Don't Tempt Me (Fallen Women 2)

“Yes, like a brother.”

Oh, she was trying to be patient and understanding. She reminded herself of how much he’d had to drink. She reminded herself that men could be the most irrational of creatures. She told herself a great many sensible things, yet she felt her temper slipping.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your manly pride,” she said, “but it would be best for everyone to think of us in that way. One must change the way people view us—I had in mind our public quarrels. It’s the same as letting Mr. Beardsley believe I was the slave of Karim’s first wife. In people’s minds I stopped being a concubine and turned into a Jarvis.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” he said. “No need to. I was…amused.”

She very much doubted he’d been amused, but before she could respond, Lord Adderwood approached.

And in the nick of time, too, because she was strongly tempted to pick up the nearest heavy object and apply it to the duke’s skull.

“Monopolizing the lady again, I see,” said Adderwood.

“Not at all,” Marchmont said. “I was about to take my leave. I thank you for a most entertaining evening, Miss Lexham.” He bowed and walked away.

Zoe did not pick up a porcelain figurine from the pier table nearby and throw it at him. He continued walking away, unmolested, and not long thereafter, he was gone.

Later, at White’s

The Duke of Marchmont waved his wineglass as he declaimed:

I know you all, and will a while uphold

The unyoked humor of your idleness:

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world,

That when he please again to be himself—

“I knew it,” Adderwood said. “I knew we should have Prince Hal tonight. Someone call a servant—better yet, a brace of them. Let’s get him home before he falls into the fire.”

Ten

Afternoon of Thursday, 23 April

The Duke of Marchmont had arranged with Lexham to collect the ladies and take them to the Queen’s House in his state coach. The vehicle was one he employed on ceremonial occasions, and it was large enough to accommodate comfortably a pair of ladies in hooped petticoats and two gentlemen encumbered with dress swords. Only three would travel in the carriage today, though, because Lexham was otherwise engaged.

Marchmont arrived a little before his time, more uneasy than he’d ever admit to being. He’d attended too many levees and Drawing Rooms to view them as anything more than social events.

This occasion, though, could determine Zoe’s future. It could decide whether she would move freely in the ton, as all her sisters did, or be pushed to its fringes, permanently on the outside looking in.

While he waited at the bottom of the main staircase, however, his mind wasn’t on the challenge ahead but on the dinner party of the previous week. In the cold light of the following day, and in the dark misery of the world’s vilest headache, he had not been happy with his behavior.

He hadn’t seen her since then. He’d told himself he didn’t need to. He’d done all he could. He’d helped her order her wardrobe for the Season—or at least the start of her wardrobe. He’d accomplished the impossible by finding a horse lively enough to suit her while not the sort of fire-breather liable to kill her. He’d had her measured for a saddle and fitted for riding attire. He’d obtained the crucial invitation to the Drawing Room.

The rest was up to her, and if she—

The sound of rustling fabric made him look up.

She appeared at the landing.

She paused there and smiled, then flipped open her fan and held it in front of her face, concealing all but her eyes—while meanwhile, below, the low, square neckline of her gown concealed almost nothing.

The deep blue eyes glinted as they regarded him.

“How splendid you are,” she said.

He wore a satin frock coat with an extravagantly embroidered silk waistcoat and the obligatory knee breeches. Under his arm he carried the required chapeau bras. His court sword hung at his side.

“Not a fraction as splendid as you,” he said.

She was beyond splendid. She was…delicious.

Younger women viewed court gowns as ridiculous and old-fashioned. They were, certainly, when one tried to combine today’s fashion for high waists with the great skirts of olden times. But he’d told Madame Vérelet to drop the waistline of Zoe’s court gown. The bodice and petticoat were a deep rose sarsnet. The combination of vibrant color and lowered waist created a more balanced effect. The layers of silver net and the delicate lace trimming the drapery and train made her seem to be rising out of a cloud upon which sunlight sparkled, thanks to the diamonds her mother and sisters must have lent her. The gems adorned the gown, her neck and ears, her plumed headdress, her gloved arms, and her fan.

It helped, too, that Zoe didn’t seem to regard hoops as an encumbrance. Judging by the way she descended the stairs, she seemed to have adopted them as an instrument of seduction.

She closed the fan and made her way down slowly, every sway of the skirts suggestive.

His mouth went dry.

“Ah, well done, well done,” came Lexham’s voice beside him.

Belatedly, Marchmont discovered his erstwhile guardian, who must have come out into the hall while Marchmont was gawking at Zoe and getting exactly the sorts of ideas he strongly suspected she wanted him to have, the little devil.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, her father walked to her and kissed her cheek. His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “How glad I am to see this day arrived at last,” he said.

If all went well, this day would give Zoe the life she would have had if she had grown up in the way her sisters had done.

If all went well.

Lady Lexham followed Zoe down the stairs a moment later. “Isn’t she lovely?” said she. “How clever you were about the dress, Marchmont. There will be nothing like it at court today—and next week, everyone will want the same thing.”

“That’s why he’s a leader of fashion,” said Zoe.

“And all this time I thought it was my wit and charm.”

“Try to be dull on the way to the Queen’s House,” Zoe said. “I have a thousand things to remember: what to say and what not to say. Mainly it’s what not to say. If I were wearing the usual kind of dress, I could simply tell Mama to kick me if I said the wrong thing—but with all this great tent under me, it would take forever to find something to kick, and by then I should have disgraced myself.”

“Never fear,” said Marchmont. “If I detect the smallest sign of your going astray, I’ll create a diversion. I’ll accidentally trip over my sword.”

“There, you see, is the mark of a true nobleman, Zoe,” said her father. “He’ll fall on his sword for you.”

r /> “I said I’d get her through this and I shall,” said Marchmont. “I shall do whatever is necessary.” His gaze reverted to Zoe, floating in her cloud of rose and silver. “Ready, brat?”

She smiled a slow, beatific smile, and a summer sun broke out upon the world.

“Ready,” she said.

It was the most amazing sight. As they neared the Queen’s House, Zoe watched long lines of carriages advancing through the Green Park from Hyde Park. Others—from the Horse Guards and St. James’s, Marchmont said—came by way of the Mall. Along both routes people crowded, watching the parade of vehicles. She heard the blare of trumpets and the crack of guns.

As they neared the courtyard, where they were to alight, she saw another line of carriages going the other way, heading toward what Mama said was Birdcage Walk.

“I wish I could open the window,” she said.

“Don’t be silly, Zoe,” said her mother.

“You want to hang out of it, I don’t doubt,” said Marchmont. “Your plumes will fall off into the dirt, and the dust will coat your gown. You may open the window when we depart. Nobody will care what you look like then.”

“It’s beyond anything,” she said. “Everyone said there would be a great crowd, but I had no idea.”

The carriage stopped and she took her nose away from the glass to which it had been pressed. She smoothed her skirts, not because they needed it but because she relished the feel of the silver net, like gossamer. “I feel like a princess,” she said.

“The princesses are agreeable enough ladies, but I fear you’ll outshine them,” said Marchmont. “Perhaps I should have let you hang out of the window after all.”

She smiled at him. She couldn’t help it. He’d tried her patience the week before, but she had missed him, and seeing him at the bottom of the stairs today had made her heart lift. Descending the stairs, she’d felt as light as a cloud.

He had called her “brat,” as he used to do so long ago.

And though he’d stood in all his grandeur of court dress, looking every inch the duke he was, descended from a very long line of them—for all that pomp, he was Lucien, too.