Книга - Beguiled

Beguiled
Susan Spencer Paul


Lady Lillian Walford Had The Look Of PerfectionYet a fateful flaw doomed her to a life of silence. And although Anthony Harbreas, the gallant Earl of Graydon, had showered her with his attention, Lillian knew she was fit to be no man's wife. So why had the much-sought-after earl asked her to be his true-bound bride?Tricked by her brother into marriage with the lovely Lillian, Anthony was quick to realize his incredible luck. For he knew that beneath the surface of her quiet beauty, Lillian was a priceless jewel. And he was determined to convince his innocent wife of her true worth and their golden future.












Table of Contents


Cover Page (#ufde602c5-fd43-58ad-a469-d9a1ff2d988c)

Praise (#uc9e52f56-cb57-581f-b2fd-e3c8420486c4)

Excerpt (#ud3b99317-ab9d-51b5-94b3-191d3f8773ef)

Dear Reader (#u455d8528-7e9a-5b37-b443-8cea9a3a7299)

Title Page (#u2f283e05-4321-5b91-a0eb-a565a081fa57)

About the Author (#u279c08ab-8a99-5f8e-bf78-fb5fae8bcb5f)

Dedication (#u7c5b13b8-682b-5882-a3b1-96046ba8e29b)

Chapter One (#u5bdc4d31-7af5-545a-b14b-c23def699cde)

Chapter Two (#u1652cd41-47de-580b-bc0d-9275c37b231f)

Chapter Three (#ud2c8bf14-1892-5967-b0be-3cb37bdbeebe)

Chapter Four (#u948acf7e-2f36-5d19-bc8d-d4fc4ef0cbdf)

Chapter Five (#u6dbaa91a-85ad-590c-a98c-1e043f42f6b9)

Chapter Six (#u6655b098-c4ba-52ad-8732-82e9a3348ece)

Chapter Seven (#u40fb9b53-827e-56ac-8656-ab4d5ec2b439)

Chapter Eight (#u2c011053-f659-5d86-85ad-05b35378bebf)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)




Critical acclaim for Susan Spencer Paul


The Bride Thief

“The Bride Thief will steal your heart!”

—Susan Wiggs



“Fans of historical romance should not miss this great tale! 4


/





.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“…for adventure enthusiasts, romance addicts and readers who enjoy heart-stopping intrigue.”

—Rendezvous

The Heiress Bride

“An excellent pairing of opposites who definitely attract.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“…an intensely readable love story.”

—Romantic Times

The Bride’s Portion

“…characters who are so real they seem to move off the pages.”

—Romantic Times

“…sweet but sexy romance with just a pinch of murder and suspense…”

—Affaire de Coeur




Her expression, as she gazed up at him, was chagrined. “Ah’m sorree.”


The sound of her voice was beginning to have the oddest effect on him. He wanted too much to hear it. “You don’t have to be,” he began, but she shook her head.



“Ah’m stup-hid.”



“Lily.” He covered the hand she held on his arm. “No. I won’t have that.”



She made a sound—a husky chuckle that shivered all the way through him, turning his brain to mush. Her smile flashed up in the dim lantern light. “Fool-ish,” she amended. “L-Lord Grah-don, you are so g-hood to m-he. Ah’m so gr-ate-ful.”

Gad! he thought, staring down into what he knew was the most riveting countenance he’d behold in his lifetime. Grateful! If she had any idea of what he wanted to do to her at that moment, she’d probably think he was nothing but a perfect swine!


Dear Reader,



We are delighted to be the first to bring you a Regency by Susan Spencer Paul, who also writes mainstream historicals as Mary Spencer. Touted as one of the top historical writers today by Affaire de Coeur, Susan will captivate you with Beguiled, the heart-wrenching story of a mute noblewoman who is the unsuspecting party when a much-sought-after earl is blackmailed into marrying her. The charming earl soon learns the power of unspeakable love.

Claire Delacroix returns this month with My Lady’s Desire, the awe-inspiring sequel to Enchanted. In this thrilling medieval tale, a blade for hire and an exiled noblewoman marry to reclaim her lost estate, and together find an unexpected passion. Another surprise match results in Liz Ireland’s adorable new Western, Prim and Improper, when a prim young spinster falls for a very improper cattle rancher who she believes is in love with her sister.

Rounding out the month is Malachite by USA Today bestselling author Ruth Langan. In the final book of her popular THE JEWELS OF TEXAS series, long-lost Jewel brother, Malachite, emerges from the wilds of Montana to confront the father he never knew, and finds love in the arms of a gentle widow and mother.

What a terrific lineup we have for you this month! Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical®.



Sincerely,



Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U S.: 3010 Walden Ave., PO Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3




Beguiled

Susan Spencer Paul









www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




SUSAN SPENCER PAUL


lives in Monrovia, California, with her husband and two young daughters. She started her first novel when she was in her early teens but eventually put it aside, unfinished, in favor of more important interests…such as boys. Now happily married and—somewhat—settled down, she’s returned to her love of the written word and finds it much easier to finish the books she starts.


To the wonderful ladies at The Book Rack in Arcadia, California, who have so kindly supported me over the years and kept my bookshelves at home well stocked, this novel is dedicated with all my thanks and appreciation.




Chapter One (#ulink_bf1dbb02-ea33-5233-b59c-340c0445df0a)


It had often been said among those who should know that the Earl of Cardemore was not quite human, that he was, in fact, a devil who had managed to escape from Hell and take on human form. Some argued that his unnatural size was proof that he wasn’t a native of this world, while others contended that the vivid scars mapping his harsh features gave testament to the fierce struggle he’d made while grasping and clawing his way out of the eternal pit of fire. Anthony Harbreas, the Earl of Graydon, had never given merit to the ridiculous rumorings. Until now.

The summons he had received from Cardemore an hour earlier—although he used the word summons out of polite habit, as it had really been a threat—was the least of the surprises he’d met with that night. The gloomy interior darkness of Cardemore’s immense and elegant town house, Wilborn Place, located in the midst of London’s most fashionable district, had certainly given him a turn, as had the sight of a number of carriages belonging to some of England’s highest-ranking nobles parked outside that same house. The fact that all of Cardemore’s servants appeared to possess the ability to fade rapidly into shadows had been cause for some question, as well. Lord Daltry, who’d been present when the summons arrived and had subsequently insisted upon accompanying Lord Graydon, murmured as they followed Cardemore’s ominously silent butler down a darkened hall, “If I’d known we’d be surrounded by ghouls, I would have brought along a priest.”

But the most potent shock by far had been the sight of Cardemore himself, when he had at last come through the doors of the study in which Graydon and Daltry awaited him.

Unkempt, unshaved and dressed in the coarse manner of a dockside laborer, appearing both aggravated and weary, the man walked into the room, looked down at his guests from his superior height and commented gruffly without preamble, “Brought a friend along to hold your hand, did you, Graydon? Just as well. I can’t abide most of you sorry young dandies, but at least Daltry knows how to fight properly.”

“Not against you, however, my lord,” Daltry remarked with a slight bow. “The last time I had the honor of matching you at Jackson’s you nearly knocked all my teeth out. I was obliged to eat boiled oats for a week.”

With a rare chuckle, Cardemore stalked past them, reaching for a decanter of brandy set near the impressive desk that took up one end of the room. “Sit down,” he said, pouring himself a drink. “I haven’t long before I must return to more important matters.”

“No thank you, my lord,” Graydon replied, his gaze following Cardemore’s movements as the man settled into a large chair behind the desk. “As it happens, Daltry and I are expected at Lord and Lady Hamilton’s shortly. We only stopped here first because your missive was so urgent.”

“Urgent,” Cardemore repeated, his dark eyes taking in his guests’ elegant evening clothes with clear amusement. “Oh, yes, Graydon, it is indeed an urgent matter that brings you here tonight. But I have less use for fine manners than I do for young dandies, so let’s dispense with them and speak plainly. You came because I told you to come. Because I’ve bought up every debt you owe, every marker you’ve pledged and every deed you’ve mortgaged, including the one to St. Cathyrs.” He paused long enough to sip his drink, his eyes holding Graydon’s over the rim of the glass. “That was foolish of you,” he continued pleasantly in a moment. “Didn’t you realize how vulnerable your family estate became when you used it to secure such a large loan?”

“It was an unfortunate but necessary action,” Graydon replied quietly, warily. “It was to be repaid this coming quarter. Indeed, if what you say is true, if you hold the note to the mortgage, then you will receive the outstanding amount due. In full.”

“No.” Cardemore set his glass on the table. “I won’t accept payment in money for the outstanding amount. I won’t accept money for any of your debts. What I require,” he said, sitting forward and tenting his fingers beneath his chin, “is payment of a different kind.”

Graydon gave not the slightest indication of surprise. “You bought all of my debts in order to put me beneath your hand? May I tell you, my lord, that such as that is blackmail, and more than likely to end with you in Newgate?”

Cardemore’s lazy smile widened. “Oh, no, my boy. That’s not one of your options. You don’t know enough about me to even begin to understand what I can do to you without fear of reprisal. I vow I wouldn’t lose so much as a moment’s sleep on your behalf. If you don’t want to find yourself ruined and your dear mother and charming sisters thrown out of your ancestral home, then I suggest that you sit down and listen to what I propose. There will be enough opportunity for you to rant and rave after, if you wish.”

“Might as well sit, Tony,” Daltry remarked with practical resignation, adding, when Graydon looked at him sharply, “Unless you want to stand here all night while you argue with the man.”

When they were both seated, Cardemore said, “Let me tell you plainly what I want and we can save ourselves the effort of playing cat and mouse. My sister, Lily, and my niece, Isabel, are coming to London next month to have their comeout. I want you to dance attendance on Lily while she’s here and make certain that both she and Isabel are fully accepted in society.”

A stark silence followed these words as Cardemore looked from one man to the other, at last saying, “Never thought I’d see the day when one of you frippery young lords could be shocked speechless, but I suppose here it is. It’s a nuisance to put my own sister into such a man’s care, but you’ll treat her well enough or suffer the consequences. That’s the best I can do, short of buying Lily a husband.”

With an effort, Graydon found his voice. “My lord, what you suggest is preposterous.”

“You won’t think so when you’re corresponding to your family and friends from debtor’s prison,” Cardemore assured him.

“But why should you wish to do such a thing?” Graydon demanded. “And why me? I can’t suddenly start squiring a girl I’ve never even met before.”

“Why not?” Cardemore gave a shrug of his massive shoulders. “Like the rest of your kind, you’ve been taught from the cradle how to manipulate others. There’s very little you can’t manage if you put some effort to it. And don’t think I don’t know it. I come from the same sort of people, with all their ancient titles and ancient blood and ancient emotions.” He sat back comfortably in his chair. “The Walfords go back to before the days of the Romans, so far back you’d think we’d have water in our veins by now instead of blood, we’ve been stretched so thin. Some of us are half-mad,” he said with a grin. “Some of us are nearly inhuman. I happily abandoned my family when I was fourteen and never would have gone back if my brother hadn’t had the bad manners to get himself killed without leaving a son to inherit the title and estates, and if Lily hadn’t needed me. I’ve loved few souls in my life, Graydon,” Cardemore said softly, intently, “but Lily is the most precious among them. I’ve held her safe from every harm these past many years, keeping her in the country, as far from fashionable society’s vultures as possible, but now I think perhaps I’ve done her a disservice. She’s twenty-one years of age and as vulnerable as a newborn babe. Coming to London is as a dream to her. An answer to all her prayers. I’ll not allow her to be disappointed. Understand that.” His expression took on a hint of menace, as gentle and firm as his voice. “Lily will have all the things she’s dreamed of. Exactly as she’s dreamed of them. You’ll make certain of it or lose everything you hold most dear. I give my word of honor on it.”

“Why?” Graydon asked, shaking his head. “There must be dozens of better men you could have chosen.”

“Hardly,” was the casual reply as Cardemore opened a desk drawer and pulled out a single sheet of paper, which he scanned. “I’ve been informed by my sources that you’re a notable sportsman, a leader of fashion, highly admired among the nobles as a rising power in Parliament, considered the catch of the ton by the mothers of marriageable females and, according to my mistress—” Cardemore glanced up at him “—handsome enough to make young girls faint should you happen to smile at them. Not that I want you felling Lily, of course, but she’s far too level-headed for that sort of nonsense.” Leaning, he offered the paper to Graydon, who read it through with narrowed eyes. “Is it all correct?” Cardemore asked.

“Quite thorough.” Graydon passed the paper to Lord Daltry. “Right down to the name and location of my mistress.” He smoothed his fingers in a relaxed gesture over the folds of his cravat. “I’d ask how you came to know so much about my sisters, even their dates of birth, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t like the answer much.”

A chilly smile lifted the corners of Cardemore’s mouth. “No, I’m afraid you wouldn’t.”

“Dear me,” said Daltry, tossing the paper onto the desk. “Even my name’s listed as one of your frequent companions. Never knew you’d be such a dangerous fellow to associate with, Tony.”

