Eight

Waltz—Waltz alone—both legs and arms demands,

Liberal of feet and lavish of her hands;

Hands which may freely range in public sight

Where ne’er before—but pray—‘put out the light,’

Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier

Shines much too far—or am I much too near...

–Lord Byron, “The Waltz”

By the night of their first London ball, both Robson sisters had worked themselves into a heightened state of nerves.

“I know I shall forget all the new dance steps,” Clare worried, even though Kitty had dispatched a dancing master to instruct them. “And what if by some accident, I am on the dance floor when a waltz is struck up?” (This would be a solecism of the first order, for the almighty Lady Patronesses of Almack’s had appropriated unto themselves the right to permit a girl in her first season to waltz.) “And do you think my dress shows too much ankle? And I worry that I have no conversation to interest the fashionables....”

Annis was simply worried that a certain blackhearted baron would appear from the nether regions and devour her little sister in one bite.

Her anxieties were increased by the fact that their shepherdess was to arrive late. Kitty was hosting a dinner party for her husband’s fellow officers, and she could not absent herself until the gentlemen had retired with their port to discuss past slaughters. Until Kitty arrived, it would be up to Annis to protect her little sister.

For once, she wished Clare did not look quite so ravishing in her white satin under gold sarsenet. Heads turned as they entered the Bellingham villa, and Annis knew that the admiring glances were not for her or Lady Camden.

Their hostess, Lady Bellingham, was a tall commanding dame who wore a diamond tiara of terrific proportions and blinding glitter. As she turned from side to side to greet her guests, the jewels on her brow flashed out like lighthouse lamps.

Having been received in the glare of her ladyship’s diamonds, the three cousins began a decorous circuit around the ballroom to allow Clare to be seen. This proved a winning strategy, for they were often stopped by gentlemen seeking to add their names to the dance card that fluttered from Clare’s wrist. Among these gentlemen was the Hon. Mr. Deverill, whose appearance on the scene caused Clare’s cheeks to light up with a great number of anticipatory blushes.

Their promenade completed and Clare’s dance card filled, they watched as Lady Bellingham opened the ball on the arm of a doddering duke. Clare was fluttering happily among some other young girls in their first season, and Annis was allowing herself to hope that perhaps the dread Lord Ryder was not here. She was nevertheless perturbed when Lady Camden decided to make for the card room.

“Oh, plenty of time for that later,” Lady Camden said breezily. She gave Annis a close look. “You, my dear, must go to the ladies’ retiring room and pinch your cheeks. You are looking shockingly pale.”

Annis was vain enough to do it. But when she returned, she saw that her pallor had been entirely justified. Ryder had Clare in his clutches out on the dance floor. Waves of positive terror radiated from Clare, and what Ryder might have done to the unfortunate young man who was supposed to have this dance didn’t bear thinking of.

At the conclusion of the seemingly endless quadrille, Ryder conducted his wilting partner off the floor and stood guard over her like a black knight with a captured damsel—only this unfortunate damsel was imprisoned on a rout chair instead of in a tower. Feebly attempting to protest this boorish treatment, Clare held up her dance card as if it were a talisman.

And then Ryder did possibly the most outrageous thing ever done by any gentleman in the annals of Polite Society. He took Clare’s dance card out of her hand and slipped it into his waistcoat. He obviously did not intend to let her dance with anyone else. And when a young man approached, he soon departed, partnerless and in a hurry, unceremoniously routed by Ryder.

The next tune was struck up. Despite the pleading expression on Clare’s face, an expression that would have melted any other heart except Ryder’s black scoundrel’s heart, he raised the little figure in white to her feet and herded her ruthlessly right to the middle of the dance floor. Clare was as pale as death, and she had neither the wit to pretend to faint nor the pluck to stab her abductor with her dance card pencil.

Annis’s heart went out to her little sister in mute sympathy. She had no idea how to rescue her, but rescue her she must before Ryder took her out for a third time. For Clare to have foresworn her dance card and let Ryder have two dances promised to others was bad enough. But to dance three dances with the same man was tantamount to declaring themselves betrothed, and Annis knew only too well that no betrothal announcement would be forthcoming. There would only be horrible gossip about how that country hussy Claresta Robson had thrown herself at his lordship’s head.

Clare was looking close to tears. Annis felt the same. With some vague notion of summoning Lady Camden for help, she turned and collided with a man who seemed to be regarding the dance floor with as much intensity as she was.

