What I Did For a Duke (8 page)

“I wonder if you might tell Lord Moncrieffe about your interest in art.”

“I do enjoy drawing and painting,” Millicent agreed brightly.

“Are you a lover of Italian art then, Lady Blenkenship?”

He said this as Olivia Eversea slipped away. He almost laughed as he saw her vanish into the crowd.

Genevieve Eversea was nowhere to be seen.

“Ital . . . oh, you’re thinking of Genevieve. Miss Eversea. She is a great lover of Italian art. Caravaggio and the like,” Lady Millicent said with an airy wave of her hand.

“And the like” encompassed rather a lot of artists, he thought, all of whom were fairly distinctive. He knew
that
much about art.

She was staring at him somewhat nervously with those big sherry-colored eyes. Her eyes crept surreptitiously toward his hairline. Probably in search of horns or dueling scars or signs of creeping recession.

He stifled a sigh. He’d already played the game of “terrify the maiden” once this evening. It was much more entertaining when he was certain someone was eavesdropping, and he still saw Genevieve nowhere in the crowd.

“What manner of art do you enjoy, Lady Blenkenship?” He struggled to keep the impatience from his voice. Lord, but he was weary of pretending to enjoy art.

She hesitated. She bit her lip. And then Lady Blenkenship leaned forward and confided on a whisper, “Well, as it so happens, I can show you right now.”

This was a bit startling. And a bit more . . . promising?

“Are you interested in the work of James Ward?” he asked carefully. He was proud of himself for remembering the name. He didn’t, however, want to look at the damned horse again.

Lady Blenkenship looked this way and that, her big eyes assessing the crowd to see if anyone was looking directly at them at the moment.

“Would you like to see my . . . sketches?”

She asked it with her eyes downcast, peering flirtatiously up at him through her lashes.

Her
sketches
?

Was he being propositioned in a crowded salon? Did she intend to lure him up to her chamber? Did he
mind
? It was a complication, if Lady Blenkenship intended to seduce him, but he was no stranger to complications.

“Show me your sketches, Lady Blenkenship,” he said softly, with the smile he reserved for innuendo.

She instantly reached down behind the settee behind her and produced, to his astonishment, a sketchbook and handed it to him.

“Go on,” she urged on a whisper. “Tell me what you think.”

She’d clasped her hands in front of her, then brought them nervously up to her mouth. Her big eyes liquid with nervous anticipation.

What on earth would he find in it? He looked about the salon just as she had. This way and that, ensuring no one was looking directly at him. He hoped he’d find nudes and was at the same time rather worried he would.

He opened her sketchbook furtively. He turned the first page up by one corner, took a peek. And then he turned it all the way over.

He stared for a good long time at the first drawing.

She nearly bounced on her toes awaiting his verdict.

“Lady Blenkenship?”

“Yes?” she said breathlessly.

“This is a kitten. In a basket.”

She nodded eagerly.

“This is a sketch of a kitten in a basket.”

A fluffy, big-eyed kitten was sitting neatly in a round basket, paws draped over the edge.

“Do you like it?” Millicent was practically nibbling on her knuckles with nerves.

“It’s a
kitten
in a
basket
,” he pointed out slowly. As if this was answer enough.

“Look at the next one,” she urged excitedly.

He gingerly turned the page. He stared.

“It’s . . . kittens playing with a yarn ball.” Something like hysteria tinged his voice.

“Ginger, Tom, and Molly!” she announced, stabbing a brown-gloved hand over their images as she announced their names. The amber stones on her bracelet clinked together. “Aren’t they
precious
?”

He slowly turned the pages, one by one. One by one. Kittens playing with a string. Kittens lapping milk. Kittens sniffing flowers.

“Lady Blenkenship?”

“Yes?”

“Do you like kittens?”

“Oh, I
do
!” she confided breathlessly.

He sighed, handed the sketchbook back to her, and to her astonishment promptly abandoned her and wended his way through the crowd.

He didn’t
dislike
kittens. But life was too short to continue this conversation.

He needed a brandy now. Jacob Eversea had invited him upstairs to discuss a potential investment in a gas lighting endeavor.

If he couldn’t have a brandy he’d make do with three more cups of ratafia.

