It took two days of letter exchanges to Baring’s secretary before Stuart managed to learn that Bian did not live at Baring’s townhouse and to acquire her address. There was no easy way to ask after a lady’s address and not betray one’s intentions but Stuart knew a few indirect but effective paths to such information. He used them all to coax the information from Baring.
On the third morning he presented himself at the red brick townhouse in a little mews off Adam’s Row in Mayfair, while his cab waited obediently at the curb. It was old but well maintained and in summer would be shaded by two magnificent oaks that stood in front of it. Many leaves of the oaks were golden now and some were already drifting to the footpath.
It was a respectable address and a well-presented house. Just as everything about Miss Bian appeared to be reputable and elegant.
For the last three days Stuart had been replaying the moments he had sat next to her and re-examining every word. Bian had been a model of deportment, he had reluctantly concluded. Her swift verbal parries had been no more than a hostess might exchange over a dinner table if she wished to provoke the conversation among her guests. As he had been the only guest, he had chaffed under the stimulus.
In no way had she given word or signal that she was anything other than a well-bred and well-behaved lady.
Regardless, Stuart had tossed in his empty bed for two nights, unable to dismiss her from his mind. She had a hidden quality that drew his attention like filings to a magnet…or else he was simply going out of his mind. Because he could not locate even a hint of this hidden quality in anything she had said or done, Stuart had truly begun to wonder if he was imagining things.
For that reason he was delivering the bracelet in person. He needed to see her again. He needed to find even a hint of that hidden quality. He would sit in her drawing room and play the perfect gentleman all day, if necessary, until he saw the element in her that would not leave him in peace.
That was, if she forgave him for not calling ahead in the first place.
He rang the bell and prepared to wait but was surprised when it was answered almost immediately. The maid took his card, showed him in and hurried over to the big, closed doors on the other side of the foyer, where she knocked gently on the door and waited.
Stuart watched, puzzled, as the door was opened a few inches and the maid pushed the card through the crack. The door was shut on her again. She smiled reassuringly at him before moving down the hallway to the back of the house, which left him alone in the foyer, cooling his heels.
He looked around the empty hall. This was not what a woman like Bian would consider proper, surely?
The recently closed door was suddenly flung open. Bian herself stepped through. And Stuart could feel his heart literally stammer to a stop, before it managed to recover and hurry on, hurting with each beat.
She wore…what was she wearing? It took him a moment to identify the garment simply because he would not have equated a silk dressing robe with the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. The robe was too large for her tiny frame. As she hurried toward him, the wide neck slid down one shoulder and dropped off altogether, revealing a creamy shoulder and the smooth, flawless skin of her upper breast and neck.
Is she naked beneath that robe? he found himself wondering, with genuine bewilderment touched by a swiftly-evoked craving. There was too much flesh on display for her to be wearing any undergarments and the curves the robe outlined were too soft to be the product of corsetry.
Not only did the robe hang from one shoulder but it was so ridiculously long that it trailed behind her like a ball gown, which pulled the fronts of the robe open as she walked.
Bare feet…bare ankles…bare calves… Stuart found himself clutching the top of his cane as he focused on her shapely limbs as they flashed beneath the opening of the robe, until she came to a stop before him, her hand out to greet him and a warm smile on her face.
For a moment he was genuinely unable to form a coherent thought. Her appearance was quite simply shocking.
He lifted her hand to bow over it but a puppet would have executed the movement more smoothly.
She did not seem to mind. “Lord Sutherland-Bruce,” she acknowledged. “How kind of you to call on me.”
“I…I seem to have arrived at an awkward moment.” It was stilted, proper and not at all what he wanted to say. Or do. He could barely tear his gaze away from the soft mound outlined by the silk clinging to her chest. He forced himself to look her in the eye.
“An awkward moment? Not at all. Why do you say that?” She looked puzzled.
He lifted a hand and gestured helplessly at her robe.
She actually lifted the robe with her hand, which opened the panels again and allowed him to glimpse a knee. “In my own home, I prefer to be comfortable. Please, come in, won’t you?”
She tucked her small hand under his elbow and turned to face the door she had emerged from. “I have a friend visiting—George—but you mustn’t mind him. He comes here for the solitude rather than the company.”
Stuart allowed himself to be walked through the doorway. The room beyond was large and filled with comfortable seats and lined with books. It was a thinker’s room. Medieval maps behind glass hung on the walls and a writing desk stood under one of the tall arched windows.
