Edith Layton
Authors: The Choice
Edith Layton
F
or
N
orbert, of course
.
N
ow, as then, and always
.
It was mild, but cool in contrast to the ballroom.
Dancing and chatting stopped as everyone at the ball goggled…
“I don’t want her hurt,” the gentleman said as he…
“Pink,” Gilly said with loathing.
There was no one to talk to. Gilly paced her…
They made a handsome couple, the slight young woman all…
Damon idly shuffled through the cards of invitation to his…
He usually wondered where he would find the willpower to…
Gilly sat on the quilt they’d spread on the grass…
“I shall write,” Max said grumpily, drawing a small circle…
The new arrival was a tall, slender, exquisitely dressed gentleman,…
The hour was late. They sat in the Sinclairs’ parlor,…
They sat in a sunny window alcove of the tea…
“Look!” Gilly cried in delight, rushing up to Drum the…
“What a risk you took! And without me? Of course…
Gilly paced her room. She’d burned her bridges, all right.
It was a cramped old inn, lopsided with age, squeezed…
“You can come with me, you know,” Lord Wycoff told…
I
t was mild, but cool in contrast to the ballroom. The trees above him were in full green leaf, the music from the ball seemed faint and faraway, and somewhere a nightingale did scales.
It was a small walled garden, cleverly designed, Damon thought. London had built itself up at an incredible pace since he’d gone abroad, but the best townhouses still had gardens. Damon was grateful for it. He stood alone in the shadows, near a stone cherub tipping his pitcher of water so it spilled into a small pool. The tumbling water sounded better to Damon’s ears than the music of the waltz he heard faintly from afar. There was a bench, but he stood, his back against a tree, one ankle crossed over the other, relaxing, smoking his thin cheroot. His friends thought it was a
filthy habit he’d picked up on his travels. It was. But he thought it better than shoveling snuff up his nose, the way they did. And it had gotten him outside now. He stared up at a camellia-colored moon and decided the fashionable world of London was much better seen through a thin blue smoky haze.
He soon saw it much more clearly.
“H
ere
!” a male voice called excitedly. It was so close, Damon’s pulse raced. He dropped his cheroot, grinding the glowing ash beneath his heel. From force of habit, his hand snaked into an inner waistcoat pocket, closing around the small pistol he always carried there.
There was a patter of footsteps on the shell path as a gentleman and a lady suddenly exploded from the shadows into the moonlight in front of the cherub. Damon’s shoulders relaxed. They were unaware of him.
The moon lit them theatrically. He had to think fast. An assignation, probably. Why else would a man and a maid stray from a ball, and go off alone into the moonlight? A married or engaged couple wouldn’t have to, a proper couple wouldn’t dare. It would be awkward for all of them if they noticed him. Maybe they’d move on. He hoped so. From where he stood it was better than a front row at the theater. And just as bad. Because a man leaving a front row seat before the act was over made himself noticed by everyone in the audience, and was an insult to the actors, too.
But there was no place Damon could go without being seen. There was nothing but bushes at his back, and the garden wall behind those. He was a captive
unless they left. Even if he stepped lightly he’d set the shrubbery to rattling. He sighed and resigned himself to being uncomfortable—bored, at best. Or so he thought until he saw the lady clear.
“Where is the poor thing?” she asked worriedly, looking into the shadows.
Damon shrank back. The sprite! Unmistakable. He’d noticed her earlier, inside, at the ball. He’d noticed little else after that. She wore a pale gauzy green gown that showed a small, delicately curved figure to perfection. She was so lithe, it had taken him a moment to realize she had all those curves when she’d first danced into his view. Because, for once, it hadn’t been the first thing he’d seen.
Hair pale as moonlight, little animated oval of a face glowing bright as sunlight. Her small, even features made a man look twice at that pretty pink mouth. He couldn’t see the color of her eyes from where he’d stood. She was the most enchanting female he’d seen since he’d come to London. She’d looked ethereal as she’d stepped through the intricate paces of the country dance.
He’d forgotten what he was about to say.
“Even you?” His friend laughed when he saw it. “Even such a rebellious jaded rogue as you, Damon, find her delectable? Well, but she
is
something, isn’t she? Utterly ineligible, of course. At least for you and me. Too well-connected to sport with. Not half enough to wed. But something to look at, isn’t she?”
“Ineligible? How so?” he asked, his eyes never leaving her.