H
e turned the corner in search of the ratafia only to find Ian Eversea strolling in his direction. They froze in a passage before a small elegant marble table, over which an enormous mirror helpfully framed the two of them and reflected a goodly number of the people standing in the salon. Ian froze, darted a look at the mirror, and then seemed visibly relieved. Moncrieffe could almost read his thoughts. It meant the rest of the salon could see the two of them, and that someone was bound to notice if the duke inserted a stiletto into his torso, for instance.

The two men confronted each other silently. Fury and embarrassment and an all-too-vivid memory came at Moncrieffe in a swift wave before receding.

All Ian Eversea, all the rest of the salon would see reflected in the mirror, was cold, dangerous elegance.

“Mr. Eversea,” he drawled. “We haven’t yet had a chance to speak alone. I hardly recognize you . . . in clothing.”

“What are you about, Moncrieffe?” Eversea did look decidedly ill.

“What am I about . . . ? Well, I’m
about
to enjoy, or at least drink, a cup of ratafia. Or brandy if I can get it. I’m about to join your father for a brief discussion of an investment opportunity in his study. I’m about to divest your neighbors and guests of their money in five-card loo. But that’s later. More importantly, I’m about to dance with your sister.”

It was the smile Moncrieffe offered here, and the way he said “sister,” that had Ian reaching, in a reflex almost as old as time, for a sword he wasn’t wearing.

He forced his hand to ease.

For Moncrieffe had seen it; he casually placed his own hand inside his coat. A pistol was never far from his person.

“Your grievance is with me, Moncrieffe, not my family. The offer to settle my offense against you stands. Feel free to choose your weapons, your time, and your seconds. If you would leave my father and sisters alone, I should be grateful.”

Moncrieffe sighed, bored. “Grate—” He shook his head with exaggerated incredulity. “I’ve chosen my weapon, Eversea, and my time. A second won’t be necessary for what I have in mind.”

Ian stared at him with an expression uncannily similar to his sister’s. Penetrating, fixed. His eyes were blue, his hair was long and waving in the way that Byron had made swooningly popular, and the sort of reddish dark brown that would go even more auburn in the sun.

So some of the Everseas ended up with curly locks, while Genvieve was saddled with the straight ones.

The thought came from nowhere, and almost,
almost
made Moncrieffe smile.

“You won’t be able to
stare
my intent out of me, Eversea,” he said mildly. “Now, doubtless you’ll be missed at the party if you linger here. I want my drink before the dancing starts, and I hear the orchestra tuning even now. Quite looking forward to it. I’ve been promised a
waltz
by your sister Genevieve.”

Ian went still as suspicion took hold. And then he seemed to reflect upon this, and something like relief passed over his face.

“Not Genevieve. I
know
her. She’ll never look at you when she could be looking at Osborne or some other young blood. She’ll see you as more a contemporary of Father’s than of hers. And she’s cleverer than a woman ought to be.”

“Would you like to wager on that?”

“I know better than to wager with you.”

“A pity. Second to revenge I enjoy building my fortune. And besides, you really don’t know what I intend to do, Eversea. If you would step aside so I can pass?”

“I will be watching you, Moncrieffe.”

“You ought to,” Moncrieffe agreed. “But it won’t do any good.”

“I
am
sorry, you know.”

For a moment Moncrieffe was almost convinced. He knew Ian had served with distinction in the war. And he knew some men returned from it filled with recklessness, feeling restless and incomplete in the absence of danger to deflect. In the absence of a purpose as large as war.

But this was philosophical rumination. He didn’t care why Eversea had cuckolded him.

“I have to wonder that you haven’t learned that actions have consequences, Eversea. You
did
serve in the war, did you not? An excellent place to learn such a thing.”

Eversea said nothing. He touched the side of his face absently, where a slight powder burn showed beneath the skin of his handsome face.

“I keep waiting for you to be as original as the rest of your family, Eversea, and you continue to disappoint me. Of
course
you’re sorry. The first words out of the mouths of men who are caught doing something they’re only too happy to continue
until
they’re caught. It’s a . . . it’s a dull old story. Now, if you will excuse me . . .”

“You could have defended her honor. Lady Abigail’s.”

A risky suggestion.

“She surrendered her honor rather willingly, didn’t she? This is the last I will discuss it. Your father might be interested to know what you did. And I will tell him if you interfere in the . . . enjoyment of my stay. But do feel free to entertain the possibility that my presence here is entirely social in nature and that I’m simply here to torture you with uncertainty.”

