Suzanne Robinson (9 page)

Mattie glanced at her startled mother. “Sakes alive, Mama, such a fuss about one little gown.”

 
6
 

Cheyne retreated into the shell of frosty discipline that had served him well during his years in the cavalry. The restraint was necessary. Lady Hortense’s nasal whine reminded him of a goat that had swallowed a trumpet, and the comparison did nothing to control his urge to snap at the woman. But he couldn’t risk giving vent to his usual sarcasm if he wanted to remain on the guest lists of Society. So he had to stand here, wondering how his gloves got boot blacking on them, and play the repentant horror-stricken gentleman.

Fortunately Lady Hortense’s mother arrived.

“Mother, just look at my gown. It’s awful, and I’ll never recover from this. Never.”

“Oh, hush, Hortense. No one wants to listen to you.”

“But Mother!”

Cheyne fixed his gaze on a chandelier before his sympathy for the mother began to show. Then he looked at his gloves again. Sighing, he pulled them off and glanced around the room. Nearby he saw Miss Mattie Bright, a pleased-with-herself expression on her face. In that instant he knew what had happened. Fury exploded in him, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Boiling with frustration, Cheyne made his apologies to Lady Hortense and her mother, made a graceful offer to replace the gown and excused himself.

Turning on his heel, he marched straight for Matilda Bright, who sat amid her spangled rose silk and complacency. The moment he took a step, however, Miss Bright rose and glided away from him through the thickest part of the crowd. He knew he should return to the business of hunting for the blackmailer, but he was too angry. Besides, he reasoned, how could he continue to move through Society unobtrusively with this mischief-making little savage making him look like an idiot at every function? She had to be stopped. And it would be his pleasure to do it.

Cheyne glimpsed Miss Bright’s spangled gown as she fled across the ballroom and went through the French doors that opened onto the terrace. He darted after her into the cold April night. He was in time to see her race down the terrace and vanish into one of the rooms on the other side of the house. He ran after her and found himself in the Silk Tapestry
Room, so called for the woven Renaissance tapestries that hung from its ceilings.

He heard a door slam somewhere and hurried out, but stopped in a picture gallery with half a dozen rooms off it, uncertain. Light footsteps sounded above him and he plunged up the west staircase to another gallery. There he hesitated and caught a whiff of perfume—lilacs and spice. He followed the scent through several rooms, but it faded. Cursing, he started down the stairs. He’d been gone from the ball too long. As he made the turn in the staircase, he sniffed and smiled. The little devil had doubled back.

He slithered along the picture gallery, taking care to stay on the carpet that muffled his steps. He paused beside a pair of doors carved of mahogany, slowly turned the gilded handle and slipped inside the Music Room. Miss Bright stood at the floor-length windows and peered at the terrace through the wine-colored velvet curtains.

She really was a stunner. As he watched, she bent over to remove her slippers, giving him an interesting view of her posterior. Cheyne smiled and approached her while she rubbed her foot. He was near enough to deliver a good swat to his tempting target when she gasped, whirled around, and threw her shoe at him. The silk object hit him in the chest.

“Ouch! That hurt, you little harpy.”

Cheyne grabbed for her, but Miss Bright darted
around the grand piano. Cheyne dashed around the other side so that he was between the piano and the doors.

“You put boot blacking on my gloves, blast you.”

“You’ve got no call to get wrathy. You made me dance with that passel of mangy oafs.” Miss Bright turned the color of the curtains. “That Isidore Chelmer gawked at my—he stared at—I’ve never met a more repulsive fella in all my born days. Except you.”

“Miss Bright, if you wish to marry a title, and it appears that is your quest, shallow though it may be, then you’ll have to learn to put up with a few inconveniences.” Cheyne moved around the piano. “Come here, Miss Bright. I want to give you a lesson in etiquette. It will help you remember not to make a gentleman look like a fool in front of the best families in England.”

“Can’t be the best, if you’re one of ’em.” Miss Bright circled around the piano and darted behind a harp that stood near the doors.

Cheyne leaped across the room to place himself between the harp and escape. “Never have I met a more tiresome, ill-mannered person. You seem to have been educated on the Continent, but it didn’t do any good. So I’m going to teach you that running over people with motorcars and playing tricks at balls have no place among refined persons.”

“You’re the one who started this, blaming me for things that are your fault and bellowing insults at me at the portrait viewing,” said Miss Bright. “You got
no call to get uppity and accuse me of being uncivil when you’re worse than a grizzly at Delmonico’s.”

“Will you please speak English? I understood only half of what you said.”

“You mean you want me to sound like I’ve been soaked in vinegar and stuck on the shelf.”

Cheyne moved closer to Miss Bright, but she tossed her remaining shoe at him and sprinted for the door as he dodged it. He spun around and lunged, catching her around the waist and quickly pulling her against him. Spitting colorful insults at him, Miss Bright pounded at his arm until he managed to wrap her in a hold that brought them face-to-face. And then Cheyne realized his mistake in not holding her at arm’s length.

They were pressed against each other like tinned sausages, and he could feel her breasts heave against his chest. Every movement, every squirm and writhe brought Miss Bright’s curves in contact with his body. The righteousness of his purpose disappeared from his thoughts. Arousal burned away his vexation.

Miss Bright tried to pry herself free by shoving his chest with her trapped arms. This forced her bosom back and her hips forward so that Cheyne glimpsed temptation while his most intimate body parts received stimulation to the point of pain.

