Rogue Grooms (30 page)

He couldn’t help but wish himself at home, though, where he could spend an hour with Anjali before her bedtime. They had gotten into the habit of sharing a hot pot of tea against the chill of the spring evening, while Anjali showed him her day’s lessons or played him a newly learned tune at the pianoforte. She enjoyed hearing him read, too, from books of fairy tales, or poetry, or especially history. These evenings were cozy and enjoyable, quiet in the grand, if still rather dusty, drawing room.

A more different scene from the one he faced now would be hard to imagine.

David nodded at Lady Wilton’s words, and made appropriately polite replies, while surreptitiously studying the ballroom. It was a vast expanse, sparkling with gilt and mirrors, yet it felt small, it was so dense with people. The dance floor was filled with skipping, swirling dancers, while its outskirts thronged with observers who talked and laughed so loudly they almost drowned out the orchestra. Their silks and muslins, their fine jewels and plumes, sparkled in the light of thousands of candles.

It put him in mind of a maharajah’s audience day, when petition-seekers gathered, clad in their best garments, their diamonds and sapphires. Those people, too, whispered and watched each other, gauging where they stood in relation to their peers, if their fortunes were waning or on the rise. Were their silks finer than those of that person over there? Were their jewels larger?

David almost laughed aloud at the irony. He had journeyed halfway across the world to find that the old adage was true—the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. He had hoped that here Anjali would find a degree of freedom impossible in India, in his grandmother’s world. But London was just like Calcutta in so many ways.

And he was not completely accepted in either.

In Calcutta, his grandmother’s grand friends mistrusted him because of his white father, his strange Western habits. They associated him with the strange, pale sahibs. Here, they sought out his title, his English fortune, but they mistrusted his dark skin, his Indian mother. They had never met anyone like him—titled, but foreign—and did not know how to treat him.

He saw this in the sidelong glances, the half-heard whispers dragging out the old scandal of his father’s marriage. People acknowledged Lady Wilton’s introduction of him; he
was
the Earl of Darlinghurst, after all. But their conversation was stilted, their gazes darted above his head and to his side. He hardly dared to ask any young lady to dance, for fear their mamas would spit in his face!

It all summoned up a long-buried mischief inside of him. What would they do if he suddenly burst into Bengali, sang a song of the medieval poet Kabir, or took off his stylish coat to reveal a striped sash and curved sword? Not that he carried a sword or wore a sash, of course, but still . . . the thought was tempting. Anything to break up this stiffly artificial environment and bring some amusement.

Perhaps next time he would wear a turban. With a diamond set in it. And arrive on an elephant. Where could one procure an elephant in London? Or perhaps dancing girls? Yet even as he thought it, even as he was tempted to give it a try, he knew he could not. He was trying to build a new life for Anjali here, a place where she could thrive and find happiness.

But perhaps just a small elephant, in Hyde Park one afternoon....

“And when will you travel to Combe Lodge, Lord Darlinghurst?” Lady Wilton asked, pulling him out of his ridiculous visions.

He smiled down at her, tilting his head to one side to avoid her bobbing purple plumes. “Very soon, I hope, Lady Wilton. I have not seen the estate in many years, and, though Town has been delightful, I am looking forward to the country air.”

“Oh, yes, most bracing,” said Lady Wilton, with another fervent nod that almost dislodged the plumes entirely from her headdress. “We are going to Ireland ourselves, to visit my poor sister who is forced to live there, but I do not imagine the company will be as congenial as that you’ll find in Derbyshire.”

“Derbyshire is a beautiful corner of the country,” said Lady Hapsby timidly. She had been standing with her husband in their little circle for several moments, but this was the first time David heard her actually speak. Mostly she just clung to her husband’s sleeve and stared from wide hazel eyes.

David gave her a gentle smile. “Indeed you are correct, Lady Hapsby. Some of my happiest boyhood memories are of Derbyshire and Combe Lodge. I look forward very much to returning there.”

