A Proper Mistress (30 page)

Foolish girls
, she thought, glancing around. Laced into their best gowns. Hair up and faces painted almost as strongly as hers. Foolish to sell for trinkets the only thing they really owned—themselves. But they could see only as far as the next day, the next night, and perhaps into the next week. None of them looked beyond that. But she did.

She glanced around the room now, seeking that future, certain he’d be here. He’d not missed a performance in the past six weeks. And she was ready. Time to prod him onto the next step. But her gaze caught on a new face.

She stopped, her heart skipping a beat, her skin warming as she took in the sight of him.

He stood beside the curtains that covered the entrance, his hair a careless spill of gold above a tanned face and a gleaming white shirt. Around him, a wave of noise spread, as if he’d brought vibrant reality into this painted world. Others turned toward him, to his height, to the easy flash of his grin. Actresses smiled and fluttered eyelashes at him over their fans. Gentlemen beamed and moved to clasp his hand. His face almost seemed too craggy to be called handsome—a strong, straight nose, clear eyes, high-cut cheekbones—but the rugged lines had a masculine grace with its own appeal. And his smile warmed the room, bright and charming, dazzling as summer sun.

Thea frowned at that. She disliked men with great charm—so often they used it to beguile, and forgot to be kind. But she, too, could feel the tug of attraction.

Who was he? Not an actor—she knew all the famous faces in London, and his wasn’t one of them. But he had that sort of presence. He’d look good on stage—a leading man the ladies could swoon over and the gentlemen could admire.

No actor, however, had such sun-bronzed skin. At least none she knew. Her kind lived in the late hours of candlelight and twilight shadows.

A deep voice, soft as midnight and touched with a shade too much champagne, brushed her ear, “Contemplating dangerous waters, luv?” She glanced to her right, to Richardson.

His black hair stood up, as if he’d run his hands through the length of it. A flattering gray showed at the temples. Not a handsome man either, but he, too, had charm. Too much of it. And warm green eyes. He wore a black cravat, loosely tied, a loose black frock coat and black breeches, stockings and shoes. With his lean face and his slender build and his dark clothes, he looked ready to play Mephistopheles to some poor fool’s Faust. He’d once told her a man of the theater had to create drama—the patrons wanted it. But he enjoyed the theatrics of making a stir.

Richardson’s glance followed hers and lingered on the golden-headed gentleman. But his eyes narrowed, and the nostrils on his aquiline nose flared as if something offended. She read the look—one advantage a former lover had—and smiled.

“Jealous, are we?”

He looked at her, his mouth crooking. “Always! I live in an agony of it where you’re concerned,” he drawled.

She laughed and put her hand on his arm. They strolled the room, Richardson nodding to his guests. Taking her glass, he drank her champagne.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Who?”

“The dangerous waters—you must know him to think him a hazard. Or do you judge by looks alone?” She glanced back at the man, now pulled aside by other gentlemen and stared after by pouting women left unnoticed. Did it count for him that he seemed unaware of his effect on the females in the room or against him in that such neglect might be callous indifference?

“Still my child of innocence,” Richardson said, his voice low and smooth. “Have you not heard of the great Llewellyn, returned from his adventures?”

She glanced at Richardson, eyebrows lifted. The makeup creased on her face, so she blanked her surprise, and asked, “That’s Llewellyn? Of course I’ve heard of him, but I thought him—”

“Older? Wiser? Burlier? A man of a size to stride across burning deserts and subdue marauding bandits single-handed? Hmmmm—that’s rather good, I should use that.”

“You no doubt will.” She glanced back at Llewellyn. He might not be a giant, but he filled the room as well as one. He had a lithe figure and broad shoulders—with his back to her, she could admire them. And consider the man’s legend.

David Llewellyn, the man who’d made his name by walking across the Sahara and passing himself off as a
Beduin
. The man who’d traveled to cities in Arabia where no Christian had gone. The man all London now clamored to meet.

“A bit disappointing, isn’t he?” Richardson said.

Tilting her head, she considered. She had thought such a man would be older. Llewellyn looked to be no more than in his early thirties. To have done so much so young. He spoke and read six languages, she’d heard. He’d been on ten expeditions to the Arabian deserts, had survived not only the harsh climate but the deadly shifting politics of the land, and his book
Nomads of Arabia
, she knew from the theater gossip, had made him the guest everyone in London wanted. The great David Llewellyn.

He looked like any other man.

As though awareness of her attention had touched him, he turned. His stare locked on hers. He smiled.

The jolt shot through her, stronger than stepping onto the stage for a new play—a charge of energy that shivered along her skin and sank into her bones. For a moment, she stood still, trapped by his gaze, beguiled by gray eyes.

