Irresistible (31 page)

"I declare, that child has shaped up remarkably well. At Christmas she was plump as a partridge." Aunt Augusta, who was walking beside her as Claire gave her aunt an arm as far as the chaperons' chairs, had her gaze on Beth, who was at that moment skipping enthusiastically through a country dance. "Who is that boy she is dancing with? Is it one of the Rutherfords, or…?"

"Claire, dear, I'd like to present my late husband's nephew, the Duke of Richmond." Lady George came up behind her, distracting her attention as she slid cool fingers around the crook of Claire's elbow just above her evening glove. "He was out of the country at the time of your wedding, but at least has had the grace to present himself now, quite two years late, the wretch."

Claire had never heard quite that same archly teasing tone from her mother-in-law before. Clearly this nephew must be someone she wished to please. Of course, he owned the houses Lady George lived in as if they were her own and, for all Claire knew, provided something in the way of an allowance for his aunt as well. David's father had not left his wife and son any too plump in the pocket, as she was well aware, and the duke was head of the family, after all. Certainly it would be in Lady George's best interests to stay on his good side.

Amused by this new and unexpected facet to her mother-in-law's personality, she turned to meet the prodigal with a slight smile on her lips— and froze in the act of holding out her hand.

She was face-to-face with Hugh.

Chapter 24

"… My daughter-in-law, Lady Claire Lynes."

Claire was barely aware of Lady George completing the introduction. She was no longer breathing. Her heart had given a great leap in her breast at the moment her gaze met Hugh's and was now pounding out of control. Despite the heat of the room, she felt suddenly icy cold. Her hand, which she had been in the act of extending before she realized exactly whom it was she was extending it to, was suspended in midair. Her eyes stayed fixed on his face.

For one dreadful moment, she feared she might faint. It required every ounce of willpower she possessed to stay on her feet.

Was she hallucinating? That was her first confused thought. The second was: Could this possibly be an eerily exact look-alike? His black hair was cut short, in the fashionable Brutus style, but nothing else had changed. He was as swarthy as a Gypsy, his lean cheeks clean-shaven, his long mouth smiling rather wryly at her. She knew that smile. She knew those eyes. They were gray as bullet lead, narrowed, watching her carefully, their cool caution belying the smile.

She was not mistaken. There was no possibility of mistake. This was Hugh. Her Hugh.

Dressed in impeccable black evening clothes that suited his tall, broad-shouldered form to perfection, he was bowing over her gloved hand, raising it to his mouth.

Watching him, Claire felt as if she were caught up in a bad dream. The man she had longed for and thought never to see again, the man whose fate had been the stuff of her nightmares, the man she had been breaking her heart over every day for the past three months, was now standing in front of her, kissing her hand as if she were a chance-met stranger and their encounter no more than everyday.

"I'm honored to make the acquaintance of so lovely a cousin."

It was his voice. Hugh's voice. There was no mistake. She would recognize it without fail, even in the darkest pit anywhere on earth. Claire exhaled slowly, willing her knees not to give way, willing her hands not to shake. She fought to keep her face impassive, but she was not sure how well she succeeded. Her gaze fixed helplessly on his face as he pressed his mouth lightly to the back of her knuckles, then released her hand and straightened to his full height, looking down at her with distant courtesy. Clearly there was something in her expression that should not have been there, because he frowned at her slightly, and there was suddenly a flicker of what could only be warning in his eyes as they met hers.

Hugh. She was looking up at Hugh. She took another deep, restorative breath, letting her lids drop to veil her eyes even as she reminded herself fiercely that whatever the rights and wrongs of this situation in which they found themselves, there was no possibility of delving into it now: They had an audience. In her initial shock, she had forgotten all about Lady George. Forgotten all about Aunt Augusta. Forgotten all about every other person in the ballroom, in the house, in the world— except the two of them.

Impossible as it seemed, Hugh had somehow walked back into her life. In the guise of the Duke of Richmond, yet. Claire frowned as she remembered that detail of his reappearance. How on earth could that be?

