How the Marquess Was Won (39 page)

His face was flushed with the pleasure of touching her, of having her in his control, and from too much drink.

“I swear to you, once we begin, you’ll enjoy it. I know you’ve had a kiss before. Come now.” He pulled, and to her horror she was actually dragged a few feet, toward the garden doors.

“I must ask that you remove your hand at once, Lord Camber.”

“You ought to know that I never give up quite so easily.”

He gave another pull. He was surprisingly strong.

She started to skid, her slippers sliding over the marble. She was mortified. And all at once she was afraid, too.

“
Please
. . . Lord Camber . . .”

She could knee him in the cods, if she got close enough. She could trod on his instep. She wasn’t afraid to do
those
things.

“Oh, now. Don’t make a scene. One kiss, Miss Vale,” he coaxed. “I’ve seen how you look at me. And I’ve heard that you don’t mind a bit of that sort of thing.”

“I look at you with my
eyes
. That’s all. And where in God’s name would you have heard—”

He released her wrist for an instant. But it turned out it was only because he had new plans for his hand: He slid it up over her kid gloves until his warm, damp fingers were touching her bare skin. He began to close them.

“Lord Camber. I
beg
of you. I must insist you release—”

Lord Camber suddenly levitated three feet off the ground and dropped hard to the marble. He landed with an unnerving thud. His booted feet flew nearly over his head, came down with a smack. He lay stunned.

When he looked up in tandem with Phoebe, he saw the face of the Marquess Dryden. His visage was granite. His eyes were murderous.

“I believe she told you to stop, Camber.” The words were evenly measured, terrifyingly quiet.

Camber scrambled to his feet with surprising speed. He stared at Jules, dumbstruck, scarlet with indignation and rage. His broad chest swayed with ragged, furious breaths.

And then he lunged, aiming a fist at Jules like a catapult.

Jules snatched the fist mid-air with shocking speed and spun Camber around and pinning him motionless with his own arm.

Camber’s eyes bulged. He was imprisoned against the wall of the marquess’s chest. He breathed through his nose like an angry bull.

“
You’ve
no claim on her, Dryden.” He muttered hoarsely.

“Nor do you.”

“For God’s sake, Dryden. Have you gone mad? Be
sensible
. She’s not a lady. She’s a schoolteacher. I didn’t intend to harm her. I know she
enjoys
doling out favors, I was told.”

Phoebe was numb with shock. Her voice came to her from what felt like miles away. “I . . . I swear I
never
 . . . by whom?”

Jules’s every word was etched in leisurely menace. “I will not allow you to touch her if she does not wish to be touched. Are we clear?”

Camber fumed. He tugged.

Jules jerked his arm farther up his back. “Are we clear?”

Camber hissed in pain. “Yes. Very well. Release me.”

Jules unhanded him abruptly and Camber stumbled. He righted himself and then backed away from the marquess, glaring like a man cheated, holding his arm.

Jules reached out a hand for Phoebe; his hand hovered mid-air, stopping himself from touching her in time. “Are you . . .”

“. . . Hurt? No. Not really. Thank you. I . . . well, thank you.”

She drank in his face, fascinated, her heart swollen. The taut fury, the concern, the possessiveness, the longing that flickered there behind his control.

No one had ever come to her defense before.

And they stared at each other, rapt and speechless. But when Phoebe heard a throat clear she gave a start. It was only then that the two of them noticed the usual ballroom milling had come to a halt around them. A crowd was massed. She saw Lisbeth, and the Silverton twins, and Waterburn and d’Andre move toward them, rats called by the pied piper of scandal.

Oh, God.

She was instantly horrified she hadn’t defended herself more effectively. For she saw very clearly that Jules had risked the future he’d so passionately worked toward for so long. She also knew very clearly, and with a sense of despair: the separation she’d thought they’d achieved was an illusion. He could no more help himself from helping her than he could help breathing. He in all likelihood had known where she was in the ballroom at all times.

Jules inhaled at length, a man struggling to settle his temper. To find a neutral expression.

Because Lisbeth’s lovely face was part of the crowd, and she was fixedly watching the two of them, mouth a thin white line, jaw tense. Looking for all the world like hard and brittle porcelain.

“Jules . . . ?” Her voice was faint.

Jules took pains to sound bored. “Camber momentarily forgot he was a gentleman, and I reminded him rather emphatically. T’was naught that doesn’t typically happen in a ballroom at least once per night. And nothing that Camber will do again.”

The heads of the gathered crowd turned in unison toward Phoebe then, eyes glittering like a wolf pack.

Lisbeth’s voice rose. Thin, clear, shot through with torment, sounding like a thwarted child.

“But . . . honestly . . . over her? Why should you bother? Don’t you know . . . it’s all been a
game
, Jules.” She gave a tinkling little laugh and cast an inclusive look over the crowd:
aren’t men silly?

“Lisbeth,” the marquess said quietly. The word contained an unmistakable warning.

She couldn’t seem to stop.

“Surely you’ve seen the betting books at White’s, Jules. She’s been nothing but a lark! A wager! An experiment. She’s not a
lady
at all, and her popularity is entirely manufactured.”

Phoebe swiveled and stared at Jules in horror.

Her hands iced, when she saw that Jules was staring at Lisbeth, stunned, shaking his head. His eyes closed.

Which was when the ground dropped from beneath Phoebe’s feet and the very air seemed to warp before her eyes.

“Betting books?” Phoebe’s lips were numb. She held her wrist in one hand. It didn’t hurt. It was just she wanted something to hold onto, lest the ground swallow her up.

