Tempted By the Night (13 page)

Hermione got up and rushed to her closet, catching up her old cloak. She turned around and glanced about her room.

Where the devil were her boots?

She got down on her hands and knees and dug around under her bed. She found the volume of Podmore first and cast it up on her bed.

The soft
thud
as it landed on the coverlet gave her pause, and for a moment all she could do was stare at the leather-bound volume.

The Legends of the League of the Paratus.

What if Podmore was correct and “a League” implied more than one? The odd scholar and author asserted there were at least four, maybe five, Paratuses in England.

Hermione shivered. Five men, all like the Earl of Rockhurst?

One was enough for her, as she recalled the earl’s well-formed body illuminated by that wayward shaft of light from Cappon’s. The way he’d moved as he’d tested his sword, swinging it with an even, familiar rhythm, as if the blade had been cast for his hand, and his hand alone.

And yet, even with all his apparent skills, the powers that were his inheritance, she knew now how truly vulnerable he was.

As mortal as any of us,
Podmore had written.

She bit her lip and wondered why he continued on.
Did he ever get lonely? Probably not, given his rakish reputation.

But what if, like Mr. Cricks had told her, the earl’s notoriety was just gossip to disguise his real identity?

That would make a person very lonely, indeed. Poor Rockhurst, she thought, pressing her fingers to her lips as she considered this new side of the earl. That would mean that he didn’t spend his nights wooing and seducing every Incognita and Cyprean in London.

Leaving him very lonely, indeed. So much so, Hermione mused, he might even welcome…

To her shock, her door swung open, and she nearly jumped out of her skin—as much at the interruption as in embarrassment as to the direction of her scandalous thoughts.

“There you are,” Quince said, bustling into the room. Making herself right at home, she dropped her gloves on the bureau and glanced around. “Safe and sound. A good thing, that is.”

“Mrs. Quince,” Hermione gasped. “What are you doing…I mean how did you get in?”

“Your dear brother let me in just before he left,” she said, pulling off her pelisse and plucking her hat from her head. Without an invitation or any other pleasantry, she dropped them on a nearby chair. “And it is just Quince, dear. I thought I’d keep you company tonight.”

Hermione shook her head. “That is very kind, but I already have plans.”

Fishing around one more time, she found her boots.

“You’re going out?” Quince asked, her brows rising in alarm.

“Well, yes,” Hermione said. Really, what did it matter to the lady? She started tugging on her boots, first one, then the other.

Quince fluttered back and forth. “It is just that we never got to finish getting acquainted last night, especially after you left so abruptly…” Her words trailed off, full of questions that Hermione had no intention of answering.

Well, there wasn’t any harm in telling the lady her intentions for the evening. “I’m going over to Grosvenor Square, to Lady Thurlow’s ball.”

Quince’s brow furrowed as she studied Hermione’s ensemble. “A ball?”

Hermione glanced down at her rumpled day dress. “Good thing no one can see me. But it hardly makes sense to put on the gown I intended to wear. What if I were to ruin it?”

Those elegant brows rose higher. “Why would you ruin it?” she asked in perfect imitation of Lady Walbrook when Griffin came in after an all-night bender.

Hermione bit her lip.
Jiminy!
She really needed to learn to mind her tongue. “No reason. But it is rather difficult, you can imagine, getting about when no one can see you. I wouldn’t want someone to trample the train.”

Quince’s jaw set like that of a matron confronted by a willful daughter.

Gads, she’s worse than Maman
, Hermione thought as she continued getting ready, trying her best to ignore Quince’s growing discontent.

“It would be better if you stayed home,” Quince said.
“I do know how to play cards. Perhaps a rousing game of casino.”

“I gave all my spare coins to Mr. Cricks today, so I haven’t anything left to wager with.”

“Oh, we don’t need to play for coins, for I haven’t any—” Quince’s light words came to a blinding halt. “To
whom
did you give your money?”

“Mr. Cricks,” Hermione said over her shoulder as she glanced about the room looking for her pelisse.

A stony silence fell between them, and Hermione glanced up to see Quince staring down at the volume of Podmore on the bed, her finger pointing at it as if it were a serpent.

“You bought
that
?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, catching it up and tucking it into the top drawer of her dressing table.

“And you were reading
it
?”

“Not all of it,” she said. Gads, not another lecture on the inappropriateness of reading.

“And you are still going out?”

“Of course.” Hermione spotted her pelisse sticking out from beneath her cloak. She caught it up and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“You’ve been reading
that
book, and you still want to go out?”

“I haven’t read all of it,” Hermione told her.

