Teresa Medeiros (34 page)

Amid a flurry of greetings at the door he saw Cecille du Pardieu and her mama enter, arms linked as if fearful some wayward crustacean might come dashing out at them. Apparently, both their fear and their wounded feelings had been bested by curiosity and a deeper fear of missing the social event of the holiday season. The room swirled around Justin, awash in a tapestry of gaiety and celebration. He heard nothing but the muffled thump of his own faltering heart.

He had set off in search of more champagne when a slight figure slipped through the glass doors into the ballroom. There was no fanfare, no sudden stillness or rustle of movement to herald her arrival, but Justin’s heart dulled to a whisper and Mendelssohn’s
On Wings of Song
began to beat wildly in his brain.

Emily.

Emily gentled, but not tamed, her milky skin aglow, her dark eyes vibrant with laughter and curiosity. A dress of cream silk trimmed in roses hugged her slender figure. Flounces of lace draped a modest bustle, flowing down to a short train adorned with three simple bows. A circlet of silk roses crowned her hair. Her curls haloed her face as they had on the island, no longer stiff and singed, but soft and loose and perfect for a man to bury his hands in.

Justin drifted toward her like a traveler who has spotted a breath of spring on a frozen tundra.

“More champagne, sir?”

Justin recoiled from the tray thrust in front of him. “Christ, Sims, must you bellow in that manner?”

Curious stares assailed them, and Justin realized he had shouted at the hapless man. Before he could apologize,
he became aware of other sounds—the nervous rattle of the footman’s tray, the shrill notes of Cecille’s voice, Harold’s inane bray of laughter. The women seemed to be clumping around in their dainty slippers like dancing bears. He would almost swear he could hear the tinkle of a hairpin sliding from a dancer’s neat chignon and striking the floor.

Justin gripped the footman’s sleeve. “Did you hear that?”

“Of course, sir. As you say, sir.” Sims gently disengaged himself and fled for the kitchen, obviously fearing his master was in the grip of some new and dreadful brain fever.

Justin’s gaze flew to the doors. His mother had taken her place at Emily’s side. His eyes moved to the line of gilt chairs against the wall where Emily sat, folding her gloved hands demurely in her lap. As an unmarried woman she would be expected to remain at her chaperone’s side until she was asked to dance and to be returned there after each twirl about the floor.

As others in the room became aware of their presence, the murmurs and whispers swelled, making Justin’s ears tingle with their newly found acuity A couple danced past him.

“She must be the one, darling,” the man said. “Look at the way the duchess is fussing over her.”

“Not quite the drooling madwoman the countess described, is she?”

His reply was lost in the maddening rustle of his wife’s taffeta petticoats. Justin started forward, determined to reach Emily this time. Just as he did, a bewhiskered young man swept her away, and he was left staring stupidly at her empty chair.

His mother tapped her feet to the music; her fat ringlets bobbed. “Hello, darling. Enjoying yourself?”

“Immensely,” he lied.

He slipped behind Emily’s chair and leaned against the wall, determined to be there when she returned. His gaze
wasn’t the only one locked on her. Heads craned as she spun around the room in an enchanting swirl of cream and rose. Justin’s breath quickened. He wanted to dance with her as he had in New Zealand. He wanted to splay his hand over the delicate expanse of her ribs, and damn the consequences. As he watched her, his heart lurched into reckless song. His fingers drummed on the back of the chair, itching for a smooth scrap of paper on which to record his melody.

At last the interminable tune was done and Emily and her escort made their way back toward the chair. Justin picked a minuscule speck of lint off his sleeve and stepped forward. Penfeld chose that moment to lean over and offer his mother an hors d’oeuvre from a silver tray. Before Justin could maneuver around them, Emily was gone again, whisked off by another young swain. He swore under his breath.

The orchestra launched into a waltz by Brahms that captured perfectly the floating sway of Emily’s skirt.

His mother popped a little sausage into her mouth. “Hungry, dear?”

