Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
He was, without a doubt, the most irritating man Elizabeth Roy had ever seen.
“There—there, you see him?” She hissed, nudging her companion.
Sir George Northmere rubbed his arm. “That will leave a mark, you know.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes as the footman offered her another glass of wine. She refused; the last thing she needed at a card party with guests like this rabble was to imbibe another glass of wine.
After all, she had been promised by Lady Jarrold that this was be an elegant end to the Season, and look at it!
Cads and rakes in abundance. It was fortunate indeed she had requested that her family friend, Sir George, could also be invited to chaperone her. Else she would be entirely at the mercy of these blaggards…
“It will not leave a mark,” she said under her breath, eyes still fixed on the gentleman she was referring to across Lady Jarrold’s drawing room. “There, him!”
“You know how easily I bruise, it was most unladylike of you to—”
“George!” Elizabeth kissed.
Her friend rolled his eyes. “You see scandal everywhere, Betsy, you really shouldn’t take on so.”
It was difficult not to bristle a little at her companion’s words. After all, Betsy thought darkly, she was not the one who would lose her reputation if there was even a hint of scandal around her.
Gentlemen could always get away with these things, but ladies—ladies had to be spotless. Any suggestion of a scandal and it would be impossible to get invited to the best balls next Season—something she desperately wished.
It was not as though either of her parents were alive to help her into the best circles…
George was still rubbing at his arm. “You know, all you have to do to gain my attention is—”
“Here he comes again!” Betsy stepped behind her friend, grateful for his tall frame, as the equally tall and remarkably more handsome stranger who had arrived but ten minutes ago wandered past them.
There was a teasing smile on his face that she most certainly did not like.
Well, really! What did the man think he was playing at, wearing such a ridiculous outfit, all greens and blues and brass buttons!
Why, there was some sort of medal on the front of his coat, the cheek of it!
Betsy would not call herself a woman of the world—far from it, she had to keep her reputation absolutely spotless if she was to ever make a good match—but she was worldly enough to know that only gentlemen who had fought bravely deserved to wear such medals.
And that cock of the walk was walking around Lady Jarrold’s card party wearing not one, but three of them!
“I don’t know why you have taken against him so,” said George, still evidently smarting at the way she had nudged him. “It is not as though he has said anything to you.”
Betsy sniffed, and elegantly checked that her hair was still pinned in place, along with the pink rose she had chosen earlier that afternoon to match her stunningly pink gown.
“It is not what he said,” she murmured under her breath, her eyes not leaving the gentleman who kept glancing over at her, her hand nervously moving to her diamond earbob, as though afraid he would attempt to steal it. “It is how he looked at me.”
She had expected George to understand; after all, he was from a gentry family, a noble family, really, and had spent far more time than she within Society. He knew the power of a look, the danger that it could hold for a lady who was not yet ready for Society.
He knew the way gossip could spread.
But the most disobliging man laughed. He laughed! “Betsy, you cannot blame a man for looking!”
“You’re not looking,” she pointed out.
He made a face at that remark. “Not at you, we’ve known each other far too long. But other ladies…”
Betsy raised her eyes to high heaven and wished that gentlemen were a little more interesting, a little more discerning in the way they approached the world.
Well, really! were they all the same? Only interested in one thing, and that was not matrimony, she thought with cheeks pinking with heat. It was outrageous. Scandalous!
Besides, there was supposed to be a prince here tonight. She had not quite believed it, but Lady Jarrold had been most insistent that she had invited a prince, and a prince would attend.
Ever since her daughter had married an Archduke, it had gone right to her head.
Still, Betsy had never seen a prince before, at least not up close, and it would be rather splendid to see one. As long as that tall gentleman could leave her alone long enough, he was giving her looks that were most scandalous, and she was going to avoid scandal like the—
“Good evening,” said a new voice. “I do not believe we have been introduced, and I would greatly like to be.”
Betsy started. so lost in her thoughts, she had entirely lost track of the gentleman in the ridiculous coat and medals, who was rather disobligingly standing before her.
And George was nowhere to be seen.
