The Dangerous Lord (19 page)

“Yes.” Sara trained her gaze on Ian. “And I've ensured
that you're free to pursue your own concerns.”

“I do appreciate it,” Felicity said hollowly. Sara hadn't answered her question. Had Ian set his sights on someone in particular?

The lowering thought dogged her for the rest of the evening. Though she gathered information for her column and agreed to several dances, more often than not she found herself drawn to watching Ian dance.

Some of his partners she dismissed as inconsequential. He stood up with Lady Brumley and Sara out of duty, of course. Then he danced with Lady Jane, who was surely too frivolous for him to consider as a wife, and Miss Childs, whose well-known affection for champagne would tax both his finances and his patience.

It was his second dance with Miss Trent that alarmed her. Miss Trent had intelligence, wit, an even temper, and worst of all, gorgeous blond hair and sweet blue eyes. Miss Trent would certainly meet all of Ian's requirements for an uncomplicated wife, drat her. Not to mention the woman's “impeccable bloodlines.”

“I see Ian is standing up with Miss Trent again,” Sara remarked to Felicity after returning from a galop with her husband. “She'd be a good choice for him.”

“If he could ignore her poor taste in accessories,” Felicity said peevishly, seizing upon Miss Trent's only apparent flaw. “Look at that dreadful reticule she carries.”

“Somehow I don't think it's Miss Trent's reticule that concerns Ian.” There was a hint of laughter in Sara's voice, but when Felicity shot her a chilly look, Sara masked her amusement.

“Speaking of men and their partners, the Earl of Masefield is headed toward you,” Sara added in an undertone. “I do believe he's aiming for a second dance himself.”

Felicity checked her dance card. “Oh, yes, I forgot. I promised him a waltz.” Thank goodness she'd been practicing with James. She'd begun under the pretense of pre
paring James for adult life, but in truth, her lack of ability in that area galled her. It was one of many inadequacies in her character, skills, and appearance that tormented her of late. Ever since she'd met a certain viscount, to be honest.

“Lord Masefield seems enamored of you,” Sara commented. “He rarely dances twice with anyone.”

Felicity waved a hand dismissively, her gaze still on her dance card. “He likes to talk, that's all, and I'm a good listener. It's my profession, you know.”

In a strained tone, Sara said, “Ian seems to be coming this way as well.”

Felicity's head shot up. Only a few paces behind Lord Masefield, he barreled toward them looking inexplicably grim. For a second, she hoped Miss Trent had said something to annoy him. Then she chastised herself for the thought. She
wanted
Ian to marry, so she could put him from her mind once and for all.

Lord Masefield reached them moments later. With a courtly bow, the handsome earl offered his hand to Felicity. “I believe this dance is ours, is it not, Miss Taylor?”

She cast him a smile that broadened as she saw Ian approach. “Indeed it is, my lord,” she said sweetly.

Taking his hand, she stepped forward, but Ian moved to block their path. “I'd like to claim the dance after this one, Miss Taylor, if you're free.”

Drat the man! Not since their one waltz had he requested a dance, yet he expected her to fall down at his feet because he asked her now. Well, he could forget it. “I'm sorry, but my card is full. Now, if you'll excuse us, Lord Masefield has this dance.”

Though Ian's eyes blazed, he stepped aside with utmost politeness to let them pass. “I beg your pardon,” he said in a perfectly even tone, but she felt his gaze boring into her back as they moved away.

Indeed, Ian wanted to strangle her as he watched young Masefield and Felicity face each other for the waltz. A
bloody idiot, that Masefield, a veritable copy of his idiot father. Masefield didn't deserve to dance with her, and certainly not twice.

Sara approached to stand beside him. “Was that wise?” she asked in an undertone. “Asking her to dance when you've done so well to date?”

“Have I? I've stood up with more women than I can count, and I've yet to see her show any sign of caring.”

Sara arched an eyebrow. “I thought you were so sure of her.”

