“Gules, not ghouls,” Sir Dauphine La Foole said, with the tone of a pompous schoolmaster. “I merely mentioned that I am descended lineally from the French La Fooles. Though I was knighted in Ireland, I wear the hereditary armorial colors, checked azure and gules. Which, my dear Miss Leighton, is one of the heraldic tinctures, and can be described as dark red.” He smoothed the sleeve of his burgundy coat.
“Violet!” Millie plucked her sleeve. “Didn’t you hear me? In the entryway . . . He has arrived!”
“I am quite fortunate in that my coloring proved to be complimentary to my family’s armorial colors.” La Foole eyed Violet in an assessing sort of way. “Your coloring, Miss Leighton, would be charmingly offset by azure.”
“You are embarrassing me,” Violet hissed at Millie. “Do go away; you’re being rude.”
With an irritated snort, her sister flounced off. But to Violet’s mortification, La Foole had heard all. “I gather I must return you to your chaperone, Miss Leighton, so that you may welcome this mysterious arrival?” His eyes were faintly mocking under the flop of yellow curls covering his forehead. “One might assume that you have been hiding a fiancé, from the anticipation in your sister’s tone.”
“Nonsense,” Violet said a bit sharply. “Millicent is merely teasing, as siblings do. When I was a schoolgirl—a child, really—I felt a brief infatuation for a friend of my brother’s; he has been traveling abroad for some years. Earlier today we learned that he has finally returned to England and my siblings are making a joke of it. Of course, I haven’t seen or thought about him in the meantime.”
That was a lie, but one could hardly confess that the man who had broken one’s heart was about to enter the ballroom.
“How long has this gentleman been abroad?”
“Four years, or thereabouts. Really, Sir Dauphine, I find the whole subject rather tedious—”
“Whereas”—he interrupted her—“I find it so interesting. Let’s drift about and see if you can make him out. Unquestionably, you have only improved since your schoolgirl days; he will have no difficulty recognizing you.” Rather to her surprise, there was a glint of sincere admiration in his eyes.
Violet’s heart sank. Here, seemingly, was yet another titled suitor whom she would not accept. Her father would fall into apoplexy.
A ripple of excitement spread from the other side of the ballroom and the butler sonorously announced, “The Duke of Cambridge.”
She and La Foole wouldn’t have to drift far to see her particular heartbreaker. Apparently, he had just entered the door.
Her skin prickled all over with a combination of anticipation and embarrassment. She longed to see Rothwell Talcott, Duke of Cambridge; at the same time, she cringed at the very idea that he had returned from his travels to find her an old maid of twenty, languishing at the perimeter of the ballroom.
She deliberately gave Sir Dauphine a melting look from under her eyelashes. La Foole had a large estate, not to mention all those gules; he was better than no one. Maybe she should seriously consider him. “That’s very kind of you,” she murmured.
He responded by giving his forelock a flip with two long white fingers. “Shall we adjourn to seek refreshment?” he asked, bowing. “I find this chamber insufferably crowded.”
“It would be a pleasure,” Violet replied. She put her fingers on his sleeve after he straightened, and allowed him to prance her toward the door.
As they made their way out of the ballroom, she kept her eyes on La Foole’s face, terrified to think that if she glanced left or right she might see Rothwell. Though undoubtedly it would be better to simply get their inevitable first meeting over with.
Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her, for all La Foole was certain he would. She’d been only sixteen when they had last seen each other, and she had changed in the intervening years. She had been so trusting, so in love, so desperately naive. Now she was no longer a silly, dewy girl; she was an acknowledged beauty of the ton, a woman who had turned down seven proposals of marriage, three of which came from men with titles. Though, of course, none at the level of a duke.
Silently repeating the number to herself made no difference.
The very idea that Rothwell was nearby made her feel faintly nauseated. Four years before, when she’d been sixteen, her brother had brought his friend Rothwell home with him on a break from Oxford University for a brief visit. But her brother had caught measles, and Rothwell was quarantined, and could not leave.