“Then you don’t realize the danger you are in from…from…?”

“The Paratus?” Hermione finished for her.

Quince closed her eyes and shuddered. “Yes.”

“He wouldn’t harm me,” Hermione assured her. “I’m
mortal.” She wasn’t too sure she could say the same about this Quince, but Mother always said it wasn’t polite to pry into someone’s breeding. At least not to their face. “He cannot harm me.”

Quince snorted. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“It matters not, for I have no intention of ever going near the man again.”

“Then you are over your
tendré
?” Quince sounded ever-so-hopeful.

“Yes,” Hermione said, trying her best to convince the lady. Convince herself, more like it.

The ring quivered, as if it knew the truth of the matter and wasn’t about to let her forget.

Ignoring the obnoxious little bit of metal on her hand, Hermione reached over and gave Quince’s hand a squeeze. “I am merely going a few blocks to a ball. I have no intention of drawing the earl’s attentions. I just have a small score to settle.” She smiled again. “Really, whatever could go wrong when no one can see me but you?”

Hermione’s confidence in her plan remained high, for she was able to slip quite easily into Lord and Lady Thurlow’s town house, then make her way to the ballroom without the least slip-up.

Taking up a spot in an alcove, she watched the evening begin with an interest she hadn’t felt since her first Season. How fun to be able to watch everyone and not be admonished for staring!

She spied Lord Hustings wandering about, most likely in search of her. He was becoming quite insistent in pursuing his suit for her, but Hermione couldn’t bring herself to give in and accept his proposal.

Not yet.

She spied India and Thomasin in another corner, their fans fluttering as they gossiped and commented about the ebb and flow of guests.

Hermione felt a stab of envy, because Thomasin was always a font of gossip, and India, because her love of fashion—which was exceeded only by Hermione’s own—made them boon companions. They’d have spent the evening in jovial spirits watching the other guests.

Then there was her quarry, Miss Lavinia Burke. The heiress was holding court in the middle of the room, as usual, and surrounded by likely beaux who sought to catch her eye, and misses who hoped to steal a bit of her limelight.

Now it would only be a matter of working her way around the crowd…

Suddenly an anxious sort of hum filled the Thurlow ball, the sort that Hermione knew heralded only one of two things—either the arrival of the Prince Regent or someone so scandalous that their mere appearance would be remarked upon for days to come. She rose up on her toes and craned her neck to spot this unlikely arrival, just as everyone else in the ballroom was doing.

That is until she spied him.

Rockhurst!

“Jiminy,” she gasped. She really hadn’t believed Lady Doust’s gossip about his attending tonight, yet here he was. Whatever was he doing here? Hermione’s heart stilled. Unless her mother’s assertions
were
true. That he was here looking for someone.

But it wasn’t the bride her mother believed him to be seeking, but a lady nonetheless.

Her. A shiver ran down her spine, and her earlier wayward thoughts made a sudden reappearance; but they didn’t last long, as they were followed by Quince’s
warnings—which didn’t seem as cork-brained as they had in the safety of her bedchamber. She drew a steadying breath and put her hand over her fluttering stomach. Well, at least he couldn’t see her and hadn’t a notion who she was.

So there was little chance of his finding her.

Though she still wasn’t sure how he’d found her last night after she’d been knocked out. If she’d been invisible, how would he have known where she’d fallen or even that she was still about?

Then she got her answer, for to her shock, and then dismay, the crowd parted to reveal the guest Rockhurst had brought with him.

Rowan.

A wolfhound at a ball? No wonder the crowd was abuzz.

And then Hermione was as well, as she watched Rowan turn his great shaggy head toward the place where she was standing and look directly at her.

“Rockhurst! What are you doing here?” Lady Routledge held up her looking glass and peered first at her nephew, and then at the giant hound sitting beside him. “This is a ball, not a hunt.”

He cupped his hand next to his mouth, leaned over, and whispered to his aunt, “I daresay, Rowan doesn’t know the difference.”

She groaned loudly. “Rockhurst, don’t take this unkindly, for I am beside myself with joy that you’ve started making the rounds to find yourself a bride, but this…this…”

“Dog,” the earl supplied.

“Beast,” his aunt corrected, “does not belong here. No one brings a dog to a ball.”

“I do,” he told her in a tone that would have brooked no opposition. In anyone other than Aunt Routledge.

“Take him out,” she said, pointing toward the door.

“Lady Thurlow didn’t seem to mind,” he replied, holding his ground. His aunt could be the most pestering, nagging bit of muslin in all of London, but he was awfully fond of her.

