Eleven
* * *
It seemed for a time that every bachelor in the room sought out Adriana to ask her for a dance. She graciously complied to as many as she could, knowing it would save her toes from further injury. Some moments later, she found Roger pushing through the throng of hopefuls with a glass of wine. He seemed intent on discouraging her admirers as he pressed it into her hand. Adriana promptly realized she either had to accept it from his grasp or have the wine sloshed over her gown. It nettled her that he could be so persistent, but Roger’s ploy worked to his advantage, for the hopefuls finally went off to find other partners.
Trying to curb her irritation, Adriana settled upon a nearby bench and sipped from the crystal goblet as she once again worked off her slippers beneath her hem. Roger plied her with a string of inquiries, to which she responded with silence, a noncommittal shrug, a nod or a shake of her head, preferring not to answer any of them for the moment. He seemed mainly curious about the ones who had invited her to dance and if she were interested in any of them. She hardly considered that any of his business since he wasn’t really a friend or, for that matter, even someone she enjoyed having around. He had simply proven unrelenting in his quest to be with her, which hardly seemed a viable reason for her to tolerate him any longer. In fact, she didn’t even think she really liked the man. Indeed, it seemed an appropriate time to tell him that he could no longer call upon her.
A dozen or so close acquaintances her own age and gender descended upon her before she could do so, crowding around her with vivacious chatter, leaving Roger feeling out of sorts with the lot of them as questions about this gentleman or that were eagerly presented, making it obvious the young ladies’ interest centered mainly on titled aristocrats. Finally, unable to bear being the only male in the midst of so many fluttering females, Roger offered a terse excuse and departed.
Nearly a score of hawkish bachelors swooped down on the gathering to pluck this chick or that one from the brood. Adriana smilingly declined several, not wishing to embarrass herself by revealing the fact that she had lost one of her slippers and, for some moments now, hadn’t been able to find it.
Sighing forlornly as everyone deserted her, she was fraught by fear that she’d soon be at the mercy of Roger again. This time, for sure, she would tell him that he’d no longer be welcomed at Wakefield Manor after the evening was over. Yet she hardly wanted to face that prospect without her slippers on. At least, while wearing them, she’d be able to walk away if the apprentice became too ornery.
There seemed no graceful way of finding her shoe without forsaking all pretense and bending down to search for it, but that option threatened to cause her more humiliation than she really cared to invite. When a scant moment later a more subtle approach came to mind, she rose gracefully from the bench and considered her surroundings in the manner of a queen surveying her court. Edging forward slowly, then to the left and then to the right, she searched about with the toes of her bare foot. Upon finding the errant slipper at last, she was just sliding her foot into it when a large hand swept beneath her elbow, sending her teetering sideways in surprise. A gasp of astonishment had barely escaped her lips when a darkly garbed arm came around her waist, saving her from a fall. In an instant, her head was filled with a pleasing manly cologne, a very strange occurrence indeed, considering she had never noticed Roger’s use of toiletries before this moment in time.
Adriana knew she should have been grateful the apprentice had saved her from the humiliation of a fall. Even so, she was incensed that he had tried to take her arm in the first place. Had he not done so, she would never have lost her balance.
Gnashing her teeth in vexation, Adriana shoved her foot securely within her shoe and turned on him. Then she almost stumbled back in sharp surprise as she found herself facing a neatly tied white silk cravat set off by a silk waistcoat and an elegant coat of the same costly black cloth. Her gaze rose by several degrees until she found white teeth gleaming back at her from a handsomely bronzed face.
“Colton!” Her voice gave generous hint to her astonishment, sounding more like a hoarse croak than the sweet tones to which she was certain he had recently been so attentive.
A soft chuckle flowed from his lips. “You needn’t sound so shocked, Adriana. You must have known I’d make my claim on you sooner or later.”
“No . . . I mean, I really hadn’t been expecting you to come over.” Not when he had been plying the lovely Miss Felicity with his charming smile.
