Dangerous to Love (16 page)

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Authors: Rexanne Becnel

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General, #Regency

BOOK: Dangerous to Love
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“What I wouldn’t give to decipher that frown between your eyes.”
Lucy gasped. Her gaze shot to the tall man standing just before her. Ivan! Her face went immediately scarlet.
Why must she blush so readily? She did it in no one’s presence but his. And why was he here?.
“What were you thinking about?” he continued when she did not answer, but only stared stupidly at him. “Dare I hope your thoughts were of me?”
“No. No, I wasn’t thinking of you. Anything but,” she lied. Then thankfully, her muddled brains managed to right themselves and she drew herself up. “Are you following me?”
He smiled down at her, looking impossibly handsome in a dark blue coat with striped vest and casually tied stock. “As you know, I’m not one to sleep in. Like you, I find a turn in the park a good way to begin the day.”
“I came here to be alone with my thoughts.”
“And to reread old letters, it seems.” He pointed to the packet she’d laid aside. “Love letters?”
“That’s really none of your business,” Lucy retorted. She reached for the letters and tucked them as casually as she could into her reticule. Unfortunately he chose to interpret her action as an invitation to sit beside her on the now vacant bench. Far too close beside her for her peace of mind.
She started to rise, but his gloved hand clamped down on her arm. Not a harsh or painful hold, but an unyielding one, just the same.
She stared down at his gloved hand and struggled to control the quick thundering of her heart. Slowly she raised her gaze to meet his. “You cannot continue this high-handed treatment of me. It is not proper and I will not allow it.”
He grinned. “How will you prevent it?”
“For one, I plan to return that shawl you left in my room.”
“Someone left a shawl in your room?” he replied with an innocent expression she could almost believe. Almost.
“Don’t tease me. I shall return the shawl and expect you to give back my old shawl.” She tried to pull her wrist out of his grasp with no success. “Let me go, Lord Westcott,” she demanded, determined not to let her sudden breathlessness show.
“Call me Ivan.”
“No.” She tried to pull her arm away without success.
“In case I didn’t mention it last night, you dance very well.”
“You did not come here to discuss dancing.”
“You kiss very well too. After our dance, I expected as much.”
Lucy drew as far away from him as she could manage. Could he hear the frantic tattoo of her heart as distinctly as she did? He’d remarked about the relationship between dancing and other, more passionate activities that night in the parlor when Valerie had played and they’d danced. There was no mistaking his meaning now.
She should slap him for his impertinence, just as she’d slapped him once before. Only he’d rattled her so completely she could not seem to react.
“Will you please release me?” she demanded once more.
“Call me Ivan,” he insisted.
Lucy looked away, clenching her teeth and fighting for control. Some battles were better conceded. Though she would rather it be cool-headed logic that ruled her decision, she knew it was actually rising panic. “Let go of my arm. Ivan,” she muttered, staring straight ahead.
“Say ‘please,’” he murmured from far too near her ear.
Her startled gaze swung around and collided with his mocking one. “Please,” she breathed, without even knowing she’d spoken.
For a moment he did not comply and she had the fanciful thought that he meant to kiss her. Here. In broad daylight. In the middle of Berkeley Square Park.
When his hand slid away from her wrist, she was almost disappointed. Fortunately, when he broke his physical hold on her, it seemed to free her temper as well. Jumping to her feet, she gathered her fury around her like a protective shield.
“I’ll thank you not to bully me again. I wish to have no discourse with you, Lord Westcott. Most certainly no private discourse.”
He lolled back on the bench, relaxed and yet dangerous, all at the same time. “Discourse. What an interesting word. What if I wish to have private discourse with you, Lucy?”
Her eyes narrowed in outrage. How she wanted to bat him over the head with her reticule. “Have you ever really considered the ramifications of that sort of behavior, Lord Westcott? I suspect you have not. Let’s imagine for a moment that I allowed you to call me by my given name. That I called you by yours.”
“You can’t say it even now, can you, Lucy?” He grinned at her and her fury fairly trebled.
“Let’s imagine I called you Ivan,” she continued, but in a decidedly more husky tone. “Ivan,” she repeated, huskier still when she saw the undisguised hunger that sprang into his eyes.
