“I’m going to kill him,” Oliver muttered under his breath as he watched his brother walk off with Maria. Jarret and the other gentlemen also headed for the ballroom with Celia and Minerva in tow, leaving him standing in the foyer with Gran.
“She is an American,” Gran said in a cool voice. “They do not know how to behave themselves anywhere except in some colonial barn. She doesn’t realize she ought to have held a dance for you. Although I must say, you did take your time about asking her for one.”
He glared at her. “I’m her fiancé.”
“Well, you certainly have not been acting like it. Considering where you went last night . . .”
Heat rose in his cheeks. “Damn it, Gran—”
She slapped his arm with her fan again. “I do not know where you learned these horrible manners.”
“Would you stop that?” He grabbed her fan. “I swear, sometimes you and Maria are enough to make a man run screaming into the night.”
With a sniff, she snatched her fan back. “You need to do some screaming. It would be good for your soul.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “You and Maria make quite a pair. She thinks to save my soul, too. Someone needs to tell her that it’s a lost cause.”
“Is it?” Gran said quietly.
There’s still hope for him, he could hear Maria saying about his alter ego, Rockton. There is always hope.
It sounded so much like something Gran would say that he cast her a sharp glance. Was it possible that she had softened toward Maria?
Gran scowled. “I cannot believe you gave Prudence’s pearls to that chit.”
He relaxed. Gran would never find Maria suitable to be his wife. “They were mine to give.”
In truth, he’d intended merely to offer them as an accessory for the evening. But then he’d seen her in that dress, and felt her embarrassment at Gran’s disapproval, and something in him had snapped.
It was just as well, he told himself defensively. How better to convince Gran that he meant to go through with marrying Maria? That was the only reason he’d given Maria the pearls.
“Let’s go find Foxmoor,” he said. “I need to speak to him about something. And you need to talk to his wife about announcing my betrothal.”
Gran’s eyes narrowed on him. “You know, you do not have to go through with this farce. You could end it now.”
“Or you could drop your ultimatum,” he shot back.
“Never,” she said.
“Your choice.” He cast her a hard glance. “But if you don’t make the announcement, I will.”
Making her see that he wouldn’t back down was the only way to make her give in, and he felt certain she would do so. Because if the betrothal was announced before everyone, Gran would feel compelled to let it stand to save the family honor, and she was never going to accept some Catholic American.
They found Foxmoor standing at the entrance to the ballroom receiving guests with the duchess, though he was more than ready to let Oliver pull him aside. Meanwhile, Gran went off to speak to his wife. Of course, Oliver knew better than to believe she was actually asking about making a betrothal announcement. It was all a show for his benefit.
“Why are you here?” Foxmoor asked. “As I recall, last year you swore that the only way you’d attend a ball on St. Valentine’s Day was in a casket.” He glanced behind Oliver. “So where is it?”
“Plague me if you must, as long as you do me one favor. I need you to help me rig the drawing.”
Foxmoor’s eyes narrowed. “If you think I’ll let you use my wife’s favorite social occasion to play a trick on one of your hapless brothers—”
“Not a trick. I want to rig it so a certain female will end up dancing the supper waltz with me.”
Clutching his hand dramatically to his chest, Foxmoor staggered backward. “You? Wanting to dance with an eligible female?” He eyed Oliver closely. “You do know that the only women who participate in the drawing are young, unattached, and respectable.”
Oliver gritted his teeth. “I’m perfectly aware of that.”
“And you want to dance with one of them.” Laughter erupted from Foxmoor.
“Oh, for God’s sake, can you do it?”
“Certainly,” his friend said merrily. “Whatever you wish. And while I’m at it, I’ll snatch the moon from the sky to be your dinner plate and the stars to light your way to supper.”
“I mean it, damn you. I need to dance with her, all right? It’s important.”
“Then why don’t you just ask her?”
“I did, but my brothers played a trick on me.” He ran his fingers through his hair distractedly. “By the time I got to her, they’d convinced every one of their friends to claim a dance with her.”
“Good God, you’re talking about that pretty little chit that Gabe introduced to me and Louisa, aren’t you? Miss . . . Butter something? The one who’s visiting at Halstead Hall?”
“That’s her, yes.”
Foxmoor scowled. “Now I know why you want to dance with her. You’ve got seduction on your mind. She’s exactly your preference, so you mean to use my wife’s ball—”
“Deuce take it, Foxmoor! For once in your life, could you just do as I ask without making judgments about it? You’re as bad as Maria, with all her talk of morality and compassion and saving one’s soul. I just want one favor, one dance with the blasted woman, and you won’t even help me with that!”
