Heartless (50 page)

Levi bowed and Aurora curtsied as was proper.

Miss Ellison looked at Aurora. She took the hint. “And this is my friend, Miss Ellison,” she introduced dutifully. Ellie curtsied and Lord Greville bowed again.

“How is it,” Levi asked with a look of teasing, “that two such beautiful ladies have managed to stand here all alone?”

“Oh, give over, Levi, do,” Verena commanded, tapping his arm with her fan. “I haven’t seen dearest Rory in nearly four years. Now leave us be.”

Lord Greville’s thoughts were writ clear on his handsome face. He was annoyed to be so readily dismissed, but ever the gentleman, he smiled. “As you wish, my lady,” he replied formally. He bowed again and, with one last teasing grin for Miss Glendenning, left.

She watched him walk away and felt her temperature rise several degrees. Whoever said ladies didn’t suffer from the same lustful feelings as women of the lower orders had bats in his belfry. It had to have been a man. No woman could look at a man like Lord Greville and not wonder what it would be like to be in his bed.

She bit her lip, startled at her own improper thought.

“I declare you have not heard a word I’ve said, Rory,” Verena exclaimed in exasperation.

“I am sorry, Doll,” Aurora said with an apologetic smile. The look on Verena’s face told her that her friend had noticed the source of Aurora’s preoccupation. She flushed in embarrassment. 

Other guests approached in that moment.

“Levi was introduced to the beautiful newcomer,” said a handsome man with blond hair and teasing blue eyes. “Now it is my turn. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Connor Northwicke. Verena’s husband,” he added at Aurora’s look of incomprehension.

“You are married?” Aurora said, wide-eyed. She hastily curtsied as Ellie whispered that he was a marquess. “You are a marchioness?” she added then.

Verena laughed and tucked her hand into her husband’s arm after he had been introduced to Miss Ellison and bowed to both ladies. “I am, although the title is the Marquess of Beverley and Con and I choose not to use it.” A shadow passed over her face but it was replaced with a bright smile. “It has been almost three years now,” she replied, a happy smile directed at her husband.

“Is it my turn yet?” inquired a cynical voice just behind Aurora.

“Behave, Adam, or else,” commanded a pleasant feminine voice.

“Or else what, my love?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said in exasperation. “Just,
or else
.”

Aurora turned and found herself looking up at the Countess of Rothsmere and Sir Adam Prestwich. She smiled uncertainly. They were both so much taller than her that they actually made her a trifle uncomfortable.

The baronet bowed and lifted her hand to his lips, bestowing a kiss there that had his wife scowling at him. A nervous giggle escaped before Aurora could stop it.

“Adam, you are embarrassing the girl,” his wife admonished. “She hasn’t even been introduced yet and you are already flirting with her.”

“For shame,” Lord Connor added with a twinkle.

“I know who you are,” Aurora offered hesitantly. She smiled at the raised brows of her new companions.

“Our infamy, I mean, fame precedes us,” Sir Adam remarked with a smirk. “What gossipmonger has been filling your head with tales of our exploits?”

“I assure you, it was no such thing, Sir Adam,” Aurora replied in all sincerity.

Adam inhaled. “Egad, she does know me. What else does she know, think you?” he directed at the group in general.

Verena laughed and rapped the baronet over the knuckles with her fan. “Leave her be, Adam. I’ll not have you teasing poor Rory just so you can see her blushes.”

But Aurora wasn’t blushing. She studied the baronet’s wife with interest. It appeared that the lady was used to her husband’s flirting and all her admonishments were merely show. Intriguing.

How different from Verena and her husband. Lord Connor teased but didn’t flirt and he was clearly devoted to his wife. Aurora was glad. She knew there was something in Verena’s past that haunted her and it was obvious that her husband had helped to put it behind her.

The countess held out her hand. “I am Lady Prestwich. But I insist you call me Bri or Brianna. We are going to be friends, you see.”

Aurora took the hand offered her and shook it, shocked at the level of informality the countess demanded. “I so hope so, my la—” she blushed. “I mean, Bri. I am Aurora, or Rory, if you prefer. This is Miss Ellison, my friend and companion. She keeps me out of trouble,” she explained with a charming grin that revealed a dimple in her left cheek.

“We all need someone to do that,” Lord Connor inserted with a playful look directed at his wife. “That is why I’m married.”

“Aurora?” Bri said suddenly. She didn’t wait for an answer. She looked at Verena. “Isn’t that little Julie’s second name, my dear?” she asked.

“Oh, yes.”

Aurora’s glanced from one woman to the other. “Who is Julie?”

“Juliana is Con and Verena’s daughter,” Sir Adam informed her.

Aurora looked at her friend again. “Truly?” she whispered.

Verena nodded silently as tears pooled in her violet eyes. Aurora felt answering tears form in her own eyes. “You remembered.”

The looks of surprise, shock, and curiosity were genuine this time. A tear slipped down Verena’s cheek; one slipped down Aurora’s.

“I think we need champagne,” Adam commented quietly to Northwicke. They retreated from the emotional females to seek out the refreshment room.

