Colonel and Lady Middleton’s ball was well under way when Nicholas arrived. He gave his hat to a footman and climbed the stairs to the ballroom. It reminded him of Gussie’s ball, two weeks ago: the hubbub of music and laughter and conversation, the mingled scents of perfume and perspiration, the almost-suffocating warmth.
But tonight there would be no sly laughter, no sideways glances, no whispers. I am passé. London has moved on.
Nicholas accepted champagne from a servant. He sipped it as he strolled around the perimeter of the ballroom, nodding to acquaintances, pausing to talk with friends, all the while scanning the room for a glimpse of wheat-gold hair. The ballroom was colorful with the dress uniforms of various regiments: the blue, scarlet, and gold of the Royal Horse Guard, the green of his own Rifle Brigade, with its black facings and silver lace, the red jacket of the Lifeguards, trimmed with rich gold lace. Lieutenant Mayhew wasn’t present; Lady Isabella was. He found her going down a set with Lucas Washburne. She was tall and elegant in a white satin slip under a robe of celestial blue crêpe.
Nicholas watched her, his shoulders propped against the wall, sipping his champagne. When the cotillion had finished he pushed away from the wall and strolled across the dance floor. “Lady Isabella,” he said with an inclination of his head. “Lucas.”
He observed with satisfaction as Lady Isabella’s cheeks flushed faintly. I am going to kiss you tonight, he promised her silently. Anticipation twisted in his gut, a quicksilver flicker of desire.
“Would you like something to drink?” Lucas asked Lady Isabella. “Lemonade? Champagne?”
“Champagne, please.”
She watched Lucas stride away, glanced at Nicholas, colored faintly again, and turned her gaze to the dance floor, where a quadrille was preparing to start. Her attention focused on one of the dancers, a man Nicholas recognized.
“You know him?” he asked.
“Lord Riles? Yes.”
Something about her tone made him study her more closely. “Another of your suitors?”
Lady Isabella nodded.
Nicholas looked at the dance floor again. Riles was moderately tall, moderately handsome, and possessed of impeccable breeding and a large fortune. “Why didn’t you marry him?” From what he knew of the man, he had a sense of humor.
“I felt that his personality was . . . too compliant.”
Nicholas swallowed a laugh. You would have led him by the nose.
“We wouldn’t have suited.”
“No,” he said, voicing his thoughts aloud. “You’d need a strong husband.”
Lady Isabella looked sharply at him. “To dominate me?”
“To match you.”
“Oh.” Her gaze fell. She turned her attention to the dance floor again, watching as the partners made their bows to one another.
Clarissa Whedon was in the same set as Riles. Nicholas observed her for a moment. My bride, he thought, sipping his champagne. It tasted slightly sour in his mouth.
Lady Isabella glanced sideways at him. “A strong wife would suit you, too.”
Nicholas looked at her. “No.”
“Not willful and obstinate,” she said. “But strong-minded. To match you.”
Nicholas shook his head. “I want a peaceful marriage. A marriage without arguments. For that, a young bride is best.”
“Don’t you think you could have a peaceful marriage with a slightly older wife?” Her tone was diffident. “Someone whose character is formed?”
“No.” Young soldiers lacked experience, but they were more tractable, less likely to complain, to question orders, to argue. It stood to reason that a young wife would be similarly tractable.
Lady Isabella made no reply. She bit her lip and looked at the dancers again.
Nicholas followed the direction of her gaze. He watched as Clarissa Whedon stood placidly waiting for the quadrille to begin.
That is what I want.
But the wife he’d imagined—quiet and biddable, agreeing with everything he said—no longer seemed quite as ideal as he’d once thought. “You think I’m wrong.”
Lady Isabella glanced at him. “I think that you’re . . . misguided.”
Misguided? What did she mean by that? Was she telling him—politely—that she thought him a fool? He opened his mouth to ask her, but at that moment Lucas Washburne returned. “Colonel Durham’s here,” he said to Nicholas as he handed Lady Isabella a glass of champagne. “Have you seen him?”
“No.” Nicholas scanned the ballroom. I shall take care to avoid him.
“Colonel Durham?” Isabella said. “I would like to meet him.”
Nicholas turned his head to stare at her. “You would?”
“From what I’ve heard, he’s an unpleasant man.”
Very, Nicholas thought. He raised his glass and paused, looking past her shoulder. Damn. He took a long swallow and said, “You’re in luck, Lady Isabella. You’re about to meet him.”
“I am?” She turned her head, following the direction of his gaze. “Is that him?”
He wondered what she saw: the lines of bad temper etched into Colonel Durham’s face, the sour mouth, or the man’s erect carriage, forceful footsteps, and bristling, aggressive energy.
Colonel Durham halted. “Major Reynolds.”
