“What, precisely, have you been told, my lord?” Victoria demanded.
He shrugged. “It is said you have little interest in marriage, Miss Huntington.”
“Your sources are wrong.” She smiled thinly. “I do not have even a little interest in the married state. I have absolutely no interest in it, whatsoever.”
Stonevale slanted her a considering glance. “A pity. Perhaps if you had a husband and a family to occupy your time in the evenings, you would not be obliged to amuse yourself with risky adventures such as the one you have planned for tonight.”
Victoria’s smile widened. “I am certain that the sort of adventure I have planned for this evening will be vastly more entertaining than the evening duties of a wife.”
“What makes you so certain of that?”
“Personal history, my lord. My mother was married for her fortune and it destroyed her. My dear aunt was also married for her money. Fortunately for her my uncle had the grace to die early on in a hunting accident. But since I cannot count on similar good fortune, I have chosen not to take the risk of marriage.”
“You do not fear that you might be missing an important part of a woman’s life?” he ventured.
“Not in the least. I have seen nothing of marriage to recommend it.” Victoria opened her gilded fan to conceal a shudder. Memories of her stepfather’s casual little cruelties and drunken acts of violence toward her mother were never far below the surface. Even the bright lights of the ballroom could not entirely banish them.
She fanned herself languidly once or twice, hoping Stonevale would gain the impression that she was acutely bored with the direction of the conversation. “Now, if you will excuse me, my lord, I see a friend I must speak to.”
He followed her glance. “Ah, yes, the intrepid Annabella Lyndwood. She is no doubt anxious to discuss the evening’s plans, too. It appears, since you are determined not to be cooperative, that I shall be left to discover the details on my own. But never fear, I am very good at games of strategy.” Stonevale inclined his head briefly over Victoria’s hand. “Until later, Miss Huntington.”
“I shall pray you find something more entertaining to do with your time tonight than to accompany us.”
“Not likely.” The earl’s faint smile flared into a brief, wicked grin that momentarily displayed his strong white teeth.
Victoria turned away from him with an elegant swirl of her golden yellow silk skirts, refusing to give the man the satisfaction of a backward glance. This man was not only potentially dangerous, he was insufferable.
Victoria stifled a small groan as she swept through the crowd. She ought to have known better than to have allowed the earl to entice her into the card room tonight. It was, after all, not quite the thing for a lady to play cards with a man at an affair such as this. But she’d always had a hard time resisting adventure and the damnable man had seemed to sense that almost at once. Sensed it and used the weakness. She must remember that.
It was not as if she’d had any warning. Stonevale had, after all, been properly introduced to her by Jessica Atherton, no less.
Everyone knew Lady Atherton was entirely above reproach, a paragon, in fact. Slender, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, the viscountess was not only young, delicate, and quite lovely, she was also becomingly modest, unfailingly gracious, eminently respectable, and a stickler for the proprieties. In other words, she would certainly never have introduced a known rake or fortune hunter to one of her guests.
“Vicky, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Annabella Lyndwood hurried over to her friend’s side. She flicked open her fan and proceeded to use it to shield her lips as she spoke in a whisper. “Were you actually playing cards with Stonevale? How very naughty of you. Who won?”
Victoria sighed. “I did, for all the good it did me.”
“Did he tell you Bertie has invited him to accompany us tonight? I was furious about that, but Bertie insists we should have another man along for protection.”
“So I was given to understand.”
“Oh, dear, you are angry. I am so sorry, truly I am, Vicky, but there was no help for it. Bertie promised he would say nothing about our plans, but apparently Stonevale tricked him into revealing all.”
“Yes, I can see how that might happen. Probably poured hock down Bertie’s throat until the truth emerged. It is certainly a pity your brother could not keep his mouth shut, but don’t fret, Bella. I am determined we shall enjoy ourselves regardless.”
