Elizabeth Boyle (67 page)

All around her the voices, the laughter, and sniping chatter stilled, until the vast chambers of the
Frascati
echoed only with the footsteps of this incredible man as he strolled indolently through the adoring crowd.

He stopped directly in front of her and flashed a blinding smile of perfect white teeth. “Adelaide de Chevenoy?” he asked.

She could only nod and hold out her hand.

He took her fingers in his warm hand and brought them ever so gently to his sensual lips. The heat of his kiss burned through her glove.

“It is a pleasure, Mademoiselle, to finally meet you.”

Lily managed, though reluctantly, to retrieve her hand from the stranger’s overly familiar grasp. “And you are?”

“Armand Latour, your rightful betrothed.”

Webb entered the
Frascati
ready to kill Lily. He’d arrived at the de Chevenoy house only to find her off to this public arena with Roselie. Shopping was one thing. Public spectacles were another.

He could only imagine the thousand-and-one types of trouble she might find amongst these miscreants and thieves.

As he made his way through the throng of people, he felt the weight of any number of stares on him. The knots of revelers stopped their conversations as he passed and then renewed their whispered gossip in earnest.

He caught vague snatches of it here and there.

“Who will the heiress choose?”

“That Armand is a handsome devil. Can you imagine him in your bed?”

“Bah, the American, now he looks like he can keep a woman happy.”

Choose? Armand?
Webb tried to avoid the curious gazes and searched the room for his errant partner.

What the devil had Lily gotten herself into now?

As he passed the dance floor, he didn’t even give it a second glance—if Lily was there, the entire room would be stampeding for the door, but then he saw the awestruck demeanors of the women around him, and the envious, coy glances out to where the dancers whirled and twirled about.

And then he saw her. Lily. Dancing like an angel, she seemed to float and flit across the floor as if her feet had grown wings and she weighed no more than a feather.

Her pale, golden hair sparkled in the candlelight, and her eyes glowed with excitement. Her lithe movements and gracious bearing gave even the fastidious Parisians pause.

“Enchanting,” an old woman beside him said, giving him a nudge with her bony elbow. “Why I’ve never seen anything like it, have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” Webb said quite truthfully. For a moment he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, caught as he was between her graceful movements and the idea that she had deceived him into thinking that she couldn’t dance.

How many more tricks did she have hidden away?

When Webb looked again, this time with a more discerning eye, he gauged her partner. From the swooning gestures of all the women around him, he had to assume this stranger holding Lily too close was the Armand whose name was rife on everyone’s tongue.

Webb didn’t see what all the fuss was about, the giant buffoon looked like a dressed ape, in his
Incroyables
costume and his wild mane of hair. He towered over Lily, no small feat given her unfashionable height, and he provided a dark contrast to her fairness.

“Ah,” the old woman sighed. “That Armand Latour is a devilish man. If only I were ten years younger. Why I’d steal him away from that young heiress. Oh, I daresay I would.”

Webb glanced over at her wrinkled features and thought the woman would be better to make that forty years. But then again there was no accounting for fashion, he thought, as Armand and Lily passed close by, and he heard another round of sighs from the press of women gathered by the side of the dance floor.

The music swelled with a romantic surge and Webb watched Armand turn and pull Lily close, holding her tightly against him.

When Webb thought he’d had enough of watching this display, he watched Armand dip down and whisper something into Lily’s ear.

Her laughter, sweet and clear, echoed through the room. Her lashes fluttered and her cheeks glowed with a quaint rosy hue.

Oh, yes. Webb had had quite enough. First this Armand was holding Lily,
his Lily
, too close. And now she was actually flirting with this waltzing baboon!

He resisted the wild urge to march out onto the dance floor and knock Lily’s smarmy behemoth on his fancy ass before hauling her out of here and explaining to her just what a proper fiancée does and doesn’t do.

Only she wasn’t his intended. Not really. A situation he should perhaps remedy.

He stopped in his tracks. Marry Lily? Why it was ridiculous! She was everything he didn’t want in a wife.