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Betsy had intended to put as much coolness into her words, a delicate way of warning the gentleman—if he could be called that, he looked like a rake to her—that she had absolutely no interest in speaking to him.
After all, there were far more interesting gentlemen in attendance at Lady Jarrold’s tonight. The Marquis of Dewsbury, Viscount Paendly, the Count of Stratham…
“I said, good evening,” said the gentleman, his smile widening. “And I think you heard me, Lady Elizabeth.”
Betsy felt the flames sear her cheeks but there was absolutely nothing she could do about them. that was the problem, wasn’t it, with being a woman who blushed so quickly one could see her from a mile off if a gentleman said something untoward to her.
And this man!
She looked at him properly for the first time, now that George had so callously abandoned her to her fate.
He was tall, and he was handsome. His sharp jawline only seemed to sharpen whenever he smiled, which appeared to be often, but there was no getting around those medals. There was something strange about his voice too; his accent. It was not English. It was not even British.
So who was he?
“We have not been introduced,” Betsy said coldly, setting her gaze just beyond his left shoulder, to demonstrate quite clearly that it was not possible for them to converse.
The gentleman grinned. “Well, that is easily remedied. I am Rupert—”
“I have no wish for you to introduce yourself!” Betsy blustered.
The idea! The uncouth scoundrel clearly had no idea what polite society dictated for its members, which only increased her suspicion that he had bought those medals from some poor unsuspecting soul who desperately needed the money.
Betsy glanced about the room, desperate to be rescued by someone, anyone—but George had completely disappeared. He had spoken earlier of an assignation, a meeting he was going to make with a courtesan. She had assumed he was joking.
Her stomach twisted most painfully. He had not actually left, had he? Surely not; he would not abandon her when he was supposed to be chaperoning her!
The gentleman grinned. “Lady Elizabeth, I have greatly wished to speak with you all evening.”
“Oh, really?” she snapped, pushed beyond endurance. The cheek of the man! “And why is that?”
“Because I always wish to make myself known to the most beautiful woman in the room,” came the suave reply.
Betsy sighed and rolled her eyes. Really, why did gentlemen think it was so easy to impress a lady? These pattering words that trip off the tongue so easily, why did they think she would be so easily impressed?
Could they not see that she was in the market not for flattery, but for a husband?
“Go away.”
Rupert, or whatever his name was, laughed. It was a quiet laugh, one that suggested great intimacy, and Betsy found her cheeks were flushing again.
Why, anyone looking over at them would think they were having a private conversation, a scandalous thing indeed when they had not been formally introduced! What was the man playing at?
“I will not go away,” he said in a low, teasing voice. “Lady Elizabeth, you enchant me. Tell me all your secrets, and all your desires.”
“Tell you my—how dare you, sir!” Betsy hissed, finally looking at him properly for the first time and finding to her distraction that he was even closer than she had imagined.
The dratted man was only about a foot away from her. At any moment, he could reach out and—
“How dare I? I am made bold by your beauty, all hesitation torn from her heart as the heat of—”
“Sir!” Betsy glared at the man, but his teasing did not appear to have been abated.
If anything, quite the opposite. She could see the desire in his eyes, see the way he looked at her as though he was gently peeling her favourite pink gown from her shoulders.
Betsy swallowed, her heart racing so quickly it threatened to be audible to the damned man. This was intolerable; she would never find a good match if she was to be so accosted by a ruffian like this Rupert!
Time to put this to an end.
“Come with me,” she said shortly.
“Come with—”
Betsy did not permit him the grace of a reply.
Grabbing his arm and pulling him towards a door, she tried desperately to ignore the stares of the other guests and consoled herself with the knowledge that within a few minutes, she would return to Lady Jarrold’s drawing room, without the dratted Rupert, and be ready to be introduced to eligible, handsome, and charming gentlemen.
But first, to get rid of this fool.
Rupert could not have planned it better himself.
Why, even if he had hours and hours to think about it, to plan, to consider ways to make the beautiful brunette who seemed perfectly happy to glower at everyone who walked passed her smile at him, he could never have imagined something as perfect as this.
The library door slammed behind Lady Elizabeth and she leaned against it, glaring at him.
“Now what is your game here, man?”