“I was. I am.” He speared his long fingers through his hair. “Bloody hell, I don't know anymore. All I know is I couldn't bear not touching her another minute, especially when that fool Masefield headed toward her. What is she doing with a full dance card anyway? I thought she was here to gather material for her damned columns?”

“You men always assume that only women gossip, but nothing is further from the truth.”

Masefield drew Felicity closer in the turn, and Ian scowled blackly. “Well, Masefield isn't gossiping, is he? He's got his hands all over her. You should warn her away from him—he's only toying with her. His father wants him to marry an heiress, and he has the title to do so. Besides, he's fresh from the schoolroom, barely more than a boy. He wouldn't even know what to say to her if he got her alone.”

“Are you so sure?” Sara asked in a deceptively innocent voice.

He glared at her. She was laughing at him, the brazen chit, enjoying his fit of temper. The woman probably thought it meant something. What it meant was that he needed to bed Felicity Taylor before he exploded with need.

A need that had grown to mammoth proportions the minute he'd seen her enter tonight, wearing a most enticing scrap of fashion. With that gauzy material, it would take
only a few tugs in the right places to render her naked. The sleeves clung to her shoulders for dear life, and the seductively draped bodice slipped down whenever she bowed to reveal a generous amount of golden bosom. It was a miracle the bloody thing stayed up. Every man in the place probably waited to see when it would fall. “Why don't you caution her against wearing those flimsy gowns? She's making a fool of herself.”

“I've seen on one laughing at her. And her gown is no more flimsy than mine.” Sara hid her face with her fan, but he knew she was smiling behind it.

“You're a married woman—you can get away with it. But she's unattached, and it isn't the same. You should speak to her about that gown. It shows entirely too much of her figure. She'll ruin her reputation.”

“As I recall, the only thing ruining her reputation so far is her association with
you
.”

Her tart words didn't sit any easier on him for being true. “Well, I intend to remedy that by making her my very respectable wife. I'm tired of this game, Sara. It's not working. I need a new strategy.”

Sara's expression softened. “Ah, but it is working. She hides it, but she's as jealous as you are. You should have heard her criticism of the incomparable Miss Trent.”

Her words mollified his temper only a little. “I can't go on this way, paying court to women I don't wish to marry. I long ago rejected half of them as possibilities, and the other half have fathers who'd never countenance my suit, even if I wanted the daughters. Which I don't.
She's
the one I want.”

“You must be patient—”

“I can't.” He had no time for patience. He must have a wife, and soon. And it must, it
would
be Felicity. “Surely there's another way to secure her. I need time alone with her. A moment on the balcony in this crush will do me no good, even if I could get her out there. No, I need more
time, enough to convince her she's wrong about me.”

“Or enough to seduce her?”

He met Sara's questioning gaze and considered lying. But Sara could detect that sort of lie from twenty paces. “If necessary.” He should have seduced Felicity the last time he'd had her alone instead of taking a more subtle approach. Subtlety didn't work on her any better than threats. Or jealousy.

Sara looked indecisive, then sighed. “Well, I shan't help you seduce her, but I do know how you could spend time with her and her brothers. She's taking them to the waxworks exhibition tomorrow.”

A slow smile spread over his lips. He began exploring possibilities, tactics, maneuvers. “You mean the one in the Strand?”

Sara nodded. “But make it look as if you met up with them accidentally or she'll never trust me again.”

“I can do that.” Ah, yes. And afterward, he'd accompany them home and wrangle an invitation to dinner. From there…His smile broadened.

“I know how your devious brain works,” Sara remarked, “but I should caution you that seduction might not succeed in changing Felicity's mind. She has a strong will.”

“It'll succeed,” he vowed, although he hadn't been sure of that himself a week ago.

Still, he had no choice. What had begun as an impractical desire to possess her had become an obsession. He couldn't lie down without imagining her in his bed, couldn't eat without tasting her on his lips. For God's sake, he even heard her laugh in his sleep sometimes. But that wasn't as bad as hearing her sighs of pleasure, which he also did in his sleep, in his dreams.