“The way you turned on me, I came close to ducking,” he teased with an unrelenting grin. “I seem to remember that even as a child you could give me a pretty good wallop when you had had enough of my tomfoolery. You didn’t seem at all bashful about doing so either.”
A blush infused Adriana’s cheeks, for she had come close to doing that very thing. “You startled me, that’s all.”
“My apologies, my dear, but after several attempts to find you free, I finally decided I’d have to come and stake my right to dance with you in spite of all the besotted admirers who seem reluctant to turn loose of your skirts. The miller’s son seems especially tenacious tonight. Have you told him yet?”
“No,” she admitted testily. “I haven’t found a convenient moment.”
“I’d be willing to perform the deed if you can’t bring yourself to do it, my dear,” he offered, his eyes gleaming into hers.
“I’m sure you’d be delighted to give him such news,” she rejoined coolly, “but I wonder if your intentions would truly be of the benevolent sort, considering the last time you two were together you sent him flying across the room.”
“Certainly tender toward you, my dearest Adriana,” he avouched. “I’d be saving you from a task you obviously find loathsome to perform. As for him, well, you could say the swiftest cut is the most humane way to sever a tainted limb.” He lifted his broad shoulders in a casual shrug. “At least, that’s what the surgeons told me when they were contemplating the removal of mine.”
Elevating a brow, she directed a brief, meaningful glance toward his right limb. “Aren’t you thankful you didn’t follow their sage advice?”
Colton chuckled. “I am indeed grateful, so if you’d rather not have me enlighten Roger, I shall leave the telling to your more kindly care . . . for a price. . . .”
“For a price?” she repeated, highly skeptical. “And what may that be?”
“I’m here to rescue you from your brief, spinsterish solitude before some other gallant intrudes.” He grinned with sudden amusement. “I believe Sir Guy Dalton was searching for you a few moments ago, but Lord Riordan sent him chasing after a phantom. Remind me never to accept directions from your smitten swains. I may end up in Africa again.”
“I’ve been without a partner for at least the last dance or two,” she informed him rather coolly and asked outright, knowing full well the answer, “Where have you been?”
“Out taking a breath of fresh air,” he answered simply. “I wasn’t all that interested in dancing with any of the other ladies and had grown vexed waiting for my turn with you. I now know the outer perimeter of Wakefield Manor better than I do my own home.” He glanced down at his well-shod feet. “I even paused to polish the dew off my shoes, anything to get through the interminable wait.”
A likely story, with Felicity waiting in the wings, Adriana thought with a fair bit of peevishness. “ ‘Tis very noble of you to try and save me from my fate, my lord, but really, you needn’t trouble yourself on my account.”
Once again she had cause to wonder if her cheeks would ever regain their normal coloring under his predatorial perusal. Although still miffed by his gall to flaunt Felicity beneath her very nose, Adriana had to admire the way he looked. Never had she seen a more handsome or debonairly garbed man. Indeed, she doubted if even Riordan, whose attire at all times was the very example of discriminating taste, could come close to equaling Colton’s finery this evening.
Feigning a nonchalance that she struggl
ed hard to convey, Adriana swept a hand in the approximate direction she had last seen the blonde. “Please, feel free to continue dancing with your partner.”
Smiling down at her as he leaned toward her, Colton laid one wrist atop the other behind his back. Unable to resist the delectable scent of her elusive fragrance, he nearly closed his eyes in pleasure as it twined through his senses. It was a simple fact, the lady smelled as intoxicating as she looked, and he knew, were he ever to return to the battlefield, her beautiful face and sweet essence would sustain him through the fiercest of battles. “At the present moment, my dear, I’m without one.”
Adriana chuckled, making light of his predicament. “What? Can it be that Miss Fairchild has forsaken you for another? I find that difficult to believe, considering the wealth of praises she has been liberally attaching to your name recently. You must have been visiting her often to inspire such glowing tributes.”
