As the guests at Salbridge Great Hall waited to go in to dinner once again, Flora stood off to the side, observing, her mind drifting back to the morning, to the garden.
Sir Liam Malloy strolled over to join her. “Good evening, Miss Jennings. Have you had a good day?”
A silent narrative flashed through Flora’s mind. I kissed Lord Robert Gresham. Passionately. And enjoyed it very, very much. I was caught in his arms by Lady Victoria, who considers him hers by right, and made an enemy. Flora knew a declaration of vendetta when she saw one—and she had, in the girl’s no-longer-soft brown eyes. I almost called my hosts’ daughter an idiot, her inner voice continued. Actually, there was no almost about it. As Lady Victoria was well aware. Flora didn’t care; she wouldn’t have missed that kiss for anything. But Sir Liam was waiting for an answer. “Some of us walked into the village in the afternoon,” she said aloud. “How was the shooting?”
“Splendid.”
“Oh, good.”
There was a stir near the door. Looking sour, the butler moved out of the opening and announced, “Mrs. Lydia Fotheringay and Mr. Anthony Durand.”
There was a general murmur as an older couple entered. The lady looked perhaps forty-five. She was quite thin, which made her luminous hazel eyes seem larger. Richly dressed in garnet satin, she had a pointed chin and beautifully dressed brown hair, glinting with gems. She moved forward with languid grace.
Not as gracefully as her companion, however. Anthony Durand came into the room like a great predatory cat. Though not particularly tall, he was well muscled for a man in his fifties. He had craggy features, a swarthy complexion, and hair and eyes as black as midnight. His evening dress was impeccable.
They nodded to the group like sovereigns greeting their subjects. The earl and countess moved forward to receive them without visible enthusiasm.
“I wouldn’t have expected to see them at this gathering,” said Sir Liam.
“You know them?” asked Flora, through lips that felt stiff.
“Only, er, gossip,” he replied. “I wouldn’t befriend them if I were you.”
As if Flora didn’t know. Lydia Fotheringay had treated Flora’s mother shamefully; she’d heard about it all her life. And she knew Anthony Durand’s name. A powerful man with a very bad reputation, he’d been a close friend of the late, unlamented Lord Royalton.
Flora suppressed a shudder of revulsion. She hadn’t thought of Royalton’s murder, or her inadvertent involvement in it, for weeks. She hadn’t meant to get him killed, even if he richly deserved it! To keep from thinking about it, she’d used a method her father had taught her to help remember complicated linguistic forms. He’d had her imagine her mind as a chamber lined with cupboards and drawers. Each particular piece of knowledge could be placed in its own compartment, where she could find it whenever she pleased. It worked remarkably well.
And so she’d taken her nightmares about being tied up and shut away in the dark and shoved them into one of the far cupboards, securing it with rows of mental locks. She didn’t know what Papa would have thought of that use of his system, but it had succeeded. Until now.
Here was another part of the reason she’d come here, Flora saw then. She’d wanted a break from her previous life. The chance to be away from London—far from any connection to events that had happened in the past and were all too often revisited in her dreams—had appealed.
Flora turned away from the sight of Anthony Durand, hardly aware of Sir Liam by her side. She noticed that Lord Robert was looking at her, too. That wouldn’t do.
Durand moved through the crowd. People simply got out of his way. Flora’s heart beat a little faster. But he wouldn’t speak to her. They hadn’t been introduced. Social conventions had their uses after all.
Lydia Fotheringay was monitoring the man’s progress with little darting glances, perhaps thinking she was being subtle. Harriet had said the woman had the brains of a pebble and the heart of a rabid stoat. The Duchess of Langford had added that she had the morals of a Covent Garden abbess. That had been quite a moment, Flora remembered, one of those conversations that turned your preconceptions on their heads.
The countess gave the signal to go in to dinner. A woman nearby took Sir Liam’s arm. He looked as if he would much rather have escorted Flora to the dining room.
