The Wickedest Lord Alive (6 page)

She wanted a family. Children and a household of her own. To expect or even hope for more from Steyne was to engage in air-dreaming.

“Tom,” said Clare frostily, curtsying as Tom approached. She possessed herself of a nearby masculine arm, which happened to belong to Mr. Perkins.

“Hello, brat,” said Tom with a wry quirk to his mouth.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” Clare turned the full force of her most melting expression upon her faithful admirer. “Do I look like a brat to
you,
Mr. Perkins?”

The young gentleman flushed pink. “N-no, indeed. Anything less like a brat than the divine Miss Beauchamp would be difficult to imagine.”

Tom glanced down on Mr. Perkins from his superior height and said, “That’s because you don’t know her very well.”

Clare ignored Tom’s interjection, exclaiming instead, “Tom, that reminds me. I want you to sign your name to my petition before I take it to Mr. Huntley tomorrow.”

“Dear God,” muttered Tom. “Can’t you leave the poor fellow alone, you little hornet? All he wants is a quiet life.”

“Then he ought to step down at the next election and let someone else run.” She eyed him speculatively.

“No,” said Tom. “Absolutely not.”

She frowned. “You didn’t even hear what I was going to say.”

“I know what you were going to say because you’ve said it a hundred times. And I repeat: I will not stand for election in Huntley’s stead. Even if I did, I would not be your puppet, Clare. Now, be a good girl and run along. I want to talk to Lizzie.”

Clare went with something of a flounce.

Throughout this exchange, Lizzie had been scanning the crowd, watching for Steyne. Her nerves hummed with tension. She barely heard a word Tom spoke to her until he put a hand over hers. “My dear Lizzie. Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? No, of course not.” She collected herself as best she could, withdrawing her hand from his. “I apologize if I seem distracted. I am concerned that the ball should run smoothly, that’s all. My mind always picks over a hundred little details.”

“These assemblies always run smoothly,” said Tom, a twinkle lurking in his dark eyes. “With Miss Allbright at the helm, would the evening dare go awry?”

She pulled a face. “You make me sound disagreeably managing.” She only wished that were the truth. Then she might manage her way out of this mess.

“No, not managing,” he said. “Clever and competent, rather.” He tilted his head. “Are you feeling quite the thing, old girl?”

She pressed her fingertips to her temple. “Sorry, Tom. I—I have the headache.”

“Then you must sit while I fetch you lemonade,” he said, making as if to lead her to a chair.

No, she couldn’t be seen sitting out dances. It would give the lie to her carefully supported alibi.

“Indeed, I am well.” She offered him a determined smile. “Or I will be in a trice. Ah, and here is Mr. Taylor to claim the first set.”

Lizzie loved to dance, but tonight the amusement failed to take her mind from her troubles. Steyne and Lydgate hadn’t arrived yet, but excited anticipation hummed in the air. The young ladies glowed with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes, preening and laughing in an almost determined way. All seemed eager to appear to best advantage should the honored guests choose that moment to walk in.

Dowagers and matrons sat around the edges of the room, gossiping behind their fans. Little Thurston might be a quiet village, but that did not mean residents were without town connections to send them news and scandal. Every likely source was mined for gossip.

By the time Steyne and Lydgate strolled into the room, the company knew everything about them, including what they’d eaten for dinner.

The gentlemen paused on the threshold. The crowd hushed. Some of the dancers lost a step. Lizzie lifted her chin and grimly danced on.

The Westruther cousins were impossible to ignore. It had been difficult to imagine how the two Westruther men could appear more magnificent than they’d seemed in breeches and riding boots that afternoon. Yet in formal attire, they surpassed even themselves.

Their tailoring was as exquisite as it was unobtrusive. Both gentlemen wore black coats and white waistcoats and dove gray pantaloons. Lydgate sported a complicated cravat, his waistcoat was embroidered with subtle gold thread, and a single fob hung from his watch chain. Steyne’s sole adornment was a blazing diamond pin.

Memory came on a rush of emotion that was all the more powerful for being locked away so long. The air seemed too thin to draw into her lungs.

Dear Heaven, it was hot in here. Too close, too many people. She needed to escape, but the set was ending and now Lydgate made his way through the crowd toward her to claim his dance.

