One Night of Passion (4 page)

She’d look like someone’s poor maid, not a beauty for the taking.

“I have nothing to wear,” she said, interrupting Kit’s ongoing litany of how they could borrow enough coins from their aunt’s hidden pin money to pay for the cab fare and the possible need to bribe one of the footmen.

At this stumbling block, Kit finally paused, yet only to take a breath. “Oh, dash it and bother,” she said, flouncing back down on the window seat. “Too bad Aunt Verena’s twice your size, for she has more than enough vulgar gowns to dress all the fallen women in London. If only we knew some of those ladies, for I hear they have gowns to spare, though I haven’t the vaguest notion why they should possess them, when we wear nothing but cheap poplin and worsted.”

If only we knew some of those ladies . . .

Georgie took a speculative glance at her sister. Oh, but they had.

Mrs. Taft.

Their foster mother had spent ten years as one of the highest paid ladies in Marseilles before she’d met her English husband, Captain Taft, and he’d impulsively married her, plucking her from her less-than-respectable past. They had loved each other dearly until the day two years past when the
Sybaris
had returned to Penzance with the terrible news that the captain had been lost in a ferocious storm.

The Tafts’ happiness had spilled over onto the sisters, for the couple had treated them as beloved offspring rather than foster children to be endured for the extra income they provided.

And while Mrs. Taft might not have known the latest dance steps or how to do tatted lace, she did have an intimate understanding of men, one she’d considered her duty to pass on to Georgie.

Your mother, God bless her soul, should be the one to tell you this,
she’d said.
But with her gone, you’ll have to make do with my experience. Not that it will hurt to know more than most, for it is in a woman’s experienced arms that a man is at his weakest.

And that hadn’t been the extent of Mrs. Taft’s gift. She’d also let the girls dress up in her collection of elegant and scandalous gowns, leftovers from her ruinous past.

While they were now decidedly out of fashion, they were French-made and well done at that—just the right mix of elegance and coquetry. For Mrs. Taft hadn’t been just any dockside dove, but a lady highly coveted, whose time and services commanded a lofty price, as evidenced by the rich silk drouguet fabric and delicate embroidery the gowns boasted.

And any of them would fit Georgie. At least for a night.

“Oh well, it was a good idea,” Kit was saying.

“And it still is,” she told her sister, bounding across the room and pushing aside her bed, to reveal her battered trunk. Throwing open the lid, Georgie dug through her own meager possessions to the gowns she hadn’t dared think she would ever wear. Immediately, she plucked out her favorite, a gown of changeable silk, the color shimmering from a rich, royal purple to hints of blue.

“Mrs. Taft’s gowns!” Kit whispered, her hand reaching out to reverently touch the Holland lace on the sleeves. “Oh, I thought they were lost.”

Georgie ran her hand over the collection of expensive silks and laces.

“Will you do it?” Kit whispered.

Georgie considered all that lay before her, weighing her choices one more time.
Do I dare?

Life as the tenth Lady Harris, or ruination?

Then she glanced back at her trunk full of treasures. It was all there to tempt her, the gowns, Mrs. Taft’s revelations about men, and Kit’s seemingly foolproof plan—as if finally the Fates were telling her to take her life into her own hands.

Georgie nodded, shaking out the gown of change-able silk and casting it a critical eye.

“Try it on,” Kit urged. “I think that gown will make even you look pretty.”

Georgie took no offense at her sister’s blunt assessment of her looks and charms. She was too tall to begin with—towering over most men who she met. Her height and size almost made her movements far too bold for current tastes, wherein petite, reticent ladies were considered fashionable.

Looking down at the almost magical dress in her hands, Georgie thought the color might become her. And even if her hair was an indifferent shade of honey and her skin still too sun-kissed, perhaps the gown was eye-catching enough to tempt a man to her side.

She hoped she could find one she didn’t loom over and who wouldn’t ask her to dance before he took her to his bed . . .

Truly, her lack of skills in dancing, Georgie mused, should probably be the least of her worries.

Kit continued to dig through the trunk. “Before you put it on, you’ll need this.” She pulled out a linen corset, the once white ties now yellowed with age.

