To Wed a Rake (5 page)

Her sister was still biting her lip. Emma sighed. “You haven’t changed an iota from when you were seven years old, Bethany. Have a little faith in me!”

“That’s just
it
,” Bethany said. “You haven’t changed either, Emma. You’re playing to win, above all. But you may not wish to win, if you think about it. Marriage is too important to turn into a game.”

“You give the evening—and marriage—too much importance,” Emma retorted. “I’d just as soon marry Kerr as any other Londoner. He’s handsome, wealthy, and titled. More importantly, if I find that I don’t like him on closer examination, I’ll call my carriage and be away. He will never know that he was assessed and found wanting. I’ll simply write him a note annulling our betrothal, come to London, and find a husband more to my taste.”

Bethany gave up. “I shall be waiting in the carriage. If
anyone
shows a sign of recognizing you, you must leave immediately.”

“No, no, we must do the thing properly,” Emma said. “I’ll take a room at Grillon’s Hotel as a French widow. That way no one could connect the two of us.”

“Go to the ball in a hackney, from a hotel!” Bethany gasped. “Absolutely not! You would be ruined if anyone found out. You will take a room at a hotel over my dead body!”

“I’ll allow you to drive me to the ball,” Emma said soothingly.

But Bethany was not fooled. The smile on her sister’s face was that of someone who had never lost a challenge yet and had no intention of losing this one. She was alive with joy. There was nothing Emma enjoyed so much as a challenge: the higher the stakes, the better.

“No hotel,” Bethany added,
trying to sound firm.

“Of course not,” Emma replied.

One Week Later

The carriage rocked over the cobblestones on its way to Burlington House, where Cavendish was holding his masquerade ball.

“What if someone recognizes you?” Bethany moaned. She was indulging in an agony of second thoughts.

“No one will recognize me,” Emma said patiently. “I haven’t been to London in almost five years, since before Mama grew ill. And I never properly debuted, you remember. Just think of it as a game of charades, nothing more.”

The sparkle of passing lights reflected in the gleam of Emma’s jeweled dress. She was sitting opposite Bethany, facing backward since her dress took up the entire seat. It laced up the front and then cut wide over her breasts,
flaring into sleeves whose brocade flowers were picked out in jewels.

Bethany gasped. “We forgot to discuss—to discuss—”

Emma raised an eyebrow.

“The baby!” her sister sputtered.

“Oh that,” Emma shrugged. “I certainly understand the mechanics. And given Kerr’s reputation, he should have no questions in that area.”< F01Dn row.

“But the mechanics—” Bethany moaned, her alarm clearly growing.

Luckily, the carriage was slowing down; Emma judged she had better hop out before her little sister tried to issue a veto on the evening. “Deficient though I may be in experience,” she said, “the trifling embarrassment of allowing my fiancé to do the necessary will not overset me. It must be done at some time, must it not?”

Bethany seemed to be having trouble catching her breath.

Emma sighed. “Unless I have been gravely misled, the act is nothing to which one should attach undue sentiment. Although I have no particular feelings about where this event takes place, I should prefer a location other than the carriage. In fact, I shall insist that I, as a representative of the French nation, should not be deflowered in a carriage.”

Bethany gulped.

“I suppose that you did the thing properly, in a dark room under the covers,” Emma said kindly. “But you know that I’ve never had a grain of proper sentiment about me, Bethany. I have no particular feelings for Kerr. But I do think that it will be an excellent thing for our marriage if he discovers that he has, in essence, been
‘hoist with his own petard.’
”

“Is that Shakespeare?” Bethany asked dubiously.

“I have to win the challenge,” Emma explained, “because
otherwise Kerr will see no particular reason not to continue in his indifferent ways. I think it best to take him in hand before we marry.”

“Oh, Emma, I wish I’d never told you Kerr’s comment! John would not approve of this evening,” Bethany moaned.

Emma laughed. “Of course your husband wouldn’t approve, darling. He’s a sweet, thoughtful man who is a perfect match for you.”

“That’s not the point. Kerr isn’t sweet nor thoughtful!”

Emma waved her hand to silence her. “Neither am I, darling. Neither am I.”

Bethany looked up at her sister and bit her lip. Truly, Emma didn’t look sweet nor thoughtful either. She looked dangerous, her eyes glinting wickedly over her mask, her gown’s tight lacing enhancing her breasts. “I’ll be waiting in the carriage for you.”

Emma grinned. “You needn’t wait, love.” She descended from the carriage and then peeked back in. “I’ve taken a room at Grillon’s Hotel, and my maid is already waiting for me there.”