When Foxmoor looked taken aback, Oliver realized he’d expressed himself too forcefully.
Then his friend’s expression shifted to a more enigmatic one. “Maria, is it?”
“It’s her Christian name.”
“Yes. I gathered that.” He stared out over the ballroom. “You want the drawing fixed? Very well. When she throws her name into the hat, I’ll use a little sleight of hand to snag it, then hand it off to you so you can ‘draw’ it out of the hat. Very simple.”
Oliver’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve done it before.”
Foxmoor smiled faintly. “Once or twice. Men in love generally don’t like to risk their ladies being chosen by some other man on St. Valentine’s Day.”
“I’m not in love,” Oliver snapped. “So if that’s what you’re thinking—”
“Of course not.” But the duke looked unconvinced.
Oliver was tempted to tell the idiot that he really did have seduction on his mind, if only to wipe that suspicious expression away. But he wasn’t about to risk losing his chance of having Maria partner him for the supper dance. That might be his only opportunity to speak to her alone, since his siblings were doing their best to “protect” her.
He turned to search the crowd for her. She was dancing with Gabe in that angelic-looking gown that made him feel like the devil just for lusting after her in it.
And God, how he lusted after her. He wanted to kiss her rich, heady mouth while he took down that hair one amber lock at a time. Then he wanted to slip that creamy bodice off the shoulders it barely clung to and lavish her full breasts with caresses, tonguing the nipples into fine little points. He wanted to see her smile warmly at him as he lifted her skirts and buried his mouth between her legs to taste her pungent nectar.
He wanted to see her smile at him, period. He wanted it almost more than he wanted to have her in his bed.
Christ, what was wrong with him? How could he even compare a smile to a good swiving?
Yet his pulse pounded in his veins just remembering her smiles in his study yesterday. He wanted her to talk to him as she had before, to tease him and even chide him. Anything but these aloof glances and her insistence upon avoiding him. But after tonight . . .
It struck him like a thunderbolt. If he won his battle with Gran tonight, Maria would have no more reason to stay. Their arrangement would be done.
A chill crept over him. He wouldn’t allow it. He’d renew his offer to make her his mistress, and this time he’d convince her, too. He’d seduce her into it. She couldn’t leave—not yet. He couldn’t stand even the thought of it.
“Don’t you agree?” Foxmoor said beside him.
Oliver blinked. “Of course,” he said, praying that was the right answer.
“You’re not going to make some snide remark about marriage being the ruin of every man?” Foxmoor pressed. “That’s your usual response to any comment on someone’s happy union.”
“I’m not in the mood for snide remarks tonight.”
“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
He grimaced. Foxmoor was far too astute for his own good.
The duke smirked at him. “I was talking about Kirkwood. About how he looks lost without Lady Kirkwood by his side tonight.”
“Has the bloom left the rose already?” Oliver said, strangely disappointed by that thought.
“Ah, there’s the Stoneville I’m used to. But no; hadn’t you heard? She’s in her confinement. They expect the arrival of their first child any day now.”
Unexpectedly, he felt a blow to his chest. Kirkwood, a father. He’d never thought to see that day. Now every one of his friends would have children . . . and he would not.
He scowled. What did it matter? He didn’t want children. He couldn’t imagine a worse father than himself.
So why did an image of Maria, heavy with his child, dart into his mind? Why was it he could picture himself sitting in the old rowboat with a blue-eyed lad as he pointed out the best fishing spots on Halstead Hall’s pond? Or imagine himself reading a story to a dark-haired girl who kept her thumb tucked in her mouth as Celia used to do?
Deuce take it. All Minerva’s talk of his boyish escapades was poisoning his mind, making him yearn for the idyllic childhood she’d thought he’d had. Making him wish he could give it to some child.
But he could not.
“I gather that Kirkwood didn’t want to come tonight,” Foxmoor said, “but his wife insisted. She said she wanted to hear all the latest gossip, and he would have to gather it.” The duke snorted. “As if Kirkwood would know how to glean gossip! The woman is clearly blinded by love.”
And that was the trouble: love blinded you only until it ensnared you. Once ensnared, you saw everything clearly enough to sink you into misery.
He was too smart for that.
But as the evening wore on and he was forced to watch Maria dance with a succession of young and handsome gentlemen, he began to wonder if he was so smart after all. Because seeing her with them was really chafing him raw.
