Fiona slanted him a suspicious, slightly wary glance. “Why did you kiss me then?”
“Because I wanted to.” Dyan sliced into the roast beef. “Because I wanted to kiss you. Not just any woman, but you. Strangely enough, I thought you’d enjoy it—that I’d enjoy it.”
“And did you?”
“The kiss, yes. The rest—no.”
The rest—the words she’d heaped on his head, had used to flay him, were engraved on her heart. Watching him from beneath her lashes, Fiona shifted in her chair. Dyan never lied. He could bend the truth with the best of them, but he never directly lied. Lips compressed, she chased peas around her plate. “I thought...that you were just seizing opportunity.” Without looking up, she shrugged. “That it was just because I was there—a willing female.”
“Not so willing.” A pregnant moment passed, then he said, his voice very low: “I never thought of you like that.”
Her world was tilting on its axis; Fiona couldn’t believe she’d read him so wrongly. Her stomach lurched, then sank; her heart contracted. Her mind rolled back through the years, through all her hopeful, hopeless dreams; gradually, she steadied.
She hadn’t been wrong. She’d given him opportunity enough to tell her if he felt anything for her—had, indeed, all but asked him outright for a declaration, a clear statement that she wasn’t just a wanton scullery maid to him, that she meant more to him than that. He hadn’t made that statement—not then, nor at any subsequent time. She’d waited, telling herself she’d surprised him, asked for too much too soon. But she’d already been so far gone in love she hadn’t been able to believe he, always the leader, was not; that he didn’t feel for her as she did for him. So she’d waited through the years while he’d been away at Oxford; he hadn’t even come home for the vacations. He’d been laying the foundations for his future career while she’d been deluding herself in Hampshire. But she’d learned the truth—seen the truth—when she’d gone up to town. Oh, no—she couldn’t forget all her wasted years, the rivers of wasted tears. Lifting her head, she reached for her wineglass. “If you found it so enjoyable, I’m surprised you didn’t seek to repeat the exercise.”
“After what you said? I’d have had to don armor.”
Fiona humphed and set down her glass. “You could at least have come up to me in London and said hello—not just nodded vaguely over a sea of heads.”
“If you’d looked my way just once, I might have.”
“Once?” Swiveling in her chair, Fiona stared at him. “Once? If I’d looked at you any more, a blind scandalmonger would have noticed!”
He opened his mouth—she held up a hand. “Wait!” She closed her eyes, like a seer looking into the future, only she was looking into the past. “Lady Morecambe, Mrs. Hennessy, and the Countess of Cranbourne.” Opening her eyes, she glared at him.
It took him longer to place them—three of his mistresses from that time, the Seasons both he and Fiona had been in London. Disconcerted, he snorted and eyed her suspiciously. “How did you find out? Not from watching—I was never that obvious.”
“You weren’t—they were.” Her expression mutinous, Fiona skewered a broiled shrimp. “They made themselves ridiculous, trying to hold your attention. So if you'd actually looked my way just once—”
“Heslethwaite, Phillips, Montgomery, Halifax, and, of course, Rusden—I can go on if you like.”
Her most assiduous suitors. Turning, she stared at Dyan.
Narrow-eyed, he met her gaze. “Why the hell did you think those ladies had to work so hard to hold my attention?” He spoke softly, through clenched teeth. “Because it was forever wandering. To you! When I think of the contortions I went through to hide it—”
“It would have been more to the point if you’d thought to look at me while I was looking at you.” Shaken, Fiona swung back to her plate. “Well”—she gestured wildly with her knife—“you could even have made the huge effort of crossing the floor and asking me to dance.”
“What? Fight through the hordes to secure a place on your dance card?” Dyan snorted derisively. A moment later, he added: “Aside from anything else, I never got to balls early enough.”
“You could have made an exception—made a real effort.”
“Oh, undoubtedly—and set every gossipmonger’s eyes alight. Just think—the notorious Lord Dyan Dare actually turning up to a ball early just to get his name on Lady Fiona Winton-Ryder’s dance card. I can imagine what they would have made of that.”