And now, seeing her like this with another man, and far too happy to be believed, just after they’d, they’d, well they’d reached an agreement.

He frowned. In truth, they hadn’t even reached that. He’d told her in so many words how he felt, hadn’t he? Obviously it hadn’t been enough.

She should trust me
, he thought.
She should know how I feel.

His conscience pricked at him.

How? How would she know, when all you’ve done all her life is try your best to avoid her?

Finally the music ended, and the spectators broke into spontaneous applause as Armand bowed elegantly to his partner, then brought Lily’s hand up to his lips in a lingering kiss. His flashing smile to the crowd brought even more cheers and suggestions.

Webb didn’t know what bothered him more—the fact that Lily actually looked like she enjoyed the fawning attentions of her inflated beau or the fact that she could actually dance.

Either way, she’d outmaneuvered him once again and he had no intention of letting her get away with it, not now, not ever again.

If Lily had found Armand Latour breathtaking at first glance, their brief acquaintance quickly dashed her romantic fantasies.

Armand turned out to be a pompous boor.

Poor Adelaide, she thought. A death on the high seas seemed merciful compared to a life as this grinning idiot’s wife.

“We will dance every night after we are married,” he told her. “Such a striking pair we make, we will be all the vogue.”

She only smiled. His conversation seemed stuck on two subjects, his fine looks and his social standing. Lily wondered if there really had been a betrothal agreement between Henri de Chevenoy and Armand Latour’s father, as he boasted.

Not even Henri de Chevenoy would have been so cruel as to marry his daughter off to this shallow fool.

To his credit, though, Lily found he did have one redeeming quality—he could dance, and with his mastery of the subject, he made it appear like she could dance as well.

Even so, he’d held her far too close for decency’s sake and she found his fawning attentions suffocating. About halfway through the set, she’d been about to send him packing when she’d spied Webb standing nearby.

It didn’t take a master spy to deduce his thoughts, for his usually well masked features fairly glowered.

If she didn’t know better she’d say he was jealous.

So finally he discovers the other side of love
, she thought with amusement.

Then it hit her. Why would he be jealous if he didn’t care about her? And if Webb was jealous of her being with Armand, could it mean that he didn’t have a mistress?

And certainly if he cared for her, he wouldn’t be having an affair with another woman.

Would he?

She couldn’t be sure, but she did know one thing, if Webb found Armand’s presence in her life unpleasant, then Armand was about to become Lily’s favorite new friend.

She entwined her arm around Armand’s beefy one and smiled up at the man as if he were the only person in the room. She walked along like this until she nearly collided with Webb.

“Oh dear.” She clung to Armand to steady herself. “Monsieur Milne, what are you doing here?”

“I came to find you.”

“And so you have,” she said. She glanced into his eyes, hoping to see confirmation of what she suspected, that Webb was jealous, but she spied only the professional mask of indifference he wore so well.

Beside her, Armand coughed. “
Chérie
, who is this?”

“I was about to ask the same thing,” Webb said, straightening his shoulders and eyeing Armand with a dispassionate glance.

“This is most embarrassing,” she said. “Monsieur Milne, I would like you to meet Armand Latour. It seems he and I were betrothed at an early age by our parents. Armand only discovered the agreement after his father’s death last summer. By the time he reached Paris to discuss matters with my father, well …” she sniffed and turned her head, as if to hide the tears that should be falling at such a moment. “We all know what tragedy he found when he reached Paris.” She paused, as if in reverent silence for her father’s passing. “Oh, what a tangle I find myself in. Two betrothals and no father to guide me.”

Around them the curious gathered, leaning in to catch every word. She meant to put on a performance that would leave the entire city talking.

“Oh,
ma petite chérie
,” Latour said, patting her hand with grave concern. “Your solicitor will agree that our betrothal is the legal one. This other …” the man waved his hand as if he thought that would make Webb disappear, “… encumbrance is regrettable,
oui
, but as a man of honor, I am sure Monsieur Milne will understand that he has but one choice: to step aside and leave you, so we may live the life our families intended for us.”

