The Confessions of a Duchess (25 page)

Her gaze lingered on him. Beneath the mask her lips curved into a smile. “Oh, there are some things here that please me.” She glanced away at the swirling kaleidoscope of colored dancers in the ballroom. “There are a great many men in black dominoes tonight,” she observed. “How interesting. Perhaps they see the lighter colors as being too feminine for them.”

“Sir Montague is in bright red,” Dexter pointed out.

She laughed. “And I think we all understand what he is trying to convey with a scarlet domino!” She shook her head. “I will allow that it is also most amusing to see the fortune hunters trying to work out which ladies are the heiresses and which are not. To see Sir Montague courting a pair of actresses in the hope that they are rich debutantes…” She laughed. “Well, he will probably end up paying them for their favors rather than them bestowing a fortune on him!”

“Yes,” Dexter said. “That was clever. A plan of your own contriving?”

“Perhaps.” She inclined her head slightly. “The point, sir, is that every gentleman in Fortune’s Folly thinks that every lady is fair game. As long as she has money they care little about anything else. Oh—” Her tone was scornful. “No, I mistake. They care if she is pretty, as well. It is not essential if she is rich, but it is desirable. It is as though they are purchasing a horse. Looks, pedigree, value…” She shrugged. “The ladies of Fortune’s Folly do not care to be treated like livestock.”

“I think that the ladies of Fortune’s Folly have made their disapproval abundantly clear,” Dexter said.

“Not clear enough to stop that fool Sir Montague.” She sighed as Monty Fortune scampered past again with the two actresses chasing him with hunting cries. “Oh dear, I should have guessed that he would actually
enjoy
this. How very provoking!”

“Not everyone hunts a fortune because they are greedy and covetous,” Dexter said.

“Perhaps you should not judge all gentlemen by Sir Montague’s example.” She looked at him, the smile fading from her eyes. “Perhaps I should not. What are your reasons, sir?”

“I am a fortune hunter because my family is poor,” Dexter said slowly. It felt very important to tell her the truth of his situation. “I am the eldest of seven brothers and sisters who require to be educated and launched into the world,” he said. “I have a widowed mother who does not understand the meaning of the word
retrench.
I had an unreliable, spendthrift father who was the poorest example a man could have to follow.” He sighed. “I feel that I have an obligation to provide for and look after my dependents. My employer also demands my marriage as a sign of my trustworthiness. My family’s creditors demand it because we are mortgaged to the hilt and in debt to the tune of several thousand pounds.” He shrugged self-deprecatingly. “There you have it.”

Her gaze scoured his face as though she was testing his honesty. “Then it is a shame that you are so bad at catching a rich wife,” she said. The smile was back in her eyes. “I have observed that about you. Some men see it as a challenge and take pleasure in the chase, but you…” She shook her head. “I do not think that you enjoy it. Your heart is not in it.”

“I hate it.” Dexter spoke with unaccustomed passion and saw the surprise reflected in her eyes. “It offends my honor,” he added, “even when I acknowledge the necessity of it.” Their gazes met and he was snared in the candid warmth of her eyes. She was smiling a little and it felt as though she understood exactly how he felt. It felt as though she knew him through and through: the man who sought to do the right thing for the sake of his family even when it was at the expense of his own principles…. His breath caught. For a full five seconds it felt as though he could not inhale.

“Does it offend your honor to offer marriage without love?” she asked.

Dexter shifted. “I would like to offer marriage with at least a mutual respect.” She took a long, thoughtful sip of her wine. “Mutual respect is a worthy aim,” she said, “and it can grow over time.” She looked him directly in the eyes and he felt a jolt of emotion that he could not immediately identify. “But without love, marriage is a long cold business. Believe me, I should know.”

“And love is a dangerous illusion,” Dexter said. He felt as though he needed to assert his belief in rationality over emotion. He felt as though his careful, logical values were somehow slipping away, undermined by the current of undeniable feeling between them.

She laughed. “How like a man to be so cynical!”

“So you believe in love?” Dexter said.

“Of course.” There was a wistful expression in her face that made his heart thump.

