Chapter 2
C rispin Hallworth, Earl of Oakford, was no stranger to spectacle, nor the consequences that followed.
He leaned half-shrouded in shadow and studied Lady Clara Mapleton with the cool appraisal of a man contemplating a particularly beautiful dagger—elegant, dangerous, and recently turned against him.
She stood a few paces away, her posture rigid, her crimson gown still echoing the scandal of the moment, as music drifted from the ballroom, filling the surrounding corridor.
Engaged.
He nearly laughed again.
Of all the unpredictable, deliciously brazen things Clara could have done, this, announcing an engagement before half the ton, was inspired. Reckless, yes. Foolish, certainly. But inspired. And now she was glaring at him as though he had orchestrated the entire evening.
“You are insufferable,” she said through clenched teeth.
He tapped a gloved finger against his chin. “You say that as though it were not one of my more celebrated qualities.”
Her lips twitched, as if fighting the urge to retort, but her eyes sparked with something far sharper than amusement—warning, perhaps, or reluctant intrigue.
Clara made a strangled sound, something between a scoff and a growl. Her cheeks were flushed, whether from fury or embarrassment he could not be certain, but it suited her. In fact, most things suited Lady Clara, righteous indignation especially.
“What could possibly possess you to go along with that madness?” she demanded.
Crispin pushed off the wall with leisurely grace and took a step closer. He enjoyed seeing her flustered, especially after years of her carefully composed disdain. But he was not here merely to trade barbs.
“Let us say,” he murmured, lowering his voice, “that I find the idea amusing.”
She stared at him. “You agreed to an engagement, in front of everyone we know, because you were... bored?” Her voice rose with disbelief, and her hand balled into a fist at her side.
She imagined hurling her champagne in his face, desperate to shake the smugness from his features, anything that might make him feel as unmoored as she did.
“Partly,” he conceded. “But also because it solves several problems rather elegantly.”
“Problems?”
“My mother, for one. She has been hounding me to settle down. You, my dear, have just offered me a reprieve.” He took another step.
Her eyes narrowed. “You cannot be serious.”
“I am always serious when it benefits me.” He smiled, slow and wolfish. “And then there is you.”
“Me?” She took a step back.
“You announced the engagement to salvage your own reputation. Fair enough. But if you believe I will allow myself to be used without exacting a little entertainment in return, then you have sorely underestimated me.”
She bristled, fury tightening her posture. “So this is a lesson? A punishment?”
“Think of it as an arrangement. You get your protection from scandal, I get a season of amusement and my mother off my back. Perhaps we both win.”
A flicker passed across her face, jaw tight, brows knit, as though she were weighing the sting of his words against the necessity of swallowing them whole. Then, with remarkable composure, she said, “You truly are a devil.”
He grinned. “That is the rumor.”
“You should not have kissed me.”
“Yet I did,” Crispin replied. He leaned closer, letting the space between them speak for itself. “It seems you have a habit of telling me what I should and should not do, Lady Clara. A habit you may need to break, now that we are so dreadfully… attached.”
“Do not presume you have gained any influence over me,” she said, voice sharp enough to cut glass.
“Influence?” He braced a hand against the wall beside her head, caging her with the span of his arms. “No, I would not dare, for it would ruin the fun.”
She glared at him, lashes quivering with indignation. “If you dare to ruin me a second time?—”
“Ruin you?” He leaned closer, his voice a murmur between them. “You seem perfectly capable of managing that yourself. I had nothing to do with this little engagement, unless you count the sin of being an irresistible kisser.”
The slap came quick, but not quickly enough to surprise him. He caught her wrist mid-air, his fingers encircling the delicate bones. Not tight, but immovable.
“I loathe you,” she hissed, voice trembling with rage.
“Excellent.” He drew her closer until her perfume—citrus and rose—was all he could smell. “Hatred is vastly preferable to indifference.”
The words struck Clara like a stone skipped across water—brief, cutting, and hard to ignore. She said nothing, but her jaw tightened, the only sign that the barb had landed.
She tried to step back, but he matched her movement, his body pressing her against the cool marble.
“So you intend to make me miserable, simply for your own amusement?”
