Guarding a Notorious Lady (5 page)

“Already?” Rosalind gritted her teeth.

“Already what?” Lucy even had the nerve to look perplexed.

“
Already,
” Rosalind repeated with an agitated nod.

“I can’t even get to the top of the room in my own house and you’ve all made a nickname for him?” Lucy looked taken aback. “Well, it’s not our fault you’re loll ygagging.”

you’re loll ygagging.”

“Lolly—” Rosalind cut herself off before she lost complete control of her temper. She paused and breathed deeply. In and out. In and out. “Now,” she said, feeling infinitely more at ease. “Why are you all calling him Lord Sin? Is his name Sinclair?”

“La, I am not aware of his family name.”

“Is he a rake?”

Lucy shrugged and shook her head.

“A scoundrel?”

“Well, no one knows. He’s only just arrived.”

“Then why are you all calling him ‘Lord Sin’?” Lucy looked flummoxed. “Well, you’ve taken a good look at him, haven’t you?”

“No. No. I have not,” Rosalind said, noting that she sounded a little shrill. “I have been fighting to move an inch. Break it to me, I implore you.”

Lucy bent her head close as they shuffled across the room. “Well, he just . . .” Her words trailed off as she turned an alarming shade of crimson. “. . . he’s tall and scandalously tanned by the sun. And his evening clothes!”

“What could be so remarkable about his evening clothes?”

Lucy sighed like a girl fresh out the schoolroom who was seeing her first well-dressed man. “He’s simply
sinful
to look at.”

“Oh, how preposterous,” Rosalind exclaimed.

“Really, Lucy, you cannot be serious.”

“I’m dancing the minuet with him first,” Lucy blurted, counting off on her fingers. “Jane Locke is next for a country dance set. Clara Hopkins promised him the quadril e. Oh, and Mary Chambers was asked for the Scottish reel. And . . . is there to be a waltz this evening?”

Apparently, Lord Winterbourne did not hesitate in the filling up of dance cards.

“How did you all acquire dances with him so quickly?”

“Well, he asked us, ’tis all.” Lucy eyed her speculatively. “I say, are you jealous?” Rosalind leveled a stare at Lucy. “How on earth can I be jealous of the fact that you all have dances with someone I have never met?”

Lucy’s brow puckered in confusion. “But you said you knew him.”

“I did?” Now it was Rosalind’s turn to look confused.

“When did I say that I knew him?”

“In the bookshop,” Lucy muttered, “this afternoon.” Rosalind’s heart dropped down to her stomach.

“And you said he was a farmer.” Lucy snorted. “A farmer, indeed. Admit it. You just didn’t want me to set my cap for him because you wanted him all for yourself.”

“It cannot be,” Rosalind murmured.

But it was.

Before her, the crowd thinned and parted, revealing her eldest brother and Madelyn. Next to them stood Kincaid himself, tall and arrogant, looking like the handsomest devil in all of England, bare knees and all.

“It cannot be,” she repeated.

Nicholas

Kincaid

was
Lord Winterbourne
?

Nicholas Kincaid was a
marquess
? Which meant . . .

she knew exactly why he was in London.

He had come for a wife.

N
icholas wagered that most observers, upon entering the Devine ball room, would describe it as a gilded nest for the social elite. A prestigious affair, where the privileged could frolic, twitter to their hearts’ content, and proudly puff out their feathers to display to all.

Nicholas saw it as a den of horrors.

Aye, it was beautiful, with its gleaming parquet floors and glimmering chandeliers glowing with hundreds of beeswax candles, but it was also stifling, crowded, and if one more lady’s jaw dropped at the sight of his kilt—and his legs, for that matter—he would surely bend over and flash her something truly shocking.

Dressed in formal Scottish evening wear, Nicholas, for the most part, looked like an English gentleman from the waist up, and a Scot from the waist down.

Apparently, it wasn’t an everyday sight, which was fine, really. He was probably making them feel about as comfortable as he felt himself.

But he was nothing if not responsible. He would do his duty. And then he was going back home to the country, where a man could walk across a room without

getting

four

separate

embroidered

handkerchiefs discreetly stuffed in his palm—all of them accompanied with whispered invitations that would make a naval captain blush.

