Chapter Eighteen
London
Zeph and Gus headed for the ladies’ retiring room up the stairs in the Ramseys’ townhouse in Brook Street.
Kane, Gus, and she had arrived an hour or more ago, and Zeph had searched the throng for Rafe like a starving bird pecking for seeds.
Minutes ago, she had found him. The sight of him alarmed her.
Oh, he was togged to the nines. The expert cut of his double-breasted forest-green frockcoat was offset by a rich black velvet collar.
His silver-threaded gray waistcoat sparkled in the candlelight.
His expertly tied pleated stock had Zeph yearning to remove it.
His tight knee breeches fit his thighs and shins, showing the cut of all his muscles.
She reached for the support of a chairback when her knees went weak at how dramatic he looked.
Other women noticed him, too. She was proud she loved him, jealous others might try to take him from her.
But she was undone by his demeanor. Oh, yes, his disarray began at the top.
His hair curled over his ears, longer than he’d allowed it to grow since they had arrived in England.
His complexion had always been a rugged bronze that complemented his black hair—and had stirred her delight in his swarthy looks.
Now his skin had a paler tinge. Was he ill?
His eyes were clear, but hooded. Did he not sleep well? Or was he unhappy to see her?
By the weak acknowledgment that he had given her when she first glimpsed him across the room, she could not gauge his emotion.
Very well. She would embark on her plan.
“You saw him?” Gus asked her softly as they climbed the staircase.
“I did. He tried to smile.”
“I saw,” Gus said with a certain satisfaction. “He suffers, dear man.”
“I want to believe it.”
“Oh, do!” Gus pushed open the door to the room where two other ladies repaired their coiffures.
“Good evening!” Lady Jessica Ranelagh greeted Gus and Zeph. A brunette whose hair was a blend of colors of chocolate and brandy, she was one of Lord Halsey’s younger sisters and a widow recently out in Society. “I am so happy to see you here.”
“I am so glad you have come out, Jessica,” Gus told her, and bent down to look into the mirror to catch her eye. “It is important to do that.”
“She refused at first,” said her sister, Felicity—whom everyone called Fee. She was the youngest of Halsey’s siblings and a diamond of the ton who had passed a few Seasons without finding the right man to marry. “Inès insisted she come. Jessica is as picky as I am about men.”
“Stop this, the two of you!” Jessica snapped.
“What she does not tell you both,” Fee said, falling back in her chair to fan herself from a feigned flash of hot interest, “is that she did see a man who caught her imagination, but alas, we know him not.”
“Terrible,” Zeph commiserated. “What does he look like?”
“Tall, dashing,” Fee provided. “French. Silver hair. But not that old.”
“You have seen him once? Twice?” Zeph asked.
“On Bond Street once, then in St. James’s. I know not anything about him. But I overheard his name is Valery.”
“Valery.” Gus thought about that for a moment. “I know him.”
“Wonderful!” Fee grinned. “Where do we find him again?”
“A good question,” Gus said. “He is a friend of my husband. I will ask him where the man lives.”
“Oh, do!” Fee was jumping out of her skin. “Do tell us, will you?”
“Fee!” her sister admonished her with wide eyes and a shake of her head. “I am not that enamored. I saw him in the street twice. Really!”
“Well, if you are not interested,” Fee said, folding her arms, “I am.”
Jessica got to her feet and pulled Zeph’s hand to persuade her to take her chair before the mirror. “I am leaving now. Do not,” she warned Gus and Zeph, “believe a word Fee says. She needs to find a man she adores and not fiddle away her time finding one for me.”
“Bah,” Fee said with good humor and a lift of one shoulder. “We know you have been sad. You need a man!”
Jessica rolled her large violet eyes at Gus and Zeph. “Call upon me tomorrow, will you both, please? I have an idea I want to discuss.”
Fee put up a finger. “Searching for Monsieur Valery with Lord Ashley’s information about his abode would be a fabulous idea to discuss.”
Jessica spun on her sister, one arm lifted toward the door. “I am leaving to go dance. Do not follow me down, Fee. I have had enough. Tomorrow?” she said to Gus and Zeph.
Gus agreed.
“Of course,” said Zeph as the three of them watched her go.
“She adored her husband,” Fee offered in sympathy. “His death was a shock. We’ve all persuaded her to come out into Society, but she finds no one.”
“She loved well once, Fee,” said Gus. “She knows the value of choosing the right man.”
Zeph smiled at that. She knew that value. If only he will relent and have me.
*
Zeph curtsied to her last partner and escaped to the far wall and chairs. She sat and toed off her dance slippers. She closed her eyes, sighing in relief.
“That is not a good idea.” The rough, dark voice of the man she wanted reached out to her.
“Who will care?” She gave a laugh and arched a brow.
“I do. I do not wish to crush your toes.”
“Such a poor dancer, are you?”
With a wicked scold in his eyes, he held out his hand.
She pulled off her finely worked stockings. Put them to the floor. Then she went. Barefoot.
