Candice Hern (34 page)

ONCE A GENTLEMAN

THE BRIDE SALE

HER SCANDALOUS AFFAIR

Here's an excerpt from
JUST ONE OF THOSE FLINGS
, in which Beatrice becomes the next "merry" widow:

He could not keep his eyes off her. Gabriel Loughton, Marquess of Thayne, had come to the Wallingford masquerade ball for the express purpose of surveying this Season's crop of beauties, but his eyes kept straying to the tall, elegant woman dressed as Artemis, the Huntress.

She was no young girl in her first Season. In fact, given the way she closely watched the movements of a pretty blond shepherdess being led through a country dance with a plumed cavalier, Thayne would not be surprised to learn that his Artemis was the girl's chaperone. Or even, God forbid, her mother.

She did not, however, look like anyone's mother. The Grecian tunic she wore did little to disguise the shapely form beneath. Even the smallest movement sent the silky yellow drapery slithering and clinging in beguiling ways. Her arms were deliciously bare, save for a gold bracelet in the shape of a snake coiled high on one upper arm. Thayne had always found a woman's arms to be one of the most sensual parts of her body, and cursed British fashion or propriety or whatever it was that compelled most women to cover those intriguing assets with long sleeves or long gloves. Even at a masquerade, when a hint of boldness, or a hint of flesh, was generally forgiven, there were few bare arms to be seen. Whether milkmaid or queen, in VanDyck dress or Turkish garb, almost all the women kept their arms covered. Bosoms, however, were much on display, to Thayne's delight, and the occasional bare shoulder caught his eye. But very few arms were uncovered, and only one pair was of any interest.

His gaze feasted on those pale, slender limbs that moved so gracefully in gesture as she spoke. He wanted to touch them, to graze that white skin with his fingers, softly, very softly, and watch it prickle into gooseflesh.

Perhaps it was that very pale coloring that drew his attention. Her hair — or perhaps it was a wig; he could not be sure — was dusted with yellow powder flecked with gold that caught the candlelight. Her true hair might be dark, for all he knew, but he doubted it. Her skin had the translucence most often coupled with fair hair. And it was so very English. After eight years in India, where he'd been surrounded by dark, exotic beauties, Artemis's coloring was a treat to the eyes.

And yet, the room was filled with fair English roses with blue eyes and creamy complexions. There was something more that drew him to Artemis. The elegant coiffure intrigued him, to be sure. It was pulled up and back with gold combs, and crimped in waves reminiscent of the antique statuary his father collected to fill his gardens. There were many powdered heads among the guests, but all were dusted in the usual white. Artemis with her yellow powder would have been unique enough, but the gold flecks made her even more so. She was a woman of style and with the confidence of individuality that set her apart from the rest. One long curl fell over her shoulder and moved in a way that suggested it was her own hair and no wig. What he wouldn't give to see the rest of it hanging loose and then to bury his hands in it.

Damnation. His first night back in London and he was behaving like a randy schoolboy. With an effort, Thayne tore his gaze away from the fair huntress. He had no business ogling a woman who was certainly someone's wife, probably someone's mother. Not tonight. He hadn't come to the masquerade to find a mistress. As much as it pained him to admit it, he'd come here to find a bride. Or, more accurately, to see what was in store for him when his mother began, as early as tomorrow, trotting out for his inspection every eligible young girl with the requisite impeccable breeding and good looks. The duchess would, of course, have her favorites and she would try to push him toward one of them. But Thayne would not be pushed. He would make his own choice. Not that he had any strict requirements. So long as she was reasonably pretty and wasn't entirely empty-headed, he would be satisfied. He knew his duty. He just wanted to have a quick look around for himself before the matrimonial race began. Before anyone realized he'd returned.

Just as he had expected, a masquerade was the perfect venue to survey the field, which was precisely why he'd cajoled his sister Martha, Lady Bilston, into letting him use her invitation. Behind the security of their masks, not to mention elaborate wigs and costumes, the young ladies of the
ton
behaved with a little less restraint, less formality, less anxiety. Chaperones did not scrutinize their movements quite so closely. Thayne fully expected that he would have to choose a bride from among a group of girls so well protected by the strictures of Society that he would never really know her at all. At least tonight, when no one recognized him, he hoped to catch a glimpse of the real women behind some of those elegant masks.

