Desire Wears Diamonds (20 page)

Within seconds, she knew that Michael was
not there. He’d have stood out among any crowd and disappointment
lashed at her frayed confidence.
I feel as welcome as a rag lady
at a coronation—please, Michael. Do not let me face this
alone!

“Is that Sterling Porter, I spy?” a sultry
voice carried over the din and Grace watched in astonishment as the
most beautiful woman she had ever seen strolled toward them.

“Madame Pierre! I had hoped to find you
here!” Sterling said, bowing at the waist, then taking the woman’s
gloved hand to kiss it. “You dull the company with your shining
presence!”

Madame Orphée Pierre! Confined as I am, I
know who she is!

The papers were full of scandalous
references to the famed courtesan who was the current favorite of
the Prince Regent and of her incomparable wit and sensuality. Grace
watched in awe at the effects of the lady’s irresistible charms. A
bubble of overtly curious eavesdroppers formed around them and even
the thin-lipped few who made a pretense of disapproval at Madame
Pierre’s appearance among their moral ranks craned their necks to
get a better look. She was rumored to be a Creole and as exotic to
the Ton as a bird of paradise. Her skin was the color of café au
latté and her eyes were like emeralds. Her green emerald silk
dress’s décolletage bordered on indecent but it was the height of
fashion. Around her neck, she wore what was unmistakably her latest
gift from her royal lover, a choker of solid emeralds and diamonds
that engulfed her delicate throat.

Grace couldn’t determine what was more
shocking; that the Madame Pierre she’d read of was standing within
arm’s reach or that the woman knew her brother so well. She tried
not to gawk at Sterling’s flowery speech and waited for an
introduction or inclusion that never actually came. Instead she was
a forgotten witness to their conversation.

“I see so little of you these days, Mr.
Porter! You naughty man!”

“If only…I had the time I wished to attend
more social functions, Madame Pierre. Alas, I am chained to my desk
at the East India.”

Her gaze narrowed but she kept smiling. “I
would speak to you privately, sir.”

“Of course! Of course!” Sterling quickly
agreed, then drew her off to a corner for an intimate conversation
abandoning his sister to stand alone near the ballroom’s
doorway.

She opened her mouth to protest but shut it
quickly as nearby guests began to stare at her with speculation and
open snicker at her predicament.

Please God…let Mr. Rutherford come as he’s
promised.

And before I burst into tears.

At the sight of Madame Pierre, Sterling was
sure that it was another tangible sign that his luck had truly
changed. He had been striving to cultivate his acquaintance with
her for months and after a few overt mentions of a certain
glittering property he was about to acquire, it appeared he finally
had her full attention.

After all, despite his bravado with the East
India, he was clever enough to engineer a secondary plan. He’d
leveraged himself to the hilt and with the numerous broken promises
he’d made, Sterling was sure it was to his advantage to have
another investor who might make good on his debts and advance his
cause.

He expected Grace to obediently wait for him
and didn’t care if she didn’t. Madame Pierre was far more important
at the moment than a spinster sister who was more trouble than she
was worth.

“I had begun to suspect you were avoiding
me, Mr. Porter,” Orphée said. “You whet my interest and then I hear
nothing from you…”

“I apologize. It’s no small thing to offend
a dear lady like yourself but neither is it a small thing to
deliver something that a queen would dream of holding—and might go
a lifetime without seeing anything remotely close to its like.” He
kept his voice low. “As I said before, you are not the only
interested party and I have to be cautious. I don’t want them to
know that I’m considering other offers.”

Orphée gasped, openly intrigued. “I have a
fondness for…regal trinkets, Mr. Porter.”

“And I have a fondness for rare beauty which
has led to my current dilemma,” he sighed. “If the others pay me, I
will have no choice but to honor my agreement with them and hand it
over—regretfully, of course.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Accept no
payment, Mr. Porter! Send me a note with the price that would ease
your conscience and win me my prize. I will see to the rest.”

“Thank you, Madame,” he said, taking her
hand to kiss it. “I am another willing slave to your charms.”

