Once an Heiress (5 page)

She wondered who lived in a largely vacant house, with only a presumptuous and incapable butler for a servant. Something had happened here, she reasoned. No matter what the butler said, it was patently obvious that the bulk of the house’s interior was not lived in.

A roaring sneeze startled her. Mr. Wickenworth held his handkerchief to his face.

“God bless you,” Lily said.

“Excuse me,” the solicitor said. He took several steps into the study, the butler following close behind.

Mr. Wickenworth sneezed again. He blew his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said, “The dust is aggravating my nose. I’ll just step outside for a mo — ” He interrupted himself with another sneeze.

“For heaven’s sake, go.” Lily shooed him out with a wave of her hand.

The front door closed behind him. A heavy, uneasy silence followed as Lily realized she was alone with the butler and his too-penetrating gaze.

She clasped her hands behind her back and took a turn around the study. There was a leather sofa in the middle of the room. From behind, she saw that the wooden floor in front of it was darker than the surrounding boards, showing that a rug had covered the area at one time.

When she reached the other side, she found a rumpled blanket lying across the cushions. A heavy glass bottle was on its side on the floor beside the sofa.

She remembered the bang she’d heard when they knocked on the door, and eyed the bottle warily. She had the overwhelming feeling of having stumbled into a primitive, masculine den. There was nothing refined about it — a jumble of papers and a place to bed down with a bottle of whiskey. It was the barest degree of civilized living she had ever encountered in fashionable Mayfair. This was all better suited to an overcrowded tenement house.

Once again, she felt the handsome stranger watching her. She met his eyes, and heat shot straight to her lower belly. Her heart thudded against her ribs.

“This is squalid,” she stated, striving again to regain a sense of balance. How could he jumble her thoughts with a look?

“You have a great many opinions, don’t you?” he rejoined. “Why do you want it,
Miss
Bachman, daughter of
Mister
Bachman?” He gave a derisive intonation to their prefixes. “This isn’t a neighborhood for upstarts.”

He started toward her in slow, deliberate steps. A hungry glint in his eye made Lily decidedly uncomfortable. He looked at her as though he were a wolf, and she the little lamb separated from the flock.

She retreated backward a step. He took up entirely too much space; he sucked the air from the room. “A sch-school,” she stammered. “I’m opening a charity school.”

The predatory posture relaxed. He rubbed a long finger across his chin. “A charity school?” he murmured. “It would be nice to see something good come of the place.”

A realization slapped Lily across the face. “You’re not the butler!” she exclaimed.

The man’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. Then he threw his head back and let out a laugh, clear and loud. The sound sent a shiver of delight through Lily. She couldn’t help but chuckle along with him.

“The butler?” he said. “You thought I was the
butler
?” He laughed again.

A flush of embarrassment heated Lily’s face. It was one thing to laugh at her mistake the first time. Now he was just mocking her!

“What was I supposed to think?” she snapped. “You answered the door in
that
,” she said, waving her hand up and down to indicate his dark attire. Now that she looked at it again, she saw that it was a gentleman’s evening wear, not a butler’s uniform. “The men I know aren’t still wearing the previous night’s apparel at eleven o’clock in the morning.”

The humor left his face and the penetrating look returned. “You don’t know many interesting men, then, do you?” The easy, aristocratic drawl in his voice was unmistakable, now that she expected it. How could she ever have taken him for a servant?

She swallowed. “I know a great many interesting men.” She raised her brows pointedly.

He stalked forward again.

Lily’s pulse thrummed in her ears. She felt the edge of the sofa against the back of her legs an instant before she lost her footing and sprawled onto the cushions. She hadn’t even realized she’d stepped back.

His mouth spread into a lazy smile and his eyes took on a heavy-lidded appearance.

“You sleep here,” Lily said, grasping for something, anything to keep him at bay.

“Usually,” he answered. “But there’s a rather large bed upstairs that hasn’t seen any use in a while.” His teeth flashed in a wolfish grin.

Lily froze at his insinuation. Then she was angry. How dare he?
No one
spoke to her that way. Lily Bachman was not some lightskirt who’d come tripping into his dilapidated abode to subject herself to his torment.