Whereupon Violet and Rothwell began illicitly rambling the estate together, courting scandal by escaping the household—and Violet’s parents.
Rather than stay a week, he had stayed a month. Talking had led to kissing, and two people can share a great many kisses in thirty days, as it happens. (Kisses and more, she thought grimly.)
The day before he finally left, Rothwell had taken her to pick wild strawberries, and had told her that her lips were redder than the tiny berries they found. Just the memory made her taste the tart sweetness of that last kiss.
La Foole handed her a glass of orgeat, and then tossed the hair off his brow with a jerk of his head that looked almost painful. “You must tell me more of your mysterious childhood infatuation,” he said gaily.
What was she to say? Years had passed since Rothwell had left Britain for a “grand tour” of the world. He had been supposed to return after a year or two, but had not. He had promised to write every week, but had not. And now, following the tragic loss of both of his brothers in a boating accident, he had become a duke.
Hopelessly above a mere miss like herself.
Not that she would want him, even if he offered. Not given that he had written her only two letters, both during the first month of his absence.
He had forgotten her quickly enough. For all he knew—and, obviously, for all he cared—she was married by now. She certainly could have been.
Except she had never accepted anyone. She kept measuring her many and various suitors against the perfidious Rothwell, against the man who looked like no one else in the ton. The observation wasn’t a particular compliment: her brother had mocked his friend by calling him a bricklayer, with his muscles, square shoulders and severe, harsh features.
Not a nobleman’s face. Nothing like La Foole’s refined, delicate bone structure. Compared to Sir Dauphine, Rothwell would look like a bull.
“You dance exquisitely,” La Foole drawled. “As I’m sure you already know, since all London is chattering about your ineffable grace.”
“You do me too much honor,” Violet murmured.
“I gather you haven’t seen the man in the crowd. Do you suppose that you’ll recognize him? If he’s been travelling, he might be terribly weathered. Travel is so exhausting. Even a man in his late twenties can take on the appearance of an octogenarian.”
Violet couldn’t help a little laugh. What a silly noodle he was. “In that case,” she said, “I shall keep my eye out for a prematurely aged traveler.”
“And he might well have been injured,” La Foole went on, waving a hand. “Foreign travel is perilous, or so they say. You don’t suppose he visited the Nile, do you?”
“I believe he did intend to travel to Egypt,” Violet replied.
“Well, then, brace yourself,” La Foole said with a marked tremolo in his voice. “He might well have lost a hand or even a leg.”
“To a crocodile?” Violet asked, a burst of hysterical giggles popping from her mouth.
“An elephant!” La Foole said, widening his eyes for emphasis. “Apparently those behemoths roll on people every day. Leading, by most accounts, to countless amputations. In short, Miss Leighton, the appearance of your childhood infatuation will likely shock and dismay you.”
Violet nodded. “White hair . . . missing limbs . . .”
“Wrinkles!” La Foole cried. “All that sun is ruinous! Like the skin of a walnut, I shouldn’t wonder. Old, gray, and limbless. You could do far better, Miss Leighton.” He left no question about precisel
y what he considered to be her alternative. He was looking at her as avidly as he might a gule he’d decided to add to his family crest.
Violet looked away, and her laughter suddenly died.
Rothwell was only a few people away, and he was coming straight toward her. Unlike ordinary mortals like herself, he didn’t have to turn and twist to get through the tightly packed room. Faced with a duke in a magnificent rose-colored coat embroidered with gold thread, the crowd pulled back out of respect, if not awe.
He was a good deal taller than he’d been at twenty, and even broader. His hair had changed too: it was lighter, touched with gold, as if the sun had gilded it. But his green eyes and broad chin were just the same. Against her will, Violet felt her heart speed up. She’d found that powerful masculinity irresistible at age sixteen. But, of course, she wasn’t a mere miss any longer. Infatuations were for children.
Rothwell came to a halt just before her. Violet pulled herself together and dropped into a deep curtsy. “Your Grace.”
