Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (25 page)

Caroline lifted her—well, Frances's—fan as soon as the trio were within a polite distance. “Emily! You look beautiful, as usual. How do you keep your silks from getting creased in the crowd?”

Lady Tallant did a quick pirouette to show off her indigo ball gown. “Jemmy uses his elbows to keep the crowd away. Isn't he a wonder?”

“Elbows, Caroline,” muttered Frances, “would work much better than your fan the next time Wadsworth becomes too free with his hands.”

Her cousin gave a short cough of laughter. “Ah—yes, he is indeed a wonder. Jem, never let it be said there's no place for chivalry these days.”

“I won't,” said the earl gravely. “After all, I sacrifice the tailoring of my coat each time I drive out an elbow.”

His wife rolled her eyes, then inclined her head to the man at her side. “Caro, Mrs. Whittier. We're here to make an introduction.”

Frances could have sworn Caroline wiggled a little, though she managed to keep her face calm. “Oh? To a friend of yours?”

“Much better than that.” The earl bowed. “To my brother, Henry Middlebrook. He's quite a war hero. Perhaps you've heard of his adventures on the Continent?”

The fair-haired man shot his brother a look so filthy that Frances made a little
ha
of surprise. He cut his eyes toward Frances and quickly composed his expression.

Lady Tallant must have noticed her brother-in-law's glare, because she swatted her husband with her fan. “Jemmy,” she hissed.

Lord Tallant blinked. “Er, ah, forgive me. Er, Hal has been recently traveling on the Continent. For, ah, personal enrichment.”

Another filthy look from the brother, another swat from the wife's fan. Lord Tallant looked positively discombobulated now. Next to Frances, Caroline was beginning to shake with suppressed giggles.

Frances grinned. The cipher of a soldier was actually rather entertaining. Interest crackled through her body, the fatigue of the long evening seeping away.

“What, Emily?” said the earl in a beleaguered voice. “God's teeth, stop hitting me. You'll mar my coat if you keep that up.”

“Well, you'll mar my fan,” retorted his wife. “Never mind, Jemmy. You are hopeless. Caro, here is Henry. He is positively salivating to meet you. You too, Mrs. Whittier.”

The man stepped forward with a wry smile. This close, he proved to be just as tall and well made as he had appeared from a distance. His eyes crinkled with good humor; his hair glinted as gold as Caroline's under the hot light of the chandeliers.

“Do forgive my salivation,” he said. “Having been away from London, I suppose I've forgotten the proper manners.”

Caroline shrugged. “Have you? Well, if you're living with Emily, you won't need manners.”

Lady Tallant smirked. “And if he spends more than a minute with you, Caro, he'll need smelling salts.”

“I doubt that,” Mr. Middlebrook said smoothly into the middle of this friendly volley. “I rarely get the vapors.”

“Nor do I.” Caroline gifted him with a sunlit smile and extended her hand. “I'm delighted to meet you, Mr. Middlebrook. Perhaps we shall be good friends.”

He returned the smile and bowed over her hand with impeccable military bearing.

And his right arm swung down, down, loose as the limb of a puppet.

When he straightened, his face pale, Frances noticed what she had failed to see before: his right arm hung stiff and wasted within its sleeve, facing painfully backward.

Damn it.

Henry straightened as quickly as he could. He had forgotten again. This gentleman's uniform he wore tonight, the finely tailored black coat and breeches, made him look and feel like his old self again. When really, he was the only broken-winged blackbird in the flock.

Lady Stratton—a guinea-gold vision, as painfully beautiful as Emily had told him—simply stared, dumbstruck.

The woman at her side recovered first. Dark-haired and olive-skinned, she had a roguish look as she extended her left hand to shake his. “I'm pleased to meet you, sir. I am Lady Stratton's cousin and companion, Mrs. Whittier, and I am generally thought to be terrifying.”

For an instant, warm fingers clasped his. Henry looked at his left hand as it released hers, feeling as though it belonged to someone else. “Thank you, Mrs. Whittier.” His shoulders unknotted a bit. “I am accustomed to obeying my superiors. I shall do my utmost to be terrified.”

“You shall be, Hal,” interjected Jem in a relieved babble. “God help me, the woman never forgets a thing. She can tell me what I wore to a ball, say, last summer. Me or anyone else.”

“That is no trick, my lord, as you always wear black,” Mrs. Whittier said. “As for any other feats of memory, I can assure you, they are grossly exaggerated. I am well aware that a too-good memory is unforgivable in a friend.”

Lady Stratton had recovered her aplomb, and she dimpled. “It is far worse in an enemy, Frannie, which is why we keep you as a friend. Mr. Middlebrook, would you care to sit with us, or do you intend to dance?”

Now it was Henry's turn to stare. “I'm not precisely suited to dancing, but I'd be glad to sit with you.”

“I'll fetch lemonades all around, shall I?” Jem was already poised to battle through the crowd again.

“Two for yourself,” Henry said, knowing his brother's love of sweets.

