My Lady Rival (6 page)

“No. You obviously know who I am, have developed a hopeless tendre for me, and are now trying to make me feel the same for you before you reveal your identity. You want to ensure my feelings before you declare yourself openly.” He knew it was a conspicuous attempt to learn her name, but still he tried.

Instead of complying, she laughed and drew A lex’s attention back to her mouth.

“A nd what are your feelings toward me right now, Mr. Midnight?” He bent his head. “Perhaps my feelings are just as much a mystery as your name, Lady Diamonds.”

“Or perhaps you want to kiss me,” she said.

A lex stumbled in the turn of the dance. “A kiss might be a good place to start,” he allowed.

A lthough this was his first official event of the ton, he’d attended many balls and other such affairs with aristocrats and businessmen throughout the Continent for the purpose of securing more investors for his father’s company. Most of the women he’d danced with then had been married, some interested in him for more than an innocent waltz. He hadn’t expected the ladies of the London ton—

especially the unmarried ones—to be so bold and direct with their invitations.

Hell, she was even more direct than the Italians and the French. They, at least, were subtle with their suggestions; she was brasher, bolder, more like the A mericans he’d met on his travels.

He didn’t much care for the A mericans he’d met on his travels.

“The question is,” he continued, “where exactly that first kiss should be.” He stared into her eyes—beautiful eyes they were, the color of the ocean . . . as he’d thought before, as he’d thought the first time they met in Italy . . .

thought before, as he’d thought the first time they met in Italy . . .

Dear God.

He glanced at her chin, her lips, her ears, as if doing so could assure him that yes, he had put all of the pieces to the puzzle together correctly. It was obvious now—the way she tipped her head back when she laughed, the startling color of her eyes, that singular combination of outward confidence and the hint of inner reserve . . .

Willa Stratton. She was Willa bloody Stratton.

Her eyelashes swept down and her chin angled to the side—if he didn’t know any better, he would have considered it a bashful gesture. But he did know who she was now, and he knew each dark, manipulative twist of her devious little mind. She’d sabotaged him. A nd she’d won. He wasn’t sure which was worse, but one thing was very much certain now: he knew her identity, yet she had no idea of his.

A lex smiled.

“Here,” she said, reminding him of their topic of conversation: a kiss.

He stared at the tender, vulnerable skin bared for his view, a sweet spot that began at the curve of her collarbone. She expected him to woo her, did she? A h, but she liked him. No, rather—she liked Mr. Midnight.

A lex pressed his lips together lest his smile widen into a full grin. “Hmm,” he offered, still staring at the place she indicated for a kiss. Leave it to his baser nature to find the temptation of his enemy appealing.

When he didn’t speak further, she lifted her eyes. “Mr. Midnight?”

“I’m certain kissing you—there—would be delightful,” he said slowly. A nd then he remembered that she’d made him blush with the comment about his ears. He’d blushed, for God’s sake! A nd so, after a moment’s consideration, he continued.

“However, I think a kiss first on your hand would be far more appropriate.” Unlike others, he saw no weakness in having a desire for revenge. A fter all, he’d been raised with Jo for an older sibling; revenge was a necessity for self-preservation.

“You do?” Her mouth pursed. Willa bloody Stratton wasn’t pleased with his self-discipline.

“I do.”

He wasn’t pleased that she would offer herself so easily, no more than he was in Italy when he realized that she’d kissed him to distract him from his pursuit of the Conte di Contarini as an investor for Laurie & Sons. He also didn’t believe she meant her present offer, for she had nothing to gain from him this time.

A lex swept her around the far end of the floor. He well remembered her claim afterward that he had been the one to kiss her. A ll he knew was that she’d been waiting for him in the moonlight and that she’d risen to her tiptoes and leaned toward him. It was the first of her many works of sabotage in winning Contarini for her father, and it had succeeded. He’d been thoroughly distracted that first night. Thankfully, though, he was intelligent enough to stay away from her in the following days. But still she’d won, and that kiss had been the beginning.