And he looked forward to seeing if the neighbors were as congenial as ever. He wondered, not for the first time, if the Kentons still resided at Fair Oak. It was a pretty place, but not as grand as most ducal seats. He remembered that it did not suit the wild Damien, but he had heard that Damien was long dead and Alex, the military younger son, was now duke. Alex was once a nice young man, who happily took David and Emily fishing and riding, when most young men could not be bothered with their little sisters and their friends. Alex, if he was still the same sort of man, would be easy to approach about selling the Star of India.

And if Emily was still in residence—well, then, the company would surely be most congenial. Unless she had become one of the stiff, formal, timid ladies he observed around him now.

That thought, the image of his pretty and energetic Boudicca turned into a porcelain doll, gave him a strange, sour pang.

“The Duke of Wayland is your neighbor, is he not?” Lord Hapsby asked, almost as if he followed David’s own thoughts.

“Yes. At least, I believe the Kenton family is still in residence at Fair Oak. They were friends with my father when I was a boy,” David answered. “They are a very fine family.”

“Very,” Lady Wilton agreed, those blasted plumes bobbing away. “The duke and duchess are meant to attend my little rout this evening, though I have not yet seen them. I am sure they would be happy to find an old friend here!”

“The duchess is so very stylish,” her daughter, Miss Louisa Wilton, said wistfully. “Such dash!”

“Indeed she is,” agreed a nearby gentleman, and there followed a conversation where David was informed all about the famous, red-headed Duchess of Wayland. She had once been Mrs. Georgina Beaumont, the well-known Society artist, and she still occasionally displayed her work. She drove in the park in her own phaeton, had actually been seen embracing her children in public, and had made dancing with one’s own husband almost fashionable!

David could only hope she had not also taken to wearing the Star in her red hair and would thus be loathe to part with it.

The talk turned to fashions in bonnets for the ladies, and the state of hunting in Derbyshire for the gentlemen. David had not much information, or indeed interest, in either of those topics, and his attention drifted back to the dancers. A schottische was finishing, the partners skipping through the circle and swirling about one final time.

Suddenly, the back of his neck tingled sharply, the small hairs standing on end. Someone was watching him, not casually, but quite intently. It felt as if he was back in a Bengali jungle, with a panther staring at him from the cover of trees.

Slowly, David turned away from the dance floor and glanced behind him. His gaze landed on a lady who stood several paces away, her hand on the arm of a plump, red-faced young man. She was certainly lovely—one of the most beautiful ladies in the ballroom. Not very tall, she was slim and delicate-looking, with sunshine gold hair piled up in loose curls and anchored with a white silk fillet. Her gown was Grecian in design, a simple column of white and silver satin that draped into a low décolletage and small cap sleeves. An ornate garnet cross on a gold chain hung about her neck, resting enticingly just above the swell of her ivory-rose bosom.

She would have appeared the veriest wax doll, perfectly pink and white and gold, perfectly still and polite, if not for her eyes. They were dark blue, like an Indian sky right before the onslaught of the monsoons. And they were just as stormy, roiling with a barely leashed intelligence and energy. They stared at him intently, never wavering from his face.

It was those eyes that jolted him, made him stumble back a step. Lady Wilton glanced up at him, startled. David murmured an apology to her, never taking his stare off the golden goddess.

No, not a goddess. A warrior queen. Boudicca.

“Emily,” he whispered under his breath. It had to be Emily. No other female in the world had eyes like that. His old friend—grown into a beauty beyond all imagination.

He longed to go to her, to take her hands in his, to ask her all about the years they were separated. What had happened to her? What had she seen, done? Lady Wilton’s hand on his arm held him where he was.

His hostess followed his gaze, and said, with a little trill of laughter, “Ah, here is one of your neighbors now! How fortuitous. You must remember Lady Emily Kenton.” Lady Emily moved closer with her escort, a tentative smile now touching her rosey pink lips. “Lady Emily, may I have the honor of presenting, or rather representing, the Earl of Darlinghurst? He is only recently returned from India, and has graced my humble soiree as his first outing. And this is Mr. Carrington, Lord Darlinghurst.”

