To Sin With A Stranger (13 page)

She snatched her gaze away from him, tilting her head down as she reached to the table for her dish of tea. The rain droplet lost its grip as she moved, and splashed down upon her swanlike pale throat, before trickling slowly down her décolletage, where it disappeared from his sight beneath her gown.

Ivy cleared her throat. “Why, I hope the chill, damp air doesn’t set a cold upon my chest.” She fashioned a smile for Isobel and Christiana, then turned a cold warning glare upon Sterling. Her eyes’ rebuke transformed into a placating hostess’s smile, and she slapped the squab of the chair beside her, harder this time.

When he saw that the other women were now focused on Ivy’s hand gesture, Sterling edged past Ivy’s long legs and seated himself at last.

It was damned awkward and uncomfortable, sitting there, about to take tea with his sister and another miss, while willing his body not to reveal that his mind’s eye had followed the rain droplet beneath Isobel’s chemise, between her full breasts, and over the smooth skin of her belly until it finally nestled into the tight curls between her legs. He rushed a teacup to his lips and drank deeply.

Ivy reached out and gently urged the cup from his hands. “My cup, dear.” She laughed softly, glancing up at the misses across from them both, causing them to echo her. “Allow me to pour a fresh cup for you.”

Sterling struggled to right his thoughts. He lifted his gaze to Miss Whitebeard, but noticed a clear droplet peeping in and out of her nose with every breath.

He snapped his head around to Ivy and saw that she was balancing a dish of tea before him in her hands. He reached out and accepted it with a gracious nod. “Forgive me, for I did not intend to eavesdrop, but as I came down the stairs I thought I heard you mention an invitation to our guests.”

“Aye, you did indeed.” Ivy pressed her fingertips together in a steeple. “Lord Elgin, whose wife’s family is kin to our own, sent a card this very day.”

“Did he now?” Sterling studied his sister, wondering what she was on about. He had been at home all day and not a single card had arrived.

“Aye.” Ivy’s voice trembled. “So I thought, wouldn’t it be splendid to draw together friends, such as Miss Carington and Miss Whitebeard, with our family for an evening here to meet the esteemed Lord Elgin?”

“You thought that, did you?” Sterling raised a single eyebrow. “And has he agreed to attend your soirée?”

Ivy masked a scowl. “Nay, not yet, because I have not asked him. His card arrived only today…but since his wife is kin, I am sure he would greatly desire the opportunity to spend an evening with us and our diverting guests.”

“And when did you
think
this evening might transpire—I would need to consult my sparring schedule to be sure there is no conflict.” Sterling turned up his lips most innocently.

Ivy did not falter. “Thursday evening.” She looked at Isobel and Miss Whitebeard. “You do not have another
engagement
, do you?” She raised her ruddy eyebrows and stared pointedly at Isobel.

“No, no, I do not believe so,” Isobel replied softly.

“I do not care if I do,” Christiana chirped excitedly. “La, such an event sounds utterly diverting. I would not miss your evening for any reason, Lady Ivy.”

“Well, then.” Ivy clapped her hands together, settling the matter. “Thursday it is…assuming Lord Elgin can attend, but since we are practically family, I do not see why he would not do the same as Miss Whitebeard here and make the time to attend my soirée.”

Within a few minutes, Isobel had found a way to extricate herself and Christiana from Ivy’s tea party, and they were safely seated inside a hackney that was now turning from Grosvenor Square.

Sterling stood at the front window of the fore-parlor and watched Ivy wave until the carriage could no longer be seen.

He shook his head. Just what the hell was his sister trying to do? And why was she so certain a man both as lauded and as ridiculed by the
ton
as Lord Elgin would wish to come to dinner?

The Sinclair family was not known to Lord Elgin—and they most certainly were not kin…in any way or form. Why, Elgin and the controversy over the Parthenon marbles was in the newspapers nearly every day of late. He had become quite famous. Why would such a man condescend to call upon their family?

Something was afoot, and Ivy was at the center of it.

“La, Isobel! It is as certain as the coming morn that the marquess truly wishes you to be his bride. It is no game to him,” Christiana told Isobel as the hackney wheeled its way back to Leicester Square. “His eyes could not leave you even when the conversation had, and his focus should have, out of politeness, been on the person speaking.”

