An Indecent Proposition (6 page)

The ball was a predictable crush and Derek edged through the crowd. The room was crammed with people, the open windows providing not much relief from the heat, and the murmur of voices vied with the orchestra for prominence. Luckily his height made it possible to keep his objective in sight. Finally, he reached Nicholas. His friend was propped against a Grecian-style pillar and sipping champagne.

Without preamble, Derek said, “A week? Are you insane, Nick?”

They were surrounded by people, but between the music and the resonance of hundreds of voices, their conversation was relatively private, as if they were sequestered somewhere. The Duke of Rothay gave him one of his undecipherable looks for which he was so well-known. “It seems reasonable.”

Derek snorted with inelegant derision. “You have never consistently spent that amount of time with one female in your life, aside from, perhaps, your mother.”

The dowager duchess was a formidable figure despite the fact she barely came up to her son’s shoulder. A renowned beauty in her day, she still wielded a great deal of social power in all the right circles. Her disapproval of her son’s detached approach to any marriageable young woman was public knowledge.

Nicholas laughed, openly amused at the reference. “And not even her once I was old enough to avoid it. I’m fond of my mother, but the thought of a week of her constant advice makes me shudder.”

“Hence my surprise at your suggestion. You don’t know Lady Wynn.” It was so much easier to concentrate on the frivolous bet than Derek’s own state of misery.

“Are you telling me you’d object to having someone so lovely in your bed for that long?”

“She’s very beautiful.” Derek obliquely didn’t answer the question, gazing over to where Caroline Wynn sat in a corner with several older ladies, as usual looking remote and unapproachable. She rarely accepted an invitation to dance, but men still tried. Even from a distance the pale perfection of her skin against the lustrous color of her auburn hair was striking. She was all opulent female beauty and he should be looking forward eagerly to the prospect of bedding her.

Why wasn’t he?

“I am not prone to long entanglements any more than you are,” Derek remarked in an offhand tone.

Except one. He could be prone to
one
long entanglement, but he’d ruined everything.

It was a lesson in idiocy, but he scanned the room with a restless, searching gaze.

And found her.

Of course Annabel would be there, damn all. Derek caught a glimpse among the well-dressed throng of hair a certain shade of gold, a flash of porcelain profile he knew as well as he knew his own face, and his chest tightened.

Well
, he reminded himself with as much pragmatic detachment as possible,
you expected to see her
. That his uncle’s ward was in attendance was no surprise. Half of London was crammed into this ballroom. It was natural Annabel would attend, and it wasn’t much of a leap to assume she was on the arm of her fiancé.

Damn the man to hell.

“How shall we decide who has the privilege of whisking her away first?”

Nicholas’s question brought his attention back to the topic at hand and Derek forced himself to look away. Since it amounted to torture at the moment to even see Annabel, concentrating on something else had merit. Like a nice passionate interlude with the luscious Lady Wynn. Annabel was lost. Need he turn into a monk?

No, of course not.

Yet he hedged. “I suppose it depends on how fast the lady can get away. My schedule this next week includes several appointments I can’t miss, and besides, I need to come up with a similar secluded spot.”

“I think I can clear things so I can leave in a day or two. Shall we say it’s settled?”

They had been friends a long time. A decade, since they’d met at Cambridge in their first year at university, and there was an unfamiliar note in Nick’s voice. Derek recalled the younger version of the Duke of Rothay, still stinging from his ill-fated first foray into what he perceived as love, determined in a way only Nicholas could be to shrug off the experience. Derek signaled a passing footman, plucked a glass off the tray, and gave his companion an amused look. “She intrigues you.”

“A little.”

It was about time, with all the women who had come and gone in Nicholas’s life, that someone did.

Derek chuckled. “A lot. Maybe you could fool someone else, but not me.”

“She’s very attractive.”

“That’s true enough, but all your entanglements involve gorgeous women.”

“I wish you wouldn’t use the term
entanglement
. It makes me think of a poacher’s trap and a wounded animal.”

