How the Marquess Was Won (31 page)

“Oh, I am. I brought him along. Why the interview, Lord Dryden?”

He knew the Silvertons kept a parrot and a small dog that Lady Silverton carried about like a reticule, said a silent prayer, and ignored her question. They stood together for a beat of fraught silence.

“Have you noticed something, Lord Dryden? All of the . . . shall we say, forelocks?”

They were
everywhere
. Even on a few of the older men who possessed enough hair to adopt it.

“I’d noticed,” he acknowledged grimly.

“I wonder if they were
all
struck in the head by beaver hats,” she mused.

He shot her a baleful look.

“Perhaps the hairstyle has a name. The Illicit Kiss. Or The Bruise. The Dryden?” she drummed her chin.

“What I like best about you, Miss Vale, is how you remind me of all of my finest hours.”

She tried not to smile, and failed. “I was there for them.”

“Perhaps because you were the cause of them.”

Another statement that contained many layers of meaning.

Suddenly a woman went spiraling like a top across the ballroom, her dress spinning about her, while her partner dropped to his knees. At the periphery of the room, someone gave her a little push, and she went spinning back.

“The Dryden Waltz.” Phoebe was delighted beyond words.

He shook his head slowly to and fro.

“Tell me, my lord, what is it like to be so admired that people attempt to imitate you?”

“Admired? I suspect I’m just the slate upon which they can write their own interpretation. It doesn’t matter what I do. Forgive me, Miss Vale. I have an objective, and I must ask before the music ends. I wonder if you would do me the honor of danc—”

“—oh, I must stop you, my lord. I’m afraid I cannot. You see, I’ve given
all
of my dances away.”

That gave him pause. “Did you now?”

She was trying to be haughty and failing, because she was in fact in awe of her own success. And he was, in truth, the only person in the world to whom she could confide her wonder. Who would share it and understand it.

It was a peculiar predicament. And yet all irritation and rejection and want dropped away momentarily, and they were friends, and he was proud for her. At some point he’d ceased being the commander of his own emotions. She’d usurped them.

“It was the most astonishing thing,” she confided shyly. “All the gentlemen seemed to want to dance with me in particular. Perhaps because I am new?”

“No. It’s because you are beautiful and special.”

This widened her eyes and flushed her dark rose. She turned her head away from him abruptly.

“You are not a word mincer.”

“No. Nor am I ever dishonest. May I see your dance card?”

“Don’t you believe me?” She presented it to him with a flourish.

He ran his fingers down the list of names.

“Hmm . . . Waterburn? Bastard. D’Andre. Definitely a worthless bastard. Lord Camber, a thoroughgoing bastard. Lord Michaelson? Bastard. Peter Cheswick? Bast—”

She snatched it from him, laughing.

“I wouldn’t dance a waltz with you, anyway, Lord Dryden.”

“No?”

“You might accidentally lock eyes with Lisbeth Redmond, stumble, and fling me across the room to avoid crushing my feet.”

She stared a dare at him.

Because they both knew full well that Lisbeth Redmond would not have him stammering or stumbling. Or diving into hedgerows. Nor would he be undressing Lisbeth Redmond in a courtyard at the Redmond household in the middle of the night. He in all likelihood wouldn’t even seek her gaze from across a crowded ballroom.

“Has anyone ever told you your complexion is very fine, Miss Vale?”

She laughed. Shook her head to and fro.

Another silence ensued. And then at last the gathered tension broke like a storm.

“It feels very wrong to stand here and not touch you.” His voice was a low fervent rush.

“
Don’t
.” She closed her eyes, shook her head roughly. “Please don’t. You don’t
see
, do you? You’ve a reputation for preferring the singular, the special, the finest . . .”

“Because I do.”

“Do you see the trouble? And here it was I thought you set the fashion, Lord Dryden. It seems that fashion has outsmarted
you
. You would set me up in a house in London and make love to me and visit me whenever you can. But you never, never would to have danced with me at this ball, because I never would have been invited. All I have ever wanted is to
belong
somewhere. And if I became your mistress you would take that away from me forever.”

Weakness and heat washed over him when she said the words “make love.” “It isn’t true, Phoebe,” he said, his voice hoarse. “And imagine what I would
give
you.”

“It most certainly would have been true had I said yes to your ‘business arrangement.’ And yet now you think you’d like to dance with me because everyone else sees it as acceptable.”

The logic—and the illogic—in this was unassailable.

And yet suddenly he was coldly angry. “Enough. What would you have me do? I have never been dishonest with you. Not once. You knew what my plans are. You’re right, Miss Vale, in that our lives have been very different. And in much the same way as I cannot imagine what it was like for you to endure St. Giles, it’s clear you can’t imagine what it’s like to be part of an ancient family, how important it is to me. My life isn’t entirely my own. I rebuilt my family name and fortune. Marriage can never be a
thing of whim
for a man like me. My family history. My legacy . . . the people who rely upon me . . . These are not small things, Miss Vale. They are . . . the very roots of my life.
They’re my blood
. They are . . .
everything
.”

She’d gone stark white, but two hot pink spots high on her cheekbones betrayed her fury.

“A thing of whim . . .” she drawled.

“I’ll thank you not to mock what you clearly don’t understand.” He was cold, cold. Lord Ice.

“You cannot fit everything neatly into boxes.”

