The Duchess Hunt (10 page)

For the first time in a good hour, no one
accosted them. She supposed it was because Simon was no longer with them.
Beside Sarah, a young debutante whispered to her companion as the dancing
began, “That’s the Duke of Trent. Oh, how I wish to be introduced.”

“What would you say to him if you were?”
her friend asked.

“I’d fall to my knees and kiss his toes
and beg him to choose me for his duchess,” the young woman said. Both girls
tittered but kept rapturous eyes on Simon over their fan tops.

Sarah watched him, tall and handsome, as
he switched partners, smiling down at the new lady. His lips moved. The lady, a
plump woman a few years older than Sarah, gushed something Sarah couldn’t begin
to comprehend, then turned pink to the tips of her ears.

“Lady Esme!”

Sarah and Esme both turned. A beautiful
young woman and her older counterpart were approaching. By the similarity of
their features, Sarah assumed they were mother and daughter.

Esme rose, a bit of her dress catching
between her seat and Sarah’s, and she yanked it out as Sarah rose, too.

“Good evening, my lady.” She gave an
awkward curtsy over her chair. “Um…” She looked at Sarah. “This is my
companion, Miss Osborne.”

Sarah smiled, waiting for the ladies’
names. But Esme was finished, so the older woman, after sliding her gaze one
last time to Esme, said, “Miss Osborne, it is lovely to meet you. I am Lady
Stanley, and this is my daughter, Miss Stanley.”

“Good evening.” Sarah curtsied, trying not
to wince at the breach of protocol Esme had necessitated.

They stood there far too long in an
uncomfortable silence. Sarah studied the young woman, who in turn studied Esme
with an interested, coolly assessing gaze.

She was beautiful. A blond angel dressed
in white with a shimmering silver trim. Blue-eyed, with a healthy glow in her
cheeks. She was the quintessential maiden shopping in the marriage mart with
her matchmaking mama. Sarah had heard of Baron and Lady Stanley – their country
home wasn’t far from Ironwood Park. But they’d never visited, and the duchess
had never spoken of having them as guests. Sarah had no idea why, especially
since the daughter appeared similar in age to Esme.

Finally, seemingly unable to bear the
silence any longer, Lady Stanley said, “I hear you have only recently arrived
in London.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Esme said.

“We arrived just a few days ago,” Sarah
supplied.

“I see. I wouldn’t have expected to see
you in Town without your mother,” Lady Stanley said. “Did she remain at
Ironwood Park?”

“She is…”

Esme swallowed hard, and again, Sarah
finished responding for her. “The duchess was unable to join us.”

“Oh my. I do hope she is well.”

Sarah looked closely at the older woman.
Her face was a mask of polite concern, yet there seemed to be a slight
insincerity to the way she’d said that. Had something unpleasant occurred
between the women? Was that why the Stanleys never came to Ironwood Park?

“We will convey your good wishes,” Sarah
said simply, not wanting to lie and yet not wanting to give anything away,
either.

Miss Stanley seemed uninterested in this
topic. Her gaze had moved from Esme to the dance floor, where the musicians had
just finished playing the last strains of the minuet. Moments later, Simon
rejoined them. After greeting the lady and her daughter, he politely asked Miss
Stanley to dance the quadrille. She accepted with a brilliant smile.

Simon had to leave to escort another lady
into the next dance. Miss Stanley’s partner came to claim her, and Lady Stanley
spotted a friend and wandered off, leaving Sarah and Esme alone again.

As they resumed their seats, Sarah snapped
open her new fan and fluttered it over her face as she watched the ladies
continue to fawn over Simon.

Two more dances were punctuated by awkward
conversations with acquaintances of Esme’s from last Season. And then the
quadrille came, and Sarah watched Miss Stanley dance with Simon. She didn’t
blush or simper as most of the other ladies had. She was open and gregarious
and laughing with him, always brightening when she returned to him in the
dance. She flirted with him in such a subtle yet entrancing way, Sarah couldn’t
tear her gaze away from them.

She wondered what Simon was thinking. He
smiled down at Miss Stanley, but he’d smiled down at every other lady, too. Yet
with Miss Stanley, it was different. Sarah couldn’t quite put her finger on
why, but it was, and it made her skin feel tight over her flesh.

She thought, not for the first time, of
what it would be like when Simon married. When a new mistress came to Ironwood
Park to take on the role of the Duchess of Trent. What would happen to their
uncertain relationship then?

She wanted to ask Esme more about the
Stanleys, but she couldn’t, not in this environment. And she didn’t want Esme
to see how… well, how
jealous
she was.

So she sat there, loving Simon more than
ever, envious of the ladies who so openly touched him and flirted with him, and
pretended that none of it mattered.

Georgina Stanley gazed up at Simon, her
light blue eyes encircled by a dark ring of blue and fringed with lashes that
she swept downward as she turned away.

Her eyes were blue… like Sarah’s. Yet so
different. Sarah’s eyes were a deep blue. When he looked into them, he saw so
much more than their color. He saw understanding and interest and depth. Hers
were eyes that could burrow under the shell of the Duke of Trent and understand
the man that lay beneath. She
knew
him.

He clenched his jaw as he turned Miss
Stanley. He shouldn’t be thinking this way. Shouldn’t be comparing other women
to Sarah.

Miss Stanley didn’t really know him.
Despite the fact that they had danced countless times and conversed a
significant portion of those, she didn’t know anything about his family or his
home. Or
him
.

Simon was acquainted with her father from
Parliament and from his club. The man had been hinting at an association
between their families for months. Simon had been noncommittal – he hadn’t made
public his intention to find his bride this Season. God forbid – if he had, the
matchmaking mamas would wage a full-fledged assault.