Nicholas bowed. “Colonel Durham. May I present Lady Isabella Knox and Viscount Washburne?”
Colonel Durham favored Isabella with a bow and a glance, both equally brief, and then turned to Lucas Washburne. He doesn’t see her, Nicholas realized in disbelief.
The conversation wasn’t protracted—the colonel invited him to dine at his club the following evening and spoke a few words about the weather and London traffic. Harriet wasn’t mentioned. Another bow and he was gone.
Nicholas glanced at Lady Isabella. Had she noticed the colonel’s dismissive manner towards her? “Well? What’s your opinion of Colonel Durham?”
She glanced at him. “Truthfully? I think him a man who places no value on women.”
Lucas Washburne blinked. “You do?”
“He addressed himself entirely to you both. I may as well not have existed.”
“Really?” Lucas said, turning to stare after Colonel Durham.
Nicholas raised his glass and drained it. “The colonel isn’t the brightest of men,” he said dryly.
Lucas turned back to Lady Isabella. His expression was faintly perplexed. “Are you certain that’s what he did? Because I didn’t notice anything.”
Lady Isabella laughed. “You’re a man, Lucas. Of course you wouldn’t notice.”
Washburne didn’t venture a reply to that; he grinned, shrugged, and went in search of his wife.
“You’re correct,” Nicholas said, his eyes on Isabella’s face. “Colonel Durham places no value on women.”
She grimaced slightly. “Poor H— Miss Durham.”
The words were an unwelcome reminder. Nicholas frowned down at his empty glass. “Yes. Poor Miss Durham.”
“You’re nothing like the colonel,” Lady Isabella said.
“I should hope not.”
Her brow creased. “Then how could Harriet Durham have thought—”
“Don’t forget this.” He tapped his left cheek with one finger.
Lady Isabella’s eyes fastened on the scar for a moment, and then she shook her head. Her lips thinned. “Foolish girl!”
“Yes, I agree.” He looked at the dance floor, at the lines of dancers, at Clarissa Whedon. She didn’t appear to hold him in aversion. But then, he hadn’t noticed that Harriet had, either. He’d mistaken her dislike of him for shyness.
Lady Isabella was silent.
Nicholas glanced at her. She was watching Miss Whedon. Her expression was unreadable. “May I have the next waltz?” he asked.
“Do you even need to ask?” Her glance, her smile, her tone, were wry.
Nicholas looked down at his empty glass again. He turned the stem between his fingers. Soon there would be no more waltzes, no more kisses. He looked across at Miss Whedon.
Boring, whispered a voice in the back of his head.
He ignored it.
The waltz came after the quadrille. Nicholas enjoyed the familiar pleasure of dancing with Lady Isabella—the curve of her waist beneath his palm, the warmth of her gloved hand on his shoulder, the ease with which their steps matched. Her height, too, was a pleasure. Isabella’s chin was level with his shoulder; he didn’t have to bend his head to speak to her. It was easy to meet her eyes. Easy to kiss her.
Later, he told himself, sternly quashing a flicker of desire.
If there was a later. The Middletons’ house seemed to be depressingly without concealed corners in which to kiss.
The music finished with a flourishing final note. Nicholas escorted Lady Isabella from the dance floor, cool and elegant in the white slip and blue robe, queenly in her height. Diamonds sparkled at her ears and around her throat.
She was the perfect Society lady, polished and glittering, graceful and poised, untouchable, unkissable—until she grinned at him and he caught a glimpse of her teeth, white and charmingly crooked. “Thank you for the dance, Major.”
Desire kicked in his stomach. “The library,” he said. “Five minutes.”
Lady Isabella’s grin faded. Her eyes held his. Blue-gray eyes. Beautiful eyes.
I want her.
Nicholas clenched his hands. He was not going to kiss her in the Middletons’ ballroom in front of everyone. “The library,” he said again, his voice slightly rough, and then he bowed and turned on his heel and walked away from her.
He knew she would come. This thing that snared him, this lust, was mutual. It twisted in her gut the same as it twisted in his. We are in the grip of madness.
He studied the volumes on the shelves. Poetry. Wordsworth and Coleridge and Byron’s The Corsair.
The door opened.
Nicholas swung around. He watched Lady Isabella close the door behind her.
“Dare we?” she asked in a low voice as she came towards him.
He held out his hand. “We’ll be very careful,” he said, drawing her with him to the farthest, shadowy corner of the room. A wing-backed leather armchair loomed, the bronze studs gleaming faintly in the light of the two lamps that were lit.
“If anyone sees us—”
He took her face between his hands. “They won’t.”
She stared up at him, her eyes dark and unreadable.
“Kiss me,” he whispered.
Lady Isabella lifted her mouth to him.