“There’s one pertinent bit of information missing from your collection, however,” Graydon said. “I spent most of last season openly courting Miss Frances Hamilton, and it’s well-known among the members of the ton that she and I have an understanding, despite the fact that I’ve not yet made her a formal offer. I cannot possibly do what you ask without starting a great many unpleasant rumors flying, perhaps driving Miss Hamilton away even if I should be able to explain the matter to her.”

Cardemore’s expression sharpened. “You’ll tell no one of the understanding between us. Either of you.” His dark gaze fell briefly on Lord Daltry, who smiled cheerfully at him in turn. “If Lily should ever hear of it I would be most displeased. I don’t care what you do with Miss Hamilton. In my mind, she doesn’t exist as a problem. The only thing I’m concerned about is that Lily enjoy her first season in London and that she be spared any unkindness on the part of fashionable society. If she wants to attend parties, you make sure she attends them. If she wants to dance, you make sure she dances. When she leaves London to return to Cardemore Hall, I want her doing so with a smile on her face.”

“If you love your sister so dearly,” Graydon remarked, “then why don’t you squire her yourself?”

Cardemore stood, setting his hands palms down on the desktop. “That’s a foolish question, Graydon, even for you. If I took Lily about she’d be treated with respect for no other reason than simple fear, while behind her back all those sharp-tongued matrons of the ton would gleefully wreak havoc. If the most notable gentleman in London shows a keen interest in Lady Lillian Walford, however, society will welcome her with open arms.” From his great height, he gazed down at them much as a waiting panther might look with satisfaction upon its helpless prey. “Lily and Isabel will be arriving in three weeks, with my sister-in-law, Lady Margaret. Their first outing will be to Almack’s, where I have already secured vouchers for them. I advise that you make yourself known to Lily then, Graydon, for a month after that I’ll be holding her and Isabel’s comeout here at Wilborn Place and I’ll expect to see you leading Lily out for the first dance.” To Lord Daltry he added, “If you bear your friend any affection, then do what you can to aid him in his endeavors. Otherwise you’ll find yourself lending him comfort as he serves his time in debtor’s prison. It will be, I promise you, a lengthy period of time in which to prove the mettle of your friendship.”




Chapter Two (#ulink_5a246c99-7671-5467-9d9b-f6cdb46a162d)


“That can’t be the girl, surely.” Lord Daltry frowned. “I didn’t expect her to be beautiful, what with having Cardemore for a brother, but I didn’t think she’d look more like a man than a woman. Are you sure there isn’t any way for you to get out of this?”

“I’m sure,” Graydon replied grimly, clasping his hands behind his back as he contemplated the tall, dark-haired young woman standing at the other side of Almack’s. “Cardemore headed off every attempt I made to retrieve my debts. He’s evidently got his own personal army of cutthroats. My tailor was so upset when I tried to pay him personally that I thought the poor man would have a seizure. It was the same everywhere else I went. People, it seems, are rather in awe of Lord Cardemore.”

“You’re going to go through with it, then?” Daltry asked, eyeing the young lady doubtfully. “With her? Only look at those shoulders. Looks like she could take on every man in the room and come out the easy winner. Gad. She gives new meaning to the notion of country girls being healthy.”

Graydon chuckled. “She’s not that bad, Matthew. Perhaps not beautiful, certainly nothing like Miss Hamilton, but handsome enough. As long as she’s well mannered I don’t suppose I’ll mind escorting her about London.”

“Handsome,” said Daltry. “Huh. If that’s what you like in a female.”

“I rather fancy tall women, and she looks to be even taller than Miss Hamilton. And look at that smile. Stunning. See how she’s charming old Hanby there? Don’t think I’ve ever seen him laugh before. Wonder what she’s telling him?”

“Probably ‘Laugh or I’ll give you a black eye, you skinny whelp,’” Daltry suggested dryly. “God’s feet, there goes Curtis taking her a glass of punch. The chit’s got more men fluttering around her than a horse does flies. Whatever was Cardemore worrying about? Doesn’t look like she needs helping. You ought to go back to that hell house of his and tell him that his sister’s doing fine on her own. What?” He looked over as Graydon’s hand gripped his sleeve. Seeing the expression on his friend’s face, he repeated, “What?”

“There.” Graydon nodded across the room. “Sitting right behind where Cardemore’s sister is standing. See her?”

Tilting his head to see through the swirl of dancers on the floor, Daltry looked, and after the initial shock wore off, announced, “She’s mine. You’ve already got Lady Lillian to look after, as well as Miss Hamilton to keep happy.”

“She’s fantastic,” Graydon murmured, staring. “I’ve never seen hair that color, so blond it’s almost white. She looks like a painting of an angel come to life. Who do you think she is?”

“Doesn’t matter, old boy,” Daltry assured him, smoothing both hands over his elegant black coat. “She’s all mine. You go take care of Lady Lillian. I’ll take care of the angel. Do you think she’s been given permission to waltz?” He looked about. “Where’s one of the patronesses?”

“There’s Lady Jersey,” Graydon said, smiling at that lady in his most charming manner as he sketched her an elegant bow. “Ah, that did it. Here she comes.”

“There you are, Graydon, at last,” Lady Jersey said without preface as she neared them, adding in a lower voice, “I’ve been waiting an eternity. I assured Lord Cardemore that his sister would be well taken care of even before you arrived, but, try though I might, none of the gentlemen I’ve introduced her to will ask her to dance. I don’t know what Cardemore expects if it’s not a miracle. Of course, if you’ll dance with the girl, the rest will follow. Come and be introduced to her sister-in-law. You, also, Daltry.”

Exchanging glances, the two men obediently followed as Lady Jersey led the way.

“Lady Margaret!” Lady Jersey greeted enthusiastically, holding out a hand to a tall, elegantly dressed woman who stood in the midst of a group of similarly aged ladies, chatting amiably. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, with dark red hair and large green eyes, and Graydon found it impossible to gaze at her without a surge of masculine admiration.

“My dear,” Lady Jersey said, pulling her forward, “I want to introduce you to two favorable gentlemen. Anthony Harbreas, the Earl of Graydon, and Matthew Rowling, Viscount Daltry. My lords, this is Lady Margaret Walford, the Countess of Cardemore.”

They exchanged polite greetings before Lady Jersey confided to Lady Margaret, “Lord Graydon has expressed a desire to dance with your sister-in-law. If it is acceptable to you, I’ll introduce them and give her my permission to waltz.”

Lady Margaret’s steady gaze fell upon Graydon, so cool and contemplative that, after a moment of silent perusal, he began to feel uncomfortable. He realized that she must wonder at the normally inflexible Lady Jersey’s obsequious behavior. He was rather amazed, too. In the wave of selfpity—and rage—that had engulfed him during the month since his meeting with Cardemore, it hadn’t occurred to Graydon that others might be affected by this peculiar nightmare. But here was Cardemore’s animated, redcheeked sister, his angelic niece, his beautiful, wary sister-in-law and even the indomitable Lady Jersey, all caught up in the same roiling mire that Graydon was. All victims of Cardemore’s whim and power.

“I should be grateful, my lady,” he found himself saying, feeling a sudden kinship with the woman. The idea of having his revenge at the expense of Cardemore’s sister had appealed to him a time or two, but now, staring into Lady Margaret’s green eyes, all such thoughts permanently fled. It wouldn’t do to take out his anger on these innocent women.

Lady Margaret’s gaze didn’t waver, but she nodded and said, “If Lily is willing, then I give my approval. You shall have to ask her, of course.” To Lady Jersey she added, “I’m grateful, my lady, for your kindness.”

And so Graydon found himself following both ladies, with Daltry in tow, across the room. When they were nearly there the buzz of gentlemen surrounding the dark-haired girl parted and the young lady herself emerged, coming at them with such a charming, dazzling smile that Graydon felt a sudden shock of appreciation. She was tall and, as Daltry had said, healthy. Her smooth, tanned skin was dotted with freckles, her eyes sparkled like blue sapphires. Her hair, which Graydon had assumed was black, was actually a deep auburn, with a multitude of shining red strands glimmering beneath the light of Almack’s chandeliers.

“Mama!” she cried, clasping one of Lady Margaret’s hands. “It’s the most wonderful thing! Lord Hanby’s brought several of his best hunters to town, and he says we may go riding with him one morning, whenever it would please us to do so!”

“That’s very kind of him, my dear,” Lady Margaret agreed, adding, when the girl opened her mouth to say more, “Isabel, I’d like to introduce you to the Earl of Graydon and to Viscount Daltry. My lords, this is my daughter, Lady Isabel.”

“My lady,” Graydon greeted with a polite calm that was fully at odds with the way his head was spinning. Bowing over the sturdy hand Lady Isabel offered, his gaze fell upon the young woman sitting almost directly behind her. That, he realized, was Cardemore’s sister. The very beautiful Lady Lillian Walford. And he was the lucky man who was going to have the pleasure of escorting an angel about London for the next three months.



Oh, no, Lily thought with a groan. Not him. Anyone but him, please, Aunt Margaret.

She wished she’d never come to London. What had ever possessed her to think that she would be able to fit in here, among people who didn’t allow themselves or their families to acknowledge, let alone associate with, someone like her? Aaron had tried to warn her what it would be like, and Aunt Margaret, too, but Lily had been stubborn. And foolish, she thought now with deep regret. How naive she’d been! Dreaming of London, of parties and beautiful clothes and dancing with handsome gentlemen like the ones who had so politely found reasons over the past hour to excuse themselves and walk away.

Oh, help. He was smiling at her now. The handsomest man in the room, the one every woman was looking at with open admiration—she wouldn’t be able to hide her humiliation this time. She had managed it with all the others, somehow, but when this man’s face filled first with realization, then with revulsion, Lily knew she wouldn’t be able to keep the pain at bay.

Clenching her trembling hands together, she stood when Aunt Margaret brought him forward, just as she had stood to be introduced to all the others. It was harder to make herself look into his face. She’d seen him the moment he’d arrived—indeed, everyone in the room had turned to look at his tall, blond figure, so elegant in the blue satin evening clothes that matched the color of his eyes.

“My lord,” Aunt Margaret was saying, although Lily barely heard her above the buzzing sensation in her head. She wondered if she was going to faint, and thought perhaps it might be a blessing if she did. “May I present my sister-in-law, Lady Lillian Walford? Lily, this is the Earl of Graydon.”

He gave her a smile so charming and appreciative that it made Lily’s toes curl in her slippers. If she hadn’t already been unable to speak, that smile alone would have robbed her of the ability. Her hand seemed to lift of its own accord, and she felt the warmth of his fingers closing gently about her own, pulling them up to his mouth as he bent to briefly press his lips against the silk of her glove.

“My lady,” he said, his voice as caressing as his blue-eyed gaze, “I’m honored.”

When she was a child, Lily had spent hours on her knees praying for a miracle, but never, not even in those tearful, pleading moments, had she wished more than she did now that she could speak as others did.

He kept smiling, holding her hand, waiting for a response, and Lily realized that she was simply staring. Giving a slight nod, she looked expectantly at Aunt Margaret, who only said, “Lord Graydon has asked for permission to dance with you, Lily, and Lady Jersey has given you her permission to waltz.”

Lily’s eyes widened, and, as if in league with her misery, the musicians suddenly began to play the music for the next dance—a waltz.

Lord Graydon looked as pleased as if he’d just received a boon from heaven itself. “Indeed, if you are not already spoken for, I should be grateful for this dance, my lady.”

She couldn’t. Never. She’d rather be humiliated on the spot than have the memory of dancing in his arms to think about for the rest of her life. Lily began to shake her head, to tug at the hand Lord Graydon insistently held, all the while looking pleadingly at Aunt Margaret, who gazed back with calm encouragement.

“You came to London to dance, my dear,” Aunt Margaret said in a low voice. “You must dance.”

She wasn’t going to tell him! Lily realized, feeling the shock jolt vividly through her limbs. Aunt Margaret had told all the others. Why wouldn’t she tell him?

She turned to Isabel for help, only to be met by the younger girl’s pleading expression. Isabel had refused to dance until they could both do so. She had wanted this time in London just as much as Lily, herself, had. Oh, help.

Lord Graydon’s handsome face began to fill with bewilderment. He would realize the truth in a few moments. He would feel like an utter fool. Lily cast one last pleading glance at Aunt Margaret, who only motioned her toward the dance floor.

It happened, somehow. Lily couldn’t remember whether she had walked into Lord Graydon’s arms or whether he had pulled her. One moment she was merely standing, and the next she was with him, gliding across the dance floor. She didn’t know how it was that her feet managed to make all the right steps, but somehow they did so. Lily felt as stiff as a stick of dry wood, and just as unreliable. Lord Graydon seemed to think so, too, for he said after a few rigid turns, “It’s very crowded, is it not? Is it much worse than what you’re used to in the country?”

Lily couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Keeping her eyes on her feet, she shook her head.

