Edith Layton (19 page)

“I’ll save up and repay you,” she said on a exhaled breath.

“Good,” he said, “I’ll go home and draw up a bill. It’s nice to know I’ll have a little something to keep me in my old age.”

She tried to smile, unsure. But took the arm he offered.

“If anything,” he added as they walked back, “I harm my cause by this. Because it only makes you worry about me more. But I did what I thought best for you. I can’t regret that.”

She nodded. He said no more, but bowed over her hand when he left her with the Ryders.

“You’re angry with us?” Gilly asked nervously, when he’d gone.

“Well, a little, I suppose,” Lucy said. “You didn’t tell me the truth.”

“Good,” Gilly said, “I can deal with honesty. But we didn’t exactly lie either. As for Wycoff, he had to speak with you alone, and there was no other way to arrange it without him singling you out on his own, and causing talk. Not with his reputation. You’d have been much angrier if he’d called when you were at our home, wouldn’t you? I wouldn’t blame you, because then you’d feel trapped. But here in the theater? It was very clever of him. We wouldn’t have been part of it if we didn’t think it was for the best. He’s given his word he’s a changed man—though I never felt the original man was bad as they all said. And I believe him.”

“As do I,” Damon put in. “He’s as good as his word, and his word—at least in regard to you, Lucy—was very good indeed.”

Lucy sat back as the stage lights went up. She didn’t watch. She was busily reasoning that the thing was done, and there was nothing she could do right here and now. But she’d be going to her brother-in-law’s country estate in a few days. She
certainly wouldn’t see Wycoff there, if ever again. She’d have time to worry about her obligation to him later. She felt good, and bad, about that.

When the play was done, the Ryders took her back to the hotel. She thanked them soberly, and was subdued when she let herself into her rooms. She hadn’t seen Wycoff again. He’d vanished.

She yawned, slipped off her shawl, and went to her bedchamber. She saw the note addressed to her, left out on her bed. It was brief. Too brief to cause her such a sudden splitting headache. But it did.

Lucy sank to her bed. They weren’t sending for her? And wouldn’t arrive for a week or two! That meant she’d be alone here in London much longer than she’d planned. Worse, she thought with a stifled groan, not alone at all, but left by herself in a London that was now filled with temptation, and doubt.

W
e’re so pleased you accepted our invitation, especially after what happened last time,” Gilly Ryder told Lucy as they waited for the butler to announce them to the company at the ball. “It means you’re not vexed with us. This time, we’re determined to see you enjoy yourself, with nothing to cloud your pleasure.”

Lucy managed a weak smile. The Ryders’ invitation had come the morning after they’d met Wycoff at the theater. It was clearly a gesture of conciliation. She couldn’t turn it down. It would have signaled anger at them. She wasn’t angry. She understood loyalty to a friend, and they hadn’t done anything underhanded so much as subtle. But this! Taking her to a ball in one of London’s most elegant townhouses. Lucy looked down at her finest new gown,
and wondered if it was fine enough.

Gilly wore shell pink and looked radiant. “Of course,” she laughed when Lucy told her so. “Anyone can tell my condition just looking at me.”

“Only a fortune-teller would know,” Lucy said. “When I was anticipating Jamie, I was green with distress, partially due to the sea, I grant. But you just glow.

Gilly grinned, and shared an intimate smile with her husband. Lucy looked at her gloves and then at the floor, and not just because she had no one to share secrets with. She felt green and bilious as she had when she herself had been pregnant, only now it was because she was so anxious. She’d got a glimpse of herself in the mirror her hosts had in their entry hall. She saw a woman in a blue gown with ice blue brilliants sewn on it. A woman whose pale face showed lines of living, as well as freckles. Her hair was all ringlets, with a blue ribbon wound through them, but since she seldom wore it that way she felt like a stranger to herself, and so even more like an impostor among all the glittering people at this ball.

She was two and thirty, a widow with a child and no funds, a woman who had worked as little more than a servant for a decade. What was she doing here? She almost bolted when she heard her name announced. But she was a grown woman, she told herself, and had responsibilities and met them. She raised her head and went into the ballroom, glad Gilly was so lovely, delighted Damon was so handsome, relieved it was so crowded. No one would
notice her, or how she was quaking so much that her brilliants twinkled like fireflies in the gaslight.

The ballroom was packed with people. The men were formally dressed. Any one of them could have been plucked from the fashion plates of the magazines she and Mrs. Ames’s daughters had studied hungrily on quiet nights for so many years. And the women! They wore plumes and diamonds and fresh flowers in their hair. Their jewels gleamed and sparkled, putting Lucy’s brilliants to shame. The younger ones wore white, the older were dressed in gowns in every color of a very bright rainbow. Some must have painted their faces, or was it the warmth of the room and their excitement that made their cheeks glow so bright?

