Once an Heiress (6 page)

Quillan turned a quizzical expression upon him. “You mean you
don’t
know anything about her?”

Ethan frowned and shook his head. “Should I?”

Quillan barked a laugh. “Old man, Miss Bachman is the dark horse catch of the Season. She’s got the regular brood of would-be wives in a tizzy. All those pathetic chaps over there aren’t yapping around a woman of no consequence whatsoever because of her pretty face.”

“Then why are they?” he asked, lifting his champagne to his lips.

“Ethan,” Quillan said with laughter in his voice, “Miss Bachman has a dowry of a hundred thousand pounds. Have you been under a rock all year?”

Ethan choked on his drink. The effervescent liquid shot up the back of his throat and burned his nose. “A hundred thou — ” he croaked.

“Astonishing, isn’t it?” Quillan said. “This is her second Season out, but word of her fortune just leaked this spring. There hasn’t been a dowry like that on the Marriage Mart in years.”

“But who
is
she?” Ethan asked. “And how can this only be her second Season? She’s no young miss.” Indeed, he thought, recalling his provoking encounter with Miss Bachman, her rapier wit bespoke a woman of some experience. If she was a green girl, then Ethan was the King of Siam.

The vision in red turned her back, giving him ample opportunity to examine her figure. Chestnut hair looped and twisted in an intricate updo, leaving the column of her long, creamy neck bared for his consideration. He followed the line of her neck down. It swept his gaze over a graceful, but well-defined, shoulder. No timid bits on that one, no. A narrow waist flared out to generously curved hips. His body tightened as the first hints of arousal thudded through his veins.

In his study, she’d both infuriated and intoxicated him. He’d written it off as the effect of drinking too late and rising too early, but with a similar feeling again stealing over him, perhaps it hadn’t been the alcohol, at all. If she could transfix him so from a distance of twenty paces, he must well and truly be attracted to the infuriating female.

As he watched, she made an annoyed, regal gesture with a gloved hand, sending some poor sap on his way.

“If by ‘Who is she?’ you mean to inquire about her connections,” Quillan said, seemingly unaffected by the siren across the room, “then I can tell you that the family is of no account whatsoever. Her father is richer than Croesus — coal, I hear — and has some government contracts. He’s won a seat in Commons. It’s new money. Quite crass.”

Ethan’s gaze wandered from Miss Bachman to the unassuming older couple standing nearby — her parents? The woman was talking to some other older ladies, and the gentleman had the blank look on his face of a man who would much rather be elsewhere. The pair didn’t look extraordinary in the least. They would have blended right into the local assembly rooms in any small town.

“So now,” he concluded, following the trail of Quillan’s story, “Miss Bachman’s marriage — to a nobleman, of course — will cement the family’s status. They will have, as they say, arrived.”

“Just so,” Quillan agreed. “She was previously affianced to an Army man, but the Peninsular did him in before they wed. Last year was her first Season out of mourning, and her first in town.”

Ah. That explained the discrepancy in her age-to-Season ratio. “Any son?” Ethan asked.

“No.” Quillan tapped a manicured nail against his glass. “Miss B is the only child. Of course, Mr. Bachman
is
actively engaged in industry. The stench of trade is all over his money, in any event. But when there’s just so very
much
of it, and still more coming in all the time … ” He waggled his brow. “One begins to acquire an appreciation for the aroma.”

“No title,” Ethan mused out loud as his disbelieving gaze crossed the room again to settle on Miss Bachman, now seated and hemmed in by seven men vying for her notice. “New money. No tail tying the fortune to a male heir.” A tingle shot up his spine. “He’s leaving it all to her, isn’t he?” he said, turning astonished eyes on his friend.

Quillan nodded. “She’s not just an heiress, she’s
the
heir. That’s the rumor, anyway — not only the dowry, but the inheritance to come when Mr. B passes to his eternal reward.”

Ethan swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “And how much would that be?”

“Nobody knows. But if
her
dowry is a hundred thousand, how much more must
he
have?” Quillan lifted his glass and tilted his head. “Makes me wish I wasn’t already shackled, I tell you.”

