A Heart Revealed (2 page)

“Nearly so,” Thomas confirmed. “Darwood said you were in Brighton.”

Fenton nodded. “That I was, but the company bored me and so I gave it up. And what luck that I did. It is splendid to see you again. How are you enjoying the city?”

Thomas opened his mouth to reply only to have Fenton cut him off before he’d said a single word.

“Ah, let me guess,” Fenton said, returning to his foppish allocution and putting a hand to his chest. “You are repulsed by the dinginess of it, bored with the frivolous entertainment, and only here because you desire what every man both wants and fears—a wife.”

Thomas laughed again. “My answer was far less patronizing.”

“And far less honest, no doubt.”

Thomas did not argue. “If you must know, my mother sent me. She would like me to find a suitable wife and feels I shan’t find her in Yorkshire.”

“Well, how many women are there in Yorkshire?” Fenton asked, raising his eyebrows to emphasize the question. “Other than your mother, of course, and your brother’s wife, which you need not consider, there can’t be more than two or three women in the entire county, let alone any of marriageable age. I can’t help but think your mother had the right of it.”

Thomas did not attempt to hide his smile. “I suppose this is the point in our conversation where I try to convince you that Yorkshire is not the uninhabited wilds you perceive it to be.”

“Perhaps, but then I shall refuse to believe it—as always—and you will end up with your nose in a joint over defending your homeland and I’ll feel wretched for taking things too far.” He waved his hand through the air. “Better not even to start.”

Thomas laughed again and clapped his friend on the back, taking note of the striped satin coat of green and gold, which matched Fenton’s extravagant shoes, far different from Thomas’s conservative evening dress consisting of a black coat, gray waistcoat, and buff-colored knee breeches.

“Oh, I am glad to see you, Fenton,” Thomas said sincerely. “London has improved by spades just by you being here. Darwood is somewhere in the crowd.”

“Darwood is a singularly obnoxious fellow. I should prefer to avoid him as long as possible.” Fenton sighed and fluffed his lace cuffs with exaggerated attention.

“I can only guess that your father continues to harangue you regarding your modishness?” Thomas asked, indicating Fenton’s extreme clothing.

Fenton gave Thomas a conspiratorial grin and stepped closer so as to be heard while lowering his voice. “He despises it,” Fenton said with a gleam in his eye. “Almost as much as the women adore my sense of style.” He lifted his chin as though posing for a portrait.

Thomas shook his head in mock disappointment and tsked loudly. “If I’d had any idea the high collars you sported at university would lead to this, I’d have burned them while you slept.”

Fenton laughed, then did away with his foppish façade once again. “Now,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “tell me about your plans while you are in town—other than wife hunting. Do you need an introduction to any of the gaming hells? Have you joined any clubs? I’m a fan of Brooks myself. Great tables.”

“I’m not such a gambler,” Thomas said, shaking his head. As the heir to a wealthy earldom, Fenton had a far different situation than Thomas did.

Fenton raised an eyebrow. “London makes a gambler of many a man.”

“Perhaps if they have a deeper purse than I do.” Thomas had no reason to be vague regarding his situation. “I am to be self-made, and the only thing standing in my way of it, is a proper wife.”

Fenton turned his head slightly, regarding Thomas with a questioning look. “One with a fortune?”

Thomas colored at the suggestion that he expected his wife to make his living. “Certainly not,” he said. When Fenton pulled back, Thomas knew he’d spoken too sharply. He repaired his tone as he continued, “I have made an arrangement with my older brother: most of my annual inheritance for the fields near Romanby. In the long term I shall be far better for the investment and am still left with a modest inheritance.”

Fenton’s eyebrows rose throughout Thomas’s recounting and his arms dropped to his sides. “You gave up your inheritance? I’ve never heard such a thing.”

Thomas shrugged as though his decision was a common one when in fact he had come up with the idea himself. Most men would not give up the security of guaranteed income to make their own way. “I believe in time that the land will more than make up for the forgone income,” he said simply. After Charles—the eldest of the three brothers and their father’s heir—had died, Thomas had more fully realized how dependent they all were on lineage and inheritance. He also better understood that as generations—specifically his own posterity—became more distant from the security the title offered, he wanted something of substance to pass on. It was a unique perspective amid the noble class to be sure, but one that settled so comfortably in Thomas’s mind that he did not doubt the wisdom of it.

