Touch of a Lady (3 page)

Tristan offered his arm to Lady Florence and began escorting her through her father’s riotous garden.

“Maybe I’m aiming high, too,” Delphinia said. Just before her connection with Tristan’s ring was severed, she saw a fleeting glimpse of how his future might turn out differently. This vision was paler, less sure, but there was no denying that the less likely outcome was buckets better for the viscount. And Del had featured prominently in that future. “He’ll never be happy with her. Someone needs to save that man from his own foolishness.”

Harmony shook her head and slipped a hand through Delphinia’s arm so she could lead her away from the garden party that was beginning to break up into groups of two and three. A game of lawn bowling was taking shape under a massive oak and another cadre of revelers proposed an archery competition. Couples were forming up everywhere Del looked. Tristan and Lady Florence weren’t the only ones pairing off, but they were the only ones who made Del’s chest ache.

“I love you like a sister,” Harmony said, “so trust me when I tell you the fool in this situation is not the man pursuing the daughter of a duke.”

Delphinia watched as Tristan and Lady Florence strolled toward the entrance to the garden maze. He turned his head and his dark eyes met Del’s for the length of two heartbeats. The connection between them sizzled across the open space with such heat, she was surprised no one else was burned. Then Tristan led the duke’s daughter into the green bower.

Delphinia’s heart sank to her toes, but then she remembered the rush of bittersweet longing she knew Tristan felt for her and squared her shoulders.

“He only wants a bit of distracting and he’ll throw over Lady Florence,” she murmured, more to encourage herself than to share her plans with Harmony. What would induce a man to give up a monumental dowry, a duke for a father-in-law, and enough imputed prestige to cover his holding with reflected glory for generations?

I shall have to make him love me
, she decided.
How hard could it be?

“Who is that girl dancing with Lord Edmondstone?” Lady Florence laid a hand on the forearm of Lord Milton Sanders. From the edge of the dance floor, they watched as the handsome couple moved through the forms of an elegant minuet from the edge of the dance floor. Even though the young lady didn’t wear a proper wig, her dark hair was perfectly coifed and the vibrant peacock blue gown made her stand out in the ballroom, rather like an exotic bird-of-paradise in a barnyard of brocade-covered hens.

“That, my lady, is Miss Delphinia Preston,” Sanders said. “Lovely girl.”

“Indeed,” Florence said, fanning herself in agitation. She’d never noticed that slightly ravenous expression on Lord Edmondstone’s handsome face when he was dancing with
her
. “Give the man a fork and he’d eat her in one sitting.”

“Can you blame him? She is rather delectable.”

Lady Florence responded with a sniff. A peek at an ankle was still beyond the pale, but no one faulted a woman for displaying her breasts to best advantage. The Preston girl certainly didn’t need that rope of pearls to draw attention to hers. Florence wondered if they could possibly be real since the young woman boasted no title.

Florence leaned toward Sanders to whisper behind her fan. “All I can say is if the neckline of her bodice were any lower, she’d need to rouge her nipples.” Some women did just that for nights at the opera in London or intimate dinner parties.

“Maybe you ought to bring out the paint pot for yours tomorrow night,” Sanders suggested.

Florence rapped his shoulder smartly with her fan. They’d been friends since childhood, since the Sanders barony abutted the Seabrooke estate, so she wasn’t so much affronted as annoyed with him.

“Can’t blame a man for trying,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “I wouldn’t presume to speak for Edmondstone, but I guarantee you that I’d be most appreciative.”

Florence tapped the side of her cheek with the tip of her fan, considering his words. “A judicious display of flesh might move Lord Edmondstone to more than stilted courtesy. The man is handsome as the devil, but honestly, his brand of wooing wouldn’t make a monk blush.”

“You deserve so much more, my lady.” Lord Sanders took her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips in what appeared to be a perfectly courtly kiss. Instead he flicked the tip of his tongue between her fore and middle fingers, sending a hot flush coursing up her arm. “You deserve a bit of wickedness.”