She laughed, a pretty peal of music. “What a
delightful thought! A stable of men to do my bidding! But as you
know, my heart is secured for now so I will merely say, thank
you.”

She left him to head into the salon, the
crowd parting in front of her as if she were a great ship cutting
through a storm. He watched until her emerald swathed figure was
lost in the crowd and then finally recalled his sister.

“I see you’ve obeyed me for once,” he noted
dryly as he returned to her side.

“I see you’ve forgotten that a woman cannot
walk across a ball room unescorted without raising a few eyebrows,”
she responded pointedly looking in the direction that Madame Pierre
had taken. “I’m trying to behave, sir.”

Sterling had to bite his tongue, then smiled
at the irony. He had in her in hand and just in time. Just in time
to potentially not need her at all. Rutherford was a pawn he’d
thought to require as leverage tonight to make his point, but now
that he had two “queens” on the board, he felt untouchable.

Rutherford will give me what I want and I
may commission his death for my own amusement…

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Michael found her quickly, the robin’s egg
blue shimmer of her dress drawing his eyes. He was lamentably late
and wary of the reception waiting for him but there was nothing to
be done except to bravely waste his second official apology and
pray things went smoothly.

Whispers coalesced around him as he moved
through the crowd and Michael did his best to pretend he was
deaf.

‘
My God, he’s so tall!’

‘
A pretty brute, eh?’

‘
What a sight! Does anyone know
him?’

‘
Look at that gentleman, my dear…what do
you think? How tall is he?’

Michael’s jaw tightened. He was shy of seven
feet but just barely and he hated the gauntlet of stares and
whispers.
Damn it, as if being tall were akin to having a horn
growing out of your forehead!

Apparently Bascombe had invited three times
the number of guests his ballroom could comfortably hold and
Michael was cursing the man within twenty steps of struggling not
to step on anyone’s toes and avoiding the shorter patrons’
treacherous elbows or emphatic hand gestures. Ashe might want to
wax poetic about his stature but he hadn’t faced that particular
danger to a man’s vulnerable parts…

He was blocked for a few seconds behind a
tight clutch of men in conversation too distracted to notice
him.

“Their election will decide it and then it’s
to come to a civil war! Over the obvious immoralities of slavery as
if they alone can—“

“It’s a fight about their government’s
structure, Mr. Hodge! Their states apparently feel it’s tyrannical
to have their local laws dictated to them by a remote
authority.”

“There’s an old story,” another man said
with a laugh. “Since when have the American Colonies ever enjoyed
being subject to authority, Mr. Mitchell?”

“Sir Yeigh, you are too witty! I say we stay
out of it when it comes, let them finish the nonsense in the course
of a few weeks and enjoy better cotton prices!”

Michael cleared his throat and was rewarded
by all three men turning to give him startled looks. “Coming
through, gentlemen. Pardon me.”

They parted and he began to celebrate that
he was nearly halfway to his goal when a very different obstacle
materialized in his path. Sterling stepped in front of him holding
two filled punch glasses and then stopped.

“You look like a man facing a
cannonade.”

Michael didn’t bother to deny the obvious.
“Enjoying my discomfort, are you?”

Sterling smiled. “I might be. Only because
it is astonishing to see a man of your strength and size so rattled
by the sight of a few fluttering fans and silken skirts. It’s a
ballroom, Mr. Rutherford, not a battlefield.”

“That depends on your vantage point, Mr.
Porter,” Michael said, straightening his shoulders and stiffening
his spine. Hating Sterling was easy but keeping his guard up while
Grace stood nearby, so lovely in her glittering gown with her
shoulders bared was proving difficult. He wanted to follow the cat
and mouse of Sterling’s banter and hold his own. But the orchestra
was beginning to tune up their instruments and an icy dread growing
inside of his stomach presented a more immediate threat.

A footman came up to Sterling’s elbow and
whispered in his ear, ending momentarily, his pleasure at seeing
Rutherford so off balance.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ve been called
away,” Sterling said without preamble and shoved the punch glasses
into Michael’s hands. “You don’t mind keeping Grace company do you,
Mr. Rutherford, while I pay my respects?”

