The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne (6 page)

As usual, when anxious and annoyed with herself, she sought someone else to blame. “I hope this incident with the diamonds has taught you a lesson, Hartley. Treat the family jewels with greater care, and stop loaning them to women who will do you absolutely no good whatsoever.”

“And how do
you
know what’s good for me and my
family
jewels
?”

“I’m afraid we’ve become too familiar with each other.” She stole a timid glance upward.

“Hmm.” A curiously uncertain smile played over his lips. “Like a bad habit we can’t quite give up.”

She made the mistake of looking all the way up into his eyes again and instantly regretted it. Although she’d never before been the target of his patented charm, she’d seen him in action many times, watched him make women melt in a puddle, which he then stepped over as soon as their company no longer amused him. She knew all the stages of his well-honed flirtation, although it felt different being the mark this time instead of a detached observer. She was very glad their dance must soon be over.

But then he went and said, “Wretched woman, you really ought to marry me. Better the devil we know.”

She responded as if he’d just pinched her behind. “Don’t be ridiculous. What a perfectly atrocious idea.”

“Somebody ought to make an honest woman of you.”

“Have you gnawed through your restraints, Hartley? I heard the wardens at the asylum are searching for a lost inmate.”

“My grandmother assures me it’s time I married. As for you, Vyne—you’re getting on in years and clearly in need of discipline that only a husband can give you.”

“And how would a husband do that?”

He cleared his throat but not far enough. His next words came out in a low growl. “Deliver a damn good spanking.”

He thought about her legs again and how the warm curve of her satiny bottom might feel against the palm of his hand while the soft curls of her womanhood pressed against his hard, tense thigh muscle as he held her down in his lap for a long-overdue spanking. That would shock the smug look off her face. He liked the idea of shocking Ellie Vyne. He sensed that she was not often shocked, and she should be. Frequently, if he had his way.

“So I’m the best choice you could come up with?” she exclaimed. “Are you that desperate?”

“For your information, Vyne, I receive proposals often.”

“Of marriage? Or for you to go and boil your head?”

“Just this very evening, I had a very determined young lady attempt to stow away in my carriage, intent on forcing me to Gretna Green, where she doubtless had very sinister things in mind for me.”

She laughed, a sultry sound that shook him all the way to his toes again. He ought to be used to it by now, but somehow he was never ready for the effect it had on him. Each time he heard it was like the first. “You missed your chance with her, then. I wouldn’t go to Gretna Green with you. Not for all the tea in China.”

“But your younger sisters are both married before you,” he persisted. “Surely you’re anxious to wed before it’s too late.”

Her eyes sparkled with a sudden blaze of wildfire. “Too late for what? I’m younger than you, Hartley. Ten years younger. Too late, indeed!” If he wasn’t very much mistaken, his words had hit a soft spot. Interesting.

“Men can wait,” he said. “Women have a limited number of years before they lose their bloom. Not saying you ever had any. On a bad day, when in one of your abysmal sulks, you look like the very devil.”

She scowled, instantly proving him right about both his statement and his previous guess.

“And with your scandalous behavior, who else would have you?” he added, firm-lipped, struggling not to laugh at her expression. “I, of course, am accustomed to the sharp cuts of your tongue. There is no part of me you’ve yet to wound. That makes me immune.”

“
Me
wound
you
?”

“Of course. Do you deny—?”

“I don’t want to marry,” she snapped. “I like my life the way it is, unfettered. I can’t imagine making room for a man now.”

“What about the count? Do you make no room for him?”

A quick little swallow fluttered in her slender neck. “He is free to come and go as he pleases. As am I. A husband is a permanent inconvenience. I’d much rather see a man occasionally, when he’s in a good mood. Then, if he’s sick with a cold and miserable, I can send him home again with a friendly word of caution to stay away from drafts, and he is no longer my responsibility.”

She had a sharply satirical eye, and if he wasn’t very much mistaken, that was a wry curve pulling on the left corner of her mouth. She kept winding it back again, determined to be cross with him, but the half smile was equally determined to unwind, darkly entertained at his expense. He’d meant only to tease her with his abrupt proposal of marriage, knowing how she had an aversion to longer attachments—that string of brief engagements, entered into and abandoned with equal haste, was evidence enough. But now that he’d begun to discuss the thought aloud with her, it actually began to seem…feasible.

Perhaps it was the heat of the room, the headiness of her perfume, the mischief in her funny half smile.