He took the hand of the dark-haired lady
to his right, and they walked to the center, meeting the other couples,
stepping back, where they turned again, and he found himself face to face with
a third lady, who murmured a shy, “Good evening, Your Grace.”

He greeted her with a smile, then they
separated.

Still, most everyone knew who he was. They
knew his age, and they knew enough about him to know he intended to marry and
father an heir one day. The Stanleys weren’t the only family that had turned
their focus on Simon as a potential husband for their daughter.

He reached for Miss Stanley again, resting
his right hand firmly across her lower back.

Miss Stanley had been present at almost
every event he’d attended in London since the beginning of the year. By now, he
knew the feel of her hands as they clasped over his, how her waist curved
beneath his fingers.

Yet she still didn’t know him. For that
matter, he didn’t know her. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to.

She was lovely – her beauty, frankly, was
unsurpassed in society circles. She was the belle of the Season. She was also a
daughter of an aristocratic family with money and connections. The Barony of
Stanley was an old and respected one. She would make a man a fine wife someday.

But she isn’t Sarah…

He smiled down at her as he led her in
another turn and thrust that thought from his mind.

The truth was, no one could compare to
Sarah. He couldn’t expect to find another Sarah from the pool of eligible
ladies in London. Sarah was one in a million.

The thought depressed him. God knew he
didn’t want a marriage like the one his mother and father had subsisted in.

No, that would never happen. He’d never be
like his father. Or his mother, for that matter. Both of them had indulged in
affairs – several affairs, in the case of his father. He’d kept mistresses in
Town while Mother had been left on her own at Ironwood Park.

Many of his peers kept mistresses secreted
away, to be brought forward when a man was bored or in need of sensual
companionship a wife could not or would not provide.

Simon had observed his mother’s misery
more than once. Long ago, he’d resolved to never do that to his own wife.

Holding both Miss Stanley’s delicate
gloved hands in his own, he looked down into her bright blue eyes and thought
about a life with a woman like her. She was beautiful and virtuous and
gregarious… all important components of a respectable duchess.

The music ended, and he bowed to Miss
Stanley and then to the lady to his left. Turning back to Miss Stanley, he led
her back to her mama, responding to her chatter but scarcely hearing it. When
they reached Lady Stanley, he asked Miss Stanley to accompany him to the
supper, which she accepted with pleasure.

She did seem to enjoy his company, but he
was no fool – he knew most of the time it was his title that held the allure.
That was why he could count his true friends – those he was sure liked him for
him – on one hand. Sarah, of course, was among those.

Leaving Miss Stanley with her mother, he
sought out Esme and Sarah… and with an inward cringe, he remembered his
sister’s awkwardness. Why did she struggle with social gatherings? He didn’t
understand it. She’d been raised to shine in such settings, and yet she simply…
didn’t.

Whitworth had taken Esme for their dance,
so he found Sarah sitting alone, watching the beginning strains of the country
dance. He slid into the chair beside her, gazing out over the ballroom floor.

“Where are they?” he asked her softly.

“Near the potted palm.”

Esme stood beside Whitworth, who gazed at
her with a small, encouraging smile on his face. Good man, Whitworth.

Simon had been present at her final ball
last summer. It had been a disaster. Not only had she fallen, sprawled over the
wood floor, but two other people had tripped over her, causing the most
unseemly pile of silk and wool and human limbs on the dance floor. He had
protected Esme from seeing it, but there had been a very unflattering
caricature of her in the scandal sheets the following day.

Glancing around, he saw they were still
whispering about it. Several ladies scattered throughout the ballroom were
pointing at Esme and giggling behind their fans.

In his mind, he catalogued the identities
of those who laughed at his sister. He wouldn’t make a scene, not here or
anywhere, but he’d remember.

“She’s so brave,” Sarah whispered.

He glanced at her, wondering if she knew
what had happened last year.

Sarah kept her gaze fastened on Esme, her
eyes glassy, and Simon wished he could dance with her. He wanted her in his
arms. He wanted her to be the one smiling up at him, looking at him with those
honest blue eyes.

But a duke did not ask his sister’s
companion to dance.

He remembered the first time he’d seen
Sarah dance, in the parlor at Ironwood Park. Miss Farnshaw had been pounding
out a minuet on the pianoforte, and Sarah and Esme had been practicing in the
center of the room. Hovering near the door, Simon had observed them, unnoticed.

Sarah had been seventeen years of age, and
on that day, his gaze had been riveted to her. Watching the way she’d helped
his twelve-year-old sister, her laughter, and her exuberance as she’d danced,
Simon had felt the first stirrings of lust for Sarah Osborne.

It hadn’t been three years ago, after all.
It had started long before then, and over the years had grown into this
powerful, pulsing need he felt for her now.

Esme began the country dance, not looking
at Whitworth but at her feet, as if willing them to follow her commands. And
her performance was, if not admirable, then adequate. No falls. Not even a
trip. Through it all, Sarah studied her, and between speaking to people who
came up to greet him, Simon covertly studied Sarah, taking in her profile, the
lively expressions that crossed her face, her scent so fresh compared to the
press of bodily sweat and heat that surrounded them.

She truly cared about Esme, that much was
evident in the careful way she observed her, swaying gently to the music, then
releasing little puffs of relief when Esme successfully executed a step.

At the end, Esme went so far as to smile
at Whitworth for a moment before her shyness overcame her once again. Whitworth
escorted her to Simon and Sarah and thanked her for the dance before
disappearing into the crowd.

Sarah gave Esme a brilliant smile, and the
two women shared something silent between them that Simon found impossible to
interpret. He was glad that Sarah was proving to be such a fine companion for
his sister.