One of the idiots made her laugh several times—an egregious transgression. Another let his hand linger on her waist after the dance was done—a cardinal sin. And the last one before the drawing had the audacity to whisper something in her ear that made her blush—a crime so unpardonable that Oliver wished he could thrash the man senseless for it. He’d never wanted to thrash so many men at one time in his whole life.
Somehow he managed to remain calm as the gentlemen gathered for the drawing. He watched Maria write her name on a slip of paper and put it into Foxmoor’s top hat, but he couldn’t tell if Foxmoor succeeded in snagging it. He held his breath through the entire process, only relaxing when the men started drawing names and Foxmoor dropped a slip of paper into the hat with a meaningful smile just as Oliver reached in.
Pulling the slip out, he read aloud, “Miss Maria Butterfield.”
Maria didn’t say a thing, her expression unreadable.
But she was his for the next dance whether she liked it or not, and his for supper, too. He meant to make the most of it.
MARIA HAD SPENT the entire night putting a good face on things. Although Gabe’s and Jarret’s friends were nice, polite men, she felt as if all the other guests were whispering about her. The whispers were at their greatest whenever she was with one of the Sharpes, and this was at a ball held by their friends! She could only imagine what it must be like for them at other affairs.
Then again, maybe they weren’t invited to other affairs. It seemed as if Celia and Minerva danced only with their brothers or their brothers’ friends, who’d apparently also been called into service for the Sharpe women. Maria had seen Minerva standing alone for more than one dance, though the look on her face had made it clear she refused to be cowed by a bunch of rumormongers.
Between the dances, Maria had heard murmurs of “the poor American girl . . . yes, the Sharpes . . . can you believe it?” One particularly nasty harpy resurrected the old scandal with great relish. Fortunately Maria’s partner, one of Gabe’s good friends, clipped the woman’s wings with a blistering rejoinder.
Throughout it all, Maria had been aware every moment of where Oliver stood and what he was doing. He hadn’t danced with a single woman, which she found curious. And flattering, though she knew she shouldn’t. Mostly he watched her—though it was more like devouring her with his eyes.
When he wasn’t doing that, he was scowling at her dance partners. One fellow had even mentioned that Lord Stoneville appeared to be jealous.
She found that highly unlikely.
Yet as he headed toward her now, she felt disturbingly happy that he’d drawn her name. After spending the whole evening smiling until her face hurt, ignoring spiteful comments and pretending to be in England in search of Freddy’s “brother Nathan,” she ached to be with someone who knew her for what she was.
Even with Oliver’s brothers, she felt compelled to pretend, to be the angelic creature they seemed determined to protect. And though the man they wanted to protect her from was striding toward her with a frightening look of determination on his face, a ridiculous thrill went through her that wouldn’t be quelled.
Oliver halted beside her as the drawing continued. Freddy drew the name of a very pretty little maiden, which he fairly preened over. A man named Giles Masters drew Minerva’s name. The man seemed pleased; Minerva did not.
Then Oliver bent to whisper in her ear, and Maria stopped noticing who drew what name. “I see you’re having a fine time tonight.”
“What makes you say that?” she whispered back.
“You smile at every young fool who takes your hand,” he grumbled.
“And you glare at them,” she pointed out. “Does that mean you’re having a terrible time?”
“I’d do more than glare, if I could. Have you forgotten you have a fiancé?”
“A pretend one.”
“I was speaking of Hyatt.”
She swallowed past the lump of guilt in her throat. Then something occurred to her, and she shot him a curious glance. “Since when do you care about protecting my fiancé’s interests?”
A sullen expression crossed his face. “I just think that a woman who’s engaged shouldn’t be encouraging the attentions of young pups.”
Oh, that really took the cake. “And I think that a man who’s pretending to be engaged shouldn’t be running to brothels under his pretend fiancée’s nose,” she hissed.
He looked as if he were about to speak, but the drawing had just finished, and everyone was being told to take their partners to the floor.
When they found their spot, he said, “You’re absolutely right.” His gaze locked with hers, full of regret. “It was appallingly bad form. And it will never happen again.”
“Is that supposed to be an apology?” she snapped.
“No,” he said in a low, intense voice. “This is. I’m sorry I embarrassed you in front of my servants. I’m sorry I treated your feelings so cavalierly. Most of all, I’m sorry I made you feel as if you were worth so little to me. Because you’re not.”