Hmmm. Her smile. He’d seen it many times over the term of their unfortunate acquaintance, but there was something about it tonight. Something that poked an insistent finger at his memory.

She had very nice lips. They were the sort of lips that kept a man looking at them, wondering how they tasted.

“There are at least half-a-dozen women here tonight far more suitable than me,” those naughty lips assured him firmly.

“Oh?”

“Lady Southwold. Was that not she just now?”

“Yes, it was she, and no, I’m not going to marry her.”

“Why not?”

“You said yourself that she’s a faithless hussy. Making overtures to your lover. Is that not what you told me?”

Her lashes lifted, and he basked in the warmth of her gaze again. “Yes.”

“Then she’s not right for me.” He let his hand slide a half inch lower down her spine. If she noticed, she kept it to herself. He spread his fingers over the butter-soft muslin, already feeling a sense of possessiveness. In all the years of their acquaintance, he didn’t recall her eyes being that color. Where had she kept those eyes all these years? Had she stashed them away deliberately?

Eventually she tore their beauty away and surveyed the room over his shoulder. “That woman, over there by the punch bowl. Miss Clarke, I believe is her name. Have you met her?”

“No.” He hadn’t even looked, too busy trying to think, searching his memory. What were those lips and eyes trying to tell him that she was not saying?

“I hear she’s a very good sort and would never give you any trouble.”

He finally followed her gaze. “Too tall and thin. And nervous.”

“Nervous? If you’ve never met her, how can you possibly—?”

“She plucks her eyebrows almost out of existence, and her clavicle is so evident I can only assume that if she eats at all, food never has a chance to cling to her bones.”

She sighed. “And there is the very pretty Miss Wilson, talking to her mama. There, by the plinth with the large Grecian urn.”

“Grecian urn? Is that what it is? I thought it was some sort of coffeepot.”

“Pay attention, Hartley! The young lady beside it…”

“
Plinth
,” he muttered. “Isn’t that a splendid word? Plinth.”

“James Hartley, we are talking about Miss Jane Wilson.”

He swept her around in a tight turn. “Her feet are too big. And she lisps.”

“Well then, what about Lady Clegg-Foster’s daughter? I can’t recall her name, but she’s a dainty thing and sings like a lark, so I’m told.”

He’d make Ellie Vyne’s lips sing too, he thought, given half a chance. “The young lady’s name is Rosalind. She chews her fingers.”

“You mean her fingernails.”

“No. She chews her fingers. I’ve seen the scars. God only knows what she’d do to a husband once she runs out of digits.” He grinned.

She was still determined not to give him a full smile, it seemed. “Lady Aynsbury’s niece in the yellow dress?”

“Doesn’t like dogs or horses.”

“Miss Walters, with the feathers in her hair?”

“Eats with her mouth open.”

“Miss Gordon. Now what can you possibly find amiss with that sweet little thing?”

“She’s too little. And too sweet.”

She gasped irritably. “And you’re too fussy!”

“I’m not surprised you’ve had so many broken engagements, Vyne, if you choose your men with the same carelessness as you expect me to find a wife.”

Of course he knew she had questionable taste. A bolt of anger struck him viciously, even in the midst of their lively conversation. He couldn’t imagine what drew her to that rogue Bonneville, but then the man’s appeal was, in general, lost on him. He’d seen the fellow only from a distance and noted a prettily attired coxcomb with too many frills on his shirt, a small nose, and inadequate chin. The count had garnered quite a following in Bath last year, and in London, with admirers from both sexes. Since Beau Brummell fled to Calais, escaping his debts, the brainless sheep needed someone new to follow. But the Vyne woman, who possessed more than a sixpenny’s worth of wit, had always struck James as the sort to be unimpressed by a satin-clad milksop.

That gown showed far too much bosom.

It kept interrupting his damned thoughts. Those sweet handfuls, heaving gently with every inhale, lured his imagination through a dangerous realm. He supposed it was deliberate, so she could then feign affront and reprimand him for looking. Women were devious that way. Men were mere pawns in their machinations, Grieves would remind him.

“There are fifteen,” she said suddenly.

Dazed, he moved his eyes back to her face. “Hmmm?”

“There are fifteen miniature silk-ribbon rosebuds sewn around my décolletage, Hartley. I see you are interested in their number, as you’ve studied them pointedly for the past few minutes. You really are intent on creating a scandal tonight.”

