Lady Emma's Dilemma (9781101573662) (7 page)

By Lord Monteford's calm expression, it appeared he was completely unperturbed by the dowager's jibe. “Thank you for your concern, Duchess. My mother has always been fragile, but she never misses her Tuesday evening whist party, which I believe you attend as well, ma'am?”

Grandmère sent him a brittle smile. “I do indeed. We always enjoy the
liveliest
conversation.” Again, there seemed to be another level of meaning to the old lady's words.

Lord Monteford's lips compressed, but he obviously thought better of sparring any more with the dowager Duchess of Kelbourne.

“Lady Fallbrook, Lady Colhurst informs me that the
next set will be a quadrille. I would be honored if you would dance with me.”

The quadrille!
That elegant dance had always been a particular favorite of Emma's. Something about moving in harmonious synchronicity with the other dancers, weaving the figures in graceful time with the music, had always had an almost mesmerizing effect upon her senses. As a girl, when she had first learned the complicated steps, she had fancied that if the dancers carried long ribbons, by the end of the dance they would all be entwined in an intricate braid.

“I would be delighted, Lord Monteford.”

He offered his arm and she placed her fingers on his forearm, then sent a smile to her grandmother. The old lady did not look as pleased as she had when Emma had taken the floor with Lord Darley.

Doing her best to ignore the stares from the other guests, Emma moved to stand opposite Lord Monteford and waited for the other dancers to take their places.

Glancing around the room, she noticed Penelope joining another set with her husband. Evidently, Lord Tunbridge decided to leave the billiard room after all, she thought with a smile. She continued to watch as Penelope leaned toward her husband and pointed to Emma. The earl turned with a broad smile and sent Emma a jaunty salute just as the music started. She smiled back at her friend's handsome husband, glad that there were a few familiar faces among the hundreds crowding the ballroom.

She and Lord Monteford danced in silence for a few measures, and Emma noticed that although the quadrille was a completely different kind of dance compared to the waltz, he did not possess Lord Darley's easy grace. Oh, he performed the steps well enough, but his manner was a little too studied to be truly pleasing, Emma decided.

She hoped he was not the kind of gentleman who talked through the whole dance. For the quadrille in particular she preferred little or no conversation. Jack had always remained
silent when they had danced together. She recalled the way his intense dark eyes held hers as they formed the figures. It had been dizzyingly romantic to gaze into his eyes as the room swirled around them.

With a jolt of shock, she realized that she was actually remembering something about Jack Devruex with fondness. Forcing her disturbing thoughts back to the present, she sent Lord Monteford a bright smile.

“Did you enjoy the play last night, Lady Fallbrook?” he asked in a silky voice.

For an instant, she lost the rhythm of the music and made the
chasse
a second too slow. She studied his haughty features for a moment, wondering what he was about. She certainly did not intend to comment on the impudent actor's bizarre departure from the play. “I thought the performances rather amateurish.” She kept her tone deliberately light.

Monteford crossed in front of her, making conversation impossible for a few measures. When they met again in the center, he wore a slight smile. “Is that all, Lady Fallbrook? There were a few moments when I would have sworn that you were enjoying yourself.”

He was an intriguing man, she thought as they made the
demi-prominade.
If he intended to impress her, making veiled references to his public appearance with his mistress was not the way to go about it. “The evening held a few diversions,” she said.

Not that she cared about Lord Monteford's behavior, but even her departed husband, a man with a complete want of sensitivity, had taken pains to be discreet about his affairs.

Passing behind Lord Monteford, she concentrated on the steps for a few moments. Again they met in the middle, clasped hands, and spun around in place. He looked deeply into her eyes and she found something compelling in their unexpectedly beautiful depths.

“You are an astoundingly fine-looking woman,” he murmured
softly, “and I have every intention of furthering our acquaintance.”

As he released her, Emma's brows shot up. His tone was so confident, so definite, that she could not resist the immediate desire to take the wind out of his sails. Besides, she was not a woman to tolerate being flirted with by a man who flaunted his mistress without a hint of shame.