“I might allow you to hold my hand as we sat on a park bench. I might even instigate a kiss instead of waiting for you to do so.”
He straightened up on the bench. She had his attention now.
“Of course, since you are the type to abandon a woman the moment you suspect you’ve caught her, it would behoove me not to give in too easily, wouldn’t it? No, I should give in only a little, then pull away and wait for you to chase me once more.”
“Your game sounds delicious, my sweet Lucy. I wonder if you would plan to ever let me catch you.”
“Oh, yes, my lord. Indeed I would. But only if I were sure others would catch us at the game as well. What is the point of the game for a woman, if not to snag a wealthy husband?” she finished with an arch smile.
He did not like that, if the glitter of his gaze was any indication. To his credit, however, his smile did not falter. “When I choose to seduce you, Lucy, I assure you, it will not be where we will be interrupted.”
“When I choose to seduce you,” she countered, “it will be where it will gain me the most good.”
His lazy gaze swept over her, pausing briefly at her breasts and again at her lips. “You’re seducing me now,” he drawled in a voice meant to unnerve her. It very nearly did.
“Not enough witnesses,” she quipped. Then she drew herself up. “Good day, Lord Westcott. You need not see me back to the house. I am quite able to find my way there unaided.” Then she quit his presence and marched swiftly away.
She felt his eyes on her back, as if his fingers trailed boldly along her bare, prickling flesh. Even worse, that prickle managed somehow to arrow in on the most embarrassing portions of her body. Her nipples tautened to peaks, rubbing most distressingly against the fabric of her chemise. Her lower belly tightened too, and seemed to heat inside with a wicked little flame.
A flame of desire, she now knew, though no other man had ever lit it in her.
Curse your Gypsy soul for tormenting me so!
If he were sincere in his pursuit of her it would be one thing. But he was not, and that nicked her pride sorely.
But two could play at this game of seduction, she vowed as she exited the park and headed straight for the house. He did not want to be caught any more than she did. So long as she reminded him of that fact, she would be safe.
At least she prayed that she would be safe.
Ivan knew he was grinning. Anyone who looked his way would no doubt be able to read his every thought. But for once he didn’t care..
As unlikely as it seemed, Lucy Drysdale was the most intriguing woman he’d ever met. Had any other woman spoken to him of giving in, then pulling away, of instigating a kiss—of
her
seducing
him
—he would have been entertained and probably aroused. But he would have known that the game was won, save for the predictable capitulation.
With Lucy, however, the outcome was not nearly so foregone.
No, he amended, the outcome was certain. They would end up taking their complete pleasure of one another. He had absolutely no doubt of that. But when it would happen, and the delicious, unexpected twists and turns he would have to make to get her to that point, he could not begin to predict.
“Bloody hell!” Just thinking about the contrary Miss Drysdale had made him hard all over again. She was fighting her attraction to him and that was a more potent lure than all the unsubtle stares and silly attempts at fan language he’d witnessed in the past few months in town.
He shifted on the park bench, trying to find a more comfortable position, lest he embarrass himself. Taking a slow, deliberate breath, he forced himself to think of other things. He stared at several strollers who shared the square with him this morning. Two matrons meandered by, caught up in their gossip. A governess escorted a little boy and his dog. A gardener pruned an already perfectly shaped hedge.
Then Ivan’s gaze returned to the boy. He was of indeterminate age, small with a shock of thick blond hair and wearing a lace collar and sleeves. He carried a stick which the little dog tried valiantly to snatch from him. But the governess interrupted their play with her fussing.
“You’ll dirty your gloves,” she warned him.
“You mustn’t let him jump on you!” she scolded.
“If you don’t behave we’ll have to go home,” she threatened.
The boy paused at that, allowing the disagreeable woman to catch up with him. At once she yanked the stick from his hand, snapped it in two, and threw the pieces in the rhododendrons just in front of Ivan. The dog, of course, plunged headlong into the shrubs, set on fetching the stick. Meanwhile the governess caught the boy by the arm and gave him a shake.
“If you’re going to misbehave we shall return home.”
“But I want to stay,” the lad complained.
