Between the Devil and Ian Eversea (7 page)

Landsdowne promptly said, “It will be my honor to sit by your side and
will
your ankle to recover. I can be very persuasive.”

She smiled at Landsdowne.

And then Landsdowne turned slightly, seeming to remember his usually impeccable manners, and saw Tansy.

A moment of silence and stillness ensued as Landsdowne’s eyes settled on her in a bemused way. Ian could almost read the man’s thoughts:
Surely she can’t be as pretty as all that
.

“I haven’t yet had the pleasure,” he said slowly to her. Landsdowne was a grown man and a fairly formidable one. He wouldn’t goggle or stammer. No. He would mull. And plan.

“Forgive my manners,” Olivia said immediately. “Viscount Landsdowne, this is our guest, Miss Titania Danforth, of America.”

Miss Danforth’s lashes lowered and she curtsied, slowly and gracefully, for all the world like a petal drifting from a tree.

And Ian watched Landsdowne’s eyes follow her all the way down. And all the way up.

“How fascinating to have an American in our midst, Miss Danforth,” he said.

Landsdowne hadn’t yet blinked. Bemusement had evolved into something like wonder. His tone had gone a bit drifty.

“Oh, I’m the one who’s fascinated! To be among such esteemed company. You are the very first viscount I have ever met.” She cast those eyelashes down again.

Landsdowne smiled at this, obviously disarmed.

“And I’m the very first baron you’ve ever met!” the formerly silent Simon declared, elbowing into the conversation.

She turned, happily. “Oh,
are
you a baron, Simon? How
very
delightful.”

“Not yet, he isn’t,” Miss Charing said somewhat churlishly, which made Ian eye the level of the ratafia cup she held. “His father has to die first.”

“Do you attend many balls and parties in America, Miss Danforth?” Landsdowne asked smoothly.

“Not so many lately. I fear I’ve been a bit of a wallflower.” Those fluffy dark lashes went down again.

To his credit, Landsdowne looked somewhat skeptical. “Well, we certainly must remedy that, mustn’t we? I assume a round of gaiety is planned in order to introduce Miss Danforth to Sussex society? This party is only a beginning, Miss Danforth.”

“Miss Danforth has been taken under the Duke of Falconbridge’s wing,” Olivia explained, and Landsdowne hiked an impressed brow.

“I’ve not yet danced a reel this evening. I wonder if I remember how! I should be so embarrassed to try it in front of all of these people after such a long time.”

“I’m a patient teacher, I’m told, if you’ll allow me,” Landsdowne said. “Will you?”

“Oh . . .” Miss Dansforth cast her eyes down, then up again. “I don’t know if I dare subject you to the caprices of my dancing.”

There was an odd little silence, as if everyone thought Olivia’s blessing needed to be bestowed.

“Please do dance with him, Miss Danforth,” Olivia urged finally, graciously. “He dances beautifully and we oughtn’t deprive the assembly of the pleasure of watching him.”

This, though ironic, was positively gushy for Olivia, and Ian knew it.

Landsdowne looked wry. “Then of course I shall dance for Your Majesty’s entertainment,” he said with mock gravity, and bowed low, very low, one leg extended, to Olivia, who nodded regally, accepting the fealty as her due.

S
IMON AND
M
ISS
Charing wandered off to the garden, where a kiss or two might be stolen, or Miss Charing might vomit. It could easily go either way, Ian thought.

“You ought to be dancing,” Olivia said to him.

“I like sitting with you.” Which was true enough. He was less fond of reels than of waltzes, and he recognized that it was more or less his duty as a single man to dance, but he’d decided that Olivia needed the company.

Olivia snorted.

They were watching Miss Danforth and Landsdowne dance the reel. For an alleged novice, she certainly learned the steps very quickly. She was light on her feet and danced with every evidence of joy.

“He looks almost . . . playful.” She said the word as if it were foreign and she was uncertain of its pronunciation.