There was a man with a salt and pepper beard sitting cross-legged almost perfectly in the centre of the big Persian rug covering the middle of the floor. He was quite naked.
Stuart could not help but stare.
“That’s George,” she explained unnecessarily. “But he’s probably not even aware you’re there, so don’t worry about introductions.”
He glanced at the pipe, hose and bowl next to the man called George. “Opium?” he asked, astounded.
“Yes, of course, you would be familiar with it after your time in China.” She did not seem perturbed.
On the contrary, Stuart could feel his heart creak. There had been just too many surprises since he had knocked on her door. “You allow opium to be smoked in your house?”
“Good lord, no. But George…well, George is a special case. He was posted to the east, much like you and he found himself unable to halt the habit, even when he returned to London. But he is a very efficient Member of Parliament…should the people of Britain lose a valuable representative because of a personal weakness?”
He swallowed. “You have a slippery way of stating affairs,” he said.
“He asks only for discretion and understanding and a small piece of carpet. I will not judge him. Not when he is a friend.”
Stuart glanced at George again. Wherever his enslaved mind wandered, it was clearly a pleasant world. George’s spindly cock stood sharply at attention.
Stuart glanced at Bian’s bare shoulder. “How good a friend is he?” he asked and was astonished at the degree of anger that emerged in his voice.
At his sharp tone, George stirred. His eyes opened to a thin crescent. “Good enough, my dear fellow.” His voice was strong and well-rounded by years of shouting across the House. “But never that good.”
Bian smiled openly. Stuart was unsure whether the man had insulted her or not. There was very little about the last few minutes that made complete sense to him and the pounding of his heart was proof of it.
He realized that George was getting slowly to his feet and more unpleasant surprise spurted through him.
“George, you really shouldn’t get up, you know,” Bian chided him.
“When there’s a gentleman caller in the house? Now, Bian…” He walked over to them, taking a staggering, rounded route across the beautiful Persian rug. Stuart realized that George was looking directly at him. A shiver slithered through him but he held his ground.
George smiled at Stuart, showing a complete disregard for his lack of attire. “You’re a handsome one, then.”
“George…” Bian said softly. Warningly.
George smiled at Stuart. “Bian is such a lovely child, is she not? I can well imagine your jealousy, old chap but really, it’s all for naught.” And despite his opium-induced stupor, George threaded his hand smoothly into the openings of both Stuart’s overcoat and jacket and cupped his testicles through his trousers. The long fingers stroked gently, before Stuart’s stunned mind and muscles could react. He staggered backward, gripping George’s wrist and wrenching it up and out of the way.
“I’ve shot men at dawn for less,” Stuart grated. His voice was hoarse.
George was not resisting the cruel twist on his forearm. He stared passively at Stuart, a small smile on his face. “You were about to make a mistake,” he said softly. “I merely wanted to disabuse you of the notion.”
“Enough,” Bian said, with surprising firmness. She put her tiny hands on both George and Stuart’s forearms. “Lord Sutherland-Bruce, I suggest you let him go. George, don’t say another word or I’ll let him strangle you and save me the bother. Are you listening, George?”
She was familiar with the patchy daze opium users could fall into, Stuart realized, or she would not have made sure she was being heard.
George blinked took a slow breath. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, I hear. Alas.” An immense, profound sadness etched itself on his face and all animation drained from it.
Stuart let George’s arm loose as he watched the transformation.
Bian pushed at George’s shoulders. “Go back to your pipe,” she said gently. “Go and forget.”
“Yes,” he murmured, letting himself be turned away. He wended his way back to the long pipe and collapsed in a heap of long, pale white limbs, his head hanging.
“What happened to him?” Stuart breathed. “Why does he seek the pipe still?”
Bian glanced at George, then shook her head to indicate Stuart should keep his voice down. She tucked her hand into his elbow. “Thank you so much for returning my bracelet, by the way.”
“Ah, yes.” He pulled the jewelry from his fob pocket and handed it to her. Then he realized that she was leading him to the door he had just stepped through. The door that led to the front hall. “Where are you taking me?”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to show you out, Lord Sutherland-Bruce. Now is not the most convenient time for me.”
The words spilled from him before he could prevent them. “Why, do you have another man in your bedroom?” Then he braced himself for the face-slapping that was the very minimum he deserved for such an outrageous accusation. But she had provoked him into it, damn it! The robe that she barely wore, the naked man in her lounge room… The woman clearly lived a life of extreme bohemianism. She was the complete opposite of what he had thought her to be.