Recognizing him as Jamie Deverill, Clare’s very ardent admirer of last night, she burst out, “Mr. Deverill, thank heavens I’ve encountered you. Lord Ryder has had Clare out for the last two dances.”

“I know,” the young man said glumly. “I was to have the next dance, but I suppose I should stand aside and let the favorite take the field.”

It was all Annis could do not to grab the young nodcock by his well-tailored lapels and shake him. “Mr. Deverill, you don’t understand. My sister hasn’t the least desire to dance with him. He is forcing her to do so against her will, and he has taken her dance card so no one else can take her out.”

Mr. Deverill stared past her, noticing for the first time Clare’s anguished expression and the absence of her dance card. “Well, that’s deuced highhanded, even if he is a war hero.”

Sensing that she had found a champion, Annis wasted no time drafting him to the cause of saving her sister from the Fatal Third Dance. “Mr. Deverill, you must claim your dance. If that odious man forces her out on the floor again, I fear she will faint.”

When Ryder finally propelled his distressed partner off the dance floor, Jamie Deverill’s demeanor in bearding the fearsome war hero was everything Annis could have hoped for.

“I believe,” said the young Lochinvar boldly, “that Miss Robson has promised the next dance to me. And I’m sure she would appreciate the return of her dance card,” he added and held out his hand for it.

Ryder stared at him coolly until the younger man had no choice but to awkwardly withdraw his hand. Annis was now beginning to wish that she hadn’t involved Mr. Deverill in this imbroglio. He was a mere stripling compared to the powerfully built Ryder. If it came to blows, the older man would make mincemeat of him. If it came to pistols, Ryder would most certainly kill him.

When Ryder finally did deign to speak, it was with lazy disdain. “You’re Marleigh’s pup...St. George, is it not?”

Mr. Deverill flushed angrily to have both his name and his youth made sport of. “The name is St. James. You will kindly address me as such in future. And if you refuse to hand over Miss Robson’s dance card, I shall be forced to demand satisfaction.”

Clare gasped and said quickly, “I beg you, Mr. Deverill, don’t quarrel on my account.”

“Wise advice,” said Ryder, who seemed to be losing interest in the melodrama. (Or perhaps, Annis thought with a gulp, it was because he had noticed her fluttering anxiously nearby.)

Ryder handed Mr. Deverill the dance card, saying blandly, “I suggest you take Miss Robson for some refreshment. She seems fatigued by her recent exertions on the dance floor.”

“Yes, do come away,” Clare implored and tugged her angry young man off toward the punch table.

Seeing them safely away, Annis whirled about, intending to make herself very scarce, very fast. But she was not quite quick enough to elude the large evening shoe-clad foot that pinned her demi-train to the floor and brought her up short.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Ryder murmured in her ear as she strained forward. “Tattered skirts won’t do here.”

Hobbled in place, Annis could do nothing but paste on a bright smile. “You sir,” she said, smiling through her teeth, “are a coward and a bully, for my poor sister never did you any harm.”

“Unlike you, madam. And as for your sister, I have only increased her consequence by condescending to dance with her. She should thank me.”

Annis’ only reply to this arrant piece of conceit was a short trill of sarcastic laughter. There followed another excruciatingly long interval during which her captor seemed content to simply tower over her shoulder at an improperly close proximity. And never had Annis been so convinced that her neckline was too low and that a man was bent on taking advantage of it.

Standing so close to him, it was impossible not to be aware of the whole long hard length of his body. It was impossible to ignore the masculine tobacco scent of him, the faint crackle of his starched shirt whenever he moved. It was impossible not to be aware that if she took the slightest step backward, her hips would discover his lordship’s thighs...and what reposed between them.

Annis began to fan herself vigorously with the fan that hung from her white-gloved wrist. Finally, she pointed out, “You will have to let me go sometime. You cannot keep me in your clutches indefinitely.”

“True, but there are other ways to keep a lady in your clutches at a ball. I’ll have this dance,” he informed her, for the maestro was now announcing a waltz.

“Dance with me, Mrs. Fulton, or I’ll haul your sister back out on that floor instead.”

Annis slanted an alarmed look over her shoulder. “No! It would ruin her. She hasn’t received permission from the patronesses to waltz.”

“A silly convention to which I’ve never subscribed,” was the heartless retort.

“My sister is conversing with Mr. Deverill. He would not permit you to take her out.”

Annis cast about desperately for another tack, for she had the feeling that some deep, hidden danger lurked in Ryder’s arms, something above and beyond his obvious size, strength, and ruthlessness.