He reached forward to take her gloved hand and felt the little shiver of awareness that shook her.

“Have you ever been in love?” he said.

She looked at him for what felt like a long time, her gaze shadowed and dark. She ran her fingers thoughtfully over the rim of the glass in her hand and he felt the touch like an echo inside.

“Twice,” she said. “I have been in love twice in my life. The first time was with my husband, which, I suppose, is as it should be.”

Dexter leaned forward. “And the second?”

Again she raised her gaze to his and his heart turned over at the expression in her eyes. He was back in the parlor of the Half Moon Inn when he had accused her of being a hypocritical whore and in that moment she had looked at him without artifice and he had seen the pain and denial in her eyes. Now he saw again all the grief and hurt that was in her and it made the blood slam through his body.

“The second time I fell in love by accident,” she said softly. “I had not intended it. I am not even sure how it happened. But it was the worst thing that I could possibly have done because I was not free.”

SHE HAD TOLD HIM too much.

As soon as she had spoken, Laura felt her heart contract with fear. Lured on by the intimacy of their situation, seduced by the look in Dexter’s eyes, she had forgotten herself and gone right to the edge of indiscretion. She had been tricked—no, she had tricked
herself
into believing for a moment that she could be honest with Dexter when in fact their closeness was a dangerous illusion.

She had not intended it to be like this. When Dexter had first approached her she had recognized him at once and had been incredulous that he had even thought of trying to flirt with her. Then she had remembered that she was an heiress now and his advances had made a horrible kind of sense. Dexter must have heard the rumors of her newly acquired fortune and with the ruthlessness of the true fortune hunter he had switched his attentions from Lydia to her. His courtship of Lydia had been faltering, anyway, and she was the better bet. She was as rich as Lydia now and she had already shown herself hopelessly susceptible to him. It was distasteful but all too plausible. She had felt shocked, disillusioned and angry.

The more she had thought about it the more Dexter’s calculated attempt at seduction had infuriated her and she had been determined to play him at his own game to see just how far he would go, just what sort of a heartless philanderer he really was beneath the facade of the honorable man. He had painted himself as a reluctant fortune hunter out to marry money solely for the benefit of those who relied on him, but Laura thought that was probably all part of the plan to gain her sympathy—and her money.

Yet despite being armed against him, somewhere along the way she had forgotten to be wary of him and to guard her tongue. She had trusted him because he seemed sincere.

She could not help herself. She loved him and she wanted to believe in him. And so she had allowed him to lead her too close to intimate disclosure. She had gone right to the edge of admitting that Dexter himself was the other man she had loved. If he knew that—and knew that she and Charles had been completely estranged—it was but a small step to questioning Hattie’s parentage. She had put her daughter in danger with her indiscretion. She had compromised Hattie’s safety because she had spoken too freely. She thought of the hideous scandal that would ensue if even the slightest hint emerged that Hattie was Dexter’s child and not Charles’s. Her daughter’s future would be tarnished irreparably and it would all be her fault.

“Laura?” Dexter must have seen the sudden anxiety in her for he put out a hand to her. “What is wrong?”

“I have to go now,” Laura said. Panic fluttered in her chest like trapped butterflies and she sought to control it. She pulled off her mask and dropped it on the seat. She felt shaken and angry with herself as well as with him. She had been a fool to trust him, even for a moment, and to bring herself and Hattie so close to ruin. And he had been a scoundrel setting out to woo her coldly for the money.

“Excuse me,” she said. “That was a pretty flirtation, Mr. Anstruther, but I fear it will not succeed. I am aware that your courtship of my cousin is not proceeding well.” She looked at him. “No doubt
you
are also aware that I am now an heiress. But to transfer your attentions to me with such blatancy even though you have so poor an opinion of me—” She stopped. The shock in Dexter’s face was so abrupt and so vivid that it could not be assumed. Her heart seemed to stumble. He had not heard about Henry’s largesse.

He had not known she was an heiress.