Fiona sniffed disparagingly. “You could have paid a morning call—although I daresay you never even saw the mornings, having to recuperate from the nights before.”
“My recuperative powers are rather stronger than you suppose. I don’t, however, believe your parents would have appreciated a morning call from me. One whisper of that, and the gossip mill would have ground with a vengeance. Besides—if you recall—I had every reason to believe my advances were unwelcome.”
The undercurrent of bitterness in his tone was impossible to ignore; Fiona didn’t believe him capable of manufacturing it. She bit her lip and studied her half-empty plate. “I really didn’t think you’d be that easily discouraged—not if you were in earnest.”
Chest expanding as he dragged in a deep breath, Dyan sat back and reached for his wineglass. If they had the scene in the clearing to play again, and she said what she’d said then? He forced himself to consider it, to study her words as dispassionately as he could. Fifteen years on—so many women on—and her words held a different ring. No, he was forced to concede, he wouldn’t be discouraged—not now—understanding as he now did how women often reacted, their uncertainties and fears, the bees they sometimes got in their bonnets. But then? Slowly, he exhaled. “Well, I was.”
He made the admission quietly, looking back down the years. He’d been seventeen, just getting into his stride with women. And Fiona had been...well, he’d always thought she’d been—would always be—his. He had thought she would welcome his advances. When she’d spurned him...that had been a blow from which he’d never quite recovered.
Frowning slightly, he shifted and set down his glass. A point that had forever puzzled him nagged for clarification. “Incidentally, what was that nonsense about you not being able to waltz? I taught you to waltz myself.”
Fiona set down her knife and fork. Picking up a dish of sweetmeats, she turned and handed it to the gentleman on her right. Bemused, he took it. Fiona smiled encouragingly—and didn’t turn back. Dyan, after all, had answered his own question. She couldn’t waltz because he’d taught her.
All the other dances she’d managed perfectly well; none required the degree of physical contact—familiar contact— necessitated by the waltz. Luckily, she’d discovered her problem at a small, informal dance party before she’d made her come-out, where they’d been permitted to practice the waltz. When Dyan had taken her in his arms, she hadn’t had the slightest problem; when her partner that night—a perfectly innocent young gentleman, the brother of one of her friends—had tried to do the same, every muscle in her body had locked. Not from fright, but from a type of revulsion. She’d tried to fight the reaction and had ended by swooning. After that, she hadn’t tried to waltz again. Her veto had driven her mother to distraction, but she’d held to it; she had never waltzed with anyone but Dyan.
She could feel his gaze on her half-averted face—any second, he would press for an answer. She glanced about, but the other diners, having finally accepted their disinterest, were all engrossed in their own conversations; there was no one free to rescue her. Fiona tried to ease the knots in her stomach—tried to breathe deeply enough to calm herself and think.
At the end of the table, Harriet stood; heaving an inward sigh of relief, Fiona grabbed her napkin and placed it by her plate.
Dyan frowned down the table at Harriet—her timing had always been woeful. To his experienced eye, she looked slightly tipsy, her inhibitions nicely softened by the heady wine she’d ordered to be served. F
iona, thankfully, had barely taken two sips.
Rising with the rest of the gentlemen, he drew out Fiona’s chair. As she turned, he blocked her way. “For God’s sake,” he whispered, “develop a headache.” He caught her eye—and poured all the emphasis he could into the instruction, “Retire early.”
She studied his eyes, his face, clearly considering his words, and his motives.
He opened his mouth to clarify both—
“My dear Miss Winton—I’m Lady Henderson.”
Fiona’s polite mask, all assured confidence, slid into place. As she smiled and shook hands with Lady Henderson, an older blonde, Dyan inwardly cursed. Forced to stand back, to let Fiona escape, he couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before one of the guests realized that Fiona’s innately gracious, lady-of-the-manor airs were just a little too assured for plain Miss Winton.
With a last, cool, noncommittal glance for him, Fiona fell in beside Lady Henderson; head high, she left the room. Beneath his breath, Dyan swore. Grimly, he resumed his seat.