She pressed her hands into the sofa and shoved back upright. The blanket slid off the smooth cushions and pooled behind her ankles.

“Sir,” she began. She cast a contemptuous glance around the study. “If you truly live like this, then you have my pity, but I’ll not be purchasing your hovel. This run-down sty would offend even a bushman accustomed to dwelling in a mud hut.”

The man’s mouth fell open in astonishment.

Lily’s lips curled in an icy smile. “There will be no need to tour the rest of the property,” she said. “I’ll show myself out.”

As she passed the man, she shivered. He stared at her in wrathful silence.

She felt a twinge of guilt for putting down his home without knowledge of his circumstances, but he’d made her feel completely out of her element, so helpless under his hot, penetrating eyes.

On the front step, she drew a deep breath and felt the tension slowly drain from her body.

Mr. Wickenworth stood beside the carriage. “Completed the tour already?”

She shook her head. “I could tell it didn’t suit.”

From inside the house, she heard a bellowing roar, followed by the sound of shattering glass; she immediately recalled the bottle beside the sofa.

Lily fled down the stairs and nearly dove into the coach. “Take me home at once, please.”

She eyed the house warily as the coach rolled forward, glad she’d gotten out when she had. Between the way the stranger inside had ignited her blood and her temper, she was fully aware that she had almost completely lost control of herself. She never wanted to feel that way again.

Ethan finished dealing out thirteen cards to each of the other three players at the table. The last card, his thirteenth, he turned face-up — the three of clubs. A quick check of his hand confirmed that he had four high-ranking cards of the trump suit. He could win this hand. If his partner had even just a few good cards to complement his trumps, it would be a done deal. The old, familiar excitement coursed through his veins.

He cast a longing look at the next table, where an intense game of
vingt-et-un
was underway. Bishop Holyland looked up and caught Ethan’s gaze. He nodded in greeting, then returned his attention to his cards.

He would’ve given anything to join that game, but he simply didn’t have the money — or the credit with the other gentlemen — for the staggering sums those players were throwing around. When Ethan had approached the table an hour ago, half the men had refused to acknowledge him. Bishop had pointed out the ladies needed a fourth for whist.

It was a lowering moment, but Ethan refused to give anyone the satisfaction of laughing at him. A dowager’s money spent the same as any other, after all. He’d thanked Bishop for the suggestion with an easy smile and sauntered to the dowagers’ table as though nothing in the world could give him greater pleasure.

He flashed the women his roguish grin. “Care to make it interesting, ladies?”

“Thorburn, there you are!” Quillan’s booming voice drew the attention of everyone in the card room. He sidled up behind Ethan and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Ladies,” he said. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I steal Lord Thorburn away — we’ve some deadly dull politics to discuss.”

“Thorburn doesn’t sit in Parliament.” The guileless eyes of one of the dowagers blinked at Ethan.

“Truer words have never been spoken, madam.” Quillan nodded to the woman. “Nevertheless, there’s a proposed public road improvement near his family seat, and I’d like his input on the lay of the land.”

Smooth
, Ethan thought appreciatively. If he didn’t know Quillan any better, he almost would have thought his friend gave a rat’s arse about some road project.

He issued a dramatic sigh and rose. “My apologies, ladies. Duty calls.”

Ethan allowed Quillan to guide him away from the card room. They paused in the hallway just outside the door.

“You looked in need of rescuing,” Quillan said cheerfully.

Ethan snorted. “I could’ve won that set. Did you have any idea Lady Bryer refers to clubs as puppy toes?”

“No,” Quillan blinked owlishly. “I generally don’t lower myself to gambling with dowagers.”

Ethan’s lips pursed. He saw how it was. He was the easy target of his friend’s jibe.

Not long ago, Quillan had been the one who needed this friendship more than Ethan did. Ethan was the one the ladies had flocked to. He was the one with a well-cultivated reputation for fast living and a lust for life. Years ago when they’d met at Oxford — and then as two young men new to town — Quillan was chubby, awkward, and easy to overlook in a crowd. Back then, the only thing that recommended him at all was his title, and that only mattered to husband-hunting misses.

