The True Love Wedding Dress (15 page)

Whatever it was, nothing could account for such appallingly bad manners. But then,
no one
in the room was attending to manners. Voices all around had fallen silent, movement had come to a standstill, and every head had turned in the direction of the grand staircase. She might as well look too—

Theresa turned, and her mouth promptly fell open along with everyone else’s.

For standing at the very top of the staircase, brilliantly and brazenly lit by the glare of the marquis’s newly installed gaslight sconces, stood Alexander, Viscount Thorpe.

In a dress.

No one moved. For a full moment, no one even breathed. They stood like sheep in a chute.

The thing was, the dress—and bedamned if it didn’t look like a
wedding
dress—fit all six feet four inches of Lord Thorpe’s manifestly male figure like it had been made for him. The white lace overdress stretched across his broad shoulders without a wrinkle. The seams on the delicate lace sleeves did not strain a bit over the bulging triceps and biceps muscles in Thorpe’s brawny arms. And the narrow band collar did not appear any tighter than a well-tied cravat about his wide neck. Even the white satin beneath the lace molded to the planed contours of his hard, corrugated belly and trim hips like a second skin.

No one knew quite what to do. Under any circumstances Thorpe was intimidating enough, but standing there in that huge, white bride’s dress, his big hands dark and hairy below the delicate lace-trimmed sleeves, his expression as coolly displeased as if he’d just come in from a walk to find unwanted guests in his home—well . . . one didn’t know how to react.

With one notable exception.

The silence broke on the sound of a single female’s throaty laughter. There was a slight shift of the guests at the far side of the ballroom, and from their midst emerged a fairylike creature, as pretty in her white tulle as Thorpe was monstrous in his white lace.

“My poor Thorpe,” Lucy St. James said, gliding slowly across the ballroom to the bottom of the grand staircase. Her deep blue eyes sparkled wickedly, and her mouth trembled on the verge of a grin. “I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but white is simply not your color.”

H
is skin tingled, his muscles contracted, his heart thundered, and the whole room seemed to dissolve into a haze of indistinct colors and shapes, indistinct except for
her
.
Her
he could see with almost supernatural clarity. Her form, her face, her arms and throat, and every stitch of her gossamer-light gown were as crystalline as if he’d put her under a magnifying glass. He could see the pulse beating in the hollow at the base of her neck, the fine sheen of powder glistening on the silky swell of her bosom, the way her spiky dark lashes entangled with one another at the corners of her sapphire blue eyes.

And he could almost
smell
her, that delectable fragrance that was hers alone. It hung just beneath the surface of his conscious, like autumn mornings and spiced tea and sun-warmed skin.

The tingling in his skin grew more accentuated. The strange, nearly electric sensation strengthened and deepened, reaching into the very core of him and burning away at anger, consuming his bitterness, releasing the despair he would not even acknowledge. Something inside broke, as though he’d been holding his breath for two years and now suddenly could exhale.

Well, there it was, he thought vaguely. He was still in love with her. Madly, impossibly, angrily but apparently also eternally. Why now? Why, when he was standing in front of the
ton
dressed in a white wedding dress? Because Love was not yet done making a fool of him, and, Lord help him, he was once more a willing victim. The only question remaining was what the bloody hell was he going to do about it?

She was sashaying up the staircase, the absurd contraption she wore swaying, lifting the hooped skirts to allow a peek of the satin laces crossing her delicate ankles and above that, silk embroidered stockings.

She stopped a few steps below him, and let her gaze travel slowly from the hem to the top of the dress he’d found in Lady Carroll’s attic. “I could lend you something green. Perhaps something to match your skin tone?”

She was entirely adorable, winsome and devilish and appealing. How he had missed her flashing eyes, her impertinence, her refusal to take his consequence seriously. She’d made him laugh, sometimes even at himself. Looking down at her now, feeling his mouth twitch irresistibly at the corners, he realized how bereft his life had been without her.

“Could you?” he replied.

“Well”—her lids slipped with feigned bashfulness over her bright eyes—“I would lend it to you, but I’m afraid you’d only be able to use it as a chemise.” She peeked up at him. “But it is, of course, yours for the asking. Shall I have it sent round?” She batted her eyelashes.

