Authors: Beverley Oakley
She glanced at the nearest couple, afraid their conversation might be overheard, relieved when he murmured with surprising intensity, “Let me assure you, that was between you and me…alone.”
Holding Lord Fenton’s gaze, Fanny executed her dance steps like an automaton. They’d been drilled into her as thoroughly as her need to perform in the marriage mart. Was he no longer mocking her?
The brittle pride that had armoured her against the damage he could do her—in so many ways—was replaced by a tiny kernel of hope. Lord Fenton was studying Fanny with the greatest interest and, despite all that had passed between them, she’d venture, respect.
She thought of her impending marriage to Lord Slyther and whispered, “In your arms, my Lord, something came over me… I don’t know how to explain it, but I’d never felt it before and”—she kept her eyes trained on his as they linked elbows to
dos-à-dos
down the centre of the room—“I felt I was in heaven.”
Clearly he was not used to such plain talking and clearly he liked it. Looking decidedly pleased, he put his head close to hers before they separated briefly once more. “Then we shall have to do it again, Miss Brightwell—only this time I promise to proceed in a far more gentlemanly manner.”
Was there any clearer way for him to indicate his interest? She was about to respond, to indicate her pleasure and hopefully prolong the boyish charm that had replaced for the moment his rakish self-confidence, but her words were truncated by a gasp. Right before her very eyes she was bearing witness to what threatened to be her sister’s greatest impropriety yet.
“Oh, dear Lord,” she whispered, clutching the hated ring on its chain, which she had all but forgotten.
“Miss Brightwell?”
When he touched her arm, bare above her gloves, she jerked into sensual awareness, her heart rate speeding up now on more than just her sister’s account. Wilting against him, she pointed. “My sister has this moment disappeared through a door behind that tapestry.” Her head swam as she contemplated her mother’s fury at the possible repercussions. A fury that would, in this case, be warranted. “Not five seconds after Mr Bramley,” she added, faintly.
“George Bramley knows this is your sister’s first ball.” She heard concern in Lord Fenton’s tone. His dark eyes gentled. “I’m sure he wouldn’t—”
“You don’t know Bramley if you believe that, sir.” She knew she spoke too hotly but her mind was running circles around Antoinette’s potential for ruining the entire Brightwell family’s prospects.
The squeeze of his hand upon her wrist brought her close to tears. Again he lowered his head to speak softly, his warm breath against her ear spearing tingles of almost unbearable need throughout her entire body.
“The moment this set ends I’ll follow them. We need to be discreet. Don’t worry, Miss Brightwell—Mr Bramley will not ruin your family’s good name under my watch.” Pointing to a single door at the end of the saloon that led to the ladies’ mending room, he added, “Follow the passage to your right until the last door. I’ll meet you in the chamber beyond.”
Fighting her impatience, Fanny watched his judicious exit. As soon as she deemed it appropriate, she hurried away to carry out his instructions…right into the path of her chaperone for the evening.
“Lady Harwood, I have two loose buttons that need securing,” she gasped. “Please excuse me.”
Although Lady Harwood’s sponsorship of the Brightwell girls was a discreet arrangement that eased the dowager duchess’s pecuniary difficulties and gilded Fanny and Antoinette’s prospects, she took her duties seriously. Holding her lorgnette up to her hooded eyes, she scanned the assembly.
“I trust the ladies’ mending room is where we’ll find Antoinette.” She gave a disapproving sniff. “The girl is too pretty with too little sense to make me easy.”
“She accompanied Miss Conyngham to the library, I believe,” Fanny lied.
To her relief an old acquaintance chose that fortuitous moment to address the dowager and Fanny was able to slip away.
She was unprepared for the scene that greeted her in the Earl of Quamby’s ‘chamber beyond’. At first she could see no sign of Antoinette or Bramley. Nor did she immediately seek them out, such was her shock as she pushed open the double doors. The room was clearly for entertaining on a lavish scale, but for a purpose that Fanny could only imagine. Lit now by a series of candles in wall sconces, its lofty proportions disappeared into darkness. But enough could be seen of the entwined limbs and glazed eyes of the Bacchanalian orgy wall murals reflected in a myriad mirrors that Fanny turned away with a gasp. This was not a room she should enter.
It was only when she heard weeping overlaid by Lord Fenton’s stern tones that she forced herself to venture in.
Following the sounds of a heated exchange between two men, punctuated by Antoinette’s sobbing, Fanny came upon them by the edge of a sunken area piled high with red and gold silk cushions.
Antoinette sent her sister a baleful look from where she sat hunched on a richly embroidered banquette. Mr Bramley and Lord Fenton angrily faced each other across her.
“I suppose this is your doing,” she sniffed.
Instantly, Lord Fenton came to Fanny’s defence. “With your best interests at heart, Miss Antoinette.” The glower he directed at her younger sister sent a vicarious thrill right through to Fanny’s bones. It was enormously comforting to see the man who’d imprisoned her in his arms two nights before read the two miscreants the riot act regarding the proprieties.
“Good God, Bramley,” Fenton railed at him. “Have you no concern for how damaging your rash overtures are to someone of Miss Antoinette’s lack of experience?”
Fanny watched, fascinated by the transformation. The sensual mouth and poetic eyes were hard with anger. This man was much more than just a brooding poet with the usual masculine propensity to notch up conquests without regard for consequences. Fanny was awed, as she would be by anyone who could wipe the cynical smirk from Bramley’s thuggish face.
Stepping forward, she addressed her sister sternly. “Antoinette, your absence will be noticed unless we return you immediately to the ballroom. Good evening, gentlemen.” Nodding coldly to Bramley, she pulled her sister up from her seat.