The sound of a familiar and distracting voice prevented Fenton from making a reply, and they both looked toward the interruption. For the second time that evening, Thomas straightened in response to Amber Sterlington, who was walking arm in arm with her younger sister whom Thomas recognized from other events. For the second time that evening, he was taken off guard at the effect Miss Sterlington had on him. And for the second time that evening, he noted that he was not the only man so affected by her presence. Fenton struck a posture of distinction and bowed toward the women, looping his hand as he lowered it nearly to the ground.

“Miss Sterlington,” Fenton said as he rose. He glanced at her companion and inclined his head. “Miss Darra. What a lovely happenstance to receive your company this evening.”

Amber Sterlington fixed Fenton with a playful look that sparked instant jealousy in Thomas.

“What a lovely happenstance for us that you are receiving, Lord Fenton,” she said in that haunting voice, acknowledging that she and Fenton knew one another. She put out her hand, which was covered in a white satin glove. It matched the white satin gown that opened in the front, revealing the light green underdress that set off Miss Sterlington’s similarly green eyes to distraction.

Fenton took her hand and bowed over it with an easy manner Thomas wished he himself possessed. “You look absolutely breathtaking tonight, Miss Sterlington,” he said. “Like a goddess brought to life.”

“Oh pish,” Amber said, shaking her head as she returned her hand to her sister’s arm; Miss Darra was a beauty in her own right though Thomas doubted many people noticed. “It’s bad enough that Almack’s is such a sad crush week after week, but the requirement that debutantes may only wear pasty colors is not to be countenanced.” She waved toward him. “Is it not offensive to your sensibilities that you can appear in all manner of pattern and color, and all of us females are relegated to look like infantile dowds?” She pouted—such a pretty pout—and let out an equally pretty breath. “I tell you, it’s not fair, Lord Fenton. Not fair at all.”

“Ah, but you look like an angel in white, my dear, and, for you particularly, white is quite the canvas for your hair and your eyes. I can’t fathom why you would be cross toward such regulations when they show
you
off to your very best light.”

Amber smiled, her mood repaired by the compliment that, while true, was over the top of anything Thomas could say. Did it not embarrass Miss Sterlington to hear such outrageous flattery?

As though to answer his unspoken question, Miss Sterlington reached up and fingered one of the long auburn ringlets draped over her shoulder while giving Fenton a coy look. The rest of her hair was piled on top of her head, a mass of curls into which small white flowers with diamond centers had been woven. The only other jewelry she wore was an oval pendant—amber, as her namesake—that hung just below her collarbone, drawing the eye, which then naturally looked over the rest of her.

Where so many of the debutantes looked as though they were barely women at all, Amber Sterlington had a figure worthy of admiration. Her inquisitive green eyes—with gold flecks, Thomas noticed—smooth skin, and vibrant hair left him no doubt that the other young women could not hold a candle to her. So mesmerized was Thomas that he did not realize Fenton had introduced him until Thomas heard his name said out loud.

Thomas felt his mouth go dry when Miss Sterlington’s gaze settled upon him. “I’m very p-pleased to meet you, Miss Starringt—I mean, Miss Sterlington.” He gave a quick bow nowhere near as elegant or graceful as Fenton’s had been.

“Likewise,” she said, but she looked back to Fenton before she’d even finished her polite reply. “Now, I escaped the crush of the ballroom in order to have a private word with my dear sister. Would you two gentlemen excuse us for a moment? I fear that once my absence is noted, I shan’t get another moment’s peace. I must insist on a bit of privacy, and this is perhaps the only vestibule available. Do you mind?” She offered another pout, and this time Thomas and Fenton equally fumbled for words as they assured her they were not the least bit put out by her need of a private corner.

“Good grief, is she not a diamond of the first water?” Fenton said, somewhat breathless from their quick retreat back to the crowd of the ballroom. Thomas was surprised that Fenton was so undone by the woman; he had dealt with her quite calmly up until the end of their exchange. Thomas felt even lower as he acknowledged that only a man of Fenton’s station had a chance of gaining Amber Sterlington’s attentions.