Three out of the four handkerchiefs were from married women, the fourth from a widow who couldn’t have been a day over twenty. And if he wasn’t getting offers for carnal companionship, the marriage-minded mothers were brazenly thrusting their daughters at him as if they were sacrificial lambs.

He couldn’t believe his sister thought he might find a bride here among these duplicitous women—not that he was looking for one.

There were exceptions, he thought, thinking of Gabriel’s Madelyn, but she was indeed a rare creature, and Gabriel’s loyalty to her was rarer still.

He looked over at his friend and conjured up a grin that most likely looked like a grimace. He was appreciative of their friendship, of their all iance. The duke didn’t trust many, and Nicholas echoed that feeling.

They had met when they’d both been lads, exploring the high country where they’d lived. Despite the initial difference in their social classes, they had become fast friends, intuitively recognizing similar dispositions and codes of conduct. Over the years, their relationship had grown on a solid foundation of mutual respect.

But there were things Gabriel had done for Nicholas’s family—hell, for him, for that matter—which could never be repaid.

Nicholas firmly believed that if it wasn’t for having a duke in his corner in Parliament, the individuals in the courts who had challenged his recent inheritance would have drawn out the battle until he would have been obliged to sell all the land that he had acquired on his own just to pay the legal costs. As it was, he had been able to keep all the estate properties that enabled his income.

Indeed. He owed much to the duke—none of it repayable, in Nicholas’s estimation. And the man had never asked for anything in return. Until now.

Back in Yorkshire, he’d asked Nicholas to watch over Rosalind while he was away. Nicholas was, in a word, astounded. This man trusted—well, practically no one, in Nicholas’s estimation. And yet he entrusted Nicholas with guarding something so dear as a sister.

Someone as precious and exquisite as Rosalind.

Certainly, it was easy enough to keep his thoughts from straying to Rosalind in the country when there was plenty of work to distract him . . . but now that he must watch her every move?

Three months, he reminded himself. Three measly months and that was it. Nicholas would uphold his promise to Gabriel and keep an eye on her for the extent of the season. Of course, he’d see to it that she returned safely to Yorkshire to rusticate, but then he would go on with his life.

But Christ above, did ever a man see such an all uring sight?

She stood about twenty feet from him, dressed in a dark red gown that hugged every gentle curve, elongated every line, and accentuated all her feminine wiles. His eyes dropped down, momentarily, to a diamond-shaped, silver brooch that was pinned in the center of her bodice, directly under the deep cleft between her breasts. Wasn’t the perfect symmetry of her lovely curving bosom distraction enough?

Her obsidian hair was upswept into a simple coiffure, dotted with tiny red flowers that matched her gown. A few inky coils dropped like precious jewels to dangle near her ears and down further to skim the porcelain-like skin of her neck and collarbone. All of that, he had gleaned from a hundred discreet glances flicked in her direction.

Tonight she reminded him of a bloodred rose against a clear night sky. A quiet, regal beauty, who—

he flicked a glance over her head—was currently looking at him as if she wanted to a sink a dirk in his chest.

Aye, the lassie was a beauty. And meddlesome, and stubborn, and quite possibly spoiled. And, most assuredly hard to please. She was in her what,
seventh
season, was it? Surely that meant she was just as fastidious in love as the Devines were reputed to be.

He wouldn’t look at her directly, not while she was looking at him. Not when they stood this close and there wasn’t anything to distract him.

And yet he sensed something had changed. It was as if her mind had grown even sharper. He no longer held any doubts that she might not recognize his attraction for her reflected in his eyes. But he still wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of adding himself to her bevy of admirers. He was her protector, her guardian. She had enough admirers.

Gabriel had warned him of how bad it would be, but Nicholas was still amazed at how these men followed her around like pups everywhere she went.

She seemed completely oblivious—or completely accustomed to it.

Whatever the case, Nicholas had first noticed the extent of her widespread appeal at the bookshop this afternoon while he had waited outside for her to leave.

Once she’d come outside, he had watched her and her maid return to their carriage, which had been waiting for them across the park. Five other men had watched her progress as well.

