Chapter 17
This sort of thing never happens to ladies in Zanzibar. I’d stake my best frock on it.
—from the diary of Lady Caroline Lovell, who wished there were a way to find herself on those exotic shores that very instant.
Caroline read impending mayhem in Lawrence’s dark eyes. Violent intent was scored in the deep line between his brows and the tautness of his jaw.
I take it back. I definitely don’t want to see the lion uncaged.
Then Lawrence’s gaze shifted to Oliver, and she realized his ill will wasn’t directed toward her.
At least not the lion’s share of it.
Her heart hammered in a way that had nothing to do with the exertion of dancing.
The music slowed to its stately end as she and Rowley completed their final tableau. Lord and Lady Frampton’s guests erupted in applause before the last strains of the string quartet faded. Then, ahead of anyone else who wished to congratulate her and Lord Rowley on a well-executed minuet, Lawrence appeared before them.
“Lady Caroline,” he said simply as he bowed to her curtly.
Not trusting her voice, she dipped in a shallow curtsy to acknowledge him. Bredon’s account of how Lawrence had laid out four guards unaided ran through her mind in lurid detail. It had been exciting to imagine him beating them senseless when the outcome of the brawl was saving her favorite brother.
Surely Lawrence wouldn’t resort to that kind of violence at a ball.
Once, she’d attended an anthropology lecture during which the speaker contended that ancient man often fought for the right to claim a mate. Her imagination quickly conjured up a pair of sweaty, determined males ready to knock each other into next week. For the duration of the lecture, her imaginary brutes kept her well entertained. But according to the expert, they’d finally traded their clubs for plowshares. Caroline had thought it a pity at the time. The idea of men battling for their women had a certain appeal.
But that was only in her private musings. Now she was in Lady Frampton’s oh-so-proper drawing room. She’d never live it down if Rowley and Lawrence caused a scene, much less came to blows, over her.
Still, her imagination taunted her with the thought that both Lawrence and Oliver might look more than passably intriguing dressed in animal skins and wielding clubs.
“Sinclair, you old stick,” Rowley said with every appearance of joviality. Caroline, however, was close enough to note the tic in his jaw. “I haven’t seen you out and about of late. Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”
“I haven’t been in hiding, Rowley. Perhaps it’s you.” The man fairly bristled. “I daresay you avoid your creditors. That may account for me being difficult for you to find.”
“That’s uncalled for, sir.” Rowley narrowed his eyes at the insult, but he didn’t deny it as he took a step back. Caroline didn’t blame him for moving out of arm’s reach. Lawrence’s intense glare would have quelled a stouter heart than Oliver’s. “Charm has never been your strong suit, Sinclair, but check your bearings. That scowl of yours is likely to scare the ladies.”
“It seems to have scared someone.”
Nevertheless, Lawrence made an effort to relax his fierce expression. It was not much of an improvement. Caroline couldn’t classify it as a smile. It was more as if he bared his teeth at Rowley.
Then Lawrence turned toward her. His body was still tense, but the false smile eased a bit.
“I hope I haven’t terrified you, Lady Caroline. That was never my intent,” Lawrence said as if Rowley were not still standing by, looking on with a glower to rival Lawrence’s previous scowl. “If I have, I beg your pardon. And to show you’ve forgiven me, perhaps you’ll allow me the pleasure of the next dance.”
His firm tone made it sound more like a demand than a request. A resounding no danced on her tongue.
Both Lawrence and Oliver were behaving like overgrown school boys, and she’d have liked nothing better than to be quit of the pair of them. But thanks to Lady Frampton’s belief that her guests should fill in their own dance cards, Caroline didn’t have the ready excuse that the next dance was already spoken for. In fact, her card was still blank. She’d been dancing the exhibition minuet with Rowley during the time when other gentlemen might have requested a dance with her later in the evening.
She had no choice. She had to accept Lawrence’s invitation.
“Yes, I’ll dance with you, Mr. Sinclair,” she said stiffly. “It seems the best way to keep you out of trouble.”
This time his smile reached up to his dark eyes.
The real smile helped. She felt even better about her decision to dance with Lawrence when she realized her acceptance probably also saved Rowley from a fight he would no doubt lose. A man could bear bruises better than being made to look foolish.
The dance master called for a country dance and the quartet began to play a few introductory bars as the lines of dancers formed up. Lawrence offered her his arm, giving Rowley one final glare as Caroline rested her fingertips lightly on his sleeve.
She was relieved to let him lead her away from Oliver. She was even more thankful that Lawrence remembered Frederica’s advice about finding a place at the foot of the pair of lines. It would give him time to find a more amenable frame of mind before he had to dance. And a chance to review the steps by sneaking glances at the other couples’ feet.
But while Lawrence seemed to relax during the respite, Caroline grew more annoyed. How could he have put her into such a potentially embarrassing situation?
She took the opportunity to whisper to him when they came together between the two lines. “Just what do you think you are doing?”
“Dancing with you,” he whispered back before they separated and returned to their respective places.