Of Steyne, there was no sign.

The effort cost Lizzie greatly, but she did not spin around to search the room for him. She greeted the viscount with every appearance of calm.

“Good evening, my lord,” she murmured. “How delightful to see you again.”

His grin flashed out. “Miss Allbright, I’ve been counting the seconds. Shall we?”

They made up a four with Clare and Mr. Perkins. There was no opportunity for extended conversation as they moved through the figures of the cotillion, a circumstance for which Lizzie was grateful.

Perversely, she began to wish she might get the forthcoming confrontation with Steyne over and done—for confrontation there must certainly be. She ought to have agreed to dance with the marquis, loath though she was to pander to his arrogant assumption of authority over her.

He stood with Lady Chard, the squire, and the squire’s wife. Steyne seemed to converse with them civilly enough, but his face bore its usual expression of cold indifference. With a stab of apprehension, she realized that his attention never left her.

Which was nothing out of the ordinary; most of the crowd watched either Steyne or Lydgate and, by extension, her. Strangers were uncommon in Little Thurston. Even rarer were two single gentlemen. Two single, wealthy, aristocratic gentlemen as blindingly handsome as fallen angels, to boot.

Miss Worthington, dancing in the next set, threw Lizzie a look so loaded with venom, it was a wonder Lizzie didn’t collapse at once, foaming at the mouth. Wryly amused, Lizzie suffered the envious glances of other young ladies, knowing that she’d pay the price for being singled out in this manner. She resolved to keep Lydgate fully occupied and dancing with all the local belles in the hope that would soothe any ill feeling her good fortune might cause.

She would even introduce his lordship to Miss Worthington. Truly, Lizzie deserved a sainthood for such generosity.

Too occupied with her thoughts to engage in much conversation, Lizzie watched Lydgate’s laughing exchanges with Clare as the dance progressed. Mr. Perkins, on the other hand, threw the viscount a suspicious glare.

Mr. Perkins excused himself with a bow as soon as the dance ended and departed from the group with a wounded air that had no effect whatsoever upon its intended audience. Lizzie would have left Lydgate and Clare together also, since they appeared to like each other so well, but her escape was cut off.

The Marquis of Steyne materialized before her. Lizzie barely repressed a start of dismay. Plague the man! His power to disconcert her seemed almost supernatural.

He bowed. “Miss Allbright.”

He was like a cat—no, a panther—with a mouse.

Lizzie marshaled her defenses and curtsied deeply. “Good evening, Lord Steyne. I must present to you my friend, Miss Beauchamp.”

“Charmed,” said Clare as he bowed over her hand. She stared up at Steyne in her open, appraising way. “Lord Lydgate was just telling me of a picnic he has planned for tomorrow. Do you join us, my lord?”

One black eyebrow quirked up. “That depends on the business I must execute while I am here.”

Lydgate said to Clare, “Oh, he’ll come, never fear. Will you need to seek permission from your aunt?”

“Yes, of course,” Clare said. “Let me take you to Aunt Sadie and we’ll ask her.”

She slid her hand into the crook of Lydgate’s arm and led him away, oblivious of Lizzie’s predicament. On the one hand, Lizzie was dying to learn what Steyne meant by arriving unannounced in Little Thurston. On the other, she was afraid to be alone with him.

Steyne observed Lizzie with that disconcertingly penetrating stare of his. “You are flushed, Miss Allbright. Perhaps you’d care for a glass of wine.”

He held out his arm to her, but she pretended not to see it and moved ahead of him to the refreshment parlor. In any other circumstances, she’d never be so rude, but she couldn’t afford scruples when she fought such a formidable adversary. She feared that if she touched him, her emotions would overcome her. The last thing she wished to do was make a scene.

Steyne procured champagne for her and claret for himself. When he handed her the glass, she nearly dropped it in the effort to ensure their fingers didn’t brush.

How many casual touches had she suffered from men of her acquaintance and thought nothing of it? Now the slightest contact with Lord Steyne seemed likely to stir up all sorts of feelings she needed to keep at bay.

He raised his own glass to his lips and sipped. The faintest grimace sketched across his face. He set the glass down.