“I’ll not let you trip, Lady Lillian,” he said gently, much nearer to her ear so that she felt the warmth of his breath. She lifted her head to find that he was smiling down at her with an expression as innocent and unthreatening as a schoolboy’s. He tightened his grip on both her hand and waist and spun her about in a rapid turn, causing Lily to gasp aloud before he returned their movements to a more normal pace. With the same smile on his lips, he added, “You dance very well, my lady.”

The kind lie was so blatant that it almost made Lily smile in turn. She could dance well when the circumstances were right. At the moment, however, she didn’t doubt that she was dancing with all the grace of a lame cow. Fortunately, Lord Graydon was capable of pulling her along with enough ease to keep her from appearing too clumsy to the onlookers in the room. In the morning, the gossiping would start. Aaron had told her it would, but the idea hadn’t particularly distressed Lily before tonight. Now, having had her first taste of the ton, she was fully grateful that polite society wouldn’t be able to add “ungainly” to her list of shortcomings.

“Are you enjoying your visit to London this season, Lady Lillian?” Lord Graydon asked.

She shook her head. No.

A flash of surprise lit his blue eyes, though his features betrayed nothing more than polite interest.

“Have you only recently arrived? I disremember seeing you before at any other functions.”

Lily shook her head once more, and could see that he was becoming slightly wary. It would only be a moment more before he finally understood the truth, before his admiration turned to distress. He would be too much of a gentleman to desert her in the middle of their dance. She would have to endure the hellish moments of his dismay until the music ended.

“Perhaps,” he began hesitantly, “we should find a way to make your stay in town more enjoyable. I would be honored if you would allow me to bend my efforts to the task, my lady.”

Lily felt as if her heart had dropped all the way from her chest and into her feet. If he could only know how she had longed for a man to say such sweet words to her. If he could only know…But realization was dawning as he gazed questioningly into her eyes. Little by little, as they danced without speaking, she could see that he understood. He was stunned for a few moments, and then, as her vision blurred with tears, he began to look angry. His hands tightened on her once more, and he released a hard, taut breath as he twirled her about sharply. He was more than angry, she realized. He was furious. People were watching them, had been watching since they’d begun to dance. He must have suddenly realized how foolish he appeared at having tried to converse with her—with a woman who didn’t speak. He would feel as if he’d been duped by Aunt Margaret, perhaps even by Lady Jersey, perhaps even by Lily herself, into dancing with a freak.

“Don’t cry,” she heard him command tersely. “The dance will be over soon. For pity’s sake, don’t let them see you in tears.”

Lily tightly shut her eyes, but he said, “Look at me.” And again, more firmly, “Look at me, Lady Lillian. Into my face. Yes, just like that. Keep your eyes on mine. Now…smile.” He smiled into her stunned expression as if to show her how it was done. “Smile,” he said again. “At me. As if I’m the most charming, witty fellow you’ve ever known. If they’re going to talk, let’s give them something worth talking about.”

Something worth talking about? she thought incoherently, unable to fathom what the words meant. He wanted her to smile at him?

“Not like that, as if I’ve just sprouted two horns,” he chided. “You’re supposed to look as if you’re enjoying this. Aren’t you enjoying it? I am. You’re the most beautiful woman in this room. In all of London, for that matter. And you’re dancing in my arms. Even if you are looking at me as if I were a horrible apparition.”

Lily didn’t believe him. He couldn’t mean what he said, for she’d never seen anyone who looked as if he was enjoying what he was doing less than Lord Graydon did at that moment.

He spun her about again until Lily began to feel breathless, then he leaned closer and whispered, “Let’s give the gossips something to talk about. Shall we?”

She didn’t care what his motives were. If he could pretend to enjoy himself to save face, then so could she. With a definitive nod, she lifted her chin and gifted him with her most dazzling smile. He blinked at her, then his own smile widened. “Very well, then, my lady.”

The remainder of the dance was pure enjoyment. Lily relaxed and matched Lord Graydon’s daring movements step for step. By the time it was over they were both flushed and grinning. Lord Graydon bowed over her hand with a gallant flourish, kissing her fingers grandly as the rest of the assembly looked on.

“Thank you, Lady Lillian. You’re a marvelous partner. I’m honored to have been allowed to lead you out in your first waltz.”

Lily replied with an elegant curtsy.

With unhurried and deliberate care, Lord Graydon returned her to Aunt Margaret’s side, and then, with Lady Jersey beaming and Isabel fluttering and everyone in the room watching, he said, “May I call on you one day soon, my lady, with the hope that I might have the pleasure of your company for a drive?”

He was still furious. Lily could hear his anger clearly beneath the gentilesse of his words. He was doing what was expected of him, what was necessary to keep from appearing foolish. She should tell him no and release them both from the burden of any further pretense, yet when he gazed into her eyes she found herself nodding.

Lord Graydon bowed, gently kissed her hand again, then took his leave of Aunt Margaret and Lady Jersey. He spoke to no one else as he made his way to the assembly room doors, ignoring the stares and whispers of all those who watched him depart.




Chapter Three (#ulink_4ba5c3fd-b836-593f-94e5-7dab650676a2)


He walked for some time, aimlessly, neither knowing nor caring where he went. The night air was cold, and his harsh breathing coupled with it to form a painful, icy knot in his lungs. He tried not to think of what had just happened, of what he had almost done. Instead, he let his anger dwell solely on Lord Cardemore, and on what he would do to that man if he could somehow manage to get his hands around his thick neck.

The idea pulled Graydon to a stop, and he stood where he was and stared thoughtfully into the darkness. Cardemore. He was more than half tempted to go to the man’s house and bid him to the devil. Or personally send him to the devil, more like. The man had claimed to love his sister so well. Love! Graydon thought with silent disdain The inconsiderate swine wouldn’t know what love and care were if they walked up and bit him on the…

“Good evening, Lord Graydon.”

Graydon turned to face the owner of the voice that hailed him. He recognized at once the slender, well-dressed man who’d repeatedly appeared in various corners and side streets during the past several days while Graydon had attempted to repay his debts. He’d been hesitant, at first, to believe that the fellow was one of Cardemore’s minions, but it had become clear, despite the gentleman’s obvious civility and manners, that he was fully adept in the business of being an efficient shadow.

“Your master must pay you well, sir,” Graydon stated, his voice low and calm. “Day and night, is it?”

“I’m paid well enough for services rendered.” He made a slight bow, never taking his eyes from Graydon’s.

“I see. Do you intend to accompany me to my mistress’s home and wait for me until I’ve finished with her? Will you watch over my house while I’m sleeping? Surely Cardemore doesn’t expect me to flee the country in the middle of the night.”

“You’d have to ask Lord Cardemore what he thinks, my lord,” the man answered evenly. “I don’t make a habit of questioning my employers.”

“Certainly you don’t. Dogs are obedient to their masters.”

A thin smile curled the man’s lips. “Wise dogs are, my lord, which is a lesson I recommend you learn to live by until you’ve regained your debts. I was curious to see that Lady Lillian left Almack’s shortly after you did. Perhaps you’d best tell me what transpired, as I shall need to know what to report back to Lord Carde—”

Graydon shoved the man up against the wall of the nearest building, easily lifting him by the collar until they were eye to eye. “To Lord Cardemore? You need to know what to report back to your demon master?” He thrust the man harder into the bricks. “You tell him that he should’ve warned me beforehand that the sister he claims to love so well is mute. You tell him, you filthy cur, that I very nearly humiliated that same sister tonight because I wasn’t prepared, because of my shock. I can only thank a providential God that my mother taught me so well never to embarrass a female in any event, else Lady Lillian surely would have found herself dancing alone on the floor at Almack’s. That’s what you tell him. Understand?” He hauled the smaller man a few inches higher for emphasis.

“Put ’im down, m’lord.”

Graydon glanced briefly to one side, seeing the two burly men who stood nearby.

“Ah, so the shadow has shadows of his own, does he?” His lips pulled back into a feral smile. “How very convenient.”

“Now, if you please, m’lord. We don’t want to make you do it.”

“Don’t you?” Graydon asked softly, lowering the other man slowly to his feet. “But I should like very much to see if you could.” To his captive he said, “Remember the message I want you to give your master. Word for word, you understand? And remember, too, that if I ever see you sneaking around and about me again I’ll make you very sorry indeed.” Then, raising one fist, he deftly sent the man flying into the arms of his guardians. “Now,” Lord Graydon said as his assailants stared at him in disbelief. “Shall we do this one at a time or all together?”

“Guess we’d better teach ‘im a lesson, Bill,” the taller of the two said as he carelessly tossed Cardemore’s insensible minion to the ground. “You hold ‘im, and I’ll school ‘im.”

Smiling, Graydon began to pull the gloves from his hands, but stopped when he heard Lord Daltry’s rather bored voice emanating from the darkness.

“I’m very sorry to interrupt,” said Daltry as he strolled into their midst, “and I know you’ll not forgive me for spoiling your fun, Tony,” he added affably, placing his large, muscular person companionably near his friend, “but out of respect for your dear mother, I fear I must. I would appreciate it if you…gentlemen—” he drew the word out meaningfully “—would take your friend and leave.”

“Your timing is unfortunate, Matthew,” Graydon said. “I was going to enjoy this.”

“I know,” Daltry said apologetically as the two ruffians took in his size with some dismay. “But, devil take you, can’t you confine your amusements to more conventional venues, like gambling and drinking and women?” With a nod at the man lying on the ground, he repeated, “Take him and go before I change my mind and let my friend vent his ire on you. I can assure you that his temper is dismally volcanic.”

Exchanging glances, the men clearly decided that they’d be better off doing as they were told. When they had dragged their companion away, Daltry turned to Graydon with a sigh. “You,” he said, “are getting to be an exhausting fellow to know. Here.” He pushed a dark garment at him. “You left your cape at Almack’s, along with your coach. I think tonight must be a record of some sort. You’ve managed to set London’s tongues wagging, send your coachman into a state of apoplexy wondering whether he should wait for you to return to Almack’s, and expose yourself to a deathly chill all in an hour’s time. Quite exceptional, even for you.”

“Yes, Mama,” said Graydon, setting the elegant cloak about his shoulders.

“Never seen you look so thunderstruck on a dance floor before,” Daltry continued pleasantly. “Was it the angel’s beauty that put you in such a state, or was it something she said?”

“The angel,” Graydon replied, leaning wearily against the wall, “didn’t say anything. She can’t speak. Either that or she won’t speak. She’s mute.”

Now it was Lord Daltry’s turn to look thunderstruck. “Mute? Cardemore’s sister? Are you certain?”

“I’m certain. Didn’t you wonder why such a beautiful woman wasn’t being fought over by every man in the room? Lady Jersey said that none of the men she’d introduced her to had asked Lady Lillian to dance. I can’t say that I wouldn’t have found some excuse to keep from asking her myself, if I’d known. Fortunately, she seems to be able to hear well enough. She must, for she clearly understood what I was saying to her, and she was able to dance in time to the music. But unless she’s profoundly unable to make simple conversation, I can only conclude that she is mute.”

“But surely Cardemore would have said something.”

“One would think so,” Graydon agreed. “Any decent, normal, civilized man would have. But not Cardemore. I can’t begin to fathom why he kept it from me, but it was a disastrous omission, especially for his beloved sister. I was so surprised when I realized the truth that I very nearly humiliated her, and disgraced myself.” He leaned his head against the bricks, staring up at the sky. “What was she thinking all that time while I chattered on? I don’t even remember what I was saying…some idiotic talk about London, I think. It must have been a nightmare for the poor girl. The way she looked when she knew I’d realized why she was silent.” He groaned and rubbed his forehead. “I can only pray that we finished the dance cheerfully enough that the vultures will be somewhat tempered on the morrow.”

“You recovered well,” Daltry assured him. “And if that look you had on your face when she smiled at you was an act, then you should take up the stage, my boy, and stop depriving the world of your talent.”

Graydon remembered with some discomfort how thoroughly Lady Lillian’s smile had stunned him. She was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, but when she smiled she was something else again. Just the memory made him feel slightly dazed.

“Was she all right after I left?” he asked. “I should have stayed, but I was so angry that it was either leave and take my tongue with me or stay and bid Cardemore to the devil in front of too many of the ton’s best gossips.”

“She seemed a little embarrassed, if that’s what you mean,” Daltry confided, “but no damage was done. A few other fellows approached her. Seaborne Margate, for one. I suppose, having seen you come out of the experience intact, they decided she was safe.”

“She danced, then?”

“No. She evidently didn’t appear safe enough for that. But it didn’t matter. Lady Isabel declared that she was tired and wanted to leave. They make a habit of keeping country hours in the city, or so the chit informed me.”

“Lady Isabel?” Graydon grinned at his friend. “Did you dance with her, Matthew?”

“If you could call it that.” Lord Daltry gave a wry chuckle. “It was more like a wrestling match, trying to lead her about. Gad, she’s got more muscle on her than my younger brother. And when she got excited, which was every five seconds, she squeezed my fingers so hard I can swear that they’ll be bruised in the morning.” He shook the hand in question as if to drive the painful memory away. “They go riding every morning, she and Lady Lillian, sun, rain or snow, and she wanted to retire early so that she might rise before the dawn. Lady Lillian looked thoroughly relieved to go.”