One of them, a tall, lanky fell ow with a shock of red hair, had followed them all the way from the bookshop and had even watched their carriage until it had pulled out of sight. Afterwards, the redheaded man had slipped into a carriage marked with a family crest: a falcon with a dove clutched in its talons. Nicholas hadn’t recognized it (he knew very few family crests by sight), but it had been disturbing enough that it stood out to him.

He didn’t know how Gabriel managed to keep his temper in check or even relax, for that matter.

Placing his hands behind his back, Nicholas took a deep breath and shook his head slightly.

“You look like you’ve swallowed a bad oyster,” Gabriel grumbled from next to him.

“I feel like it, as well.”

Gabriel clapped him on the back. “I know what will help.” He nodded to the musicians at the top of the room. “After the minuet, meet me in the library and I’ll pour you a brandy. Rosalind will be safe enough here.”

“Make it whisky and I’ll have two.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. I’ll look forward to the short respite.” Gabriel chuckled. “Don’t worry. The season will be over before you can blink.”

Nicholas eyed the crowd warily. “Aye, and then I’m returning to the country, and that’s where I’ll stay.” The duke nodded. “Madelyn and I will most likely stay away from the city as much as we can once we return. At least, I’m not ready to share her with everyone else yet, and I know she has a project back home.” He nodded in Rosalind’s direction. “I appreciate your coming here.”

“I know,” Nicholas said quietly, daring a quick glance at Rosalind.

“You are the only one I trust. And she shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Nicholas raised a dubious brow.

“Well, I must concede she was rather . . . concerned about the entire affair, but she relinquished in the end,” Gabriel replied.

From the corner of his eye, Nicholas watched Rosalind approach slowly from the side, her hands behind her back and her head turned in the opposite direction.

Just what was the wee beauty up to? More snooping?

Eavesdropping,

he

decided.

She

was

eavesdropping.

“Let me warn you again,” Gabriel said sotto voce. “If you can help it, don’t let her know it’s you. I’ll reintroduce you so she will not find your presence suspect.”

Nicholas nodded.

“Ah, Rosalind,” the duke remarked as she drew nearer still. “Come, you remember my friend, Nicholas, recently the Marquess of Winterbourne.” With a slight nod, she looked up at him with those summer-blue eyes of hers. She held out her hand, watching him closely the whole time.

There was a single beat of hesitation before he took her gloved hand in his and bent over it. She dipped in a shallow curtsy at the same time.

“My lord.”

“My lady.”

There came an awkward silence wherein they both stared at one another. He’d never met with her before as her social equal. Undoubtedly, the gentry mixed with the aristocracy, but now that they were to blend in the same circles, he felt himself losing his footing.

He’d always used their difference in social standing as a means to keep her at arm’s length—at least in his own mind.

No matter, he assured himself silently. He rather believed he could resist her charms easily enough—

he had done exactly that for years.

“ ‘My lady’? ‘My lord’? Such formalities between old acquaintances?” Gabriel remarked, one side of his mouth pulled into a grin.

Nicholas hadn’t a notion why it seemed the duke was teasing them, but he shrugged it aside.

The small quartet struck up a chord, signaling that the first dance of the evening would be commencing.

Guests not obliged to dance were heading either toward the edges of the ball room or slipping into the banquet room next door for light refreshment.

He would have to search for . . . who was it again?

Ah, Miss Perimuther. Murrayleather? No.
Meriwether.

Wasn’t that it?

And wasn’t it impolite to hastily retrieve a lady for a dance?

Truthfully, he didn’t care for dancing overly much.

But he figured he might as well play the part. Hell, if all he did was stare at Rosalind all night long, she’d discover who her guardian was in no time at all. In fact, he honestly didn’t think he’d get away with it for very long. She’d figure it out, and heaven help him then.

For now, he would be polite, dance a few times with a number of different women, and promptly forget each of his partner’s names. After all, he must play the part of a wife-hunting marquess, if only to keep her from guessing his true purpose.

The cell ist played a series of notes to signal the dance.

Nicholas bowed. “If you’ll excuse me, I have promised this dance to a Miss Hairyfeather.”