She knew she ought to pull her hand away, but his warm brown eyes dared her not to. He’d teased her before while she negotiated the shoals of her London Season, but somehow, this didn’t feel the same. This time, he was serious. Well, she could be, too.

“What I deserve is a proposal of marriage from the right man.” She’d had plenty of offers, but her father had encouraged her to choose with her eyes instead of measuring men by their purses or titles. The duke wanted the prettiest, most well-favored grandchildren in the realm. Florence was determined to give him a son-in-law capable of breeding them. Lord Edmondstone was by far the most comely man she’d ever met.

“Say no more. I volunteer to submit to leg-shackles for life for your sake,” Sanders offered, his perfectly ordinary face sagging in a parody of woe.

“Oh, you!” She swatted him again. “We wouldn’t suit and you know it.”

“Why not me? I’ve an old and revered title, complete with an old and crumbling estate to match,” he said. “I frankly adore you and don’t understand why you haven’t succumbed to my charms already.”

He took a long sip of his punch and let his gaze roam around the room, which gave her reason to discount his words.

“Perhaps you’re trying too hard,” she said wryly, then just to be contrary, she brushed the handle of her fan across her lips. If he were paying attention, he’d recognize the signal that suggested she wanted him to kiss her.

It was wrong of her to flirt with him. Her father would never approve of Lord Sanders. The man was only an inch or two taller than she and the heels on his silver-buckled shoes were as high as her own. He always wore a beautiful full-bottom wig, but the forehead was high enough to make her wonder if he shaved his head under it or if his own hairline was receding.

His nose was too big for the rest of his face and his lips were thin enough to be invisible. The only features that commended him were his speaking eyes. Along with the wit which sparked in their brown depths with flashes of droll brilliance.

I’d never be bored with Sanders,
Florence realized. She’d also never give birth to the perfect grandchildren her father was so insistent upon if she wed the baron.
But I’d wager they’d have lovely eyes.

* * *

Tristan couldn’t wait for this minuet to be over.

He still didn’t know what had possessed him to make sure his name appeared on Delphinia Preston’s dance card. He tried to convince himself that he was simply making sure the fire he felt when he touched her in the silk tent was an aberration—a combination of worry over a swooning woman and the opportunity to caress a silky breast.

Now, he touched only her fingertips, but it still felt as if he balanced the whole world in his hand.

Tristan gave himself a mental kick in the arse. Only a love-sick pup mooned about for what he couldn’t have.

He forced himself to look away from her as he stepped forward into the prescribed close position. The dance was designed to create a series of tableaus, beautiful stylized scenes of courtship, but none of it felt like mere display. Every bit of his being strained toward this girl about whom he knew next to nothing. There wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

“Most couples kiss during this pose,” she whispered. Her breath feathered warmly over his cheek.

“Most couples who do that are courting,” he said between clenched teeth. “We are merely dancing.”

Delphinia stepped back and they circled each other before coming together into another romantic position, their arms entwined. She leaned into him.

“Are you sure about that?”

Her soft mouth was so close. She was right about the conventions of the dance. It would occasion no comment if he brushed her lips with his.

Tristan swallowed hard. He wouldn’t be able to stop with a chaste kiss and he knew it. Even now, the music faded in his ears. The rest of the ballroom was a mere blur of color on the edges of his vision. Her sweet lilac fragrance filled his nostrils as her slender form filled his arms. She crowded out everything else.

If he kissed her again, he’d devour her and everyone would know how she’d bewitched him.

“I was wondering something, Tristan,” she said, her voice soft as a breath.

“What puzzles you, Miss Preston?” he whispered back as he led her through an underarm turn. Perhaps keeping things formal would help him regain a sense of distance.

“Delphinia,” she corrected. “And what I’m wondering about is the subject of love at first sight. Shakespeare believed it possible. What are your thoughts on the matter?”

“Shakespeare was a sentimental hack,” Tristan said louder than he ought. They were supposed to be dancing, not making conversation. He lowered his voice. “Men may feel
something
at first sight, but I promise you, it is not love.”

He certainly felt something right now. Being so near to her had him crowding his breeches something awful. Tristan had desired many women but the ache of longing had never been so nigh unbearable before.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said.

