Regency Debutantes (50 page)

She looked at Lady Maybury, an expression of guilt blazoned across her face. ‘I do beg your pardon, my lady. I’m afraid my thoughts had wandered a little.’

But the dowager’s focus had shifted and was fixed quite firmly on someone else, someone that stood directly before Kathryn, someone of whom Kathryn was becoming rapidly aware.

‘Miss Marchant,’ he said. The deep melodic tone teased a shiver down her spine. ‘A pleasure to see you again.’ His bow was superbly executed.

‘Lord Ravensmede.’ She made her devoirs and tried to ignore the warmth that had suddenly pervaded her cheeks.
Distant and polite, stay distant and polite at all times,
she reminded herself. But it did not slow the thrumming of her heart or the acrobatic antics of the butterflies massing in her stomach.

He was dressed as if he had stepped straight out of her daydream: a finely tailored black coat worn with pale pantaloons that clung rather revealingly to his long muscular thighs. Well-shaped calves and ankles were encased in white stockings, leading down to a pair of highly polished black buckle slippers. A white satin waistcoat overlaid a snow-white shirt and neckcloth, beneath which it was clear that there had been no need for padding of any description. Nicholas Maybury was indeed a man of impressive physique. He turned to his grandmother and smiled. ‘I trust this evening finds you in good health?’

‘Never better, my boy. I have the constitution of an ox, as well you know.’ Aside to her cronies she added, ‘He’s ever hopeful that I will shuffle off this mortal coil, but I do not intend to accommodate him for quite some time.’

Kathryn listened to the conversation continue for some little time, with Ravensmede politely exchanging small talk with all three elderly ladies. Notably he did not attempt the same with her. Indeed, his neglect was rather marked. Two strangers in a ballroom. Their kisses had never been. Respectable. The Viscount and his grandmother’s companion—a class apart. It was what she wanted, after all, so why did it bring a heaviness to her heart? And then, at last, Lord Ravensmede’s attention was upon her, and it was as if they were the only two people there.

His eyes met hers.

Her heart skipped a beat. It was her dream becoming a reality. She wetted her suddenly dry lips. Tried to shake off the enchantment in danger of overcoming her. Knew that she was staring at him in a highly inappropriate fashion. None of it made any difference. Kathryn glanced around, looking for a way to extricate herself from such temptation.

‘Miss Marchant,’ he said, and her name sounded like a caress upon his lips.

His lips… Her eyes were on them, tracing their outline. Firm, chiselled, with a hint of sensual fullness. Lips that had kissed her with such expertise. Her own mouth parted at the
memory. Anticipation fluttered in her stomach. The breath trembled within her throat. She swallowed hard. Fought to regain some semblance of self-control. ‘Lord Ravensmede.’ How could she sound so calm, so unaffected, when she wanted so desperately to feel the press of his mouth against hers, the strength of his arms around her?

‘The next dance is the waltz. I understand it to be a favourite of yours.’ He did not appear to be in the grip of any such torrent of emotion. But there was something in his gaze that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright.

Kathryn’s cheeks warmed. ‘I…um…that is…’ Her fingers slid to twist at the violet silk of her skirt. ‘I do not think that…’

A corner of his mouth twitched. ‘Grandmama, may I borrow Miss Marchant for the next dance? I promise to return her safely and I’m sure that these two beautiful ladies…’ he turned the full force of his rakish good looks upon Lady Hadstone and Mrs Lee ‘…will engage you in such interesting and witty conversation that you shall not note her absence.’

Lady Hadstone and Mrs Lee giggled girlishly and fanned themselves with fervour.

Lady Maybury knew better. The tone of her voice was harsh, but the look in her eye was one of endearment. ‘Why the blazes should I object?’ And she turned her attention back to her friends.

Ravensmede smiled at that, then faced Kathryn again. ‘Miss Marchant, would you do me the honour of partnering me for the waltz?’ His eyes lingered at her lips before rising to meet her gaze.

Her throat was in danger of sticking together. The pulse at the side of her neck throbbed wildly. She prayed fervently that it would not show. ‘Thank you, Lord Ravensmede,’ she uttered weakly. From the corner of her eye she could see Mrs Lee and Lady Hadstone positively agog. For the sake of good manners she could not refuse him, and neither did she want to. ‘I would be delighted.’ And in her heart she knew it was the truth.

