Chapter Three
From across the stifling ballroom, Rafe watched the dark-haired woman dressed in ivory, from the ribbons and brilliants woven into her complicated coiffeur to the elegant lace and beadwork of her outrageously expensive gown, right down to the dainty slippers that peeked out from beneath her skirts when she danced with partner after partner after partner.
He jabbed an elbow into the tall blond man beside him and lifted his chin in the woman’s direction.
“That is her—the American heiress.”
Simon Stratford, Rafe’s oldest and closest friend, despite their wildly different personalities, followed his gaze. “And?”
Rafe stifled a sigh. He cherished Simon like a brother, but sometimes he was a bit difficult to converse with.
They’d formed a bond all the way back at Eton when Rafe had been naught more than a scrappy lad with a chip on his shoulder who couldn’t stand by as Simon was tortured for no reason other than he was a bit different.
The second son of the Earl of Aldborough had always been a bit too in love with his books, spoke too often about mathematics, and took little interest in the things other boys their age deemed most important.
In the decades since Rafe had saved him from a cruel beating, their friendship had stuck.
Though he didn’t always understand Simon’s idiosyncrasies and Simon couldn’t comprehend Rafe’s free, rakish lifestyle, they’d made it work.
Simon’s wife, on the other hand, had made things a bit difficult as of late.
Odette (along with most of London) believed Rafe to be a poor influence.
To be honest, it was probably truer than not.
He hadn’t garnered his reputation as an irreverent rakehell by chance.
However, Rafe was the reason Simon had been at the theater the night he’d met Odette!
They had him to thank for their wedded bliss—did that count for nothing?
Couldn’t her gratitude over that help her overlook the fact that he’d called off his affair with one of her old friends from the theater business?
That had been a few months and at least five paramours ago, and still Odette was chilly around him.
The fact that Odette was friends with the brokenhearted girl was regrettable, but Rafe had been nothing if not upfront about what he wanted from their liaison.
It had never been malicious. Any of his interactions with the fairer sex were intended to be temporary and nothing more.
If a woman built it up in her head that she’d be the one to make him turn over a new leaf, then, as far as Rafe was concerned, that was on her.
Simon’s wife ended her conversation with another guest and saw where the men were looking. “The American?” she asked, easily interpreting the situation after a few years of practice. Rafe felt her eyes narrow on him. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on trying to make her your latest conquest?”
Rafe turned to Odette. Shorter than her husband by more than a head and elegantly curvaceous, she presented a lovely juxtaposition to all of Simon’s harsh angles and inelegant manners.
“What? You don’t think I’ll be able to?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, intentionally trying to earn a reaction from Odette.
She scoffed. “Of course not. I spent quite a bit of time speaking to her at Lady Morton’s supper the other night—you were not invited to that dinner, were you?
” Rafe missed the days when Odette had been much quieter and less confident in her barbs.
“Miss Rockford seems quite self-sure and bright. If she can run the gauntlet of all these money-hungry men of the ton, then I don’t think she’ll find your brand of charm very moving.
Besides, Lady Morton will be quite put out if you break Miss Rockford’s heart; she likes her.
She’s even invited her to the Reading Society, and you know the duchess does not extend that privilege to just anyone. ”
Simon caught Rafe’s eye over his wife’s head.
His oldest friend was the only one who had an inkling of Rafe’s dire financial straits, and that was only because he’d known him for so long.
Simon had witnessed the old viscount’s neglect of his only son and watched Rafe’s childhood home slowly deteriorate into shambles from apathy and neglect.
He was aware of how difficult it had been for Rafe’s sister, Alice, to make a decent marriage with a humiliatingly paltry dowry.
It didn’t take a person with Simon’s brilliant intellect to deduce that an obscenely wealthy heiress was just the woman Rafe needed, and the one most likely to entice him to seek something more than a temporary arrangement.
“That sounds like an irresistible challenge to me.”
With that, Rafe excused himself from their little group without waiting for Odette’s retort and made direct progress toward the American heiress who had so consumed the tabloids as of late.
