Chapter 6
T he ball at Oakford House was the single most anticipated event of the spring, at least in the estimation of London’s elite.
But for Crispin and Clara, it was far more than a social triumph.
It was a battlefield, a performance, and a powder keg balanced precariously on a waltz.
The invitations, which bore Oakford’s devil’s-head crest, sparked excitement among many.
Others who were not invited amused themselves with tales of scandalous events within the mansion walls.
However, the reality was far tamer. The Dowager Countess had expertly curated a guest list that skillfully balanced notorious figures and respected members of society.
The ballroom had been stripped of its usual austerity, mirrors polished until the walls doubled and redoubled the crowds, and the chandeliers were ablaze with such reckless expenditure of candlelight that the night outside seemed pale and insignificant by comparison.
A string quartet sawed at a waltz while footmen in midnight-blue livery ferried glasses of sparkling wine with military precision.
Every surface—mantels, window ledges, tables and chairs—were dusted with hothouse blooms.
Crispin surveyed the ballroom from the landing, one gloved hand resting on the marble newel post. The orchestrated chaos pleased him—guests glittering under the chandeliers, footmen weaving through the crush with champagne trays, music spinning across polished floors.
He wore his customary black, tailored to perfection, his expression composed, but his eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of a man who had arranged every detail.
He allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction, even as he feigned disinterest.
As he descended the stairs, he was hailed by Lord Stratmore, who bore the physique of a cart-horse and the conversational subtlety to match.
“Oakford! You sly devil, you. None of us believed you had the temperament for domesticity. Yet here you are, engaged to the loveliest bit of skirt to grace a ballroom in a decade!”
“Temperament is overrated, Stratmore. As are most things,” Crispin replied, accepting the other man’s handshake with a pleasant show of teeth. “I am assured the benefits of matrimony far exceed those of the bachelor’s life, though as yet I have not received a manual of conjugal wisdom.”
Stratmore’s laugh was loud enough to rattle the punch bowl. “By God, you have not lost your edge. I will wager your bride-to-be keeps you on a leash, eh?”
Crispin accepted the ribbing with practiced grace, though privately he would have liked to see Lady Clara attempt to leash anything, let alone him.
The very idea was laughable. She wasn’t the type to tame, but to test, to challenge, to match blow for blow.
That was what unsettled him most. “You should place your bets while the odds are still long,” he suggested, then drifted away before Stratmore could wax sentimental about his own wife’s marital training regimen.
The next several minutes passed in a blur. Handshakes, toasts, and sidelong glances. Guests buzzed with speculation, their congratulations varying in sincerity. Crispin absorbed each comment with cool detachment, cataloging glances and whispers.
“Do you think she will manage to civilize him?”
“She is too clever by half. Mark my words, she will have the upper hand within the month.”
“I daresay I disagree. Think of that business at Vauxhall last year? I heard he threw a man into the lake. A man such as Oakford shall not be easy to tame.”
“Quite right. I heard he seduced a bishop’s niece and left her?—”
Crispin smiled, absorbing the gossip with the faint, almost erotic pleasure of a man who had engineered every syllable.
It was nearly disappointing how well the engagement served as a social balm.
There had been no duels, no exiles, and, apart from the occasional shriek of outrage from the more brittle matrons, no real resistance to the match.
Even Lady Shipley seemed to delight herself with the prospect of her daughter taming London’s most infamous reprobate.
Or perhaps, he thought, she simply hoped for the best.
Edward, stationed at the edge of the room, caught his gaze and gave a single shake of the head. A warning without words—whatever you are plotting, Crispin, make it subtle.
But Crispin was not plotting. Not yet. He was, in fact, waiting.
He had not seen Clara since their encounter in Kensington Gardens.
He had expected her to make a scene, something fitting the fire he had come to admire in her.
Instead, she was nowhere. He told himself it was strategy, but the tight coil in his chest said otherwise.
It was not about the scheme. It was about her, and the way she had somehow become the axis around which his carefully plotted world now spun.
Every so often, he caught a whisper of her perfume, citrus and rose, on the frock of a passing maid, and it stopped him cold.