Lily watched Webb from beneath her downcast lashes and finally, to her delight, saw his legendary control break.

“You are coming with me.” He caught her by the arm and dragged her away from Armand.

Lily squeaked out a word of protest, but the look Webb shot her closed her mouth before she dared say anything more.

Besides, she found she liked Webb fighting for her attentions.

“Unhand her,” Armand announced, his deep baritone booming through the room. “That woman is mine.”

“Like hell,” Webb told him, pushing Lily behind him, and swaggering back to face his opponent.

Armand had at least six inches in height and a good stone in weight and muscles over Webb. The last thing Lily wanted was to have the brute pummel Webb into the floor.

She had to find a way to extract him from Armand’s challenge, and quickly.

Glancing around the crowd all she saw was the blood lust in the spectators’ eyes. They wanted the fight more than the two posturing men did.

She threw her hand up to her forehead. “I feel faint. Please, someone help me.” She held out her hand to Webb, who’d turned and looked as if he meant to catch her.

But Lily miscalculated the distance between them and how quickly Webb could cross it. The only thing that caught her was the floor as she fell hard and hit her head against the wooden planks.

Stars burst before her eyes, and she tried to get up but an overwhelming black void overtook her.

The last thing she remembered was seeing Webb’s look of alarm as he towered over her, and then seeing him turn back to Armand, who took advantage of the situation by punching Webb in the chin with an explosive blow.

As Webb reeled back and landed beside her, she smiled.

At least she wouldn’t be alone in hell.

“What the devil were you thinking?” Webb asked, removing the cold compress on his bruised chin. He lay on the sofa in the de Chevenoy salon, his feet sticking out over one end and his head cushioned with a generous amount of pillows on the other. He gingerly worked his jaw left and right, and then repositioned the cloth. “Your betrothed just about killed me.”

“I was trying to save you,” she protested.

Webb let out a loud groan. “Save me? I could have handled the situation if you hadn’t thrown me off balance with your fake fainting.”

She and Webb had been hauled back to the de Chevenoy house in Roselie’s carriage, a contrite Armand in tow. Lily had been placed on the rose-colored settee, but it seemed the Costards and the traitorous Celeste were more solicitous of Webb’s injuries than of hers. They’d rushed around “M. Milne” and seen to his black eye and swollen lip as if his injuries were life threatening.

Roselie, seeing that there would be no more excitement for the evening, wrapped her arm around Armand’s and announced that she would see the poor, distraught boy home. Now that they were alone and the salon door closed, Webb wasted no time in venting his anger at her.

“I did faint,” she protested.
After I hit my head on the ground
.

“Well, no more saving me from the likes of Armand La-tour. I can take care of myself, thank you very much.” He rolled so his back was to her.

“I didn’t mean for you to get hit,” she said.
I only wanted you to notice me.

“
Humph
,” came his muffled reply. After a few moments of tense silence, Webb spoke. “Whatever were you doing clinging to that grinning ape? He has trouble written all over him.”

“Armand?” Lily hadn’t missed the annoyance in Webb’s tone. “Why I found him quite charming. If I were the real Adelaide, I think I would be quite in love right now.”

“In love?” Webb rolled over and sat up. “With that fortune-hunting charlatan?”

Lily leaned back on the settee and stared dreamily at the ceiling. “I found him quite sincere. Why, you wouldn’t believe the compliments he lavished on me. My hair, my eyes, my dress.”

“I think all these betrothals have gone to your head.”

Lily chose to ignore him. “At least Armand doesn’t have a mistress!”

“A mistress? What has that got to do with anything?” Webb asked, readjusting the cloth on his eye.

Lily sat up, ignoring the throbbing in the back of her head. “I saw you this morning, I saw you leave.”

“And I saw you,” came the weary reply.

“I saw you leave with
her
.”

Webb tipped the cloth up and stared at her, his one eye wide open, the other so swollen shut, it was barely able to peek at her. With a shake of his head, he dropped the cloth and said, “You must have been mistaken.”

“Webb Dryden, I saw you with another woman. Who is she? Your mistress?”