Days of Rakes and Roses (Sons of Sin 1.50)

Richard had engaged Lydia for the contredanse, but she’d asked if he minded sitting out and they’d found two chairs in an alcove. It was a relief to relax her guard in an old friend’s company. With Richard, she needn’t smile and pretend to a gaiety she didn’t feel. She hadn’t been sleeping well. Waiting for Simon to do something outrageous left her jumpier than a cat on a hot stove.

Nor did it improve her mood that so far he’d behaved well within polite limits. Not that Simon Metcalf’s interest in the Duke of Sedgemoor’s sister had gone unnoticed. All week she’d deflected questions about his pursuit with pointed reminders that she was no longer on the marriage market.

At social gatherings, Grenville usually left her to her own devices. Not that she minded. She’d never wanted a man who hovered over her. Tonight, blast him, Grenville had hovered.

A few minutes ago, she’d sent him to fetch her a lemonade. She hoped navigating through the throng would delay his return. His behavior lately offered worrying hints that a jealous man might lurk inside Grenville’s phlegmatic shell. One reason she’d accepted Grenville’s proposal after rejecting earlier offers was her reluctance to commit herself to a possessive husband. Perhaps she’d been mistaken in assuming Grenville felt no need to exert his authority over the woman he married.

She didn’t like second guessing herself. Confound Grenville. And confound that pest Simon Metcalf for making her doubt her decision.

At her side, Richard was still expounding his grievances. “I can’t take two steps without tripping over that dashed Metcalf fellow. By Jove, he’s ubiquitous.”

“Are you jealous of my brother’s new bosom bow?”

Lydia’s tart question made Sir Richard stare at her in aristocratic surprise. The deceptively lazy blue eyes sharpened on her face. “Perhaps you’d prefer the decorative Mr. Metcalf to devote his attention to you instead of to Cam.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she retorted, closing her fan with an audible snap.

“Yes, I see that I’m absurd,” her brother’s closest friend—at least until the advent of that wretch Simon—responded with a twitch of his lips. He reached across and gently untangled her fingers from where they tortured her fan’s silk cord. “Always devilish appealing to the ladies, Metcalf was.”

Lydia flushed. “I’d forgotten you knew Simon before he left for the Continent.”

“We were at Oxford together. He was good company then. He’s good company now. In small doses.”

Richard, whose birth was as shrouded in scandal as Cam’s, played a good game of convincing the world that he had no thought beyond the cut of his coat. But Lydia knew better. He was kind, he was cleverer than he revealed, and he was gifted with surprising perception.

Long acquaintance and genuine liking made her speak honestly. “You must know that Cam doesn’t approve of my engagement. Simon’s arrival is part of a plot to make me jilt Grenville.”

Richard glanced across to where Grenville badgered some political cronies, Lydia’s lemonade clasped forgotten in one hand. “You’re capable of making your own decisions.”

She smiled gratefully at the elegant blond man. “Thank you. Now will you tell my brother that? He might listen to you. I’ve scolded him until I’m blue in the face, but he just shrugs as if I’m talking nonsense.”

“I don’t think it’s your brother with whom you’re really angry,” Richard said quietly, standing to snag two glasses of champagne from a passing footman.

God give her strength. Everyone had an opinion on her marriage. Her brief charity with Sir Richard evaporated into irritation as she accepted the proffered glass. “I think you should mind your own business.”

Richard laughed softly. “And I don’t think you’re angry at me either.” His expression enigmatic, he studied her oblivious betrothed. “I wonder if Sir Grenville guesses how significant the competition is.”

She cast Richard a look of dislike. “There is no competition. In a week, I’m going to marry Grenville, then I’ll have great satisfaction in showing you all how happy I am.”

Richard raised his glass to her. “More power to your right arm, Lady Lydia.”

For all her annoyance with Richard and every other male of her acquaintance, she couldn’t help smiling. “Hear, hear.”

But as the ball proceeded, bravado faded, even though for once Simon seemed content to keep his distance. She should be happy about that, but illogically, his neglect made her edgier than his attentions did. If only she could convince herself not to notice where he was and who he spoke to.

Much as she strove to avoid him, at one stage of the night, the person Simon spoke to was her. Although at least he had the good taste not to ask her to dance. He hadn’t asked her to dance since that acrimonious exchange at the ball to celebrate her engagement.

She stood near the orchestra with Richard and two of the ladies who worked on her charitable committees. Cam and Simon approached and immediately caused a feminine flutter around her. Even Lydia had to admit that when Cam, Simon, and Richard stood together, it was difficult to decide who was the most striking.

The dance before supper was about to begin. Grenville would come and find her any moment. It turned out that Cam and Richard were engaged to dance with her friends. Both were dashing widows of the kind her brother and his cronies pursued with solely sinful intent.

For one moment, Lydia stepped back from her all-encompassing troubles and contemplated the three men, all tall, all dressed in impeccable tailoring, and all handsome enough to have stepped down from Olympus to dazzle mortal women.

Odd that each of them had reached their thirties without marrying.

Of course, Cam would marry as his duty to the dukedom. She suspected he already cast his eye over the ton’s unmarried ladies of suitable rank and bearing. He’d choose a bride as he did everything else, with his head not his heart. Which made his dislike of her engagement to Grenville even more contradictory.

She imagined that Richard, tarred with scandal, would also choose an exemplary bride. One in the first stare of fashion if she meant to compete in any way with her husband’s elegance.