Isobel laughed. “Do I detect a smidge of jealousy in your statement, Christiana?”

“No, you do not.” She turned her head abruptly and gazed out the carriage window. “But I am not wrong about his feelings. Or yours for him…” She turned her head slightly and peered surreptitiously at Isobel.

Isobel folded her arms over her chest and leaned back against the squabs. “I cannot deny that Sterling…Lord Blackburn is quite handsome and entertaining, but he is certainly not the man for me.”

“Really? Handsome, rich, and diverting.” Christiana huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Yes, I can see how those qualities warrant crossing his name off your
lengthy
list of gentlemen wishing to marry you.”

“No need to be cruel. You know as well as I that I would have been married by now had—” Isobel waited for the tears to bud in her eyes, but none came. She waited a few seconds more, for the tears always poured into her eyes whenever she thought of Lieutenant Harbinger, the man who had promised to marry her when he returned from the war. Only, like her brother, he never did. The Battle of Corunna had taken them both from her in a single night.

Christiana slid across the bench to be close to Isobel. She wrapped an arm around her, waiting too for Isobel’s tears to come. “It is only by the grace of God that my Mr. Stanley’s service has kept him safe from battle thus far.”

Isobel looked up at Christiana and gave her a weak smile. She knew how quickly one’s life could change. One moment she and her mother were planning ball gowns with their modiste, and the next she was standing with her father at her mother’s graveside, after having just attended a memorial service for her brother and the gentleman she would have married. “I had the perfect man, once.”

Christiana sighed. “You were so young. I daresay you did not know what a perfect man was. And, la, if you do not see perfection in the Scottish marquess, I fear you are blind.”

Isobel pulled away from Christiana and stared at her in surprise. “I do know! The gentleman I nearly married, and the man I would marry if he would only present himself, is generous, kind, loving, and responsible. Sterling Sinclair, grr…Lord Blackburn is a fighter who bloodies others for money. Truth to tell, I believe my perfect man and Lord Blackburn could not be more different!”

“Are you so sure of that?” Christiana asked. “What I see is a man who loves you. If you cannot see that, might there be other qualities that would recommend him that also remain unknown to you?”

Isobel leaned her shoulder against the cab door and stared out the window in silence. She had met the one perfect man in her life, and now he was gone. Why should she waste her days believing another existed, when she could use her life helping women and children who’d also lost the men they loved in Corunna?

No, Christiana was completely wrong.

The Carington residence
Leicester Square

“Lord Elgin will also be attending,” Isobel told her father.

“Are you certain you heard correctly, Isobel?” He sprang up from his desk to his feet. “Are you quite sure?
Lord Elgin
.”

Isobel huffed a breath from her lungs. “Yes, Lord Elgin, who absconded with the Parthenon marbles. Lady Ivy claimed some sort of familial connection with his wife…what, I do not know precisely. But I do know that Lord Elgin left a card at the Sinclair residence just this day and that Lady Ivy had no doubt he would attend her soirée on Thursday night. I should like to confirm that you and I will both attend, Father.”

Minister Cornelius Carington absently twisted several long gray hairs protruding from his eyebrows. At first, owing to the growing controversy about Lord Elgin’s procurement of the Greek antiquities, Isobel thought he was about to refuse attendance, and moreover, was about to disallow her attendance at the soirée as well. Not that she would have argued, had this been his intent, but it was not.

“The timing could not be more perfect.” He released the twist of eyebrows, and flicked a loosened hair from his index finger onto the Turkey carpet. His mind topping with thought, he sank back down into his chair and set his elbows on the desktop. Rubbing his palms together, he looked to Isobel to be almost gleeful.

“So, how shall I respond?” Isobel crossed her arms over her chest, growing more curious, yet increasingly impatient with his reaction.

He lifted his chin and peered at her almost as if he only now realized she was standing before him addressing him. “Why, we shall accept. Yes, yes, we shall.” A deep chuckle welled up from inside his chest, making Isobel more than a little nervous. “Lord Elgin will not yet know that a committee has been formed to consider his request that Parliament purchase his collection—and even if he had assumed a committee would be convened, he certainly would not know that I have been appointed to it.”