“I’ll wager she did.” With a sigh, Graydon turned and began to walk back in the direction of Almack’s. “A woman without a voice. What does Cardemore expect of me? She’ll be accepted only so far in society, to the point where her muteness doesn’t make those around her uncomfortable, but beyond that…”

“I don’t know why she should have any trouble,” Daltry put in. “A beautiful woman who can’t chatter a man half to death sounds like the ideal female to me. I should think every unmarried man in Christendom would want to wed her.” He grinned at his somber friend, who didn’t share his attempt at humor.

“It’s a damned shame,” Graydon said, “for a remarkable beauty to be cursed with such a frailty.”

“You make too much of it,” Daltry argued. “So she hasn’t got a voice. That doesn’t mean she can’t make herself understood, perhaps even well enough to manage a house and be a hostess and raise a herd of children. A man doesn’t want more than that in a wife, does he? And who needs a voice to listen to when you’ve got a face like that to gaze at across the breakfast table?”

“Would you marry a woman who couldn’t speak, Matthew?”

“Me?” Lord Daltry sounded as shocked as he looked.

“I thought not,” Graydon said. “You see how it is. And that’s not the worst of it. You know what people think of the deaf and mute. She’ll be labeled a lackwit, or demonpossessed.”

“I suppose that’s so,” Daltry put in more thoughtfully. “I’ve read Sir Benjamin Hatton’s treatise on deaf-mutes. He claims they’re essentially amoral, and under a curse from God. Born that way, they are. But Lady Lillian isn’t deaf, you said.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’ll still be labeled as more animal than human. Only those of us blessed with voices evidently possess souls. Sir Benjamin’s been quite influential in spreading such opinions. Lady Lillian will have far more than her lack of speech to combat if she wishes to make her way in polite society.”

“You’re going to tell Cardemore that what he wants is impossible, then?”

“Not at all. I’m going to do exactly what he asked of me. His sister wants to enjoy her stay in London, and enjoy it she shall. I doubt she knows what she’s asking for, but for the next three months I intend to make certain that Lady Lillian Walford has the time of her life.”




Chapter Four (#ulink_ef689c59-780d-573e-ae4b-622102e28cfc)


The Earl of Cardemore disliked change, especially when it involved his own home. He disliked having the place lit up so that even the least used hallway was as bright as day in the middle of the night, and having more servants about than he required for his lone care, with maids and footmen constantly cleaning and scrubbing and carrying and fetching.

He felt exposed in the light. The scars on his face were more readily visible and it was impossible to hide his overlarge, bulky self. Even when dressed in the most elegant and gentlemanly of fashions, he felt society’s eyes upon him, staring with the kind of revulsion that made him feel more like a beast than a man. Not that he gave a damn about what society thought, but there were a few people whom he didn’t care to distress with his ugliness, and having the most significant among them residing in his home for several months was, for Cardemore, an acutely unpleasant sensation. Every time Lady Margaret looked at him with one of her steady gazes he wanted to put a hand up and cover his face. She was the only woman—the only person—who had the power to make him wish he was something other than what he was.

He had left his home at the age of fourteen and hadn’t returned until the day of his brother’s funeral. He’d had news of his family over the years, and had been aware that George had married, but he’d never actually seen Lady Margaret until that day. There, standing at George’s graveside, he had set eyes on a woman so perfect that his knees had nearly given way from the shock. The remainder of the service passed as something of a blur; he’d been too busy trying to force the workings of his brain into some semblance of order to pay much attention to the proceedings. But it had been of little use. Whatever spell had befallen him at setting sight on Margaret Walford had taken hold, and had maintained its iron grip since. Every time he saw her the passion he felt seized him anew, as if it were the first time all over again. Even now, as she reclined before the warmth of the library fire, her head tilted lazily against the heavily cushioned chair, her eyes closed with weary languor, he stood in the shadows, watching, his heart pounding more frantically than it would ever do for any spectacle that his mistress, or any other woman, might perform for his pleasure. In her sleepy, slightly disheveled contentment, Margaret Walford wielded more power to stun than an avalanche.

“You had a pleasant evening, then?” he asked, wishing that he knew how to be comfortable with her, how to sit near her and converse the way another man might do. “Lily seemed happy enough.”

Opening her eyes, she smiled. “She did, didn’t she? I was so relieved when she finally danced. Before Lord Graydon arrived I thought the evening would be a complete disaster.” More thoughtfully, she added, “It wasn’t what she’d been hoping for, just as we knew it wouldn’t be, but she was so happy afterward. Having the handsomest man in the room for a partner in her first waltz must have been exactly like one of the dreams she’s so often told me about.” Lady Margaret’s smile grew wistful. “Like the dreams every girl has, I imagine. I only wish you had seen them together, Aaron. They made an enchanting couple, and Lily danced with perfection. You would have been so proud.”

“I’m always proud of Lily,” he replied, taking a sip from the glass of whiskey he held. “Graydon observed the proprieties?”

“Oh, yes. He’s everything that a young lord should be, quite perfect in every detail. I doubt there was a girl at Almack’s who wasn’t eaten alive with envy at his asking Lily—and only Lily—to dance.”

The sadness in her tone caused Cardemore to stiffen instinctively. “You disliked him, Margaret?”

“Of course not, Aaron. I hardly know the boy enough to disapprove of him. But I worry about Lily. I don’t want to be such a dismal naysayer, but—I know you’ll understand what I mean when I say this—I almost wish we could have gotten it all over with tonight instead of giving her a reason for hope. Even if Lord Graydon should follow through on his promise to take her driving, I’m afraid she’ll still be terribly hurt, perhaps during our next outing. Not one man who was introduced to her tonight would ask her to dance before Lord Graydon did. And then she was so afraid to dance with him that I had to make her do so.”

“She seems to have come through the experience well enough.”

Lady Margaret suddenly sat forward. “Yes, but—”

“We have to give her this chance, Margaret,” he said firmly. “We warned her and she didn’t want to listen, but experience is a far better teacher. After tonight she knows what she’s up against, and it’s her decision if she wants to go on or go home. Lily’s not a quitter. Or a weakling. If she were, I’d never have let her leave Cardemore Hall.”

Lady Margaret pinned him with the sort of tightly angry expression that always made him want to kiss the breath out of her. “Lily isn’t you, Aaron, or even remotely like you. She’s a naive, sheltered young woman. She wouldn’t be able to go through the kind of ‘experiences’ you’ve had and come out intact.”

Cardemore couldn’t repress the laughter her words caused. “My dear Lady Margaret, I hardly think you can compare a season in society to spending fifteen years in the company of pirates, thieves and murderers. I admit there are some daunting similarities among the main actors, but at least Lily need never worry that Mrs. Drummond-Burrell might stick a dagger between her shoulders if she doesn’t make a proper curtsy.”

“Words and deeds, Aaron, can be just as painful as a physical attack. In the hands of a Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, perhaps even more so.”

“Mrs. Drummond-Burrell,” remarked Cardemore, “attacks Lily at her own peril. You needn’t worry over the matter.”

Lady Margaret shook her head with clear dissatisfaction. “So we just let Lily go on until she meets with disaster, is that it? Tonight wasn’t humiliating enough. We must let her continue until polite society brings her to her knees?”

He’d been acutely in love with Margaret Walford during every minute that had passed since he’d set eyes on her, but there was something about moments like this, when she gave way to her hot Irish temper, that always made him think about what it might be like to take her to his bed and make love to her. Her unbound mahogany hair would be a glorious sight against the purity of snow-white sheets.

“Society won’t bring Lily to her knees,” he assured her with as bland a tone as he could muster. Walking out of the shadows, he set his empty glass on a nearby table with stark finality. “I’ll not allow it.”

Lady Margaret pushed to her feet and stood full height, her chin lifting stubbornly. “My lord, I understand a little about the power you wield, perhaps too little, but even you can’t make all of society obey you.”

“I don’t require that all of society do so. Only those few whom I deem necessary. And you’re quite right. Despite whatever I’m able to do in smoothing matters over, Lily must find her own way. I didn’t want her to come to London any more than you did, but we couldn’t very well bury her in Somerset when she didn’t want to be buried.”

“She wasn’t buried,” Lady Margaret countered. “She has friends there who love and accept her, and days filled with activities she enjoys. Her life has been full and happy.”

“Not enough, evidently, to keep her from dreaming of London,” he remarked quietly.

She gave a long sigh and, although he wasn’t watching, Cardemore could almost see the softening in her stance. She moved toward him, so near that he could hardly hear her speaking over the thunderous pounding of his heart in his ears.

“I know you’re right, Aaron. I only wish I could find a way to stop worrying on the matter. It’s been a long time since we’ve argued about Lily.” He heard the smile in her voice and felt an answering smile form on his own lips. “Do you remember how we used to fight over her?”

“I’ll never forget,” he said, chuckling. “The only times I’ve ever known real fear were when you greeted me with the words ‘My lord, I must speak with you.’”

They’d argued countless times about Lily, especially in the beginning, when he’d returned to Cardemore Hall after an absence of fifteen years to find himself responsible for not only his family’s titles and estates, but also for a small, pale, silent child who was brought to him by a serving maid only a few minutes after he’d arrived home. He’d never before seen the sister to whom his mother had died giving birth, although he’d learned about her, also about his mother’s passing, several months after both had occurred. His father hadn’t known what to do with a mute girl child, George had probably been too busy with his own affairs to give his young sister much thought, and Margaret hadn’t been allowed to interfere. Lily had been given into the care of the servants and, as long as she was kept clean and fed and out of the way, was mostly ignored. Despite the fact that her inability to speak in a normal voice had been caused by an unfortunate incident when she was but a tiny child, she was treated as if she’d been born an idiot. But Cardemore had known, from the moment he’d looked into her lively blue eyes, that an intelligent mind hid behind her silence.

For her part, Lily had taken in her elder brother’s dark, scarred face, his hulking size and his filthy clothes, and had smiled a smile of beguiling, welcoming sweetness, unwittingly making the first crack in a heart that had long since been pronounced unassailable. It had been his intention, until that moment, to see his brother buried, gain the title that he’d always disdained and promptly sell every thing of value before taking his spoils and returning to the life he’d chosen. As he stared into the trusting little face that reminded him so much of his mother’s, the idea evaporated as quickly as if it had never existed. He’d hated his father and his rigidly perfect brother and everything about the nobility that had made his mother age with such cruel rapidity; he’d come to hate everything associated with the name Cardemore; but perhaps he and Lily could make something out of the wreckage they’d inherited from their ancestors. They could certainly try.

Margaret made it easier when she insisted upon moving into Cardemore Hall with Isabel to run the household for him and to take over Lily’s care. She turned off the servants who found it impossible to treat their new master with respect and quickly put the fear of God into the rest. She loved Lily with a mother’s tender care, as well as with a mother’s vigilance. They’d fought over everything, from doctor’s opinions about Lily’s inability to speak to which teachers and methods would profit Lily the most. And when they weren’t arguing with each other, they were arguing with the doctors and teachers.

“Was I so fearsome?” Margaret asked in a low voice, so near to him that he could feel the heat emanating from her tall, elegantly curved form. “I have to admit that I didn’t trust you overmuch in the beginning. I was afraid, for years, that you would disappear the way you had when you were a boy. Lily adored you so much, she would have been badly hurt if you’d left. It was hard enough when you finally did go, although she was old enough then to understand how many duties you must perform as the Earl of Cardemore, and why you had to come live in London.”

He didn’t give a damn about his duties as the Earl of Cardemore and never had, which was a truth he devoutly hoped kept all his sainted ancestors continuously spinning in their respective graves. It had been she, Margaret, and the torture of being with her every day, loving and wanting her and not being able to bring himself to do so much as touch her, that had driven him away from Cardemore Hall five years ago. “I’ve tried to visit as often as I’m able,” he said. “If I thought Lily needed me, I’d stay for as long as necessary.”

“Oh, Aaron, I know that.” Gently, she set a hand over the one he pressed against the table. “You’ve been wonderful to Lily, and to Isabel and me. I’ve long since learned to trust you completely.”

He couldn’t speak. He could barely draw in breath. All he could do was stare at the cool, smoothly feminine hand pressed over his own ugly, hairy paw and feel a tingling sense of wonder.

“We’ve missed you, Aaron. Lily and Isabel and…me. All of us.”

Some long-honed instinct made him realize that the library door was about to open only a moment before it did. Pulling his hand free, he turned in time to see his butler enter the room.

“The gentlemen you were expecting have arrived, my lord. I’ve put them in your study.”

“Thank you, Willis. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Margaret was already gathering her things. “I’ll leave you to tend your business, Aaron. You do keep the strangest receiving hours.” She stopped at the library doors. “One night while we’re here, you must put a few hours aside and play a game of chess with me. Do you remember how we used to play?”

