Duty Before Desire (8 page)

Instead, he went on passing a meaningless existence, day after day allowing French to dress him in the latest fashions. He provided a male body to intersperse between females in some hostess's seating arrangement at supper and coaxed shy flowers away from the wall of the ballroom.

Perhaps that was why he kept calling on Miss Parks. She was a lady, and making ladies happy was what he did. It was, possibly, the only skill he could claim to have mastered.

At Delafield House, he was admitted and then shown into the now-familiar front parlor. After five minutes, Lady Delafield appeared. “Oh, Lord Sheridan,” she said, coming forward with her thin hands extended. “You are everything kind and good to call upon us.”

Her cheeks were bright with color, reminding him of the fever-blooms on Miss Parks's face when he'd happened upon her the other day.

“My lady,” he murmured, taking her hands and bowing over them. “How fares your niece today? I hope her health is improving.”

“Oh, my,” said her ladyship, gesturing him to a seat. “Not at all better, I fear. In fact, I hear she is declining.”

Sheri's brows drew together. “You hear? Have you not ascertained her condition for yourself?”

Lady Delafield shook her head, setting to shaking the curls interspersed with streaks of gray that circled her face. “Only from the door, my lord. Miss Parks may have some Indian disease. That maid of hers seems to think so. Although,” she leaned toward him, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “those people are known to lie. Not Christian, you know, so they don't scruple to tell the most outlandish falsehoods. My sister, Arcadia's mother, rest her soul, used to write of the trouble she had with her Indian servants.”

A little knot of anxiety sat heavy behind Sheri's sternum. “Have you summoned anyone to attend her? My friend, Mr. Dewhurst, is a first-rate surgeon. If you'd allow me, I'll write him at once. He's just in Middlesex and could be here—”

Lady Delafield waved her hands. “No use, my lord, no use. That servant says it's likely dengue fever. If it is, there's nothing to be done. She'll either live or she won't.”

Sheri gaped at the woman, incredulous. Just a few days ago, he'd held Miss Parks in his arms. Yes, she'd been sick, but to have arrived at the point of death so soon? She'd felt vital in his arms, so warm and soft and right.

After taking his leave of her ladyship, Sheri made his way to his club, where he took a seat in the bow window overlooking St. James's Street. He raised his finger, summoning a waiter for a glass of whiskey.

For more than an hour, he brooded as men passed before his window perch, unwilling to accept that Miss Parks was in mortal peril. Perhaps on another day, he might have taken this news better, but not today, not when he already detested everything about himself and the world around him.

There had been some little slice of his brain that thought the young lady was being coy by not seeing him this past week, that her supposed illness was overstated to string him along in some game of seduction. But of course she wasn't. She was an innocent. What would she know of such things? She was Miss Arcadia Parks, recently of India, and she was dying.

That vibrant girl, with those hazel eyes he'd only caught a glimpse of, and that haunting, melodious voice of which he hadn't heard nearly enough, would be snuffed out by some exotic disease. Perhaps Brandon
could
help, he reasoned. After all, his friend had been an Army surgeon overseas. In Spain, not India, but perhaps …

Not your place,
he reminded himself. Lady Delafield had refused his offer of assistance. With no more than five minutes' acquaintance with Miss Parks, Sheri could claim no interest in her treatment, regardless of his preoccupation with the girl. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, cursed. Helplessness did not sit well with him.

“Would you look at that!” The laughing exclamation from another patron shattered the sedate atmosphere of the club. Men leaped from their seats and crowded his way. For a terrifying instant, Sheri thought he was the object of attention.

Then a vision appeared on the street, framed by the window. Women. Two of them. Brazenly parading down the exclusively male provenance of St. James's Street. One woman was wrapped in a heavy pelisse and a brilliantly colored shawl that drew the eye like fireworks against the night sky. A sinking sensation in his chest, Sheri snapped his quizzing glass to his face, enlarging the woman in question. She walked with that stubborn chin leading the way. He'd know it anywhere, for he'd seen it from a distance of only inches when he'd cradled her to his chest. She walked in the company of her Indian maid, both females oblivious to the male audience lapping up the scene.