For the second time his mind had tottered, unable to cope with the sheer weight of sensational shock. The jealousy, petty though it was, was the one almost normal emotion he could clutch at and use to anchor himself.
But Bian did not slap him. Instead her mouth curved up into a delicious smile that made her dimples dance. “Why on earth would I bother with taking a man upstairs? My sofa is wide and very comfortable.”
He could actually feel his jaw start to unhinge but before he could begin to even attempt to formulate a response, she squeezed his forearm. “Besides,” she said, stepping out into the foyer. “I am attending the opening night at the Opera House. They’re such grand affairs. A lady must have time to properly prepare.”
The maid already had the front door open and pushed his hat and cane into his nerveless fingers.
“Good morning, Lord Sutherland-Bruce. Thank you so much for dropping by,” Bian said with all the formal politeness of any upper-class lady.
Suddenly Stuart was back upon the footpath, the front door shut behind him and with no clear idea of how he had reached the spot. He climbed back into his cab, trying to piece together what had just happened.
Where had the so very proper lady disappeared to? Yet…and yet…if he had not been utterly convinced of her respectability, the last ten minutes would have him thinking she was a lady of easy virtue…except that she drank tea with future dukes and lords and socialized with the upper crust of London society…but she had no title that she had shared with him…
Stuart shook his head as he watched Hyde Park roll by the cab windows. The conflicting sides of Bian’s nature made her completely unpredictable. If he couldn’t predict how she would act, how could he understand her?
When he reached home, he strode into the smoking parlour and almost tripped over a crumpled pile of cast-aside newspapers on the polished floorboards. Aidan was hidden behind yet another broadsheet.
“Can’t you at least call for the maid to pick these up?” Stuart railed at his brother.
Aidan lowered the newspaper. “I have too much to catch up on to take the time.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you were reading editorials…but the social columns?” Stuart turned to Peggoty as she entered the room. “I need my afternoon waistcoat and jacket. Could you bring them down for me?”
She dropped into an abbreviated curtsey and hurried away. Stuart stripped off his jacket and tackled his cravat and collar pins.
Aidan was still staring at him. “And to whence do you scurry, looking so hot and bothered?”
“Lady Charlotte Lindholme Grey.”
“That old battle-axe.” Aidan threw the newspaper aside and sat up from his sprawl on the sofa. “Why her?”
Stuart shrugged and made it sound as casual as possible. “She has a box at tonight’s opera.”
“I see.”
Stuart glanced at his brother, then away. Aidan’s sharp gaze would miss nothing and he would prefer not to have to explain anything else.
“What’s her name?” Aidan asked, which told Stuart he’d hidden nothing at all. Well, Aidan was the canny one that could see through people, after all.
“Who is the latest wonderful obsession?” Aidan insisted.
Stuart didn’t bother evading the truth this time. “I don’t know.” It sounded idiotic even to him, so he tried again. “I just don’t know her.”
Lady Grey’s box was on the left side of the Grand Tier, which gave Stuart a somewhat strained view of the stage but a perfect vantage point from which to examine everyone else in every other box along the tier except those right beside him. He could also see into the boxes on the balcony level across the way. In the last few minutes of the interval Stuart managed to step into a bare acquaintance’s box on the other side of the auditorium. Just before the lights went down, he studied each face in the boxes next to his own. Both levels. Then, frustration curling through him, he ran his gaze over the lower and upper slips, right up by the roof.
None of the glowing, jewelled women in the audience was Bian.
Troubled, he made his way back around to Lady Grey’s box and his waiting seat. Where was Bian? Had something happened to her?
He could barely concentrate on the drama playing out below him after that. Opera tended to drain his patience at the best of times. He was considering making his excuses and leaving, when Lady Grey beckoned to him with a lift of her chin and a tiny motion with her fan. Stuart dutifully sat on the seat beside her and she leaned closer to him.
“I presume, young Stuart, that you are attending Lord Dumfrey’s post-opera gathering? That was the reason you were suddenly driven to call upon me this afternoon, was it not?”
The after-opera party. Relief flooded through him. He had been in the East far too long, it seemed. He had forgotten this annual, eagerly anticipated event in the calendar of London society. In truth, he had rarely participated even before his posting to Canton. He looked down at Lady Grey’s haughty face and lied without a quiver. “I’m afraid you’ve seen right through me, Lady Grey. You will forgive me?”
“If you will help this old lady into and out of her carriage and up Dumfrey’s formidable front steps, I will.”