A lex hummed a little under his breath, happy. A h, revenge. She would be the A lex hummed a little under his breath, happy. A h, revenge. She would be the one fooled into thinking she was wanted tonight. “You, my Lady Diamonds, are not someone to be flirted with one moment and discarded the next, nor someone with whom men should exchange illicit whisperings while you dance. When your hand touches mine, it should be because I am bowing before you. I would take you for afternoon strolls and rides through the park. We would converse about the things that amuse you—” He paused thoughtfully. “What things do amuse you? Painting? The pianoforte and the like?”

She was silent for a moment, studying him. “I’d prefer to know which hobbies you prefer.”

He recognized this, the way she turned the reins of conversations over to men.

How she made them speak the most, how she played their egos as skillfully as instruments. “A h, but I asked you first.”

She gave a small sigh, a touch of impatience to the sound. “Languages. Though I paint a very good blob, and my talent at the pianoforte has nearly reached the level of a two-year-old.”

“A very prodigious two-year-old, I would imagine,” he said, smiling as he took note of her weaknesses. “Very well, then. We would converse about languages and even do so in different languages. I speak French, Italian, and German. You?” She gave a shrug—one that seemed almost Gallic. A lex narrowed his eyes. This must be the reason why he hadn’t recognized her fully before. The Gallic shrug, the perfect British accent: she was a master of disguises.

“A few,” she said, then: “What makes you believe I am the sort of woman who prefers to be courted instead of kissed?”

He remembered the first time he’d ever seen her, how the air had seemed to sparkle with the radiance of her smile. Not seductive, not sinfully provocative, but clean. He was a man who’d been raised among the worst sort of filth—a description to fit both the people and the streets—and she had reminded him of sunshine on the best of days and rain that washed it all away on the worst.

“You have an air of innocence about you,” he replied, realizing it was something she must have cultivated well: more lie than perception, more perception than truth. His fault for once believing it. He stared deep into her eyes—soulfully, as he knew women with ideas of romance preferred. He doubted Willa Stratton had a romantic bone in her body.

A t this statement she laughed, but finally—curiously—he noticed the darkening of her cheeks below her mask. What sort of woman blushed when accused of being innocent but gave no indication of embarrassment when she spoke of kissing, when he spoke of her delectable ears?

“You’re the one who is blushing now,” he said softly.

When she looked up at him again, her eyes seemed brighter than before. The rose of her cheeks might have been becoming if she were someone else. “The waltz is almost over,” she murmured.

His hand tightened even as a Thank God! rolled through his mind.

“I’ve never danced three waltzes with the same woman in one evening,” he said.

“I’ve never danced three waltzes with the same woman in one evening,” he said.

“Should I prepare myself to soon be scandalized?”

“No one is watching us. They are all concerned with their own affairs.”

“Still, I would know something else about you, the woman who might become my affianced if the gossips discover our three-dance perfidy.” A t the humorous and dreadful thought of actually marrying her, a cog in his brain whirled A lex from the past and his desire for revenge to the present.

Specifically, to Willa Stratton’s presence in London, when she should have been in A merica. Or somewhere else in the world luring another investor for her father’s company. Not here, not with him, and certainly not among the ton, where he intended to make connections through marriage and search out the creator of the Madonna dye.

He sucked in a breath, the air hissing through his teeth. “I’ll begin with something about me,” he managed to say, studying every nuance of her expression closely. “I came here tonight because I wish to see my sisters married, and even though it’s a masquerade, it’s also the first event of the Season.” He was careful not to truly reveal anything about himself or his own motives. “A nd you, my Lady in Diamonds? Why did you come to the Winstead masquerade?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” she said, dimpling. Not even pausing to consider her words.

“To find you, Mr. Midnight.”

He nearly growled. Jo would have applauded.

The waltz ended. Though he was tempted to find a reason to keep her by his side until midnight, until he could discover her true reasons for being in London, A lex escorted her off the dance floor. “Minx,” he murmured in her ear, then turned and walked away.

Willa held her palms to her cheeks. “He told me he wanted to kiss me,” she said to Jo, though that wasn’t the cause for her blush, and she’d been the one to bring up the kissing part. But Jo didn’t need to know that.

“Oh, he did?” Jo’s gaze snapped across the ballroom.

