Page 38

“I daresay she decided at the last moment that if she came out here in person to invite you—and me,” Stephanie said, linking her arm through Winifred’s as they went back inside the house, “you might say yes. They are very fond of you, you know, your great-aunts.”

“Oh, I am so glad to have you here with us,” Winifred said. “So is Nicholas. He adores you. He has missed you so much down the years. All of you. He has been doing what he wants to do and what your father wanted him to do, but it has involved the sacrifice of any close relationship with his family. There is so much love in him, Stephanie. And I love him so much.”

“I am glad you told me,” Stephanie said, her eyes twinkling. “I would never have guessed otherwise.”

“Well, we do try to be discreet,” Winifred said, and they both laughed.

Chapter Twelve

On the appointed evening, Stephanie arrived at Viscount Dirkson’s London home with her brother and sister-in-law. As they had fully expected—they had joked about it again during the carriage ride—the reception was not a small one. All the windows on the lower floors were ablaze with light, and the front doors stood open as one group of guests was being admitted and another was descending from the carriage ahead of theirs.

Viscountess Dirkson, resplendent in a gown that shimmered with sequins from the high neckline to the ends of the long sleeves to the hem, three tall plumes waving in her hair, stood in the doorway to the drawing room to greet new arrivals with the viscount and a young man who looked a bit sheepish, though he grinned at Winifred and told her marriage must agree with her since she was positively glowing. He smiled as he shook hands with Nicholas and kept the smile for Stephanie.

“I am Adrian Sawyer, if you had not guessed it, Lady Stephanie,” he said. “The one responsible for all this fuss. I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”

Viscount Dirkson took her hand in his and laid his other hand on top of it. “I owe you an apology, Stephanie,” he said. “When I likened you at Christmas to the buxom, comely lasses I remember from my youthful journey to the Bavarian Alps, I intended my words entirely as a compliment. My wife, alas, has informed me that no woman likes to be called buxom or compared to a mountain goatherd. Do forgive me.”

She laughed. “But I was flattered and touched by the comparison,” she said.

“You are a very gracious lady as well as an exceedingly comely lass,” he said, and she laughed again.

She followed Nicholas and Winifred into the room, which was already rather crowded with smartly dressed men and women, the latter of whom seemed to be vying with one another for the most costly and fashionable gown with the most elaborate fans and plumes and jewels. Her own gown of fine muslin, which she had liked during all three years she had been wearing it for evening events, was outclassed, to say the least. And the way she styled her hair had never been fashionable—except perhaps among goatherds in the Alps. The difference between now and the time she was in London for her come-out when she was nineteen was that then she had been dreadfully self-conscious, while now she was happy with herself just as she was. She had certainly made progress in the right direction.

Winifred was soon enfolded in hugs from her relatives—the Duke and Duchess of Netherby, Baron and Lady Molenor, and Lord and Lady Hodges among them. Stephanie, having exchanged greetings with them all, moved on, enjoying the sight of all these people, though soon she would insert herself into some group, even if she knew none of the guests who made up its numbers, and make conversation. Nicholas was moving among their fellow guests too, shaking hands and talking with his customary ease and natural charm. Whether he knew everyone to whom he spoke was unclear. He always seemed equally comfortable with strangers and acquaintances.

Through the wide doorway into the room next to the drawing room Stephanie could see more people. There was a small chamber orchestra in there too, playing quietly and quite exquisitely. Footmen wove their way among the guests in both rooms with trays of drinks and appetizing-looking dainties, both savory and sweet.

She was claimed before she chose a group by the Dowager Duchess of Netherby, who professed herself happy to see Stephanie after she and Matilda had made that long journey from London for the specific purpose of inviting her in person.

“Though I did enjoy every minute of it,” she said as she linked her arm through Stephanie’s. “My sisters and I always seem to do a great deal of laughing and reminiscing when we are together, and I feel at least thirty years younger than I am. Let me introduce you to some of our fellow guests. I could see you were alone.”

“Thank you,” Stephanie said. It could be a bit daunting to find oneself surrounded by strangers who all seemed to have an acquaintance with one another.

After a couple of minutes of introductions, the dowager left Stephanie in the other room with a group that included Owen and Viscount Watley. Somewhere along the way she had acquired a glass of wine. Her hand was quite steady when she sipped from it, she was pleased to discover. It was a bit unnerving seeing Viscount Watley for the first time since the evening of that shocking kiss, which had been so far outside anything she had experienced ever before or even imagined that she felt shivers all along her spine at the memory and had to will herself not to blush.

For goodness’ sake, she was twenty-six years old.

Tonight he looked his usual breathtakingly gorgeous self in black evening clothes with pristine white linen, his dark hair gleaming in the candlelight, a single diamond pin winking from the crisp folds of his neckcloth. One young lady in the group—slender and beautiful and fashionably turned out from the topmost curl of her perfect coiffure to the pointed tips of her embroidered silk slippers, was gazing at him in almost open adoration. She spared one sweeping glance for Stephanie but almost visibly dismissed her as a possible rival.

“You came, then, did you, Steph?” Owen said, grinning at her. “I tried to wager with Bert that you would not, but he refused to bet against me on the grounds that he did not want to deprive me so easily of my money.”

“It seems you have more faith in me than my own brother, Viscount Watley,” she said, forcing herself to look him full in the face.

And oh, goodness gracious. It was those very lips that had kissed hers and that very hair into which she had slid her fingers and that very body to which she had pressed herself like a wanton. It had been an open-mouthed kiss, which ought to have been disgusting but had heated her instead from her head to her toes like a raging furnace—even when he had slid his tongue into her mouth. Her toes curled inside her slippers now at the memory, and she delayed taking another sip of her wine just to be on the safe side.

“Brothers, as I believe I may have overheard you remark a time or two, Lady Stephanie, can sometimes be an abomination,” he said, and smiled at her.

She consciously stopped herself from taking a step back. There really ought to be a law against that smile. And it was not even a practiced smile, which she might have despised. She would swear it was purely natural.

Owen was drawn into a different group a short time later, and Stephanie introduced herself to a young man who had just joined theirs. He was a longtime acquaintance of Adrian Sawyer’s, he told her, and could only feel for him at having to endure such a public acknowledgment of his thirtieth birthday.

“My own slipped by four months ago, unremarked upon by anyone except my mother and my sister,” he said. “And they mentioned it only because having a thirty-year-old son and brother made them feel positively aged. My sister is four years older than I.”

Stephanie laughed.

“Lady Dirkson told Mama a few days ago that this room may be used for dancing tonight if enough young people wish for it,” the beauty said, addressing the whole group but speaking mainly to Viscount Watley. “It is a room of impressive proportions, is it not? And the music is quite divine.”

“Oh,” another young lady in the group said, clasping her hands and her fan to her bosom. “I love dancing of all things. Shall we go and have a word with Adrian, Madeline?”