George was exhausted. He was accustomed to burning the candle at both ends. It was required. He had to be able to show up at these sorts of parties and put on the face that was expected of him, and he had work to do.
The truth was, the more disreputable he looked when he arrived at these events, the later he was, and the more exhausted, the better. Because it suggested a late night of debauchery. If only they knew.
But they never could.
The work George did was accomplished because of the secrecy. If his true thoughts were ever known he would lose access to the rooms where it all happened.
He could not afford that.
Ever.
He was on the verge of committing to this façade for life.
He would do nothing to disrupt that.
He looked across the broad expanse of the room, and saw Lady Helene Parks. Tonight, he would make it his goal to cement his connection with her. And at the house party a fortnight from now, he would make his intentions plain. He would secure permission from her father the morning he arrived and make his proposition to her that same night.
He had it all planned, and nothing would divert him from course now.
Except Lady Abernathy separated herself from the crowd of people she was standing in, and began to walk towards him, her gaze intent, her bosom spilling over the neckline of her gown. He knew what she wanted. And she thought of course it was for her to have, because she had made her way through the beds of the various gentlemen in the ton with astonishing vigour in the years since her husband passed, and rumour would have it that George had a bed that was open to all and sundry. So of course she would feel she made this particular grade.
He did not have time to toy with her, though there had been a time when he might have.
A particular crawling sensation moved over his skin. That was the thing he hated most. The George Claremont mask was not half so much a mask as he might’ve liked. He was capable of the sorts of bloodless couplings that society believed he engaged in on a regular basis. More than capable of it.
Shallow, soulless evenings spent satisfying the lust of the flesh and nothing more. Women whose names and faces he could not recall, a blur of the sort of pleasure that left the pit in one’s stomach once it was satisfied. Sometimes he found his disdain of the people around him particularly hypocritical, considering that in practice, he was truly one of them.
He could not disdain Lady Abernathy, even if he did not wish to spend the evening with her.
He could not disdain her, because he was her.
It was just he had a different goal now than satisfying his baser needs.
‘George,’ she said, not bothering with a title, her expression coquettish. ‘I do hope that you’re not planning on leaving early tonight as you did the other night.’
‘If you know that I left early, then you know why,’ he said, keeping his gaze icy as he allowed it to move over her curves. He felt nothing as he examined her admittedly fine form. One female body, lovely though it might be, was the same as the next. It did not matter whom he took to his bed.
It never had.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Rumour has it you have a rather serious mistress that you’re keeping in style.’
‘Indeed.’
‘I don’t see why that has to be an impediment to us enjoying an evening.’
Good God, she was direct. At another time, he might’ve appreciated that. He did not like dealing in word games.
‘Not at this moment,’ he said. ‘I find that I’m otherwise engaged tonight.’
‘I feel a gentleman can always change his mind.’
‘Perhaps. But I am not a gentleman. Not in deed, in any case.’ He departed, and began to move yet more quickly through the crowd, but she followed and as she put her hand on his back, he reached out and grabbed the hand of the nearest young lady. ‘I have promised a dance to—’ He looked and saw that he had taken hold of Kitty Fitzroy. Why was this woman suddenly everywhere?
She was looking at him as if he had dropped a living slug into her palm, rather than his gloved hand.
‘Yes. Miss Fitzroy,’ he said to Lady Abernathy. ‘I have filled a space in her dance card, and I must honour that stolen spot.’
And with that, he swept her towards the dance floor, away from Lady Abernathy.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, looking wildly about the room.
‘Do endeavour to stop looking as though I am dragging you to your knitted noose,’ he said. ‘I’m taking you to the dance floor.’
‘I didn’t even bring a dance card,’ she said. ‘I’ve nothing to fill.’
‘Oh, good. Then I have not impinged upon another man’s territory.’
She frowned, her delicate brows swooping downwards. ‘Do not mock me.’
‘I’m not mocking you.’
‘You are. You know that there is no other man that has asked me to dance tonight. Nor any night. I have never gone out to the dance floor.’
He took her other hand and pulled her near him in a closed position. ‘Until now.’
It was a waltz, and that brought her small, perfect form only an inch or so away from his body. He preferred a waltz for that reason. If he was going to dance, he liked to have the woman pressed against him.
Of course, he had not thought he would end up holding Kitty Fitzroy.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and dewy with panic.
‘Kitty,’ he said, his tone more stern than intended. ‘Breathe.’
She obeyed, and her breasts rose. Slight though they were, his eye was drawn to them. He was a man, after all.
If he were fully in character, he might pull her more firmly against him so he could feel the nuances of those curves against his chest.
He wondered what the hell the girl would make of such a thing. She was so serious. Always frowning, at least at him. She seemed far too innocent to have ever had such a thought enter her mind.
All the more reason to stay away from her.
Yet here she was in his path again.
She looked around and he wanted to take hold of her chin and steady her. ‘I feel foolish,’ she said.
He did not take hold of her chin. ‘Feel free to scamper off the dance floor.’
‘I would feel yet more foolish,’ she said, as they whirled around the dance floor.
‘I would hate to compound your foolishness.’
She looked around, her eyes wide. ‘People are staring.’
‘Of course they are. I’m the Marquess of Curran. I’m very interesting.’
She tilted her head to the side and he saw it. The fire there. She couldn’t resist. She loved to strike at him. The dear little snake. ‘Do you think so? Because I think you’re rather predictable.’
‘Oh, dear,’ he said, in mock horror. ‘What a disappointment.’
‘I don’t think you’re disappointed.’ A touch of colour rose in her cheeks.
He found he enjoyed sparring with her. People were so... Typically they were incredibly obsequious, and he found it boring.