The wretch! He took a step forward, but she didn’t back down, not his Lucy. She didn’t even appear to notice that he was being intimidating. Instead she bent forward and with an oddly elegant little gesture flattened her crinoline at her knees so that the whole of the peculiar device canted up a little in the back, held there by her hand, a bell on the cusp of gonging. Then, with every appearance of a woman dreading what she might uncover, she gingerly lifted the hem of his skirt with the tip of her fan, revealing a pair of crisply pressed charcoal gray trousers and well-polished black boots.

“Thank God,” she said devoutly, and around them a ripple of titters erupted, only to be at once contained when Thorpe raised his pale eyes and glared. For a few minutes, he’d forgotten they were not alone. But then, why should anyone leave when the entertainment proved so titillating? He scowled at them. A few had the grace to flush. Most simply avoided his gaze.

Alexander Thorpe disliked being an object of derision.

But the alternative, to stomp out of the room and leave her here, laughing at him—oh, hell and damnation. He was tired of lying to himself. The idea of leaving her anywhere, in any state, was anathema.

“What were you expecting to find?” he asked coolly.

“I was
fearing
pantaloons,” she said.

More laughter.

Once, a lifetime ago, he would have known exactly how to handle her audacity; he would have kissed the boldness from her lips. Old habits died hard. Her mouth looked the same as it had two years ago after she made some saucy remark, ripe and unrepentant. Her face was raised in just the same attitude as it would have been then, eagerly waiting for him to crush her in his embrace and rain kisses on her mouth in order to keep her from further impertinences. It was only one of a million reasons he loved her.

Now, his arms ached to gather her to him. Instead, he forced himself to look past her at all the riveted faces turned toward them. If only everyone would just
go,
just continue on with whatever the hell they’d been doing before he arrived, he might have a chance to . . . say something . . . something of a private nature . . . something that would make her—he didn’t know what! All he knew was that he felt like a circus performer. Notably, a clown.

Lucy bit down on her lower lip, obviously trying not to giggle. “Tell me, Thorpe. Wherever did you find a seamstress who could accomplish something like this?” She wiggled her fingertips at him. “All that lace must have kept an entire abbey full of Belgian nuns in work for a year.”

“What?” he started in confusion and then the impact of her words hit him. “Are you suggesting this
thing
is mine?”

“Isn’t it?” she returned innocently. “It’s just that it fits you so very, very well, and you must admit that you are a very, very unusual size for a bride. And, well, when one takes into account both particulars, how can one conclude other than . . . what one concludes?” she concluded apologetically.

His mouth fell open and snapped shut. So, she was still angry, after all, and not willing to stop short of drawing a little blood in order to get some of her own back. He could appreciate that. She wouldn’t be Lucy if she meekly forgave the sort of insult he’d dealt her in this very room two years ago. But then . . . he wouldn’t be Alexander Thorpe if he timidly tolerated her provocations. And she could be
exceedingly
provocative.

“I didn’t have it made,” he replied. “I found it in your great-aunt’s attic. By which
particular
one can only
conclude
that there must be some truly amazing antecedents lurking in the branches of your family tree, Miss St. James.”

“Doubtless from the Carroll side of the family,” she replied with a dismissive sniff. “No blood relation to me. We St. Jameses are a fine-boned people. But that does rather beg the question of what on earth you were doing in my great-aunt’s attic looking for a wedding dress to don.”

One side of his mouth crept up before the other followed. Once, she’d liked his lopsided smile. She called it wicked and kissed the corner that got left behind, saying it deserved encouragement. Still, he couldn’t help but savor the moment. Lucy St. James was one of the few women he knew who could match him in pride. And his answer was going to deal it a sharp little sting. No, she wasn’t going to like this. Not at all.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask your brother for the answer to that.”

“Hugh?” For the first time, she looked a little nonplussed. Her straight dark brows dipped in consternation. “What the devil has Hugh to do with this?”