Ethan’s mind reeled. With a dowry of a hundred thousand for his daughter, Mr. Bachman himself could easily be worth a half-million, or a full million, or more. Ethan could pay off his debts. He could afford Ghita. Hell, he could afford
ten
Ghitas.

Something soft and feminine jostled against him.

“Oh, excuse me, my lord.”

He glanced down to see a petite blonde pressed against his side.

“Lady Elaine,” he said, inclining his head.

She batted her eyelashes at him in what he supposed was meant to be a flirtatious fashion, but fell miserably short. “This has turned into quite the crush. One can scarcely breathe,” she simpered. “I couldn’t help but hear you talking,” Lady Elaine said. Her small eyes disappeared behind the apples of her cheeks as she flashed him an ingratiating smile.

Ethan and Quillan exchanged a nonplussed look.

“Were you discussing Lily Bachman?” the woman pressed.

Her name is Lily.
He filed that information away in his mind. “It would do no good to deny it, as you’ve already owned to eavesdropping.”

The young woman drew herself up, oblivious to his rebuke, and crossed her arms beneath an unimpressive bosom. “I can’t stand her,” she said with a sneer. “No one can.”

“That’s quite a claim.” Ethan tipped his glass toward the portion of the room where Lily Bachman held court. “It would appear a great many people tolerate her perfectly well.”

Lady Elaine’s nostrils flared like a bull preparing to charge. “They’re only after her obscene money. No one likes her. Look at her,” the woman said. Envy etched its ugly imprint across her features. “Tall as a giraffe. She stomps about like a man and holds herself apart, like she’s too good to talk to anyone —
her!
A complete nobody, lording around over
actual
lords and ladies. And when she does open her mouth, she doesn’t have a nice word to say to a soul.”

Ethan was tempted to point out the hypocrisy of her diatribe, but held his tongue.

“Just look!” Lady Elaine gestured with a hand.

He looked.

Some oaf dabbed with a handkerchief at what appeared to be a punch stain on the thigh of her skirt.

Color flooded Lily’s cheeks. She swatted the swain’s hand. Ethan understood that she didn’t want the man touching her leg. The place he kept swiping at
was
awfully close to Eden.

The man kept insisting, kept touching.

A frustrated knot formed in Ethan’s chest. Why didn’t anyone stop the fool pawing her? He made a disgusted sound.

“Exactly,” Lady Elaine said. “See how she berates the poor fellow?”

Ethan’s brows furrowed as he suddenly felt a protective urge. He started forward, intent to pull the man off Miss Bachman, when she took matters into her own very capable hands.

She jumped to her feet and rounded on the offending gentleman. Ethan couldn’t hear her voice over the music and rumble of the crowd, but he saw well enough the sharp gestures of her hands, the way her teeth were bared as she spoke. He saw, too, how the man seemed to crumble under her verbal evisceration.

Finally, the man hurried away, swiping at his cheek.

“By Jove,” Quillan said, all astonishment. “She made him cry!”

“Horrible,” Lady Elaine sneered.

Ethan let her declaration hang in the air, unanswered, as the inexplicable anxiety he’d felt for Miss Bachman drained away. He didn’t know that he’d call Miss Bachman
horrible
, as Lady Elaine insisted, but having already been on the wrong end of her sharp tongue, he wasn’t ready to jump to her defense, either.

A moment later, he noticed the space at his side had been vacated. Lady Elaine had evidently gone elsewhere to spread her vitriol. He breathed a little easier.

“So,” Quillan said.

Ethan looked at him. “Yes?”

“What do you think?”

“Of what?” Ethan asked.

“Miss Bachman,” Quillan said.

He shrugged. “What is there to think?” She had turned her back on the punch-spiller. Ethan had a nice view of her profile, which was dominated by a spectacular pair of —

“Ethan,” Quillan said.

“What?”

His eyes still roved Miss Bachman’s assets. She’d been modestly buttoned up in a pelisse when he’d met her before.
Hiding those lush breasts should be a hanging offense
, he decided.

“The gleam in your eye, Ethan, reminds me of the last time you had a decent hand. When was that? Remind me; it’s been a while.”

Miss Bachman’s money offered freedom from a bleak future. It was comfort, security.

As he watched her skewer another hopeful, he felt something akin to the same blissful state he remembered from sailing with his grandfather. Exhilaration and peace all at once.