Sending him a dry look, she said, “Gracious me, Lord Monteford, I would not have thought that you would have the time.”

He watched her for a moment, his gaze sharp and assessing. “I have time for all the things that interest me.”

Emma decided that notwithstanding his exceedingly pretty eyes and impressive address, she would not be adding the viscount to her list of potential paramours. Being among the “things that interest him” held no attraction for her.

The set ended a moment later and Lord Monteford led her back to her grandmother. Spreading open her fan, Emma turned to him with a cool smile. “Thank you for a most pleasant interlude, sir.”

His fair brows rose and Emma could see his barely concealed displeasure. Evidently Lord Monteford was unused to being dismissed. He briefly bowed over her hand, and as he straightened, he looked into her eyes with unconcealed annoyance and confusion. Without a word, he turned and melded into the crowd.

With a dismissive shrug, Emma watched Lord Monteford's retreating back before turning to her grandmother and friends. Grandmère gazed at her with an expression of pride and pleasure.

“Considering the attention you are receiving, you comport yourself exceedingly well, m'dear,” Grandmère murmured in a tone the others could not hear. “No one would suspect that you have spent the last decade rusticating. Well done, my dear. You are certainly my granddaughter,” she murmured on a note of pride.

“You no longer think I am so provincial?” Emma sent her a rueful smile.

“Certain instincts may have gotten rusty, but you never forget. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Actually, I am,” Emma replied. And she meant it.

But Grandmère's point was not lost upon her. Emma could not help but be keenly aware of the interested stares and whispers directed toward her. She found it rather disconcerting and was grateful for the company of her friends to give her confidence a bit of a boost. She had forgotten how exhausting Society could be.

“I say, look who just walked in. Lady Colhurst is going to be utterly puffed up with pride,” Amelia Spence-Jones, standing on the other side of Grandmère, announced.

At the amusement lacing her friend's voice, Emma glanced around, curious as to what elicited the comment. As if drawn by some unseen power, her gaze instantly went to the other side of the room to where a tall man with black hair and broad shoulders was about to descend the curving staircase.

Feeling the air seem to freeze in her lungs, Emma stared. He paused on the landing, his legs braced slightly apart, surveying the scene below.

Jack, Baron Devruex, had just entered the ballroom.

U
pon entering Colhurst House, Jack asked himself for the hundredth time why he had decided to subject himself to what would no doubt be an utterly dull evening. The thought of spending hours dancing with inquisitive matrons and giggling misses almost made him turn on his heel and head to the nearest alehouse. Yet here he was.

Handing his hat and walking stick to a footman, he made his way through the densely packed reception rooms toward the ballroom. To give Lady Colhurst her due, she did go to extravagant lengths to provide her male guests commodious accommodations for cards and billiards. But a pleasant card room had never been enough inducement to bring him to this kind of crush. Yet here he was, he thought again.

There was no point in lying to himself, he thought with grim amusement. He had come to have a look at Lady Fallbrook. At the top of the staircase, the bewigged major domo bowed and stepped forward to announce him to the assemblage.

Jack raised his hand in a brief motion and the major domo instantly halted his movement and sent the baron a look of questioning surprise.

“No need to announce me, good man. Everyone will know I am here soon enough.”

At this unprecedented departure from protocol, a grin
flashed across the servant's features before he bowed again, saying placidly, “Very good, milord.”

As Jack descended the staircase, his gaze swept the crowd. Not surprisingly, the cream of the beau monde was in attendance. Everyone knew that Lady Colhurst was a notorious stickler when it came to her guest list. Only the most unblemished reputations made it through her door, making her invitation all the more coveted.

Jack knew well enough that the only reason he was welcomed into this hallowed room was that Lady Colhurst had been one of his mother's dearest friends. In her memory, Lady Colhurst graciously ignored his reputation and sent him invitations to every party she hosted during the Season. He had long suspected that the good lady believed that she could reform him with her motherly concern. So far, her efforts had not produced satisfactory results.