She wanted him, too. He knew it. And she needed him, whether she acknowledged it or not.

Very well—he
would
seduce her and it
would
succeed.
Because if the first seduction failed to convince Felicity she should marry him, he'd seduce her as many times as it took to either change her mind or get her with child. But one way or the other, he would have her as his wife.

T
hank God I'm rid of him
, Felicity thought as she escaped Lord Masefield with the excuse of going to the necessary. The man's idea of scintillating discussion was a chat about the Ascot. She couldn't imagine Ian—

No! Must she keep thinking of that dratted viscount? The man had actually glowered at her during her waltz with Lord Masefield, like a wolf brooding over escaped prey. How dare he, after dancing with half the women in London!

She dearly wished the man would sift through society's eligible women without sifting through her affections as well. She sighed. She had only herself to blame. She could have accepted his proposal, after all.

As she walked down the long hall leading to the necessary, she heard footsteps behind her and a voice call out, “Miss Taylor, wait!”

Halting, she peered back down the dim corridor. A tall man in his late forties approached. She didn't recognize him, yet something familiar about his features made her pause until he reached her.

“We haven't been introduced,” he said, “but I know you. You're Algernon Taylor's daughter, are you not?”

“Yes. And who are you?”

“The name is Edgar Lennard.” He bowed stiffly. “I believe you're acquainted with my nephew, Lord St. Clair. The son of my brother.”

Her interest was instantly engaged. So this was Ian's uncle and Miss Greenaway's employer. Yes, she could see the resemblance between Ian and him in the shape of the forehead and the great height. But there the resemblance ended. Where Ian was dark, this man was fair. Where Ian's features held a certain roughness, this man's were classically handsome, despite his age. She could easily imagine a beauty like Miss Greenaway being this man's mistress. So that theory at least might be true.

Or not. Felicity squared her shoulders. Either way, the man might tell her what she desperately wished to hear—what Miss Greenaway's relationship was to Ian. “I do know your nephew, as a matter of fact. I know him quite well.”

The man pursed his lips disapprovingly. “Then I'd like to speak to you for a moment, if you don't mind.”

“I don't mind at all.”
Tell me everything
, she added to herself.

Noting the nearby open door of a parlor, he gestured to it. “This way, if you please. What I wish to say requires privacy.”

“Very well.” She walked inside. But when he closed the parlor door behind her, she gave him her frostiest smile and opened it again. It wouldn't do to be found alone with this man, even if he was old enough to be her father. Besides, something in his manner put her on her guard, and she'd learned never to ignore such instincts.

He acquiesced, though he maneuvered matters so that they sat as far from the door as possible. “I won't waste your time,” he began as soon as they were seated. “I've heard your name linked to my nephew's of late.”

“Have you?” Lady Brumley had certainly wasted no time in spreading her news.

“As you probably know, he's looking for a wife.”

She played dumb. “Really?”

“Speculation has it that he's about to offer for you. Is this true?”

Good Lord, the gossip had been more accurate than she'd expected. And it seemed to have agitated Mr. Lennard. She shouldn't be surprised that Ian's relatives might be concerned about Ian marrying a woman so far beneath him in wealth, station, and connections, but it annoyed her all the same.

She lifted her chin haughtily. “You can't expect me to know what your nephew is ‘about to' do, sir. I don't read minds.”

The man regarded her gravely. “That's a pity, Miss Taylor, for if you could, you'd know he isn't the sort of man a respectable young woman should marry.”

She gaped at him. She'd had it all wrong. The man wanted to warn her away from Ian, not protect Ian from her. But why? “He seems perfectly acceptable to me.” Well, if he didn't keep a mistress and have more secrets than a mummy's tomb.

“That's because you don't know him. My nephew is a bounder and a scoundrel. He's led many women to ruin, including the one recently mentioned in the
Gazette
.”