People moved toward the door. Flora couldn’t seem to follow. She told herself to walk, but her body refused to take a step nearer to Anthony Durand.
From across the room, Robert could see that the new arrivals had distressed Flora. Lovers who scarcely bothered to hide the fact, they weren’t the sort of people he’d have expected the Salbridges to invite, particularly to a party arranged for their daughter.
Flora was starting to draw glances, standing alone as the others moved to the dining room. He went over and drew her arm through his. She was trembling. What could be the matter?
Robert made himself into a shield, returning curious looks with bland discouragement. Or not so bland, if necessary. Silently, he got Flora moving. He escorted her down the corridor and guided her to her place at the table. Her chair was far from the newcomers, he was glad to see. She was seated between two young men who wouldn’t notice a mood unless it had a tail like a fox.
He looked down. Flora smiled at him. It was the sweetest smile he’d ever seen on her face, and it went straight to his heart.
* * *
“I’m astonished to see her here,” said Harriet Runyon. Flora sat beside her in the drawing room, watching Lydia Fotheringay talk to one of the countess’s older friends. “I cannot believe Anne invited her.”
“I don’t think she did,” said Flora. She told Harriet about the conversation she’d overheard between their hosts.
“Well! It’s never clear whether Lydia is shameless, or simply too stupid to realize she’s being outrageous.”
Across the room, Mrs. Fotheringay’s companion looked startled, then laughed.
“Talking scandal, no doubt,” Harriet added. “Lydia has no other interests.” She sighed. “I’m very sorry she’s here, but we don’t have to take any particular notice of her.”
Flora nodded. She’d recovered her balance during dinner. For once, she was glad it went on so long.
“You should avoid the man she came with,” Harriet continued. “He is…rather notorious.”
Flora would be only too glad to do that.
A few minutes later, the gentlemen began to stroll in. Durand looked like a raven among crows, Flora thought. Nearly the same, but in fact larger and more dangerous than his fellows. He joined a group of older men setting up a card game at the far end of the large room.
Lord Robert appeared in the doorway—handsome, utterly assured—and surveyed the scene. Flora could still feel the echoes of his touch. Here was a limitation of social conventions. She couldn’t rush across the room and repeat that kiss. The idea did make her smile, however. What gasps and fluttering that would cause!
Lord Robert walked over to Lady Victoria and spoke to her. Her answering smile was brilliant. She took his arm as if it belonged to her, and they moved over to the pianoforte in the corner of the large room. Lady Victoria sat down and opened it. Robert leaned against the instrument.
The younger woman started to play. “Naturally she’s quite good,” Flora muttered. “She would be.”
“What?” Harriet turned to her.
“Nothing.” Flora had never learned the pretty accomplishments of a noble lady. If the group wanted a lecture on the intricacies of declension and inflection rather than a song or a sonata, well, she had that at her fingertips.
“I wonder why Robert is flirting with Victoria,” Harriet said.
Mr. Trevellyn and two other young men had gravitated to the pianoforte. The corner was getting crowded. “That’s the question,” said Flora.
“I also wonder why you’re muttering.”
“Do you?”
“Are we reduced to oblique remarks and grim hints?” replied Harriet with some asperity. “Do I try to guess what you mean while you glower and mumble darkly?”
Flora was startled into a laugh.
“Because, really, I find that sort of thing so tedious,” Harriet continued. “It is why I rarely converse with ‘sensitive’ young gentlemen. And it is not at all like you.”
It wasn’t, Flora acknowledged. So far, this visit had felt more like being tossed hither and yon by a storm at sea than a reasoned reconnaissance mission into the haut ton.
Lady Victoria moved on to a tender ballad. She sang well, too. She probably excelled at everything she was supposed to do, and did nothing that she wasn’t, Flora thought. But that was just spiteful. She wasn’t spiteful. A sensation that might have been exasperation, or heartache, assailed her. She’d never seen Lord Robert flirting with anyone else, she realized. His attentions had been all for her.