He watched a pretty young brunette dressed in the long-sleeved gown and tall headdress of a fourteenth-century noblewoman, as she flirted with her dance partner. Her eyes sparkled coquettishly behind her mask and she ran a playful finger along his sleeve. She looked perfectly charming, but Thayne would be willing to wager she would never have behaved in such an alluring manner if it had been a normal ball, where her chaperone would be less forgiving. He would make a point of discovering who she was.

He continued to appraise potential brides from his position in a far corner, where he leaned negligently against a pillar. Several other pretty young women were worth a second look: a fair-haired milkmaid with an engaging smile, a Spanish infanta with masses of dark ringlets gathered on either side of her head like the ears of a spaniel, a girl with a magnificent bosom in a low-necked court dress from the time of Charles II.

Thayne would choose one or two to dance with, to discover if they were possessed of good conversation as well as beauty. Would one of them be worth a formal courtship, and potentially the role of his marchioness?

No matter where he looked, though, his gaze always came back to her. To the beautiful huntress with the tiny quiver filled with miniature golden arrows slung over her shoulder. Her body swayed slightly in time to the music, with the sensual grace worthy of a skilled
ganika
, one of the prized professional courtesans at the courts of India. But hers was not a studied grace. It appeared to come naturally, which made it all the more alluring.

She smiled as she spoke to the woman beside her, who was dressed in elaborate Elizabethan finery, with a bright red wig of tight curls and an enormous ruff around her neck. The stiff collar and heavy costume, which made it difficult for the woman to move more than her head and hands, was in sharp contrast with the natural drape of her companion's silky tunic. He was almost certain "Queen Elizabeth" was their hostess, Lady Wallingford, but he could not be positive since he'd arrived late in order to avoid formal introductions.

Who was Artemis, then? A friend? A Wallingford relation? Had he met her before, when he was on the town briefly in his youth? She was certainly someone of rank, else she would not be at such an exclusive gathering, nor would she be rubbing shoulders with their hostess.

He watched those fair shoulders rise and fall in a graceful shrug. Yes, it was definitely more than her coloring and unique style that drew his interest. The way she subtly, perhaps unconsciously, flaunted the fine-looking form beneath the Grecian tunic, the way she held her head at a slight angle, the way she smiled. And something more, something indefinable, an aura of sensuality that he could sense shimmering off her, even at a distance.

Her gaze swept the room and finally collided with his own. Elegant arched brows lifted above the gold mask as she looked at him, and one corner of her mouth quirked upward, as though she was pleased, or perhaps amused, by his scrutiny. Before he could return her smile, she moved away. It had been only an instant, but that winsome gaze had sent a shot of pure molten heat through his veins. Lord, she was magnificent!

Thayne smiled as a plan began to take shape in his mind.

He had come to the masquerade to ease his way back into Society without anyone knowing who he was, though he'd been away so long he doubted anyone would recognize him, even without the mask and costume. He most particularly did not want potential bridal candidates to learn his identity just yet, and begin fawning and preening before the Marquess of Thayne. As he watched Artemis, though, he wondered if it might not be just as well to woo a
mistress
while in disguise, to encourage capitulation without laying his rank and fortune at her feet.

He couldn't take his eyes off her. It was time to do more than look.

* * *

Beatrice Campion, the Countess of Somerfield, adjusted the gilt girdle around her waist and fluffed the blouson that fell over it. She felt positively naked in this dratted costume. She didn't know what had possessed her to wear something so revealing — even her toes were bare in the gold sandals that laced up her feet — but then that was the fun of a masquerade, was it not? To be a little bold, a little shocking. Her niece, Emily, had certainly been shocked, but only because she feared Beatrice would draw attention away from herself. But it had taken little more than a moment before Emily realized that no one would take note of an elderly, widowed chaperone, no matter how provocatively dressed.