“You mean your former governess, Miss Greenaway?” Felicity asked, to see his reaction.

That startled him indeed. “You know her identity?”

“Of course.”

Anger shone in his beautiful features before he smoth
ered it with a false smile. “I suppose my nephew said she was my mistress or some such lie.”

How curious that Ian's uncle would jump to defend himself without knowing what he'd been accused of or even if he'd been accused at all. “Your nephew told me nothing about her. I have my…own sources.”

“I hope they gave you the entire story without slanting it toward my nephew.”

There it was again—that assumption. She kept silent, raising an eyebrow as if to imply she knew more than she did. The ploy often worked in her investigations, especially when the person she questioned was guilty of something.

And it worked very well with Mr. Lennard. He leaned toward her as if to impart something of great import. “Did your sources also tell you the real reason my nephew took Miss Greenaway under his protection?”

“To irritate you perhaps?” she guessed.

He looked affronted. “No. To make sure she kept quiet about his real character.”

She was rapidly coming to dislike this man. “Don't keep me in suspense, Mr. Lennard. I can see you're eager to inform me of what Miss Greenaway is hiding.”

Apparently her sarcastic tone wasn't enough to dissuade him from further confidences. “You must understand, I tell you this only because I can't bear to see my family honor besmirched by my nephew's activities.”

“Go on.” Two weeks ago, she would have been ready to believe anything he said. But two weeks ago, she hadn't witnessed Ian's honorable streak firsthand. She found it difficult to reconcile Ian's concern for her feelings and reputation the last night at Worthing Manor with this man's veiled implications.

“I presume you know that my nephew fled England at nineteen,” he said.

She nodded.

“He fled because his father threw him out for what he did to my wife.”

He paused for effect, and she struggled to keep her face expressionless. But it was a good thing he couldn't see her insides, for they were twisting into knots of terrible foreboding. Perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea to encourage his confidences.

At her silence, he continued. “You see, my wife Cynthia was younger than I, and she and Ian were much thrown together.” His tone harshened. “One can never truly know what tempts a young man to folly, but it seems he mistook her kindness to him. One day when he caught her alone, he—Well, he took advantage of her. In a carnal way, you understand.”

The accusation slithered into the air, as sudden, ugly, and impossible to ignore as a viper dropping from a tree. “You don't mean—”

“Yes, he—” He broke off, his lips drawing into a tight line. “I'm sorry. Though many years have passed, it's still difficult to speak of it. But for your sake, I must.” Gathering himself up, he said baldly, “My nephew, Ian, forced himself on my wife.”

With every word, an awful weight pounded Felicity's chest, like the thousand descents of a printing press onto paper. Could it be true? Could Ian have raped his own aunt? At nineteen?

Ian's secretiveness did lend the man's words some credibility, and the mere possibility of its being true sickened Felicity. She thought of all the young heirs apparent she'd known, the ones who'd cornered her in bay windows or pressed against her “accidentally.” Such lords were brought up to believe they were invincible, that they were entitled to everything. And their arrogant behavior toward women was nurtured so young that she'd once had to fend off a slobbering fourteen-year-old.

But Ian wasn't like the lords she'd known, young or old.
In many respects, he was honorable, and his behavior toward women circumspect…well, except for the mysterious Miss Greenaway. She couldn't believe Ian would violate any woman, especially not a relation. The man had an iron control. Yes, he'd forced one kiss on her, but he'd had a reason and had gone no further. In her other encounters with him, he'd shown more restraint than she.

Now that the initial shock of Mr. Lennard's accusation was past, she wondered at his impropriety in telling her this. If it was so difficult for him to speak of it, why had he done so to a complete stranger? For the noble reasons he claimed, of wanting to protect her? Or something less noble?

“If what you say is true,” she finally said, “then Ian is clearly despicable. But are you sure he forced your wife? She told you of it?”

“Yes. She came to me at once, full of shame and tears.”

“And what did you do about this outrage?”

“Do?” He frowned.