“Then behave. I mean it, John. If you cannot behave like a proper young gentleman—”
Ivan did not hear the rest, for just that quickly did his good mood turn sour. He’d been that lad, he thought as he watched the boy follow reluctantly in his governess’s wake. Denied the freedoms he sought, the freedoms he needed.
A muscle in his cheek began to tic. If he had children he’d let them run free and wild in the fields and woods. He’d refuse to let them wear gloves, and have them learn the names of the trees in the forests before expecting them to learn the order of the rulers of England.
But he did not intend to have children, he reminded himself harshly.
Shoving himself up, he turned his back on the boy, John, and his governess and dog. If the boy had any backbone, eventually he would rebel. If not, then he would in turn raise a batch of spineless images of himself and continue the cycle ad nauseum.
As for himself, however, he had no intentions of sinking into that miserable pit. He had an afternoon to kill and an excess of energy to dispose of. If he couldn’t vent that energy upon the lovely, tart-tongued Miss Lucy Drysdale, he’d head over to Pall Mali and find himself some other willing woman.
But he’d already tried that, he reminded himself, and it had not been particularly satisfying. Better to head to the Mayfair Athletic Club, he decided. Someone was sure to be in the boxing ring. Someone willing to go three rounds with him.
If he was to pursue the wary Miss Drysdale with any amount of success it behooved him for now to vent his excess energies elsewhere and in some other way.
Some hapless young lord in the boxing ring would be just the ticket.
 
L
ucy was ecstatic. They’d escaped the house without running into Ivan. They’d made their way to the lecture hall without incident, and now, in a few minutes she would finally see Sir James Mawbey and hear for herself the erudite expressions of his brilliant mind.
Beside her Valerie peered about. “There are more people in attendance than I would have expected.”
“And of a considerably different sort than we’ve been surrounded with of late,” Lucy quipped. As they bought their subscriptions and entered Fatuielle Hall, they joined a unique company indeed. For the most part the audience for Sir James’s lecture were middle-aged and older: dark-coated graybeards, neatly attired matrons. But there were others. Serious-faced scholars in their cheap coats and shiny trousers. Shopkeepers in their serviceable duds. Tradesmen in heavy boots. A few ladies were sprinkled about, distinguished by the quality of their garments.
All in all, a rather thrilling cross section of the British citizenry, Lucy decided. She could hardly contain her excitement.
“Will it be very long?” Valerie inquired.
“It should start very soon,” Lucy replied as they found two seats in the very first row.
“No. I mean, will the lecture last very long?”
Lucy glanced at Valerie. “I gather you were not overly fond of your lessons.”
Valerie gave her an apologetic smile. “History and ciphering were boring. I enjoy reading though. Especially novels.”
“I suspect you have never studied anything similar to Sir James Mawbey. I know I most certainly had never read anything quite so enlightening until I discovered his articles.”
Then the man himself came onto the stage and Lucy forgot all about Valerie. He was here. She was in the very same room with him.
He was precisely as she’d envisioned him: of medium height, though he appeared taller due to his gauntness. He had dark, unkempt hair and long side whiskers—to make him look older, she suspected, for he was younger than she would have guessed. But was he married?
Sir James surveyed the audience for a long moment. “Primogeniture is the greatest cause of familial discord in our beloved land. Across all of Europe,” he pronounced. With that inflammatory statement he launched an hour-long discourse, punctuated by the occasional grumble of dissent or clap of applause by those assembled. But whether they agreed with him or not on this particular subject, there was no mistaking the man’s deep and abiding concern for children.
“From the first moment they enter this hard world we live in they are learning. Whose arms are warm and welcoming; whose are not. Who provides food and shelter; who will not. Who they may trust—and here is my point.” He paused and stared intently at the waiting audience. “They learn who they may
not
trust. Too often they learn they may not trust anyone. Not their parents who betray them on behalf of the oldest son. Not their other siblings who are out to get as much as their grasping hands can take. So what becomes of them?”
Sir James leaned out over the podium, his dark eyes lit with the fervor of a zealot. Lucy shivered when that fiery gaze swept over her and Valerie, then paused on them as it had numerous times during his lecture. “What happens is that this unloved child becomes an adult with no sense of what it is to love or be loved. This adult raises more children of the same ilk: the eldest petted and cosseted until he becomes a self-centered monster; the next in line ignored and trained, therefore, to become a jealous conniver; the younger siblings ignored except, when due to their truly horrible behavior, their parents have no recourse but to pay attention at last.”