Thomas pulled at his collar. The awkward exchange had left his heart racing and he was beginning to sweat. “She must think I’m an absolute nitwit,” he said under his breath as he and Fenton moved toward the refreshment table. The more distance he put between himself and the girl who rendered him such an idiot, the more his irritation increased. “Why could I not react like a grown man?”

“Don’t be so severe upon yourself,” Fenton said, patting Thomas’s arm as he picked up a cup of ratafia with his other hand. He took a drink and made a face—ratafia was a mild drink and obviously not what Fenton was hoping to encounter. “There’s not a man in London who can keep his head around such a woman as Amber Sterlington. The breeding of a wife and the appeal of a mistress.”

It did not make Thomas feel better to be reminded he was as besotted as every other man. Nor did it improve his mood when he realized he had missed the beginning of the quadrille promised to Miss Morton. With a groan, he excused himself of Fenton and soon found Miss Morton blinking back tears near the balustrade. Miss Morton did not deserve such treatment, and he felt badly for causing her distress.

It was too late to join the dance so Thomas spent the duration of it coaxing Miss Morton from her mood through compliments of her appearance—she did look lovely in her light blue gown—and a humorous account of a gentleman being chased by a dog through Hyde Park the day before yesterday. By the time the next dance was announced, Miss Morton was giggling behind her hand. He asked her to stand up for this set and she gratefully accepted his invitation, giving him a chance to redeem himself, for which he was glad.

It was after thanking Miss Morton for the dance some time later, and avoiding her mother’s approving eye as he departed her company, that Thomas saw Miss Sterlington again. She had likewise finished the set with a young man in full regimentals, and he was bowing over her hand in a simpering manner that left Thomas embarrassed for him.

A moment later, however, a mad thought seized Thomas’s mind and before he knew it, he was standing in front of her at the exact moment she was quit of her former partner and had not yet accepted another.

“Might I have this dance, Miss Sterlington?” Thomas heard himself say as though it were not him at all. He could feel the flush in his cheeks and the sweat beneath his collar as those beautiful green eyes looked him over, a bit more than he thought was warranted.

“Sir,” she said, her eyebrows coming together. “We have not had a proper introduction, therefore I certainly could
not
dance with you.” Her tone was not as rich and playful as it had been when she’d bantered with Fenton.

“Lord Fenton introduced me to you not half an hour ago, within one of the assembly rooms.” No sooner had he said it than he realized how pathetic he sounded, begging for her remembrance of something she hadn’t given enough attention to remember for herself.

“I’m sure he did not,” she said sharply, lifting her chin and taking a step back. “Besides, Lord Norwin has asked that I reserve the waltz for him. . . . Ah, there he is.” She stepped to her right in time to lift her hand to a man wearing a blue superfine tailcoat and satin knee breeches.

In a moment Miss Sterlington was gone, the sound of her laughter trickling back to him as she took her place with Lord Norwin on the dance floor. Thomas came to himself in time to see numerous attendees look away; the quickness of their diverted glances evidence that they had seen the set down he’d just received. From the looks on their faces, they were not sharing in his embarrassment; rather they were taking his measure just as Miss Sterlington had.

Overwhelmed with embarrassment, Thomas turned to the staircase and quit Almack’s without a word to anyone, not even Fenton. It was unfashionable to leave the dance before supper but Thomas could not stay another minute.

As he made his way back to his rented rooms in a less fashionable district of town, he brooded over all the things he had hated about London prior to this evening and how much more he despised them now.

As the third son of a Baron—and a modest, Northern Baron who had little connection in London—without enough fortune to raise him above what he lacked, Thomas Richards knew his place among the aristocracy. He was acknowledged but not afforded, accepted but not sought after. That he was decent, generous, hardworking, and intelligent had always seemed to him a reckoning of sorts—a way of balancing what he did not have with those virtues he possessed. Until tonight, he had believed that he was, for the most part, equal to other men of higher rank in the ways that mattered most.