“I’ve considered it,” Ian said in such a way that meant he’d considered and rejected it. “What precisely did you mean when you said the punishment will fit the crime?”

Moncrieffe sighed. “Honestly. What makes you think I’ll answer the question?”

“A man has to
try
.”

“I imagine that’s written beneath the Eversea coat of arms,” the duke drawled.

They were both surprised when something like a glimmer of humor sparked between them.

“If you ask the Redmonds what our coat of arms features . . . .” Ian began.

“Oh, I would wager they’d answer . . . A window, a gallows, a trellis, and the club with which you killed their ancestor in order to steal a cow.”

Ian laughed shortly. It was a pained and surprised sound, but it was genuine.

And then the spark of understanding died, because Ian’s transgression really was ignominious and they both knew it couldn’t stand without the duke addressing it.

And both were faintly conscious of regret.

“Ask yourself this: . . . What do you think the nature of the crime was, Mr. Eversea the younger? Let that puzzle divert you until the answer is revealed to you.”

He moved briskly around Ian, who stepped back to give him a wide berth, and toward the music and his goal.

Chapter 7

T
he ball had hardly begun and it seemed endless, but then one of heartbreak’s chief qualities seemed to be its ability to distort time and distances. And it wasn’t as though she was a stranger to anticipation. She understood now it came in an infinite variety. There was the good sort, as in the night before a birthday, and the awful sort, as in the morning they’d waited for news of Colin’s death by hanging.

This
sort had got its teeth into her nape.

Genevieve was almost tempted to seize Millicent by the arm, drag her up to Harry and snarl, “He has something he wishes to say to you.”

And then stand there with her arms crossed, foot tapping, until Harry came out with the words.

She’d scarcely had time to speak alone with Millicent since the house party had got under way in earnest. But she watched Millicent through new eyes. Millicent, who enjoyed sketching kittens and who laughed at nearly everything, and who was so remarkably pretty that the London bloods routinely sent to her blooms that rivaled Olivia’s for ostentation, if not originality. Had she missed minute clues indicating Millicent might harbor a particular passion for Harry? Had Genevieve, who was so startlingly observant when it came to assessing a painting, for instance, overlooked what was right beneath her nose?

But Millicent seemed no different than she ever had. She seemed to enjoy the banquet of male attention with the same equanimity with which she enjoyed the buffet of food. Millicent suffered no torments of emotion; Millicent had no need for control; Millicent floated on a sea of sunny contentment.

In an agony of suspicion, Genevieve watched Harry for signs of passionate devotion to Millicent, for yearning glances, in blushes or stammers, for signs of any symptoms specific to the lovestruck.

She saw . . . attention. Devotion would have been an exaggeration.

It was unbearable. It was
all
unbearable. The weight of the impending proposal sat on her chest like an anvil. She swung from miserably thwarted love to righteous fury and back again every time she looked at him, and it made her so dizzy and ill she’d cast accounts upstairs, discreetly.

And Harry, the Marquis de Sade of Sussex, had claimed a waltz, and she could hardly refuse him.

Nor, God help her, did she want to.

She
might
accidentally tread upon him, however. Hard.

But now she stood in the ballroom, a fraud in a ball gown, gaiety and music and color kaleidoscoping around her. It was intolerable that she should be expected to
dance
with
anyone
when she bore such a grievous wound. But everywhere she looked were members of her family, who acknowledged her with quick smiles or eyebrows raised. Apart from Ian, who looked, she noticed once more, nearly as ill as she felt. Decidedly pale and twitchy.

Her mother would most
definitely
notice if she’d gone missing. Her mother saw her now, blew her a subtle little kiss, and tipped her head in a signal with a smile that at first confused Genevieve. And then, oh God, she realized the Sussex Waltz was beginning which reminded her that . . .

She turned.

The other man she’d been unable to refuse earlier was standing before her.

He stretched out a hand.

S
he could not for the life of her understand what the Duke of Falconbridge wanted from her. She ascribed his presence and his attention to the week’s general theme, which was “torture.” He’d perhaps come to Sussex to shop for a wife, since he’d recently shed himself of the candidate he’d selected.

It wouldn’t be her.