“Oh, is that so?” he gave a short, sardonic laugh. “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate my continued education at your hands, Miss Vale. But here is the thing you, in all your cleverness, fail to recognize. You believe I should compromise everything I am and everything I want because some things don’t
fit neatly into boxes
. And yet you’re so self-righteously bloody unwilling to do the same for me. Who here is the hypocrite?”

She blinked as if he’d flicked something hot into her face.

He sensed, quite rightly, that if she’d had something to throw, he’d be wise in ducking right about now.

“Do you know what I think?” he drawled it conversationally. “
I
think you’re afraid. I think you’d rather run away from me, and how you feel, and what you want, to Africa. And why should I endure the company of a coward?”

She reared back as if he’d struck her.

“In all likelihood Isaiah Redmond is keeping a very close count of the number of waltzes you dance with Lisbeth and would take it badly if you should waste more time with the novelty of the hour, the schoolteacher,” she said coldly. “And Lisbeth is in yellow. Like the sun itself. You won’t want to miss that. She looks beautiful.”

“She always does,” he retorted.

Through the crowd an eager looking Lord Camber came, belatedly, to claim her for the dance. And Jules found himself staring at the man as if he could stop him with a mere gaze, as if he stared hard enough the man would never reach her, never. The ballroom would freeze all around them, everyone in it flat as tapestry except for him and Phoebe.

And then he would take Phoebe into his arms and persuade her in a dozen ways, with his arms, his lips, that what she wanted was
him
, no matter what, no matter how, forever. But he’d never before encountered a force of will quite like hers. It was inconceivable that he would not be getting precisely what he wanted, because he invariably did. His pride was a raw wound. He felt like a bear in a trap.

“Adieu, Lord Dryden.”

She sounded as though she meant it.

She curtsied, and went smiling toward Lord Camber without a backward glance, as if she danced with titled men as a matter of course.

He watched her go. And though he was certain his pride was the wounded party, damned if he didn’t feel as though he were tethered to her, and as if his very heart were being pulled from his chest as she went.

Chapter 22

A
nd since there was at last a lull in the storm of compliments, she decided to visit the ratafia table.

And she wove among the crowd wearing her useful, unspecific smile. Everyone looked familiar now and everyone was a stranger, but none of it mattered when they were united in gaiety, or so went her tipsy thinking. She sipped at her third—fourth?—cup of the evening. As she took a step backward, she bumped into someone, nearly sloshing ratafia onto an oblivious gentleman standing before her.

She turned carefully around. “Good heavens, I’m so sor—”

It was Olivia Eversea.

Phoebe froze, staring.

“Miss Vale, isn’t it?” Olivia looked genuinely pleased. “How lovely it is to see another face from Pennyroyal Green.”

“Oh, I agree!” Phoebe enthused. She’d learned how to gush this evening and it was becoming perhaps a little too second nature, but there was safety in it at the moment. “I do hope you’re having a lovely time, Miss Eversea.”

Phoebe never did know how to talk to Olivia Eversea. She was so lovely and pale and
unnerving
, Olivia was, though never anything other than pleasant, her manners exquisite. All the Everseas possessed exquisite manners, even, rumor had it, when they were doing things like dangling from the balconies of married countesses or being sent to the gallows. And when her path crossed with Olivia, in town or in church, they were gracious to each other.

But unlike her gentler sister Genevieve, Olivia was somehow fearsome. She was delicately lovely but she was passionate about so many things, so very dedicated to causes, so clever and brittle.

And this was why Phoebe didn’t believe Olivia was enjoying herself. She reached up a hand to adjust her flower behind her ear.

Olivia went motionless. All the color fled her face. And she stared at Phoebe’s arm as though it was a snake.

“Miss Vale . . . Where did you get those gloves?”

Oh.

It was as shocking as a knife attack.

The backs of Phoebe’s arms went cold, and a ringing started up in her ears, as she was pinned, surely as an insect to a board, by Olivia’s brilliant gaze.

She was entirely sober in an instant.

And as lying didn’t come naturally to her, she hesitated too long before answering. No matter what, she was
certain
Olivia would know she was lying, anyway, so there was no point in attempting otherwise.

How did she
know
?

“Where?” Olivia’s voice was hoarse now. Insistent. She looked ill. “Who gave them to you?”

The crowd eddied around them, laughing too loudly, reaching for more ratafia, toasting each other, noticing nothing amiss about two frozen women staring at each other like animals about to lunge.

What in God’s name to say to her? What could possibly take away that raw hurt and fury and shock?

“He never loved me,” Phoebe managed, her voice a raw whisper. “Please believe me. He gave the gloves to me just . . . it was just because . . .”

Just because he couldn’t have you
.

She would never really know. Lyon was a man, after all.

I kissed him because I was flattered and because I wanted to be kissed and because he was a Redmond. He kissed me because he could.
And because he couldn’t have you
.

She’d heard the rumors about Olivia and Lyon; it wasn’t until she saw Olivia’s expression that it became real to her, and it was disorienting, like seeing a myth come to life.
She does love him
.

She wished for an instant she’d never allowed Lyon to kiss her that night after the dart tournament, behind the Pig & Thistle. One second later she knew she would never, never apologize for it, for if she hadn’t kissed him she might never have known the difference between a mere kiss . . . and a kind that created a universe comprised of two people. The difference, in other words, between kissing Lyon and kissing the marquess. She might regret Olivia’s pain, but she would never apologize for a stolen moment of pleasure.