In Derek’s estimation, that was an apt description. God alone knew he felt painfully backed against some proverbial wall with little recourse. With neutral inflection, he replied, “Fair enough. Tell me what you’d call them.”

“Lustful escapades.” Nicholas supplied the phrase with a grin that mitigated the facetious correction.

“I suppose that fits. But since our lovely judge is obviously not trying to trap you, at least you can relax and indulge your interest.”

“Perhaps.” Rothay sipped from his glass and looked bland. “Doesn’t she interest you?”

The devil take it, Annabel and Hyatt were on the floor now, swirling among the dancers to one of the newest popular tunes. Her face was flushed to a becoming pink, the light gleamed off her pale hair, and in a gown of rose-colored silk she looked . . .

Ravishing. Captivating. So beautiful his chest hurt. Hyatt also looked happy and unfortunately—though he wasn’t particularly good at judging the looks of other men—Derek knew the man was considered appealing to women.

Hardly an encouraging thought, but he really couldn’t remember ever being so discouraged in his life anyway.

“Derek?”

Oh hell, he’d been asked a question, hadn’t he? Startled out of his abstraction, Derek turned. “I’m sorry.”

Nicholas must have noticed something odd in his manner, but thankfully he didn’t mention it. “I just inquired if our unexpected volunteer intrigued you.”

“Of course.” Derek answered too quickly and took a gulp of champagne to cover the blunder.

Nicholas, he had to remind himself, was not easily fooled. Dark eyes narrowed slightly as they regarded him.

The only solace was that they had an unwritten but inviolate rule between them. No intrusive questions. A gentleman’s bargain between two men who respected each other’s privacy.

It held. After a moment, Nicholas merely said, “Then you don’t mind my taking her first.”

Taking her.
How appropriate. A laugh stuck in his throat.

Derek really needed to regain his composure. The champagne might be too warm, but it worked, for he took another sip and then managed what he hoped was an easy grin. “No. I’m sure you’ll do it very well, too. But keep in mind, it’s me she’ll remember.”

“Feel free to think so, Manderville. I plan on making an indelible impression now that the three of us have an agreement. I doubt I would have selected the lady in question, but now that she has stepped forward, I’m . . . eager.”

Curious that, for the Duke of Rothay was always the epitome of careless seduction. Impatience was most out of character.

“The situation certainly took a turn we didn’t expect, didn’t it?” Derek asked, but since he knew his own eagerness was tempered by his current personal unhappiness, it was hard to say whether Nicholas was more interested than expected in Lady Wynn’s unusual offer to participate, or Derek was just so off-balance that he couldn’t judge.

As someone who had so dismally failed to discern his own feelings, maybe he shouldn’t presume to understand anyone else’s.

If Nicholas was so enthusiastic to escort the lady to seclusion in the country, let him take her there at once and exert his infamous charm and seduce her. At the moment, Derek’s heart just wasn’t in it.

He said in an idle tone, “Let me know when the two of you return to town.”

 

Mrs. Haroldson leaned forward with a definite conspiratorial air, her considerable bosom making it look as if she might topple to the floor. “It isn’t,” she said in a sibilant whisper, “something a person should be surprised over, I suppose.”

Caroline strove to look reserved and cool when, in truth, the crowded ballroom was unbearably stuffy. A trickle of sweat ran in an inelegant way between her breasts. “Surprised over what?”

“The way His Grace and the earl stand there chatting about it, bold as brass, the two of them.”

Were
they discussing the wager? They did seem engrossed in conversation. Since it hadn’t been more than an hour or two since all three of them had left the inn, it could be imagined they might be talking about it.

About her.

She’d
done
it. Offered herself to two disreputable rogues, agreed to a wicked covenant that would ruin her in the eyes of all society if it was discovered, and placed herself directly in the path of disgrace and scandal.

All in a good cause, a small voice inside reminded her with unswerving practicality.

Her sanity.

Her life even, if she cared to be melodramatic about it.

“I am sure they talk often. I’ve seen them.” She feigned her best dismissive tone, flicking an uninterested look at the two tall men across the room. “Are they not friends?”