Annabella’s sky blue eyes gleamed in obvious relief. Her fair curls bounced enticingly as she nodded her head and smiled. Annabella Lyndwood was held by certain high sticklers to be just the slightest bit too well rounded for fashion. But that tendency toward a full figure had certainly not put off her many suitors. She had recently turned twenty-one and had confided to Victoria that she would undoubtedly be obliged to accept one of the several offers she had received this Season. Annabella had gotten a late start in the marriage mart because of the untimely death of her father, but she had proven enormously popular when she had finally made her appearance in London.
“What do you know of him, Bella?” Victoria asked quietly.
“Who? Stonevale? Not much, to be perfectly truthful. Bertie says he’s respected in the clubs. He just recently acceded to the title, I believe. The previous earl was a distant relative of some sort. An uncle or something. Bertie mentioned estates in Yorkshire.”
“Did Bertie have anything else to say about him?”
“Let me think. According to Bertie, the family line has almost died out. It came close to dying out entirely, I gather, when Lucas Colebrook was badly wounded on the Peninsula a year or so ago.”
Victoria felt her stomach tighten in an odd manner. “The limp?”
“Yes. It was the end of his career in the military, apparently. Still, that career would have ended regardless once he inherited. His first duty is to his title and estates now, of course.”
“Of course.” Victoria did not want to ask the next question, but she could not resist. “How did it happen?”
“The injury to his leg? I don’t know the details. Bertie says Stonevale never talks about it. But according to my brother, Wellington, himself, mentioned the earl in several of the dispatches. The story is that during the battle in which he was wounded, Stonevale managed to stay in the saddle and lead his men on to take their objective before he collapsed and was left for dead on the field.”
Left for dead. Victoria felt sick. She pushed the queasy sensation aside, reminding herself that Lucas Colebrook was not the sort of man for whom she could afford pity. Furthermore, she seriously doubted that he would welcome it. Unless, of course, he could figure out some way to use it to his advantage.
It occurred to her to wonder if Stonevale had suggested the card game earlier so that he would not be obliged to endure a set of country dances. The limp probably kept him off the floor.
“What do you think of him, Vicky? I have seen the Perfect Miss Pilkington eyeing him all evening and so have several other ladies in the room. Not to mention their mamas. Nothing like a little fresh blood on the scene to whet the appetite, is there?” Annabella teased lightly.
“What a perfectly disgusting image.” But Victoria laughed in spite of herself. “I wonder if Stonevale knows he’s being looked over like a prize stallion?”
“I don’t know, but thus far you are the only one he is looking over in return. No one could help but notice that it was you he coaxed into the card room.”
“I suppose he’s hanging out for a fortune,” Victoria said.
“Really, Vicky, you always believe men are after your inheritance. You are positively single-minded to the point of idiocy on the subject. Is it not possible that some of your admirers are seriously interested in you, not your money?”
“Bella, I’m nearly twenty-five years old. We are both aware that men of the ton do not make offers to women of my advanced years unless they are lured by practical reasons. My fortune is a ve
ry practical reason.”
“You speak as if you are on the shelf, and that is simply not true.”
“Of course it’s true, and to be honest, I prefer it that way,” Victoria said evenly.
Annabella shook her head. “But, why?”
“It makes everything so much simpler,” Victoria explained vaguely, unconsciously scanning the crowd in search of Stonevale. She spotted him at last talking to his hostess near the door that opened onto the vast Atherton gardens. She studied the intimate manner in which he stood towering over the angelic Lady Atherton, who was a vision in pink.
“If it makes you feel any better, Bertie has said absolutely nothing to imply that Stonevale is a fortune hunter,” Annabella said. “Quite the contrary. It’s rumored the old earl was an eccentric who hoarded his wealth until the day he died. Now it all belongs to our new earl. And you know Bertie. He would not dream of inviting anyone to accompany us tonight unless he approved of him.”
That much was true, Victoria conceded. Lord Lyndwood, only two years older than his sister, took the duties of his recently inherited title quite seriously. He was highly protective of his flirtatious, exuberant sibling and he was always pleasant to Victoria. He would not expose either woman to a man whose background or reputation was questionable. Perhaps Annabella was right, Victoria thought, perhaps she was a bit overanxious on the subject of wily fortune hunters.