She dropped her gaze, afraid that he might see how deeply his words had affected her. “It doesn’t matter.”
He took her hand and seized her by the waist, drawing her scandalously close. “It matters,” he said, echoing her words to him at Mr. Pinter’s office.
The music began, and he swept her into the waltz with the expert ease of a man who’d clearly danced it many times. Yet in his arms, she didn’t feel like just another of his women. His gaze never left hers, and his hand held her with a possessiveness that made her pulse jump.
“If it’s any consolation,” he murmured, “I had a miserable time last night.”
“Good. You deserved to.” She smiled. “Not that I care one way or the other.”
“Stop pretending that you don’t care,” he said hoarsely. “We both care, and you know it. I care more than you can possibly imagine.”
She wanted to believe him, but how could she? “You say that only to coax me into your bed.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “I don’t need to coax women into my bed, my dear. They usually leap there of their own accord.” His smile faded. “This is the first time I’ve apologized to a woman. I’ve never given a damn what any woman thought of me, though plenty of them tried to make me do so. So please forgive me if I’m not handling this to your satisfaction. It’s not a situation I’m accustomed to.”
He was holding her so tenderly, it made her want to weep. Every move they made was a seduction—his leg advancing as hers went back, his hand gripping her waist, the waltz beating a rhythm that made her want to whirl around the ballroom with him forever. Her mind told her she should resist him, but her heart didn’t want to listen.
Her heart was a fool.
She gazed past his shoulder. “My father used to go to a brothel. He never remarried, so he went there to . . . er . . . feed his needs. I had to go fetch him a few times when my cousins were working and my aunt was looking after my grandmother, who lived nearby.”
She didn’t know why she was telling him this, but it was a relief to speak of it to someone. Even her aunt and cousins preferred to pretend it never happened. “It was mortifying. He would . . . forget to come home, and we would need money for something, so I would have to go after him.”
“Good God.”
Her gaze locked with his. “I swore I’d never let myself be put in such a position again.” She tipped up her chin. “That’s why I’m happy to have Nathan as my fiancé. He’s genteel and proper. He would never frequent a brothel.”
Oliver’s eyes glittered darkly at her. “No. He would just abandon you to the tender mercies of men who do.”
She forced a smile. “There’s more than one way to be abandoned. If a woman’s husband is forever at a brothel, he might as well be halfway across the sea. The result is the same.”
A stricken expression crossed his face as he stared at her. Then he glanced away. “My mother never fetched my father from the brothel,” he said in a curiously emotionless voice. “But she knew he went there. In the early years, they would argue over it when he returned. Then she would cry for hours after he stormed off.”
“How did she know where he’d gone?” she whispered, her heart breaking for the small boy forced to watch his parents fight over such things. It was the first she’d ever heard him mention his parents’ life together.
“Because he came home stinking of cheap perfume and woman. It’s a smell you don’t forget.”
Maria stared at him. Early this morning, when he’d come to her door, he’d reeked of liquor but not perfume. It was a small detail, yet coupled with what Betty had said, it comforted her.
“I used to wish I could make him stop,” he went on in a bitter voice. “In the end, she took care of that herself.”
Was he implying that his mother had deliberately murdered his father? He’d claimed it was a tragic accident.
“We make quite a pair, don’t we?” he said, and glanced at the couples swirling around them. “Here we are, dancing to the silliest music ever written, surrounded by hundreds making small talk, yet all we can speak of is brothels and death.”
“It’s better than never speaking of it at all, wouldn’t you say?”
His gaze darkened on her. “You sound like Gran.”
“I don’t mind. I’m beginning to like her.”
“I like her, too—when she’s not plaguing the hell out of me.”
Maria eyed him curiously. “Why do you curse so much around me? Other men don’t. And you don’t curse around other women, as far as I can tell. So why around me?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I can be myself around you, I suppose. And since I’m a foulmouthed son of a bitch in general—”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t say that. You’re not as bad as you’re always making out.” Then realizing that people were noticing her intimate gesture, she returned her hand to his shoulder.
“That’s not what you thought earlier,” he said in a rough rasp. His hand swept her waist surreptitiously, as if he couldn’t keep from caressing her.
“Let’s just say I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
They finished the waltz in a silence that only increased her agitation. His eyes couldn’t seem to leave her face, nor hers his. Every step together seemed to bring them closer, until she was sure they were dancing far too close for propriety. Yet she didn’t care. It was pure bliss.