“Surely, Lady Wynn, you’ve heard about their latest exploit.”

“Do you mean that tedious bet?”

God in heaven, it was hot and it didn’t help to have a phalanx of older, matronly women all around, virtually hemming her in. She had to quell the urge to leap up and run from the room as if all the devils in hell were at her heels.

One dark-haired devil in particular, balanced by one golden angel.

From beneath the shadows of her lashes, she watched them, finally permitted by the conversation, though she’d wanted to look ever since she’d arrived. Nicholas Manning, so gloriously attractive, his hair somehow managing to appear sleek and yet a little disheveled at the same time, his tailored evening clothes suited to his masculine beauty. Manderville also, like some Greek god, so handsome he seemed to warm the room with his presence, their mutual brilliance making them the center of attention with or without their current infamy.

“Yes, indeed, the wager. It’s most de trop, don’t you agree?”

Eight pairs of eyes fastened on her. The circle of widows, most of them two decades older at least, was her current bastion against any man who might approach. It was safe to huddle in the corner with them rather than chance accepting any of the offers to dance or—even less appealing—enjoy a flirtation.

She didn’t have the slightest idea how to do the latter.

Caroline murmured, “I feel certain my opinion wouldn’t matter to either one of them. Their mutual impertinence is legendary. I find the whole matter quite distasteful.”

“Well said.” The Dowager Countess Langtry nodded in crisp agreement.

“It’s beyond the pale, no doubt. You are right.”

Other voices chimed in, all agreeing with her. But as much as the group might protest the behavior of the two gentlemen in question, they certainly didn’t seem to have much trouble ogling the subjects of their conversation from afar.

She was, of course, the detached, so-removed, so-distant Lady Wynn. It was only natural she’d disdain even speaking about something so discordant to her own placid and reclusive existence.

If they only knew the truth.

God forbid
, she thought with a small shudder.

In the end, she couldn’t sit there and pretend the topic of the beautiful duke and the dashing earl bored her. She excused herself and made her way outside to the gardens behind the glittering mansion, taking in a great lungful of air as if it could heal and mend all the broken things in her life.

No, only she could do that.

There were a few other guests on the terrace, so she slipped away to where the formal flower beds and shrubberies were laid out. Wandering a darkened path, the smattering of stars above a diamond blanket in the night sky, she tried to assess her now-roiling emotions.

Was this really something she could do? A secret assignation to settle a bet made between two gentlemen who admitted to being under the influence of a great deal of wine at the time?

Her face heated and she was grateful there was no one to see it. The duke’s unabashed masculine appraisal of her person back at the inn was not something she hadn’t seen before, but her reaction to it was most unexpected.

Usually she felt infused with an unwelcome mixture of awkwardness and trepidation.

For whatever reason, he hadn’t affected her that way. Maybe her part in the wager had set the dynamic of their interaction from the beginning. The meeting was her choice. What a novel concept, to have a choice.

Her skirt brushed the glossy leaves of some bush as she passed, and a white flower scattered petals across the fabric in a flurry, like a burst in a snowstorm. The fragrance was sweet, innocent, beguiling. She absently brushed them away, turning her face to a welcome breeze.

At least her would-be lovers seemed capable of honoring her request to keep her identity a secret. Neither one of them had so much as glanced at her in passing all evening.

This will work
, she assured herself.

And prayed it was the truth.

D
id no one in London have anything else to talk about except that infernal wager?

The cup rattled into the saucer as she set it aside and a tiny slop of tea spilled over the rim. Annabel Reid gritted her teeth and hoped no one noticed, doing her best to appear as composed as possible.

Part of the current surge of interest had come, she knew, by the appearance of both the parties involved at the Bran-scums’ ball the prior evening. They had stood talking for quite a while and, as usual, were apparently indifferent to the rising whispers. Together they were, as always, striking: the duke with his flagrant dark good looks and the natural air of power he wore so easily, and Derek Drake—whom she’d known since she could walk—with his devastating, refined handsomeness and effortless charm.