It was close and crowded and smelled of furniture oil, hot flowers, stale perfumes, and snuff. But Lucy was dazzled. This was where the cream of society played. She felt privileged and unworthy all at once.

Which was ridiculous
, she told herself firmly. This ball would merely be interesting, a thing to remember when she was gone from London, and England itself. There was nothing for her here. Nor should there be. Gilly and Damon had said they thought Wycoff might be there, but she only had to ask if she wanted to leave, and they would. Then why did she keep looking for him?

“This is our friend, Mrs. Stone, newly returned from America,” Lucy heard Damon say a dozen times as he presented her to a bewildering assort
ment of guests. They looked her up and down, both the men and women, pricing her from her hair to her slippers.

“This is our friend, Mrs. Stone—but you must remember, you met the other night,” Damon said loudly enough for anyone to hear.

Lucy’s head came up.

“Indeed,” Wycoff’s deep voice agreed. “How could I forget? Good evening Mrs. Stone.”

He smiled down at her. He wore a dark blue jacket and a lighter blue waistcoat. His linen was dazzling white and his long, muscular legs were clad in knee britches and white stockings. She’d never seen him so elegant, so sardonic, as he bowed over her hand.

“Please don’t blame the Ryders,” he said in a voice for her ears only. “I promised not to trouble you.”

“But you don’t trouble me,” she said immediately.

Something flared in his eyes. “Good,” he said. “But bad here. I may bow over your hand but I can’t touch more than your fingertips tonight.”

“I’m not angry…” she began.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “But that’s how it must be. Consider me somewhat in the nature of a chimney sweep, my dear. My touch would leave a black spot on your reputation. That’s why I can’t keep you company or take you in to dinner, and I promise you, the only reason why I’ll so much as look at other females, much less dance with any tonight.”

“A chimney sweep, are you?” she asked, a little smile she was unaware of playing on her lips. She slid a look to see who was watching them. It seemed to her every female in the room was. “I wonder,” she said. “London’s known for soot. That must be why all these other ladies don’t seem to mind.”

“But I do,” he said, as he bowed and moved on.

Lord Wycoff stood with his shoulders against one of the columns that held up the ballroom. An observer would have thought he was merely being polite by chatting with Lucy, because it would have been rude to ignore a lady who had just stopped dancing and happened to come to stand by his side. It was one of the few ways they could speak. He made sure of it.

They stood side by side and spoke as if they were newly met and had never shared hours of conversation and laughter—and moments of passion—and all the days of frustration since.

He danced with her once, a country dance, where the form of it required he dance with other partners too. In no way would he single her out. But he couldn’t stop watching her, and wanting her. There were more beautiful women, more available ones, ones who would take him, body or soul, just as he was. But none of them made him feel the way she did. Or needed him as she did. He didn’t understand it. But he knew enough of life, and little enough of happiness, to know he didn’t have to understand it entirely. He accepted it, and was willing to wait until she could accept him. He believed
she would, one day soon—if he could only play the game right, and remember that love was not a game to her.

Lucy saw all the women eyeing him.
And why not
? she thought now. There wasn’t a man here to equal him. It was one thing to have been impressed with him in the Virginia countryside. But even here he towered over other men in style as well as stature. He carried his head high, he dressed to perfection without seeming to care. It was more than his looks.
He has such presence
, she thought. And something else, intangible, undeniable, thrilling. He liked women, and understood them. A woman instinctively knew he’d know how to please her, too.
But that was the whole problem, wasn’t it
? Lucy thought, and frowned at the thought.

That earned her a concerned glance from him before he looked away, his expression bland. But a muscle ticked in the side of his clenched jaw. He was very good at this game, she thought sadly. That still bothered her.

“They can easily discover we were on the same ship, there’s no sense hiding that,” he remarked, “but for now it’s best they have nothing else to chew over. Here’s your next partner. Take care not to tread on his toes; he’s foolish enough to be a friend of mine.”

Lucy saw a harsh-faced man with red hair cleaving through the crowd toward her, as though on a mission. He was lean and fit and bore himself like a soldier. His unfortunate hair was cropped close; it
was that as much as the rest that marked him as a military man, though he wore no uniform but formal dress. He bowed.

“Madam,” he said, “May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

“She might, she’s kindhearted,” Wycoff said. “That is, if you’d take the time to let me introduce you.”

“The lady’s beauty dazzled me. Apologies, ma’am. I’m Lord Raphael Dalton, but my friends call me Rafe.”

“Except for those who call you out,” Wycoff drawled. “Your years of army service do you proud, but the war’s been over for a while. Lucy’s a brave woman, but you sound like you’re asking her to accompany you to a firing squad.”

The man’s ice blue eyes sparked. The craggy lines of his face smoothed into a winning smile, the softened expression making him look dashing rather than severe. “Ma’am,” he said with a shake of his head, “forgive me. I’m not a treat with the ladies—like some I could name. But I know you’re newly returned to London and know what a devil of a thing that can be. So, though you could do better, will you come dance with me?”

