure and married a wealthy debutante. It had hurt for a long time and left her wary. She trusted few men. And she certainly didn’t trust the Earl of Debnam.
“Although not the most biddable, I suspect,” he added as he guided her smoothly over the floor.
Aware she’d been frowning, she laughed. “Perhaps you are right.”
“And something of a puzzle.”
She widened her eyes. “Am I? I was thinking the same of you, sir.”
“Why haven’t you married?” he continued in his distractingly deep, sensual voice, which caused a brief shiver to ripple through her. “Is there a story behind it? Some love lost on the battlefields of the Iberian Peninsula?”
“Nothing quite so dramatic. I am sorry to disappoint you.”
“You would have caused quite a stir when you first came out.”
Which was some years ago. The earl had been absent from ballrooms and card parties when she’d first come to London. She would have remembered him. Which perhaps explained thenom de guerrethetonhad given him. “I’ve yet to meet a gentleman I wish to marry,” she said, disconcerted by the course his questioning took. She would never tell him the whole. What she was prepared to offer failed to cover the real reasons she found herself here again at almost twenty-six.
“Then you are most particular,” he surmised.
“We should be, shouldn’t we? You must spend your life with that person.”
“Not necessarily. Thetonhas its own rules.”
“I daresay.” She held her tongue on observing how loose the morals of some members of London society were. She would sound horribly prim, and she was sure he would laugh at her.
“You keep frowning, Miss Peyton. May I know why?”
“Must you be privy to all my thoughts, sir?”
His hand at her waist tightened. “It’s my wish to discover more about you.”
“I cannot imagine what it is you find of interest. I am just as you see. There is no mystery.”
“And yet you are defying the dowagers by dancing with the Phantom Earl.” He shook his head. “Perhaps you are not the best judge of how interesting you are.”
“It is poor etiquette to refuse an invitation.”
She doubted the sincerity of Lord Debnam’s supposed interest in her. It was likely he was this way with every woman. It was part of a rake’s charm to make a woman feel special. But, gallingly, his words had the power to penetrate her defenses. Her other dance partners’ empty flattery, which failed to impress her, in no way resembled Lord Debnam’s smooth talk, which, for some reason, she found to have a serious undertone. Outrageous as he was, he touched something within her and made her pulse leap. Something she had carefully shut away deep inside. And for that reason, if none other, she should be wary of him. He could have the power to hurt her.
She leveled a glance at him, refusing to encourage him. “One thing I will admit to. A love of the waltz. And to be blessed with such a skilled partner.”