“We are drawing a crowd,” Bri murmured to Miss Ellison. The older woman nodded. “Blast!” the countess exclaimed suddenly. Miss Ellison looked at her in shock. Bri apologized for her language. “My cousin, Greville, approaches.”

Miss Ellison understood immediately. She grasped Aurora’s arm, the countess grasped Lady Connor’s, and the pair hurried the weeping females out of the salon and into a blessedly deserted antechamber where they could have some privacy.

*****

Levi scowled so fiercely that the little
débutante
closest to him shrieked in fright and buried her head in her mother’s ample bosom.

Blast. He’d lost them. He wandered up and down the corridor, around corners, through vast salons, and still found nary a sign of the ladies. Just where the devil did they go?

He heard a charming laugh somewhere to his left. He turned toward the room and put his hand on the handle. Then he heard a masculine laugh and an answering giggle. He backed away. That was most definitely not them.

He finally gave up and returned to the ballroom. And there she was, standing on the other side of the room and laughing at something Lord Delwyn Deverell said, blast him. Levi fought the urge to march across the room and call Deverell out. It would make him a laughingstock to do something so tottyheaded over a girl he had only just met and with whom he had exchanged no more than three or four sentences, if that.

So he growled instead, taking no notice of the charming widow at his side who suddenly backed away from him.

Calling Deverell out was not a good idea anyway. Their friendship might not stand up to such a drastic test. He’d known the duke’s son since Eton but they had never been very close.

Miss Glendenning smiled up at Deverell. Levi shifted his feet, uncomfortable with his jealousy. But he’d never been one to hesitate when he wanted something.

And he wanted her.

The thought of marrying the saucy Miss Glendenning was not as frightening as the thought of life with any of the other ladies upon whom he’d showered his attentions of late.

One of those very ladies spotted him and moved his way. He considered running for his life as she was the one chit that he did not want. Her father had already made it quite plain, however, that he would favor the match and her dowry was nothing to scoff at.

“Lord Greville, what a delight, to be sure,” Lady Marigold Danvers enthused brightly.

Levi bowed. “The delight is mine, I assure you.”
As delightful as
being shot in the foot...or the knee. Definitely the knee.

She giggled and held out her hand. Levi just barely restrained himself from glancing heavenward and dutifully kissed the air above the appendage. She giggled again.

“Did you see Lady Margaret’s dress, my lord?” Lady Marigold said from behind her fan. “I do declare she finds the most untalented
modiste
in London just so she can stand out.”

Since the young lady in question lacked the funds to frequent the latest
modiste
favored by the
ton
, she made most of her own clothes. Unfortunately, her expertise with a needle left something to be desired. The lines of the pink gown were all wrong for her angular and rather bony figure and the color clashed horribly with her flame red hair. It was also well known that she would much rather be on a horse than at any
ton
gathering so she never seemed to care what she looked like.

She was a very sweet girl, however, with absolutely no malice or guile in her. Levi had had several occasions in which to converse with her and had found her quite pleasant to be around. He thought it was a shame that the gentlemen ignored her just because she hadn’t the fashion sense God gave a goat.

He looked down at his companion with something akin to dislike. He would starve alone in the gutter before he’d marry such a spiteful cat as Lady Marigold, he swore to himself.

Then he almost laughed. If Lady Margaret lacked the fashion sense God gave a goat then Lady Marigold lacked the fashion sense God gave a flea. The delicate peach color of her gown was flattering, it was true, but she seemed to think that the more bows and flounces she could fit into the design the better.

“Perhaps I should give her a few tips,” his little blond companion murmured.

“How excessively kind of you, my lady, to think of those less fortunate than yourself. I am sure she would appreciate any help you would be willing to give.”
Not bloody likely.

She giggled. Again. Could the girl make any other sound? And just when had she decided that giggling all the time would attract a husband? He remembered a time when she wasn’t nearly so insipid or stupid. Perhaps losing the illustrious title of Marchioness of Beverley had convinced her that she was going about this husband-attracting business all wrong.

“My lord Greville, have you forgotten me?”

He nearly groaned. “Of course not, my dear Miss Weatherby. How do you do?”
Enter spiteful little cat number two....

He bowed over yet another hand while she informed him that she was excessively well.

“Lady Mari and I were just discussing the merits of certain London
modistes
,” he said, hoping to get the two ladies to chat and give him a chance to escape. Whose harebrained idea was it for him to find a bride anyway?

He seemed to recall Adam saying something to that effect.

“Indeed,” the newcomer drawled as she cast an experienced eye over Lady Marigold’s ensemble. “And who do you patronize, my lady? I want to be sure to avoid her.”

Since Miss Suzanne Weatherby frequented only the best of shops, her own gown of scarlet silk was the very height of fashion. Cut low over the bosom and high at the waist with a short enough skirt to show tantalizing glimpses of a well-turned ankle, it was forgivable that many gentlemen thought more of tumbling her into a bed than sliding a ring onto her finger.

Levi wanted neither. But the girl had a dowry of twenty thousand pounds. Her age declared her to be on the shelf. Why, she had to be at least four and twenty! Which accounted for her very un-
débutante
choices in dress colors and styles.