Ian laughed. “Is he normally a somber chap? He seems it. Though a good one,” he added hurriedly. “I like him a good deal.”

“No, he has wit. The quiet, dry sort, however. I quite like it. He
is
a good one,” she said absently. “I like him.”

There was a pause.

“You like him. How torrid.”

She shot him a wry sideways glance. But didn’t expound.

His sister was passionate about nearly everything. The abolishment of slavery. The protection of the poor. The preservation of cherished historical landmarks. The color of clothing. Her tastes in nearly everything were very specific and impassioned and cleverly, usually wittily, reasoned, which was part of her charm. She was challenging and often exhausting, but never dull.

She was very guarded about Landsdowne.

And he had never once heard her utter Lyon Redmond’s name since he’d vanished. He had often thought there would always be only one man for Olivia. And that one man had disappeared more than three years ago.

Landsdowne threw back his head and laughed at something Miss Danforth, the wallflower, had said.

“What do you think of her?” Olivia asked.

“Very pretty and vapid and uninteresting. An awkward ingenue. Ought to excel at being a spoiled wife of a rich aristocrat. And no doubt will be given the opportunity to be one soon enough.”

Olivia mulled this. “I might agree with all of those words save one. I’m less convinced of the ‘uninteresting’ part. I wonder if she’s . . . strategic. The bit with the lashes. All of that.”

“I think when one is presented with a cipher, one can assign all sorts of meaning. The way we try to see shapes of things in clouds.”

“You’re likely correct.”

Another silence ensued. Miss Danforth was smiling. Her complexion was creamy, faintly gold in the chandelier light, a luxurious, pearl shade. She moved lithely, and it was strangely a pleasure to watch her hop and clap the steps of the reel. She danced as though the music was part of her, and Ian felt something in him lighten as he watched. As if joy was her native emotion.

Landsdowne laughed again when she crashed into someone and was forced to apologize profusely.

“I don’t know whether he laughs a good deal when he’s with me,” Olivia said.

Ian wondered if his sister, accustomed to being the toast of all of Sussex, and London as well, was worried.

“He’s probably too busy being fascinated by you, Olivia.”

“That
must
be it.” Olivia smiled at that.

Chapter 7

L
ANDSDOWNE RETURNED
M
ISS
D
ANFORTH
to them at the end of the reel, both of them flushed and happy looking. Then he settled down next to Olivia; rather like a regal, faithful hound who would never leave his mistress’s side, Ian thought.

Which left him with Miss Danforth. Who wasn’t smiling, or fluttering her eyelashes, but who had suddenly gone still.

When the strains of the Sussex waltz started, he bowed, and extended his arm to a girl whose dress was so white and gossamer she might as well have written “I’m a virgin” across her forehead. Ian thought of the widow in red across the room and let his thoughts stray in her direction, half resenting the opportunity robbed from him by this little girl. He suppressed a sigh.

Miss Danforth gave her hand to him almost portentously, slowly, as if she were pulling the sword from a stone. Lucky me, to be presented with such a gift, he thought wryly.

He took it with a certain ironic gravity, and placed his hand against her waist.

He felt her breath hitch in the jump of her slight rib cage.

Suddenly, he wondered how long it had been since his touch had felt new, surprising, exciting, to a woman, and a little of that was communicated to him, too.

A rogue, fierce surge of protectiveness swept in, startling him, and then swept out again.

He looked down. Into eyes of such a singular crystalline silver-blue color he fancied he could see himself in them. The eyes of a woman who had no midnight trysts or any other stains of any sort on her conscience.

They
really
would have very little in common.

He eased them into the one, two, three of the other whirling waltzers the way he would ease his horse through the traffic on Bond Street.

She hadn’t yet said a word. She was staring as though she was from one of those distant islands Miles Redmond wrote about and had never before seen an Englishman in the flesh.

He was tempted to lead off with
Boo.

“How are you enjoying England, Miss Danforth?” he said instead.

“I like what I’ve seen of it so far very much indeed.”

