Chapter 1 #2
“Yes.” He flashed a distracted smile at his host before his gaze veered back to Evangeline, like a compass needle seeking north.
Still scrambling for composure, Evangeline put up her chin. “Savages! Of what sort?”
Campion seemed startled. “Oh—some of the tribes treat each other quite brutally, ma’am. They are fierce warriors.”
Evangeline thought she’d take some of the dragons of the ton over any warrior, any day, for fierceness. God above knew they’d shredded her to pieces.
“Savages,” drawled Fanny, sounding disappointed. “How novel. Do explorers ever encounter anything else? Are there no civilized, gentle, or even kind peoples in the greater world?”
“I daresay not,” Evangeline cut in as Lord Allen’s face turned a shade of puce.
“Do the Africans cut off their peoples’ heads with guillotines, as the French do?
Or make public spectacles of hanging them, as the English prefer?
” She tipped her head to one side and tapped one finger to her lips as both men stared at her in dumbfounded silence.
“It would take some doing to surpass the brutality of our own land, I imagine.”
Lord Allen seemed to be choking. “Yes, well, that is a very harsh view, Lady Courtenay. I beg your pardon, my ladies, but I must introduce Sir Richard to our other guests.” He forced a laugh. “He’s much in demand, you know!”
“Of course we know,” said Fanny tartly. “That’s why you invited him—to lure in the rest of us.”
Evangeline was fighting hard not to laugh at the men’s expressions, Lord Allen offended, Campion thoroughly nonplussed. She smiled at them. “That is quite true! And see how splendidly it has succeeded. Go forth and encourage people to donate generously, Sir Richard, for the children’s home.”
“I—” His disconcerted gaze jumped to Fanny, then back to Evangeline. “Naturally I will, madam.” His words were faintly clipped with an accent she hadn’t noticed before.
Because you could barely hear him over your own racketing pulse, ninny.
“Right, right!” Lord Allen shuffled sideways, as if he would break into a run at any moment. “This way, Campion.” And he all but dragged the explorer away.
Fanny watched them go. “The man was tongue-tied—almost an idiot. It seems unlikely his speech will be exciting.” She turned to Evangeline. “Hopefully he recovers his wits when he’s not staring at you.”
She snapped open her fan and tried to chase the blush from her face.
She could still feel her blood throbbing recklessly.
“I’ve been rendering people speechless for years.
Why should he be any different?” She gave a tiny huff.
“Allen likely put a flea in his ear about wicked women. He must have thought he’d encountered one in the wild tonight. ”
Fanny snorted. “If so, I think he’d like to make a closer study of the species. I may be old, my dear, but I am not blind.”
“You are not old,” Evangeline returned, “merely a busybody.”
Her friend laughed. “That’s a privilege of age. I never felt at liberty to speak my mind until I reached the age of forty.”
“And then it all came spilling out without subtlety or discretion.” She pointed her fan at her friend. “Do not start plotting to throw me together with Richard Campion.”
“Plotting.” Fanny snorted again. “As if I need to! He’ll do that himself, mark my words.”
Evangeline said nothing. The last man who had looked at her with such open interest, and elicited such a response in her, had been Court. Fortunately for her, this time she knew better than to fall for it.
The speakers surpassed Fanny’s dour predictions.
Mr. Cambridge, the geologist, spoke with enthusiasm and energy about his studies.
Lord Michael meandered a bit, talking rather a lot about the ancient Greeks and their study of the heavens, but Sir Richard lived up even to Fanny’s hopes, portraying himself as a modern Gulliver, visiting foreign lands where he was both humbled and honored, and speaking with a genuine reverence for all he’d seen.
“I never knew ordinary rocks could be so enervating,” said Fanny as the crowd applauded at the end. “But that Campion fellow was worth every farthing, even before he dances with you.”
Evangeline choked on a sip of champagne. “Fanny.”
“Don’t scold me,” murmured Fanny, her gaze fixed over Evangeline’s left shoulder. “I’m only giving you warning.”
Evangeline turned around and came face to face with the explorer, just as Fanny had said.
“Lady Courtenay.” He bowed. “I hope you remember me.”
“Of course.” She smiled brightly—too brightly, probably. “It’s not even been two hours since we met.”
