Chapter 14
Beneath the glittering chandeliers of Lady Culpepper’s townhouse, the ton preened and paraded in all its usual finery, like peacocks in an aviary.
Charlotte Tolliver stood at the edge of the ballroom, swathed in the infamous green silk, which pinched and itched and made her look seasick.
She was furious. Not wounded or ashamed or chastened, but furious. How dare her family fling Marchmont’s name at her like mud?
She smiled anyway, sweetly and perfectly, as if she had not been shrieked at that morning by a mother on the verge of theatrical collapse or snarled at by a brother reeking of brandy and hypocrisy.
And as if she had not been reminded, once again, of her great scandal, and of how fortunate she was to still have a place in drawing rooms such as this one.
Lord Marston, that damp towel, stood ten feet away, speaking of his new monocle with animation. His stubby, pale hands, folded over his waistcoat, made her shiver in disgust.
They were nothing like Jasper Deverell’s hands.
It was just as well that she had the most inappropriate memory to distract her from the many unwelcome feelings of that evening—namely, the memory of Deverell’s most masculine fingers between her thighs, curling inside her until her toes curled in her boots.
Heat swept through her so swiftly that she nearly laughed.
It was gloriously absurd—that she stood arranged for public redemption in the ugliest gown ever to disgrace a ballroom, while her body remembered, in exquisite detail, what it felt like to be neither managed nor corrected nor fooled, but desired.
Lottie snapped open her fan.
Propriety could go hang. She was tired of standing always at the edge of scandal, shivering in the draught, while everyone congratulated themselves on having dragged her back from the threshold.
If she was already to be treated as half-ruined, she ought to make a whole business of it.
Why not finish the job? A well-timed ruin might be more tolerable than this endless, suffocating restraint.
Across the room, beneath the glow of a dozen candelabra, Jasper Deverell stood conversing with Miss Artemisia Pomeroy.
Miss Pomeroy, now well into her third Season and wearing the fixed expression of a woman who had planned on a dukedom and found herself instead making small talk to lesser gentlemen, was nodding with pointed attentiveness.
Her gown—pale rose satin with far too many bows—clung to her in all the places Society approved, none of which interested Lottie in the least.
Jasper, for his part, looked—as he so often did—exceedingly handsome and exceedingly bored.
Their eyes met across the space, and he did not smile, but neither did Lottie.
She wanted to smile, of course, and to raise one brow just so, in the manner that would make him abandon his conversation mid-sentence and provoke from him some impetuous remark that would draw the attention of every old lady within earshot—but instead, she watched him, waiting for him to make the first move.
When the musicians struck up the next set, a low and lilting waltz, he did.
He crossed the ballroom like a man compelled, Miss Pomeroy altogether forgotten.
There was a distinct purpose in his stride, and Lottie’s pulse had the audacity to rise with every inch he gained.
When he at last reached her, he bowed low, and when he straightened, his eyes held hers with that familiar glint.
“Miss Tolliver,” he said, as though nothing at all had occurred that very morning at the old hunting lodge. “May I have the honour?”
She placed her gloved hand in his. What a fiend he was. “You may.”
And then they were waltzing.
For several measures, neither of them spoke. Lottie lifted her eyes to his and found that he was not smiling at her, not precisely, but studying her face with an attention that made the silk at her ribs feel tighter.
“You look,” he said quietly, “terrible.”
Lottie raised a brow. “Thank you, sir.”
“Your face is as beautiful as ever,” he corrected, “but I must ask who is responsible for that gown.”
“My mother, of course.”
“It is a crime.”
She laughed, for the first time since that morning. “I am told it is for my improvement.”
“And are you improved?”
She turned her head ever so slightly as they swept past an observing dowager and smiled with such sweetness that the woman returned a nod of warm approval.
“Entirely. I have bathed, dressed, prayed for forgiveness, and submitted myself for public inspection. By midnight, I expect to be almost unrecognisable.”
“I think I should recognise you anywhere, Miss Tolliver.”
Lottie’s smile faltered by the smallest degree—not for any tender declaration, for she had no patience for such nonsense, but because, after a day spent being scolded, arranged, warned, and improved, there was something almost unbearable in being recognised without being corrected.
“Though I confess,” he added, “I preferred your earlier state of unrepentance.”
Across the room, Lottie caught her mother’s hawkish eye fixed upon them. “Careful, Mr Deverell. We are surrounded by lace fans and listening ears.”
“Indeed,” he said, guiding her neatly through the turn. “Which is why I am resolved to speak with all the propriety of a Sunday sermon.”
“A sermon would be a novelty from you.”
“A good sermon contains temptation, punishment, and the hope of redemption. I am very qualified.”
The music swelled about them, violins rising in bright phrases as the couples turned beneath the chandeliers.
Jasper’s steps were exact and his hold perfectly correct; only the growing recklessness in his eyes suggested that propriety, like her green silk, was a garment he wore under protest. “We must speak of tomorrow’s engagement.”
She gave a sigh that was very nearly a purr. “Oh, yes. Fencing.”
“Sabres,” he confirmed. “The only proper blade for a lady who intends to draw blood.”
“And you are quite certain you shall not weep when I disarm you before whichever unlucky footman is bribed to keep watch?”
“If you manage to disarm me,” he said, with a look that did wicked things to the pit of her stomach, “I shall very likely beg you to do it again.”
She laughed softly, breathless from more than the dance.
They turned again, the polished floor gliding beneath her slippers. She was achingly aware of the closeness of his mouth to her temple, of the warmth of his breath, and of the way their breathing had begun, quite without permission, to fall into the same measure as the violins. “Time and place?”
“Midday,” he said. “The picture gallery at Westvale House. Presently unoccupied. Lady Catherine is at Bath, and her son owes me a favour.”
“How convenient.” She tilted her head. “And how, pray, am I to elude the watchful Tolliver eye?”
He leant nearer as the figure turned them from her mother’s view, his breath grazing the edge of her ear. “You will develop a headache. A feminine one. Acute and requiring immediate solitude.”
“How fragile of me.”
“Utterly. One scarcely knows how you remain upright.”
She glanced up at him, her cheeks flushed from motion and something far less respectable. The music began its final ascent, strings climbing towards the last flourish.
Jasper guided her into the closing turn with exquisite precision, and when the waltz ended, he held her one fraction too long, his hand pressed firm at the small of her back. “Do wear something,” he murmured at her ear, “you do not mind ruining.”
He bowed and withdrew into the crowd, leaving Lottie standing beneath Lady Culpepper’s chandeliers in her hideous green gown, her pulse misbehaving and her mother’s gaze boring into her.