“No one would have missed us for five minutes longer,” Antoinette muttered as Fanny hustled her along the corridor.
“A lot of things that can’t be undone are done within five minutes. Are you such a fool, Antoinette,” Fanny asked under her breath, “that you would ruin your chances—and quite possibly mine, too—because that knave Bramley sees you as easy prey?”
Antoinette tugged her arm free of Fanny’s grip, her mouth sulky, as she stopped in the middle of the passage to face her sister.
“Bramley’s next in line to inherit from Lord Quamby and we all know Quamby’s never going to produce an heir. Why, Mama would be thrilled.”
Fanny shook her head, taking her sister’s arm again and hustling her once more along the corridor. “How credulous you are. Bramley is toying with you to avenge himself against me for rejecting his advances last summer. Now, here comes Lady Harwood. If I see you move out of her sight I swear I shall tell Mama
everything
.”
She was already turning, barely able to contain her impatience to thank Lord Fenton, when Antoinette gasped, “Oh Fanny, I’ve lost Lady Harwood’s bracelet—”
Fanny felt like throttling her. As their mother had predicted, Antoinette was well on track to doom the Brightwell family’s chances.
“Stay there and don’t move!” she hissed. “I’ll find it. It must have come undone when…”
Now was not the time to put her sister’s misdemeanours into words. Seething, Fanny returned to the large, immoral room, hesitating before the double doors. How could she venture, alone, into a room that would shock any well brought up young lady? Indeed, she had been shocked, but she had found the scenes disturbing.
Disturbingly compelling.
They filled her with strange longings she could not put into words.
Forcing her gaze downwards, she searched the gold laurel leaf pattern of the luxurious carpet for the lost bracelet, seizing upon it with relief. It was a pity, she reflected seconds later as she picked herself up after an undignified tumble into the pit, that she had not paid more attention to the hazardous terrain.
Dismay turned to horror as she glanced down, smoothing her hands over her lovely, damaged gown. How could she possibly return to the ball when her skirt had all but been completely ripped from her bodice?
Chapter Four
With a determined squaring of his shoulders, Fenton forced his gaze away from his host’s tribute to lust. It was impossible to look upon such scenes and not become prisoner to almost uncontrollable impulses regarding the lovely Miss Fanny Brightwell.
Just as well Bramley had fumed off in the other direction and he was alone, Fenton thought wryly as he adjusted his bulging breeches and prepared to return to the ballroom. Miss Brightwell may well have been taken for the next set and he wanted very urgently to commandeer her for the rest of the evening.
He knew he had behaved badly, both two nights ago and with his teasing this evening. The time had come to offer Miss Brightwell the formal apology she deserved. The truth was, he’d not known how to treat her in view of what had transpired between them, while Bramley’s assertions…
He shook his head. Bramley was not a man he’d trust above his own instincts and he’d been a fool to concede even a jot of what he’d suggested about Miss Brightwell, as if she were no better than a tuppenny whore! It was sour grapes on Bramley’s side, he was sure of it.
No, there was something curiously affecting about Miss Brightwell’s combination of boldness and hauteur. If Fenton were to go on instinct alone, he’d venture that Miss Brightwell was only too well aware of her fragile foothold on the society ladder and that every reason she’d given regarding her conduct with Alverley was true. He also smugly believed he was her first introduction to the sensual world. Lord, she’d responded to him like he was a master violinist and she the strings his genius played upon.
Yet what else had she said? That she was betrothed to a man she found abhorrent? He needed to discover more. He needed to discover what steps to take to secure her for himself. After the experienced women whose pleasures he’d enjoyed during his two years abroad he was very responsive to Miss Brightwell’s charms. Oh yes, the European whores had flattered him, pandered to his every desire and exhibited the utmost artistry in their ability to raise him to ever greater heights of sexual gratification. He’d taken the Grand Tour to become the cultured man his mother required to take the reins and run the estate when he returned. Any culture he might have acquired had been incidental to the surfeit of lust that had consumed him after discovering how fascinating he was to women. Now it was time to settle down. He realised he was in danger of losing himself to vanity. He’d been given a long leash and he’d taken advantage of his opportunities until he’d felt tethered to nothing.
Now he wanted to return home to Grantham, the family seat for more than three hundred years, and start behaving responsibly. To do that, he needed a wife. Preferably one who would keep him interested and keep him in check.
Miss Brightwell showed every potential of fulfilling both criteria once he’d satisfied himself that Bramley spoke nothing but evil lies, that his mother had no reasonable grounds for her objections…
…and that Miss Brightwell’s attraction to him went beyond his pocket book.
Shaking his head as he passed a depiction of bedroom sport that was, even to one of his jaded experience, extreme, Fenton was about to return to the entertainment when he was arrested by a short, sharp squeal and the sound of tearing fabric. He turned, his eyes quickly becoming accustomed to the gloom until he caught sight of movement.
After a pregnant silence came a deep sigh followed by Miss Brightwell’s dry, unmistakable tones. “Of all the inconvenient times to be disrobed.”
Fenton moved closer, following the direction of her voice. He melted into the shadows and watched her in a shaft of light cast by a candle set high on the wall.
She was at the bottom of the pit, sitting amongst a collection of brightly coloured silk cushions, staring with dismay at her gold-flecked skirts. The diaphanous fabric hung limply, torn almost entirely free of her bodice, exposing her chemise. The sight of the crisp linen undergarment thus revealed—so pristine, yet so shocking—was strangely erotic.
Fenton was torn, too—torn between what a real gentleman ought to do and what, in truth, he
felt
like doing.
The ladies’ sewing room was just down the corridor. A real gentleman would hasten there and return with needle and thread to render assistance.