In the guise of looking for his hostess, he continued scanning the assemblage, wondering if he would recognize Emma after thirteen years. He saw any number of friends and acquaintances, but was caught up short when he saw Monteford standing by a set of French doors with a group of dandies. Jack was surprised to see him, for he knew the viscount found this kind of affair even more objectionable than he did.

Of course, he mused cynically, it did not surprise him that Monteford had received an invitation from the fastidious Lady Colhurst. Despite the fact that Monteford's reputation was as derelict as Devruex's, Monteford enjoyed the benefit of being shielded from public censure by the power and prestige of his grandfather, the Earl of Pellerton.

A moment later he mentally dismissed his friend, deciding to speak to him later. Right now his sole focus was on locating Lady Fallbrook.

He scanned the room for all of three seconds before he found her. For a moment, it was as if the more than four hundred guests disappeared.

She stood directly beneath a low slung, massive chandelier.

Her shimmering rose-colored gown echoed the glow in the high planes of her cheeks. Her light brown hair, piled high upon her head, showed to advantage the exquisite length of her neck.

Everything about her face and form struck him at once as utterly familiar and completely strange. Gone was the laughing, beautiful girl he'd adored, and in her place stood a strikingly lovely and sophisticated woman. Her figure, although a bit slimmer than he remembered, still had the lush curves that had nearly driven him insane when he had been a besotted one-and-twenty-year-old. My God, had thirteen years really gone by? He could not tell it by the beautiful woman standing on the other side of the ballroom.

He stayed motionless for a moment, feeling the air constrict in his lungs, watching her speak to the dowager Duchess of Kelbourne. Just then, he caught sight of a smiling Lady Colhurst approaching. With an effort, he pulled himself from his near frozen contemplation of Emmaline Fallbrook and moved to bow over his hostess's proffered hand.

“My dear Lord Devruex, I cannot tell you how delighted I am to see you this evening! I can hear hearts fluttering all over the room as we speak. Oh, I am not precipitous when I say that my ball is an unequivocal success. Now you will never guess who else has joined us this evening,” she said. Putting her arm through his, she drew him farther into the room as she continued to chatter.

Only half listening to Lady Colhurst relay the latest
on dit
, Devruex kept his peripheral attention on Emmaline.

It was rather the damnedest thing, he thought, but now that he was here, he had no real plan as to how to proceed. Earlier, he had told himself that he only wanted to take a look at her. After all, the whole Town was talking of nothing else and his curiosity was piqued. Considering what had occurred between them, who would blame him? But now that he had seen her, he had no idea what he intended to do next.

He continued to escort his prattling hostess around the room, hating this uncharacteristically indecisive feeling.

One would think that he had not spent the last thirteen years making crucial decisions about his life. He had gambled his past and risked his future, and through it all he had rarely hesitated or made a misstep. But tonight he could not even decide if he wanted to walk across the room and bow to a woman he had not seen in thirteen years. Gad, it was not as if she still had the power to rip his heart out and leave it on the side of a muddy road again, he thought with bitter humor.

“Now, young man”—Lady Colhurst cut into his thoughts, giving his forearm a firm squeeze—“I expect you shall want to please me by partnering as many ladies as possible this evening,” she instructed with a bright smile before turning to her other guests.

Lady Colhurst left him standing in the midst of the festive crowd and his gaze instantly returned to Emmaline. Her profile reminded him again of the first night they met at Lady Cowper's ball, and his heart began to pound with irritating intensity.

Enough of this hesitation, he thought impatiently as he moved toward her through the densely packed ballroom. This meeting was long past due.

Deliberately ignoring anyone who tried to gain his attention, he kept his gaze on Emmaline's graceful form.

Had the time come to forgive her? The thought caught him up short. What a strange notion to enter his mind at this moment. Feeling his hands clench into fists, he slowed his stride to give himself some time.