Chapter Three
Halsey House
Mayfair, London
“Do you like this one?” Halsey’s youngest sister, twenty-year-old Felicia, twirled before him in her newest ball gown.
It was Fee’s habit to show him all her wardrobe for each Season.
She’d had two of them already. This was her third, and it was no secret that she was fussy.
About her clothing and men. Both, Halsey thought, were a good thing.
He sat in his favorite chair in the library and made a motion with his right hand for her to whirl around once more. He hated it. The color, the risqué cut of the neckline. “It’s fine, but not—”
“Well, drat.” She tipped up her nose, insulted. “But what?”
“The pink washes you out.”
“But it’s the rage. In Paris, it is said a ‘rouge of pink roses’ is the color every woman must have.”
“Do not believe everything you hear. I know the fabric is from Lucca’s precious silkworms. But it’s not a must-have for you, dearest. Your black hair and violet eyes demand a vibrant color.
” His reverie stopped his train of thought.
The lady pianist in Boulogne came to him, night or day, odd hour after odd hour.
The vision of her in profile, the vibrant burnt orange of her gown, blazed in his mind.
Even that lady’s figure had set his heart on fire.
She shimmered in his memory like a spirit of the past.
What had happened to her? Before he had left France, Corsini had learned nothing of her fate.
Yet Halsey continued to see her. God help him, he even heard her at the piano.
The Beethoven sonata was branded in his brain, but he could not listen to it in its entirety.
He would leave wherever he was. To stay to hear the piece to the end would be a disservice to her, as if to hear it conclude meant it could without her touch… and she could die.
Only Inès Bechard’s dark-bronze silk dinner gown and generous breasts were a rival to that memory.
In fact, Mademoiselle Bechard had become his latest preoccupation, taking up far too much time in his head at the oddest hours.
He’d not seen her since the Carlisles’ dinner party, but he was hopeful of her appearance here Friday.
If not, he could wait for the day. After all, he still had her red garter to twine about his finger.
His body reacted to the idea he might one day curl his fingers around her legs… and her legs around his…
He had to stop this focus on a woman with whom he had shared minutes!
He winked at his sister and pointed to the gown. “Please do not ever wear this, sweetheart.”
She flounced about, her skirts up, her hands full of the hideous gray-pink silk. “Is it that awful?”
“It makes you look like a pot of stewed rhubarb.”
The girl, one of the prettiest diamonds of this or any Season, flapped her arms at her sides in despair. “What am I to do? I insisted on it. Mama hated it, too, and now I am”—she crinkled her nose—“rhubarb.”
“Send it back to the modiste. Tell her I hated the fabric.” He knew the dressmaker very well.
He and she had enjoyed two weeks together last autumn, and when he broke it off, he gave her enough money in gratitude to refurbish her showroom.
The woman had been an enthusiastic bed partner, but she’d haggled over his “donation” like a dog with a bone.
“She will understand. Why not suggest she offer it as a finished piece to some poor girl who needs a dress quickly?”
Fee frowned. “I fear Madame Suzette is mercenary.”
He cocked a brow. His sister could tell a charlatan a mile away. “She may well be.” That gown won’t be the first thing for which she’s bilked me. “Take it back. Do it. No man will look at you in that.”
She took a big breath, regret in her pretty purple eyes. “Perhaps a man should look beyond the ribbons and bows.”
He nailed her with his gaze. “Smart men do.”
“I’d like one of those.”
“I’d like one of those for you. The best sort.” God knows, not all your sisters chose a man with brains. “But if you wear that, my fetching sister, no one will ask you to dance. I thought that was your major complaint for your friend there, what is her name? Jezebel?”
“Evan! You know it’s Jasmine.”
“Yes, I do know.” The girl was a jungle cat clawing at any man who was polite to her and deigned to sign her dance card.
“You pressed me to take her to the floor to make her evening. I did. Now”—he waved a hand at her funereal pink gown with the very low décolletage—”you might even give that to her.
It will improve her chances. I guarantee it. ”
She plunked her hands on her hips. “Because of the color?”
He tipped his head. “Well…”
“The bodice!”
He mashed his lips together.
“I knew it! Jasmine can show her ‘glorious globes,’ but I can’t?”
“Wherever did you get ‘glorious you-know-whats’? Never mind. I do not want to learn. But Jezebel needs help to find her man. You know it. I do too.”
Fee lowered her head, her gaze hot with rebuke and laughter. “A bit of skin is her game, eh? What do you want to wager?”
“Ten quid.” This youngest sister was a card sharp.
“Sure of yourself, aren’t you, brother?”
He pushed his glasses down over his nose and peered at her.
She huffed. “Very well! Ten it is.”
He went back to his recent notes from the prime minister.
“Will you attend tonight’s ball at the Chelmsfords’?”
“I am debating it. I’m tired. That garden party yesterday and dinner party at the Carlisles’ two nights ago. I have work to do as well, you know. The prime minister relies on me. I am not just a pretty face.”
“Gah! You are too handsome, Ev. Click your fingers and the ladies come.”