Then she recalled Stonevale’s eyes. Even if he were not a fortune hunter, he was still more dangerous than any man she had ever met with the possible exception of her stepfather.
Victoria sucked in her breath at the thought and then discarded it angrily. No, she told herself with sudden fierceness, regardless of how dangerous Stonevale might be in his own right, she would not put him into the same category as the brutal man who had married her mother. Something deep within her was very certain the two men were not of the same mold.
“Well, congratulations, Victoria, my dear. I see you have captured the attention of our new earl. Stonevale is an interesting specimen, is he not?”
Startled out of her thoughts by the familiar, throaty voice, Victoria glanced to her left and saw Isabel Rycott standing nearby. She forced herself to smile. The truth was, she did not particularly care for the woman, but she did feel a trace of envy when she was around her.
Isabel Rycott always reminded Victoria of an exotic jewel. She was in her early thirties and had about her an air of lush, feminine mystery that seemed to attract men the way honey enticed bees. The sense of exoticism was enhanced by Isabel’s catlike grace, her sleek black hair, and faintly slanted eyes. She was one of a handful of other women in the room besides Victoria who had defied the current style by wearing a strong color rather than demure white or pastel tonight. Her riveting deep emerald green gown shimmered brilliantly in the light of the ballroom.
But it was not Isabel’s unusual looks that made Victoria regard her with a certain wistful envy. It was the freedom conferred upon her by her age and her status as a widow that Victoria secretly admired. A woman in Lady Rycott’s position was far less subject to the close scrutiny of the ton than Victoria was. Lady Rycott was even free to indulge in discreet affairs.
Victoria had never met a man with whom she had wanted to have an affair, but she would have liked very much to have had the freedom to do so if she chose.
“Good evening, Lady Rycott.” Victoria looked down at the woman who stood several inches shorter than she. “Are you acquainted with the earl?”
Isabel shook her exquisitely shaped head. “We have not yet been introduced, unfortunately. He has only recently entered Society, although I hear he has been active at the gaming tables in the clubs for some time now.”
“I heard the same thing,” Annabella said. “Bertie says the man is an excellent gamester. Very coolheaded.”
“Really?” Isabel glanced across the room to where the earl was still standing with Lady Atherton. “He’s not at all in the way of being handsome, is he? Still, there is something quite intriguing about him.”
Handsome? Victoria could have laughed aloud at the notion of using such an insipid word to describe Stonevale. No, he was not handsome. His face was strong, harsh even, with a sharp blade of a nose, an aggressive jaw, and an unrelenting awareness in those gray eyes. His hair was the color of a moonless night sky, shot with silver at the temples, but none of it added up to handsome. When one looked at Stonevale, one saw quiet, controlled, masculine power, not a fine dandy.
“You must admit,” Annabella said, “that he certainly wears his clothes well.”
“Yes,” Isabel agreed softly. “He wears his clothes exceedingly well.”
Victoria did not like the assessing look Isabel was employing as she surveyed the earl, but there was no denying that Stonevale was one of those rare men who was not dominated by the elegant tailoring that was so fashionable. His powerful shoulders, flat waist, and strongly molded thighs needed no padding or camouflage.
“Perhaps he will turn out to be rather amusing,” Isabel said.
“Yes, indeed,” Annabella agreed cheerfully.
Victoria glanced again at the tall, dark figure beside Lady Atherton. “Amusing may not be quite the right word.” Dangerous was the right word.
But Victoria was suddenly willing to experiment with this dash of danger; the social whirl of the ton, which lately she depended upon more and more to fill up the long hours of the night, was no longer enough. She needed something else to help her hold the restless nightmares at bay.
The Earl of Stonevale might be just the tonic for which she had been searching.
“Dearest Lucas, what did you think of her? Will she do?” Lady Atherton gazed up at Stonevale with an anxious expression in her beautiful, gentle eyes.