Well, that and she was so easy to tease.

“Of course not,” Lady Routledge said, snapping open her fan and fluttering it about. “Lady Thurlow is in such a state of alt over your arrival that she probably didn’t notice.
But others are.
Never mind that you’ll hardly find yourself a proper bride with that hound at your elbow.”

He grinned, then gave her a peck on the cheek. “Whoever said, Aunt, that I am seeking a ‘proper’ bride?”

“Rockhurst!” she blustered as he slipped into the crowd, the
ton
giving him and Rowan a wide berth. “You will rue the day—”

But he was no longer listening, for he hadn’t come here to find some proper little miss to marry, as his aunt wanted to believe.

He’d come to find
her.

For what if Cricks and Mary were right, and this chit had found Milton’s Ring, and say for even a second the demmed myth was true, and it could grant its wearer one wish?

A wish to break the Covenant, which had bound his
family for generations to a long-ago queen. Without the pact, he could live his life however he chose.

He could even consider…no, that was too much to hope.

Yet ever since his flirtation with Miss Wilmont, he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to love a woman and not fear for her safety every moment of the day.

For that alone, he’d find this chit and hazard anything to get his hands on that ring.

He glanced around the crowded room and wondered if she was even here. Being invisible hadn’t stopped her from going to Almack’s. And certainly a good portion of the
ton
hadn’t been able to resist the Thurlows’ invitation, so why should she?

For the thousandth time, his fingers flexed, as if revisiting the curve of her cheek, the hollow of her throat, the swell of her breasts…mostly it was the breast part that he relived the most, but he was trying to be a gentleman about that portion of her anatomy.

Then again…he surveyed the room with renewed interest. He’d spent most of the day letting his imagination run rampant, but still he had nothing more than the softness of her skin and the shape of her breast to soothe his musings…

Beside him, Rowan nudged his hand, and absently he scratched the dog’s silky ears. “That’s why I’ve brought you,” he told his constant companion.

For if Rockhurst couldn’t discern where this Shadow lurked, Rowan would have no trouble finding her.

“Eh, boy,” he said, ruffling the dog’s soft head. “You’ll find her, won’t you.”

And when he did, he wouldn’t kill her, for he’d reminded Cricks it was against the Covenant to harm humans.

If she was human.

No, there were other ways to bring a woman to heel. Seduction came to mind.

“Ah, Rockhurst, is that you? I daresay, I thought it was!” a familiar voice called out.

Battersby. The earl groaned inwardly as the man clapped him on the shoulder. There was no escape now.

“Thought that was you!” the baron said, sidling up to the earl and taking his place as if they were the closest of chums. He even had the nerve to reach over and give Rowan an awkward pat. “Glad to see you, Rockhurst. Thought I was going to have to wade through this sea alone.” He rocked on his heels, his thumbs tucked into his waistcoat, a shocking combination of pea green and lilac trim. “Met my good friend, Lord Hustings?” he asked, nodding to the pale man beside him.

Rockhurst bowed slightly at the young lord.

Battersby continued on, “Hustings has his eye set on Lady Hermione Marlowe.”

“Really?” Rockhurst couldn’t help himself from asking.

Hustings blushed a bit. “I know, I know. One of those Marlowes,” he said, shaking his head a bit as if he was indeed nicked in the nob.

“Determined to have her,” Battersby added. “Even over his mother’s objections.”

Rockhurst couldn’t help but think of a few objections himself—like having Griffin Marlowe for a brother-in-law, or Lady Walbrook as a mother-in-law. But as to the lady in question, he tried to remember what the chit looked like, but for the life of him he couldn’t.

Meanwhile, Battersby was nattering on. “Some company, eh? Hear you’re thinking of getting married, eh, Rockhurst? The parson’s mousetrap. Leg-shackled. A tenant for life. Hustings to Lady Hermione, me to my angel, and you to…who is it that you said you’re planning on making your countess?” This came with another clap on the back that set the earl’s teeth rattling.

“I didn’t,” Rockhurst told him.

Battersby nudged him in the ribs. “Coy, eh? I understand. Keeping your plans close to the chest. Good idea.” The man paused only to take a breath. “All us Dashers out of circulation and gone from the Marriage Mart. That will be a day mothers across London will mourn for certain.” He rocked again, then nodded toward a cluster of young ladies. “Thinking of that one. Might make a proper baroness.”

Rockhurst didn’t know if he wanted to look upon the poor miss whom Battersby had set his sights on. But then again, that was one less debutante for his aunt to push in his direction, so he might as well encourage the man. “One of the Dewmonts?”

