The Perfect Waltz (7 page)

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried to fall in love. She’d tried so hard. In the last two seasons she’d danced with hundreds of men, given them smiles and encouragement and listened to their tales and their woes. They’d paid her compliments and brought her flowers and small gifts. Several had asked her to marry them. They’d kissed her hand, and even her lips once or twice, but none of them, not one, had moved her in the slightest.

She glanced across the room to where Mr. Reyne was bowing correctly over Lady Elinore’s hand and frowned. Lady Elinore, again?

 
Sebastian felt her watching him and tried not to notice. He was here to court Lady Elinore. Of all the ladies on Morton Black’s list, Lady Elinore stood out, as if tailor-made for the job. She was quiet and grave and earnest—all qualities he admired. He found her quite easy to talk to; she didn’t mind silence, and she didn’t expect to be charmed with compliments and whimsical fripperies. He was not the charming type.

And she was rational. All his conversations with Lady Elinore so far had been on wholly rational matters, which was a great relief. He didn’t understand women. Any females, really. A woman who was rational would be a relief to deal with.

Best of all, there was no danger of him becoming vulnerable to her. She was not the kind of woman men fell helplessly in love with, and that, for Sebastian, put the seal on the deal. She would be a satisfactory wife, and he would take good care of her.

She was the only rational choice, and he’d considered his options thoroughly. He was not a man known for abandoning his plans. He saw them through to the end. And if unforeseen problems arose, he dealt with them and moved on.

He glanced across the room. His unforeseen problem was frowning: an adorable wrinkling of her brow, a jut of her perfect chin, and red lips pouting thoughtfully in a way that made him long to kiss her, just once. And then move on.

She stood with her family and friends on the other side of the ballroom, now laughing suddenly with them all at some joke. It could as easily be an impassible chasm as a polished parquet floor.

He nudged Giles and signaled his intention of leaving. Within minutes they were bowing over the hand of their hostess, taking their leave.

“What’s the matter?” Giles asked as they waited for their coats and hats to be brought. “I thought you were enjoying yourself.”

“The waltz was a mistake.” Sebastian shrugged into his greatcoat. “I need to expedite this courtship in as short a time as possible.”
Avoiding as much contact with Miss Hope Merridew as possible.
He took his hat from a liveried footman and crammed it on his head.

“Why do you say the waltz was a mistake?” Giles placed his silk-covered hat at a rakish angle and tucked his sword stick under his arm. “She did you a signal honor in selecting you for that last waltz, you know; the ballroom was knee-deep in men who’d kill for the chance.”

Sebastian made a noncommittal sound. He knew it. And tried not to read anything into it. His heart pounded with the memory of it. That was why the waltz was a mistake—that damned pounding!

Giles went on, “I thought you and Miss Merridew looked charming together. And I’m certain with practice, you’ll loosen up.” They descended the steps into the chill, damp air.

Sebastian scowled but decided not to explain to Giles that the problem lay not with his knowledge of the steps but with the effect of the lady on his wits. And body.

“Charming looks do not come into it.”

Giles stared at him. “Why ever not, my dear fellow? You don’t have to make do with Lady Elinore. Just because Miss Merridew looks like an angel doesn’t mean she is lacking in all the qualities you seek.”

“I’d be obliged if you ceased harping on this theme,” Sebastian muttered. “Miss Merridew is not the sort of woman I need, and that’s that.” Their footsteps echoed as they walked.

Giles said frankly, “I’d say from the way you were dancing, she’s exactly what you need.”

Sebastian frowned, but decided not to pursue that line of argument. He said with dignity, “I need a wife, not for myself, but for my sisters.”

Giles chuckled. “I don’t think that’s legal in England.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know what I mean. My sisters need a mother figure. They could scarcely find her in a chit only half a dozen years older than they are, now could they?” He quickened his pace. Tendrils of mist hung in the air as they walked.

“Strictly speaking, your bride would be a sister-in-law, not a mother, and who is to say that an older sister not so very far removed from them in age would not be the very thing they need?”