“I suggest you ask him.” He stood aside, and Lucy peered into the gloom of the corridor where her nefarious sibling lurked, or at least had been lurking ten minutes ago. Lurking and sniggering. Though in all fairness the sniggering had probably been Davidson—Hugh had been too righteously triumphant to be amused.

“Hugh?” There was an odd note in Lucy’s voice. Embarrassment, one might have been tempted to say. Or hoped to say, he amended truthfully.

Alex turned, wondering how Hugh would answer his sister. But as soon as he saw his onetime schoolmate he realized that Hugh might not be answering at all—for St. James was slumped against the far wall, his eyelids drooping over his blue eyes, his chin nestled tenderly amongst the folds of his snowy cravat. He’d passed out. Yet, half sentient though he undoubtably was, the triumphant grin plastered on his face still managed to irk Alex.

After winning the bet, Hugh had insisted they all celebrate his great good fortune—and by tacit implication Alex’s misfortune—with rounds of port. One round had turned into two and then three before the bottle was finished. If Hugh had been drunk before, he was well and truly blistered by the time he’d stumbled down the staircase from the attic in the wake of Alex’s lace and satin train. Now, the only thing keeping him from sinking to the floor was Penworthy and Davidson, who stood, one on either side, propping him up.

Poor Hugh, Alex thought. He’d set up the hunt, loosed the hounds, loaded the gun, fired the shot, and here the poor bastard wasn’t even in on the kill. Alex felt a little sorry for him. Until he looked down and realized that some of his chest hairs was poking through the lace bodice.

“Hugh!” With an angry swoosh of her belling skirts, Lucy charged into the hall. Davidson, deciding discretion would be his best course, dropped Hugh’s arm and fled. Wise man.

At the sharp sound of Lucy’s voice, Hugh roused himself enough to open his eyes and stare at her groggily. “Wha—Hm? Tha’ you, Lucy, old girl?”

“Hugh!” Her lips pursed, and a small pointed toe peeped out from under her flounced hem to commence an angry tapping. “Hugh, what have you done? Why is Alex Thorpe dressed in that ridiculous manner? More importantly, what has it to do with you?”

His foolish grin faded, replaced by a sharper rendition, as he struggled to push himself off the wall. Penworthy, the disloyal dog, helped him. “I have recovered the family honor.”

“What family honor? What the blazes are you talking about, Hugh?” Lucy asked, but from the slight paling of her smooth cheeks it was clear to Alex that she at least had a suspicion of what was afoot.

Hugh’s unfocused blue gaze wandered around the crowd choking the entrance to the ballroom until it fell on Alex. “Him! In the dress! He intuned—” He realized his mispronunciation at once and broke off, screwing his face up and studying the ceiling thoughtfully for a full ten seconds. “No, that ain’t right. He
impugned
your honor. Cast aspirin. Aspirations. No, that ain’t right, either.”

He shook his head mournfully. “Damn it, Lucy, me words won’t come out proper.” He grinned winsomely at his baby sister. She glowered. “Oh, Luce. Come on now . . .” His face suddenly lit with inspiration. “
Aspersions!
He cast
aspersions
on your womanhood!” he crowed.

“I’m delighted you’re delighted,” Lucy said dryly, taking hold of his forearm and pulling him away from Penworthy’s support. “Now, enough of this nonsense—”

“No!” Hugh shook her from his arm and stumbled back into Penworthy’s waiting arms. “You don’t understand. I have repaid the insult he gave you.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said, looking anything but grateful. “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that by involving yourself in any manner with him you do far more to ensure that the rumor mill keeps grinding merrily away than simply ignoring him would have done?”

“Is that what you’ve been doing?” Alex could not help but ask. She was talking as if he were absent, not five feet away and dressed in a bloody bridal gown. “Ignoring me?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder and turned back to her brother, who was regarding her with wounded eyes. “Can’t ignore an insult such as he gave,” Hugh said sullenly. “Especially what with all the repercussions of his infamy.”

By God, Alex realized, Hugh, drunk as a lord and belligerent as an owl at high noon, was ignoring him, too! He was unused to being ignored. It was unsettling.

“And what repercussions do you think those are, dear brother?” Lucy asked in a silky voice.