“I dance poorly,” she said finally. This cost her something for she had always fancied that she danced rather well.

Ryder wasn’t having it, anyway. “Come, madam, will you not sacrifice yourself for the sake of your sister?”

Annis glanced across the ballroom to where Clare and Jamie Deverill stood deep in conversation, their fair heads bent over their punch cups. She couldn’t let Ryder spoil what few minutes they had together. Nor could she risk another confrontation between him and Mr. Deverill.

The strains of the waltz began to float through the ballroom. She heaved a resigned sigh. “Very well. If that is what I must do to save my sister from your repulsive attentions.”

Delivering herself into his lordship’s arms, Annis did not allow her gaze to stray above his starched cravat. She did not allow herself to dwell upon the warm spread of his big hand riding upon her ramrod spine. She had been thinking to avenge herself by treading upon his instep or hobbling ineptly through the dance out of sheer contrariness. But once she was out on the floor, her body was drawn to his, a traitor to her reason.

It was the music, of course. It took unfair advantage of her. It got into her blood, and her feet were caught up in the rhythm of the dance. She was swept away by the sheer physical thrill of matching him step for step, glide for glide, whirl for whirl, as around and around the ballroom they swung. (And perhaps those pulpit denunciations of the lascivious waltz had some merit after all.)

When the dance ended, Ryder steered her toward the French doors that led to the garden. “Fresh air is wanted, I believe.”

The words were amiable enough, but the iron grip on her arm was anything but. Annis had no choice but to go along with him, her face a smiling mask.

There were a number of other couples abroad in the gardens tonight. Bronze flambeaux lit the walks so that the guests wouldn’t stray into the darkness beyond. Ryder, of course, made straight for the darkness beyond, prisoner in hand.

“I wish you would tell me,” Annis burst out when finally he released her, “what it is you want of me.”

Ryder obliged. “Why, it’s you I want, madam. I mean to have you in my bed before the Season is out.”

A slow, iniquitous smile spread across his face. “On the contrary, I’m very much in tune with my senses at the moment.”

“And you, madam, are no green girl from the schoolroom. You are a widow already broken to the mounting block, and you are on the strut in London for the Season. And what is the Season for, if not to allow gentlemen to dally with pretty ladies.”

I think you got her attention, he told himself as he lit a cigarillo in one of Lady Bellingham’s flambeaux.

He knew now exactly how he would avenge himself upon Annis Fulton, for no other woman had roused his ire and desire the way she had. It had all become clear to him the instant she came into his arms on the dance floor, her flesh warm ivory against his black evening coat, her martyred air quite spoilt by the murderous flash in her eyes. She danced excellently, of course, the lying, deceiving, enticing little bitch.

But getting her would require strategic planning. One thing was certain, he would never get what he wanted if he played by the rules of Polite Society. Annis Fulton had already made it clear that she did not abide by those rules, and for him to do so would invite scorn and certain defeat.

Bold measures were required, for he meant to have her. He would get her under him and make her like it, and his triumph would be when she melted under him in hot surrender. And when he had amused himself sufficiently, he would leave her with a smile and shrug, no matter how she cried and clung to him.

Ryder dogged her everywhere. If she sat down, he loomed over her attentively. If she conversed with someone, he came and joined in. If she indulged in a cup of punch—would it were something stronger!—he was at her elbow to relieve her of the empty cup. He importuned her to dance several more times, but she refused him in the haughtiest manner she could achieve.

It did not discourage him. And despite her hauteur, it was wearing her down to be in constant flight from a man bent on enacting sensual vengeance upon her person. Her one—her only—consolation was that Clare seemed to be managing well enough despite her rocky start.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Mr. Deverill presented Clare to a stout, high-complexioned dame in an ostrich plume headdress. His mother, most certainly. This boded very well, indeed. If only Ryder didn’t kill him before Clare could reel him in.

As for herself, she finally found sanctuary in that female rabbit hole known as the ladies’ retiring room. The chambermaid took one look at her and suggested a cold compress for the back of her neck. Annis accepted the compress and collapsed before one of the mirrored dressing tables.

She stared bleakly at her worn-down countenance, her mind awash in miserable reflection. She had been defeated tonight. Badly defeated. Her protection spell had failed, and Ryder had shown her very well whose turf this was. He had beat her to her knees and rubbed her face in it.