Georgie grimaced, but she knew she’d never fit into Mrs. Taft’s gown without some help.

Tugging it on, Georgie found the ingenious undergarment was hardly the torture suit that English ladies wore, but designed for comfort, with a soft cotton lining and not a hint of whalebone.

Kit caught hold of the strings in back and gave them a rueful tug. “Too tight?”

Georgie shook her head, amazed at the transformation the undergarment wrought.

Suddenly her waist became more defined, and what it had done to her chest was nothing less than a wondrous miracle. She actually had a figure.

Kit rose up on her tiptoes and threw the gown over Georgie’s head. As the silk fell in a soft rustle around her, Kit let out a tiny gasp.

“What’s wrong?” Georgie asked.

“Oh, come and look.” Kit led her by the hand to the long narrow mirror in the corner. “You’re a regular princess.”

The low-cut bodice revealed just enough of her breasts to tempt a man to come closer. The sleeves were a gauzy, filmy silk, scandalously short, revealing bare limbs that were barely hidden by the rich, delicate lace gloves that went with the ensemble.

A wide satin ribbon wound around her waist and tied in the back in a large bow, the ends trailing in a flutter nearly to the ground, and begging to be undone. The skirt fell in a wide circle to a cutwork hem that danced and swayed as one moved, and hinted at well-trimmed calves and silken-clad legs beneath.

There was no doubt, this was a gown made to attract the eye of a man.

“I only need one more thing,” Georgie said, returning to the trunk and digging around in it, muttering to herself as she tossed the contents out around her.

Where were they?
The shoes she remembered.

Then she spied them. White satin, they were covered in beautiful silk embroidery, echoing the decorations along the hem of her gown. She slipped them onto her feet, but to her dismay they didn’t fit.

“You’ll never get by in those, Georgie,” Kit said, eyeing the heels. “Why, you’ll trip and break your neck before you make it downstairs.”

Georgie shot her sister a quelling glance. Kit’s assessment might be true, for even Georgie would admit she wasn’t the most graceful belle, but she was going to wear these shoes, for they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. She took a couple of handkerchiefs and stuffed them inside so her feet would fit better.

Kit held her breath as Georgie tucked her toes once again into the shoes and rose trembling and teetering onto their heeled heights.

Looking into the mirror, she took a deep breath and realized the first part of her transformation was complete, now she had only to find a way to the ball . . .

And a man willing to take her to his bed.

“Now for your hair,” Kit said, happily setting to work, making suggestions and helping with the rest of Georgie’s transformation.

In an hour, their work was complete and they had successfully navigated their way through the darkened house to the kitchen door.

“Go upstairs,” Georgie told her. “And bar the nursery shut. Don’t let anyone in, unless you absolutely have to.” Not that anyone ever came to check on them.

Kit nodded and glanced anxiously out into the night. “Georgie, do you know what it means to be ruined?” Suddenly her oh-so-worldly sister sounded like the innocent thirteen-year-old that she should be.

Georgie’s cheeks flamed with warmth, despite the cool night air of the garden, and she was thankful for the darkness hiding her embarrassment.

“I think so, Kit. Enough to see me free of this Lord Harris.”

Chapter 2

“I
will not marry you, Lord Danvers. Not now or ever.” Lady Diana Fordham, the esteemed and all-too-respectable daughter of the Earl of Lamden, put down her dainty foot with the same resolute finality of an innkeeper about to toss out a pair of unruly patrons. She pointed toward the door. “Now, if you and your cousin would be so kind as to leave—”

Colin, Baron Danvers, formerly Captain Danvers of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, stared at the outraged woman before him. Where was the sweet-faced and soft-spoken miss he remembered courting and asking to marry him?

The Earl of Lamden stood behind his daughter, his usually jovial features set in hard lines. He had yet to say a word, but that was probably because his once sweet-spoken daughter had found the tongue of a fishwife and was giving Colin a dressing-down that not even the earl could top.

“I said, my lord, you can leave,” she repeated. “I will not marry you!” She thrust out her hand and opened her fingers to reveal the ring he had given her three years earlier, along with a miniature of himself that he’d had done for her at her request. “Take it,” she told him. “I’ll have no reminders of
you
around here. None!”