He nodded. “I remember that you generally beat me.”

She laughed. “My only area of victory over you.” She put her fingers on one of the door handles. “Good night, Aaron.”

“Margaret,” he said, stopping her. “Don’t worry about Lily. Everything is going to turn out very well, I promise you.”

She gazed at him for a searching moment. “I know better than to ask that you accompany us to any of the outings the girls have been invited to, but I would make one request of you.”

“Anything.”

“Will you dance with Lily at the girls’ comeout ball? I know it’s been a great many years since you had your lessons as a boy, but surely you remember enough to partner her in a country dance? It would mean a great deal to her.”

He let out a groaning sigh, knowing full well that if anyone else had asked this of him he’d have dismissed them without a thought.

“One dance,” Cardemore told her. “Only one.”

The warm smile she gifted him with before she left the room was more than worth the regret he felt at giving the promise.




Chapter Five (#ulink_96e1204c-8147-5ef3-8b74-c0ed987f3789)


The early-morning air was bracingly cold, and the two lone men mounted on horseback in Hyde Park shrugged more closely into the warmth of their coats while their steeds moved impatiently beneath them.

“I hope you won’t mind me saying this,” said Lord Daltry, the words puffing small clouds into the air, “but this is the damnedest idea you’ve ever had.”

“I didn’t ask you to come along,” Lord Graydon replied calmly. “And I’m not keeping you here. Go home to your warm bed, if you like.”

“And leave you to the mercies of two country-bred females?” Lord Daltry asked with mock dismay. “What sort of friend would I be? Besides, you need me to occupy Lady Isabel while you make your apologies to Lady Lillian. I can’t see the chit keeping her mouth closed long enough for you to so much as say good-morning unless I keep her otherwise engaged.”

Lord Graydon smiled. “You’re a good fellow, Matthew, but I’m perfectly capable of managing two young females without any help, thank you.”

“You might be able to handle Cardemore’s sister,” Lord Daltry agreed affably, “but I’d wager a pony you can’t handle Lady Isabel Walford, even if you could catch up to her long enough to get her attention, which is unlikely.” He shifted in his saddle and scanned the horizon. “The girl rides like a demon. Not even the grooms can keep up with her.”

Lord Graydon looked at him with surprise. “You’ve seen her ride?”

A stain of color crept across Lord Daltry’s handsome face. “Ah, well…yes, I have. Yesterday, as it happens.” At his friend’s accusatory grin, he added insistently, “Cerberus needed exercising.”

“At this ungodly hour?” Graydon asked, laughing. “Matthew, in all the years we’ve been acquainted, I’ve never known a mere horse to get you up so early. Certainly not when you could just as well send a groom to exercise him.” Leaning toward his discomfited friend, he added in a conspiratorial tone, “Lady Isabel’s caught your interest, has she?”

“That mannish female?” Lord Daltry was indignant. “Have you lost your senses? The very idea makes me shudder.”

“I found her to be quite charming,” said Graydon.

“Charming,” Daltry grumbled, “is not the word Lady Isabel brings to mind. God’s feet, here she comes. Look! Do you see?”

Graydon saw, and gave out a soft whistle as a slender, sapphire-clad figure, bowed low over the neck of a magnificent black steed, raced full out across the empty park.

“What did I tell you?” Lord Daltry demanded angrily, pulling up his horse’s head. “Dratted female’s going to break her neck.”

“She’s magnificent,” Graydon declared with admiration. “What a seat—she must’ve been born in the saddle.”

“Seat, my eye,” Daltry said. “What her seat needs is a good paddling. Of all the foolish, brainless—Damnation! She’s not going to take that fence?”

Graydon opened his mouth to reply that, yes, indeed, she was, but never said a word. Daltry had already taken off after the girl, presumably to rescue her from harm. The effort would prove a needless one, Graydon imagined, as it was obvious that Lady Isabel was a skilled rider. Returning his attention to the direction from which Lady Isabel had appeared, he was greeted by the sight of Lady Lillian, followed by two grooms, riding at a more sedate, ladylike pace. She had seen and recognized him and now was gazing at him warily, clearly uncertain as to whether she should continue on or turn back.

“Lady Lillian,” he said when they’d neared each other, “what a fortunate occurrence. Good morning.”

God’s mercy, he thought as his senses registered her beauty anew. She was almost too good to look at. The proper black riding outfit she wore only served to accentuate her white-blond hair and crystalline eyes. Such beauty would certainly gain her favor in the eyes of any normally blooded gentleman, while with the ladies of the ton…well, some of them were bound to be obdurately jealous. He began to ponder how he would manage to get around those particular ladies when he belatedly realized that he and Lady Lillian were simply sitting in silence, and that her expressive face had taken on a look set somewhere between caution and embarrassment. She lifted one hand suddenly toward her wrist, as if to grasp hold of something—her glove, he thought, or perhaps a bracelet—then stopped, biting her lower lip with obvious distress.

With a mental shake, Graydon smiled too brightly and said, in an equally bright tone that made him inwardly cringe, “What a pleasurable accident to have met you here.”

Oh, gad, he thought as her eyes filled with bewilderment. He’d already said something like that. He’d never known, until that moment, how much he always depended on women to make conversation.

He was about to speak again, to say only heaven knew what, since he didn’t have an idea, when she lifted one gloved hand and touched her lips, tentatively, with her forefinger. She hesitated as color mounted in her cheeks, and then she pointed at him, then at some flowers beneath a nearby tree and then at herself. Pressing her hand flat above her left breast, she made a slight bowing motion with her head.

“Oh,” said Graydon, mortified that he was unable to understand whatever it was she was trying to tell him. This was horrible. He felt like an idiot. “Uh…yes.”

Her face was flaming now, but she drew in a breath and repeated the motions, pointing first at him, then the flowers, then herself. By the time she finished, realization had blissfully struck.

“The flowers I sent?” he asked. “You liked them?” When she nodded he uttered a laugh, relieved. Unable to keep the grin off his face, he said, “I’m glad if they brought you pleasure.”

She placed her hand over her heart and made the bowing gesture again, and he said, “You’re very welcome.”

Her answering smile made him feel dizzy, as it had on the floor at Almack’s, and a flood of reassurance waved through him. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be quite as bad as he’d thought.

“I have a confession to make,” he said, and she tilted her head questioningly. “It isn’t by accident that I met you here this morning. I knew that you and Lady Isabel ride here every day at this time, and I purposefully came and waited, hoping to meet you.” The wariness was back on her face again, mixed with surprise. “I owe you an apology for my behavior at Almack’s two nights ago, and I wanted to make those apologies without anyone else present. I was afraid that perhaps you might be further distressed if I expressed such sentiments before others.”

Her brow furrowed, as if she didn’t understand him, and then, pointing at him, she shook her head slowly and firmly.

“No?” he asked. “It wouldn’t have distressed you?”

A silent laugh crossed her lips and she shook her head again, making it plain that he hadn’t understood. For a moment she was thoughtful, then, she set the reins she held in her lap and lifted both hands, smiling at him in a manner that invited him to join her world of silent symbols. Graydon nodded, leaning forward in his saddle to watch what she did.

Entwining the forefingers of each hand, she rotated her hands in smooth, swirling motions.

“Dancing?” Graydon guessed, and she nodded.

“Us, dancing?” he asked. She shook her head and mouthed the word Almack’s.

“Ah, Almack’s. I see.”

One forefinger fell away, leaving the other alone. Making an exaggeratedly sad face, Lady Lillian pointed at herself and gave a sigh. The lone forefinger bobbed over to one side and bent into what Graydon assumed was a sitting position.

“There you are, sitting alone at Almack’s, while others are dancing?” he ventured.

Lady Lillian nodded again, and gave another hefty sigh. Turning her head suddenly, she gave a look of surprise at the sight of her other forefinger, which she’d lifted high and straight some distance from her other hand. This time she made a gasping sound. When Graydon began to laugh she gave him a stern look and poked the straightened forefinger at him.

“Oh, that’s me, is it?” he asked, still chuckling.

She nodded very firmly before resuming the surprised expression as the straight forefinger marched across the air to the sad, sitting forefinger. The straight finger bowed politely, to which the sitting finger reacted with shy reluctance, all of which Lady Lillian deftly reflected through her facial expressions coupled with her hand movements. Graydon watched, fascinated, as the two fingers enacted with precision their encounter at Almack’s. He found it difficult to tear his gaze away from her animated face, which so rapidly and easily expressed the changing emotions of both characters in her little play. She was kinder to him than he deserved, he thought, since his character seemed to be a mainly noble being possessed of stoic expressions and gentlemanly behavior. By the time his finger-figure marched out of the imaginary Almack’s, he had somehow managed to transform her sadly sighing little finger into a happily sighing finger. Dropping her hands, her face suffused with a blush, Lady Lillian looked to see if he understood.

“My apologies,” he said slowly, “evidently aren’t necessary?”

With obvious relief, she shook her head.

“You are very kind, Lady Lillian. I was afraid, perhaps, that my indecorous behavior had embarrassed you or given you the wrong impression. It is true that I didn’t realize you are mute until we were dancing, but I assure you that my distress at the knowledge was in no way directed toward you. You were a delightful partner in every way. It is my fondest hope that you will be kind enough to gift me with many more such pleasures during your stay in London.”

The blush bloomed more brightly, and Lady Lillian’s lovely features took on a childlike mixture of embarrassment and delight that charmed Graydon right down to the soles of his feet.

The sound of angry voices signaled the approach of Lady Isabel and Lord Daltry, and Lady Lillian and Graydon turned their horses about.

“My lord,” Lady Isabel said without waiting for Graydon to greet her, “will you please tell this mutton-headed acquaintance of yours to return the control of my horse to me?” As an afterthought, and having given Lord Daltry a withering glare, she added, “Good morning.”

“Good morning, my lady,” Graydon replied calmly, noting that Lord Daltry did, indeed, hold the reins to Lady Isabel’s mount in his hands. “Taken to horse stealing, have we, my lord?”

The look Lord Daltry set upon him could have melted a polar icecap. “Any female who rides the way this particular female does shouldn’t be allowed to get within ten feet of a horse.”

Lady Isabel’s gloved hands curled into fists. “Oh! You ignorant, jealous…”

“Jealous!” Lord Daltry repeated.

“…rude idiot! You’re only angry because I was able to outride you so well,” Lady Isabel charged hotly, tugging on her reins to no avail. “Yes, jealous!”

“Will you kindly keep your voice down?” Lord Daltry demanded. “You’re unsettling the horses. I realize it’s probably beyond your country-bred abilities to act like a gentle lady, but you can at least strive to speak like one.”

“Ahem.” Graydon loudly cleared his throat. “I believe you’re the one who’s shouting rather over loudly, old man.” He indicated the two grooms who sat on their horses at a proper, albeit within hearing, distance. “And from what I observed earlier, Lady Isabel is an excellent rider.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Lady Isabel put in with satisfaction, lifting her chin in Lord Daltry’s direction.

“Don’t you think you should return the control of her mount to her?” Graydon suggested.

Lord Daltry scowled darkly. “Not that I’d care if the little fool broke her neck, but I think it might be wisest if I escorted her back to Wilborn Place and had a word with Lord Cardemore. He should be apprised at once of his niece’s reckless behavior.”

“Much good that will do you,” Lady Isabel stated. “My uncle’s the one who taught me to ride.”

“Somehow,” Lord Daltry said tightly, “that doesn’t surprise me. You certainly ride like the devil’s daughter. Or niece. If it were up to me—”

“I beg your pardon, Lord Daltry,” Lady Isabel interrupted in icy tones, at last wrestling her reins from his grip while her horse danced confusedly beneath her, “but it is not up to you.” She moved her steed a safe distance away from him before adding, “I should like to return home now, Lily.”

Lady Lillian responded with several fluttering movements of her hands, too rapidly for Graydon to make any sense of.

“Apologize?” said Lady Isabel, clearly having no difficulty in understanding what the other girl was saying. “Absolutely not. Never. Ever.”

Lord Daltry made a huffing sound. “Probably doesn’t even know how to.”

Lady Isabel pinned him with a hot glare. “If Lord Daltry has been insulted and requires satisfaction, he may challenge me to a race and determine for himself which of us is the better rider.”

At this, Lady Lillian made more hand movements, drawing Graydon’s fascinated gaze. It was her way of talking, he realized, but it was so fluid, so rapid—like the fluttering of hummingbird wings. How did Lady Isabel manage to interpret it?

“We are from the country, Lily,” Lady Isabel said in terse reply, “and if Lord Daltry wishes to tease us about that fact then he’s not the sort of gentleman that Lord Graydon obviously is.” She graced Graydon with a stunning smile. “If I must apologize, it will be to him for causing him to endure such an unfortunate scene. I do apologize, my lord.”

“Please don’t worry over the matter, Lady Isabel,” Graydon replied. “I always strive to enjoy Lord Daltry’s mad fits, often as they occur.”

