Estelle also chose her clothing for the ball, smuggling it into her room at Bassingthorpe. She’d liberated it from the attic, and after a thorough cleaning, and various additions and alterations, it was ready. Olivia laughed when she tried on the dress for the first time, unbelieving that anyone would be seen in public in anything so revealing, but Estelle insisted there would be far more eye-catching outfits than this. Now, of course, she understood that the dress was perfect. Estelle had known exactly what Olivia needed to wear in a place where the woman who created the most attention attracted the wealthiest protector.
Black silk and velvet.
The dress was tight at the waist and indecently low over her breasts, accentuating her curves, while its starkness framed her fair beauty. The other women had gone for bright colors, to draw the eye, or pale shades, as if to mock their long-lost innocence. In her black dress, Olivia stood out like a raven among the pigeons. She was already being ogled, and although she had yet to see the man she had come to capture, she told herself that it wouldn’t be long before he spotted her.
“Pretend you’re at a debutante ball, miss,” Estelle had advised her. “Abbot told me that the principle is the same, really, because the prettiest, most outstanding ladies go to the highest bidders.”
This seemed a cynical attitude, but Olivia found it did help to think of the exercise in such terms. After the first moment of awkwardness, she set her chin high, and thrust back her shoulders, and strolled into the glittering ballroom as if she had been born to be a demimondaine.
She soon discovered that many of the women knew one another, and there were some curious and resentful glances cast in Olivia’s direction. Ignoring them, and the stares of the gentlemen standing around the perimeter of the room, she began to circle with the others.
It didn’t take Olivia very long to pick up their manner of walking—swinging her hips and tossing her head. A wicked smile curled her lips as she perambulated, wishing her four friends from the Husband Hunters Club could see her now. They were the only ones she would ever be able to tell about this adventure, and she was looking forward to describing to them, in lurid detail, the grand ballroom and its colorful occupants.
A gentleman taking snuff stopped with his fingers halfway to his nostrils to ogle her chest. Olivia glanced down, realizing her décolletage was slipping. It was already so low that it barely clung to the upper swell of her breasts and was dangerously close to exposing the pink circles of her areolas. Olivia gave the neckline a surreptitious tug. It was all very well to play at being a demimondaine, but she had no intention of showing her naked body to anyone but Wicked Nic Lacey.
The snuff-taking gentleman was trying to catch her eye, but she ignored him, setting out to circle the room again. If she didn’t find Nic soon she’d have to rethink her plans. Perhaps he’d changed his mind, perhaps he wasn’t here after all and this had all been for nothing…
And then she saw him.
His long body was folded against the wall, and he looked devastatingly handsome in his evening wear. A swath of dark hair had fallen over his brow, giving him an even more rakish appearance than usual. How could any woman not give him a second, or even a third, glance? As she watched, he sipped from his glass, his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the passing parade of women, coolly assessing them. He was like a groom at a horse fair on the lookout for a new mare.
The metaphor made her flush. Such thoughts were not for respectable young ladies. But Olivia had discovered she was different from the others of her c
lass and position, and if Nic didn’t know it by now, then he soon would.
He sipped his champagne again. She was directly in his line of sight now, but he seemed to be concentrating on the redhead next to her, the one with the appallingly horsy laugh. Just as she thought he’d never see her, and she’d have to go around again, his gaze shifted and he looked straight at her.
Nic’s expression went blank with shocked surprise. He straightened up, and she saw anger flash into his dark eyes, as they slid over her black dress and lingered on all that bare, exposed flesh. Anger turned to outrage as his gaze returned to hers, holding her frozen for a brief moment that seemed an eternity, before her steps took her past him.
She realized she was trembling.
Olivia knew she was a little afraid of his anger, but at the same time, the memory of his eyes scalding her bare skin was exciting and shocking, almost as if he had physically touched her. She knew it was up to her now. To soothe Nic’s temper and show him that she was not the untouchable young lady he believed her to be, and that there was absolutely no need for him to be noble.
“What in Hades are you doing here, Olivia?”
She jumped before she could stop herself as his angry voice rasped in her ear. He slipped his arm through hers and pulled her against his side, holding her there. She stumbled a little, steadied herself, before turning her head to look up into his face. She could see the emotion boiling in his dark eyes, turning his smile into a sneer. He was spoiling for a fight, but she wasn’t about to give him one.
“I don’t think my presence here is any of your business, Lord—”
“Nic or Lacey.” His voice was a furious hiss. “Tonight we are men and women first, lords and ladies second.”
“I wouldn’t have thought there were any ladies here.”
“You’d be surprised who’s here, Olivia.” His breath felt warm and intimate against her cheek. “And you haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?”
“I did answer your question. It’s none of your business.”
“You knew I’d be here, didn’t you? Answer me.”
His fury was making him incautious, and others had noticed. They were openly watching and enjoying the scene, as if they were spectators at a cockfight. Olivia pulled away from him, forcing herself to smile gaily, as if he wasn’t glowering at her as if he’d like to throttle her.
“No, I won’t answer you. I’m here for my own personal and private reasons.” She widened her eyes at him. “And those reasons have nothing whatsoever to do with you, Nic. Why on earth did you think they did?”
Before he could let fly with a blistering reply, they were interrupted by the snuff-taking gentleman, who suddenly appeared on Olivia’s other side, leering.
“What do you want, Neville?” Nic growled.
“Lacey, you’re monopolizing the most fetching woman in the room,” Neville protested, his pale eyes sliding down over her breasts and lingering where the velvet teetered on the verge of slipping. “Come with Neville, my beauty. He’s far better tempered than this moody brute.”