Of all the awful things Lady Beaumont had said, there was no reason these should be the words that kept echoing in Iris’s head.
No reason but one.
They were true.
Shewaslike a child, with her naïve attempts to inspire a kiss. She even lookedlike a child, with her fair hair and wide blue eyes, in her sweet pink frock with the itchy lace sleeves.
No wonder Lord Huntington was bored with her.
Whereas Lady Beaumont…well, whatever else the woman might be, she was no child. She wasn’t naïve, docile, or predictable. She was beautiful, tempting, wicked—she was everything proper young ladies like Iris were cautioned not to be, with her wild dark hair, her glittering jewels and her revealing red gown.
Red.
Iris had never worn a red gown. Every item of clothing she owned was either pale pink, pale yellow, or pale blue. She’d wanted royal blue, and Pomona green, bright primrose, and Parma violet, but her grandmother insisted a proper young lady didn’t wear dramatic colors, and that a lady with Iris’s coloring could never have too many pink gowns.
Iris hadn’t argued. She’d worn the gowns her grandmother chose for her without a word of complaint, and she couldn’t deny each was more beautiful than the last, trimmed with yards of costly Belgian lace and endless lengths of satin ribbon.
All that sweet pink silk and satin, wasted.
This, then, was what came of doing what you were told. To be ridiculed by her betrothed’s mistress, laughed at by her, to be called dull and insipid without her betrothed speaking a word in her defense. This was to be her reward for becoming everything a proper young lady should be.
Iris drew, painted, and played the pianoforte. Her quadrille was without compare, and she was an accomplished equestrienne. She was well read, well-spoken, well-dressed, and possessed of a smile that made gentlemen rush across crowded ballrooms to reach her side. She spoke French, German, and Italian with perfect fluency, her fair coloring was fashionable this season, and the filmy French gowns that were all the rage made the most of her gentle curves.
Useless, all of it.
Her engaging smile, her proper gowns, her many accomplishments—none of it made the least bit of difference, because compared to a woman like Lady Beaumont, Iris faded into insignificance.
She looked down at her hands, ashamed of this somehow, though she couldn’t explain why. She hadn’t done anything wrong. On the contrary, she’d been careful to follow every rule, and she was on the verge of making a brilliant match, just as her grandmother wanted.
On the surface, she and Lord Huntington made perfect sense. Or they had, until today, when he’d rushed her out of the garden so he could steal away to meet his mistress. Iris might be the very image of maidenly perfection, but looking back at their courtship now, she couldn’t think of one instance where Lord Huntington had shown any real interest in her.
The truth was, she might be everything heshouldwant, but it didn’t change the fact that hedidn’t.He wanted Lady Beaumont. If not her specifically, then another woman like her.
Rose Beaumont.
Rose was a fitting name for her. She looked like a lush, extravagant flower, with her mass of silky hair and that creamy skin she took care to display at every available opportunity. Iris had seen her at the theater just the other night, wearing a dramatic primrose-colored gown, with two delicate wisps of black lace for sleeves. Her shoulders and neck had been bare, revealing a daring expanse of décolletage, and she’d been wearing enormous teardrop-shaped rubies clustered among circlets of diamonds, flashing at her throat and in her ears.
The jewels were a gift from Lord Huntington, apparently. A generous one.
Iris had always been rather fascinated by women like Lady Beaumont, though only from a distance, as there could be no question of any kind of acquaintance between them. Iris was the granddaughter of an earl, and thanks to her grandmother, a young lady of fortune. Lady Beaumont was part of the demimondaine, the kind of scandalous widow proper ladies went out of their way to ignore. Lady Fairchild would fall into a nervous fit if she knew the woman was skulking about behind her hedges.
Yet here she was, cool as you please, staking a claim on Lord Huntington, as if she had every right to him, and perhaps she did, because despite his bored drawl, he’d been utterly distracted by her.
But then Lady Beaumont had plenty of practice distracting gentlemen, and there was no question she knew how to look after her own interests. Lord Canard had been her first protector, an elderly, wealthy gentleman who quite lost his head over the seductive young widow. The gossips claimed the old fool went mad when Lady Beaumont dropped him for the younger, wealthier Lord Dorsey, but then poor Lord Dorsey had been set aside in favor of Lord Huntington, who was younger and wealthier still, and blessed with a face and figure so perfect even a hardened businesswoman like Lady Beaumont wasn’t prepared to relinquish him without a struggle.
Iris looked down at the skirt of her pale pink gown, and a raw laugh tore from her throat. It wouldn’t be much of a struggle, would it? Had it only been an hour ago she’d thought she wasn’t a proper young lady because she wanted to tempt Lord Huntington into a kiss?
It seemed ludicrous now. Laughable.
“Lord Huntington doesn’t care for me.”
It was a whisper only, but Iris said the words aloud, because if she heard them, perhaps it would help her decide whether or not she could tolerate the truth behind them. If it was only her pride that was damaged, and not her heart, then it made no difference in the least whether Lord Huntington cared for her or not. She would become a marchioness, and according to the rules of London society, that was more than adequate compensation for his lack of affection.
“He has a mistress.”
Or he’dhada mistress. He’d sent Lady Beaumont away with hundreds of pounds in rubies to compensate her for the loss of his company, but even if he hadn’t broken with her, Lord Huntington’s having a mistress wasn’t sufficient reason to jilt him. Many gentlemen had mistresses, especially gentlemen of rank and wealth. A wife might not like it, but she was expected to look the other way.
No matter how awful that mistress was.