They wrote about him in the scandal sheets, and there they would say what they really thought. That he was shocking. That he was a disgrace. Spending his father’s money on outlandish and disgraceful affairs.
He found it refreshing, if nothing else. They might be wrong, but at least it was honest. None of this falling all over themselves to curry his favour to his face while whispering about him behind their hands.
Kitty, of course, did not whisper. She did not try to gain favour. In fact, she’d told him she did not wish a favour from him ever. Though he might now owe her one.
He looked over her shoulder and he could see three of the biggest scandalmongers in the ton—Lady Peregrine, Lady Balfour and Dame Bainbridge. He suspected they were the authors of the most popular scandal sheet in London, though it could not be proven. Currently, they had all eyes on himself and Kitty.
That amused him.
What would they make of that? He was the scandal of the century, let alone the Season, and Kitty was a wallflower.
He looked down at her and was stopped by the curve of her neck. It was an extremely elegant curve, and haughty.
That, he realised just then, was one thing he found so fascinating about Kitty Fitzroy.
She seemed shy, hiding in corners and knitting, but he did not think she was shy. She had a deeply ingrained sense of herself. Her opinions were always right there, at the surface of her, as was her every emotion.
If he was a mirror, Kitty was a window. To look at her was to see inside.
It did not speak to the sort of timidity one usually ascribed a wallflower.
Very suddenly, he laughed. And as he did her breath caught and hitched her chest up, the tips of her breasts brushing against him. He felt it.
‘What?’ she asked.
He chose to believe she was asking about the laugh, not his notice of her breasts touching him. ‘It occurred to me just now, that you do not like us, do you, Miss Fitzroy?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Us?’
‘Society.’
‘I do not dislike every person here,’ she said. ‘But I find myself perplexed and baffled by the structure itself.’
‘You find yourself above us, don’t you? It is why you stand in corners. Not because you fear us, because you believe yourself to be better.’
She shook her head, her dark hair catching the candlelight, revealing a rich gold and warm mahogany he had not before noticed. This girl was filled with surprises. She should not be, transparent as she was.
The issue was not that she hid, it was that no one had looked.
‘I do not think myself better, but I do think I will only end up giving a lecture on the state of the world, the need at the infirmary, the unnecessary excess of the ton...’
‘Well that would not be popular.’
‘Indeed not. My aunt and uncle—that is, the Duke and Duchess of Avondale—they have been very kind to me. I am not trying to make all of their friends hate me. Only, my chest burns with conviction, and I fear if I do not speak it will consume me and so...it is better to stand in the corner and knit.’
She spoke freely then, not in icy barbs trying to score points on him. And he saw then, the passion in her. The fire.
She was not a wallflower. She was more a Valkyrie. Standing, waiting. And once it was time, she would unleash fury.
‘Tell me, Kitty, what will you do with all that fire when it burns out of control? Because it will. Because you will burn, and all that passion in you will consume you, and what then?’
His voice came out harder than he intended. Rougher.
He had total control over himself at all times; he had to, playing games such as he did.
But he looked at her and he saw her.
He knew what she felt. That burn of injustice.
‘I...’
She had no words then, a rarity. She seemed caught. And he realised then she was staring. At his eyes and then...at his mouth.
He spun her, and pulled her against him, and her eyes went wider, her lips parting slightly. He felt the impact of her, the soft weight of her.
He had no call to linger on it.
The music ended, and they stood a moment. His breathing was laboured. Certainly not from the exertion of a mere waltz. And Kitty beat a hasty path away from him. She tucked herself away in a far, dimly lit corner.
He could not see her. Not to his satisfaction.
He wondered if she was knitting. And decided it was of no consequence. Because what he needed to do was make his way to Helene. He had already been delayed long enough.
And there she was, looking wholesome and lovely. His eyes moved easily over her. She had plump curves and a round face. She was easy to look at.
Kitty felt sharp.
He moved through the crowd until he came to where Helene was standing, a bit of a knowing smile on her face. It made him wonder if she was an innocent at all. He didn’t mind. In fact, given his ulterior motive, he would like it if she had some secrets of her own. It would make her feel like fairer quarry.
Poor little Kitty...there was nothing knowing in her smile.
You haven’t seen her smile.
‘Good evening, Lady Helene,’ he said.
‘Good evening, Lord Curran,’ she said. ‘I had thought that you might not find your way to me.’
‘I will always find my way to you,’ he said.
He heard a faint choking sound and looked and saw that Kitty Fitzroy was well within earshot, and seemed to have taken offence at what he’d said.
His eyes met hers. He wished to go shake the little wretch by her shoulders. She should not be eavesdropping.
He looked back at Helene. ‘I trust you’ve had a pleasant evening thus far.’
‘It has only got more pleasant.’
He heard the sound again. ‘Dreadful,’ he said, making a tutting sound. ‘Seems as if someone has taken ill and should perhaps have stayed home this evening.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Helene said, her eyes round. ‘I’m afraid of taking ill. I do not wish to be bled with leeches.’
‘Better to be bled with leeches than with badgers, if pressed. One has proven to be vastly worse for your health.’
‘What?’ Helene blinked.
He heard yet another small sound from Kitty’s corner, and he reared around to look at her. She was laughing.
And there it was, a smile.
A mean little smile.
He found he wanted... Well, what it did was... It was as if there was a match that had been struck on the column of his throat, trailing heat and fire in its wake.
He looked away from Kitty. ‘We ought to dance,’ he said.
Anything to get him out of the proximity of that little pest. And that was how he found himself out on the dance floor with Lady Helene.
He would consign the interaction with Kitty to the recesses of his memory. She was inconsequential. The fact that she seemed perennially near meant nothing.
None of this meant anything.
He looked at the beautiful, insubstantial woman he held in his arms.
No. None of this really meant anything at all.