“Surely you called him out, at the very least, for the insult to your wife.”

“My
nephew
? I couldn't call him out! His father would never have forgiven me!”

Yet you can make accusations behind his back without giving him the chance to defend himself
, she thought.
How very noble of you
.

“So that's when Lord St. Clair fled to the Continent?” she persisted.

He tugged nervously at his cravat. “Yes. I confronted him and demanded that he make reparations. And like the coward he was, he slunk off to the Continent in the dead of night with his tail between his legs.”

How strange. The Duke of Wellington praised Ian's bravery, yet his uncle called him a coward. If she had to wager which one lied, her money would be on Mr. Lennard.
“That must have been difficult for your wife, to see her tormentor go unpunished.”

With a long sigh, he stared down at his hands. “The shame of Ian's violation tortured her, so she took her own life, leaving me and our two children to grieve. And all because I couldn't keep my nephew from ravishing her.”

“That's a very inventive story, Edgar,” came a feminine voice from the doorway, “and so convincingly presented, too. You rival even me in your ability to tell a tale.”

As Felicity swung her head toward the door, Edgar Lennard leapt from his chair. Standing in the doorway was the Galleon of Gossip herself, Lady Brumley. Felicity had ignored the woman all evening, knowing that the marchioness would pelt her with questions about the Worthings' ball. But now she felt insanely glad to see her. Listening to Edgar Lennard's sordid accusations made her skin crawl.

Mr. Lennard didn't appear happy to see the woman, however. “This is none of your affair, Margaret. Miss Taylor and I were having a private conversation.”

“Yes, but in
my
house.” Lady Brumley moved into the room, the glittering embellishments of her headdress catching the candlelight. A gold satin turban with embroidered ship's anchors circled her head like a crown, and from it dangled an enormous gold brooch of a ship that bobbed as if actually at sea when she walked.

“You weren't invited to my ball, Edgar. So imagine my surprise when I saw you dart out of the ballroom after Miss Taylor. I only wish the crush hadn't prevented me from joining you sooner.”

The marchioness's tinpot-colored eyes revealed such malignance that a chill scrambled down Felicity's spine. At some time in the past, the Honorable Edgar Lennard had foolishly made the marchioness his enemy.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I heard the rumors you've been spreading about my nephew—how he might offer for Miss Taylor. When I learned that he and Miss
Taylor would be here, I wished to see for myself if they were true.”

“And what did you decide?” Lady Brumley asked, her features stony.

“Judging from his noticeable jealousy toward Lord Masefield and the way he couldn't tear his eyes from Miss Taylor half the night, I'd say you were right.”

The impropriety of this conversation began to grate on Felicity, especially when both parties seemed oblivious not only to her but to the facts of Ian's friendship with her. She opened her mouth to tell them so, but was prevented by Lady Brumley's next words.

“So you've decided to scuttle this courtship the way you scuttled two of his others, have you? Is that why you're telling lies to the poor girl?”

“They aren't lies,” he protested.

Two liveried footmen appeared in the doorway behind the marchioness. Without even turning, Lady Brumley pointed to Mr. Lennard. “That's the man. Throw him out.” As the footmen hurried into the room, the flickering tapers lent a hellish glow to Lady Brumley's smile. “One thing I learned from you twenty-five years ago, Edgar, is not to allow riffraff into one's house. I'm afraid you'll have to leave.”

“You have no call to interfere in this,” Mr. Lennard protested as the footmen flanked him.

“No, but my interference irritates you, which is what I live for, as you well know.”

The footmen led him to the door, but before leaving he glanced back at Felicity. “Don't listen to this harpy's tales. Remember what I said—my nephew isn't what he seems.”

“Get him out of here!” Lady Brumley snapped, and Lennard was dragged off.

Felicity stood motionless, her mind and emotions in a turmoil. She couldn't believe Edgar Lennard's strange accusations, yet the very fact that Lady Brumley didn't want
them heard made her wonder at them. What was going on?