“Most wise,” said Lady Isabel, while Lord Daltry glowered at his friend.

“We’ll not detain you further,” Graydon said, including both women in a charming smile. “If it’s convenient, may I have the pleasure of calling upon you ladies this afternoon to take you driving? I should deem it a great honor to show you something of London.”

With a delighted enthusiasm that Graydon found both touching and amusing, Lady Lillian and Lady Isabel assented, and the two men were shortly riding away.

“Fits?” Lord Daltry asked. “Mad fits?”

Graydon shrugged lightly. “I don’t know what else you’d call chasing after a perfectly happy female who had her mount under complete control and treating her like the veriest child. Really, Matthew, you astound me. Why didn’t you just grab Lady Isabel by the hair and drag her about the park like a heathen cave dweller?”

Lord Daltry straightened in his saddle. “I don’t want to talk about that female, if you please. I don’t even want to hear her name. Never met a more pestilential woman in my life. She’ll have London on its head before the season’s done, mark my words. Did you make any headway with Lady Lillian?”

Graydon gave an assenting nod. “I think it’s going to work out quite well. She’s a charming girl, and can make herself understood more ably than I’d expected. Whatever her upbringing was, it must have been good enough to give her the confidence to express herself. I may try to engage Miss Hamilton’s aid in the matter,” he added more thoughtfully. “She’s always been tenderhearted to the less fortunate, and if she’ll befriend Lady Lillian, I’ve no doubt matters will proceed much more smoothly.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Daltry said approvingly. “With Miss Hamilton for an ally, none of the other comeouts will dare be uncivil. But what,” he asked directly, “will you tell her?”

“She’s already aware that I’ve undertaken to introduce two young ladies from the country into society. I needn’t tell her anything more, although Miss Hamilton is such a gentle soul that she wouldn’t turn them away even if she knew the full truth.”

“Please,” Daltry said, “don’t tell her. I don’t fancy spending the next ten years visiting you in prison. And I doubt Miss Hamilton would care for it, either.”

Graydon laughed out loud. “I’ve no intention of giving Cardemore a reason to be displeased. Never fear, Matthew. Lady Lillian will enjoy her stay in London. I’ll devote myself to the task entirely.”

“It may be harder than I first thought,” Daltry admitted. “I didn’t understand any of those hand movements she made. Looked like a sorcerer’s trick.”

“I didn’t, either,” Graydon said, “but before you and Lady Isabel returned she used a different method of communicating that was quite charming. If I can somehow convince her to use it with others, I believe she’ll readily conquer even the most unforgiving members of the ton.”

“You sound more confident than you did two nights ago.”

“I am. All I need to do is make certain she’s out and about town as often as possible, meeting the right people and making the right friends. Her beauty and Cardemore’s power should do the rest in securing Lady Lillian’s place in society.”

“I hope that’s true, my friend,” said Lord Daltry.

“As do I. Most fervently.”




Chapter Six (#ulink_521ec939-3cc8-55c4-a2a5-d02fff864afc)


Graydon spent the remainder of the day making plans and visits. The plans, he knew, were only as good as upcoming circumstances, or the Fates, might make them. He wrote his steward at St. Cathyrs with instructions to proceed with the land improvements they had agreed upon. Having met and, to some degree, successfully communicated with Lady Lillian, he at last felt comfortable in taking such a step. To his mother and sisters he wrote a determinedly lighter, more entertaining missive, striving to erase any fears they might have taken from the steward’s behavior. Not that Graydon believed his competent employee would have spoken of or shown his concern regarding the warnings of impending doom that Graydon had recently sent him, but the ladies of St. Cathyrs were remarkably sensitive, and Graydon, having spent a lifetime drowning in their well-meant concern, had learned early on to nip such worries in the bud. In addition, he wanted his mother in London. It was true that Countess Graydon rarely came to Town, and his sisters seldom more, if they could avoid it, yet his dainty, slightly lunatical mother still welded the respect and power claimed by only the staunchest of the ton’s matrons to ably launch a young lady, regardless of the particular young lady’s imperfections. If Lady Lillian could weather his mother’s and sisters’ peculiar brand of coddling, she’d have nothing left to fear in the way of making her way through the ton’s treacherous waters.

The visits were, on the whole, more predictable. Frances and her mother, Lady Hamilton, received him in the usual fashion, making him feel exactly like what he knew he was: an extremely eligible, highly titled, unmarried peer of the realm. The prize of the season’s marriage market, just as he had been the season before, and the season before that, and even the season before that. He’d had more young women thrown at him during the past four years than he could either remember or give count to, but had successfully managed to escape wedded bliss, or even the consideration of it, until the right woman had finally been thrown at him.

Frances.

She was as delightful in her own right as she was in her physical form, and he had realized, shortly after having met her, that she was the ideal wife for him. Graydon had very nearly decided to make her an offer this season. Nearly. He wasn’t altogether certain what it was that held him back. He was fairly sure of the depths of his own feelings—if he didn’t actually love Frances, he certainly admired and held her in great affection—and he had good reason to believe that she felt similarly toward him. She had given him every indication that if he should ask her to become his wife, her answer would be a positive one.

And yet he held back, waiting for something that he couldn’t define. Something foolish, he often told himself, chiding. Something ridiculous. A bolt out of the heavens when he looked at her, perhaps, or a light-headed feeling when he kissed her lips—as he had already done twice without feeling even the least bit dizzy—or some kind of heart-pounding sensation, anything, that would tell him he would never regret making her his wife.

His visit with her this afternoon only served to confirm to Graydon how foolish he was to hesitate. Frances and he were ideal for each other, both in mind and spirit, and he would surely never find another such lady, so sweet and intelligent and understanding.

He presented himself at Wilborn Place at half past four, and was informed by the earl’s dour butler that the earl wished to speak with him before Graydon took Lady Lillian and Lady Isabel on their planned drive.

The study to which Graydon was taken was by now familiar to him as that place where Cardemore carried out most of his dealings. This time, the earl was already in the room, waiting.

“You’re here,” Cardemore said, glancing up from the papers on his desk as Graydon walked through the door. “Good. Sit down.” He nodded to the chair Graydon had occupied on his earlier visit. “I suppose you already know what I want to discuss.”

“I can guess,” Graydon replied, staring down at his host from behind the chair, where he continued to stand. “Your minion took no permanent damage, I hope. I shouldn’t want to have the man out of the way of useful employ. Such a one shouldn’t be allowed to live off the largesse of the workhouse.”

Cardemore smiled in an unpleasant way. “Perhaps you’d prefer to make him the responsibility of the jails? Never fear. I take care of all those in my employ, one way or another.”

Graydon didn’t doubt that in the least. He wondered if the little man who’d made such a pest of himself, having made a muddle of his assignment, was even still breathing. “I’m glad to know it,” he replied evenly. “Send another such a one to shadow me and I can promise I’ll not leave so much to care for.”

Cardemore gave a grunt of amusement. “You’ll not be bothered again, I give you my word. Little though you may credit it, my word is as reliable as death.” His attention still given to his papers, which he was neatly piling into different stacks, he added tersely, as though Graydon were an aggravating and misbehaving servant, “I offered you a chair.”

With an effort, Graydon didn’t react with so much as a raised eyebrow. “You may take your chair, my lord, and go to Hell. If you wish to speak with me, then I advise you to speak. Otherwise, I’ll not keep Lady Lillian and Lady Isabel waiting.”

With an abrupt movement, Cardemore sat back and regarded his guest. “It isn’t so much what I might say to you, Graydon,” he stated with cool intent, “but rather that I believe you have something you wish to say to me.”

The muscles in Graydon’s jaw tightened painfully, and for a moment his anger was so white-hot that he thought he would say something truly unwise. But he remembered himself, and remembered the sort of man Cardemore was—one not to be dealt with lightly, or, worse, foolishly.

“If you received the message I gave your minion, then you already know my sentiments. I should be curious to know, however, why you neglected to tell me that Lady Lillian cannot speak, and why you seemed to find such information irrelevant.”

A look of irritation crossed Cardemore’s scarred features, and he replied, gruffly, “Lily can speak. She chooses not to do so for reasons of her own. As you say, I find the fact irrelevant, both in regard to Lily and in regard to your seeing to it that she enjoys her time in London. However you may view the situation, whether Lily speaks or does not speak has no bearing on the task set before you.”

“So you say,” Graydon replied. “Because of your lack of care, I very nearly humiliated her. At Almack’s. Even you, with your disdain of the accepted social customs, must realize what that would have meant to her.”

“It would have been unfortunate,” Cardemore admitted, “especially for your mother and sisters. You may think me an unconscionable swine for subjecting Lily to such a chancy situation, but I felt assured of your response. You and your kind are too well-bred to so readily fall on your faces. You’d shatter before you’d crack. Isn’t that so, Graydon?”

“You,” Graydon said quietly, “take much for granted.”

“Aye,” Cardemore concurred with a thin smile. “There is often little other choice for a man in my circumstances, which is why planning for any eventuality is so needful. If you had, by chance, brought Lily sorrow, you would know by now how unfortunate a mistake it was.”

“Your threats, sir, grow wearisome. I find it difficult to believe that Lady Lillian is in any way related to you.”

At this, Cardemore uttered a laugh. “I find it the same, and ever have. Lily’s a beauty, isn’t she? Charming, wellmannered and thoroughly delightful. She’s so unlike the rest of my family that I’m often tempted to believe the fairies left her, rather than that my father, especially, had any part of her. But that is neither here nor there.” He waved one hand outward. “You want to know why Lily doesn’t speak, is that not so?”

“It would be helpful.”

Cardemore gave him a measured look before saying, “She was born in a perfectly normal state, despite the fact that the birth was complicated and my mother died a few hours later. She was an extraordinarily quiet baby, seldom crying, which evidently led my thick-skulled fool of a father to believe that she was somehow mentally deficient. I suppose if she had squalled night and day as my brother and I probably did, he would have assumed she was perfectly hale. As you have seen for yourself, she is.”

Graydon inclined his head.

“When Lily was three years of age, so some of the older servants tell me, she had only just begun to speak, later than most children, perhaps—” he gave an indolent shrug “—but not so extraordinarily late as to give proof to my father’s belief in Lily’s mental failings. She was, these same servants insist, a bright and clearly intelligent child. If allowed to progress in her own manner, I have no doubt that even my stubborn father would have at last admitted his mistake. But it was around this time, shortly after Lily’s third birthday, that one of the serving maids lost her own young child, an unfortunate event that subsequently caused her to madden. For some reason, she decided that Lily would be better off dead, and to that end she mixed lye into the milk in Lily’s silver cup and served it to her with her dinner in the nursery.”

“God in heaven,” Graydon murmured, horrified.

“Indeed. She nearly died from ingesting the poison, most of which, fortunately, she spat out, else she never would have survived. A long illness and high fever followed. To my father’s credit, Lily was surrounded by the finest doctors and given every care. To his discredit, he refused to believe these same doctors when they insisted, after Lily recovered, that her sudden inability to speak or even utter a sound was due to the inflammation that had severely scarred her vocal cords. He was convinced that she was an idiot, just as he had been convinced of it before, and as she could no longer even make a human sound, he refused to have anything more to do with her. She was given over to the care of the servants, who learned to keep her out of my father’s and brother’s way, and had not, until I inherited the title, even been given the benefit of a tutor. Lily could not read or write a word until she was twelve years old. She couldn’t speak a word until two years later, when she was fourteen.”

“But she can speak?” Graydon pressed.

“She can, although it is painful for her to do so, and she grows weary after a brief effort. Also, it is very…difficult. Lily dislikes the sound of her voice. The scarring makes it impossible for her to achieve anything remotely feminine, although, for my part, I find her speech delightful. Still, she prefers the sign language.”

“The sign language,” Graydon repeated more thoughtfully. “This morning, in the park, she and your niece, Lady Isabel, were communicating in such a way, with their hands.”

“It is the same method that is taught in France at the Royal Institute for Deaf-Mutes, by Abbé Sicard, of whom I am sure you’ve heard tell. One of Sicard’s most ardent disciples, Mr. Charles Cassin, has established a school here in England using these very methods, modified, of course, to English. Before doing so, however, he lived at Cardemore Hall for five years, serving as Lily’s tutor, also as mine and the rest of my household’s. Every one of us, including the servants, learned the sign language for Lily’s benefit.”

His words presented Graydon with a baffling picture of the Earl of Cardemore, very different from the one he presently held. The man must care for his sister if he went to so much difficulty, going so far as to require even his servants to learn a language that they would most likely only ever use with Lady Lillian. He realized, suddenly, why she had been so confident in coming to London. Cardemore, for all his wickedness, had given her that.

“But there are other methods of training deaf-mutes, are there not?” Graydon asked. “Better methods? The French sign language has not been widely used here.”