Regardless
of how determined he might be. And the man personified determination. Regardless of the glimmer of temptation she’d felt to . . . well, allow herself to be charmed. To surrender to the sheer force of him. The notion that she’d ever thought she could entirely ignore someone of his reputation on her walk today she ascribed to naïveté and heartbreak. He’d skillfully found her unprotected flank again and again.

He’d even made her smile when she’d thought to never do it again.

And yet she recalled his eyes when she’d said the name “Abigail.” She’d panicked; she’d played her trump. And she’d hurt him.

This was the impression that lingered.

It was as though everything else he’d said and done up until then had been steps in a dance, and he’d only dropped his mask when she tripped him.

So he was a clever man, a watchful man, a powerful man, but a man with unexpectedly human vulnerabilities. She wasn’t certain she cared. She still didn’t think he was a
nice
man.

She took his hand. She was immediately overwhelmingly conscious of its size; it enveloped hers with almost absurd masculine strength.

And they glided in to join the dancers.

She’d been right. She could stare his third shirt button in the eye, and likely they looked almost comical swirling together about the ballroom.

But he was brisk and graceful. Something of his strength communicated to her, and for a moment she felt as though she were sailing.

And, since the theme of the week was torture, he was intent on conversation.

“May I ask a question, Miss Eversea?”

“I can hardly prevent you.”

She’d been trying to daunt him. The contrary man’s eyes lit with humor instead.
What color are they?
she wondered idly. His eyes? She didn’t care. They were dark.

“Well, let’s see. . . . One of your brothers escaped the gallows . . .”

“He was innocent,” she said shortly. “And that’s a statement, not a question.”

“Patience. And your sister is engaged in the pursuit of worthy causes . . .”

“We’ve established that, yes. I await the question . . .”

“Have patience. And another of your brothers is a war hero, having been desperately wounded in battle . . .”

“ ‘Hero’ is among the vast number of things we enjoy calling my brother Chase, yes. You are reciting to me things I know.”

“Patience. I wonder, does it play havoc on your nerves, being part of such a, shall we say,
eventful
family?”

You
play havoc with my nerves.

It was an odd question. She doubted it was an innocent one. “I love my family. All families are eventful.”

He cocked an illustratively disbelieving brow.

He was right, of course. Few families were as eventful as the Everseas.

He regarded her thoughtfully for half a bar of music.
One, two, three. . . . One, two, three . . .

“Well, I’ve given it some thought, Miss Eversea, and I’ve decided you haven’t at all answered my question. And since I managed to at last
produce
a question, perhaps you would agree it is only fair to produce an answer for me.”

She almost laughed. Her equilibrium
was
thrown. And for a merciful instant she forgot about the anvil on her chest.

“I think I prefer to speak to your third button after all.”

“My third button is not at home to unannounced guests,” he said sternly.

She did laugh then, delighted.

And he smiled down at her, and what she saw were excellent teeth and faint lines: at the corners of his eyes, one faint one bisecting his forehead, a cleanly drawn jaw. His nose was straight. His shirt was stunningly white. Everything about him was elegant and emphatically drawn.

His strength was such that she felt for a moment buoyed, relieved of the burden of staying upright under her own power. He was not one of those broad sturdy men that populated the Sussex countryside; he was quicksilver and sinewy.

And out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Harry’s head turn her way, a familiar flash of gold. She craned her head sharply, briefly, the way someone might if they thought they’d stumbled across a guinea. But the ballroom was crowded and she didn’t see him after all, and deflated, enervated, she returned her attention to the duke.

“I imagine paintings are very restful after the, shall we say, vigor and unpredictability surrounding anyone named Eversea. Paintings stay the same day after day, don’t they?”

It
sounded
like an innocent question. Genevieve was immediately wary. She suspected everything this man said and did was fueled by strategy.

“But one can notice and feel new things about the same painting, depending upon how you feel on a certain day.”

They swept in a turn and suddenly Genevieve’s feet struck earth again with a thud and she panicked. The ballroom had once been Genevieve’s favorite room in the house, with its glowing amber floor and that row of gaudy chandeliers on high and when it was empty it echoed with the promise of music and gaiety. But now it was the place where she could not see Harry or Millicent. Torment came at her in a fresh wave. Was he even now on bended knee behind that unconscionably bushy fern in the far corner? Had he herded her out to the back garden—where it was in fact far too cold to issue a proposal, in her opinion, but there were stars out and—

Oh, dear Heaven above thank
God
there he was. Dancing with Millicent. Were they yet engaged?