“Wine for me, Jemmy, if you can find it,” Emily said, shoving a nearby chair into position next to her friend, then another. “Lemonade will give
me
the vapors.”

Jem dropped a quick kiss on her forehead and set off.

“Use those elbows!” Emily waved at Jem, beaming when he shook his head at her before disappearing into the crowd.

She plumped down into one of the light giltwood chairs with a sigh. “It is rather fun discombobulating Jemmy, isn't it?”

“I've always thought so,” Henry agreed, taking the other empty seat.

A silence fell as they all smiled at each other. Henry's thoughts unrolled swiftly:

I
cannot
stand
it
if
they
speak
of
it. But I cannot bear it if they don't.

Surely
Lady
Stratton
must
want
a
man
who
is
whole.

But
after
living
through
the
hell
of
Quatre
Bras, surely I've
earned the right to pursue whatever—whomever—I desire.

Surely
no
four
people
have
ever
sat
in
silence
this
long
within
a
full-crammed ballroom.

After an endless few seconds, Lady Stratton spoke. “As you are a soldier, I must thank you for your service, Mr. Middlebrook. All London has been celebrating because of men like you. To have Napoleon vanquished at last—can it really be true?”

She waved her fan as she spoke, a fluttering gesture that drew his eye to the clean lines of her gloved fingers, her arm. The effect was rather marvelous. She could sit for a painting, just as she was.

Henry gathered his stiff right arm into his left hand, wishing it could paint that picture. “It can indeed be true. But please don't credit me with any significant contribution.”

Too bleak. He summoned The Grin, a blithe expression that had eased his way through society in former years. “Though I thank you for your kind sentiments. It's very good to be back in London, and this is where I intend to make my mark. Emily and Jem are allowing me to stay with them as long as I care to, even though I have already ruined Emily's favorite carpet.”

His soldiering had done him some good; he was adept at parrying and shielding, even in conversation.

Lady Stratton nodded her fair head and accepted this new topic. “You've made a mark on London already, then. That is admirably quick work. I've been trying for years to ruin Emily's carpets, as I am terribly jealous of their fineness. Were you roughhousing with the boys?”

Jem and Emily had two young sons, good-natured boys who were abominably full of energy.

“If only it had been that,” Emily sighed. “No, he spilled paint on it. But he did also help me ruin a table I hate,
and
he came with Jemmy and me tonight. So I suppose I'll forgive him eventually.”

“Spilled paint? You are an artist, then?” Mrs. Whittier's tilted hazel eyes grew bright, lending her features a glow.

Henry nodded. “I was, once. I hope to be again. Though today's effort was, shall we say, not sufficient to get me into the National Gallery.”

Lady Stratton shrugged. “I've never had a painting accepted there, either, so that is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Do you paint?” He felt a quick flash of yearning.

She shook her head, smiling. “No, I don't. But that is nothing to be ashamed of either.”

It took him a moment to sift her words; then he laughed.
Flirtation
. Just as in the old days, before he had left.

He settled into his too-small chair and regarded this widowed countess, this friend of Emily's who seemed to have wrapped all London society into a ball and put it in her pocket. “I wonder, Lady Stratton, if you consider anything worth being ashamed of.”

She tilted her chin down and fixed Henry with the full force of her blue-green eyes. “Oh yes. But nothing that I'd admit to such a recent acquaintance.” Her mouth curved in a secret half smile. “If you wish, you may call me Caro, and perhaps I'll tell you more.”

“Outrageous, isn't she?” Emily murmured in Henry's ear. Mrs. Whittier covered a grin with one hand.

Henry rather suspected Lady Stratton was less so than she seemed, that she had carefully honed her act on all the suitors who had come before. When one had wit and wealth enough, the edge of propriety could prove astonishingly flexible.

He was more than willing to tread that flexible line with her. With such a woman at his side, he could walk anywhere—and eventually, the
ton
would follow along.

It was time to employ a little strategy; he would set the pace. “You do me a great honor, my lady,” he said, “but as I cannot yet be
Caro
to you, I shall not ask that you be so to me.” Not yet
Caro
; not yet dear. Someday, though. Maybe.

She was surprised by this small rebellion, because her eyes widened before she smiled again, slow and appreciative. “You keep me at a distance, Mr. Middlebrook. How am I ever to learn anything of you?”

“Simply ask me, Caro, and I'll tell you all his secrets,” Emily said. “For one thing, he's a rotten caretaker of a carpet.”

“That's one fact,” Mrs. Whittier agreed. “And we know he has two occupations: soldier and painter.”

Lady Stratton coaxed her fan closed with careful fingers. Her golden hair glinted, pale fire under the crystal-spun light of the chandelier. “I'll grant that,” she said slowly. With a quick snap, she flicked the fan open again. “Very well, you've revealed three inconsequential facts about yourself. Perhaps you'll call on me tomorrow and share a fourth?”

“Inconseq—” Henry's brows shot up. “My lady, you are hard to please indeed if you think I've revealed nothing of consequence.”

“I'm not always hard to please,” the widow said with another of those veiled smiles. “It simply depends on what's being revealed.”