And it didn’t change a thing—there was nothing between them but this inconvenient attraction. But she still found herself memorizing his features, trying to save the sensation of his hand riding her waist, his body moving in time with hers.
His other hand gripped hers tightly, and his gloved thumb began to stroke along the curve between her thumb and forefinger in a carnal caress that stoked her already inflamed senses. When the music stopped, he squeezed her hand before settling it on his arm to lead her in to supper.
With awareness crackling between them, she asked, “Is there anything I should know about supper customs in England? I don’t want to embarrass you or your family.”
“You could never embarrass me,” he said in a deep voice that sent a wanton shiver along her spine. As if realizing how much he’d admitted, he added, “To be embarrassed, I’d have to care what people think of me, and I don’t.”
She began to believe that wasn’t entirely true.
The rest of the guests were surging toward the dining room across the hall, but she felt entirely alone with him, as if they were wrapped in their own little cocoon. Did he feel that way, too, or was she just inventing a deeper connection between them?
When they reached the supper room, Oliver guided them expertly toward a table with two empty chairs. A beautiful woman cut into their path in what seemed like a deliberate attempt to gain the chairs.
“I beg your pardon, Kitty,” he said in a cool voice as he grabbed the back of the nearest chair before she could. “But we spotted them first.”
“How astonishing to see you here, Stoneville,” the woman remarked with condescension, then scanned Maria with a critical eye. “And who is your new ‘friend’?”
She said it with such contempt that Maria flushed, fairly sure of what the woman was implying.
Oliver must have been, too, for a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Lady Tarley, Miss Maria Butterfield. Miss Butterfield has lately come from America, and is a guest of my sister’s.”
Lady Tarley lifted one eyebrow. “What a pleasure to meet you, Miss Butterfield,” she said in a tone that belied her words. “And what a lovely gown you’re wearing. I enjoyed wearing it myself, before I cast it off. I see you kept the tulle bodice exactly as I had it when it was specially made for me. It looks very well on you.”
Heat rose up to flame in Maria’s cheeks. Mercy, she should have known something like this might happen.
Oliver’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You must be mistaken, Kitty. I was sitting right there when the dressmaker showed Miss Butterfield the design. I’m sure the woman adapted one she’d used before.” He offered a thin smile. “Never trust a dressmaker who says she’s making something especially for you. Particularly when you’re not willing to pay them what they’re worth.”
Lady Tarley’s eyes flashed. “I recognize the ornament. I daresay it has a scratch on the back of it, just as mine did.”
When she reached for the ornament on Maria’s gown, Oliver caught her hand in an iron grip. “You’ll keep your hands off my fiancée’s gown, if you know what’s good for you.”
As Lady Tarley snatched her hand free, her eyes lit up like a tigress’s scenting prey. “Your fiancée? Well, now, isn’t that interesting news?”
Maria groaned. She couldn’t believe Oliver had said that.
Apparently he couldn’t, either—his arm had tensed beneath her hand. “We haven’t announced it yet, so we’d appreciate it if you keep it quiet.”
“Certainly, Stoneville.” She pressed a finger to her lips. “Mum’s the word.”
As she hurried off in a swish of skirts to collar the first female she saw, Maria said, “She’s not going to keep it secret, is she?”
“No,” Oliver ground out. “Damn it all to hell. I’m sorry, Maria. I don’t know what came over me. I can’t believe I forgot it wasn’t—” He caught himself and pulled out the chair for her. “Stay here, and I’ll do my best to nip it in the bud.”
As he strode across the room after Lady Tarley, Maria found herself smiling. She ought to be furious with him, knowing that the gossip might make it into the London papers and get back to Nathan. So why wasn’t she?
Because he’d done it to save her from embarrassment. And because Oliver rarely said anything on impulse. Considering how he’d fought the idea of marriage, it was astonishing he would let something like that slip. It made her hope . . .
No, she’d be mad to hope for anything more from him—especially given his clear alarm over how he’d misspoken.
The woman Lady Tarley had been talking to hurried to Mrs. Plumtree, who broke into a cat-in-the-cream smile after the woman said a few words to her. Mrs. Plumtree glanced over at Maria, and to Maria’s shock, she winked.
Winked! Maria didn’t know what had happened in the past few hours, but somehow Mrs. Plumtree had gone from disapproving of her as a wife for Oliver to approving of her wholeheartedly.
Oh dear. She had a sinking feeling that this evening was about to head in a direction Oliver hadn’t anticipated.
And the worst part was that a tiny, ridiculous corner of her heart was glad.