Emily’s smooth cheek dimpled as she smiled up at her partner. Justin’s nails dug into the back of the chair. “Ravenous.”

Penfeld beamed at the dance floor. “They make a charming couple, don’t they?”

Justin grunted, refusing to commit himself. The man’s golden hair shimmered as he inclined his head to Emily.

“Young Peter just graduated from Oxford,” the duchess said. “He’s level-headed, bright, and very interested in his father’s mining business. A simply marvelous prospect.”

“A prospect for what?” Justin snapped. If the levelheaded Peter didn’t keep his gloved hands still on Emily’s back, he was going to be a marvelous prospect for getting his head dunked in the punch bowl.

His mother only made a mysterious noise.

Justin leaned over her shoulder, craning his neck as another couple blocked his view. “That fuzz on his chin makes him look a little like an overgrown rat, don’t you think?” He smugly stroked his own jaw, where a day’s growth was already pricking the skin.

She tittered. “Don’t be so harsh on the boy. Has it been so long that you’ve forgotten your first whiskers?”

Justin’s hand froze in its motion, then fell limp at his side. He resisted the urge to check the looking glass, afraid he might discover his hair had gone snow white.

This time he didn’t wait for the last note of the waltz to sound. As soon as Penfeld started to shift his bulk, he flung himself over the valet’s legs and plunged through the crowd.

He took Emily’s arm firmly and forced himself to make a genteel bow. “Would you be kind enough to grant me the pleasure of your company for a dance?”

She opened the card affixed to her wrist by a golden thread and studied it. A charming line of concentration furrowed her brow. “I’m afraid not. My dance card is full.” She patted his sleeve. “Perhaps another time.”

Stung by her careless rejection, Justin’s grip on her arm tightened, but before he could protest, a familiar voice chimed between them. “Why, good evening, Your Grace. Charming ball, is it not?” Cecille du Pardieu bobbed him a schoolroom curtsy that made him feel at least eighty. “Come along, Emily dear. There’s a young gentleman who’s simply dying to meet you.”

He had to admire Cecille’s opportunism. Emily was the obvious belle of the ball, and claiming her now could only enhance Cecille’s own reputation. Hooking her arm in Emily’s, she dragged her away, chattering as if they had always been the best of friends. They disappeared in a crowd of laughing, jostling young people.

He dragged his creaking bones back to Emily’s chair and sank into it. When Sims, standing back at a discreet distance, offered him another glass of champagne, Justin
took the entire tray and balanced it on his knees, leaving the perspiring footman empty-handed.

“Dry, sweeting?” his mother chirped.

“Parched,” he replied. As he tossed back a glass, his hungry gaze combed the crowd for a hint of chestnut curls garlanded with roses.

Justin rolled the fluted stem of the champagne glass between his fingers. The ballroom was nearly as empty as the tray sitting at his feet. His head gave a warning throb.

It was well after midnight. A crowd had gathered at the door where the duchess and Millicent were bidding farewell to the last of their guests. He ought to be with them. But doubting his ability to stand, much less converse socially, he remained sprawled in his chair.

He didn’t relish the prospect of climbing the winding stairs to his big, lonely bed. Penfeld sat beside him, humming tunelessly under his breath. Justin was surprised the valet hadn’t fainted dead away from mortification. He had long ago clawed away the tie Penfeld had knotted with such painstaking care, and draped it around his collar.

He narrowed his eyes as Emily untangled herself from the last knot of her admirers and started across the ballroom, her kid slippers whispering on the polished tile. Her silk roses might have wilted a bit under the strain, but she still looked as fresh as a spring rain in the desert.

She approached, smothering a yawn into her glove.

“Tired?” Justin gave his knee a pat of invitation and quirked a devilish eyebrow.

Her cheek dimpled in reproach. She brushed past him, leaned over, and kissed Penfeld’s cheek. “G’night, Penny.”

“Penny?” he muttered. She was already turning away. “What about me?”