“What do you mean, Father?” Isobel slowly un-draped her arms and settled them to her sides. “You are not thinking to quiz Lord Elgin about the marbles with him unaware that you are part of the committee making recommendations to Parliament? Why, that is entirely unethical.”

“What he did was unethical. Why, he acquired—some say stole—the marbles while acting as our ambassador to Constantinople. He may have used his own fortune to have the marbles chipped away from the Parthenon, the most beautiful building on earth, but he used British warships to transport them back to London.”

Isobel was taken aback by his accusations, but was even more surprised by the color of his face. His cheeks took on a throbbing blend of color—red, pink, white, and purple—and they began to puff out with each breath like an angry dog. “And only now that he has squandered his wealth on his ridiculous notion to bring the marbles to his estate in Scotland, he asks the government to buy the marbles from him—for the cultural education and advancement of our people!”

Isobel stiffened. She rarely, if ever, agreed with her father, but in this instance, it was possible they might think alike on this matter. For if what her father said was true, Lord Elgin’s greed made those involved with the wedding wager pale in comparison.

Let us treasure up in our soul some of those things which are permanent…, not those which will forsake us and be destroyed, and which only tickle our senses for a little while.

Gregory of Nazianzus

The Sinclair residence
Grosvenor Square

The clopping of hooves on Grosvenor Square summoned Sterling to the drawing room windows on the first floor of his home.

As he peered down, Sterling tried to ascertain which of his sister’s guests was so eager to attend the festivities that they’d have the audacity to arrive a quarter of an hour before the appointed time.

Sterling did not, at first, recognize the man standing in the lamplight on the pavers below, but curiosity obliged him to place his palms upon the windowsill and lean forward for a better look.

The smartly dressed gentlemen momentarily removed his hat and primped his hair with a quick pass of his fingers through his graying locks.

It was then Sterling noticed something over the man’s nose. It appeared to be a bit of plaster or a lint bandage.

A fighter perhaps? Sterling squinted his eyes and peered harder still. Nay, too small and delicate in frame.

As if he felt Sterling’s attention upon him, his gaze was drawn up to the window. Sterling started to step behind the curtains, but realizing he’d been seen, tipped his head in greeting.

The gentleman lifted his hand good-naturedly, then, giving the plaster over his nose a checking over with the pads of his index fingers, headed for the doorway.

Sterling realized the early guest’s identity at that moment and expelled a long sigh.

Ivy hurried up behind Sterling. “Who has come? Nay, let me make a game of it. It is…Miss Whitebeard and her father. She was ever so excited to attend. Am I correct?”

Sterling turned around and caught his sister by her shoulders. “Didn’t you tell me you did
not
extend an invitation to Lord Elgin?”

“I didn’t, truly. I only
said
I did. I might even have told several guests who condescended to join us this eve that I did. But, in truth, I never so much as inquired after the direction of his house.”

Sterling’s gaze bore deeply into her eyes. Ivy often toyed with the truth of things, and now might be one of those times. He squeezed her shoulders slightly. “
Ivy
.”

“I swear to you, Sterling,” she replied, her eyes beginning to burn with the indignant questioning of her word. “I did not invite him to the soirée.”

Sterling smoothed his hands over the shoulders of his sister’s saffron-shaded gown. “Well, do not be too surprised when he is announced within the next moment. For Lord Elgin has indeed arrived.” He stood tall and affixed a welcoming smile to his lips.

Ivy, suddenly appearing shaken, did the same. “Are you certain he is here?”

“Aye, I am.”

It seemed all the Sinclair brothers and sisters had heard their manservant Poplin announce Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, and had hurriedly entered the drawing room to make themselves known to him.

It did not matter to any of them that he was both greatly esteemed and loathed at once, depending upon whom in Society was asked. The matter of position on Elgin’s marbles was as cleanly divided as Society’s position on the wager.

Nor did it seem to matter to any of them that Lord Elgin had not actually been invited—for Ivy had earned the privilege of uncovering the mystery of why he had attended anyway.