He grew concerned that Fee knew this, lest it indicate he thought poorly of women in general.
Shielding his intimate activities from his loving mother and five smart sisters had been his perennial task for many years.
Lately, what with his current restraint, it was a relief not to have to be on point about it.
Still, the past was often a concern. “Who told you that?”
“Society. And I did not have to ask. I merely watch and listen. You are, my dear brother, desired.” She waggled her brows.
“I am not in the Marriage Mart.”
“You should be.”
He let fall his papers into his lap and focused on her. “Why is that?”
“You get older.” She craned her neck to peer at the top of his head. “Do you have any gray hairs?”
“I do not!”
“Plus, you need an heir. We don’t want you so advanced in age that you cannot get one.”
“Never worry, pet. I can get one.”
“Not without a legitimate mate.”
He grumbled and picked up his papers. “Go away.”
He sensed her moving slowly toward the door. “I understand that the French lady you met in the Carlisles’ garden will attend.”
His gaze stuck on the last word he’d read. “Is that so?” He had tried for nonchalance, but doubted he’d hit the right note. “How do you know I met, as you call her, the French lady?”
“Cora Enderly saw you with her. So did Annette Williams. They said you touched her.”
I did. A mistake. But an electrifying one.
“Her chin, no less.” Fee gave him a little twitch of her brows. “I will make a point to meet her. She is to come with the Ashleys Friday. That is, if Lady Ashley will leave her new baby for an hour. But I want to know, brother, will you touch the lovely mademoiselle again?”
I should not. She feels like mystery and raw intrigue. “You are too crafty with your speech, dearest.”
“Good. Tell me if you will touch her.”
He sighed. “No. I was rash to do so. But she is beautiful.” Beyond ordinary beauty.
With all that golden-blonde hair and umber eyes.
“Tall for a lady,” was the best he could manage, because his mind was a fog of her heady perfume and his body had strong reactions to the memory of her perfect complexion.
But he regretted the touches, no matter how he’d reveled in them at the time.
For she was unmoved. In fact, she had completely rejected his advance.
“She has a good figure, too, eh?”
“Fee, what are you trying to say?” He was not sure he liked it.
She shrugged. “Mama has told me all about the joys of a good marriage.”
“Of course she has.” His mother believed in preparing all her six children for mating, even applauding their appetites for love and affection.
Occasionally, she had sold her ideas too strongly and reality had not always borne out the fantasy.
His eldest sister, thirty-year-old Antoinette, had married for passion, birthed three sons, and now coped with a husband who spent his time at his club.
Younger sister number four, Angelika, age twenty-three, had married three years ago for love and now saw it falling apart.
They argued constantly. Halsey’s Angel was in a tither and knew not why her husband was so unhappy with her.
For this youngest sister, Halsey wanted the perfect match.
A man to worship her wit and feisty nature, her lovely violet eyes and glistening black hair.
So to help her find one, he would not limit her to any Season or any expense.
Just as he would not limit himself when the time came to claim a woman he adored.
“Our mama, Fee, wants you to be happy for the rest of your life.”
“Exactly.” She pointed at him. “Just as we want you to have the same.”
“I will.”
“Well, then, a good beginning is a lady whom you find attractive.”
“I agree.”
Fee nodded. “So if the French lady is beautiful, tall and…hmmm…well proportioned, I should think, Evan, she’s perfect.”
“Beauty is not all.” With this one, it had propelled him to her. But it was her spunk that claimed him like a magnet.
“It helps. And if a lady is well fed, you can find her easily in bed.”
He pointed toward the door.
“A lady whom you find irresistible can be a tasty—”
“Out!”
“Come now, Evan. Really, I am twenty.”
“A child.”
“Then why am I out there looking for a man? To make me a woman overnight? I know what goes on in a bed, Evan. And I know you know!” She pointed toward the street. “The whole of London knows how well you know!”
His reputation was not one he had ever discussed with any of his sisters, let alone the youngest and sweetest…or so he still thought she was. This was not good. Did he have to become a monk to show them he respected them…and all the others?
“I think,” he said with measure, “we have shared enough of our views of Society and sexual congress for the day, Fee.” He got to his feet. “I have work to do. You will go now. Good afternoon.”
“And the Chelmsfords’ ball?”
“I’ll go.” Of course I will. Yes, to see the exquisite Mademoiselle Bechard once more, damn my soul. “Rest assured, my dear, I will dance with you and with Jezebel.”
“Jasmine.”
“Her too.”
“And Mademoiselle Bechard?”
“She’ll not have me.”
“Or so you assume?”
“I offended her, Fee.” I was too forward.
His sister looked compassionate. But clearly she was not going without having her famous last word. “Evan?”
“Yes, what?” He threw up both hands.
“Make it up to her.”
He turned skeptical. “Why?”
“She will look so beautiful in contrast standing next to you.” His jaunty sister grinned. “And in bed, she’ll be a perfect fit.”
His eyes went wide. “You are not too old to spank.”
She preened. “You would never.”
He pointed toward the door once more.