With a smile, a nod, he looked away, taking that heat and sizzle from her. Her throat tightened for its loss. But she straightened and turned from him, disturbed in ways she didn’t want to know.

Not disappointing. Anything but. No, not that, she told herself—insisted upon it.

An interesting man—quite devastating in his way. Unexpected, she would say. Yes, just that. And nothing she needed in her life.

She glanced at Richardson. “Disappointing? You
are
jealous. But you ought to be used to being upstaged.”

“Never! If I could, I’d write a play in which I had all the best parts. The only parts. But, alas, no one in London would come. They wouldn’t even come in the provinces.” He glanced at her and smiled. “They want pretty girls in breeches giving suggestive speeches.”

She pulled away and took her glass from him. “So you’ve told me—and that I’m not so young and not as pretty as I was.”

He caught the ties of her dressing gown and turned her to face him. “Pretty? Never you, luv. That’s too ordinary for you. Stirring. Exotic. Lush. Those are words for you.”

For a heartbeat she held still—she hated such meaningless praise. But she curved her mouth, and cocked an eyebrow. She could play his game still. And she asked, “Why is it the more you drink the more beautiful I become?”

“An age-old problem. Help me find more to quench my thirst and become an angel divine.”

She glanced to the door to note another arrival, a well-dressed gentleman in his forties with thinning blond hair and a narrow, aristocratic face. She shrugged from Richardson’s hold and told him, “You may help yourself. Shelburne is here.”

She started to turn away, but he did not release the ties and she had to stop. “Still determined there? Don’t you know how dull a fellow he is, for all his title and money?”

She tossed back the last of her champagne and gave him her empty glass. “Blessedly dull.”

With a smile, she slipped loose the knot of the sash, leaving it dangling in his hands. She moved to the door, hips swaying, the dark blue dressing gown open and billowing. But as she neared Shelburne, her steps slowed. Her entrance—always key to any good performance—was being ignored.

Shelburne stood talking to Llewellyn, smiling at him, shaking his hand as if they’d not seen each other in years but knew each other well. Diamonds winked on Shelburne’s fingers and in his starched cravat. Gold buttons glinted on his embroidered waistcoat. He wore the long pantaloons that younger men had made the fashion. They didn’t suit his thickening figure, but he had a good height, and an attractive face, with a high-bridged nose and an easy expression. He looked very much like what he was—a good-natured man with money.

Unfortunately, next to Llewellyn’s lean figure, Shelburne looked overbred and overfed—fussy and starched. He looked...dull. She disliked that she compared the two men—and even more that she found Shelburne’s faults so easily. She ought to be more forgiving of the man she planned to marry.

And so she turned her disapproval to Llewellyn. She wouldn’t have noticed Shelburne’s flaws if he’d not been here to make every other man seem less.

Widening her smile, she stepped closer to Shelburne and still he didn’t notice her.

Llewellyn did.

His glance slid over Shelburne’s shoulders to her. Dark eyebrows with a hint of gold in them rose a fraction over assessing gray eyes. Eyes with a touch of green and brown in them—eyes that would change color with the light. Calculation moved in those fascinating eyes. She sensed wariness and disapproval.

Chin lifted, she stared back at his tan, lean face, irritated that he seemed so instantly critical of her. But she could not hold the mood or the pose. Her lips twitched—what a hypocrite she was, to be the one to want to frown on him without having her dislike returned.

Shelburne at last seemed to realize he no longer had Llewellyn’s attention for he turned, and his smile widened. “Thea! How perfect. I’ve just been telling David about you. Wasn’t I just telling you, David, that you must meet my Thea?”

Paths of Desire
- ISBN: 978-0-9831423-9-3

Lady Scandal
– ISBN: 978-0-9831423-4-8

Romantic Times Bookclub Nominated “Best Regency” 2004

Under the Kissing Bough
– ISBN: 978-0-9831423-0-0

RWA RITA Finalist, Best Regency Romance

The Compromise Series

A Compromising Situation
– Golden Heart Winner, Best Regency Romance - ISBN: 978-0-9831423-3-1

A Dangerous Compromise
–
Finalist: Award of Excellence, Holt Medallion, Laurel Wreath - ISBN: 978-0-9831423-6-2

A Much Compromised Lady
– Romantic Times Top Pick: 4½ Stars and Gold Medal - ISBN:
978-0-9831423-7-9

The Proper Series

Proper Conduct
–  Winner Winter Rose, Best Historical - ISBN: 978-0-9831423-1-7

A Proper Mistress
– Romantic Times Top Pick - 4½ Stars - ISBN: 978-0-9831423-2-4

Barely Proper
  –
ISBN: 978-0-9831423-5-5

Regency Novellas:

Cat’s Cradle
- ISBN:  978-0-9831423-8-6

For other stories by Shannon Donnelly visit www.sd-writer.com