It was delivered with such fervor, he widened, then narrowed his eyes briefly. If he hadn’t known better, if a different woman had issued the words, he would have considered that an innuendo. That, combined with the “I’d be honored to dance with you, Mr. Eversea” and the “I hope you’ll call me Tansy.” Perhaps all Americans were just a bit too forward.

But now she was looking up, gazing limpidly back at him. He was a connoisseur of women’s mouths, and hers was a work of art, he was forced to concede. The bottom lip a shell-pink pillowy curve, the top shorter, with two gentle little peaks. A bit like a heart. Both whimsical and sensual, one was tempted to trace its contours with a finger.

Her face was rather heart-shaped, too, and the heat of the crowded ballroom and the vigor of dancing had made her rosy. It was the sort of color a good bout of lovemaking put into a woman’s cheeks.

He contemplated telling her this, just to shock the living daylights out of her.

“Is something amusing, Mr. Eversea?” She said this with something like strained gaiety.

“Oh, something is always amusing. I suppose that’s my motto, if one must have one. What is yours, Miss Danforth?”

“Never surrender,” she said instantly.

He was a bit taken aback.

“That
is
a pity,” he tried. Murmuring. Halfheartedly sending out the innuendo as a smuggler would send a signal with a lamp from the coast, but not expecting much by way of response.

Something did twitch across her cloudless brow. Irritation? Confusion? Indigestion?

“I beg your pardon?” she said politely.

He didn’t expound. “That’s a much better motto than the one for, oh, Leicestershire: ‘Always the Same.’ ”

This elicited a burst of loud laughter from her that made him suppress, just barely, a wince.

She modulated it instantly, then fell abruptly silent. A moment later she cleared her throat.

“Then again, there’s a measure of comfort in sameness,” she said, to the man who thrived on risk and newness, especially new women. “Why did you mention Leicestershire? Is there something special about it?”

She seemed to be waiting with bated breath. As if
everything
hinged on the next thing he said.

“It’s where Richard the Third was buried. Or so they say.” That was nearly all he knew about Leicester. That, and the motto.

“Richard the Third? The kingdom for a horse king? The poor bent chap? Are you very interested in history, then?” It was a rush of barely contained eagerness.

“One and the same. Are you very interested in history, Miss Danforth?”

The answer was important. If it was affirmative, it would encourage him to avoid conversation with her altogether in the future. Not even an opportunity to play red flag to the Duke of Falconbridge’s bull would tempt him to endure conversations about ancient history.

The present was so much safer than the past, as far as Ian was concerned, and the future was a concept he’d only begun contemplating with excitement. It would be his refuge, all those ports on that map of the world. He would run like a river, never stopping. He suspected, after all, it was his nature to keep moving.

He looked out over her head at the ballroom, and saw Olivia sail by in the arms of Lord Landsdowne, who looked possessive and proud. So she’d either walked off her sore ankle or decided she’d better dance with Landsdowne on the heels of his reel with Miss Danforth. Olivia looked . . . one never knew with Olivia. She’d perfected the art of appearing as though everything was perfect. And there was a certain defiance to her lately. As though she thought Lyon Redmond was actually looking on when she went walking with Landsdowne, and when she danced with him, and suffering over it.

“I’m interested in some periods of history. Perhaps I’ll go to Leicester one day.” Miss Danforth sounded a trifle desperate.

He returned his attention to her.

“Perhaps you will,” he humored. And as if this entire conversation was rudderless and he could not be blamed if he failed to stay the course, he looked out over her head again . . . There she was. Lady Carstairs dancing with some other fortunate soul.

He knew her quick sultry smile and that little head toss were all for him, and he wondered which of the alcoves he ought to attempt to maneuver her into before the night was through. For at least a little more charged conversation.

Now
that
was how one flirted, Miss Danforth,
he was tempted to instruct.

“Have you an occupation, Mr. Eversea?” Miss Danforth tried, a trifle sharply.

“I do. Primarily it’s scandalizing decent people.”