She stopped, the curve of her bare shoulders alabaster in the fading light. Justin crossed his arms over his chest and stared straight ahead, regretting the childish challenge the instant it left his lips.

Emily turned in a swirl of silk. The scent of rosewater and vanilla jolted his senses. She bent to give his cheek a peck, but before he even realized he was going to do it, Justin turned his head, grazing her mouth with his own. The contact was brief, warm, and sweet. He knew it wasn’t fair, but he was unable to deny himself a fleeting taste of her lips.

“Come, my dear.” The duchess appeared at Emily’s elbow. “Won’t you escort an old lady to her room?”

As his mother drew her away, Emily looked over her shoulder at him. He leaned the back of his head against the wall, oddly sobered by the rebuke in her eyes.

The clock on the landing below chimed twice. Emily turned over in her bed as the hollow bongs rolled through the house. Why should sleep elude her now? The night had been a smashing success. She ought to be savoring her triumph, dreaming of the hectic days to come as she accepted the invitations Penfeld had assured her would come pouring in tomorrow.

Instead, she lay staring wide-eyed into the shadows, unable to erase from her mind her last glimpse of Justin as he sat alone in the dimming gaslights, surrounded by a sea of limp confetti.

His own behavior at the ball had caused quite a stir. He had appeared the height of rakish splendor with his tie unknotted and his long legs sprawled before him in disreputable indolence. Whispers about his roguish past had flown through the staid crowd on wings of fascination. Oddly enough, while such innuendo would have been the ruin of a woman, it only enhanced his reputation and made him all the more desirable to the eligible girls and their mamas. Emily wondered what they would think if they could have seen him sweating in the fields like a common farmer or reading the Bible to a tribe of rapt natives.

His rakish pose did not fool her. She had seen the hollowness in his eyes as he watched her go. She touched
her lower lip, remembering the jarring brush of his lips against her own.

She rolled over. Champagne glasses had littered the floor around Justin’s chair. Had Penfeld remained to help him to bed? What if he stumbled over something in the dark and fell? Lord knew, there was plenty to stumble over in this cluttered museum. Her father had once lost a friend who, after imbibing too much gin, took a tumble down the stairs and cracked his head. Emily sat straight up, beset by a vivid image of Justin’s body sprawled on the first-floor landing, his white shirt stained with blood.

She climbed out of bed and drew a robe of woolly cashmere over her nightdress. As the toys and fairy-tale books had disappeared from her room, other things had appeared—an olivewood stationery case lined in velvet, a delicate box of rose-leaf face powder, a handsome leather diary inscribed with her initials. Gifts not for a child, but for a woman, all placed by magical, unseen hands.

Leaving Pudding drowsing in front of the fire, she padded down the stairs. Silence enveloped her in its dark cloak, making her realize how badly she missed Justin’s music.

She pushed open the door to the ballroom. A pale splinter of a moon shone through the oriel windows, bathing the long, empty room in a silver wash. She felt foolish. Of course, Penfeld would have rescued his master by now. She shivered as the chill of the marble tile crept into her bare feet.

She was turning to go when a voice came out of the shadows, as husky and intimate as a touch. “You still owe me a dance, Emily Scarborough.”

Chapter 24
 

J
ustin stepped away from the dais into a shallow arc of moonlight. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his head inclined at a sheepish angle.

Emily’s breath tightened in her throat. She smoothed back her curls and hugged the robe tighter around her. “How can we dance? There isn’t any music.”

His eyes searched the reaches of the vaulted ceiling. “Don’t you hear it?” He lowered his gaze to her face. “The angels sing every time you walk into a room.”

She laughed nervously. “It’s more likely a chorus of demons.”

Justin’s laugh never came. He walked toward her, his steps measured, his eyes glowing with an odd light. Emily resisted the urge to fly back up the stairs to the safe cocoon of her bed.

He stopped in front of her and bowed with no trace of a drunken falter. “May I have this dance, Miss Scarborough?”