Abruptly he pulled back from the lectern. “Next time I will address in more detail how a parent might avoid the pitfalls that are too common to children within our modern society.”
He left the stage before the applause was fully done. At once he was surrounded by admirers and besieged by questions. Lucy wanted to join that circle too, but she was so filled with awe she could not at first move.
“Wasn’t he wonderful?” Valerie sighed just next to her.
Lucy nodded, her eyes fixed upon her idol’s barely visible head. “Yes, he was. Didn’t I tell you that you would think so?”
Valerie stood up, shaking out her skirts, but staring all the time at the jostling crowd around Sir James. “Let’s go speak with him, Miss Drysdale. What do you say? Can we? I think we should.”
“And shall we also attend his subsequent lectures?” Lucy asked, smiling. Her answer was a view of Valerie’s backside as she hurried to join the others clustered around the charismatic young scholar.
Valerie’s haste, however amusing, was nevertheless a relief to Lucy. She needed to compose herself before meeting the man she’d corresponded with this past year and a half.
She stood, smoothing out the wrinkles and folds of her skirt. She reached for her reticule and felt the slender packet of letters.
He would not have wasted his time writing you if he were not approachable
, she reminded herself. He would be pleased to see her, and flattered too. They would strike up a conversation and it would be as easy and natural as their letter-writing had been.
Where things might lead from there, she did not know. But now, for once, she let herself imagine.
Few marriages were founded on love, that is, not on the love the poets wrote of. Property and bloodlines were considered far more important to modern society when it came to making a good match. But property and bloodlines had never mattered to Lucy, nor did they matter to Sir James. Respect, admiration, and mutual interests were far more likely to ensure a felicitous match between a man and a woman, and she and Sir James possessed those qualitities in abundance.
But he did not excite her sensibilities in the same way Ivan Thornton did.
Lucy swallowed a frustrated oath at such a perverse thought, especially here and now. The sensibilities Ivan Thornton excited in her would lead her to nowhere but disaster. But what she felt for Sir James Mawbey … That could sustain her for a lifetime.
She pictured the two of them together in his library—their library—sitting quetly reading. Thinking deep thoughts. Having deep conversations over tea.
Yes. That was the future she wanted. That was why she’d come to London. She would not let foolish maunderings about the distracting Lord Westcott deter her from her goal.
When the crowd around Sir James began to thin a bit, Lucy sucked in a breath and started forward. Valerie had already maneuvered to a position facing Sir James. The girl would be introducing herself to the man if Lucy didn’t hurry, and that would never do. Bad enough that Lucy would have to introduce the two of them. At least she was older and it would not be considered too forward, given the fact that they were correspondents. A child like Valerie, however, might appear in her enthusiasm to have an unseemly interest in the man.
She moved up beside Valerie and caught the girl’s arm so as to prevent her from behaving in an unladylike manner.
For his part, Sir James seemed intensely aware of both Valerie and Lucy, and as soon as he was able, he ended his conversation with a wiry-haired older woman.
“May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?” he asked, giving them a slight bow.
“It is our honor,” Lucy replied. “May I introduce Lady Valerie Stanwich. I am Miss Lucy Drysdale.”
For a long moment he stared at Valerie. Then, as if Lucy’s name had belatedly registered, he tore his gaze away from Valerie’s admiring expression. “Miss Drysdale. I am flattered that you made the effort to attend tonight. You are up from …”
“Somerset,” Lucy supplied.
“And you, Miss Stanwich. Are you from Somerset as well?”
“No, my lord. I am from Arundel in Sussex,” she answered, blushing just enough to make her complexion glow and her eyes sparkle.
Lucy could have groaned. Sir James should not be addressed as “my lord.” Any ninny should know that. Especially a ninny whose father was an earl. Would he be offended, given his general antipathy toward the entire British class system? Would he correct poor Valerie and humiliate her in front of all these people?