Ethan introduced him to the more interesting set and helped him overcome his debilitating shyness. With Ethan’s guidance, Quillan found his stride.

And now the nature of their relationship had changed. Quillan was the one welcome in every ballroom and parlor. He was the one who had secured a contract with the most sought-after courtesan in London. It was he who did Ethan favors now — usually in the form of loaning him money. At present, Ethan owed him upwards of ten thousand pounds.

The tone of their friendship had shifted. Ethan needed Quillan, and Quillan knew it. And sometimes, such as now, he reminded Ethan of the fact.

Well. Before much longer, Ethan would give Quillan a small taste of comeuppance when he took his mistress right out from under his nose.

They strolled into the ballroom, where several hundred bodies were packed in close proximity to one another, a teeming mass of elegant attire and false-bright smiles.

“How is Lady Umberton?” Ethan asked casually.

Quillan gave him a sharp look.

The only,
the only,
subject remaining that Ethan could possibly hold over Quillan was his marriage. Ethan warned his friend the fair object of his infatuation might only be after his title.

But Quillan refused to listen, believing instead the sweet nothings his intended whispered in his ear. They’d married her first Season out, a few months after Quillan met her.

And he’d regretted it every day since, for the past five years.

Immediately after the wedding, all of Lady Umberton’s sweet pretenses fell to the wayside. His countess took to spending Quillan’s money and brandishing her title over inferior acquaintances like a duck to water.

Ethan stood by his friend’s side, resisting the urge to ever once breathe a word of the
I told you so
that had hung in the air between them all these years.

But if Quillan was going to persist in rubbing Ethan’s debts into his face …

Quillan made a disgusted sound in his throat. “She’s big as a house and a misery to be around, if you must know,” Quillan said. “I hope she delivers soon, and pray God it’s a boy. If I never have to touch that harpy again, it’ll be too soon.”

Ethan tactfully nodded and gave his friend a neutral sounding, “Hmm.”

He took a glass of champagne from a passing footman. Despite the lines of twirling dancers in the middle of the ballroom, Ethan’s attention was nonetheless grabbed by a flurry of activity on the other side of the room.

A woman in a scarlet gown stood out like a rose against black velvet, surrounded as she was by a coterie of gentlemen in dark evening wear. Her hand rested on the arm of her escort, though the distance between them suggested she bowed to politeness, not preference. From here, Ethan detected the haughty lift of her chin, the way she ate up the floor with confident strides, rather than mincing, ladylike steps, forcing her entourage to trip over themselves and each other to remain beside her while avoiding collisions with the other guests.

“That’s her,” he breathed. Admiration mingled with distaste. While she was certainly a rare beauty and no shrinking violet like so many society misses, he couldn’t forget the numerous setdowns she had heaped upon his head just minutes after they’d laid eyes on one another.

“What was that?” Quillan turned to look in the direction Ethan was staring.

“That girl,” Ethan amended. Quillan knew he’d lost his possessions, but he didn’t know Ethan was forced to offer his house for sale. There was no way for Ethan to describe how this infuriatingly rude vixen had toured his home and insulted every inch of it without further abasing himself in Quillan’s estimation.

His friend chuckled. “There are a hundred girls here, Eth. To which do you refer?”

Ethan nodded to indicate the direction. “The one in red, with a round table’s worth of gallants swarming around.”

Quillan scanned the crowed until he spotted the tableau. “Miss Bachman, you mean?”

“Yes,” he murmured, “Miss Bachman.”

As they watched, Miss Bachman dropped her escort’s arm. Another man materialized at her side, proffering a cup of punch. She waved a hand, turning down the offering. A rival stepped in front of her with a flute of champagne. This she also refused.

She was tall for a woman, taller even than most of the men nipping at her heels. He hadn’t noticed her height when she’d been in his house. She was shorter than he, which was all that registered — but so was every other woman he’d ever met. Now that he saw her in comparison to others, he gained an appreciation for her stature.

A woman that tall,
he suddenly thought,
must have miles of leg under her skirts.
His mouth went dry as he contemplated this revelation. “Do you know anything about her?”