The man has a gift for the obvious. She narrowly resisted the urge to give a decidedly unladylike snort.
“You know perfectly well what I meant,” she hissed when they danced forward again to circle each other this time. “Why were you trying to quarrel with Rowley?”
“If I wanted to quarrel with him, he’d be on the floor now,” Lawrence said softly enough for only her to hear as they continued their circuit. “I gave him a warning, nothing more. That man has no business dancing with a lady.”
“Perhaps a lady would like to decide that for herself,” she said on the next pass, her voice increasing in volume but still well disguised by the music. Irritation raked her spine. It was beyond frustrating to carry on a conversation with eight or more bars of music stretched between each interaction.
“Perhaps a lady doesn’t have sufficient information to make the right determination,” he answered before moving back to his line, out of speaking range.
Of all the cheek! She’d never expected Lawrence to be the sort who thought a woman couldn’t make decisions for herself. She barely waited until they met palm-to-palm before saying in a normal voice, “Perhaps a gentleman should give a lady such information instead of tiptoeing around with mere innuendo.”
What followed this remark was worthy of a Greek tragedy.
The string quartet chose that instant to lift their bows in unison for a half note rest. In the sudden silence, Caroline finished her thought with “Honestly, Lawrence, you are as bad as Lady Ackworth.”
The words echoed from the walls and set the chandelier’s crystals humming. They were followed by a collective gasp from the rest of Lord Frampton’s guests.
Caroline’s knees might have buckled if Lawrence hadn’t squeezed her hand just then and whispered, “Steady on.”
The quartet picked up where they’d left off as if Caroline hadn’t committed the faux pas of the decade.
“Concentrate on the steps,” Lawrence advised as he waltz-stepped, more or less correctly, back to his place in line.
Against all Caroline’s expectations, the wretched dance continued.
Mother must be having a fit of apoplexy.
But Caroline couldn’t see Lady Chatham without turning her head and drawing even more attention to herself. Perhaps her mother had excused herself and was hiding in the retiring room, cowering in shame over her ill-behaved daughter.
Lud, I wish I could join her.
When she met Lawrence in the middle of the two lines again, he asked, “How much longer is this dance?”
“Twenty minutes.” Perhaps she should feign a fit of vapors. It would at least get her off the dance floor.
“Good,” he said. “It will give people time to forget what they think they heard.”
“Are you mad? They didn’t think it. They heard it and they’ll never forget. Lady Ackworth certainly won’t.”
And again the music called for a half-note rest just as Caroline said the old gossip’s name. She couldn’t seem to stop the words that came next. They tumbled from her lips of their own accord into the gaping silence. “That woman holds a grudge till it squeals to be let go.”
Red-faced, Caroline felt as if she were watching herself from outside her own body. Surely this wasn’t really happening. Or if it was, it wasn’t really happening to her.
During the next pass, she and Lawrence were supposed to place a hand on each other’s cheeks as they circled. He managed to also place his thumb squarely across her mouth.
“Might I suggest you refrain from speaking for the duration of the dance?”
She nodded. Yes, that was exactly what she needed to do. In fact, she might never speak again.
It should have been simple enough. All she need do was keep her feet moving in time to the music. Unfortunately, under the lilting melody of the strings, she heard a buzzing sound, as if a hive had been upturned. When she glanced around the room, careful to flick only her gaze, not turning her head, she saw the word spreading. A quick tête-à-tête behind a fan here, a leaned-in whisper there, Caroline’s ill-timed utterances were flying around the room.
If Lady Ackworth hadn’t heard what Caroline had said about her firsthand, she’d no doubt receive countless second- and thirdhand versions of it.
There was no way around it. When Lady Ackworth and her minions finished their work, Caroline’s social standing would be reduced to rubble. She’d read about unfortunate folk in India who belonged to no caste at all and had no place in society Perhaps she ought to revise her travel plans to include that subcontinent, where she might find some kindred spirits.
No, Zanzibar is still my siren song.
The next time she came together with Lawrence, she couldn’t resist a sigh.
And a word or two.
“There’s never a ship bound for Zanzibar when you need one,” she said wistfully, then realized she’d spoken aloud in yet another sudden silence. The lifting of the quartet’s bows had caught her again. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! How many rests can there be in one dratted piece of music?”
After the short, prescribed rest, the strings continued to drone on.
There was no point in continuing to dance. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t been caught acting like a complete ninny again.
The broad double doors at the far end of the drawing room had been propped open to let in fresh night air. They were perfectly lovely doors, Spanish made, with iron studs and carvings of angels and lutes and pear trees. At any other time, Caroline would have been fascinated by the bulky foreignness of the design.
But she wasn’t drawn to the Spanish doors. Instead, the dark opening between them called to her.
Not waiting for the music to end abruptly again, Caroline clutched her skirt to lift her hem slightly. Moving quickly, yet trying not to seem hurried, she abandoned Lawrence in line. She pressed through the crowd that ringed the dance floor and made for the way out with as much dignity as she could muster.
Only at the last second did she begin to run.