A brief instant of joy at seeing her in good health was followed by a wash of anger. She'd played him for a fool, after all. “Snatched from the jaws of death, are we?” he muttered darkly. What the devil was Arcadia Parks playing at?

As she came abreast of the window, Arcadia stopped. Her head turned, and she met his gaze through the glass. Her hazel eyes, which he'd just been recalling with the misty nostalgia one grants the nearly dead, squinted up at him, small and unremarkable. She studied him and frowned, as though he was the most depressing shop window display in London.

In a flash, he sized her up and found her just as wanting. Anger lapped at his mind, stoking the flames of his critique. How dare she and her aunt attempt to play his softer emotions? Who did she think she was? She was no one he would ever take notice of, unless he deigned to offer her a dance out of pity. She wasn't pretty. Her skin was overly browned by the sun, but still managed the feat of sallowness. Her attire was appalling. That shawl was a riot of jewel tones, while her pelisse was drab and too tight. Someone should tell her that constricting one's breasts in corsets and improperly fitted dresses did not make them appear bounteous—merely desperate for escape. Once already he'd had to rescue her from the folly of her attire, if she thought he'd do it again—

“Isn't that Miss Parks?” A man standing near Sheri nudged his shoulder. “The one you were with in Hyde Park? They just can't get enough of you, can they, Zouche? They go mad for wanting you. This one's thrown propriety to the wind. How do you do it?”

Laughter rippled through the gathering, while Arcadia's name was bandied about like a bottle of cheap wine.

A muscle in Sheri's jaw ticked, hearing them speak of her with such crassness. But really, a respectable woman did not walk down St. James's Street, lined as it was with gentleman's clubs. It just was not done. Reputations had been ruined for less.

Still, she held his gaze. He could not look away. He was embarrassed for her, he told himself. She wasn't worth his anger. She was pitiful, really, in her desperation for attention.

“Now, now, gentlemen.” His voice carried over the throng. “She is a recent émigré. Might we not give Miss Parks the benefit of the doubt?” Even as he spoke them, he sensed the fruitlessness of his words; her
faux pas
would be known far and wide before tea. But never let it be said that Sheridan Zouche participated in the social pillorying of a lady.

Suddenly, Arcadia's head snapped to the side, like a dog responding to a whistle. She launched farther down the street, deeper into ruin.

With a groan, Sheri pushed to his feet. He couldn't let her continue to make a spectacle of herself. Once again, it fell to him to rescue Miss Parks.

Fatigue lashed at her temples. Like a slave driver, Poorvaja pressed her onward. “Just a little farther, Jalanili,” the woman said. “Soon, you may turn around and go home.”

“It isn't home,” she said by rote, her voice dull.

After Lady Delafield's rebuke, she felt even more strongly that England was not the place for her. Clearly, her aunt felt compelled to find her a husband solely out of familial obligation. She had no interest in Arcadia herself; she wished to marry her niece off as quickly as possible and get the imposition out from under her own roof.

Despite Arcadia's continuing weakness, taking a walk had seemed like a capital idea. She had to escape from that house, if only for an hour. Her aunt hadn't said a word when she and Poorvaja made to leave.

London was so large, so busy, so
loud
. So many people going and coming, such a variety of diversions and entertainments. Begrudgingly, she acknowledged a trickle of excitement coursing through her veins. Perhaps she could find something about this place to enjoy.

They'd wandered through Mayfair, then crossed the busy Piccadilly thoroughfare, before turning onto St. James's Street, which was blessedly quiet. They walked in the heavy shadows cast by distinguished, looming structures. The stuccoed exteriors radiated a chill of their own, one accentuated by the frosty stares cast in her direction by other pedestrians. Arcadia shivered, pulling her paisley Kashmir shawl closer about her shoulders. She wished her hair covered her nape, rather than being tucked uselessly beneath a straw bonnet. The collar of her pelisse did not come up as far as she'd have liked. The cool breeze dipped inside and raised gooseflesh on the back of her neck.