She didn’t like it.
Was she right, after all, about the shallowness of society? Could he kiss her so meltingly and then forget all about it?
“Flora?” said Harriet. “You’re looking tragic again.”
Flora turned to face her. Harriet had treated her with great generosity. Flora owed her a good deal and didn’t want to let her down. But she had to be honest. “I don’t think I can be anyone but myself,” Flora said. “I’ve tried, but I’m failing miserably.”
“Well, stop it at once,” came the tart reply.
Flora blinked.
“Is that why you’ve been hanging back and moping?” Harriet added.
“I haven’t been moping!”
The older woman frowned at her. “You’ve been thinking that you had to be…what? A simpering, wide-eyed miss? A sweet little doormat?”
“Well, I…not quite that, but—”
“Like me?”
“You’ve never been anything like that!”
Harriet waited, gazing at her.
“Not at all,” Flora said slowly.
“You are so intelligent, Flora, so exact and analytical. I assumed you would see more clearly than that.”
It was too kind to be a reprimand, but Flora felt foolish anyway.
“Let me assure you, then. You can be yourself. You must, really. It’s the only viable choice.”
That was a relief. “But things are getting into a tangle,” Flora said.
“They tend to, at house parties. I’ve never been to one that wasn’t seething with undercurrents. Sniping and overindulging and bedroom doors stealthily opening and shutting in the night.”
“Doors. So that they can—?”
“Carry on their love affairs. Yes, Flora. You are not seventeen. Now, what is your tangle?” Harriet cocked her head, waiting for an explanation.
Flora looked around. No one was too close to them. “Among others, Lady Victoria considers herself…destined to marry Lord Robert,” she said. “She told me he promised to wait for her, when she was fourteen. Her ‘definitive’ argument was that he is not yet married.” Flora decided not to mention the kiss.
Harriet raised her eyebrows. She did not turn to look at the group around the pianoforte. “She confided in you?”
“It was more a warning than a confidence,” Flora said.
“Indeed?”
“She sees me as her rival, an enemy.”
“Ah, that explains Robert’s behavior then.”
“Explains it?”
“Well, he is going to have to maneuver her, isn’t he?”
Before Flora could pursue this interesting topic, a fluttering movement in the corner of her eye made her turn. She found Lydia Fotheringay standing before the sofa where they sat. Her large hazel eyes were focused on Flora. Her hands moved restlessly and constantly, patting the air, fingering a bracelet.
“Are you indeed Agatha, ah, Jennings’s daughter?” she asked. “Yes, Jennings, that was the name.”
Flora sat straighter and raised her chin, braced for a sneer or a snub. And for a fight, if necessary. This was the woman who had given her mother the cut direct after Mama married outside her aristocratic circle. “I am,” she replied defiantly.
“We used to be great friends, you know.”
Of course Flora knew. That fact was part of the lore of her childhood. But it was so far from what she’d expected to hear that she had no reply.
“Best of friends, really,” the thin, bejeweled woman continued, her hands smoothing the folds of her gown. “Before you were born. Did she never mention me? I am Lydia Fotheringay, you know.”
“This is Miss Flora Jennings,” Harriet put in.
“Flora.” The newcomer smiled. “A sweet name. Agatha was always very fond of flowers.”
Flora stared at her, searching for any sign of the rancorous history she knew.
“I haven’t met Agatha in years,” Mrs. Fotheringay went on. “She quite dropped out of society for some reason.”
This was too much. Flora started to stand. “Because of the way you…”
Harriet’s hand on her arm stopped her.
Mrs. Fotheringay waited a moment. When Flora said no more, she added, “Is Agatha coming up to join you here? It would be so delightful to see her again.”
With Harriet’s fingers tight on her wrist, Flora simply shook her head.
“Ah, too bad. Send her my dear love, won’t you?” And with that the woman flitted away, trailing garnet satin and a heavy scent.
Flora was practically sputtering. “What the— How could she speak to me that way after what she did?”