“Heavens no,” Battersby said, looking horror-struck. “Can you imagine not being able to tell your wife from her sister. Could be terribly awkward.”

Rockhurst chuckled. Personally, he hadn’t looked at it that way, but then again, he wasn’t all that proper.

Hustings, for his part, continued to scan the room in his own befuddled way.

“With Trent having fled the field, as it were,” Battersby said in a confidential manner, “I think I’ll take my turn at Miss Burke.”

“Miss Who-o-o?” Rockhurst sputtered.

Battersby puffed up a bit, if a man that skinny could do such a thing. “Yes, you heard me. Miss Burke. Might not have an earldom behind me like Trent, but I’ve got assets enough.”

Rockhurst didn’t know what was more devilish. Battersby—for the drubbing he was going to take for even thinking of going after the Season’s most coveted Original, or worse, if the man managed to snare Miss Burke, he’d find himself saddled to the nasty chit for the rest of his life.

“Look at her, my good man, she’s a veritable angel,” Battersby was saying. “But I daresay I’ll have to get over there and do my best to edge aside that annoying pup, Heriot. Mushroom of a fellow, don’t you think? And about to ask her to dance! Well, we’ll see about that, if my name isn’t Battersby.”

The earl murmured some answer, for his gaze hadn’t landed on Miss Burke, but rather on the space between the Season’s reigning Original and her mother.

For a strange, odd moment, he swore he saw a glimmer between them—the outline of a young woman. Yet in the blink of an eye, the vision was gone.

But then again, there really wasn’t time to take another glance, for in that instant, Miss Lavinia Burke had started to step forward to accept Heriot’s out
stretched arm, but instead of placing her hand on his sleeve with her usual grace and poise, the proper, perfect miss tumbled forward in a tipsy fashion right into the young man’s arms.

If that wasn’t enough scandal, her fall was accompanied by a loud
ri-i-ip,
as the back of her gown gave way and tore.

And that might have only caught the attention of a few nearby witnesses, but Lavinia let loose a shriek that, as Lady Routledge told an entire salon full of eminent ladies the next day, “gave proof that the Burkes aren’t as far removed from their fishwife and shopkeeping forebears as they like to believe.”

“Heavens!” Battersby squeaked. “How could such a thing happen? My poor, dear angel!”

And he was off in a flash to save his Miss Burke from her rather improper entanglement with Harvey Heriot and didn’t hear Rockhurst’s chuckling reply, “Shadow, shame on you.”

While the rest of the company surged forward to witness tomorrow’s
on dit,
Rockhurst turned just in time to see the garden door open and close—all by itself.

Obviously, his little Shadow thought to slip out the back gate.

“I have you now,” he whispered as he waded through the crowd that was still pushing their way toward Miss Burke.

Yet all of a sudden, he found a matron in a bright red gown blocking his path. “Lord Rockhurst!” the lady said, beaming a wide, coquettish smile at him as she
caught him by the elbow and anchored him in place. “Or should I say, my next Prospero!”

Hermione stumbled into the Thurlows’ garden and then doubled over with laughter. Oh, such a sight.

Miss Lavinia Burke toppling from her pedestal in front of nearly every member of the
ton.
Just as Thomasin had wished.

Hermione had to admit, seeing the smug girl humiliated took some of the sting off all the nasty things Lavinia had said or implied about Charlotte and Sebastian in the past few weeks.

And Hermione had escaped the earl, to boot. Oh, and Quince had said she was courting disaster. Disaster indeed! She danced down the path toward the back gate, that is until in one twirling little step, she found her skirt caught on an overgrown rose-bush. She tugged at it until the telltale creak of the French doors brought her head up.

“Jiminy!” she cursed under her breath, and frantically tried to wrench her gown free. There was no mistaking the man’s outline in the doorway.

Rockhurst.

Her gloating was lost in the face of this impending disaster, and she knew she needed to make her escape. Now.

But that proved impossible, as one of the rose-bushes had her caught well and good, so she froze instead, holding as still as she dared and hoped he wouldn’t be able to discern where she stood.

Perhaps he’d only come out to catch a breath of fresh air. Or even to escape the party.

“I know you are out here,” he said, planting himself in front of the door, his arms folded over his broad chest.

Hermione bit her lips together, afraid even to breathe.
He knew?

Then he stepped aside slightly, and Rowan wiggled past. “Find her, fellow. Find our friend.”

The loathsome beast trotted down the path, as easily as if she’d a beefsteak tied around her neck, and settled happily in front of her.