"You're very kind." Somehow Claire managed to speak more or less normally, to summon a hard-won smile, to utter the commonplace courtesy that was expected of her, even while a jumble of questions and thoughts and emotions tried to sort themselves out in her head.

"Lud, Duke, this is a surprise. Last report I can remember hearing of you, you were with the army in Spain. Well. It's good to have you back among us." Aunt Augusta was looking him over with approval. As well she might, Claire thought hollowly. In his new incarnation, Hugh was as devastating as he had been in his old one: He was still tall, dark, and impossibly attractive. Only now he was rigged out as befitted a duke. His evening clothes had clearly been made by a master. His coat, of severe black superfine, fit his broad-shouldered form to perfection. His breeches were black too, and hugged the powerful muscles of his long legs almost lovingly. His linen was snowy, his cravat expertly tied. A diamond glittered in its folds. There was, she saw, another diamond in the signet ring on his hand. The duke's signet ring? Of course. Near-hysterical laughter bubbled into her throat as she finally, truly realized what had happened: Her Hugh, her secret lover, her partner in an impossible adventure that she could never forget, had walked back into her life just as coolly as if they had last talked only the day before— as the Duke of Richmond.

Her mind boggled at the thought.

Those cool gray eyes were watching her carefully from beneath heavy lids, Claire saw, gauging her reaction to his new incarnation even as he responded to Aunt Augusta.

"It's good to be back— Lady Salcombe, isn't it?" Hugh's glance slid to Aunt Augusta, and Claire breathed again.

"That's right. Lady Claire— your new cousin by marriage here— is my niece."

"Ah, then I can certainly see where she gets her charm— and her looks." Hugh's flattery was charming, his smile more so. Aunt Augusta laughed, and said something about there being no need to turn her up sweet as the gel was already taken. Hugh replied— she completely missed whatever it was he said— and turned that smile on her. It was one of those curling smiles that she so well remembered, and just looking at it was enough to make the short hairs on the back of Claire's neck stand on end. Could no one but she sense the charge that heated the air between them, feel the undercurrents that ran beneath every word, every glance, they exchanged? Apparently not. A swift look around convinced her that neither her aunt nor her mother-in-law had the least idea that anything was amiss. They were both beaming at Hugh like fond parents at a prodigal son. Claire, who felt as if her face had frozen into a smile, barely managed to keep herself from lapsing into a state of pure shock. By the skin of her teeth, she kept her lips pulled back from her teeth in what she feared must surely be more grimace than smile. But still no one seemed to notice anything out of the way about her response to making the acquaintance of the head of the Lynes family. Aunt Augusta, her rather small blue eyes growing sharper by the second as she surveyed Hugh from head to toe, seemed to be busy assessing his possibilities as a husband for her niece— that would be Beth, of course— and liking what she saw. Lady George, calling a greeting to a passing acquaintance, was focused elsewhere for the moment.

Revealing that she was at all acquainted with Hugh would be fatal, Claire realized with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, because it would lead to inevitable questions about when and where they had met, and then, she feared, somewhere in the tangled web of attempted deception the truth would inevitably come out. The thought made her shudder. She could hardly manage to stay on her feet, much less maintain so huge a lie. Grimly Claire fought to get herself under control. Deliberately she tried to relax the tense muscles of her shoulders, her back, her arms. Her heart was slowing down on its own, its wild pounding decreasing gradually to a more regular beat. She was able to breathe again more or less normally, she discovered as she tried.

What she could not seem to do was keep her eyes from Hugh's face.

She had thought he was lost to her forever. And now, here he was, standing before her in the flesh. The question was: Was that a good thing— or a bad one?

"You did know David had married?" Lady George, her attention restored to them, asked Hugh, and Claire forced herself to look at her mother-in-law instead. Lady George was far more keen-eyed than Aunt Augusta, and, with her loyalty firmly on the side of her son, far more of a danger to her, Claire knew. Thank goodness she had been distracted for those few moments and thus missed what Claire was certain had been a kaleidoscope of wildly shifting emotions chasing each other across her face.