“She’s forgotten it ever happened,” said Harriet, letting go of Flora’s wrist.
“Forgotten! How could she? She must have seen that Mama was devastated.”
“Lydia Fotheringay rarely sees beyond the end of her own nose. And people forget the most extraordinary things. I’ve often observed it. Memory is an untrustworthy tale.”
“Mine doesn’t!”
“How would you know?”
That was an unsettling idea. Flora shifted in her seat.
“Your mind is particularly acute,” said Harriet. “Others aren’t so quick, and Lydia Fotheringay is much stupider than most.”
“Does she think I will be her friend now?” The idea revolted her.
“Oh, I don’t believe she spends much time thinking.”
Bewildered, Flora watched her mother’s enemy flutter onto a sofa on the other side of the drawing room. What would Mama say when she wrote her about this? Would it be better or worse for her to hear that her old friend didn’t recall the incident that had so wounded her? Flora watched Mrs. Fotheringay chatter and gesture, bright as a magpie. It was a picture to hold up beside Flora’s image of her mother, a representation of two sorts of people—those who only skim the surface of emotion and do not really care, and the opposite. Looking around, Flora felt that the room was filled with the former. This was Lord Robert’s world.
Robert had let his attention wander, wondering what the deuce Lydia Fotheringay might be saying to Flora. Victoria shot him a sharp glance. Who would have guessed that his friend’s little sister could be so fierce? Still less that she harbored a crackbrained notion of marrying him? Right now, she was giving him languishing looks as she sang a song in Italian. This wouldn’t do.
He looked over the younger men in the vicinity. Trevellyn was glowering at him in a promising way. Another, the heir to an earldom, had tried to elbow into Robert’s current position. A couple of others were jostling in the background. Robert moved a step to the left. The young heir surged triumphantly forward, displacing him. Carrick…that was his name, Robert recalled.
“Allow me to turn the pages for you,” the youngster said. “I read music perfectly.”
Stepping back, Robert moved away from the pianoforte. Victoria pouted a little, but Carrick’s shower of compliments on her skill soon had her smiling again.
Robert drifted down the room. Not directly to Flora, even though her presence pulled at him. Not like a moth, however. He had no doubt Victoria’s eyes were on his back. It would be maddening if Victoria got Flora sent away just when he’d finally kissed her. He needed to take what Sebastian would call evasive action. The perfect answer came to him at the same moment as a sharp exclamation from the card table at the end of the drawing room.
Salbridge walked by, gathering Robert with a jerk of his head. Happy to support him, Robert walked down the room beside his host. The nearer they got to the card table, the more tension he felt in the air. Indeed, that corner had a whiff of gaming hell about it. One fellow—a neighbor, Robert thought—had the look of a man who’d lost more than he could afford. Another seemed furious. It was odd. Deep play did occur at some country house parties, but not so early in the evening or in the hostess’s drawing room. And not, to his knowledge, at the Salbridges’.
Robert noted a litter of vowels in front of Anthony Durand. His presence accounted for it. Durand spent most of his nights in London hells, and people said he always won more than he lost. Which was unlikely, unless he cheated. He claimed it was skill, of course, and no one had proven differently. Robert remembered his father mentioning an ugly incident. A fellow who’d accused Durand of cheating years ago had been attacked by footpads and nearly died. Papa had warned all of them off playing with the man. But some here didn’t know his reputation, and others probably hadn’t expected high stakes. Robert wondered again how Durand had gotten this invitation.
Salbridge’s grim expression only heightened that mystery. “Perhaps enough cards for now, gentlemen,” he said.
“Mr. Silvan may want a chance to recoup his losses,” replied Durand.
He really was unpleasant—from the drawling sneer in his voice to his lounging posture, Robert thought. Durand made it aggressively obvious that he didn’t care what anyone thought.
“Not me,” said the neighbor. “I acknowledge I’m beat.”