And prayed that, for once in her life, Fiona would simply do his bidding.
Chapter 2
Fiona grasped the few minutes as the ladies milled in the hall to try to bring order to her suddenly chaotic thoughts. Only to conclude that making head or tail of them was presently beyond her—the only point of which she felt certain was that Dyan had interpreted her words in the clearing as rejection. Rejection—the dolt! How could he have been so blind? So deaf? Don’t you dare confuse me with some wanton scullery maid was what she’d said, having already heard of his exploits with at least two of the species. And then she’d waited—for him to reassure her that she was special to him. That she was his love, as he had been hers.
The stupid man hadn’t said a word. He’d stared at her blankly, then had let her pour her hurt and scorn over him. Then he’d gone off to consort with countless beautiful women, as if to illustrate that she was nothing special to him.
And then he’d gone off adventuring in India and left her behind.
Well! What was she supposed to think?
The impulse to brood darkly on that point was almost overwhelming, but she hadn’t forgotten she was here on a mission.
Realizing from some lady’s startled glance that her lips were grimly set, Fiona forcibly relaxed them into a serene smile, and fell into line as the ladies trailed into the drawing room.
Pausing beyond the threshold, she scanned the room, noting the groups of ladies deploying about its gracious expanse. One group broke apart, laughing immoderately; the raucous note jarred on her ear. The wisest strategy seemed clear—deal with Henry’s guests, protect Harriet, then retire gracefully at the appropriate time.
Then she could deal with Dyan.
“Excuse me, Miss Winton.”
Fiona turned as Lady Henderson, who had been chatting with some other ladies, came up. Her ladyship—Fiona placed her in her forties—smiled, genuinely friendly. “You seem somewhat lost, my dear—I do hope you don’t mind me mentioning it. Is it your first visit here?”
Supremely assured, Fiona smiled back. “Indeed, no—I’ve known Henry and Harriet for... quite some time.” Sherwood—she presumed at Dyan’s behest—had concealed her identity; there seemed no reason to bruit it abroad. “But,” she added, looking over the room again, “this is the first time I’ve attended one of these house parties.”
Lady Henderson blinked. After a slight hesitation, she asked, “Pardon my curiosity, my dear, but do you mean the first time at Brooke Hall—or the first time altogether?”
The note of concern in her ladyship’s voice drew Fiona’s gaze back to her face. “I’ve attended many house parties, of course. But I have to admit this is the first of this”—she gestured airily—“ilk.”
“Oh, dear.” Her ladyship, concern clear in her face, stared at Fiona. Then she glanced across the room to where Harriet was holding forth by the chaise. “What is Harriet thinking of?” Looking back at Fiona, Lady Henderson placed a friendly hand on her arm. “My dear, if you truly are not”—with her other hand, she mimicked Fiona’s earlier gesture—“in the way of things, then I would really not advise this as the place to start. The evening revels here can get quite...well, quite deep, if you take my meaning.”
Despite not being “in the way of things,” Fiona suspected she could. She looked across the room. “Perhaps I’d better speak with Harriet.”
“Perhaps you had.” Lady Henderson removed her hand. “But just so you know how things progress should you decide to join us, once the gentlemen return, we take about half an hour to choose our partner—or partners, if you decide on more than one. Then the games start. Sometimes there’s a specific goal to begin with—like who can make a lady reach ecstasy first. But before very long, things just naturally evolve.”
Her ladyship’s hands had again come into play; Fiona, her expression studiously blank, nodded. “I see.” Drawing a deep breath, she turned toward Harriet. “Thank you, Lady Henderson.” With a regal nod, she glided away—straight to Harriet.
Whether or not Dyan was right about Harriet, retiring early, as he’d advised, before the gentlemen returned, would clearly be prudent. Fiona fetched up by Harriet’s side.
“And then his lordship declared I was quite the best—” Highly animated, Harriet glanced up—and jumped. “Oh!” She paled, then smiled weakly at Fiona and gestured about the circle of ladies. “This is my dear friend, Miss Winton. Ah…” Eyes wide, Harriet scanned the room. “Pray excuse me, I must speak with Mrs. Ferguson.” She swept the circle with a wavering smile, sent a startled glance at Fiona, and fled across the room.