He feigned outrage. “Not miserable. I intend only to enjoy the intrigue you have set in motion. Surely you did not plan to deny me the challenge of wooing you after you so brazenly trapped me?”
She looked down, seething, then up at him again. “The only challenge is whether I can stomach your company long enough to convince the ton this is not a farce.”
“You want to be convincing?” he asked, voice softening, breath brushing her cheek. “Then perhaps you should not glare at me as if I am a flea on your glove. Shall I instruct you in the art of feigned affection?”
“I would rather throw myself from the upper gallery,” she notched her chin up in defiance.
He considered it. “Dramatic, but inelegant. And marble is quite unforgiving. No, I believe we must persist in our charade. Leastwise for now. Perhaps,” he leaned closer, his gaze pinning hers, “until you have recovered your voucher and safely snared some other poor wretch.”
Her eyes flickered. Approval perhaps, or calculation.
From Crispin’s vantage, it was enough to confirm she had accepted the terms of their farce, at least for now.
He almost admired the cold-blooded logic of it.
“Is that what you want?” he pressed. “Your reputation restored, and then I am to be discarded?”
She was silent, lips pressed tight. In that instant, he saw through the fire to the fear beneath. The dread of being consigned to the shelf, of her worth being measured in ruined currency. He felt a twinge, odd and almost tender, at the vulnerability she fought so hard to hide.
“I will not force you to marry me, Clara,” he said, the words more honest than he had intended. “But I will not let you wriggle free without some small measure of entertainment.”
“Entertainment,” she repeated. “Is that what you call public humiliation, endless speculation, and gossip?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Very well.” She seethed, but her eyes betrayed a glimmer of curiosity. “What happens now?”
He smiled, slow and wicked. “Now, we return to the ball and bask in the horror of our peers. Or if you prefer, we wait here until the rumors ferment into something truly scandalous. The choice is yours.”
She stared at him, weighing the options. “You could release me,” she suggested.
“Certainly,” he said, but did not move.
She pushed off the wall, and he stepped aside, just enough to allow her passage. But as she brushed past, his hand shot out and snagged her arm. Not hard, but with absolute authority.
He leaned down, lips nearly grazing her ear. “If you are going to play at being my intended, you ought to act the part. Smile at me, Clara. Or at the very least, stop plotting my death with your eyes. The whole point is to be convincing.”
She turned, bringing their faces close enough to count each other’s lashes. For a fleeting moment, he wondered what would happen if he kissed her again. Would she claw his eyes out, or would she freeze and shudder like before, her fury and desire locked in combat?
He rather hoped for both, though he would not test her now.
She gave a brittle smile, all teeth. “Better?”
“Almost convincing,” he purred.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Crispin straightened, but did not release her arm. Clara shot him a look of pure murder and tried to twist away, but he simply tightened his hold, guiding her a half-step closer to his side. The voices grew louder. A woman’s peal of laughter, a man’s heavy tread.
He leaned in, voice pitched for her alone. “You may thank me later.”
She would never thank him, of course. But then, that was the real game between them.
What she would never do. And what he could make her do anyway.
A dangerous game, perhaps, but it thrilled him—this delicate dance between defiance and surrender, where the stakes were nothing short of hearts and reputations.
There was a peculiar flavor to the silence that followed.
Brittle, poised to shatter under the least provocation.
Crispin savored it, letting the tension wind itself taut as a violin string.
Clara’s eyes darted to the corridor’s end, calculation flaring in the blue depths.
He could see the frantic arithmetic as she weighed the cost of fleeing against the horror of being discovered in his arms.
She need not have bothered. The discovery came faster than her next breath.
“Crispin! Lady Clara!” His mother, the Dowager Countess Oakford’s voice could have cut glass, it carried so well down the passage.
Moments later she swept into view, her silk skirts billowing, diamonds sparkling in the candlelight.
On her arm was none other than Lady Shipley, Clara’s own mother, looking as if she had been winded by a strong draft and had not yet recovered.
Behind them, a second wave followed. Lady Alice Pickford, eyes alight with suspicion.
Eden Langley, Marchioness of Blackstone, all perfect composure with a hint of chaos in her dark gaze.
And Lord Blackstone, towering and taciturn, scanning the scene as if preparing for a duel.
The entire flock bore down upon them, hungry for answers.