The scent lingered like a ghost he hadn’t invited but could not forget.
He told himself that he was simply eager to see her execute their scheme, to see how she would play the role in front of this mob, most of whom would have been delighted to watch her fail.
But the truth, sharp and unwelcome, was that her failure would feel like his own.
And he did not know when that had started to matter.
At last, a hush drifted through the crowd. Heads turned, the better to enjoy the entrance of the evening’s second-most notorious party.
Clara appeared at the threshold, framed by the ballroom’s arched double doors.
As she paused for the briefest second, Alice leaned in and murmured just loud enough for Clara to hear, “If you are going to suffer fools tonight, at least suffer them in style.” Clara’s lips curved faintly in silent thanks, as a spark of camaraderie passed between them.
She wore a gown of deep sapphire silk, its empire waist gathered just below the bust and short puffed sleeves trimmed in delicate lace, the silhouette unmistakably of the moment’s fashionable cut that clung to her breasts and shoulders before falling away in a drape of silk.
Her hair, impossibly pale in the lamplight, was swept up with a handful of sapphire combs, leaving her neck bare save for the delicate trace of a single diamond drop.
Crispin felt the impact in his ribs. She had always been lovely, but tonight she was a goddess, honed, polished, and entirely indifferent to the fact that the entire room had frozen in anticipation.
Clara, for her part, felt the weight of every eye, every held breath.
A dozen judgments pressed in from all sides, but she locked her shoulders and lifted her chin, willing herself to appear unshakable even as a sliver of dread uncoiled beneath her ribs.
The air felt too warm, her skin too tight against her stays, but she smiled, slow, deliberate, as if the tension beneath her breastbone were nothing more than poise.
She did not hesitate. Nor did she linger at the entrance, as so many debutantes would have done.
She walked forward, poised, unflinching, with the faintest of smiles at the corners of her mouth, her mother at her side, trailed by Alice and, a pace behind, Eden, the Marchioness of Blackstone on her husband’s arm.
Within seconds, Clara was surrounded. Several young men descended with the subtlety of a parliament of cats.
There was Lord Hollingsworth, who had spent the last three seasons quietly failing to marry anyone at all.
He made a shallow bow, murmured something about Clara’s radiance, and was quickly elbowed aside by Lord Beresford, whose attempts at courtly seduction had been the stuff of drawing-room legend.
Beresford was, in many ways, the anti-Crispin.
Tall, soft-eyed, with caramel hair and manners that mothers of daughters universally approved of.
He bowed, caught Clara’s gloved hand, and said something that made her laugh.
A real, unguarded laugh, which Crispin found personally offensive.
For a moment, he considered simply walking away, letting the whole charade collapse into the arms of her former suitor, and to hell with reputations.
Instead, he watched still uncertain, a rare pause overtaking his usual instinct to act.
Hovering at the periphery, observing rather than dominating, was new, and not entirely comfortable.
He took a glass of champagne from a passing tray, his fingers curling tighter around the stem than necessary.
The bubbles sparkled with the promise of ease, but they offered no refuge from the churning in his chest. For all his practiced detachment, something inside him was fraying.
He took a long drink. The bubbles burned down his throat, a poor distraction from the surge of something far more potent. Jealousy, frustration, or both.
Beresford was joined by two more. Lord Pavington, Clara’s old friend and, he suspected, a champion for her virtue, and the Marquess of Blackstone, whose imposing frame made even Crispin feel short.
Together, they formed a sort of honor guard around Clara, shielding her from the more predatory elements of the guest list, but also from Crispin himself.
He found this intensely irritating.
He cut through the crowd with efficient ease, pausing only when necessary to exchange remarks, but always with an eye on the bright center of the room where Clara held court.
She was in her element, he realized, the focus of a dozen conversations, the recipient of countless well-wishes and not a few envy-laced compliments.
She managed it all with effortless poise, never letting slip the anxiety or discomfort that must surely be gnawing at her beneath the sapphire and smiles.
After several minutes, Crispin sidled up to Edward, who was watching the proceedings with the resigned air of a man who knew he had no recourse.