“A ward, merely, of the Viscount Sinclair’s. But there’s
no birth there at all. No money neither, except for whatever Sinclair decides to settle on her. She and her sister are orphans. Their parents were great friends of the family or somesuch, who knows? There it is. Obscure or nonexistent family, parents complete unknowns. Lovely piece though, ain’t she? Why can’t I find needy orphans like that? If Sinclair wasn’t…the man defends her like she
was
his daughter. And he, the greatest rake in London Town after his wife died, until he wed again. Still—who better than he to know a fellow’s evil intentions? He’s a devil with the sword and a demon with pistols. Yet there’s that wretched Dearborne prancing with her. He’d better watch his step in more than the dance. So should she. A rake’s one thing. But there’s no greater cad in London than Dearborne.”
Damon had watched, waiting for the music to stop. But when it did, the sprite immediately waltzed off with another gentleman.
“Fortune or no, her dance card’s probably filled,” his friend said with a smug smile. “Serves you right for coming so late. Don’t worry, you won’t be alone long. Most of the females in the room are watching you, hoping you’ll claim their next waltz. Daresay not a few would burn their dance cards for the chance.”
He had been noticed, Damon knew that. Not only by eager mamas and their wallflowers. Many of the dancers were looking at him, too, even as they whirled around the floor with other men. He’d been told he was attractive, and had used that information to his benefit many times. He also had funds now, and supposedly everyone knew that, too. But that wasn’t the reason for the fascinated stares he was attracting.
But he was not as interested in them. Apart from the sprite, the young women at the ball all looked alike to him tonight. Most were dressed in the height of fashion, in simple white Grecian-style gowns that made them look like garden statues. They all sounded alike, too, and were about as animated as what they resembled.
He’d been to one ball already this week, and had passed an interminable hour at Almack’s just last night. He suddenly discovered he couldn’t stand another round of flirtation. Not another forced giggle, flippant answer, or ripple of artificial laughter.
“You’re as much hunter as prey now,” his friend had said before chortling, echoing his own thoughts. “Bad enough you’re so eligible and came here at the end of the Season when they’re the most desperate. You let it get out that you’re shopping for a wife. A mistake.”
“I don’t think so,” Damon said. “A man in the market for a bargain is better off being honest about it. That’s how he learns about all the available merchandise.”
“Trade’s one thing, the marriage mart is another. Well, even if you
do
have a point, you’ll soon get tired of being hounded. Some of these mamas are like bloodhounds. You’ll find yourself treed if you don’t watch out.”
“But that’s exactly what I want,” Damon said.
“Ho! Then you haven’t seen how a good man can be trapped by circumstances. Mind you don’t end up married to a Gorgon with a clever mama. London’s a dangerous place for a bachelor.”
“The danger,” Damon said, “is sometimes the best part of the hunt.”
“You’ve just got back from abroad, and savage regions at that. You’re only used to being hunted by red Indians and wolves and such. You haven’t gone up against a desperate society mama yet. Watch your step!”
Damon laughed. He knew he was being tracked, but reckoned he’d get used to it. He had to. He was serious about finding a suitable bride and this was the best way to go about it. Newly returned to England, he wanted to settle, refurnish his home, and that included producing children to fill it. He needed someone of breeding to help him achieve that.
But he wanted someone he could talk with, too. Passion and pleasure were easy. Love, obviously, was not. One would have to come after the other in his case, no matter what the poets said. He didn’t put much stock in what they said anyway. None of them were that successful at love or marriage, at least judging from all the longing and disappointment in their work.
Damon was not a romantic. He expected to find love in marriage—if he chose right. He would. He had access to the cream of London society, young women whose birth and fortune was the highest in the land.
But not tonight. He’d find a likely female in time, but now he was suddenly restless and out of patience. He’d eyed the sprite. It turned out she was ineligible, and otherwise engaged, as well. He found himself curiously reluctant to pursue his quest further now.
He looked toward the windows. “I’m off to blow a cloud,” he’d told his friend and stalked out of the ballroom. He went down the long marble hall, out on the
terrace, stepped down a fan of shallow stairs, and walked out into the peace of the garden.
Which had just been disrupted by the fairy-like vision he’d seen at the ball. He recognized her before she turned that flaxen head. He needed no more than a glimpse. She was radiant, her skin luminous in the pale light. Even her slender arms were shapely, he thought, entranced. But she was here with young Dearborne?
A young lady could dally with a gentleman, he supposed. But not when the gentleman had such a bad reputation that even he, so lately arrived in London, had heard about it. Lord Dearborne didn’t have a decent bone in his whole long, comely body. He was more than a rake. Handsome as sin, they all said, and just as virtuous. He was famous for his folly and for leading females into it. And then abandoning them.