“I am?”

“Yes.” When she smiled, her teeth were blindingly white. “I didn’t even like you at first sight.”

Something inside him shriveled in disappointment.

The minuet wound down like a music box losing steam and Delphinia made a final turn into his arms, leaning her head on his chest. The sweet lilac scent from her hair nearly made his eyes roll back in his head.

“And…do you like me now?” he heard himself asking.

“You’re tolerable, Tristan.” She dipped in a final curtsey and then skittered away.

Tolerable!
When she was all he could think of, she found him merely tolerable?

But before he could follow her, the candles around the room were being snuffed out one by one. The master of the dance banged his baton on the floor and announced a game of Hide and Seek.

“Lady Florence shall count to one hundred, and then beware,” the master said. “She shall find you out. Last person to be found shall be declared the winner.”

The party scattered in a scuffle of good natured shoving and laughter. It was too dark for Tristan to see which way Delphinia went, but he climbed the stairs to the third storey, convinced this vixen would seek high ground. When he passed the lumber room where all the guests’ traveling trunks were stored, a faint whisper of lilac caught his nose.

Tristan stepped into the room and immediately tripped over something left in the middle of the floor. He was quick enough to catch himself on his palms and knees instead of smacking his forehead on the hardwood, but it was a near thing. Unfortunately, the noise he’d made was still a thumping racket in a house that held its breath.

“For heaven’s sake, be quiet,” a voice hissed from the large wardrobe in the corner. “You’ll bring Lady Florence down on us.”

“What the devil is this?” Tristan kicked the pile of wire and horsehair he’d tripped over to the corner.

“My panniers and bumroll, if you must know,” Delphinia whispered back. “I took them off so I could fit into this wardrobe. Now be quiet or we’ll both be found.”

A set of furtive footsteps did seem to be making their way down the long corridor, stopping at intervals. The click of a latch and the creak of hinges announced that Lady Florence was making the rounds. Tristan slipped into the wardrobe with Delphinia and pulled the door tight behind him. They heard the hook latch on the outside of the door flop down into its loop hinge.

“Why did you do that?” Delphinia said. “Now we’re locked in.”

He put two fingers to her lips as the door to the lumber room scraped open. The patter of a pair of footsteps entered the room. Light from a candle showed around the wardrobe door in a faint golden line.

“There’s no one here.” Lady Florence sighed.

“You didn’t think there would be, did you?” It was Sanders’ voice. Evidently Tristan’s friend had been caught already and was helping Lady Florence find the others.

“Not really.”

“Don’t suppose anyone would hide in the wardrobe,” Sanders said.

“The door is closed.” Lady Florence’s voice was loud enough to tell Tristan she was mere feet away. “No one would be foolish enough to latch themselves in.”

Delphinia jabbed Tristan’s ribs with her knuckles to punctuate her agreement with the lady.

“As for the rest of the room, who’d be unimaginative enough to hide in a trunk?” Florence wondered.

“A vampyre?”

A swift smack greeted that remark. “Stop it, Sanders. You’re trying to give me a fright so I’ll swoon into your arms.”

“An excellent plan. Wish I’d thought of it. However, I seriously doubt anything scares you, madame.”

There was silence for a moment. Then the duke’s daughter said, “I’m afraid of looking foolish.”

Tristan’s conscience flayed him. If he was caught in this wardrobe with the very comely Miss Preston, Lady Florence would look foolish since she’d been publicly encouraging him. It would be a very short walk for everyone at the house party to reach the conclusion that he was besotted with the commoner. Even so, the expectations of their families being what they were, it was entirely possible that the duke’s daughter would still accept his suit.

Why did Society demand such falseness?

His father had kept one mistress after another. When Tristan was grown, the earl had admonished him to follow suit, always providing he was discreet. But once, Tristan had caught his mother weeping after his father left for the evening. She claimed it was for “no reason” and that women were naturally emotional about the smallest of trifles. No matter how discreet his father thought he was being, Tristan was convinced his mother knew his father spent Thursday evenings in a snug little house in Cheapside with the woman who’d borne him at least three bastards.