Why not? She had to show him she was herself, always, alive and as daring as she wished to be. That would spark his motivation.
She and he took up their positions on the chalked floor. A few noticed her bare toes. A few commented. Two giggled.
Let them. She arched a brow at Rafe. It is you, sir, that I wish to startle.
The dance was one where couples faced each other four square.
She knew it, had danced it earlier with another man.
Zeph let her mind fill with the beauty of the man before her, the warmth swirling in her.
Her breath rose in heavy drafts, and his gaze—thank heaven—fell to her low, low, low bodice.
With more appreciation than censure, he caught her gaze.
She smiled and licked her lower lip.
He looked away.
Oh, wonderful.
Then he returned to her, cautious, stolid fellow, and said, “I read a rumor that Rothschild has authorized a monthly amount to you.”
“I requested it,” she said, and began the formation that allowed his hand to keep hers as they walked.
It was several steps later before he spoke again. “Do you plan to create your own household?”
She took her time responding. “No.”
“Go to America?”
“No.”
He set his jaw.
Frustrated, is he? Good.
At the next turn, his face was stiff with anger and something else she would have liked to call jealousy. “Do you like Lord Islington?”
She had danced with the man once tonight and once at each of the other balls she had attended.
She liked him. He made her laugh, a much-needed relief between her daily bouts of translating her little red book and her irritating desire for the man with whom she now danced.
Truly, the Viscount Islington was a gorgeous man.
With brown hair that glowed auburn in the candlelight, broad shoulders a woman could get lost in, and a mouth…
a mouth with the most sensuous lips, even if they were not the ones she wished to savor.
She cleared her throat. “He is dashing.”
“Word is he plans to ask you to marry him.”
She blew out a breath. Now she was angry. Why could he not come to the point they needed to discuss? “Where do you get your information? I need to subscribe.”
“Zeph?”
“Yes?”
“We can be friends.”
“We are, have been, will remain so.”
He came around once more in a formation that had him putting one hand to her waist, his other to her other hand. “You cannot lock me out.”
At last, he speaks of the future. She met his gaze with her own stern one. “You are not letting me in.”
“I am—”
She groaned—and pattered away.
He followed her to her chair. “Every woman with half her senses will now be dancing barefoot.”
She grinned like a child getting her way. “It’s about time they discarded all restrictions.”
And at Rafe’s side, the viscount whom gossips said would propose to her appeared. “Miss Butler?” He eyed Rafe casually. “May I ask you to talk with me?”
Talking was certainly different from dancing. What did Islington intend? She’d take it!
She stood, smiled at Rafe, and said, “Pardon me, sir. Lord Islington? Let us walk around the room.”
*
Rafe watched Zeph walk away with Islington until they disappeared into the crowd. Blind with the loss of her, he made his excuses to Amber and Ramsey.
Then he fled the house like a thief in the night.
His coach and his grooms remained at Brook Street. They were safe, most likely enjoying themselves in the kitchens of Ramsey House. He did not care to disturb them. He walked and walked until he saw that he was the only man on the streets. The moonlight was bright. His heart dark.
And inside him, the memory of saving his sister from herself reappeared like a play before him.
He found a bench along the Thames and sat watching the shallow waves of the river sway and swish in refracted light.
He saw Lianne as she was when she was sixteen, young and carefree, lovely in her youth and na?veté.
He recalled her as she was when, one year later, she met a man who wanted her for her money and not her heart.
Rafe and his father had tried to reveal to her the man’s intentions, but words could never dampen the sweet desires of the fantasy of romance and the promise of true love.
Lianne was sheltered enough to want both, unsophisticated about how her dreams could die at the whims of a ruthless man.
The rogue had persuaded her to run away with him, elope to the north.
But he had had her somewhere along the Great North Road.
Used her often, beat her afterward, stole her pin money.
Rafe and his father had tracked them to a small inn near Bradford, where they found only Lianne.
Despondent and bruised in body and soul, Lianne went with them south to London and their care. She refused to allow anyone near her, only her father and Rafe. Once a lively, pretty girl with soft ink-black hair and the bluest of eyes, she would not eat, could not sleep, did not talk.
Rafe and his father took turns feeding her, dressing her. Weeks went on and she did not recuperate. They learned soon she was pregnant. But she miscarried. That only served to make her more inconsolable.
One morning, when Rafe went with her breakfast to her room, she was gone.
Without any idea where she would go, Rafe and their father scoured London.
’Twas a man from the Thames River Police who knocked on their door late that night. Her body had been discovered along the river near the East India Docks. How or why she went there was a mystery. But how she had died was not.
She had walked down the steps of a quay and jumped into the water. She could swim, but chose not to.
Their father withered after that. Giving authority to Rafe to run their shipping company, the man who had taught Rafe how to administer, how to give, how to love unconditionally, remained at home day in and out. Two years later, he was gone.
And Rafe was left with the sorrow of both losses.