A large hand extended, closed around hers and tucked it securely into his arm. He did not speak until the music started and they were gliding effortlessly around the room. ‘Are you happy with my grandmother?’

Her lashes swept up and she regarded him with surprise that he could ask such a question. ‘Of course, my lord. Lady Maybury is very kind to me.’ He smelled of soap and bergamot and something else that was uniquely him.

‘It seems you have a short memory, Kathryn.’

She swallowed hard, aware that she remembered all too well a moonlit room and the dimmed interior of a coach. ‘I don’t know to what you are referring, sir.’

His eyes glinted with emerald lights. ‘My lord? Sir? I think we know each other rather better than that would suggest.’

Her cheeks grew hotter. Did he know what he was doing to her? From the look on his face, most probably so. ‘On the contrary, Lord Ravensmede, I’m companion to your grandmother. Any other mode of address would be quite inappropriate.’ Despite the traitorous reaction of her body to his proximity, she was determined not to let her mask of polite indifference slip. Such a path was the rocky descent to ruin, nothing more.

‘Do you deny then,
Miss Marchant
—’ he stressed the use of her formal address ‘—that which has passed between us on two separate occasions?’ His eyes held hers with an intimacy to which he had no right.

She bit uneasily at her lower lip, unsure of where his words were leading.

‘Surely you do not forget that as well? Shall I remind you of the kisses that we’ve shared?’ he teased.

She gasped and glanced self-consciously around. ‘Ssh! Someone might hear you!’

‘Then you do remember, after all.’

‘Of course I remember,’ she snapped. ‘I’m unlikely ever to forget!’

‘Why? Do my kisses affect you like no other’s?’ Ravensmede laughed.

She could do nothing to prevent the intensifying rosy stain that scalded the fairness of her skin.

‘Your face betrays you, Kathryn.’ And for some reason he looked extraordinarily pleased about it.

‘You are no gentleman to say such things!’ she said, afraid of what she had revealed.

‘I assure you, Kathryn, I’m no gentleman at all.’ A wicked twinkle set in the green eyes. ‘But that is something of which you are, no doubt, already aware.’

‘Lord Ravens—’

A dark eyebrow arched. ‘Tut tut, Kathryn, what must I do to make you use my given name?’ His gaze dropped pointedly to her lips.

‘Nicholas!’ the whisper ejected with alacrity.

He smiled. ‘Much better. So now that we’ve sorted one small problem, let us deal with another. Why have you been avoiding me?’

Her denial was too quick. ‘You’re mistaken.’ The chestnut tendrils cascading around her neck shook. She was not wanton. No matter the strength of his left hand surrounding hers, or the undeniable heat that emanated from the touch of his right against her waist. No matter that she quivered with the hope that he would kiss her, as he had before. She must strive to show him that he erred in his opinion.

‘I’ve visited my grandmother on five occasions and not once have you been present. Do you mean to tell me that she sent you away when she knew I had arrived?’

‘No. I was simply engaged with other chores.’

‘I’ve told you before, Kathryn Marchant, you make a poor liar.’

Her eyes met his at the shared memory of the last time he had uttered those words.

His hand tightened upon her waist.

She trembled beneath it.

‘I owe you an apology, Kathryn. That day in the carriage, I should not have taken advantage of you. Forgive me.’ The edge of his thumb delicately caressed her fingers.

Right at this moment in time she would have forgiven him anything. ‘I was not entirely blameless in the situation,’ she admitted. ‘I should not have…’ She glanced away. ‘I ought not to have…’ Was there any polite way of saying what had to be said? Silver eyes met smouldering green once more. ‘You know very well what I’m trying to say, Nicholas.’

A knowing smile was her only answer.

She cleared her throat nervously. ‘No such thing must happen again. I’m Lady Maybury’s companion, and even if that were not the case…’ Anxiety widened her eyes. ‘I would not have you think me anything other than respectable.’ There, she had said it.

The music filled the silence between them.

‘I do not think anything else,’ he said, and a strange expression came over his face. ‘And as you rightly said, you’re my grandmother’s companion. Do you think that I would do anything to dishonour her?’

‘No.’ It was the truth. There seemed to be a genuine bond of affection between the Viscount and his grandparent.

He was still looking at her in that peculiar way. ‘Are you truly so averse to my company, Kathryn?’