From the corner of her vision, Arcadia detected a hulking mass of humanity. She turned and found herself confronting a window full of men, all of them looking at her. What on earth were they doing? What was this place? Was this some strange English ritual she'd not yet learned about? Sitting front and center, enthroned like a king surrounded by his courtiers, was Lord Sheridan.

She hadn't wanted to see him again, had been sure that doing so would only remind her of that terrible day in Hyde Park. But now, impaled by his demanding gaze, she didn't think of being robbed. She thought of his arms beneath her, of gentle hands tucking a blanket around her thighs. They were scraps of memory, shredded by fever like the unraveling edge of a gossamer ribbon. But they were real memories, nonetheless. He had touched her, held her, even as his inscrutable brown eyes held her now.

It was an unnerving sensation. Arcadia did not care for it in the least.

“What are they doing, I wonder?”

Poorvaja's question broke the trance cast by Lord Sheridan's eyes. Arcadia turned to look where her ayah pointed at a row of carriages standing along the curb at a nearby corner.

“Is it some sort of procession?” Poorvaja glanced at Arcadia and raised her brows expectantly before continuing down the street.

“I don't know any more than you do,” Arcadia replied. The sight of her ayah in English dress was still jarring, but the maid already seemed more comfortable in the clothes than Arcadia—of course, Poorvaja did not have to wear the same constricting undergarments.

The older woman's brown eyes twinkled. “I'm going to find out,” she said, lifting her skirts and darting forward.

Arcadia chuckled. The excitement of being in a big city must be infectious, she supposed.

“Miss Parks?”

Startled by the sound of her name, Arcadia turned. Before her, as if she'd summoned him from the window, was Lord Sheridan.

Arcadia had not much experience with the English aristocracy. In India, the Raj developed its own pecking order based on position within the East India Company. Her father, a mere baronet, had been the highest-ranking factor in the region. Serving as
de facto
ambassador of the Company—and therefore of the British Empire itself—he was received by Mughal princes and powerful Indian merchants who wished to engage in trade with the Company.

To all of the Indian servants working in their house, Sir Thaddeus had been
sahib
, the master, while Lady Parks was
memsahib
, the master's woman. As such, they were afforded respect as though rulers of their own tiny kingdom.

Standing in the company of a genuine lord—and such a handsome one, too, dressed in a resplendent waistcoat embroidered with vines and leaves, topped by a striking coat of dark green and a hat with a brim that looked sharp enough to cut bread—Arcadia couldn't help but tremble a bit in her half boots.

“Lord Sheridan.” Keeping her eyes downcast, she curtsied. As her knees bent, the strength sapped from her fatigued legs. Head suddenly swimming, she sank lower and lower, until her nose nearly touched the walk.

“Gracious me, I've never felt so distinguished in all my life.” His cultured voice was rich with dry sarcasm.

Why must her body refuse to behave in front of this man? Humiliating herself in front of him once was enough for a lifetime, yet it was happening again. She'd known seeing him would be trouble. Cringing, Arcadia palmed the ground to push herself back up. Strong hands cupped her elbows as he assisted her. She swayed on her feet, her legs refusing to cooperate.

His brown eyes roved her face. Fine lines around them creased. “By Jove, you
are
ill. When I saw you out and about, I thought you'd been having a bit of fun at my expense.”

Shaking her head, Arcadia pressed gloved fingertips to eyes that were burning, with fatigue or impending tears of embarrassment, she wasn't sure. “I don't understand. Whatever do you mean, my lord?”

Gently prising her hands free of her face, he tucked her arm into his and pulled her close to his side, subtly lending physical support as he strolled on toward the corner, where Poorvaja engaged in conversation with one of the carriage drivers. Arcadia kept her eyes downcast, allowing the brim of her bonnet to shield her.

“I've never had to put quite so much effort into seeing a woman,” he said. “I'd begun to think I had imagined finding you in the park.”

Startled, Arcadia glanced up at the nobleman. He had a proud bearing, fully at ease in his surroundings and the slightest bit haughty. And why not? He was a man of importance in this city. That he should expend any effort to see anyone was a surprise, much less go to trouble on her behalf.