Prologue
“No, Lindhorst,” Lady Neda Loughton said, replying to his murmured suggestion. “You will cease.”
His hand at her waist, the other holding her hand… She took in a breath and ignored the creeping intimacy, willing away the feelings threatening to overtake her.
It was only a dance, she reminded herself, one in a series over the past few weeks of this season with this same persistent man. She straightened to her full height in a way that seemed to amuse him, though she had to lift her chin to see his lips quivering.
Egad, he was handsome, no quibbling there. Silvery strands laced through his ebony hair, his fashionable coat clung to muscled shoulders and arms, and his breeches—
She mentally flogged herself. Orson Sommerton, seventh earl of Lindhorst was physically a fine—very fine—specimen of British nobility.
With the usual inflated sense of entitlement, especially when he was after a lady. He’d been a regular on the society circuit for the last several years, charming, affable, and said to be always in pursuit of the latest widow.
This year, she was the rumored prey, and it must be true, given his actions. The next thing she would learn is that she was a line in the betting book at White’s. Again.
Insufferable men. It had happened before at various times in her long marriage, and she’d weathered the whispers and in fact had never truly been tempted.
Until now.
“A ride in the park?” he asked, spinning her into a turn that left her gasping. “I’ll wager you would enjoy yourself.”
“No.” She caught her breath. “I’m far too busy with—”
“I’ll bring the barouche. Your daughter may come along and chaperone us.”
That last came with a boyish grin meant to melt the resistance of his quarry.
Like the rest of the ton, Lindhorst knew that, after more than a year of mourning, she’d come to London for her youngest daughter Nancy’s first season.
“I had rather she be seen riding in the park with a respectable admirer.”
“Ah. Not her mama’s admirer, not a bounder like me.” He hitched her a half-inch closer. “You, on the other hand, my dearest lady, being a widow, and a respectable one, might find that your goodness reforms my badness.”
Oh, oh, oh. If only he knew.
She had been good, all the years of her marriage. It hadn’t always been easy though. She liked society—the routs, the parties, the dancing. And the gentlemen had liked her. “I fear it will take more than my so-called goodness.”
No matter how attractive, desirable, and altogether virile he might be—was, no might be about it!—Lindhorst had much to answer for. His badness, as he jokingly called it, had caused her many sleepless nights a few years earlier. He unfortunately lacked the self-awareness to suspect it.
She’d like to take a switch to him, but the mere threat of that might entice him.
Since her husband Henry’s death, Lindhorst had been making his interest known—inquiring about her with friends, and acquaintances, and even her son, George. Heavens, Lindhorst had promised support for the railway bill George was trying to see approved by Parliament.
From the distance of Loughton Manor in Leicestershire, the whispers were easily dismissed. When she arrived at the London townhouse though, so did Lindhorst’s first bouquet of flowers.
He’d made it clear what he wanted. She was a widow, fair game by the standards of his sort of gentlemen—gentlemen like his father, whose reputation had been far darker. And what Lindhorst offered? He’d wager she’d enjoy it, he’d said. She feared he might be right.
No, as much as Lindhorst made her pulse quicken, after bearing ten children she’d planned for a measure of… rest from all of that.
It was a lonely sort of rest, to be sure, but hadn’t she had months at a time of loneliness when Henry was in London helping to steer the country through years of war and the after-effects of war, as well as looking after his investments?
Once her two youngest, boys of twelve and fourteen, were grown, she’d decide what to do with the rest of her life.
* * *
Lindhorst saw the flash of annoyance on Lady Loughton’s face turn into a faraway look that perhaps signaled a glimmer of grief. That wouldn’t do.
“Perhaps you might, nevertheless, make the attempt at reforming me,” he said, and was gratified to see her lovely blue eyes spark with ire.
He’d come along to this ball solely because the dazzling, but very proper dowager Lady Loughton would be in attendance.