What?
It was an abrupt shift and an
unexpected request. “I don’t mind, Porter, and I’m not one to mince
over etiquette but without a chaperone wouldn’t you rather—“

“What could possibly be inappropriate in the
favor? Especially since you are a
trusted
friend and
associate, Mr. Rutherford, and a man who spent time with me in
India, yes?”

Michael grit his teeth to keep a sarcastic
snort from slipping past his lips.
Go on, Porter. Overestimate
your power and see how far the game gets you.
“It’s an odd
habit you have of leaving your sister’s care in my hands and
wandering away.”

“Nothing’s odd in trusting my instincts.
Besides,” Sterling said as he adjusted his cuffs, “ I doubt you’d
harm her.” Sterling shifted so that his back was to his sister, his
voice lowering so that only Michael could hear him. “Even if you
thought it would destroy me, Rutherford.”

Sterling walked away before he could answer
and Michael tracked his retreat until his gaze fell onto Grace who
was looking at him with open relief and a familiar joy that made
his chest ache. The crush faded and he swallowed the irony that a
man who could follow a single sparrow through an oak forest could
lose his way so quickly. Grace was in his sights and Michael sighed
as her beauty inevitably blinded him to everything else.



The footman led Sterling upstairs away from
the din of the party to Rand’s private study and he went in alone.
Five others were already waiting in the dim quiet where a single
candelabra illuminated the space, and Rand Bascombe had notably
given up the chair behind his desk to stand; a sign that even in
his own home he wasn’t the dominant force in the room.

Not in this gathering.

God help me, but this cliché of meeting in
shadows is beginning to wear on my patience…

It was a dull room with one wall effectively
lined with leather-bound books as if to clarify its purpose.
Sterling sniffed at the notion that Bascombe could reel off three
titles with his eyes closed if he were challenged to it. But his
rival had openly campaigned for Sterling’s destruction, and he knew
better than to underestimate a wounded adversary.

The Jaded have taught me that, haven’t
they?

“Here he is, at last!” Bascombe said. “The
source of so much misery!”

Sterling made a mock bow. “You’re not
blaming me for your recent misfortunes, are you Bascombe?” He
straightened, putting his hands behind his back like a soldier
facing a drum trial. “If I made a mistake it was in sharing my
knowledge of the diamond with you far too early only to have you
run off, half-cocked, to make a try for it yourself! It was mine!
My scheme! You tried to make all of them believe that you were the
mastermind to pull it off and it was your bungled hands that
alerted the Jaded and drew this whole thing out!”

Bascombe’s hands fisted at his side. “That’s
a lie!”

Hell, I should thank you, you fat prig,
for distracting our associates for all that time!
Bascombe’s
failure had been a small boon to him, drawing their attention away
for a while and Sterling hadn’t sat by idly.

“You tipped your hand too soon to his lady
love and to Lord Winters and then you sailed off like an idiot to
India despite every word of reason I offered.” Sterling crossed his
arms in front of him. “And how did that go again? Find anything
interesting, old chap?”

Bascombe launched himself at Sterling’s
throat, his hands transfigured into claws, but strong hands
restrained him and the calm icy voice of the man behind the desk
ended it. “Both of you will sit, at once. We’ve lost control of the
Company to the crown where India is concerned but don’t make the
mistake of thinking I’m not a power in my own right.”

Rand’s face was so red, Sterling wondered if
the older man weren’t about to keel over, but the man recovered. “I
went into debt to chase that rock! At your urging, Porter, so how
dare you look at me like some smug child and speak of my
mistakes!”

Sterling shrugged as he sat down. “We are
each responsible for our own choices.”

Rand nearly jumped again, but this time a
single hand on his shoulder was enough to remind him of the company
he was keeping. “Well,” Rand said, a slow cold smile creeping over
his features, “that is true!
I
have repaid my debts to the
Company and—“ his eyes darted to the man behind the desk with eyes
the color of frozen mud who barely blinked. “I remain grateful for
that opportunity.” Rand continued, turning his attention back to
Sterling. “Whereas you, Mr. Porter, have yet to repay a single
penny, is that not correct?”