As her hand slipped from La Foole’s elbow, he peered up at the duke and then bowed as well, so deeply that his hair fell and then rose again like a wave. “I was a year or two behind you at Eton, duke. Very sorry about your brothers. Very sorry.”
Rothwell said “Thank you,” without looking at Sir Dauphine. And then: “Miss Leighton, it is a pleasure to see you again.”
Something in the area of her chest ached, as if she’d been struck. But his formality was no more than she expected. He had called her Violet in the past, but he could never use her given name in public, of course.
“I am glad to see that you are in full possession of your limbs,” she said, unable to think what to say. In truth, Rothwell had not survived the past four years unscathed. His face had changed; there was something a bit ruthless about him now, as if he’d lived roughly, or among rough people.
“Elephants rolled on people to the left and right of me, but I managed to escape,” Rothwell replied dryly, although he still didn’t glance at Sir Dauphine. “Will you dance with me, Miss Leighton?”
“As it happens, we were about to waltz,” La Foole put in, looking as if he didn’t appreciate Rothwell’s deadpan reference. “I believe I hear the musicians tuning their instruments.”
Rothwell turned his head and gave the bothersome fool next to Violet a glance that caused the man to instinctively fall back a step.
Then he turned back to Violet. She was even more exquisite than she had been at sixteen. She was wearing a simple, cream-colored gown, without all those ruffles and showy lace that other women wore, but she had no need of adornment: she would look wonderful wearing a dishrag.
He had looked for her in the ballroom first, but couldn’t see her anywhere. And then, when he had finally glimpsed her, he went weak at the knees for a moment. She had been beautiful at sixteen, like a delicate, impish sprite, her limbs slim and coltish. But now . . . now she was ripe, from her cherry-colored lips to her luscious breasts. Every man in the room knew it; he could feel their eyes on her.
She would make an exquisite duchess, though that was unimportant.
He wanted Violet for reasons other than the raging lust that struck him the second he located her in this benighted crowd. Or the burn of possessiveness he felt the moment he noticed that other men felt precisely the same emotion.
Being with her, next to her, would heal the lonely, restless ache that he’d felt in his chest ever since leaving her, which had only grown stronger as the years passed. Her eyes reminded him of the color of the air when the sun was about to sink over the water, when suddenly the light turns blue-purple. She was as rare as that moment.
“Thank you for your invitation, Your Grace, but I promised this waltz to Sir Dauphine.” Violet’s smile was so cool that it cut like a knife. She was clearly furious at him; his mother had said as much, when he arrived home the day before. It was entirely his fault for being such an unmitigated ass.
“We could dance later,” the idiot beside her put in nervously. Rothwell approved. At least someone understood that he had returned to England for one reason, and one only.
He took a deep breath, thinking that it would be easier to pick her up and stride out of the room, when his mother suddenly appeared at his elbow.
“Miss Leighton; Sir Dauphine,” she said warmly, her fingers curling on his forearm in a distinct warning. Damn. She popped up as if he had never grown beyond the naughty plans of a five-year-old. She had always had that ability.
Violet dropped into a curtsy, which meant that he could see straight down the neck of her gown. The hour years ago when she had allowed him to undress her in a berry patch was enshrined in his memory. Her breasts had been small, her nipples like shy strawberries. Now generous, creamy mounds sent a hungry fire raging through his loins. How could he have let years go by since he saw her? Why did he leave her at all?
“Your Grace,” Violet said to his mother, “it’s a pleasure to see you again.”
He knew perfectly well that they often met, in the casual way that women did, at tea parties and plays. His mother had never failed to tell him what she knew of Violet, writing letter after letter, even during the months and years when he didn’t answer.
If he had stayed home, he would have married Violet. But if he had stayed home, he would have joined his brothers on that sailing boat, because the three of them sailed together every Sunday. And if he had stayed home, Violet might have joined them. He had promised that he would teach her to sail; he had wooed her with tales of salt air. The very thought made an impotent sense of rage grip him around the throat.