Dumfrey’s house was already filled with guests by the time Stuart had Lady Grey safely inside the grand front foyer. After finally being able to make his excuses and leaving her in the company of one of her many friends, Stuart made a strategic round of the public rooms, looking for Bian.
He could not even enquire after her. He didn’t know any of her acquaintances at this affair and he knew no facts about her other than her address and her first name. In order to find her, he would have to keep circling through these rooms until he happened to spot her. There were new guests arriving all the time, filling the rooms with more faces to check…
After three rounds, Stuart began to feel the depth of his foolishness. He headed for the punch table by the conservatory. He’d heard in passing that the punch at this table was the one laced with a fifty-year-old brandy. Fortification would help him face the truth—that he had no proof she had even attended the opera, let alone this gathering of the elite of London.
He was not just a fool. He was an idiot.
Bian was standing by the punchbowl, a crystal cup in her hands.
Stuart found himself brought up short by her appearance. She was staring at him, her eyes wide and her breasts rising and falling, as if he had startled her as much as she had startled him. Her gown was fashionably low in the neck, showing off the beauty of her flesh, the lush richness of her breasts. The dark purple satin of her dress was the perfect frame.
His groin tightened with a high, sweet ache he knew all too well. But over it, drowning it, was a rich delight at seeing her again.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. He wanted to spend time with her. Actually with her, not merely seducing her.
He took a step toward her and was saved from completely and utterly embarrassing himself by Andrew Thorsby sailing into the room, his eye on the punch bowl, until he saw Stuart and changed direction with a big grin on his plain face.
Thorsby thumped Stuart on the shoulder, giving him a reason for looking away from Bian. With something close to relief, Stuart turned to face the man. Relief? He tucked that startling reaction away to consider later, as he shook Thorsby’s hand.
Thorsby was a bore of the first water and a hypocrite besides. Stuart had arrived at that conclusion through hard experience—he and Thorsby had attended Cambridge at the same time. But Stuart forced himself to smile, anyway.
“Sutherland-Bruce, you old dog,” Thorsby said. “Back from China, eh? What’s it been? Three years you’ve been rattling about the halls of diplomacy in that wilderness?”
Stuart glanced at the punchbowl. She had gone. A sharp sensation, almost one of pain, speared his chest. Just disappointment, he assured himself quickly. He took a deep breath. “I was sorry to hear about your father…my Lord,” he added.
Thorsby waved away the acknowledgment with a languid movement. “It was past his time. Although I hear you two chaps haven’t sorted out your inheritance yet.”
Pure annoyance grabbed at Stuart’s gut. It was this sort of callousness that had always made him wary of Thorsby, even before he’d had direct proof of the man’s lack of character. He smiled at Thorsby sourly. “No, my father hasn’t yet managed to shuffle off this mortal coil,” he replied.
Thorsby’s eyes widened a little in response, then they cut away to Stuart’s left and widened even more. His lips parted.
“There you are, Stuart. You promised me a tour of the conservatory, remember?” Bian’s voice was deliciously low and controlled and with beautiful diction. He didn’t need the glimpse of purple from the corner of his eye to know it was her. His gut, his heart, his whole body, seemed to leap in response to her low question and in response to the realization that she was intervening, that she had recognized his discomfort.
He swivelled to face her. “Please forgive me. I was…delayed.”
She smiled at him. Her eyes danced. “I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting the reason for your delay,” she told him. She looked up at Thorsby, who was still staring.
“Shut your mouth, Thorsby,” Stuart said.
Thorsby shut it with an audible snap.
Stuart held his hand out toward Bian, intending to introduce her. Then his mind came to a jumbled halt. He had no idea who she was, yet he must introduce her to Thorsby first, despite his rank, as she was the lady. “This is Lady—” he began, desperately.
Bian didn’t even glance at him. She held her hand out to Thorsby. “I am Bian,” she said.
Even Thorsby did not fail to notice the absence of the usual “Lady” before her name, for his brows lifted and he hesitated a slight fraction of a heart beat before reaching out for her hand and nodding shortly over it.
While Thorsby was offended by her lack of status, Stuart was merely intrigued. She had every hallmark of a great lady. Her upright carriage and grace made her more of a lady than many women in the hall. Her diction and manners bespoke gentry. But Thorsby would not see that.
Stuart completed the introduction. “Bian, please meet the Most Honourable Andrew Thorsby, the new Marquess of Thorsby, Baron of Ipswich…did I miss any, my Lord?”