Amusement broadened his roguish grin. “You’ve been listening to those confounded gossips again, Adriana.”
“I . . . I certainly have not!” she protested, and was forced to endure the scalding heat of another sweeping blush. Petulantly she lifted her fine nose into the air, doing her best to snub him. “I merely saw you dancing with Miss Fairchild, that’s all.”
“Once only. It seemed the thing to do until Stuart came back.”
“What does Stuart have to do with it?”
“Why, my dear, he brought her. . . .”
Adriana tried her best not to gape in astonishment. “Stuart brought her?”
His darkly translucent eyes danced as he took note of her surprise. “Well, actually, if you really want me to be specific, my sister and brother-in-law brought them both, having been urged by you to bring whomever they would. Samantha didn’t think you’d mind since the both of you invited her on your ride the day of my return, and Stuart seemed interested in her.” His gray orbs continued to sparkle with mischievous delight as he peered at her closely, making much of his incredulity. “You didn’t think I had escorted her here, did you, my dear? Why, shame on you.”
“I’m not your dear,” Adriana declared, lifting her winsome nose higher still. “So stop calling me that.”
“Oh, but you are my dear . . . according to my father’s wishes,” Colton needled. Never had a woman made so many attempts to banish him out of her life, and never had he enjoyed a challenge more.
Adriana wished he’d stop grinning at her. He seemed highly amused, no doubt at her expense. Unable to think of an adequate riposte, she shrugged briefly and then remembered much too late that her décolletage had a tendency to gap away from her bosom with such movements. As if bidden, the gray eyes dropped into her neckline, prompting Adriana to clasp the shiny onyx pendant of her necklace as she sought to shield her bosom from his inspection.
“Too late,” he murmured, leaning toward her with a devilish grin. “I’ve seen everything you have hidden there and have been lusting after you ever since.”
Ignoring the little thrill that shot through her, Adriana spread her lace fan before her and plied it with zealous fervor as she sought to cool her burning cheeks. “You have some nerve reminding me of your forwardness to spy on me like some naughty little boy peeping through a knothole.”
His brows quirked skeptically. “Did I make any pretense about what I was looking at?”
“No, and I doubt I’ve ever met a more brazen rake.”
“The appropriate word is ‘candid,’ my dear.” His lips twitched teasingly. “Besides, I could hardly feign indifference in the state I was in, now could I?”
The fan fluttered vigorously as her face became as hot as smoldering embers. Adriana dared not glance around for fear someone would discern her discomfiture. Instead, she muttered for his ears alone, “Why don’t you go back and dance with Felicity. She may enjoy your form of bawdy humor.”
“You’re jealous, my dear, and without cause,” he accused. “I have no interest in the woman.”
Adriana peered up at him curiously. “If you have no interest in her, then please explain why you visited her.”
“Visited her?” Colton shook his head, totally bemused. “I’ve never done anything of the sort.”
She closed her fan and tapped it against his handsomely garbed chest. “You were seen leaving Mr. Gladstone’s house. Now tell me true, who else would you have been calling upon if not Felicity?”
Colton had to think back a moment before he recalled his visit to the old miller. “Well, my dear, if you’re so curious, then I shall tell you. Samantha and I went there solely to pay our respects to Mr. Gladstone. We never saw Felicity. In fact, her mother said she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Oh.” Suddenly elated, Adriana shrugged her shoulders, intending to apologize, and remembered too late her revealing bodice.
After catching another glimpse of the lace-encased fullness beneath her gown, Colton cleared his throat rather sharply and glanced around, deciding he’d better refrain from indulging in such titillating sights for the time being. One peek was hardly satisfying; it only whet his appetite to see her beautiful body once again unadorned by anything more than the natural raiment of her loosely flowing black hair.