Sebastian shook his head firmly. “I need a wife who has seen something of life, who understands that fairy tales are lies told to children, who has experienced hardship, and will not be easily shocked by my—”

Giles interrupted him. “Miss Merridew might surprise you. She is stronger than she seems and has firsthand experience of hardship—”

Sebastian cut him off with a sharp gesture. “Why do you continue this harping on about Miss Merridew?” Sebastian exploded. “We shared but one dance!”

Giles grinned. “Yes, one rather intense dance. And a thousand looks.”

Sebastian made a scornful-sounding noise and strode along the pavement.

Giles chuckled. “You may snort all you like, but I saw your face when you looked at her. Every time you looked at her. If ever a man was smitten . . . And if you are determined to run your head into a matrimonial noose, it might as well be with a girl as sweet-natured and beautiful as Miss Merridew. You have needs and desires, too, you know.”

Sebastian quickened his pace. “My needs and desires are not important. Miss Merridew may be all that you claim, but she is the wrong sort of person for the girls. I need someone who can deal with harsh reality, not a girl who has spent her life wrapped in cotton wool.”

“Yes, but I told you, the Merridew girls have experienced—”

“Enough! The subject is no longer open for discussion,” Sebastian snapped and lengthened his stride along the cobbled pavement. Giles, like other members of the upper classes, had no idea of what true hardship was. Despite his sympathetic nature, despite what he knew of Sebastian’s life, he was essentially ignorant of how the rest of the world lived.

Miss Merridew may have experienced what she considered hardships, but he doubted if she had ever been starved or abused. The Merridew girls might be orphans, but they were rich orphans, and they had a loving family to shelter them. He had seen the way Sir Oswald doted on them.

Hope and her sister had grown up to be happy, laughing girls. His sisters were not happy, laughing girls. Dorie watched the world with wary suspicion and had not uttered a sound in the four months since he’d recovered them. And Cassie carried a knife strapped to her thigh. A child of fourteen. Those facts alone spoke volumes.

His sisters had experienced horrors of which a laughing sprite like Hope Merridew would know nothing.

And it was Sebastian’s fault they had. Sebastian had to atone. And if marrying Lady Elinore was what it took, he would marry her gladly.

 
“I was right, Hope. You must stay away from him; he is not at all a suitable parti for you—or any other girl of our acquaintance.”

Hope raised an eyebrow. She did not like to have the law laid down to her. Faith, aware of the irritation, put a comforting arm around her waist, and Hope relaxed a little. It wouldn’t do for either her sister or her chaperone to see how drawn she was to Mr. Sebastian Reyne. And how much she resented being warned off him.

Mrs. Jenner continued. “He used to be the veriest pauper brat—a worker, no less, in one of those very mills he now owns—”

“There is no shame in poverty or hard work,” interrupted Hope. “Our maternal grandfather was a butcher, I believe.”

Mrs. Jenner rapped her on the arm with her fan. “Well, for heaven’s sake, don’t spread it around, for it does not at all add to your credit! However that’s not the point. It wasn’t through hard work that Mr. Reyne gained his fortune, it was low cunning!”

“What do you mean?”

“He charmed the mill owner’s daughter and tricked her into wedding him!”

Married!
Hope felt as if all the breath had been driven from her body. Married!

Mrs. Jenner continued, “Heaven knew what her father was about, to let such a thing happen. She had been on the shelf for years. No doubt he is a silver-tongued charmer.”

Hope frowned. She could vouch for the fact that he was not.

The chaperone clicked her tongue. “The foolish creature! She was the sole heiress of all her father’s wealth. What did she think he wanted her for? And he was years younger than she!”

Hope managed to say in what she hoped was a casual manner, “Since he is married, I don’t see what possible danger he can be to Faith or me.”

“He is a widower.”

Hope’s stomach returned to its rightful place.

“But he’s looking for another wife! And the pity of it is, he’ll have no trouble finding one. Riches will buy most things, including wives—no matter what the risk.”

Hope tossed her head, annoyed by her chaperone’s melodramatic manner and the way she was drawing out the tale for maximum effect. “What do you mean, risk? All marriage is to some extent a risk.”