“Indeed?” He smiled back. Her heart took an unwanted leap at the sight. His eyes crinkled and an endearing little dimple appeared in one cheek. He was, as Fanny had said, very handsome. Devastatingly so, to be honest. “It seemed much longer to me.”
“That must be a sad judgment on the company present.”
“Not at all.” His smile dimmed a degree, but his eyes never wavered from her. “It is entirely due to you.”
The nerve he had. She found it both alarming and exhilarating. “How so?”
“I could not stop thinking of what you said earlier. You were the only person to encourage me to solicit donations for the children. I entreated everyone with whom I spoke to make a generous donation to the cause—a foundling home, is it not?”
“Well done, sir,” she said in mild surprise. “The children deserve it.”
“Thank you for reminding me of them,” he went on. “It added greatly to my satisfaction with the evening to think of the unfortunate children who may be helped as a result of my speech. I confess that I do not always attend closely to the deeper purpose behind these evenings.”
Not many people did. There were some genuine patrons of charitable causes, but Evangeline would have guessed that most of the guests tonight had come for the entertainment.
They would donate fifty pounds for the benefit of the children, and then spend several times that at the wine merchant or the modiste.
“May I beg the pleasure of your hand in the next dance?” asked Sir Richard.
Evangeline looked at his extended hand, in its pristine glove. Fanny, the traitor, had managed to melt into the crowd and leave her alone with the man. “I don’t think that would be wise, sir.”
“No?” He lowered his voice. “Are you a dangerous creature?”
“Why, yes!” She pursed her lips in irritation, even though she’d meant to smile and laugh it off. “I am. I thought Lord Allen would have warned you.”
“I have scaled Mont Blanc and sailed around the Cape of Good Hope.” His dimple reappeared. “I am not afraid of a beautiful woman.”
She hesitated. Merciful God, he was attractive.
He met her gaze so directly. His eyes were such a startling blue because his face was tanned.
His hair was not blond, but brown, bleached by the sun.
At his collar, where it curled, she could see the darker color.
Most London gentlemen were as pale as the ladies.
This man was not a Londoner, though. He had climbed mountains and sailed oceans and ventured deep into uncharted territories.
If Fanny were right about him . . .
Perhaps she might not mind being studied more closely for one evening.
“Once,” she said, placing her hand in his.
“Only once?” He led her to join the formation of couples. Evangeline caught the startled glances of the fellow guests and dancers.
“We are not acquainted, sir.”
The smile he gave in reply was nothing short of wicked. “We shall become so, while dancing.”
She sighed and tried to look unmoved by his flirting even as it made her heart speed up. It had been a long time since a man flirted with her like this.
With some effort she concentrated on the dance.
It was a long country dance, where all the couples took their turns going up and down the set, which gave her plenty of opportunity to see the shocked expressions around her.
Evangeline had stopped caring what the matrons of society thought of her, but it still irked her that they couldn’t even allow her this one, eminently ordinary and respectable, dance without openly displaying their horror.
She told herself it must be envy, because Sir Richard was without doubt the most gorgeously virile man in the entire room.
Perhaps the entire country.
“What brought you to England?” she asked when the dance brought them together for a few moments.
“My sister,” he replied. “She married an Englishman and begged me to visit her here. She wished me to meet my young nephews.”
“How very devoted.”
He grinned. “She encourages me to attend events like this. It is her hope that I will become attached to English society and not wish to leave.”
“Don’t you wish to leave?” She smiled as she said it. “Of course you do. An explorer won’t discover much of interest in England.”
He gave her a searing look. “I would not say that.”
The dance sent them separate ways. Evangeline caught Fanny smiling smugly at her, and it took real effort to keep from glaring back at her friend.
She went through the motions of the dance, newly aware of the curdling glances sent her way by every other woman in the set.
That wasn’t right. She hadn’t done anything remotely scandalous tonight.
When she was back by her partner’s side, she tried to talk of mundane things. “Your presentation was well-received,” she told him.
“Was it?” He smiled faintly. “It seems my travels are the most interesting thing about me.” He lifted one shoulder in an almost Gallic shrug.
I doubt very much that’s true. Evangeline’s pace slowed as her interest grew. “You must know they are fascinating, especially to the British who have felt penned in by wars these last several years.”
“Then they should go where the wars are not. Do you find my travels fascinating?”
“Yes,” she said before she could remember to be more sophisticated and disinterested. “Very.”