“Can you really see different things in a painting from day to day?” This seemed to genuinely interest the duke. She wasn’t certain which part of it fascinated him most, the fact that a painting could change or that she thought it could.

“Well, it isn’t like a crystal ball. Whereby you see shifting images and the like. But haven’t you ever looked at a painting for a length of time, or on more than one occasion, and experienced it differently each time?”

Where to begin explaining art to someone who seemed to know nothing about it? Now, if she were dancing with Harry . . .

“Of course. As a young man touring the Continent, I once looked at
length
at a painting called
Venus and Mars
by an Italian painter called Veronese. Do you know it? Venus is nude as the day she was born, and Mars is entirely clothed and down on his knees in front of her, and it looks as though Mars is about to give her a pleasuring. And there are cherubs hanging about. I looked at it for quite some time.”

A . . . pleasuring.
God above.

He had her attention now.

She was speechless.

Everything was astonishing about what he’d just said. She stared up at him, her mind exploding with vivid images, her cheeks going increasingly hotter. She knew the painting. She knew
precisely
where Mars was kneeling in front of Venus.

The duke had said it purposely.

Suddenly she was acutely aware of her five senses, as though they were blinking on, one by one, like fireflies in the dark. Most particularly vivid was touch. She was potently aware of his hands: the one resting with firm assurance against her waist, warm there now through the fine silk of her gown, the other enfolding hers. She was acutely aware of his size, and everything that was masculine to her feminine.

Goodness. He could certainly look at her for a long time without blinking.

“Do you . . . know of a painter called Boticelli?” She sounded tentative.

“I do, in fact. But vaguely.”

“I think he isn’t rated highly enough. I enjoy his grace of line, the light infusing his subjects.”

Moncrieffe knew a subtle thrill. He’d thrown out a temptation, a subtle invitation. She’d recognized it and taken it up. “And I have seen his
Venus and Mars
,” he added. “Ironically, in it Venus is entirely clothed and Mars, the poor bastard, is sprawled looking as though she’s just had her way with him and he’s spent.”

Somehow they’d drawn closer, closer, and he said this nearer to her ear than any man ought to be during a waltz.

“It’s allegory.” She murmured it, unconvincingly, in his ear.

“
Is
it,” he murmured back. As though he didn’t believe her. As though he was inviting her to consider that it was, in fact, a representation of what had just happened between Venus and Mars, of what could happen between any man and woman, between the two of them.

She’d gone quiet. What was she thinking? Had her own boldness, or his, overwhelmed her?

“I’ve an acquaintance by the name of Wyndham who paints. His paintings leave you in no question of what they’re intended to represent. No viewers mistake them for anything other than what they are or read additional meanings into them.”

Wyndham painted all the most lascivious paintings for The Velvet Glove, the bordello favored by any man who preferred his whores pretty. Everyone depicted in his paintings was naked, or mostly naked, and having a marvelous time.

“Did you make the acquaintance of this Mr. Wyndham in the process of pursuing your interest in . . . ‘horses’?”

Well.

He was instantly riveted. His eyes focused intently, speculatively on her, and she looked back bravely enough, her eyes both glinting, and tentative and uncertain. It was clear to him that she was new to this sort of flirtation; she feinted and then fell back, as though with his questions he’d revealed a new path her nature was drawn to but hesitant to follow.

He smiled slowly. “I might have done.”

She wasn’t a coquette. But he would wager his life that what he’d sensed earlier in her was true: she kept her passions leashed, for reasons of her own.

Everything leashed could be unleashed. He would find a way.

She did battle with another of those wicked, delighted smiles; he saw it tugging at the corners of her mouth. He found himself waiting breathlessly for it to have its way with her; he wanted to see her smile beneath the chandelier light; he wanted to see her aglow again.

She did smile.

And when she did, he became all at once aware of small things, separate, all at once, the way a rising sun lights on objects one by one, illuminating them. The feel of her hand in his, how small, how fragile; her narrow waist supple beneath his hand and the frail layer of fabric between his hand and her skin; the light glinting from the jewel resting against her pale bosom, the scent of her, floral and womanly, a certain tightening in his gut. He lacked the precise vocabulary to describe what he felt. It was unexpected and he nearly stumbled; it was like inadvertently staring at his fingers during a pianoforte piece and losing his place.