A Little Deception (2 page)

‘It’s the best I have,’ argued Rose.

‘And has been since you developed a chest and were out of
short clothes. Miss Arabella! There you are! Tell me, what do you think of your
sister’s gown? Would you wear it in fine company?’

Arabella, combing out her long, white-gold hair as she
perched on the edge of Rose’s bed, regarded her gravely. ‘Of course not, but
Rose doesn’t have any fine clothes. If I knew her ankles wouldn’t show I’d lend
her something of mine … which would still be preferable to that old rag she has
on.’

Watching as Edith went about her task with deft fingers,
smoothing her sister’s glossy chestnut hair back from her high forehead,
coaxing the curls from a fashionably high top knot, she asked, ‘Does this mean
you plan on going about in fine company, after all, Rose? I thought you said
the season was a lot of nonsense and you wouldn’t be caught dead at anyone’s
“drawing room”?’

‘Your sister only says such things because there’s no money
to launch both of you, my girl. And does she look twenty-six with those fine
eyes and glowing skin? Why, she’ll always be a beauty.’ Edith looked severely
at her younger charge. ‘Just bear in mind, Miss Arabella, that you have your
sister to thank for the fact that you’re to have a season at all.’

‘Perhaps Rose could wear something of Helena’s,’ Arabella
suggested, chastened.

‘I couldn’t possibly!’

‘Well, you’re exactly the same height as Helena and I’m sure
she wouldn’t mind, since you’re going in her stead.’

Rose looked grim. ‘That was not what I was worried about.’
An image of Helena with her languid self-possession and love of finery flashed
through her mind and for a moment the magnitude of what she was about to do
threatened to engulf Rose. Could she carry it off? After all, compared with the
worldly Helena she was a greenhorn, an unsophisticated Colonial. Cleverer than
Helena, certainly, but by no means as self-assured in the company of men. Nor
as beautiful. Without these attributes was she not as good as throwing herself
to the lions and making fools of them all in the process?

She took a deep breath and cast all doubts from her mind. It
was the only way. She had a role to play, and play it she would. To perfection.

‘One of Helena’s gowns,’ she murmured, thoughtfully. Then,
twisting her head to look at Arabella she said, wryly, ‘You’re right, dearest.
Find me something … not too revealing. But don’t tell Charles. Helena is still
sleeping so I can’t ask her, but it’s for her benefit. Dear Lord,’ she
muttered, putting her hand to her chest and stroking the comforting drab grey
velvet. It had been so long since she’d been in sophisticated company she’d
never been told whether she had a cleavage worth showing, or not.

***

Ashley Delacroix, Viscount Rampton, eyed his dinner guest
appreciatively across the table. Babbage had not lied when he had called Lady
Chesterfield a beauty. His use of the term ‘exotic’ was, perhaps, a little off
the mark. ‘Classic English rose’ was a more apt description; although perhaps
Babbage had been referring to the young lady’s unusually sun-kissed complexion
and taste in attire, for the gown that barely clothed Lady Chesterfield this
evening was considerably less modestly cut than the type of evening gown most
English women favoured. Not that Rampton was complaining. It was always a
pleasure to dine with a beautiful woman, especially one not too shy to display
her ample charms to best advantage. It might explain, too, the reason for her
husband not looking very happy, although that could, just as likely, be due to
the nature of the business which had brought them together.

Rampton raised his glass to his guests and fixed Lady
Chesterfield with an appreciative look as he proposed the toast.

‘To a pleasant evening and the satisfactory completion of
our business.’

It was unlike him to mix business with pleasure. Boredom had
been to blame. When his friend Babbage had sworn he would repay his loan to
Rampton within the sennight, then reneged with the surprising excuse that he
was reluctant to press the lady who owed him the necessary means to do so,
Rampton had been unsympathetic. But when Babbage had elaborated upon the
evening that he and the ‘exotic’ beauty had spent together, Rampton’s curiosity
had, despite himself, been aroused. To his surprise he’d found himself
absolving Babbage of his debt by taking on Lady Chesterfield’s debt in lieu.
For no better reason than that he wanted to see for himself whether this
apparently fascinating young woman would enthral him as much as the notoriously
difficult-to-impress Babbage.