Thorsby nodded again to Bian, then glanced at Stuart. “A couple but they’re not worth mentioning, anyway.” He turned back to Bian. Confirming Stuart’s prediction, he drew himself upright. “I’m not familiar with your antecedents, Bian,” he said stiffly.
“I would be extremely surprised if you were,” Bian shot back. She merely smiled at Thorsby as the snob blinked away his shock.
Stuart hid his own smile. Oh, what a delight she was! It was rare to see Thorsby’s ignorance pierced deeply enough to make him uncomfortable.
Thorsby came at it another way. “Then you are an invited guest of Lord Dumfrey…?” He let the question trail off with an upward note, making it as clear as he could that he wanted to know what on earth a commoner was doing mingling with Dumfrey’s guests.
“Actually, I just met Lord Dumfrey. Lovely fellow, isn’t he?”
Thorsby sharply inhaled his brandy, then spluttered most of it back onto his stiff white cuff. He coughed and thumped at his chest, turning red in the face.
Stuart held back his own laugh with effort. Thorsby would find her describing a high ranking member of the peerage a “lovely fellow” outrageous.
Thorsby stared at her, the red of his face deepening and Stuart felt a touch of alarm. He rested his fingers against her elbow, trying to make it look casual, then squeezed a little. It was all the warning he could manage.
Bian did not even glance at him. Her smile stayed fixed in place as she spoke again. “I accompanied the Marquess of Harrington and Lady Beaugard. We met at Windsor.”
“Town?” Thorsby said sharply.
“Castle,” Bian returned.
Even Stuart blinked at that one. Since the Queen had virtually retired to Windsor after the death of her husband, only the most important and influential lords found themselves in audience with her. Stuart had yet to meet her and he knew that Thorsby had only met her once, during his formal investiture as the Marquess.
“Indeed,” Thorsby said at last. He had been neatly out-manoeuvred by Bian’s references. “I didn’t realize that Lord Harrington was here tonight. I must pay my respects. Do you know where I might find him?”
It was a poor attempt at bluffing her. Thorsby had been out-classed by the lady he towered over and all three of them knew it.
“Richard is in the smoking salon, with Lord Dumfrey, I believe.” Bian bowed her head. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Lord Thorsby.”
Thorsby grunted and hurried away.
Stuart let loose his laughter as he turned to face Bian. “That was perfect,” he told her. His mirth faded. She really was the most lovely woman he’d ever met. “Thank you for saving me.”
“My pleasure.”
“How did you know?”
“Your face is very expressive.” She smiled and it seemed to light the room. “You were not the only one observing tonight.” Her cheeks dimpled with mischief and her eyes twinkled. “I, at least, pretended to be serving myself a glass of punch.”
“What were you observing?” Stuart pressed. He would learn more about her if it killed him.
“You.”
“You have been watching me search for you?” he asked. “You let me make a fool of myself circling around this mausoleum, while you watched?”
“I did not see you until you came into this room.” She tilted her head a little, looking up at him as if she were measuring him. “You were searching for me?”
He realized he had exposed himself. “You make a habit of observing, Bian?” he returned stiffly.
“Sometimes watching can be very profitable, especially among these people.” She waved her gloved hand back over her shoulder, toward the rest of the household. “Her Highness urged me to do so whenever “
“My God, you really have met with the Queen!” The words shot from him as he properly interpreted what she was saying.
She did not seem to mind his interruption. Again, she tilted her head to study him curiously. “Did you think I was lying?”
“I think… you’re capable of it. You let Thorsby think we were close friends.”
“You played along with it. Doesn’t that make you as much a liar as me?” She put her hands behind her back, like a small schoolgirl reporting to her head mistress. “Do I not get my tour of the conservatory now?”
The linking of her hands behind her back had a remarkable effect on her décolletage. Stuart found his gaze drawn there, yanked there and held with invisible pincers, despite the fact that as a gentleman, he never looked directly at a lady’s chest in public. He could feel his heart begin to beat with the old excitement that came from the type of hunt he preferred. Was she doing it deliberately? Her breasts were pushed toward him, lifted up by the heavy boning of her corset and almost offered to him. She was petite but her breasts were lush, coffee-cream globes.
He wrenched his gaze away and looked into her eyes. The same amusement was sparkling there and he knew she had done it deliberately.
She was testing him.
Had she been testing him all along?
But now she had moved the game onto pleasurable territory he considered his own. He relaxed and smiled at her, feeling more sure of himself. “I would be honoured to guide you through Lord Dumfrey’s famed conservatory,” he said, holding out his arm.