So what in God’s name was the chit doing romping out into the garden with him? Unless she wanted to entrap him? But what woman with half a brain would want such a rogue? Unless she was lost to shame—or could she be a fool? Or an innocent beguiled?
He was a captive audience, but the drama was suddenly riveting. And potentially disturbing. The last thing he needed to see tonight was this lovely creature locked in another man’s arms. He wondered whether to step out of the shadow, or stay. Until Dearborne spoke. Then Damon’s eyes narrowed.
“But it was here just two minutes ago,” Dearborne said. “It can’t have got far. I told you its paw was bleeding. Poor little creature. I ought to have brought it into the house, but you know old Merriman, he’d cut up
stiff if I brought an animal into the house the night of his daughter’s ball.”
“But if it was bleeding! Were you afraid to get your fine feathers dirty?” she asked, with a hint of a sneer.
Nothing short of cannon fire would dislodge Damon now.
“Well, I certainly wasn’t going to carry a sick puppy into the house,” Dearborne said. “Can you imagine the screech the ladies would set up? But
you
said you liked dogs and it was such a charming pup. And you’ve got such pluck, everyone says so…. Wait—I think I heard something.”
She stopped, tilting her head to listen.
Adorable
, Damon thought. She was so slender and fine-boned she looked like a creature out of a story he’d heard in the nursery. He almost expected to see gossamer wings on her back when she spun on her heel, turning her head to hear more than the nightingale.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to go look,” she said with an audible sigh. “Can’t leave it suffering alone in the dark.” She gathered her skirt in two hands, lifting the hem from her slippers so it wouldn’t be wet by the dew, preparing to step into the shrubbery in search of whatever it was she thought was hiding there.
Damon drew in a breath and tried to think of a plausible reason explaining his presence, should she happen to bump into him. At the same time he couldn’t help hoping she’d do just that.
He could have saved himself the bother. Because a second later, young Dearborne’s arms wrapped around the sprite. She froze and looked up at him. Their faces were close. Damon’s own face was a study in annoy
ance and frustration. The last thing he wanted to watch was an expert seduction. Or was it an attempted assault? Would it turn into a seduction? He held his breath.
“Let me go,” she said in flat, cold tones.
“Why should I?” Dearborne asked smoothly, gathering her even closer, tipping her face up to his with one hand. “You danced with me with every evidence of delight. You liked my jests, my style, my wit. Now we’ll see if you like my kisses. I’m willing to wager you will.”
“Let me go,” she said firmly.
“Oh, I think not,” Dearborne chuckled, and lowered his head to hers.
Damon readied himself to spring from the shadows. I
f
she seemed to want him to. Because although he hated to admit it, this might have been exactly what she’d asked for.
She turned her head away and said, “N
o
!”
Dearborne laughed and forced her face back toward his own. She grimaced and struggled, pushing at his shoulders, angling away from him as Dearborne chuckled, pressing in closer.
Damon burst from the bushes. He heard a high-pitched cry of agony. He rushed forward—and paused, astonished, realizing whose cry he heard.
The first thing she did was bring up her knee in a flash, hard and accurately. Damon couldn’t help wincing at her precision and timing, even as young Dearborne shrieked and doubled over, clutching his groin. Once Dearborne folded, the sprite raised linked hands high over her head and slammed them down on the back of his neck. As he fell, she slammed the heel of
her hand up against his nose. He lay writhing at her feet, bleeding, groaning, and trying to protect first one part and then another as she kicked him again and again.
Damon had to subdue the attacker just as he’d planned. But not the attacker he’d anticipated. He wrapped two arms around her middle and dragged her, spitting and kicking, from the man on the ground.
“Have done!” Damon shouted in her ear, because she was so determined to slay the man at her feet, it seemed she was trying to kill Damon for stopping her. It was lucky he’d had to fight even more savage opponents in the regions he’d just returned from. They didn’t fight fair either.
“He’s done, take a look,” he panted in her ear, trying to catch her flailing hands in his as she tried to remove his nose. “Finished. Bloody and bowed. You won, call in the mortician. Ouch! Damnation!” He side-stepped another lethal knee. “He’s done for, I said. Have done!”
“I’ll kill him,” she said through clenched teeth. “The damned lying rogue, the villain, the bloody, dismal, rot-gutted whoreson of a…Oh.”