“Intolerable,” muttered the angry man. Robert couldn’t place him. But he knew Salbridge well enough to see how greatly the situation galled him.
“I’m sure the ladies would welcome your company,” said their host, his tone clipped and terse. It was clearly a command.
Men rose from their chairs and began to move away. “I suppose we must do our duty and entertain them,” replied Durand, languidly joining them.
Robert met Salbridge’s eye, and saw his own response mirrored there. The idea of Durand entertaining the ladies held absolutely no appeal. Robert nearly asked why the deuce the man was here. Then he didn’t need to. As soon as Durand left the card table, Lydia Fotheringay drifted over to him like a bit of flotsam. She didn’t drape herself over him, but she gave a clear impression of doing so. Off to the side, Lady Salbridge watched, her customary serenity marred by a frown. The Fotheringay had pushed in, Robert concluded, and brought her lover with her. She was the sort of silly, stupid woman who would do that. Why, or if, Durand wished to be here was a mystery.
In the next moment, Durand shed Mrs. Fotheringay like a man scraping a bit of mud from his shoe and went to join a group of men by the fire.
Robert dismissed him from his mind. It was a large party. There would be no need to speak to Durand. He passed behind a chattering group; skirted a game of bouts-rimés, resisting pleas to join in; and ended up beside Flora. She smiled up at him, and for a moment, he lost himself in those blue depths.
“Did something go wrong with the card game?” she said.
Of course she’d noticed. She was quicker and more intelligent than anyone else in this room. He started to answer, and was interrupted by a crashing chord from the pianoforte. Heads turned throughout the room.
“I beg your pardon,” called Lady Victoria with a glittering smile and a glare in their direction. “My hand slipped.”
This was ridiculous, Robert thought. It had to be stopped immediately. Oddly, he found himself imagining a backing troop of brothers. But what did he imagine they could do? Sebastian was better at charging with a drawn saber than drawing-room maneuvering. James said straight out that he’d rather face a storm at sea than navigate social shoals, and Alan wouldn’t be torn away from his laboratory. Nathaniel was tired of rescuing his younger siblings from their follies. Not that he’d said follies. And not that this was one. Still, he’d get Randolph over here sooner rather than later, Robert decided. Why not? Randolph wanted a wife. Perhaps he could offer for Victoria. The thought made Robert smile.
Flora smiled gloriously back.
“Meet me in the corridor outside the dining room in ten minutes,” he told her.
She blinked. “Is there a secret password?”
Blessedly, delightfully quick. “I want to show you something.” Turning on his heel, Robert walked out. Let Victoria chew on that.
Flora joined a nearby group and listened to three young men try to top each other with tales of the tricky shots they’d managed and the number of birds they’d bagged. When ten minutes had passed by the mantel clock, she went out. She did not make a show of yawning to give the impression that she was off to bed. She did not slink furtively around the edge of the room and then slither through the doors. The best way not to be noticed was to be commonplace. She found Lord Robert where he’d said he would be. He held a branch of lighted candles.
“Come.” He beckoned with his free hand and set off along the hallway.
“Where are we going?” This expedition was not strictly proper, but Flora didn’t care.
“It’s a surprise.”
“What sort of surprise?” Her mind filled with thoughts of kisses.
“You’ll like it, I promise.” He turned into a crossing corridor, moving toward the east wing, which was older than the central part of the house. After a while, he turned again into a short, narrow hall with tall double doors at the end. He opened one, passed through, and held up the branch of candles. Flora stepped in just behind him into…magnificence.
It was a huge library.
Lord Robert went about lighting more candles, like a wizard illuminating further bits of a magical cave.
The paneled chamber was two stories high, with a narrow balcony running around it halfway up, reached by a fanciful spiral stair. There were armchairs, worktables, cushioned window-seat nooks, and a large, empty stone hearth. And it was positively enwrapped in books. Flora turned in circles, taking it all in.
“I understand this room hasn’t been much used since the old earl died last year,” Lord Robert said.
