Slightly Tempted (3 page)

Morgan fanned her face slowly and watched him as he turned and walked away.

"The fellow is fortunate that there are ladies present," Lord Gordon was saying to his circle of cronies, his voice shaking with anger. "It would have given me great satisfaction to slap a glove in his face."

Morgan ignored him.

"My dear Lady Morgan," Lady Caddick said when the earl was out of earshot, "the mysterious Earl of Rosthorn must be very taken with you to have made the effort to be introduced to you."

"Mysterious,Mama?" Rosamond asked.

"Oh, yes, he is quite the mystery," Lady Caddick said. "He succeeded to his father's title and fortune a year or so ago, but no one had seen him for years before that or has seen him during the year since-except now here in Brussels. It is rumored that he has been hiding out on the Continent gathering intelligence for the British government."

"He is aspy ?" Rosamond gazed after him in wide-eyed rapture.

"There may very well be some truth in the claim," her mother said. "It would certainly explain his appearance here in Brussels when intelligence concerning the French must be greatly in demand."

Morgan's interest was further piqued. A dangerous man indeed! But the sets were forming for the next dance and the orchestra was poised to play again. Lieutenant Hunt-Mathers stepped up to her, made her a stiff military bow, and extended one arm.

CHAPTER II

GERVASE SPENT THE NEXT HALF HOUR IN THEcard room, strolling among the tables watching the games and exchanging nods and pleasantries with a few acquaintances. He kept one ear tuned to the music.

Lady Morgan Bedwyn was every bit as lovely from close to as she had seemed from across the ballroom. Her creamy complexion was flawless, her eyes large and brown and generously fringed with dark lashes. He had been considerably amused by her reaction to his deliberately lavish compliments. She had stared him down like a jaded dowager. She was not, it seemed, the silly girl he had expected her to be

That blank, haughty stare must be a Bedwyn gift. Bewcastle had been a master of it. Gervase had been at the receiving end of it the very last time he saw the man. The expression on Lady Morgan Bedwyn's face suggested pride, conceit, vanity, arrogance-all those related aspects of character that hardened his resolve.

Finally the music came to an end, to be replaced by a louder buzz of conversation from the direction of the ballroom. It was time to go and claim his partner. Bewcastle'ssister .

The noise and gaiety in the ballroom seemed to belie the fact that they were all here-especially the officers-because a war was imminent. But perhaps it was the very possibility of such a catastrophe that set everyone to enjoying the moment to its fullest. The moment was perhaps all many of them would ever have.

He located his partner in the crowd and made his way toward her. He acknowledged Lady Caddick, her chaperon, with an inclination of his head and bowed to her charge.

"Lady Morgan," he said, "this is my set, I believe?"

She nodded her head regally. She and the golden-haired young lady with her were surrounded by young officers, all of whom looked at him with thinly veiled hostility.

"It is a waltz," the other young lady said. "Do you know the steps, Lord Rosthorn?"

"I do indeed," he assured her. "I recently spent a few months in Vienna. The waltz is all the rage there."

"Rosamond!" Lady Caddick said quellingly, perhaps because the girl had spoken to him without first being formally presented to him. But the older lady's tall hair plumes dipped graciously in his direction. "You may waltz with Lady Morgan, Lord Rosthorn. She has been given the nod of approval by the patronesses of Almack's."

He held out one arm to Lady Morgan, and she placed her hand lightly on his sleeve-a slender, long-fingered hand encased in a white glove.

"The nod of approval of the patronesses of Almack's," he said, raising his eyebrows as he led her away. "It is of some . . . significance?"

"It is all utterly tedious," she said with a look that reminded him again of a jaded dowager. "A lady is not permitted to waltz in a London ballroom until she has been granted their permission."

"Indeed?" he said. "Pray why?"

"Many people do not approve of the waltz," she said. "It is considered fast."

"Fast?" he asked, bending his head closer to hers.

"As in improper," she said disdainfully.

He grinned. "Ah, I see," he said. And he did too. Good old England. It had not changed. It was as prudish as ever.

"I had danced it a thousand times at home with my dancing master and my brothers," she told him. "But I was not allowed to dance it at my own come-out ball!"

"Just as if you were a child!" he said, looking shocked.

"Precisely!" But she looked suspiciously into his eyes as they took their places on the dance floor and waited for the music to begin.

Lord, but she was a beauty!

"Are you a British spy?" she asked him.

He raised his eyebrows at this abrupt change of subject.

"There is a rumor to that effect," she said. "You have been gone from England for a long time. It is thought that perhaps you have been engaged in intelligence missions for the British government."

"Alas, I'm afraid I am nothing so romantic," he said. "I have been away from England for nine years because I was banished from there-by my father."

"Indeed?" she said.

"It concerned a woman," he said with a smile, "and the theft of a priceless jewel."

"Which you stole?"

"Which I didnot steal," he said. "But do not all accused and convicted thieves say the same thing?"

She regarded him for a moment from beneath arched eyebrows. "I am sorry you are not a spy," she said. "Though I daresay you would have been unwilling to answer any of my questions about the military situation anyway." She turned her head toward the orchestra dais-the music was beginning at last.

He set his right hand behind her waist-it was so slender that he might almost have spanned it with his two hands-and took her right hand in his left. Her free hand came to rest on his shoulder.

She was very young. And exquisitely lovely.

And Bewcastle's sister.

Dancing was one thing at which he excelled. He had always loved the elegant figures of the minuet and the quadrille, the vigorous intricacies of country dances-and the sheer erotic thrill of the waltz. Perhaps the British were wise to protect their very young from its seductive pull.