Jules glanced toward her, and stiffened when he saw her touch her wrist. His face went deadly as an ax blade and he fixed Camber with a stare.

“Who suggested you might find Miss Vale
accommodating
, Camber?”

“As if I would tell you.” The man lurched away from the marquess as if shoved, and finally disappeared, hurrying off through the ballroom.

The crowd was now layered in rings about them. The low buzz of speculation and commentary sounded like flies about carrion.

Lisbeth wasn’t finished. “Oh, yes, the betting books, Phoebe! None of it was meant to be
real
, isn’t that right . . . Phoebe?” Lisbeth said blithely, horribly, almost conspiratorially, the shine in her eyes like the light glancing off a blade. “The nickname and so forth. The wager was that they could fool the ton by turning a plain schoolteacher with no family or connections into all the rage. That she would be showered with hothouse flowers and invitations. Hundreds of pounds, they wagered. They’ve really had one over on the
ton
. The Original and all that.
Honestly
.” She wrinkled her nose and gave another little laugh.

Phoebe couldn’t speak. She felt peculiarly separate from her body, hovering over the crowd. She looked down at herself, faintly puzzled, as though she was Queen Elizabeth’s lady in waiting and had just discovered her dress was poisoned.

And when she looked up with entreaty into the faces of the Silverton twins she saw nothing reflected but the sort of mischievous guilt seen on the faces of three-year-old girls when caught stealing a little cake in the kitchen. They were enchanted with themselves.

Please let it be a dream.

And then Lady Marie shrugged and Lady Antoinette raised her palms.

She waited. She was still in a ballroom, still surrounded by coldly speculative eyes.

“Of course it was,” Phoebe’s voice was a thread. “It’s all been a lark.”

She was encircled now, like a deer brought down by wolves. All the men she’d danced with, flirted with, eyed her warily, resentfully, as anyone naturally would if they felt they’d been dealt a counterfeit.

How could she not have
seen
? How could she have been such a fool?

“Who originated this clever plan, Lisbeth?” the marquess’s voice was coldly conversational.

Lisbeth looked uncertain. “Waterburn. But you knew about it, didn’t you, Jules? Or rather, Waterburn said you read it in the betting books. I thought you knew.”

Jules and Waterburn locked eyes. The antipathy that snaked between them was nearly visible.

“Of course,” Phoebe managed, through the ringing in her ears. “
I
was in on it all along!” she said brightly. “Didn’t you know, Lisbeth?”

Waterburn and d’Andre and The Twins appeared startled by this revelation.

Wary glances ricocheted between them.

“Were you?” Lisbeth’s question was uninflected. Entirely disbelieving.

The mutters of the crowd were gathering volume as realization took hold:

“She’s a fraud? Miss Vale. Bloody rotten of them. Made fools of us!”

“She’s not even very pretty.”

A more cheerful one. “Well, I actually I sent her flowers! Bloody good trick, Waterburn! Best wager yet.”

“And now that Lisbeth has brought our pantomime to a conclusion, I believe I’ll make my exit. Thank you for being such a lovely audience.” Phoebe curtsied deeply, theatrically, and blew kisses from her palms, and turned on her heel.

There was a nonplussed pause.

Hesitant, scattered applause.
Pat pat pat pat pat
went hands.

Jules scowled it into silence.

“Is she really an actress?” A man’s eager voice came on the periphery of the crowd. “Does she have a protector?”

Jules fancied he could hear the sound of her footfall echoing over the marble, growing ever distant, that he could pick it out from the other ambient sounds. It took every ounce of hard-won control he possessed not to bolt after her. If he waited too long he was certain she would be forever lost to him, slipping into the dark of London, like her cat.

He turned and looked at Lisbeth again. Her hands were white knots against her brilliant blue gown. Her face was bleached of color.

He’d never before today wanted to run a woman through on a pike.

But he should have noticed. He should have been more aware, more sensitive, more careful. She was more astute than he’d given her credit for, and he’d refused to see her as much as she’d refused to see him. He’d dealt with her poorly, even dishonorably. He’d been carelessly at the mercy of his own emotions and needs.

And in a way, he treated her almost like an object.

The way the ton had treated Phoebe.

The way they treated him.

Very nice little vise you’ve gotten yourself into, Dryden
.

“What about the marquess?” someone suggested on the periphery. “He can
act
, too? Was the whole evening a pantomime? The man can do anything.”

They were prepared only to admire him, because it was what they’d been told to do. How quickly confusion could spread and rumors grow and the truth become so diffused it could never again be retrieved whole.

Ridiculously, the Sussex waltz started. Lilting and jaunty. It struck Jules as a tastelessly inappropriate theme for the apocalypse.

And then Lisbeth smiled at him. It was the sort of smile that suggested that this was all for his own good. As if she expected to be
congratulated
and thanked for exposing this folly. As if she expected him to be relieved that she’d spared him any more foolishness over a fraud like Miss Vale.

Who, ironically, was the most genuine person in any room.

He realized with a shock he was expected to dance this particular waltz with Lisbeth.

And he knew of a certainty he couldn’t bear to touch her.

Chapter 27

P
hoebe exited the ballroom through a gauntlet of fascinated eyes. She felt the stares like cinders on her skin. She knew her face was scarlet, which she couldn’t help, but she also knew her head was high and her smile regal and brilliant, the smile of a pleased performer. She was grateful she’d had the opportunity to see Signora Licari, because she could imitate that poise.