“Stop that!” Cheyne squeezed her so that she couldn’t move.

“I can’t breathe, dang it.”

He loosened his grip, and Miss Bright took a
deep breath. Through a haze of desire Cheyne watched her fill her lungs. She was still close to him, close enough to make those deep breaths torture. Blood pounded in his ears, and his heart raced. It raced to other parts of him as well, making him want to howl with the tension of it. He noticed the way she bit her lower lip as she struggled to regain her equilibrium. His gaze narrowed so that those lips filled his vision. The pounding in his ears, the beating of his heart, the discomfort of arousal all grew until he thought he would explode. Unable to endure the agony, Cheyne suddenly let go of his prisoner.

The abruptness of her release caused Miss Bright to lose her balance. She dropped to the floor on her bottom.

“Hey!”

Cheyne retreated to the windows, grabbed a handful of velvet curtain in his fist and pressed his forehead against the glass. “Go away.”

Behind him he heard Miss Bright get to her feet and pick up her shoes. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing, tossing me around like a sack of sweet potatoes?”

“I said go away.” Cheyne gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, trying to will away the urge to throw her on the floor.

“Now, listen here, Mr. Tennant, if you think you can handle me like that and then just—”

Cheyne’s fist jerked in the curtains, making the
rod jangle and startling Miss Bright. “Bloody hell! Get out.”

Miss Bright narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. Cheyne’s gaze dropped to her arms, and he winced again.

“What’s wrong with you?”

A pained laugh burst from him, and Cheyne gave her a twisted smile that cost him much. “Miss Bright, further conversation between us is impossible. Are you really so innocent?” When she furrowed her brow, he closed his eyes and swore.

“
Christ
.”

He turned away from her and stared blindly into the darkness. “If you value your honor, Miss Bright, you’ll do as I ask. Otherwise, it’s quite likely I shall throw you on the floor and—”

“Dang.”

“Dang indeed,” Cheyne said wryly.

Before he could continue, he heard the rustle of silk and the sound of a door opening and closing. After a while he saw a figure in rose silk walk along the terrace. Miss Bright passed the window where he stood and hesitated. Their gazes met, but she broke the contact and disappeared into the ballroom. Cheyne remained where he was and rested his burning face against the windowpane.

He heard laughing and realized it was his own. What irony. To conceive a lust for that barbaric creature, and in the midst of this hunt for the blackmailer. Not only was it unprofessional, it was absurd. He could have any woman he wanted. Had he
wished, he could have begun an affair this evening with any of half a dozen married ladies who’d made their interest plain. Women had always made their interest plain to him.

Once, he’d taken advantage of this power. For years he amused himself by making conquests of the most beautiful and unattainable women. Then he’d gone to war and learned that life was too precious to waste in pursuit of meaningless encounters and ephemeral gratification. He’d spent too much time fighting a Boer army that vanished into the bush, leaving him and his men to suffer in the heat and dirt. For a time after he came back to England, his wounds and the ugliness he’d seen caused a grief too deep to admit the presence of a woman. Now that the nightmares had faded, he had sought out a few ladies who had become friends as well as lovers. These women knew the rules—Cheyne’s rules. Nothing serious, no promises, yet mutual respect and courtesy.

These rules enabled him to maintain a safe distance, a distance Miss Bright had just destroyed. How in the world had he lost his detachment? His anger. That was it. His anger had thrown him off guard. Well, it wouldn’t happen again. He knew his weakness now, and he’d guard against allowing his ire free reign around Miss Bright. The whole incident was simply a result of too much emotion. Of course. He should have realized this at once. It wasn’t Miss Bright’s beauty. She was hardly a beauty.

Pleasing. He would admit she was pleasing. Especially her figure, and her face, and her midnight hair.
But he’d been with women far more beautiful. And certainly he hadn’t been aroused by the lady’s charming manner. Matilda Bright had the charm of a Boer and the manners of a fishmonger’s wife. Her language was atrocious and her attitude disrespectful.

Exactly. So there was little chance of a reoccurrence of this evening’s lapse. The whole incident was an aberration.

Cheyne straightened and left the window. Having convinced himself of his invulnerability to Miss Bright’s allure, he was straightening his tie in order to return to the ball and elicit more gossip when Mutton opened the door.

“What are you doing here?” Cheyne asked.

“Been looking for you gov’nor. The superintendent wants you.”

“Why?”

“There’s been another death.”

Half an hour after being summoned by Mutton, Cheyne walked into a town house in Eaton Square and past a pair of policemen in the marble foyer. He could hear the sound of a woman weeping in a room upstairs, and distraught servants in various states of undress hovered in the doorway behind the staircase. He went into a room off the foyer where several more policemen had gathered and found Superintendent Balfour questioning a hastily dressed middle-aged man.

“That will do for tonight, Mr. Denton. Sergeant Notting will go with you and question the rest of the staff.”

Balfour finished writing and closed his notebook before he saw Cheyne. He motioned silently and stepped aside to reveal a man in a leather chair slumped over a heavy walnut desk. An empty bottle of cognac lay beside him. Cheyne had noticed the reek of alcohol the moment he came into the room.

“That’s Sir Archibald Preston,” Cheyne said quietly. “Didn’t you contact him when I gave you his name?”