He led her off into the dance, waltzing and twirling with small, careful steps while he tested her knowledge of the dance and her ability to follow a lead. She had been well taught. But she possessed something more than just precision and accuracy. He could feel it even during that first minute, when they danced as sedately as everyone else around them.

She showed no further inclination to converse, and he felt none. She smelled of some soft, floral soap or cologne-violets, perhaps? She felt very youthful, very slender, in his arms. She was light and warm and pliant, and he could feel her slippers moving across the floor only inches from his own shoes.

"Is this how the English waltz?" he asked her.

"Yes." She looked up at him. "Is it not how everyone waltzes?"

"Shall I show you how it is done in Vienna,chérie ?" he asked her.

Her eyes widened, though whether in response to the question or to his use of the French endearment she did not say.

He twirled her with longer strides and a wider swing about a corner, and she followed him. He even elicited a sparkling little smile from her.

The waltz had never been intended to be a plodding, mechanical affair, everyone twirling slowly and in perfect time with one another. He danced it now as it was surely meant to be danced, his eyes and his mind focused upon his partner, his ears bringing in the music and pouring its melody and its rhythm into every cell of his body, his feet converting that rhythm into movement.

It was a sensual dance, intended to focus a man's attention on his partner and hers on him. It was meant to make them think of another kind of dance, one more intimate still.

No wonder the British had misgivings about the waltz.

He whirled her about until the light from the candles became one swirling band of brightness overhead, and wound her skillfully in and out of the more slowly circling couples, noting with satisfaction that she stayed with him every step of the way, that she showed not a moment's fear of missing a step or colliding with a fellow dancer or losing her balance. The bright uniforms of the officers, the paler pastel ball gowns of the ladies, all merged into a swooping melody of color.

By the time the first waltz of the set came to an end she was bright-eyed and slightly flushed and a little breathless. And even lovelier than before.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "I like how it is done in Vienna!"

He dipped his head closer to hers. "Would the patronesses of Almack's approve, do you suppose?"

"Absolutely not," she said, and then laughed.

The music began again. But it was a slower, more lilting tune this time.

He waltzed her through the crowds as before, weaving in and out, varying the length of his steps, taking several smaller ones, and then moving into wide, sweeping swirls that forced an arch to her back and her neck. He felt the music with his body, moved with it, challenged it, took liberties with it, felt the magic of it. And she moved unerringly with him, her eyes on his much of the time. He held her fractionally closer than the regulation hold, though they touched nowhere except where regulations allowed.

She sighed aloud as the music drew to a close again.

"I did not know the waltz could be so-" she said, but one circling hand, which she had lifted from his shoulder, suggested that she could not think of a suitable word with which to complete the sentence.

"Romantic?" he suggested. He moved his lips closer to her ear. "Erotic?"

"Enjoyable," she said, and then she frowned and looked at him with a return of her earlier hauteur. "That was not a very proper choice of word! And why have you called mechérie ?"

"I have spent nine years on the Continent," he said, "speaking French most of the time. And my mother is French."

"Would you call medear orsweetheart, then, if you had spent those years in England?" she asked. "Or if your mother were English?"

"Probably not." He smiled into her eyes. "I would have lived all my life with English sensibilities and English inhibitions. How dull that would have been. I am thankful my mother is French,chérie ."

"You must not call me that," she said. "I have not permitted it. Iam English, you see, with all of an Englishwoman's sensibilities and inhibitions-and dullness."

She was, he thought, every inch Bewcastle's sister. Except that he had spotted the rebel beneath the aristocrat, the butterfly eager to fly free of its cocoon. And the woman behind the youthful exterior who was surely capable of hot passion.

"I do not believe you for a moment," he told her softly, smiling into her eyes. "But if I may not call youchérie, what else is there? What sort of a name is Morgan for a lady?"

"It was my mother's choice," she said. "We all have unusual names, my sister and my brothers. But mine is not so very strange. Have you not heard of the Morgan of Arthurian legend? She was a woman."

"And an enchantress," he said. "You are aptly named after all, then."

"Nonsense," she said briskly. "Besides, I am not Morgan to you, am I, Lord Rosthorn? I amLady Morgan."

The music began again for the last waltz of the set as his smile turned to laughter.

"Ah," she said, brightening, "a lively tune again. Dancing can often be very tedious, Lord Rosthorn, would you not agree?"

"As danced the English way, I would have to agree with you," he said. "But the Viennese way is more . . . er, interesting, would you not agree?"

"When you paused, you intended that I think of that other word, did you not?" she said. "I believe, Lord Rosthorn, you are flirting quite outrageously with me. But beware-I am not as gullible as I may look. Yes, let us waltz the Viennese way since it is moreinteresting ." She smiled at him.

All of the sunlight and all of the warmth of a summer day were in that smile, and he realized that she was playing him at his own game-or what she thought was his game. She was far more interesting than he had expected. She might even prove a worthy foe.

He hoped so.

"You have talked me into it,chérie, " he told her, sweeping her into the dance, holding her smiling eyes with his own. "We will perform thaterotic dance."

Her cheeks flushed. But she would not look away from him, he noticed. He smiled slowly back at her.

ALMOST ALL THEBRITISH VISITORS TOBRUSSELS HADdriven out to the village of Schendelbeke and across the temporary bridge over the River Dender to where, on the riverbank near Grammont, the Duke of Wellington reviewed the British cavalry. The Prussian field marshal von Blücher was there too.