His mother was saying something to Violet about a musicale. Rothwell glanced beyond Violet’s bright hair at the crowded room. Jewels sparkled everywhere: in ladies’ hair, on gentlemen’s stickpins. A few numbskulls actually appeared to have jeweled buttons.
The room was like a perfumed jewelry box, and the sense of being trapped was almost more than he could bear. Inside his infernal gloves, his fingers were clenching and unclenching. Not pretty. Not gentlemanlike.
He was accustomed to the thin air at the top of a mountain, when the only sound was that of his own breathing. The press of overheated bodies around him was making him feel possessed, like some sort of wild animal. All he wanted was to be alone with Violet, to talk to her. But his mother was insistent: he had to pretend to fall in love at first sight so as to protect Violet’s reputation. He had to greet her and dance with her twice before he was allowed to ask her to walk in the gardens.
Rothwell glanced down and caught a glimpse of the prettiest, sweetest ear lobe he’d ever seen. He was no actor. He couldn’t pretend to fall in love with someone he already desperately loved.
“Violet,” he said. His voice came out rough and broken. Not a gentleman’s voice, not a duke’s voice, though God knows he never wanted to be a duke and he still didn’t.
Beside him, his mother froze. He had just broken the law, from her point of view.
He ignored her. Violet was the only one who mattered. “Please come for a walk with me.” His heart was in the words. Without turning his eyes from hers, he stripped one of the gloves that was making him feel like a caged animal, dropped it on the floor, and held out his naked hand. “Please.”
She paused for a moment that felt like a lifetime . . . and then she reached out and took his hand.
There was nearly complete silence as they walked from the room. Violet couldn’t think clearly. She caught the happy, shining eyes of her little sister; the avidly curious eyes of Lady Whistlebury; the envious eyes of some young lady she didn’t know.
Rothwell held her hand so tightly that it almost hurt. It wasn’t proper to hold hands. It wasn’t proper . . .
None of this was proper.
They walked in utter silence through the corridor and into another room, and from there into the gardens. Lady Bracknell’s back lawn was shadowy and only dimly green in the light flung from the ballroom windows.
Still, Rothwell didn?
??t say a word, just towed her down a path that curved out of sight.
“Where are we going?” she asked, finally.
“The end of the garden,” he replied. “There’s a gate. We can get away, if only for a short drive.” She opened her mouth to respond, but he looked down at her and there was so much raw need in his face that she blinked. She felt as if a whirlwind had picked her up and stolen her from the ballroom.
“My mother . . .” she began.
“My mother will speak to her.”
The bushes gave way to a wall that had taken on a borrowed shimmer from the moon. Violet pulled her hand away. She had to keep her composure. “Rothwell, I don’t wish to go for a drive with you. You never wrote to me. It’s been too long, and you’re a duke now. I have changed, as I’m sure you have.”
He was unlatching the gate and didn’t even look over his shoulder. “I’m no good at writing. I told you that in my letters.”
Apparently, he had gallivanted the world for four years, utterly sure that she would wait for him. And fool that she was, she had. Now he thought that she would fall into his arms in a paroxysm of happiness at the sight of him.
She waited until the gate was open and he turned around, and then gave him a narrow-eyed look. “What, the second of two letters? I don’t remember reading anything saying that you were giving up the art of letter-writing.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“There were four letters.” He pulled off his remaining glove and threw it to the side.
“I received only two short notes, both written in the first month of your travels.” He was even better looking than he had been at twenty. How could she have forgotten his insufferable arrogance? He was so much—so big: not elegant, not graceful . . . Indomitable.
Male.
“I came home to you,” Rothwell said, as if that was all that mattered. She almost melted at the look in his eyes.
But memories of tear-filled nights steadied her. He cannot have had the expectation that she would remain unmarried. She could easily have accepted a proposal . . . that of Lord Bristelow, for example. Her refusal had broken her father’s heart. A more obedient daughter would have accepted, and then Rothwell might well have come home to find her a mother. “I might have married, for all you would have known,” she pointed out. “I could have had children by now.”