Behind him, his cousin, the Marquis of Templeton, whom he’d brought along to stand up for him, let out a low and very inappropriate whistle.

Diana shot a furious glare in that direction.

Temple was duly stifled, though knowing him as Colin did, Colin could well imagine what his imprudent cousin was thinking and how long he would be able to keep it to himself.

“Lord Danvers, why would you think that I would still want to marry you?” Lady Diana shuddered, the ribbons on her perfectly fashionable gown swaying about in a fluttering chorus of dismay. “My father chose you because you were a gentleman, a respected one. And now I see that we were both deceived, wickedly so. If you think I will be dragged into your exile of disgrace, you are sadly mistaken.” She turned from him and sniffed into her handkerchief.

The Earl of Lamden drew his arms around his daughter and glared over her blond head at him.

“Lady Diana, Lord Lamden, there has been a mistake,” Colin began. “If you would both just trust that this is not—”

“Trust?!” Lamden sputtered, his muttonchop whiskers quivering. “I don’t trust blackguards. Especially cowardly ones. And a coward is what you are. Don’t try to deny it. The accounts in the papers are quite detailed.”

Diana glanced up from her misery, the furious expression glaring through her tear-stained features seeming to say she agreed completely with her father’s assessment of the situation.

Colin took a deep breath. Certainly Lamden and his daughter didn’t believe . . .

Yet their outraged faces told him exactly what they thought. They accepted as gospel every one of the treasonous charges that had been leveled against him.

“My lord, my lady, if you would but consider my family connections, my previous record with the Admiralty, my honorable intentions in this matter . . .” He leaned forward, holding out his hand to Lady Diana. “Then you would see that we can be wed as planned.”

She shrank away from his outstretched fingers as if they were dripping with plague.

“Harrumph,” Lord Lamden snorted, stepping in front of his daughter, shielding her from Colin’s advance. “Marry you? I’d rather she marry that wastrel cousin of yours. No offense meant, Templeton.”

“None taken, sir,” Temple told him. “But really I don’t see any reason to cast Danvers here into the briars. So he’s a bit done in. But I’m sure he’s got a good explanation for why he turned coward.”

“A bit done in?” Lamden blasted. “Temple, you’re a cockeyed idiot. Done in? You act as if he’s got a few gambling debts. He’s no better than his rapscallion father. I should never have listened to your grandfather’s assurances that he wasn’t infected by the Danverses’ poor bloodlines. Your cousin is a traitor to the King and our country. He’s brought disgrace to himself, to your family, and worst of all, to this house.”

At this Lady Diana offered another appropriate sniff—though she hardly had the mien of the humiliated innocent her father made her out to be. The murderous gleam in her eyes said that she was sorely disappointed the Admiralty hadn’t seen fit to hang Colin from the nearest yardarm.

Why, the furious chit looked more than willing to tie the noose with her own tidy, unblemished hands.

“Now, I ask you to leave before I’ve a mind to call you out,” the furious man demanded, pointing at the entryway where the aged Lamden butler had already pulled the great oaken door open.

“Now that should prove truly entertaining,” Temple muttered under his breath. Both Colin and Lamden glared at him, though it did little to stifle his levity.

“Do you mind?” Colin shot over his shoulder at his cousin.

Temple grinned, this time at Lady Diana. “No, not at all.”

She frowned back and then returned her glare to Colin. “I have no need to listen any further to your lies. Good day to you and good riddance.” She turned to leave, but then spun back around. Reaching out, she took Colin’s hand, dropping the emerald and pearl engagement ring into his palm, along with the miniature. Without another word, she turned on one heel and marched up the stairs.

“Away with ye, Danvers,” Lamden said, his Scottish heritage coming to the forefront in the angry burr tingeing his threats, “before I do call you out. The Admiralty may be afraid of your grandfather’s lofty connections; but I’d have no qualms seeing you consigned to a cold grave. The Lamden name is as old as the Setchfields’, older I’d dare say, and certainly not to be sullied by the likes of cowardly dogs.”

Colin flinched. He’d never been called a coward before, and he didn’t like it overly much. But this was a situation of his own making and he could hardly call out Lamden for an insult that to most would seem deserved.