‘I hope you are enjoying your visit to London, Lady
Chesterfield,’ he said, conversationally. ‘My friend, Adrian Babbage–whom
you will no doubt recall,’ he added, his smile sly, ‘tells me you have spent
your life in the West Indies and this is your first visit to your father’s
home. You must still be adjusting to the climate.’

‘I daresay I will not be here long enough to get used to it,
Lord Rampton,’ said Rose, coolly. She disliked the way her host’s eyes travelled
languorously from her décolletage to her face when he spoke. Certainly they
were very fine eyes: a piercing blue, but the supercilious arch of the eyebrows
disconcerted her. And while his unconcealed admiration was certainly balm to
her self-confidence, there was something in their depths that hinted at a whole
world of which she knew nothing.

She forced a smile. It was important that he should not
suspect any discomfiture in her.
 
Indeed, discomfiture was rare for Rose
and it was highly disconcerting to suspect she wouldn’t be feeling this
uncomfortable had Lord Rampton not been such an exquisite nonpareil. Indeed,
she could never remember having met a gentleman who exuded such potent
magnetism—and who was aware of it, she thought grimly.

Thick dark hair swept back from high cheekbones while
intense dark blue eyes glittered with unconcealed interest in her above his
beautiful straight nose, a find piece of physiognomy which she found herself
admiring simply so she wouldn’t be drawn by his mouth.

Yet she couldn’t help herself. That mouth of his was the
only part of him that seemed not constructed from marble, for it trembled just
a little—from amusement? —and though the suspicion that he found
Rose or her predicament amusing should have outraged her, for a moment all Rose
could think of was tracing those exquisitely shaped lips with her forefinger
before touching her own experimentally against what seemed the only soft part
of the man.

She jerked back. Where had such a thought come from?
Blushing, she forced languor into her tone. She was, after all, playing Helena,
the bored beauty.

‘Once this unsavoury business has been attended to, and my
sister—’ she caught herself just in time, ‘—in-law launched, we
will return home.’

Fighting the urge to slump and hide as much of herself as
possible beneath the table Rose held herself proudly. Self-conscious though she
felt in Helena’s outrageously daring, diaphanous silver-and-white evening gown,
she knew any attempts at appearing coy or modest would only look contrived and
draw further attention to what she wished, heartily, was not quite so obviously
on show. She must not look down and frighten herself with the sight of how much
bosom was revealed, although the faint breeze that ruffled the curtains and
caressed her bare skin was a constant reminder. Edith had assured her that
although she looked every inch the seductress, she was not, actually, indecent.
It was small consolation.

It was true that Rose was unaccustomed to male attention, and
as a result unnerved by Lord Rampton’s lazy, confident smile. Oh yes, he certainly
looked like a man used to getting his own way.

Well, Rose knew how to get her own way too. And Success—no,
survival! —depended upon managing Lord Rampton in the same artful manner
with which she managed her stubborn brother and her volatile, unpredictable
sister-in-law. She must play the seductress, as naturally and consummately as
Helena, who was the reason behind, and inspiration for, this whole charade.

Leaning slightly across the table, she contrived a faintly
seductive pout, surprised at how easily it came … and by how much she enjoyed
the results.

Charles had tried, several times, to interject. Characteristically
he had allowed himself to be quelled on each occasion by an impatient response
from Lord Rampton. Rose felt vindicated. Of course she had had no choice but to
have come this evening. Her brother was completely out of his depth.

And he looked it. But was he, Rose wondered, aware of the
almost conspiratorial smiles that their host continued to direct at her? Her
skin tingled.

Rose had always been surprised that Charles was not firmer
with Helena on the subject of Helena’s conduct and wardrobe, though until now
she had never realized how much licence marriage gave one to behave as one
chose, rather than as one ought.