She never should have come to London. She hadn’t wanted to. She had wanted her mother to chaperone Clare. But her mother had refused to leave Susannah to have her first baby without a mature woman of the family in attendance. Of course, it was as plain as the sun at noonday what her fond mother was about. She was hoping her older daughter would also acquire a husband in London.

This was impossible—though her mother didn’t know it—and she had no ambitions for herself in Society except the hope that she might encounter her adored literary wizard Lord Byron in some fashionable salon. But even this seemed unlikely since Byron was now persona non grata due to the unspeakable rumors about him and his half sister, Augusta Leigh.

Everything was turning out dreadfully, and she wished she could go home and take Clare with her.

Half-heartedly trying to set her appearance to rights, she was struck by a vivid memory of when she had sat before another mirror in another time and another place...

“Well and well, my pet,” Devona murmured as she brushed the fairy sparks from her nursling’s hair, “what has put you into such a taking this evening?”

Annis glowered at her reflection. “It’s Hal. He was laughing at me because Mama was teaching me how to be a lady while he was doing his sums with Grandfather. Mama was making me walk around the room with a book on my head, and curtsy—just so—and open my fan—with an air—and telling me I had to be witty and sparkling in the salon.”

“And then Mama was talking about going from the dining room into the drawing room because you can’t just get up and walk, you see. There are all these boring rules, and then if you go to the ballroom, there are more boring rules, and I don’t want to go into a ballroom or a drawing room or a salon. Ever.”

“Then you should have been born into some other family, for those places are yours by right of birth.”

“That would be foolish, my pet. For those are places of women’s power and heaven knows there are few enough such places in the world.”

“And do not the gentlemen in the ballroom have to jump through many a hoop to win a lady to dance with and marry?”

“Well...yes. Mama says a gentleman must commend himself with true devotion, good manners, and proper address if he wants to marry a lady.”

“And isn’t that better than being taken like cattle in a raid and forced to become some Saxon lout’s spear bride? Or being thrown over a Roman saddle like booty and carried off as a war prize without so much as a by-your-leave?”

“No, you would not,” Devona countered in the voice of one who knew. “So you must be grateful that you were born for the ballroom and the drawing room. And if your mother wants you to walk about with a whole library on your head, you’d best learn how to do it...”

Point taken, Annis conceded to the shade of her old nurse. The ladies did reign supreme in the drawing room and the ballroom. Even Wellington, the greatest lord of war of the age, must bend knee to the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s, for when he came too late to their ballroom, he was turned away.

And as much as she wanted to flee back home to Devon, it would not do. She and Clare were entitled to their place in the London drawing rooms, and she must not let the bullying Ryder deprive them of that place.

Squaring her shoulders, stiffening her spine, and fluffing her curls, she peeked cautiously out of the retiring room door. Of course, he was loitering there. He grinned at her rabbity caution, so she had no choice but to leave her hidey-hole and let him take her arm.

As they passed down the empty corridor he leaned his head close to hers and murmured, “Does the chase go too hard, madam? Surrender, and I promise to be merciful in victory.”

She did not deign to reply but merely threw him a glance that was eloquent of homicide.

In the ballroom, she saw that Kitty had finally arrived and was standing with Clare and Lady Camden. She ran to them like a fugitive seeking sanctuary. But even here she was not safe, for he soon joined them, much to Kitty and Lady Camden’s pleasure. They did not notice Clare trying to hide behind her older sister.

Kitty greeted him with easy familiarity, for she was acquainted with all the officers from the Peninsula. “I could scarce believe it, my lord, when I heard you had sold out your commission.”

Clare quivered like an aspen in a chill wind. Annis shot him a molten glare under the sweep of her lashes, but it failed to rout him. For the rest of the evening, he made the chase go very hard indeed, until finally, finally, they, along with Kitty, were handed into the Camden carriage, safely homeward bound at last.

Kitty failed to notice the subdued silence of her two protégées and instead chattered on about Clare’s obvious success with Mr. Deverill.

Lady Camden offered a different assessment. “I think Jamie may have a real rival in Lord Ryder.”

Kitty frowned. “I’m persuaded Mr. Deverill would suit her better. But I suppose there’s no telling where Cupid’s dart will lodge. We must simply wait and see what comes of it.”

Annis already knew what was going to come of it. Terrible trouble, that’s what. But for Clare’s sake, she could not let herself be dismayed.

One way or another, she vowed, by witch’s wiles or drawing room guile, I will get my sister safely settled and consign Nicholas Ryder to his empty bed in defeat.