“What a waste.” She walked over to the nearest bank of shelves, running her eyes over the contents.
“The family isn’t bookish.” Robert set down the candles and came to stand beside her. “And they’re still settling in. I believe Philip comes here now and then, when he remembers his studies.” He looked around. “They’d probably appreciate your expert opinion on the collection.”
“But then they’ll think I’m odd,” countered Flora with raised eyebrows. “And it will ruin my visit.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” His expression was rueful.
She nodded. The nearest books seemed to be histories, though many of the spines were hard to read in the low light.
“I worry about you, you see.”
Flora met his eyes. His gaze was warm. A shiver that had nothing to do with the chill in the room went through her. At the same time, it occurred to her that she hadn’t worried about him when he entered their small circle in Russell Square.
“You can sit here whenever you like. I’ll ask them tomorrow to light the fire.”
“Just for me? That’s too much trouble, if they don’t use the room.”
“Nonsense. Gerald and Anne love to please their guests. Nothing they like better.”
It was too tempting to resist. Flora nodded. In the silence that followed, she grew increasingly conscious of his tall figure—so near. This was the kind of place where everything had started between them, although intellectual discussion was the last thing on her mind just now. If she moved her hand just a few inches, her fingers would twine with his. If she leaned a little, she could rest her head on his shoulder. And he would kiss her.
“You’re unlikely to encounter Victoria here,” he said.
Flora’s thoughts thudded back to Earth. “No. She dislikes books. She told me so.”
“Did she?” Lord Robert shook his head. “Her fascination with me won’t last. I’ve known Victoria since she was a schoolgirl and—”
“When you told her you’d wait for her to grow up and then marry her.”
He looked at her with raised brows. “When I nodded without really paying attention, perhaps.”
“That will teach you to listen.”
“Oh, I’ve learned. I had a superb teacher.”
Where had these knee-melting gazes come from? Flora wondered. He hadn’t looked at her this way in London. Or…there had been some occasions. She’d run from them. She wasn’t going to do that anymore.
“I’ll soon divert her,” he said. “There are plenty of more alluring young men for her to choose from.”
“Not really,” replied Flora. Could her eyes smolder like his? She experimented, and achieved a very satisfying reaction.
Lord Robert cleared his throat. “More suited to Victoria,” he added. “It may take a bit of time. I can’t just dump her in some fellow’s lap, you see. She’s my friend’s little sister. I want her to be happy. Loved.”
The final word vibrated between them—portentous, breathtaking—and a mark of his innate kindness. Even in his new, masterful guise, he was still kind, Flora thought.
“So you can leave this to me. Be assured I won’t let Victoria annoy you.”
“I don’t need rescuing!”
The fierceness of her reply startled Robert. “It isn’t a matter of rescue. I’m simply better at social…adjustments than you are.”
Flora appeared to be grappling with some strong emotion.
“As you are better at cuneiform than I,” he said. “And always will be.”
“You admit that?”
“Did I ever deny it?”
She stared up at him, an arrested look on her face. “You never did. Not once. Unlike my father’s old friends, and his pupils.”
“A mark of my greater intelligence,” he suggested.
In the next moment, her arms were laced around his neck, she was pulling his head down to her, and Robert had what he’d so fervently desired. To take up where that earlier, interrupted kiss had left off. He pulled her closer and did so.
She pressed against him. His lips coaxed and teased. Her body softened all along the length of his. The combination of demand and surrender was incendiary.
Robert let his hands rove a bit, tracing delicate contours, delighting when he made her breath catch. But as his fingertips feathered down her arm, the skin felt chilled. Her gown was far too thin for this cavernous, unheated room.
“You’re cold.” He tried wrapping his coat around them both. It didn’t reach. He would have to speak to his tailor. “I’ll order a fire here every day, all day,” Robert declared.
Flora laughed. But she also shivered. He could give her his coat, but…it was time to go. They’d be missed eventually. And he couldn’t answer for his control if this went on much longer.