“Honestly,” said Emily
sotto
voce
. “It almost makes me wish to be widowed so I could be such a scandalous flirt.”

“She's got a rare gift,” Mrs. Whittier replied. “I
am
widowed, and I couldn't possibly manage it.”

The mischievous Mrs. Whittier seemed entirely capable of managing a scandal if she wished, but Henry dutifully pretended not to hear her aside. He considered her words, though. Yes, Lady Stratton did have a rare gift. She had already conquered society; if he could conquer her, then her triumphs would be his as well.

Emily thought they would suit one another; after all, she had said he would meet his future wife tonight. And Emily was usually fairly astute about such matters.

Very well. “Lady Stratton, I'd be honored to call on you and reveal as many inconsequential facts as your heart desires.”

She pursed her lips in a cherry-ripe bow. “Excellent. Perhaps I'll reveal a bit more about my heart's desires when you do. After all, a woman can't live by facts alone.”

The hairs on Henry's left arm prickled. Possibly on the right too, though he couldn't tell. It only hung numb and useless at his side, as it had since Quatre Bras six weeks before.

Jem shoved his way back through the pressing crowd just then, trailed by a red-faced footman in a crooked wig. The footman hefted a tray of beverages, which Jem handed around their small party.

Emily held up a glass of cloudy, pale liquid. “If this is wine, there was a serious problem with the grapes.”

“It's orgeat,” Jem stated proudly. “Delicious.”

Henry took his own cup and gave it a sniff. It smelled syrupy, like almonds boiled with sugar. Emily looked faintly nauseated as she handed the glass back to her husband, who drained it in one swallow.

Just then, a young man with a determined expression and a still more determined cravat, striped and starched up to his cheekbones, poked his face into their little gathering. “Lady Stratton? Our dance is about to begin.”

Lady Stratton—
Caro
, as she would have it—turned to him. “Oh, Hambleton, thank you for fetching me.” She stood and shook out the heavy silk of her gown, sunny and bright as gamboge pigment. “I must leave you all now. I've enjoyed our little tête-à-tête very much.”

Henry received a proper nod as the countess accepted the arm of her new suitor. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Middlebrook.”

And with a parting smile, she allowed her escort to pull her into the crowd.

So. She was a strategist too, as determined as he to set the pace for their flirtation or… whatever it might become. She would have him know she was quite willing to exchange his company for that of another. Even with Emily's encouragement.

It was time he formed another alliance, then. The companion, Mrs. Whittier—she would be best, if only he could remove the audience to their conversation.

Emily sighed and stretched out her arms. “Jemmy, care to have a seat? If you aren't going to bring me wine, you must amuse me in some other way.”

“Why not have a dance?” Henry encouraged. “I know you'd like to, Emily.” Indeed, the toe of her slipper was peeping from under the hem of her gown, wiggling in time to a sprightly scrape of strings.

Jem and Emily both regarded him with that bizarre expression he'd seen so often on their faces lately: half hope and half apprehension, with a seasoning of worry. “Are you certain? You won't mind if—”

“Go on, enjoy yourselves. I'm sure Mrs. Whittier won't eat me,” he replied.

“Don't assume too much,” that lady said with a shrug. “All the world has told you how terrifying I am.” Her cheeks darkened from rosy madder to velvety alizarin, Henry's favorite reddish pigment. A lovely effect with the fair olive of her skin and the stark, earthy brown of her hair, the ink-dark blue of her gown.

He regarded her closely as the chairs around them emptied, as the cream of London society crammed onto the dance floor.

“Mrs. Whittier, you might be surprised by what terrifies me.”

***

Frances studied the face of this man who regarded her with unnerving seriousness. His brows were determined slashes over eyes of a startling blue, his hair as fair as Caroline's. Faint lines had been burned into the corners of his eyes, no doubt by months under the sultry sun of Spain or southern France. So faraway and lovely that a shiver ran through her body.

He had been a soldier, just like Charles.

“I reckon I have a fair idea of what terrifies you,” she said smoothly, slinging a friendly smile onto her face. “As you're a soldier, it must be eminently practical—a boggy field or an empty powder horn.”

His mouth curved. “You give me credit for more sense than I actually possess. I'm no longer a soldier, for I've already begun the process of selling my commission, so I can no longer have a soldier's fears.”

“Ah, but you must have good sense all the same, or perhaps a remarkable persuasive ability. After all, I know you've staked your claim to a room of Tallant House, and somehow you managed to paint one of Lady Tallant's carpets without incurring her anger.”

“That was no triumph of my own. My sister-in-law happened to be distracted by a scheme.” He took a breath as though he was going to continue, but nothing else followed. The dark lashes of his eyes lowered, shadowing his face.

For a long moment, Frances studied him in silence, then began to tease apart the cracked sticks of Caroline's fan. This former soldier was pleasant to look on—more than pleasant, to be honest. But his pause wasn't for Frances's benefit. If her guess was correct—which, after years of observation, it usually was—the scheme in question involved matchmaking Mr. Middlebrook with Caroline.