Rafe had spent the weeks since her arrival scouring the papers and gossip rags for any tidbits of substance about her—anything that might help ingratiate him with her.
Unfortunately, those sources were predictably shallow.
He may have learned that she was fashionable and looked quite lovely in the indigo blue frock she wore on a shopping excursion, and that she’d been in the company of quite a few notable members of the ton.
However, it seemed she hadn’t yet been connected with any man in particular, which left Rafe just the opening he needed.
A group of men currently surrounded Miss Rockford—each offering to bring her a drink, begging another dance, complimenting her on her otherworldly beauty with flourishing odes—none of them a threat to Rafe.
It was no task for him to insert himself into the group, but it was another for him to set himself apart from the rest of the money-hungry men surrounding her.
And he knew precisely how to accomplish it: He would be nothing like them.
These men made their interest known. They all but threw themselves at her feet and begged her to look their way.
They did nothing to mask their intent or interest; they desired only the opportunity to lay claim to her for the novelty of it, or for the undeniable draw of her fortune.
Thinking of his wards asleep at home, Rafe knew no other man in London was more motivated than he.
He performed a quick scan of the men’s familiar faces and knew instantly that none of them possessed his confidence or skill.
He might have had some competition if the Marquesses of Kempton or Swanleigh were in the group; however, the former was escorting his current mistress to another function, and the latter was still in the deliriously happy early months of his marriage to their mutual friend, Caroline.
While they may have had titles, the men encircling Miss Rockford were sorely lacking in the proper panache, gusto, and creativity.
Rafe suspected not one of them possessed more of any of those things than Rafe did in his smallest finger.
No. Compared to them, a little boldness would go a long way, and, judging from the slight pinch between Miss Rockford’s dark, elegant brows, she wouldn’t mind a reprieve from the gulls pecking at her from all sides.
“Miss Rockford,” Rafe interjected, smoothly slipping between two of her admirers during a brief lull in conversation and holding his gloved hand out to her. “If you’ll excuse the interruption, your presence is requested by the refreshment table.”
Her rich hazel eyes assessed his outstretched hand, running up his arm to land on his face.
He was startled to realize that she was more than passably pretty at this distance.
Her irises were a unique blending of shades of green and brown, framed by long, kohl-black lashes.
The bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks were splashed with faint constellations of freckles, and he found he admired the fact that she hadn’t attempted to mask them with powder as so many women of his acquaintance would have.
He’d objectively admired her figure from afar, but now he could fully appreciate the contrast of her hair—so dark a brown as to be nearly black—to the healthy blush of her skin.
She was willowy, but not frail in the least; in fact, he suspected she’d outpace half the men in their circle in a footrace.
Her breasts were small and high—nothing extraordinary, but, while Rafe appreciated a good set of tits, he far preferred the curves hidden beneath a woman’s skirts. He would delight in exploring her.
In all, the woman wasn’t a great beauty of ballads and epics, but, taken as a whole, her features made her stand out as uniquely attractive. Pleasing to the eye.
“And you are?” she said, her wide lips parting skeptically to reveal a very slight—unexpectedly charming—overlap of her white front teeth.
“Rafael Hart, Viscount Blackwood, at your service,” he replied, a tilt to his head.
The amused gleam in her eyes told him she was well aware of the unconventional way he’d approached her, rather than wait for a mutual acquaintance to perform the introduction.
But would she have the guts to take his hand and the escape he offered her?
Would she rather alight with him, the newcomer, or remain in the cloying safety of the group of admirers?
“Our hostess is a friend of the family, and I was asked to retrieve you.”
Another heartbeat passed before she placed her hand in his. Rafe ignored the zing he felt when pulling her hand into the crook of his arm as he extricated her from the frustrated glares of men left in their wake.
“I am no fool,” Miss Rockford murmured to him as she politely returned another guest’s smile.
“I do not believe you are,” Rafe replied lightly, and she shot him a sidelong glance.
“Then why?” She didn’t need to elaborate.