“Not here in England, no, although it has been widely accepted in other parts of the world. Here the oral method is the approved manner of dealing with deaf-mutes, although it seems to be a method better suited to those who can hear and speak than it is for the deaf-mutes. We tried that with Lily, at first, but since she is not entirely deaf, she can hear the sound of her own voice and, as I have said, dislikes it. Eventually she became so unhappy that my sister-in-law, Lady Margaret, insisted that we find an alternative. Charles Cassin came to us after that, and the change in Lily was both rapid and remarkable. She’s made up for a good deal of lost time with Mr. Cassin’s help.”

“Remarkable,” Graydon agreed. “You said that she is not entirely deaf? I had not realized she was deaf at all, for she seemed to hear perfectly during our time at Almack’s, also this morning in the park.”

“She hears well enough, save for in her left ear, which was affected during her youthful fever and has since only been partly useful. Her right ear seems to have escaped damage. Her lungs were also scarred, although to a lesser degree. She’s taken ill several times with an inflammation, and nearly died of it twice. I advise you, however, to avoid the topic of health altogether whenever you’re in Lily’s hearing. Unlike a good many other females who rely upon their wilting frailties to produce conversation that never fails to bore one and all, if Lily ever thought you considered her of delicate health, she would most likely break your nose to prove the matter to you otherwise.”

Graydon could barely suppress the smile Cardemore’s words wrought. The notion of the sweet creature who had so utterly charmed him only a few hours ago launching a fist at his nose was laughable.

“You’re taking Lily and Isabel driving?” Cardemore asked. “They’ll be rather more awed by the experience than other ladies of your acquaintance. Thus far, London seems to have made a grand impression upon them. It’s understandable, of course, being their first visit to Town. They’ll need close watching, however. I shouldn’t like either of them to seriously misstep.”

At that, Graydon did raise an eyebrow. “Am I to understand that I now have the care of both Lady Lillian and Lady Isabel? Who will there be next? A male second cousin from Brighton who fancies a tour of London’s most notorious hellholes? How far—exactly—must I go to repay my debts?”

For the first time that Graydon had ever seen, the warmth of sincere amusement touched Cardemore’s features. “If any such person existed,” he said, “I believe I could despoil him better than you, and certainly much more quickly. As to Isabel, I believe I made myself clear when we first spoke on the matter that I expect you to make both her and Lily’s way clear into fashionable society. As far as Isabel is concerned, that is all I require. Although I do have a bit of advice to pass on to your friend Daltry, who seems to have elicited Isabel’s particular dislike. He’d do best to go lightly with a female like that. She’s much more dangerous than she looks, and as you’ve seen for yourself, she looks deadly.”

“I believe it’s too late for warnings, my lord,” Graydon said. “I should like to leave you one of my own, however.”

“Would you?” Cardemore sounded mildly interested.

“I’ll tell you this only once. I am not a frippery young lord, and it is to your own folly that you mistake me for one. I’ll do what I must to smooth Lady Lillian’s and Lady Isabel’s way into society, and I shall make certain, as best I can, that your sister enjoys her visit to London, but I will not do so under threat by either yourself or your minions. You will leave me in peace to fulfill my word of honor. If you cannot, then you may burn St. Cathyrs to the ground now and we’ll have no more to do with each other.”

“Well said,” Cardemore returned without a pause. “A better speech than even Wellington can lay claim to, I imagine. I am not, however, as you might realize, a man who much admires speeches. Prove yourself, and I will do what you ask. As to being followed, I’ve already given you my word.”

“Then we have an understanding,” Graydon stated with a nod. “I’ll bid you good-day, my lord.”

After the door closed and he was alone, Cardemore spent a full silent minute shuffling through his papers again before shoving his work aside and saying, “Come out, Porter.”

A closet door opened on the other side of the room and the man who had served as Graydon’s shadow walked out.

“Ah ooh thatithfied, mah ord?” he said.

Cardemore rose from his chair. “Don’t speak, Porter. It’s painful to hear. And sit down before you fall.” He moved to the room’s lone window, pushing the drapes aside just enough to keep an eye on the street below. “Am I satisfied? Aye, I am. Very satisfied, indeed. He’s better than I could have hoped for. Perhaps not the man I would have chosen for a brother-in-law, but he’ll be a good husband to Lily or live to regret it.” A thin smile played on his lips. “Somehow, I doubt it will ever come to that.”

He turned to his minion, who sat nursing his aching head in both hands.

“I want you to proceed as planned with the kidnapping. Lily’s comfort is to be of utmost importance. I won’t have her harmed in any way. You can do as you please with Graydon, so long as he isn’t permanently injured. And make certain everyone involved understands that the blame is to be laid at Saxby’s door. I don’t want Graydon or Lily ever discovering who’s truly behind their brief imprisonment. Certainly not until they’re married. There are to be no slips. No mistakes. Do you understand, Porter?”

“Ess, mah ord,” Porter replied obediently.

“Make certain of it. If anything should go wrong, you’ll have more to worry about than a broken jaw. Much more.”




Chapter Seven (#ulink_933e21ef-5f3a-51b7-be46-948b6b647bbf)


At night for the past three years, just before she fell asleep, Lily had lain quietly in her bed and let herself dream of all the exciting things that a young lady having her first season in London might experience. Being driven through a London park at the fashionable hour of five o’clock in the company of a handsome gentleman had been among her favorites, but Lily had been realistic enough never to let herself believe that the event would actually happen. The closest she would get, she had told herself with all practicality, would be in coercing her brother to take her out one afternoon. But Aaron disdained fashion almost more than he did the ton, and, although he would dutifully perform the task, Lily had too often envisioned the constant scowl he would wear, and the dark comments he would make, and had given up on the idea long before she and Isabel had ever even set foot in London.

But God must have heard her prayers, for here she was, not only rolling through Hyde Park in the most elegant barouche imaginable, but escorted by a gentleman whose handsomeness far exceeded even her most willfully exaggerated dreams.

She glanced down at the simple day dress she wore and felt foolishly plain. The dark rose gown, with its lighter-colored pelisse and satin trimmings of cream and pink, had been the height of fashion in the country. But here in London it was at least two years behind, no matter what Aunt Margaret said about it looking perfectly lovely. Lord Graydon had been effusive in his compliments, of course, but that was to be expected. A man of his good manners wouldn’t speak the truth about such matters, even though he himself was dressed to perfection. Aaron would call him a dandy, or a frippery young lordling, or, worse, a man who let himself be managed by his valet, but Lily knew what the rest of fashionable society must think: that the Earl of Graydon was clearly a pink of the pink. A man who dressed with impeccable taste, wearing clothing cut of the finest quality.

He was sitting beside her in the elegant barouche, looking inhumanly perfect in buff-colored pantaloons and a dark blue coat. He appeared very relaxed, almost indolent in his posture, tapping his long fingers in a rhythmic motion over the top of his walking cane and grinning like a boy across the carriage at Isabel, who was entertaining him with humorous stories of all the scrapes the two of them had gotten into at Cardemore Hall. Lily found it hard to believe that he found such tales so interesting, but it must have been so, for his delight and laughter seemed genuine. He glanced at her, as if feeling her gaze upon him, and his smile softened from amusement to gentle interest.

“Are you enjoying the ride, Lady Lillian? What do you think of this mad crush?” He gestured with one hand toward the crowded lane.

She thought it wonderful, although it was, in all truth, quite silly for so many people to go parading about in the late afternoon, day after day after day. They’d been hailed and stopped by a number of elegants since they’d entered the park, some of them riding horseback, some of them perched high upon their fashionable phaetons, some riding in open carriages of varying elegance and size, and all of them desiring to be introduced to Isabel and her. Most of them had looked at her with dismay upon discovering that she didn’t speak and had quickly thereafter made their excuses and left, but Lily was used to that. Simply meeting such a variety of fashionable people had been an event, and she imagined herself back in Somerset, holding court before her awestruck friends while regaling them with memories of her time in London.

He was waiting for a reply, and Lily opened the little gold case that dangled from a bracelet at her wrist. She had forgotten to have it with her when she’d gone riding that morning, but had made certain to bring it for her drive in the park. Extracting one of the tiny sheets of paper and the small gold pen, she wrote, Wonderful. Better than Hassim’s Traveling Circus. She underlined circus twice and handed him the note, grinning with satisfaction when he burst into laughter.

“Dear me,” he said, chuckling as he passed the note to Isabel. “I shall have to see what I can do to give you ladies a much more favorable impression of Town. Tell me, are there any particular places in London that you should enjoy seeing?”

“The Tower!” Isabel said at once, while Lily scribbled another note.

“Vauxhall,” he read, slanting an amused glance at her, “and Madame Tussaud’s.”

“Oh, everywhere,” Isabel told him, her face filled with childlike earnestness. “We decided that long before we came, isn’t that so, Lily? If this is to be our only season in London, we want to see all there is to see, and do everything there is to do.”

“That’s quite a challenge, but I should be very glad if you would allow me to assist you in the matter,” Lord Graydon replied, “at least so far as I am able, when Parliament isn’t in session. Perhaps tomorrow, if you’re free, might I escort you both, and Lady Margaret, if she would enjoy such an outing, to the Tower of London? I should deem it an honor.”

“Oh, yes!” Isabel said with open delight. “How very kind of you, my lord! I’m certain Mama will wish to come.”

“Then it’s settled. I’ll speak with Lady Margaret when we return to Wilborn Place.” A rider on a magnificent black horse neared their carriage, and Lord Graydon raised a hand in greeting. “Hello, Daltry. I wondered if we might meet you here.”

Lord Daltry, handsome in tan trousers and a black coat that hugged his large, muscular person to perfection, looked tense and uncomfortable as he brought his steed alongside the barouche. He made a slight bow in his saddle. “Good day Lady Lillian, Lady Isabel.” The glance he sent Isabel’s way was greeted with a frozen stare. “Graydon,” Lord Daltry continued stiffly, “I hope the day finds you well.”

“Quite well, I thank you,” Lord Graydon replied casually. “Despite the crowd, the park is rather pleasant this afternoon, don’t you agree?”

Lord Daltry didn’t seem interested in the park. He glanced at Isabel again and when she pointedly lifted her chin and looked away, he replied, “Yes.”

“If I’d known you’d be parading today I would have invited you to come along with us and make a foursome. I’m sure the ladies would have enjoyed having your company.”

Lily nodded and smiled. Isabel tapped the bottom of the carriage with her parasol and made a sound of disdain.

“As it happens…” Lord Daltry said, clearing his throat. “Ahem. As it happens, I’ve been reconsidering some of the remarks I made to Lady Isabel this morning, and it has occurred to me that…perhaps…an apology is in order.”

Isabel stopped tapping her parasol and looked him full in the face.

“Perhaps?” she asked.

“Ahem,” Lord Daltry said once more, looking so uncomfortable that Lily felt sorry for him. “No, not perhaps, exactly. I certainly owe you an apology, although you will admit that you provoked the situation and that we both made remarks any normal person would regret—”

Isabel cut him off. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but I do not, as it happens, regret one word that I said to you this morning. And I did not provoke the situation.”

“You most certainly did,” Lord Daltry returned more heatedly. “Riding your horse so recklessly that you might have broken your neck and lamed the animal. A more nitwitted display of horse handling I’ve yet to see.”

Isabel stamped her parasol so solidly on the barouche’s floor that Lily thought she’d poked a hole through it. “I had my mount completely under control, sir, and would have continued to do so if you hadn’t come charging out of nowhere and frightened the poor beast half to death!”

“That poor beast was already frightened,” Lord Daltry insisted. “If I hadn’t stopped you when I did—”

“Ah, Hanby,” Lord Graydon greeted loudly as another rider on horseback joined them. “Good day. Please, come and join our fracas.” His mild tone caused Lily to smile, as the situation was so ridiculous, and he turned back to her with a conspiratorial wink that nearly sent her into whoops of laughter.

“Good day, Graydon. Daltry. Fracas?” Lord Hanby repeated, lifting his tall hat from his nearly bald head just long enough to make his bow to the ladies. “I wished to greet Lady Isabel and Lady Lillian. Good day,” he said to Isabel, only briefly including Lily in his smile.

“Good day, my lord,” Isabel replied politely, ignoring Lord Daltry’s immense scowl as she leaned past him to smile at Lord Hanby. “My, what a fine mare. She looks wonderful to ride.”

Lord Hanby flushed with obvious pleasure, and sat up straighter in his saddle, although it did nothing to heighten the look of his short, slender person. Beside Lord Daltry, Lord Hanby looked almost elfin.

“She is indeed,” he agreed with unabashed pride. “She’s but one of the finest in my stable that I brought to Town for the season. One day you must allow me to take you riding, Lady Isabel. I should be very happy to provide you with a mount that I believe you’ll find quite exceptional.”

“I wouldn’t, Hanby, if I were you,” Lord Daltry muttered.

Isabel glared at him before replying to Lord Hanby sweetly, “Lily and I would like that exceedingly, my lord. Thank you.”

Lord Hanby glanced at Lily, their eyes meeting for the briefest of seconds before he turned back to Isabel. “Will you be at Lady Pebworth’s ball tonight, Lady Isabel? I would very much like to reserve a dance with you, if I might.”