“Arundel,” he said, focusing his unblinking interest on Valerie. “I’ve often considered lecturing in Arundel. Are there any appropriate lecture houses there?”
Lucy’s relief that he was not offended swiftly deteriorated into another sort of dismay when Valerie proceeded to monopolize the conversation with Sir James. No, that was not an entirely accurate assessment of the situation. Sir James actually did most of the talking. Valerie only supplied brief responses as needed, as well as many admiring glances at the scholarly fellow. And he sent as many admiring looks back at the lovely young girl.
Lucy had never before experienced the unpleasant emotion of jealousy. But she experienced it now. In spades.
“Will you discuss your theory on discipline during one of the coming lectures?” Lucy inserted when Sir James paused to take a breath.
“That is the subject of my third lecture in the series,” he answered, finally looking over at her. Then he turned back to Valerie. “Will you be in attendance, Miss Stanwich?”
“
Lady
Valerie,” Lucy muttered. She was immediately ashamed of her petty response. Sir James, however, appeared not to have even heard her. Neither did Valerie as she answered him in the affirmative.
At once Lucy’s jealousy was joined by alarm. Surely Valerie was not forming an attachment to Sir James Mawbey. Surely he was not smitten with a girl of such limited intellectual interests.
Surely, Lucy prayed, surely she was mistaken!
“Appears to be a match made in heaven.”
Lucy flinched at the words—at the voice. So unmistakable. So mocking. What was Ivan Thornton doing here?
She turned her head, just enough to see him standing right behind her. “Go away,” she muttered.
“What? And allow you to circumvent my grandmother’s plans by pairing my esteemed cousin with a radical scholar? I’m afraid I would be doing my family a grave disservice should I abandon her now. Don’t you?”
Lucy turned fully to face him. He was teasing her, of course. If she doubted it, the gleam of humor in his dark eyes gave it away. She suspected he would find it uproariously funny should the eminently marriageable Valerie make a match with so unsuitable a fellow as Sir James. Though Lucy was aware of the conversation continuing behind her, Ivan was now the focus of her attention. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “Are you following us?”
“I’m following
you
, Miss Drysdale. Just you.”
Lucy’s heart lurched, then lodged stubbornly in her throat where it proceeded to pound with painful force. “Me?” she squeaked, then immediately gritted her teeth. She sounded like a fourteen-year-old in the grips of her first crush.
She cleared her throat. “You have no business following me.”
He arched one brow in a maddening display of male arrogance. “I’m an earl. I can do anything I bloody well please.”
“Including curse in polite company?” she snapped, regaining her senses at last.
“That’s my poor upbringing again.”
Lucy sent him what she hoped was a withering glare. “That’s no excuse. Now, if you don’t mind?”
She turned away from him, determined to break up the conversation between Valerie and Sir James. But she was excruciatingly aware of Ivan’s presence behind her. Then he whispered in her ear. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Not if she could help it.
Unfortunately Valerie noticed Ivan just then and the choice was no longer Lucy’s to make.
“Why, Lord Westcott,” the girl exclaimed, no trace of her previous nervousness apparent. “Have you attended Sir James’s lecture as well?”
“I regret I arrived a little late and did not hear all of Sir James’s comments on the negative effect of primogeniture.” He extended a hand to the silent scholar. “Ivan Thornton. Lady Valerie’s cousin.”
Sir James returned the greeting. Then he added, “Lord Westcott? You are the Earl of Westcott?”
“The same.”
“A first son, I take it,” he said, a hint of disapproval in his voice.
“An only son, and an unacknowledged one at that,” Ivan retorted in a tone Lucy feared was deceptively pleasant.
The two men took one another’s measure for a long, chilly moment. Then Sir James nodded. “Yes, of course. Of course. I wonder, would you and Lady Valerie and Miss Dinsdale—”
“It’s Drysdale,” Lucy corrected him.
“My pardon,” he absently replied. “Would the three of you join me for supper? I never eat before I lecture. Now I find myself famished,” he added, shifting his gaze back to Valerie.
“Thank you, Sir James. But I’m afraid that will not be possible,” Lucy replied before either of the others could. “We are expected at Westcott House,” she added, when Valerie turned a pleading gaze on her. “Lady Antonia would be quite put out should we be late.”

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