She was bringing out her youngest daughter, a tall, somewhat awkward lady of nineteen.
Like the other young girls, Nancy Lovelace would be putting herself forward for marriage to a lord, young or old, single or like himself, widowed.
Any lord might do for most girls; he imagined Lady Neda would be picky about who plucked one of her chicks.
He’d had a young bride like that once, all blooming beauty and smiling amiability and look how that had turned out. He had no interest in Nancy; it was her mother who held his regard, had done so for several hopeless years when she’d brought her brood up to town to join her husband.
Her eldest, Fitz, had introduced them. Lindhorst had been in his reckless years then. He’d found her cheerful and welcoming—to everyone else. With him, she’d been reserved and polite, a reaction that intrigued and challenged him.
She was the sort of steadfast wife who’d given the late Lord Loughton six healthy sons and four healthy daughters of indisputable pedigree. Pursuing her then had been impossible; despite rumors to the contrary, he didn’t poach other men’s wives.
Had she come to town after Loughton was felled unexpectedly by a fever, he might have approached her.
But she’d remained in the country with family.
Fitz’s first wife, Alice, had died, and Fitz had remarried a less fashionable lady and distanced himself from old acquaintances.
There’d been no particular excuse to descend upon Neda at her home in Leicestershire.
Besides, if he’d followed that yearning to appear at her door and invite her to form an arrangement, one of her sons would have called him out.
Things were different now though. Word had come from France that his own estranged wife had died. He’d long ago grieved the demise of their marriage, and the relief that he was free of the legal bonds had been, frankly, immeasurable.
During several months of mourning that his late wife in no way merited, he’d had time to think. Time to reconsider what a lady of true grace and true honor really deserved. Time to wonder what Lady Loughton might want for herself, for her life?
Might he convince her to want him? He had an insatiable itch to know. And to try.
The dance ended and Lindhorst lifted the delectable lady’s hand and pressed his lips to the top of her glove.
“I am determined, you know,” he said. “Someday—”
“No.” Her expression was mild—certainly for the benefit of the onlookers, not himself—and her voice, when she spoke, was a soft, cordial murmur. “Speaking plainly, it will be a cold day in hell, Lindhorst, before you get me into your bed.”
Stunned, he watched her take the arm of her next partner, the color rising in her cheeks.
The lady knew to hide her feelings from the ton, but still… there’d been a sparkle in her eyes, a quiver in her hand when he kissed it, and that color rising in her cheeks. She wasn’t unaffected.
He was approaching fifty and age had taught him to be patient. She wasn’t likely to begin a liaison with someone else, and he wasn’t one to give up easily.
“Having any luck there, Lindhorst?”
The rumbling question was laced with humor and brandy-breath. Elliot Pickworth, eldest son of Baron Pickworth, was a friend from the wild days. He’d leaned too closely and spoken too loudly in this crowded ballroom.
“Luck? I haven’t made my way to the card room yet.” Lindhorst ushered the fellow toward the balcony door and to the balustrade. The night was bracingly cool and there was no one outside.
“Ah.” A chuckle followed. “It’s in the betting book at White’s, you know.”
It would be, of course. The fribbles had always gambled on Lindhorst’s conquests, not that there’d been all that many.
Lindhorst brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve. “And who inscribed the offending bet? Do tell me so I may direct Fitz’s challenge to the proper party.”
Lady Loughton’s eldest would be appalled. Might even call him out, though apparently Fitz’s current happy marriage had mellowed his tendency to jump into a fight.
“Harmless fun,” Pickworth said. “My wager’s on the lady. She won’t have you. Cold as ice—though bearing ten brats, one has to wonder…”
He paused, glanced around the empty balcony and then down at the low balustrade into the darkness below. The dolt.
“Sorry,” Pickworth said. “I see the look in your eye. I’m brandy-bitten tonight. No need to throw me over into the garden.”
“No,” Lindhorst said. “We’ll save that for another day.”