They probably heard Bethany’s shriek in the next cou
nty. But Emma just waved good-bye and adjusted her mask.

The competition had begun.

The footmen who had been set to guard the door of the Cavendish ball were having a difficult time of it. They’d had to turn away at least a score of people who had no invitations, and more recently, five whose invitations were obviously fraudulent. One could tell from the very way they walked that the invitations wouldn’t prove to be genuine, James thought to himself. They didn’t have that air of command.

Not like the prime article getting out of the carriage now: tall and slender, but with a bosom that made his mouth water. She had buckets of red hair, all curled and looped down her back, and the contrast between all that red hair and the white gleam of her plump breasts made James NUld bit h’s knees feel weak. He hardly glanced at her card, so mesmerized was he by the faint smile in her green eyes as they regarded him over the edge of her mask.

“Here you are, my lady,” he said, breathlessly handing back the invitation, even though they’d been expressly told to keep them so that no one could hand them out the back window to a friend.

“Merci beaucoup,”
she murmured, and the shiver went straight down James’s legs. She was a Frenchwoman, she was. And if all Frenchwomen were like this, the world would be a better place.

The ballroom was brilliant with a shifting mass of bright silks, swaying feathers, and the glint of gems. Off in the corner, a small orchestra was making a valiant effort, but people were far too excited to dance. The whole ballroom was filled with Marie Antoinettes and Julius Caesars, screaming with delight when they glimpsed each other and darting across the room to press powdered cheek to powdered cheek.

Emma felt a pure stab of excitement. It had been too long since she went to a ball. Painting sets for Mr. Tey was fascinating in its own way. But painting was a lonely skill and offered none of the heart-thumping pleasure of a masquerade. She drifted through the crowd. People parted before her, drawing back, their voices drifting toward her:
“Who’s that…really?” “It can’t be…darling, I’ve never seen her before….”
And then: quite clearly:
“Those are real diamonds; she’s no governess.”

She felt a peck of annoyance at herself. She
should
have come to London so she would know who all these people were. There was no doubt that she would recognize Kerr, but not his friends. A gentleman was standing just to one side, gaping at her as though she had fallen straight from the sky. She dropped her eyelashes, slowly, and then looked at him again. He had such a mindless expression that she felt certain he would be a friend of Kerr’s.

It appeared the young lord was called Duffer, a thoroughly appropriate name. He almost stumbled over his own boots in his haste to kiss her hand. And a second later he took Emma into the gaming rooms, where he last saw Kerr.

Kerr was seated at a table playing
vingt-et-un
, his head bent to the side, studying his cards. Emma paused for a moment, letting Duffer’s hand slip from her arm. Her future husband (
if
she decided to give him the honor) was remarkably good looking: tall and dark, with a gypsy face and slanted eyes. He wasn’t wearing a costume, just a stark black coat and a carelessly tied scarf, but he looked better than all the peacocks he was sitting among.

“Kerr!” Lockwood hissed at him. “Wake up, man. There’s a woman behind you!”

The last thing Gil wanted was trouble with women. Tomorrow he was going to St. Albans, and…

He looked. She was trouble. Trouble in all the ways he most liked.

“My lord,” the woman said huskily. “You are playing with such devotion that you haven’t noticed me.”

“I’m afraid that I’m at a disadvantage,” Gil said, rising and bowing. “I am Gilbert Baring-Gould, the Earl of Kerr.”

“Mais, monsieur,”
she cried, drawing back, her voice breaking slightly, “Darling Gil, you haven’t forgotten me, have you?”

Gil blinked. Surely he hadn’t—

“Oh, but you
have
forgotten me,” she said, her voice dipping into a husky lament. “
Hélas
, gentlemen—”

She cast a brilliant smile around S smp>

“Dangerous?” Gil said. He was almost certain he’d never met her before. Except perhaps there was just the
faintest hint of something familiar about her. “Absent-minded, perhaps, but not dangerous.”

“You admit it,” she said, pouting.

Lockwood was clearly anxious to assuage her disappointment. He stepped forward and kissed her hand. “Ah, mademoiselle,” he said softly, “my heart is French, I assure you. I could never forget the merest press of your fingertips.”

“Do you tell me, sir,” she said, in the most ravishing lisp, “that you Englishmen are not all as unmannerly as Lord Kerr? For I do believe that he has quite forgotten our acquaintance.”

Gil was torn between amusement, disbelief, and just the faintest—faintest—hint of embarrassment. Could he truly have forgotten such an exquisite bit of womanhood? “You must help my decrepit English memory,” he said. “When was that encounter, mademoiselle?”