“I think she will do nicely, Jessica.” Lucas sipped champagne from the glass in his hand, his eyes moving across the crowd.
“I know she is a bit old.”
“I, myself, am a bit old,” he pointed out dryly.
“Nonsense. Thirty-four is an excellent age for a man intent on marriage. Edward was thirty-three when I married him.”
“Yes, he was, wasn’t he?”
Jessica Atherton’s eyes were instantly filled with a heart-wrenching contrition. “Lucas, I am so sorry. How clumsy of me. You must know I did not mean to hurt you.”
“I’ll survive.” Lucas finally spotted Victoria in the crowd. He kept his gaze on the tall figure of his quarry as she stepped out onto the dance floor with a plump, elderly baron. Victoria obviously enjoyed dancing, although she appeared to restrict her partners to very young, socially awkward males or those much older than herself. She probably viewed such men as harmless.
He regretted he did not dare risk asking her out onto the floor. It would be interesting to see if she followed him there as easily as she had followed him into the card room. But he was not certain how well she would tolerate the lack of grace in his damned left leg, and at this juncture he could not take any chances.
He sensed no streak of cruelty in her, though. She definitely had a temper, but he knew she would not stoop to insults or cutting remarks about his limp. Nevertheless she might very well trod quite forcefully on his toes if he managed to goad her as he had in the card room. The image made Lucas smile.
“It was quite outrageous of her to accompany you into the card room, of course,” Lady Atherton said. “But, then, I fear that is our Miss Huntington. She does have a tendency to come very close to the edge of what is considered proper. But under a husband’s guidance, I am certain that regrettable element of her nature could be controlled.”
“An interesting notion.”
“And she does have a noticeable predilection for that rather overbright shade of yellow,” Lady Atherton added.
“It’s clear Miss Huntington has a mind and a will of her own. But I must allow that the yellow looks attractive on her. Not many women could wear it successfully.”
Lucas studied Victoria’s tall, willowy figure i
n the high-waisted gown. The yellow silk was a ray of honeyed sunlight in the crowded room. It gleamed with a warm richness amid the array of classical white and watery pastels.
The only real problem with the gown as far as he was concerned was that the bodice was cut far too low. It revealed entirely too much of the gentle, high slopes of Victoria’s breasts. Lucas had an almost irresistible urge to borrow some matron’s shawl and wrap it firmly around Victoria’s upper torso. Such an impulse was so out of character for him that he was momentarily astonished.
“I fear she has a reputation for being something of an Original. Her aunt’s doing, no doubt. Cleo Nettleship is most unusual in her own right,” Lady Atherton said.
“I would much prefer a lady who is out of the common run. Makes for more interesting conversation, wouldn’t you say? One way or another, I suspect I shall have to endure a good many conversations with the woman I eventually marry. No getting around it.”
Jessica sighed softly. “’Tis unfortunate, but there simply is not a large selection of heiresses around this Season. But, then, there rarely is. However, there is still Miss Pilkington. You really should meet her before you make up your mind, Lucas. I vow she is a very admirable female. Always perfectly correct in her behavior, whereas, I fear, Miss Huntington has a certain tendency to be somewhat headstrong.”
“Never mind Miss Pilkington. I’m quite content with Miss Huntington.”
“If only she weren’t very nearly five and twenty. Miss Pilkington is only nineteen. Younger women tend to be more amenable to a husband’s influence, Lucas.”
“Jessica, please believe me when I tell you Miss Huntington’s age is not a problem.”
“You are quite certain?” Lady Atherton eyed him uneasily.
“I would far rather deal with a woman of a certain age who knows what she’s about than a young chit straight out of the schoolroom. And I would have to say that Miss Huntington does, indeed, know what she is about.”
“You mean because she has managed to stay single so long? You are probably right. She’s made it very clear she has no interest whatsoever in turning over her inheritance to a husband. Everyone but the most desperate of fortune hunters has quite given up on her.”