Of course, they caused a goodly amount of consternation just by dancing together—the Duke of Ardleigh’s former mistress, an outspoken woman with a reputation for insulting royalty and countless broken engagements, and the man who was rumored to keep a different bedmate every night of the week. They were, in the eyes of the world, two notorious characters with little hope of redemption.

They were also two people who didn’t have to pretend for each other. She knew all his worst traits, and he knew all hers. Their badinage had become routine over the years. Like toast soldiers for his boiled egg.

“There should be sixteen rosebuds,” she added pensively, “but one tumbled off in my sister’s carriage on the way here. My fault, because I’d been toying with a loose thread for want of anything else to do with my fingers.”

Hmmm. Something to bear in mind. Keep her fingers occupied.

“It was too dark to see where it landed when it fell off, and I had no needle to sew it back on with in any case. I’m sure you noticed the hanging thread, Hartley.”

He had not actually noticed a missing rosebud, but now she mentioned it, he had to look and count them again. His gaze lingered over her full curves. And the enticing way they rose and fell.

“I don’t know how other ladies manage to keep their gowns so well preserved,” she muttered. “By the end of the evening, I am often fortunate to have all my hooks still in place, and there is always, without a doubt, more than one stain.”

James gravely shook his head. “Someone, Vyne, ought to watch over you.”

“I daresay. But who could possibly handle the task?”

He surreptitiously moved her closer, taking even firmer possession of her waist. “Me.”

“You, Hartley?” He felt the laughter trembling through her body. “It would be quite a shock to see you devoting your energies and time to something worthwhile for a change, I suppose.”

“Meaning?”

“It appears you have an excess of free hours in your day and evening, which, although to be expected for a gentleman of your class, only leads to trouble. After a certain number of years passing in the same fashion, it must become altogether wearisome for a person with most of their senses and four solid limbs in their possession. I’ve always paused with admiration and wondered how you manage to do it—nothing all day, that is.”

She was unaware, naturally, of his strive to change. Tempting as it was to set her straight, he chose not to. The new, improved James Hartley was still a work in progress. He was not ready yet for this sharp-tongued hussy to step in and judge. He leaned closer and took a deep breath of her soft perfume. Lilac and…was that almonds?

“Stop doing that,” she muttered.

He was making her nervous. Good. “Worried the count might object if he sees us together? Perhaps he’ll come out of hiding and challenge me to a duel. If he cares about you at all, of course. You’re probably just another conquest to him.”

“As any woman is to you.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear. And don’t believe everything the villainous, so-called count tells you. I suppose he’s seduced you with flattery to pamper your vanity, and now you imagine you know him well.”

“Oh, but I do! He and I have a very close connection. We are almost inseparable.”

His mood darkened again. It took him a moment before he could speak. He’d unhappily been witness to many of her relationships with men. They were always casual, short-lived. What made this one so different? “Then where is he tonight?” he managed finally.

“I cannot tell you that. I will never betray him.”

Deep violet eyes perused his face. There was a twinkle—good or bad, he could not ascertain. Was she laughing at him again or simply smug about her love affair? A lash of jealousy tore into him like a cat-o’-nine-tails.

He twirled her faster around the hall. “Then I’ll keep you for ransom, Vyne,” he growled, watching a stray dark curl untwist beside her cheek. “If the count continues to hide from me, I’ll take compensation for those diamonds from you.”
Keep
her
dizzy; keep her moving along in my arms, and then she can’t escape. She can’t leave until I’ve remembered whatever it is she’s trying to hide from me.

“I thought you said they were priceless. What could I give you to compensate?”

“I’m sure you and I can come to some…arrangement.” They were moving too fast, dancing too closely. He didn’t care.

Laughing softly, she looked up at him again, and the small pearls in her ears gleamed like tiny moons amid all that rich mahogany hair. “When will you find the time? Surely your week is fully booked with similar
arrangements
.”

Naturally she believed all the lies, every bad thing ever uttered about him. She’d do that superior thing in a minute with her lips.

He stared at her earring and then at her mouth again. For a moment, it felt as if they’d stopped dancing and the room moved around them, spinning by at a breathless pace. As if he was drunk.

Brighton.

But how could it be…?

He stared. Her lips still moved as she mocked him with her usual flair, but he couldn’t hear a word, because his heart was beating too loudly in his ears.

Perhaps it wasn’t her. He clutched at this faint hope, but then she raised her lashes again, and the secretive gleam in her eyes was all too familiar. Touching his soul, stirring his blood.