Suddenly Laura had the disconcerting feeling that she had misread the situation completely. She had thought Dexter had meant to flirt with her, seduce her if he could and compromise her for the money. But in that moment she had the conviction that he had had a completely different aim in view all the way through their conversation. He
had
been sincere in his distaste for fortune hunting. He had told her the painful truth about his family and his obligations. She had misjudged him.

Dexter had also taken off his mask now and the anger in his blue eyes was so strong that it pinned her to the spot. “I have no idea what you mean, your grace,” he said evenly,

“but I am…disappointed…that you would believe that of me.” He shifted, but the intensity of his gaze did not waver. Laura could feel her heart beating like a drum in sharp, vibrant snaps. She felt a moment’s chill premonition and then he spoke again.

“I have no interest in whatever fortune it appears you have suddenly gained,” he said.

“What I actually wanted from you was to ask what you really felt on that morning four years ago when you dismissed me from your bed and your life.” He raised his brows. “I think you lied to me at the time when you said you did not care for me. I think you were in love with me. I think that I was the man you spoke of just now. Now tell me the truth, Laura.”

Laura stared at him in silence. Dexter’s words had smashed the last vestiges of pretense between them. She could see now exactly what he had planned. The flirtation between them
had
been a seduction but it had been intended to seduce the truth out of her.

He had calculated every question in order to draw her out. He had planned the conversation deliberately to get her off her guard, to tempt her into revealing too much. And she had almost done so.

“Laura?”

Unnoticed by the two of them, Alice Lister had approached and now laid a hand on Laura’s arm.

“I do apologize for disturbing you,” she said, “but Mama and I are ready to leave and we wondered if you wished to take the carriage home with us? Mama swears that Sir Montague’s prawn patties have made her feel nauseous whilst I fear that the attentions of so many fortune hunters have had a similar effect on me. I hope,” she added, as neither Laura nor Dexter had taken their eyes from one another, “that I have not interrupted you at a terribly delicate moment?”

“Not at all, Alice,” Laura said, shaking herself. “I am quite ready to leave.” She turned to Dexter and saw the cynical twist to his mouth as he realized she was going to walk out without answering him.

“Good night, Mr. Anstruther,” she said. “I do not believe we have anything further to say to one another.”

Dexter got to his feet and bowed to them. His blue gaze was still cold. “Good night, your grace. Good night, Miss Lister.”

Alice slipped her hand through Laura’s arm as they made their way round the edge of the ballroom. “Gracious,” she whispered, “Mr. Anstruther can be extremely cold and cutting when he chooses. Whatever did you say to upset him, Laura?” Laura let her breath out in a long sigh. She had not even been aware that she was holding it. She felt a little shaky.

“There was something that he wanted to know,” she said, “but I did not wish to talk about it with him.”

Alice looked at her curiously. “It must have been monstrous important.” Laura shook her head. “It was nothing of importance, Alice. Nothing at all.” IN THE SUMMERHOUSE at the bottom of the gardens at Fortune Hall, Lydia Cole was curled within the circle of her lover’s arms. She liked to think of him as her lover although they had not made love with one another. Such a thing was, of course, completely forbidden and utterly out of the question, but she loved him and was almost certain he loved her, too, so they were definitely lovers in that true, pure sense of the word. In fact, Lydia loved him enough to want to be alone with him and therefore risk the scandal of discovery and the even worse danger of Faye finding out what she was up to. The thought of what would happen if her mother knew the truth was sufficient to make Lydia shudder, for there was no possible chance of matrimony with this gentleman. Her parents would never approve. Yet somehow his very unsuitability, and the hopelessness of her passion, made Lydia feel all the more ardent.

It was a cold night with a bright, white full moon, but Lydia did not notice the sting of frost in the air for she was wrapped in her lover’s black domino. It was warm and it smelled of him and the scent made her head spin. She leaned back against his chest and felt him nuzzle her hair gently. She liked that. His kisses were gentle and this soft caress was, too. He never frightened her with violent passion.

His tongue searched out the delicate curve of her ear and the shivers ran down to her toes.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I know, sweetheart, I know….” There was a smile in his voice and it made her feel weak to hear it. He must love her to speak so tenderly to her.