She sighed. The lie refused to form upon her lips. ‘I’m averse to any impropriety that might blight my reputation. My good name is all that I have left.’

‘I do not seek to damage it,’ he said softly.

She should treat him with the cool distance that propriety demanded, but she could not. ‘If we are agreed that no such thing should happen again between us, then there is no reason that we cannot be friends.’

‘Friends?’ He rolled the word around his tongue in careful consideration. It would certainly be a novelty. ‘Friends do not avoid one another, Kathryn.’

‘No, they do not,’ she said quietly.

‘Well, in that case…’ the side of his mouth quirked ‘…we shall be friends.’

The last bars of ‘Ach! Du lieber Augustine’ sounded in the ballroom.

Kathryn had no opportunity to speak further with Lord Ravensmede that evening. It seemed that his taking her on to the floor had acted as a signal as to her availability as a dancing partner, for no sooner had she taken her seat once more than she was approached by first one young man and then another. She tried to decline as politely as possible, knowing that she was present only in the capacity of a companion, but Lady Maybury was having none of it and, at her insistence, Kathryn was forced to accept each and every one of the flood of dance invitations. While partnering Captain Brent for the quadrille she became aware of Lord Ravensmede’s scrutiny and during the Scottish reel with Mr Parket she saw that he had stood up with an elegant young blonde lady. After that he disappeared and Kathryn focused her attentions on remembering her dance steps.

R
avensmede carelessly dropped the neckcloth on to the chair and massaged the knot of tension at the back of his neck that had been growing all night since witnessing Kathryn in the arms of another man, or several other men to be precise. He sighed and loosened his shirt, glad that he had instructed his valet not to wait up. The night was still young, certainly for someone of the Viscount’s lifestyle, but he had no inclination to attend his club, and still less to visit Millicent Miller. He wondered whether he had been a trifle hasty in paying his latest mistress off. He paced around the bedchamber, restless, discontented. Each time he closed his eyes an image appeared—Kathryn smiling at someone, and that someone wasn’t him. Little wonder he’d been forced to leave early. He poured himself another large and aromatic brandy and lay back still clothed upon the bed.

Perhaps Millicent was exactly what he needed. A pretty face and willing body to ease his frustration. But the thought went no further. The need that gnawed at him was specific, and he was quite sure that only one woman could remedy it. He had no notion for any of the women that had served as his mistresses. Indeed, he had no notion for anyone or anything other than his grandmother’s companion; a woman whom life had
treated harshly, who, until he had quite literally stumbled upon her at Lady Finlay’s ball with that dreadful blonde cousin, had battled alone through life’s trials. The thought of what she had witnessed after her father’s suicide, and, worse still, at the hands of the woman who called herself her aunt, nipped at Ravensmede. Yet Kathryn had endured and refused to be either cowed or embittered by her experiences.

Perdition, but she was beautiful. He had known it from the first, when she was hidden behind that monstrosity of a grey garment that passed for a dress. His grandmother’s influence had unmasked Kathryn’s real beauty for all to see. She was not pretty in the mundane sense of the
ton.
Rather her eyes had a silver sparkle, and that smile…He had scarcely been able to draw his eyes away from the sight of Kathryn, encased in the violet evening dress that emphasised the gentle curves of her figure.

And when he’d first approached her, only to find her with that faraway look in her eyes, he wanted nothing other than to pull her into his arms and kiss that delectable mouth that moved so readily to laughter. It had nigh on been his undoing, causing as it did certain physical reactions that were hardly appropriate at a society ball, least of all in front of his own grandmother. He’d been forced to concentrate his attentions on his grandam’s cronies in the hope of preventing what could have been an embarrassing situation for them all.

His fingers raked the dark ruffle of his hair. What was this obsession he felt for Kathryn? A desire to bed her, and yet he recoiled from treating her in such a despicable way. He was growing soft. Never once in all the years of playing the rake had he suffered such a revelation of conscience. And all because he’d developed a fancy for his grandmother’s companion. Truth to be told, much more than a fancy.

It was time he took himself in hand. She was just a woman, like any other. The brandy trickled down his throat, soothing the edge from his emptiness. A smile crooked across his face. Yes, Kathryn Marchant was definitely all woman, but she was
nothing like any of the others. Maybe, just maybe, Kathryn had already offered him the solution to his problem. It was almost as if he heard again the soft whisper of her words within his bedchamber,
there is no reason that we cannot be friends.