Lucy smiled. “Don’t apologize. I’ve been away from England a long time, my manners need more polish than yours, I’m sure.”

“America, was it?” Rafe asked with interest, offering her his arm as he led her into the dance. “One place I haven’t been. Care to tell me about it?”

She did, as they waltzed. He was attentive and gallant. But she noted his eyes kept slewing to one particular dark-haired beauty dancing with another man, and on impulse, said, “She’s very lovely.”

He was a graceful dancer but she brought him up short. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to stare. Didn’t even mean to look, to tell the truth. Not done. You’re just as lovely, you know. But Wycoff is an old friend. I wouldn’t poach.”

She supposed he’d been asked to dance with her. But this sounded like he knew much more about her and Wycoff. She angled her head to read his expression better. “But I thought he said he didn’t want anyone to know he knew me.”

The ridges of his cheekbones turned ruddy. “Yes. Well. But, old friends, gentlemen, our code, and such. That’s different, you see.”

“I think I do,” she said. She tried to think of the right phrasing for the question she had to ask. She asked before she could stop herself. “So the gentlemen of London aren’t as—” She searched for the word. “They aren’t as—struck—by his reputation as he thinks?”

“No,” he said seriously. “Most are. Not his friends, though.”

“Oh,” she said, digesting this. “So you’re his friend in spite of what they say?”

“He’s a good man in spite of what he’s done. Did a friend of mine a good turn. She was confused and needed a true friend. He was one to her. He forgot
his own wants to attend to hers. That’s a good man in my book.”

“Oh. So as a favor in turn, he asked you to dance with me?”

“Didn’t have to. I would have anyway,” he said, and asked her about Virginia again to let her know that was all he’d say about it.

Her next dance was claimed by a man she found to be utterly and effortlessly charming. He was younger than Wycoff, about her own age, she’d think. But tall and elegant as Wycoff. He wasn’t handsome. Only fascinating. He had a bony face redeemed by brilliant azure eyes, and an air of restlessness as well as languid grace. He bowed over her hand, and put a hand over his heart. “The next dance is mine, I think, I insist. Since no one’s around to do the honors and the music’s begun, I’ll take matters into my own hands and ask for yours for this set. I’m Earl Drummond, dear lady. Friends call me Drum, and I hope you become one, so you will, too.”

The moment they were alone in on the ballroom floor, she laughed. “I
know
he asked you to dance with me.” Her expression dared him to ask who “he” was.

He rose to the challenge. “Of course,” the earl said easily. “He wants to launch you into society, he wants only the best to partner you. That’s why he asked me,” he added with a grin to show he was jesting.

“But I don’t understand, if he has respectable gentlemen like you and Lord Dalton and Damon Ryder as friends, why does he worry about his reputation?”

The azure eyes grew serious as he looked down at her. “He has no reputation, that’s why. He knows that, and London won’t forget it. He’s right to want you unbesmirched by it.”

“But to ask you to dance with me—and yet to avoid me himself? I don’t understand.”

“He’s a man who chose to live outside convention,” he told her carefully, “however he came to do so. I’ve found him to be honest, almost to a fault. But I’m a man. The reason for his previous behavior is gone now. It remains to be seen what time has done to him and will do for him. He knows that. You seem to be an intelligent woman. I’d do as he says in this if I were you. But that’s ridiculous, and too easy for me to say, isn’t it?”

She nodded, and looked down. “Yes. And no. Thank you.”

She hadn’t been a popular dance partner before dinner; she hadn’t expected to be. She was a stranger and a visitor from another land. But her hand was requested for every dance after that. She danced with another earl, she waltzed with a merchant, she laughed with a dandy who was prettier than she was. She refused two gentleman after the clock struck midnight, and went to stand by the long French doors, waiting for a breeze to cool her—and hoping that standing alone and at the side of the ballroom
might lure Wycoff to her. He was nowhere in sight. She’d been looking for an hour.

“I only asked Drummond and Dalton to attend you,” a familiar deep voice said at her ear. “The others followed suit because you look so lovely tonight.”

“Fiddle,” she said without turning her head.

He looked at her prim profile, and chuckled. “
And
,” he added, “the others are sheep—both in what they admire and what they despise. And no, you can’t have these lovely lemonades I’m holding. They’ve been commanded. I’m fetching like a footman for the Dowager Lady Milton and her cross-eyed sister, you see. What they lack in looks and charm they make up for in social weight—as well as their own. They distrust me. I dislike them. But if I lie enough about that to damn what is left of my soul to eternal flames, I can win a withered smile from them. A smile leads to a kind word to others, and someday the
ton
may consider me neutered, with everything clipped and neat, suitable for a stint in their airless parlors.
If
I’m lucky.” He gave her a wry smile before he stepped into the crowd, leaving her alone again.