“Not like this one.” Mrs. Jenner lowered her voice. “I spoke to a dozen people about him, and none of them had a good word to say.” She counted them off on her fingers as she spoke. “Sir George Arthurton—who has several interests in Manchester where That Man comes from—told me straight out that the man is totally ruthless! Others confirmed that. Lord Etheridge said Sebastian Reyne was an extremely dangerous man; they were his very words, and he has interests in the cotton industry and would know! And Mrs. Beamshaft told me a great deal about his history. He just sprang from nowhere. And ended up with everything. His wife and father-in-law dead!” She sat back and allowed her words to sink in.

Mrs. Jenner’s smug delight in the scurrilous tale annoyed Hope. “So what are you saying, ma’am? You cannot mean to suggest that Mr. Reyne murdered his father-in-law and wife?”

Mrs. Jenner lifted a bejeweled forefinger to the side of her nose and tapped it significantly.

“What sort of an answer is that!” Hope exclaimed crossly. Her scowl took in both her sister and their chaperone. How dare they sit there, comfortably thrilled by the horrid gossip about Mr. Sebastian Reyne. To them, it was no more than an exciting story. To Hope, it mattered. Why, she did not care to examine at this point. But she wanted to know the truth.

“He is capable of anything,” insisted Mrs. Jenner. “You can tell by looking at him he has a violent history.”

Hope snorted. “I don’t believe a word of it. If he murdered his wife and her father, why was he not hanged or transported?”

Mrs. Jenner rubbed finger and thumb together. “A few guineas to grease a palm here and there, witnesses intimidated—or worse! Anything is possible if you are lord of all you survey and not bred to it as a proper gentleman is. And he is not.”

Hope rolled her eyes at the melodramatic tone. Like many members of the ton, Mrs. Jenner was prone to taking a shred of plain fabric and embroidering it into something quite different. But Hope was curious and could not help asking, “Lord of all he surveys? What does he survey, then?”

Mrs. Jenner waved her hand extravagantly. “You name it, my dear. Mills and manufactories in the north. Mines, canals, ships—he is immensely rich, there is no doubt of it, but how he got that way is another matter. One only has to look at his face.” She shuddered. “Those pitiless, cold, gray eyes.”

Hope did not think his eyes were pitiless or cold. Lonely perhaps. Hungry, she was sure. But for what?

 
Never a good sleeper, Hope found herself wide awake after the ball, tucked up in bed but thinking about the enigmatic Mr. Reyne. In the other bed Faith slept peacefully, untroubled by thoughts or frustrated dreams.

Hope ached to be loved by someone other than a sister. By a man other than a great-uncle. To be loved by the man of her dreams.

Sebastian Reyne was close in some ways to the shadowy man she’d dreamed of: dark, mysterious, brooding. He’d prowled the room with assurance, indifferent to society’s approval, secure in himself, watching her hungrily, as a dream man ought.

Hope sighed in disappointment. He was close, but not close enough. Dancing with him was nothing like dancing with anybody’s dream man. And she knew it had to be perfect for the dream to come true.

He was a terrible dancer, poor man. The moment he’d touched her, he’d become stiff, abrupt, awkwardly precise, holding her at bay as if she were a wild beast of some sort and steering her around the dance floor as if she were a delicate, fragile . . . wheelbarrow.

For some reason that made her want to hug him.

For most of the dance he’d been counting under his breath and minding his steps. But when Lord Streatfield had crashed into them, Mr. Reyne hadn’t missed a single beat. Without hesitation he’d curled one arm around Hope and made a shelter of his body for her. He’d hauled the drunken earl upright, set him on his feet, reprimanded him for drinking too much, not caring a hoot for the earl’s good opinion, and danced on, all the time sheltering Hope in the curve of his arm as if she was the most precious thing alive.

Defending her, he’d lost all awkwardness and self-consciousness, and his power and strength had flowed around her in a protective shield.

It had quite taken her breath away. And for a few moments she’d forgotten where she was.

She’d never met anyone like him. He was such a collection of contradictions. Public self-possession and private shyness. Physical strength tempered with rigid gentleness. Why she felt so strongly drawn to him, she could not explain; it had something to do with the way he held her with such tender, rigid awkwardness.

It certainly wasn’t his powers of address. He had no conversation skills. Graceful, pretty compliments had not flowed from his tongue. And he’d scowled terribly at her as he asked which twin she was. There was a brooding, intense air of distraction about him, as if his full attention wasn’t on her.