"After all," she had said, "you will be gathered along the wall with the other chaperones and dowagers, and no one is likely to take note of you. Indeed, I cannot imagine why you bothered to wear a costume at all when a simple domino would have sufficed."

"My dressmaker insisted it was just the thing," Beatrice had said in her defense, "that classical garb was exceedingly fashionable."

"And it would be," Emily said, "on someone not so ..."

She appeared to have literally bitten her tongue. Beatrice laughed and then finished the thought. "So old?"

Emily shook her head, cheeks flushing prettily, and then changed the subject to the advantages of her own frothy costume and whether there might be too much lace at the neck.

Beatrice did not care what her niece thought. She was the mother of two daughters but did not feel at all matronly or old tonight. Not in such a costume. In fact, even at the advanced age of thirty-five, something about the way the tiny pleats of yellow silk felt against her body made her feel quite ... womanly. Sensual, even. Especially when a certain gentleman kept staring at her.

She wondered who he was. There was no clue to his identity beneath the exotic costume, which she presumed to be Indian. Did she know him? Is that why she so often found him staring at her? Even when her back was turned, she could feel his gaze on her, like a naked caress that sent a tingling through the fine hairs at the back of her neck.

What sort of man could make a woman's body react so, simply by looking at her? And what sort of brazen woman felt the urge to display that body to him with subtle movements she knew made the dress cling more closely?

Beatrice shook her head to clear it. This awareness of her body and how a man might perceive it was something entirely new. She had become acutely conscious in recent weeks of how men looked at her, and even more aware of her own reaction to them. She had been a widow for three years and missed the physical intimacy she'd shared with her husband. Though she had no wish to marry again, she had lately begun to feel a longing for that intimacy. And when a man looked at her in a way that left no question as to what he was thinking, Beatrice did not feel shock or outrage, as a respectable widow should. In fact, shameful as it was to admit, she found she rather liked it.

She blamed it on her friends, with all their frank talk of late about lovers and lovemaking. They called themselves the Merry Widows in private, though in public they maintained very proper respectability. When Penelope, Lady Gosforth, had confessed to taking a lover, she somehow managed to convince the rest of them to do the same. Or at least to make an effort to do so. None of them, so far, had actually succeeded. Except, perhaps, for Marianne Nesbitt, who was at that moment attending a house party at the estate of Lord Julian Sherwood, where she was likely to take him to her bed. That had certainly been her plan. The rest of the Merry Widows had also joined the party. Beatrice had to refuse her own invitation because of tonight's masquerade, which Emily had been determined to attend. Besides, the Wallingfords were the girl's aunt and uncle. It would have been bad form to decline.

Beatrice was rather glad she had come, after all, and that her dressmaker had convinced her to wear the Greek chiton. She had not deliberately worn the clingy silk dress in order to capture a man's attention — or had she? — but it had certainly done the job. She wondered if the unknown gentleman was going to ogle her from afar all night, or if he would ever actually speak to her, or even ask her to dance.

She watched a couple leave the room arm in arm — for a private tryst? — and thought again of her friends. Marianne would very likely return from the party full of the details of her own romantic encounter. That had been part of their Merry Widows' agreement, to be candid among themselves about their sexual activities. Penelope, who had wasted no time in finding a new lover in town, had certainly been candid. As Beatrice felt the eyes of the intriguing stranger on her again, all that frank speech came back to mind.

"He's coming!"

Beatrice pretended nonchalance at Lady Wallingford's urgent whisper, though her stomach muscles twitched in anticipation. "Who?" she asked in a disinterested tone.

Lady Wallingford uttered a mocking little snort. "You know who. That striking-looking man dressed as a maharaja, the one's been staring at you all night. The one you've been pretending not to notice. But I've seen your glance stray in his direction more than once."

Beatrice glared at her friend as if to deny that she'd done any such thing, but was undone by the knowing twinkle in the eyes behind the jeweled Elizabethan mask. She returned a sheepish grin and asked, "Who is he, Mary? Do you know?"