Dropping her eyes beneath another of Lord Rampton’s searing
gazes Rose encountered her reflection in the highly polished silver epergne
that formed the table centrepiece. Edith had worked wonders with her
appearance. The plain creature she’d always thought herself had been
transformed into a society beauty with her wide-set bright eyes, pert nose and
creamy complexion the equal of Arabella’s pale innocent charm and Helena’s lush
allure.

With the kind of confidence that now buoyed her she felt
capable of anything. Even armed combat with Lord Rampton. Well, she had his
measure. He was rich, bored, careless of others, no doubt having never suffered
a moment’s angst or deprivation in his entire life.

On reflection, the thought was not bolstering. Charity or
leniency were not characteristics of such a character, nor had Rampton been
given any good reason to extend either to the struggling Chesterfields.

She resisted the urge to slump in defeat as she acknowledged
the size of the debt owed to this man which would suck the lifeblood out of
even their marginal existence. What was Rose doing, dreaming of gilded futures
when it was not too extreme to say a life in debtor’s prison or the workhouse
was a distinct possibility if she could not win over this man?

She took a deep, sustaining breath, flicking her tongue over
dry lips. Lord Rampton, she realized, was waiting for her to broach the subject
which had brought them to his dinner table.

‘I realize, Lord Rampton, that you are owed rather a lot of
money. Mr Babbage, however, indicated that …’

The beautiful Lady Chesterfield’s hesitation, and the sudden
colour that flooded her cheeks piqued Rampton’s curiosity. He waited for her to
finish, recalling Babbage’s colourful account of this young woman’s conduct one
wild night during the previous week. It was all the more intriguing for, while
Lady Chesterfield, with her lustrous chestnut hair, pretty mouth and high
cheekbones beneath intensely blue eyes was as beautiful as she had been
painted, her demeanour did not accord with Babbage’s description. In surprising
contrast with her gown there had been lapses in her mien, indicating that Lady
Chesterfield’s confidence was not as iron-clad as she would have him believe.

‘What did Mr Babbage say he was prepared to be, Lady
Chesterfield?’ Rampton prompted, unconcerned that, to his own ears, he sounded
condescending. His efforts were rewarded as he watched the blush deepen and
noted the difficulty she had in responding. He had not expected such sport when
he’d asked the beautiful Lady Chesterfield and her lily-livered husband to
dinner.

‘Patient, Lord Rampton.’

‘Ah, but there we differ, Lady Chesterfield. You see, Mr
Babbage is a very patient man. At least, he is where beautiful women are
concerned.’ Rampton took a sip of his wine, savouring it, and the moment. ‘I,
on the other hand, am not.’

With amusement he observed the way her fingers clenched the
stem of her wine glass and the obvious effort with which she forced herself to
relax. She toyed with her glass before glancing at him over the rim, flirtation
in her tone as she murmured, ‘Mr Babbage is a gentleman.’

His lips curled at the implied rebuke. ‘Whereas I am not?’

The seductive gleam that lit up her large blue eyes, and the
curve of her mouth – shaped more like a rosebud than the full, sensuous
look he generally preferred – went a long way towards explaining the
effect this young woman had had on Rampton’s erstwhile debtor. He felt a
moment’s exultation as he held her gaze. He could read compliance in their
depths. Yes, he thought with satisfaction, with the Chesterfields as hard
pressed for ready funds as rumour had it there would be no difficulty coming to
some mutual agreement with the beautiful Lady Chesterfield whereby no money
need be exchanged. Unconsciously he ran the tip of his tongue over his top lip
as he returned a somewhat wolfish smile, gesturing to the footman who hovered
at the sideboard to bring more wine. Here was the return on his investment this
evening, considering the other diversions he had sacrificed.

‘A gentleman?’ repeated his lovely guest with evident
amusement. ‘I am forced to reserve judgement, Lord Rampton. Time alone will
tell.’

It could be an entertaining season, thought Rampton,
anticipation surging through his loins. He was without a mistress and she was
an exquisite-looking creature, long married and clearly disenchanted with her
husband who had no doubt been chosen for her.