Fiona watched her go through narrowing eyes.
“Miss Winton, I declare you must tell us all you know about Darke.” A lady sporting a profusion of red ringlets laid a familiar hand on Fiona’s arm.
Forsaking Harriet’s retreating figure, Fiona fixed the lady with a decidedly cool glance. “Must I?”
“Indeed, you must!” another of the laughing ladies assured her. “Harriet told us you know him better than she does, and, of course, here we always share.” The lady smiled, archly coy. “You really must warn us—is he as vigorous as he appears?”
“Or even half as inventive as his reputation?”
“Does he prefer a slow waltz—or do his tastes run more to a gallop?”
The smile Fiona trained upon the circle of avid faces was a study in superiority. “I’m afraid,” she murmured, her tone drawing on centuries of aristocratic forebears, “that there’s been some mistake. I do not share.” Her smile deepened fractionally; inclining her head, she smoothly moved away.
Leaving a stunned silence behind.
Fiona scanned the crowd—and saw Harriet’s startled-rabbit face peeking out from behind an ample matron. Harriet promptly ducked; eyes narrow, lips firming, Fiona set out in pursuit.
She knew the routine of tonnish house parties to the minute; she had plenty of time before the gentlemen arrived. Time and more to catch Harriet and give her a piece of her mind, before retreat became imperative.
But Harriet didn’t want to be caught. Shorter and slighter than Fiona, she used her status as hostess to flit from group to group. Disgusted with such craven behavior, Fiona gave up the chase. Sweeping around to head for the door, she spied Lady Henderson. On impulse, she stopped by her ladyship’s side.
When her ladyship glanced her way and smiled, Fiona smiled, rather tightly, back. “I just had one question, Lady Henderson, if you would be so good as to humor me.”
Her ladyship inclined her head and looked her interest.
“Who signed the invitation that brought you here?”
Lady Henderson’s eyes opened wide. “Why, Harriet, of course. As usual.”
Fiona’s smile grew steely. “Thank you.”
She turned to the door—
It opened and the gentlemen streamed in.
* * *
Thanks to Henry, garrulously eager for his approval, Dyan was amo
ng the last to enter the drawing room. The first thing he did on crossing the threshold was scan the room; the second thing he did was swear, volubly if silently, his gaze fixed on Fiona, trapped at the center of a crowd of eager gentlemen.
Dyan gritted his teeth. Even if she’d come to her senses and swallowed her pride enough to take his advice, she wouldn’t have expected them back so soon. Given the number of males present, it shouldn’t have been possible to pass a decanter around in less than thirty minutes—so Henry had had three smaller decanters placed along the table. The guests had quaffed the wine—understandable, given its quality.
And so here they all were, back in the drawing room, blocking Fiona’s retreat.
Disguising his interest in her, Dyan prowled idly down the long room, his heavy lids at half-mast, concealing the direction of his gaze. If Fiona had managed to slip away, he would have followed; upstairs, in the seclusion of their rooms at the end of the wing, they could have sorted out what had really happened fifteen years before—and all that had, or hadn’t, happened since. Instead, there she was, acting as honeypot to a swarm of bees.
He shot her a glance as he drew level; she was looking down her nose at one impulsive gentleman—a Mr. Ferguson, if he remembered aright. Even from a distance, he could see the chill rising as she acidly requested Mr. Ferguson to remove his foot from her hem.
It was an old trick; Mr. Ferguson, startled, stepped back and looked down. Fiona smoothly turned, giving him her shoulder.
Dyan’s lips twitched; his brows quirked as he continued his prowl. Lady Arctic had been Fiona’s nickname among the more sporting rakes in town; it had been said no man could melt her ice—he would die of frostbite first. At the moment, Lady Arctic looked to be holding her own. He had half a mind to retire and let her weather this alone.
Then again. Eyes narrowing, Dyan swung back, studying those gathered about Fiona.