Willa nodded. She wished he hadn’t called her innocent, though. She’d done things in the past that had left her conscience black. Or perhaps more of a grayish color, but certainly not white enough for her to be described as anything close to innocent. She’d far have preferred to continue talking about kissing and wicked things. He would be good at kissing. He had a nice mouth, Mr. Midnight did, such a mouth that she had a difficult time focusing on anything beyond the sphere of his arms when he spoke.

A nd when she did try to turn the conversation and learn more about him, he’d deftly maneuvered it back to her. Clever man.

He’d said she deserved to be courted, that she wasn’t a woman to be flirted with casually. But her previous interactions with men were required to be nothing more than casual, part of the role she played. She excelled at flirtation, at acting the charmer, at opening investors’ pockets and inspiring trust.

“Well, are you going to kiss him?” Jo asked.

“Kiss? What did I miss?” Thea asked, pushing forward with three glasses of punch.

“Mr. Midnight.” She willed herself not to look behind her. She knew he was there, somewhere. Perhaps watching her, perhaps not. But she shouldn’t look.

Truthfully, she shouldn’t even remain at the masquerade any longer. She should return to her rooms at Mivart’s Hotel and prepare more plans for how she was going to find Woolstone and the Madonna dye. A nd, if it was true A lex Laurie had gotten to him first, how she was going to get the dye away from him.

Eight months. Nearly eight months she’d spent searching out clues for the identity of the Madonna dye’s creator—a dye which could bring the owner a massive amount of wealth and which would be the key to her freedom. Eight months, only to discover the possibility that A lex Laurie might have swooped in before she could meet with Woolstone. Excessively galling and infuriating, that’s what it was. She could only hope she was wrong and that Woolstone had gone missing for an entirely different reason. Not because he was murdered—that wouldn’t have been good, either . . . although at least she wouldn’t have lost to A lex then.

Willa felt her conscience turning a darker shade of gray. No, of course she Willa felt her conscience turning a darker shade of gray. No, of course she wouldn’t prefer for Woolstone to be murdered. Even she wasn’t that focused on winning. Perhaps.

Besides, if Woolstone was murdered, she might never find the dye, and then she’d have to marry Eichel after all. Somehow this still felt entirely too selfish.

“I liked Mr. Midnight earlier,” Thea said, frowning.

A t this mention of the dashing Mr. Midnight, Willa swiftly sent up a plea that Woolstone was alive and far, far away from A lex Laurie, then returned her attention to her companions.

“Why do you not like him now?” she asked.

“Because then I saw him speaking with Lunsford. A nd anyone who willingly speaks to Lunsford must be reconsidered, I believe. Even if he is very nice, and even if he does have a very nice mouth and wants to kiss you.” She didn’t like the thought of Thea noticing Mr. Midnight’s mouth. A lthough it was difficult to notice anything else at the masquerade, she wanted to hide him away for her own pleasure. She alone would be able to look at his mouth and have him hold her in his arms while they danced and then tell her nice things like she was an innocent who deserved to be courted.

“Perhaps . . . ,” she began, then hesitated. Charming women was just as useful as charming men, and it wouldn’t do well to offend her new friend. “Perhaps Mr.

Lunsford only reacts badly in your presence. There’s a possibility he’s usually as nice and decent as Mr. Midnight.”

“Oh, I’m certain Lunsford behaves poorly specifically around me and nicely to others. It’s a pretense he’s perfected, and one he knows that I’ve seen thr—”

“No, thank you.”

Willa glanced toward Jo, who was glaring at a man wearing a navy cape lined beneath with silver, a matching navy and silver mask tied around his head. The man currently had Jo’s hand lifted halfway to his mouth.

Jo tugged at her hand. “Let me go.”

“I don’t see why she came to the masquerade if she doesn’t intend to dance with anyone,” Thea murmured to Willa.

Jo gave them an exasperated glance, then stomped on the man’s foot. Thea gasped.

“Bloody hell,” he cursed, immediately dropping her hand. He backed away, matching her glare.

Jo turned and shrugged. “He shouldn’t touch people’s hands when they haven’t given him permission to do so.”

A corner of Willa’s mouth tugged upward. “I’m sure he’ll think better of it next time.”