Well, maybe not peace, he considered. Not with Miss Bachman part and parcel with her hundred thousand.

Of course, he mused with a thoughtful tilt of the head, he didn’t really
like
peace all that much, did he? A little fire to keep things exciting might be just the thing.

Besides, marriage didn’t mean an end to his life. Plenty of people, Quillan included, lived virtually separate lives from their spouses. Marriage was just a contract, names scribbled on a license. It didn’t really
mean
anything, as he knew from his own parents’ wildly unsuccessful union. His own life could go on just as he wished.

Maybe Ethan
could
offer Miss Bachman a mutually beneficial arrangement. He had the title she wanted, and she had the money he needed.

He smiled. “Quillan, my friend, I’ve decided it’s time I marry.”

“And I won’t insult you by asking the identity of the lucky lady. Only one has the charms,” he said while rubbing his thumb and first two fingers together, “to catch your eye. When do you start your pursuit?”

Ethan looked across the room where the future Lady Thorburn was conversing with one of her hangers-on with a bored expression on her face.

Ethan’s smile deepened. He handed Quillan his glass. “Right now.”

Lily cast a longing look at one of the two chandeliers hanging above the ballroom. It glittered like a thousand shards of ice the morning after a winter storm.

She wondered if it would support the weight of a noose from which she could hang herself. It didn’t even matter if the chandelier couldn’t support her for long. Once the noose snapped her neck and ended her misery, the chandelier could crash to the floor and send a few of these milksops to hell, too.

Gradually, she became aware of anticipated silence surrounding her.

She blinked and lowered her gaze to the man standing in front of her, a pock-marked fellow whose name she hadn’t even attempted to remember. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t attending,” she admitted. What did it matter if she offended him? All to the good, if he left her alone. “What did you say?”

“Not at all,” he said with an ingratiating smile. “I merely commented upon the quality of the entertainment.” He nodded toward the musicians’ nook behind a screen at the end of the great chamber. “Rarely have I heard such precision in a ballroom.”

Lily sighed wearily. Really? She had to comment upon the
precision
of the ball’s musicians?

She cast an unhappy glance around the room, where other groups of people her age were laughing together, having a grand time dancing and talking.

Meanwhile, she was isolated like an oddity at a county fair, held apart from everyone else and only approached by the most intrepid — or desperate — men.

The women all hated her, Lily knew. They didn’t appreciate interlopers in their midst and resented competition for
their
men.

An angry thought directed toward her father crossed her mind. He was dead wrong if he thought her dowry was going to land her a decent husband. No honorable man would come after her money to begin with. If he’d made her dowry more modest in size, she might stand a better chance. As it was, she had the outrageous hundred thousand pounds hanging around her neck, an embarrassingly large albatross that marked her for a ruthless social climber, when she was really anything but.

She was once again aware of the lapse in conversation.

Oh, right. The musicians. The
precise
musicians.

Five gentlemen stood around her in a circle, each making a good show of caring what she had to say about the musicians.

Might as well have a little fun
, she decided. She smiled slyly. “I suppose they’re fine. So,” she said, changing the subject, “that war … ”

That war
was always a heated topic of conversation. The news out of France came fast and furious this spring. The Allies had taken Paris, and Bonaparte was bound for exile. Everyone had something to say on the matter.

“It’s about time they got Boney,” said one man. “Wellington made some blunders in Spain. He should have had this wrapped up last year.”

Spoken like a man who’s never worn a uniform,
Lily thought crossly.

“My mother can’t wait to get back to Paris and buy a decent bonnet,” drawled another.

She rolled her eyes and bit her tongue. Thousands of men, including her betrothed, had died freeing the Continent of a maniacal emperor, and people were concerned with
bonnets
?

The pock-marked man spoke up. “I just wish they’d put
him
up in front of the firing squad and be done with it.”

“So eager for blood?” Lily curled her lip. “Hasn’t enough been spilled?”

“W-well,” the man stammered. “That is … I don’t mean to imply … ”

“Exile is an appropriate punishment,” Lily said. “Bonaparte is an emperor, after all. Or would you have us start taking the heads of kings?
Viva la revolution
, gentlemen?”