The idea of her mother-in-law discovering exactly how well she knew Hugh made Claire feel ill. The scandal would be so horrible; she couldn't bear thinking about it. And Lady George would cry it from the rafters, if she somehow got wind of it. Her mother-in-law had never particularly liked her, she knew. David— what would David do? He didn't care for her anymore, if he ever had, nor she for him, but she was his wife.

Dear God in heaven, how had she ever gotten caught up in such a coil? And how was she ever going to get out of it without touching off the kind of scandal that would keep the
ton
gossiping for years?

"I found out only recently."

Hugh was no longer looking at her, Claire discovered. He was focused on Lady George, carrying on, from what she had heard of it over the pounding of her blood in her ears, a perfectly normal conversation. His expression revealed nothing but the polite level of interest the subject demanded. If she had not known better, she would have believed that he was in the most mundane of situations.

But she did know better. He had to be as shocked at their encounter as she was. He was simply more skilled at concealing it. Of course, he was a spy. Spies were good at that kind of thing. Perfectly normal females like herself were not.

Then the significance of the words
I found out only recently
sank in, and Claire realized that Hugh had in all likelihood discovered that his cousin David was married when she herself had told him of it— along with the rest of her life story while she had lain snuggled in his arms in that never-to-be-forgotten bunk on the
Nadine
. She had certainly mentioned David's name more than once, along with a number of telling details about their lives.

No wonder he had finally taken her word as to her identity. Every syllable that had fallen from her lips must have confirmed it for him.

He had known precisely who she was from that moment on. Claire began to focus on the sheer perfidy of the man, and her temper bubbled to simmering life. Her heart began to beat faster again, and her fingers curled into impotent claws at her sides. He had known who she was— and he had not said anything. Remembering how she had begged him to lie with her made her cheeks heat along with her temper. If she hadn't been so certain that she was never going to see him again, that they would have only that one night together and then he would vanish from her life forever, she would never have been so bold.

Certainly, if she had known he was her husband's cousin, the head of the family she had married into, the owner of Hayleigh Castle and Richmond House and all the other myriad properties that David and Lady George treated as their own— in other words, if she had known he was the Duke of Richmond— she would never, ever, in a thousand lifetimes, have behaved as she had done!

She had lain with him. Been naked in his arms. Permitted him to touch her, and kiss her, and perform the most intimate— she shuddered to remember just how intimate— of acts upon her person. She had allowed him to give her the ultimate joy, and had cried out his name to the heavens as she experienced it.

He had let her. He had known who she was, and he had let her.

If looks could kill, the shaft she fired at him from her eyes at that point should have slain him on the spot. His eyes widened a little as her message went home, but before he could respond, if indeed he intended to respond, they were interrupted.

"There you are, Lady Claire! I've been looking for you everywhere." The speaker was Lord Alfred Dalrymple. A tall, thin man resplendent in a magnificent purple coat and striped waistcoat that quite put the ladies' gowns to shame, he had been on the town forever and was one of the most persistent of Claire's cicisbei. In his early thirties, he was a veritable pink of the
ton
and a confirmed bachelor who tended to attach himself to married women for protection from the countless mothers of marriageable daughters who pursued him for the simple reason that Lord Alfred was said to be worth some twenty thousand pounds a year.

"Your servant, Lady Salcombe, Lady George." He executed a pair of elegant legs in the direction of those ladies before smiling at Claire. "Lady Claire, it's my dance, I believe. Never tell me you had forgotten?"

Indeed, she had. Now that he reminded her, she recalled that he had indeed asked her for the first waltz during the call he and his great friend Mr. Calvert had paid them the afternoon before. With her senses attuned to the music again, she could hear the musicians striking up. Before, she had heard little over the pounding of her heart.

"Ah, you had forgotten. I can see it on your face. Oh, faithless one, how you wound me." Placing a hand over his heart, Lord Alfred tried to look pathetic.

Ordinarily such badinage, which was his stock in trade, made Claire laugh, and reply in kind. Tonight the most she could manage was a rather forced smile. But in any case he was no longer looking at her. He was looking at Hugh, who was standing just beyond her with a lurking grin curving the corners of his mouth, and surprise was suddenly writ large on his face.