Searching for something exceedingly less pleasurable to settle his mind upon in his quest to cool his hard-pressing hunger for the lady, he turned this way and that in search of the apprentice. “Where the devil has Roger gone to? Wasn’t he supposed to be your guest tonight? Or did you perchance say your companion?”
“Roger is neither my guest in the way you infer nor my companion,” Adriana stated, miffed that he should even mention the man. “I merely told him that we’d allow him to come when he asked me if he could.”
“I thought you told me—”
“Never mind what I said. That’s the way it is. Roger is merely an acquaintance I met while shopping for a gift for a servant. Thereinafter he took it upon himself to visit me.”
Colton’s face brightened. “Excellent. Then that means you’re free to dance with me.”
For a moment, Adriana seemed unable to do anything more than stutter. “I d-don’t know that I care to d-dance just yet.”
Colton’s lips curved into a taunting grin. “Nonsense, Adriana, before I came over here, you were looking like some prim little spinster hiding out in shame in her lonely little corner, all but forsaken by every male in the room, including Lord Harcourt who seems for a change unduly attentive to Lady Berenice tonight. Should I assume you’ve told him?”
Beneath his inquiring stare, she inclined her head stiltedly. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Well, at least that much is behind you. Obviously the gossips aren’t aware of your army of suitors. They were chattering up a veritable storm about your dim future as the youngest offspring in your father’s household when I passed several moments ago. If I’m going to save my reputation as a man of taste, you must establish yourself as one who has more hope of marrying young.”
The last thing Adriana wanted was this man’s sympathy. “You needn’t feel constrained to save my reputation from gossipmongers, my lord,” she said snidely. “Roger will eventually return. If not, I suppose I can tell him about our impending courtship some other time.”
Colton snorted derisively. “The lad should do wonders for your notoriety. Left to his care, every poverty stricken yokel in the area will be bleating at your door.”
“You don’t have to be so disparaging about a man simply because he lacks wealth and a title,” she chided, wondering how it was that she could feel all warm toward the handsome nobleman one moment and, in the next, desire to hang a large pot over his head. “There are many honorable gentlemen in that same predicament.”
“Aye, I got to know quite a number of them in my years away from home. I called many of them my friends, but I care not for the likes of Roger Elston.”
“Can you tell me why exactly?” she prodded irritably. “Mayhap I could better understand your aversion if you were to explain it to
me.”
His broad shoulders moved upward indolently. “ ‘Tis a feeling I have, nothing more.”
“And do you often base your contempt for a person merely on a feeling, my lord? Perhaps you’ve mistaken intuition for an upset stomach.”
His eyes danced as they delved into her own. “Was that what Father was suffering when he got the heady notion we should be wed?”
Silenced by his jibe, Adriana turned her gaze away from him in a lofty manner. Only when she felt his hand settle rather possessively upon the small of her back did she face him again with a fair amount of surprise.
Giving no heed to her look of astonishment, Colton urged her toward the dance floor. “I hope you don’t mind dancing with a man hindered by a limp.”
Although Adriana had seen no slightest evidence of a flaw in his step earlier, she hoped they could forego such exercise for the sake of her own poorly trampled feet. “We could just as well sit. As you know, it wouldn’t be the first time for me tonight, and if your abilities are anything like Roger’s, I strongly suggest we do.”
“Absolutely not!” Colton stated emphatically. “At least not while that malapert-untutored-in-social-graces is still on the premises.” With a gentle, yet unrelenting pressure, he pushed her forward.
She peered at him over her shoulder, feeling like an errant child being prodded by a parent. “You’re rather persistent, aren’t you?”
“I suppose,” he allowed, accompanying his reply with a facial shrug. “At least the men in my company thought so.”
“I’m not one of your men,” she retorted and had cause to wonder what would follow as she heard his soft chuckles.
“Believe me, my dear, I’ve never mistaken you for one of them, not even for an instant.”
“Thank you for small considerations,” she responded, exaggerating her gratitude.