“Hah,” Lord Daltry remarked as if he’d never heard anything more foolish.

Isabel gifted Lord Hanby with her most dazzling smile—the one that had slain more men in Somerset than Lily could keep count of. Lord Hanby fell beneath its effect at once, leaning toward Isabel on his saddle until he met with Lord Daltry’s hard elbow.

“You honor me, my lord. Lily and I would both be very glad to reserve a dance with you, if you would only tell us which dances you prefer.”

Oh, Isabel, Lily thought with a groan. She couldn’t tell who was more red-faced, she or Lord Hanby, who was suddenly at a loss for words. Beside her, Lily saw Lord Graydon’s hand tighten upon his walking stick, and she wondered, with a sinking heart, if he was embarrassed to be seen in her presence. She was used to being treated as though she were invisible, but to others, especially to a person with a kind heart such as Lord Graydon possessed, the experience might seem terribly unpleasant.

“Why, I…” Lord Hanby began, clearly flustered.

“I’ve already reserved a waltz with Lady Lillian,” Lord Graydon said suddenly, tightly, “as well as the supper dance.”

“And I’ve reserved a waltz and a quadrille,” Lord Daltry put in. “You’ll have to make do with what’s left over.”

“Oh, well,” Lord Hanby said, looking at Lily uncomfortably. “Perhaps, then, if you’ll save me the first country dance, my lady?” He turned away before Lily could do so much as nod at him. “Lady Isabel, I was hoping that you might not yet have reserved the supper dance?”

“She has,” Lord Daltry answered, not giving Isabel a chance to speak. “With me. You can have a quadrille. Now please be a good chap, Hanby, and shove off.”

“Well, really,” Lord Hanby said, affronted by this glaring lack of good manners.

Lord Graydon covered his mouth with his hand and coughed. He glanced at Lily and she had to look away to contain her own amusement.

“I have not reserved the supper dance!” Isabel insisted furiously.

“Yes, you have,” Lord Daltry countered firmly. “Hanby, do I have to tell you twice, or would you rather serve as my next sparring partner at Jackson’s?”

Lord Hanby’s eyes widened, taking in Lord Daltry’s massive person, and then he said meekly, “A quadrille will be quite acceptable, Lady Isabel. Good day.” He nodded nervously at Lily and Lord Graydon. “Good day, my lady. Graydon. Daltry.”

“Why you ill-mannered, conceited swine!” Isabel said after Lord Hanby had ridden away. “How dare you lie about such a thing.”

Lord Daltry looked down at her from his greater height and said, “I rather like Hanby, at least enough to protect him from an underbred country chit who’d probably run some of his finest horses into the ground before she was done turning the man into a simpering fool by merely batting her eyelashes at him.”

Isabel lifted her parasol with the obvious intent of smashing it upon Lord Daltry’s head. Lily sat forward with a gasp to stop her, but Lord Graydon’s hand pressed reassuringly on her arm.

“Ah, Lady Hamilton and Miss Hamilton,” he said as another carriage pulled up beside them in the long line of slow-moving vehicles. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Lord Graydon!” the handsome, middle-aged woman in the other carriage greeted. “Indeed, it is. Frances and I were just hoping that we might see you here.” The lovely young lady sitting beside her smiled first at Lord Graydon, and then at Lily. “Won’t you introduce us to your companions?”

“With pleasure,” said Lord Graydon, and Isabel lowered her parasol.

Within fifteen short minutes, Lily found herself strolling arm in arm with Miss Frances Hamilton through the colorful paradise of Kensington Gardens, with Lord Graydon escorting Lady Hamilton beside them. Somewhere not far behind, Lily could hear Isabel and Lord Daltry arguing hotly, but, thankfully, not overloudly.

Frances Hamilton was close to Lily’s age, and very much like the friends that she and Isabel had left behind in Somerset. With curling, golden hair and warm brown eyes, she was a pretty, easygoing girl, open and kind and utterly unfazed by Lily’s inability to speak. She accepted the notes Lily wrote without a pause in conversation, just as if Lily had spoken, rather than written, the words, and she was quick to understand the hand signals Lily usually found it necessary to make.

“I do so hope that you and Lady Isabel will be able to attend the small party my mother is giving next week, Lady Lillian,” Miss Hamilton said. “It will mainly be a literary gathering, but we’ll have music and cards, and I’m sure you’ll both find it most entertaining. Of course, it will be nothing compared to the sort of ball that Lady Pebworth is giving tonight. Will you and your cousin be attending? Oh, how lovely! Do tell me what you’re going to wear. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to wear white this season, as I did last year. I’m mortally weary of it.”

Miss Hamilton had the kind of voice that Lily had always been envious of, clear and bell-like, musical when she chattered on, as she was at the moment, so feminine and pretty that Lily had to tamp down the bitter jealousy that so swiftly rose within.

“Please tell me, what color will your gown be?” Miss Hamilton asked. “It won’t matter, of course, for you’re so beautiful that any color will look lovely. Every man who sees you must fall in love with you.”

The compliment made Lily’s cheeks burn, and she smiled at Frances Hamilton and shook her head.

Miss Hamilton pressed her arm and said earnestly, “Well, it’s perfectly true. Don’t you agree, my lord?”

“Indeed, I do,” Lord Graydon replied.

Lily hadn’t realized that the other couple had come so close. She pushed away in her embarrassment and strode to a nearby rosebush, which possessed flowers of a light, pinkish white hue. She fingered one of the soft petals and lifted a small handful of her skirt.

“How lovely,” Miss Hamilton said approvingly. “And aren’t you clever, choosing such a beautiful shade? White, but not quite white. I wish we had thought of such a thing, Mama, when I had my first season, rather than buying only white gowns.”

Lord Graydon smiled down at the girl, possessing one of her dainty hands. “I liked you very much in those gowns,” he murmured, his gaze intimate. “You look beautiful in white.” Lowering his head, he gently kissed the hand he yet held, and then gazed into Miss Hamilton’s eyes for a long moment before releasing her.

Miss Hamilton’s cheeks grew pink and her expression filled with pleasure, while Lady Hamilton looked on with smiling approval.

Lily stood very still, watching the scene as if she were, in truth, completely invisible, as if she had no part in any of it. They were in love, she realized. Lord Graydon and Miss Hamilton. And she realized, too, that it couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence that they had met here like this, or that Miss Hamilton had been so friendly to her.

Did they think her an idiot? she thought with sudden fury. Or that because she was mute, she wouldn’t be able to reason the matter out? It was bad enough for Lord Graydon and Lord Daltry to lie about having asked her to dance, but this…this well-intentioned pity, this forced kindness…she hated it! The only thing she hated more was not being able to tell them how much she resented being treated in such a way, as if she must be handled differently from anyone else.

But you are different, she told herself silently, her fingers unwittingly crushing the delicate petals in her hand as she stood there, invisible, watching. You don’t even exist most of the time.

She should be grateful that Lord Graydon had made such an effort on her behalf, she thought, but she wasn’t. Why had he done it? What on earth had ever made him do it?

“You,” she heard Isabel’s angry voice say as she and Lord Daltry neared, “are an obstinate, thick-headed and stupid swine.”

“Yes, but at least I can ride a horse without half killing it,” he replied, adding acidly, “Lady Isabel.”

Lily had never been more grateful for her relative’s hot temper, and when Lord Graydon said, with a chuckle, “Perhaps we had better go before war breaks out in Kensington Gardens,” she readily let him guide her back to his waiting carriage and hand her in.




Chapter Eight (#ulink_f25e7b38-a5c5-5670-bec3-1b37f6a38f60)


Something was wrong, Graydon thought as he watched Lady Lillian Walford from across Lord and Lady Pebworth’s ballroom floor. Very, wretchedly wrong.

She was ethereally beautiful in her airy pink gown, which was indeed similar in color to the roses that she had so charmingly compared it to earlier in the day. He remembered perfectly the moment when her gloved hand had fingered the tiny petals—it was the last time she had smiled at him, the last moment she had gazed at him with the open friendliness he had found so refreshing. It seemed like an eternity ago.

She’d been misleading about the dress, however. It wasn’t simply a pink ball gown; it was a creation that had clearly been fashioned to suggest the dawn of a perfect new day. The net overskirt was fixed with what must have been hundreds of—what?—diamonds?—so that every movement set off a sparkling that looked like early stars fading against the blush of a clear morning’s light. The effect was eyecatching, and enchanting. Not that Lady Lillian needed such a gown to gather attention. She could have been dressed in a grain sack and every man in the room still would have been eyeing her with admiration. The trouble was that admiration, at this point, was the only sort of attention she was getting. The ball had been in progress for more than two hours, and she’d not once danced, not even with him.

Somewhere between the delightful afternoon they’d spent together and tonight, Lady Lillian had ceased to be an angel and had turned into a frigidly unapproachable ice maiden. He’d stood before her, having gone to claim his waltz, with his hand outstretched and his most charming smile frozen upon his face, both looking and feeling a fool, not knowing quite what to do. He had never before been turned away when he had requested a dance, and she—she had done nothing but stare at him as if he were something disgusting. She hadn’t even written him a note from her little golden note case, as she had done so often during the day, but had disdainfully communicated through Lady Isabel, who had clearly been highly embarrassed, relating that Lady Lillian had said it was not necessary for him to dance with her.

Not necessary, he thought angrily, watching her across the floor. What in the name of heaven was that supposed to mean? He’d gone to a great deal of trouble on her behalf, and now, for no good reason, she threw it all back in his face. Just thinking of what he’d had to do to assure her a few dances made him clench his fists. Seaborne Margate had even had the gall to insist that he would only dance with the silent Lady Lillian if Graydon would sell him the black hunter he’d purchased last year. Now he’d lose the hunter for nothing; she’d turned Sea away just as coldly as she had the rest of them. Not that it hadn’t been amusing to see the handsome, lofty Sir Margate refused for once in his charmed life—the man had looked positively thunderstruck, a circumstance that Graydon knew Daltry wouldn’t stop taunting the man over for days to come—but Graydon still felt like wringing Lady Lillian’s ungrateful little neck.

She was standing near her sister-in-law and Lady Isabel, much as she had been at Almack’s a few days before. At Almack’s, however, she had at least looked approachable. Now, Lady Lillian looked like nothing better than an impenetrable fortress. Even Frances, who had been so generous in her friendship that afternoon, had been coolly rebuffed, and Lady Jersey had been sent scurrying away with little more than a chilly glance.

Both Lady Margaret and Lady Isabel looked as if they were lost, exasperated but completely unable to reason with their beautiful relative. Lady Isabel had tried to refuse to dance as well, clearly waiting for Lady Lillian to join the gaiety before she did, until Lord Daltry had finally refused to be put aside and had forced that formidable young woman into a waltz by practically carrying her onto the dance floor. When it was finished he carried her back to her mother and strode purposefully to Graydon’s side.

“She’s unhappy,” he said in a low voice. “Lady Isabel, that is. Seems as if Lady Lillian spent the rest of the day locked away in her bedchamber after we took them home. Cardemore went in and spoke with her after an hour or so, and when he came back out he didn’t look very pleased.”

“Damn,” Graydon muttered under his breath. “Something’s gone wrong, somehow, although I can’t imagine what it is. She was perfectly content this afternoon.”

Daltry accepted a cup of burgundy from a passing footman.

“She was silent on the way back to Wilborn Place,” he commented. “Not that she isn’t always silent, I suppose, but…you know what I mean.”

“I’m beginning to think that I don’t know anything,” Graydon told him. “Save that I spent all of this morning making visits that have clearly been a waste of time, and that I won’t lose St. Cathyrs because a pretty female has suddenly taken leave of her senses.”

With that, he began to make his way across the dance floor.

A momentary surprise possessed her features when she saw him stalking toward her, to be covered almost at once by the chilly expression she’d worn for most of the evening.

He made his second greetings of the evening to both Lady Margaret and Lady Isabel before turning to the object of his wrath.

“The supper dance is about to be played, I believe, Lady Lillian. I should be honored if you would allow me to be your partner.”

She lifted one white-gloved hand and made a sharp, negative gesture. Behind him, he heard Lady Isabel say unhappily, “She said ‘Thank you very much, my lord, but I’m afraid that I don’t feel quite up to dancing at the moment.’”

Proficient in sign language he was not, but Graydon knew very well that Lady Lillian hadn’t said anything quite so nice.

“Then perhaps you might enjoy a walk in the gardens? The evening air is comfortable and I understand that Lady Pebworth has decorated the walkways with Chinese lanterns.”

Her clear blue eyes glittered with what Graydon recognized as a fury that matched his own, and her hand came up again. Before she could consign him in her silent language to the place to which her expression had already condemned him, Graydon took her hand and held it very firmly.

“Thank you most kindly, my lady,” he said, forcibly placing her hand upon his arm. To Lady Margaret, who was somewhat distracted by the spectacle of Lord Daltry carrying her daughter off onto the dance floor again, he said, “I shall make certain to return your niece in time for supper, ma’am.”





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