He had the grace to regret it. It was a terribly unfair thing to say. Glib and arrogant and more impulsive than he normally was. It was just that life suddenly seemed too short for waltzes like this one.

Color flooded her cheeks. Again. The girl blushed as regularly as the tides moving in and out. And he knew he’d neatly cornered her: asking him to expound would be tantamount to wanting to hear scandalous things, which would of course mean she was indecent.

She clearly hadn’t the faintest idea what to say.

It was poor form to punish the girl for being innocent and sheltered and inexperienced, and uninteresting to him because of it.

“Why do people call you Tansy?” he said, as if he hadn’t just been unthinkably rude.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “nicknames are usually shortened names, are they not? For instance, if the diminutive derived from the first syllable of the name Jonathan is Johnny, what would my nickname logically be given my name is Titania?”

“Well I suppose one would call you Tit . . . sy.”

An infinitesimal moment of horror passed.

He was halfway into the word before he fully realized what he was saying, and momentum carried him all the way through it.

He stared at her as if a mourning dove had just sunk fangs into his hand.

Had . . . had this delicate well-bred “wallflower” actually led him right into saying “Titsy” to her?

Surely
that hadn’t been her intent?

But now he was thinking about her breasts.

Really
wondering about them.

He would be damned if he would look down at them.

Perhaps quite
literally
damned.

She gazed back at him evenly. He thought, though he could not be sure, he detected a glimmer of triumph or defiance there, but that may have just been the light of the chandelier glancing from her clear, innocent eyes.

“You see, one can hardly call me that, Mr. Eversea,” she said somberly.

“I suppose not,” he said shortly.

The final moments of the waltz were passed in utter silence between them.

And as he bowed farewell, he did look at them on his way down.

They were excellent, indeed.

T
ANSY RETURNED TO
her chambers late, late, very late, quite foxed on ratafia, champagne, and compliments, both given and received.

She stood motionless for a moment in the center of the sea of carpet, riffling through memories and moments, smiling softly over each little triumph, each glance, each laugh won. Until she got to the only one that truly mattered.

And then her smile slowly dimmed.

She groaned and covered her face in her hands and rocked it to and fro.

She had been grace personified with everyone else. With him, she’d brayed like a mule with laughter and enthused over everything he’d said with the force of an animal released from a trap. Graceless and appalling. She’d watched it happening, as if she were floating over her body in the ballroom, and there was nothing, nothing at all, she could do to stop it. What was
wrong
with her? If this was love, it was dreadful.

The difference, primarily, was that she’d never before needed to really try for a man’s attention. Or try
very
hard, anyway. More specifically: she’d never before wanted a man’s attention the way she wanted his.

“Titsy!” she moaned. “I made him say Titsy!”

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t deserved it.

She yanked off one satin slipper and hurled it across the room. It bounced very unsatisfactorily off the thick carpet, soundlessly.

“He’s a
boor
,” she said aloud to the room and the great arrangement of flowers, now drooping.

So few good opportunities existed to use that word.

And then she yanked off her other slipper, looking about for something to throw it at.

She threw it at the wall.

She fancied she heard a grunt on the opposite side.

Excellent.

She exhaled at length, and then settled at her desk, stabbed a quill into some ink, unfolded her sheet of foolscap and carefully added to her list:

Makes you feel like you’re the only woman in the world when he’s with you.

It seemed a terrible character flaw. A terrible, terrible character flaw to look past her shoulder at a brunette who, while certainly pretty, was also getting on in years. But then, if she was a widow, that meant she possessed the freedom to do whatever she liked—including all of those things Giancarlo had suggested in Italian slang—with Ian Eversea. Who wasn’t a duke, who would never be a duke, who did not even have a title, even if he had those blue blue blue eyes that made her breath snag . . .

Tansy flung herself backward on her bed. Just for a moment. Just for one, long, lovely moment. She would close her eyes for just a moment. Her feet were sore and it would be lovely to . . . lovely to . . .