“Of course I remember—Lord Darlinghurst,” Emily said, her voice catching, as if she had run a great distance and was out of breath. It reminded David of the last day they were together, racing across the meadows. “It has been far too long since we met.”

She stepped away from her escort, which did not please the young man—Mr. Carrington?—at all. His face grew even redder and he sputtered, but he was impotent to hold her back. She extended her gloved hand to David and he bowed over it. It was a polite salute, yet he was loath to let her go after the obeisance was performed. Her hand seemed not much larger than when he used to grasp it to help her up a tree, but her fingers were light and strong where they curled around his. She smelled of the expensive kid of her glove, of sweet roses, and of her own cinnamon-like Emily fragrance.

“Far too long, Lady Emily. It is—very good to see you again,” he told her, slowly letting his hand slide from hers. She gave him a wide, glorious smile, and he was again reminded of the monsoons. She was not like a gentle English rain. Her smile, her scarcely restrained vibrant energy, were like the unspeakable relief of the cleansing, driving rains after unbearable, parching heat.

It was as if they had never been apart—and also as if they were meeting for the first time.

The orchestra tuned their instruments in preparation for a new set of dances. He thought he recognized an old country reel in the strains, a relatively simple dance he could possibly manage.

“Lady Emily, will you do me the honor of dancing the next set with me?” he asked her. He had meant not to dance this evening; his feet were still unused to the English steps, despite practicing them with Anjali for her dance lessons. His ear was unused to the tunes. Yet the chance to hold Emily’s hand in his again, to converse with her, even if only in polite niceties, was more than he could resist. He could only hope he would not step on her toes, or knock her over in a turn.

Her smile widened even further, and she nodded over the sputtering, ineffectual protests of Mr. Carrington. “Thank you, Lord Darlinghurst. I would be happy to accept.”

E
mily slid her hand into the warm crook of David’s arm and followed his lead to their place in the dance.
Surely this must be a dream,
she thought. It felt like she was surrounded by a misty haze of unreality; her silk slippers floated above the floor, and she wanted to laugh aloud. She was about to dance with David.
David!

She knew this was her old friend, she saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Yet also, oddly, he was a stranger. A tall, handsome stranger, who had been away from her, been in a faraway land, for many years.

She wished they did not have to dance. She wanted to go somewhere quiet with him, to pour out all her questions and hear him answer in his rich, dark, musically accented voice. What was his life in India like? Why had he come back to England? Was he—unthinkable!—married? What did he think of her grown-up self?

But they could not do that, of course. They were in a crowded ballroom; everyone was watching them. Emily was accustomed to the
ton
’s eyes on her; speculation was par for the course for a duke’s unmarried sister. And, of course, Georgina and Alex drew attention wherever they went in their own rights! Yet this was different. The attention seemed—sharper, somehow. The sister of the Duke of Wayland with the Indian earl? Shocking!

But Emily found she did not care. She had been through too much in her life to care two straws what the pettier members of the
ton
thought of her. As long as her actions were not dishonorable, as Damien’s had been, she did mostly what she liked. And right now what she
liked
was to dance with David. There could be nothing improper in her dancing with an earl, her family’s neighbor.

As she curtsied to him and took his hand for the first turn in the dance, these thoughts vanished altogether. The crowded ballroom, the other dancers, everything was gone. She saw only him, smiling at her as they came together and swirled apart. She remembered dancing with him at her parents’ long-ago Christmas ball, the two of them skipping down the line, laughing as only carefree children could.

He had not been quite so tall then! His hands had not been so strong. But he still smelled of sandalwood soap.

“We were so very sorry to hear of your father’s passing,” she said. It seemed wrong somehow to begin their reacquaintance with such a sad subject, yet she felt it had to be said. The letter her mother had written to him when the news reached them seemed inadequate. “He was a fine man.”

“Thank you, Lady Emily. I was very sorry to hear of your father, as well. And your brother.” They linked arms and turned in an allemande.