He probably allowed only the finest wines to touch those exquisitely sculpted lips. Everything about him spoke of a man who demanded the best and got it. Or no, he didn’t
demand
the best. He accepted it as a matter of course.

Lizzie decided to challenge him. “Is there something amiss with the claret, my lord?”

“Not at all,” he said, but he did not take another sip. “You interest me, Miss Allbright.”

“I … Indeed, sir? In what way?”

He bent his attention to his wineglass and traced its rim with the very tip of a gloved finger.

Those fingers, she thought, with an inward shiver. The things they had done to her that night …

In the intervening years, she’d often wondered whether her imagination painted Steyne more vividly handsome than he’d been in reality. Whether her youth and inexperience with men had multiplied his impact beyond logic or reason.

Now he was older, broader, and harder, more assured and more devastating than ever. He’d lost the glow of youth, but his potency had increased.

She cursed the ability of men to mature so handsomely, while females were considered to lose their bloom by age five-and-twenty. By her age, in fact.

His gaze lifted to hers, and the seconds ticked by as neither of them spoke. Was he remembering, as did she, the night they’d last met? How vivid was that memory for him? He’d undoubtedly had many, many lovers since then.

“Forgive me for staring,” he said. “I feel that I have met you before. Long ago.”

So it began. She swallowed hard, remembering she had a part to play. “I don’t think so, my lord. You’ll forgive
me
if I say that you are not someone I would be likely to forget.”

He tilted his head. “Have you always lived in Little Thurston?”

Drat the man! She hadn’t banked on him creeping up on the subject from behind like this. “A little less than eight years.”

“Eight years,” he repeated. “Do you know, I believe it was that long ago that I met this, ah, young lady. She looked so very like you. And if I may make so bold, Miss Allbright, yours is not a face
I’d
be likely to forget.” He paused, then added softly, “Nor anything else about you.”

She flushed at the implication, wholly at a loss for how to respond.

He let the silence spool out between them until the musicians broke it, striking up for the next dance.

Almost laughing with relief, Lizzie set down her unsampled champagne on the table next to his claret. “I must go. My partner will wonder where I—”

“We must talk privately, Miss Allbright,” said Steyne. He spoke in an undertone with a swift look around. No one was within earshot at this moment.

She gave the best performance of affronted surprise she’d ever managed in her life. “My lord! You can have nothing to say to me that requires privacy.”

He regarded her in silence for several moments. She licked her lips, which were suddenly dry, and wished she’d drunk the champagne.

Drawing nearer, the marquis murmured, “Would you like me to say what I must in public? I assure you, it makes no odds to me where we have this discussion, but I thought you’d prefer not to create a scene.”

A footman passed close enough to hear their conversation. The footman departed again with a tray, and it took all Lizzie’s discipline not to fly at him with accusations of her own. His abandonment of her was something she would not easily forgive.

“I don’t understand you,” she said with the best semblance of calm she could manage. “You are insulting, my lord. Please leave me alone.”

Before she could retreat, he gripped her hand in a gentle but implacable hold. “If you won’t grant me a waltz, meet me in the garden at midnight, when everyone moves in to supper.”

Again, a flash flood of emotion crashed through her. That night, he’d held her hand as he joined her in bed. A hot, unwilling sensual awareness flowed through her body.

As if he sensed the reason for her disquiet, his eyes darkened with intent. He drew her back toward him, seeming to forget their surroundings altogether.

“Unhand me, sir,” she said through her teeth. “Or
I
will be the one to make the scene.”

“Midnight in the garden.” He raised her hand and brushed her knuckles with his lips. “Don’t forget.”

Before she had time to recover from the horrifyingly melting sensation this gesture caused, he released her. Perhaps three seconds passed, in which she stared up at him, bemused, the skin of her knuckles tingling beneath her gloves.

“Go now, or you’ll miss the set,” he said in a low, husky tone.

Lizzie came to herself with a start. What a silly chit she was, to be so befuddled by a simple kiss on the hand.

He doesn’t want you.
He might want her breeding equipment or her fortune or her cooperation in some devious scheme, but he didn’t want
her
. No matter what loverlike gestures he might make, no matter how her blood heated when he was near, she must remember that.