“You tricked me.” She made the statement coldly, a deliberate indictment.
Jason blinked again, a frown gathering. Collecting his wits was proving a strain. Not only did he have to shackle his desire, now rampant, and assimilate the shock of their discovery, together with its attendant ramifications, but he had yet to succeed in convincing himself that what had occurred was real. Too much of it seemed like a dream. Never before had any woman undermined his control as Lenore had so effortlessly done. Dazed, he scrambled to catch up with her thoughts.
Unaware of his difficulties, Lenore drifted around the desk, pacing back and forth before it, her features hardening, her entire body stiffening as all that had occurred crystallised in her brain. “I wouldn’t agree to marry you, so you arranged this!” Her voice gained in force. “This farce!” Gesturing dramatically, she flung a glance loaded with scorn at the man standing still and silent behind the desk. “When I would not agree willingly, you sought to trap me into marriage. Tell me, Your Grace,” she asked with awful disdain, contempt filling her eyes, “did Lord Percy make his entrance too soon? How far were you prepared to go in compromising my honour to gain your ends?” To her horror, her voice broke as a damning self-pity rose beneath her fury.
Abruptly, Lenore swung to face her nemesis over the desk. Head high, she looked him straight in the eye. “You, Your Grace, are undoubtedly the most despicable rogue it has ever been my misfortune to meet! Regardless of what might transpire, regardless of what whispers and scandal you call down upon me, I will not marry you!”
Her denunciation ended on a high, quavering note.
Her fury was nothing to his. With a superhuman effort, Jason forced himself to stand, silent, expressionless, and let her words hit him. His face felt like marble—cold and hard.
When he said nothing, made no attempt to defend himself against her wild accusations, Lenore’s composure crumbled. Catching her breath on a hysterical sob, she turned blindly for the door and fled, her heart twisting painfully with every step.
In a feat bordering on the miraculous, Jason succeeded in forcing himself to remain still and silent behind the desk. Inside, his rage, a cold and deadly flame, seared him. As the danger peaked, every muscle in his body clenching in the effort to contain the explosive emotion, he forced himself to recall that Lenore had been upset, hysterical, not in command of herself.
The rationalisation did not ease the sting of her words. Gradually, the danger passed, leaving mere anger in its wake. Even so, Jason refused to give in to the impulse to go after her; he had sufficient knowledge of his own temperament to know that if he found her, her dignity would not survive intact. Instead, dragging in a deep breath, he focused his mind on what needed to be done, first to remove the threat to her reputation, secondly to secure her hand in marriage.
For one fact was now written in stone. Lenore Lester was his. He would not leave Lester Hall without her promise to marry him.
Not after that kiss.
His eyes grey coals, his expression like stone, His Grace of Eversleigh stalked from the room.
CHAPTER SIX
AT FIVE-THIRTY, despite the dull throbbing in her temples and the sickening disillusion that had her in its grip, Lenore entered the drawing-room prepared to greet her father’s guests. In honour of the ball, she had allowed her maid to dress her hair high, with large soft curls falling in drifts about her ears and throat. Her lustring sack of magenta silk glowed richly, cream lace filling in the expanse from its square neckline to the base of her throat, her long sleeves fashioned from the same material. She hoped the gown would underline her status; tonight she had every intention of courting the title of ape-leader.
Jack was waiting for her, strikingly handsome in a dark blue coat over ivory inexpressibles. He winked
at her. “Ready to greet the hordes?”
“Hardly hordes,” Lenore replied absent-mindedly. “If you recall, we agreed to invite only six couples to join us for dinner. The rest won’t arrive until eight.”
Jack threw her a sharp look, then offered, “Took a gander at the ballroom. Doing us proud, Lennie.”
Taking his arm, Lenore summoned a smile. Leading him towards the main doors where they would take up their stance, she tried to deflect the concern she saw in his blue eyes. It was prompted, she knew, by the harried expression she was only just managing to conceal. “I’m sure everything will turn out splendidly, just as long as you and Harry toe the line. The staff have worked like slaves and the guests have thrown themselves into the spirit of things with abandon. There’s been such demand for the crimping tongs, the maids are well nigh dead on their feet.”
Jack laughed. To Lenore’s relief, he said no more.
A bare two hours had elapsed since her dramatic meeting with Eversleigh; she had yet to regain her calm. She had fled the library to immediately fall victim to her hostessly chores. Mrs. Hobbs had caught her in the front hall. After she had given her blessing to the substitution of pheasant pie for the roasted grouse, Smithers had come up, wanting her opinion on the positioning of the heavy épergné in the centre of the table. Next, it had been Harris with a request for guidance in the matter of how many footmen should be stationed in the supper-room. A succession of similar questions and difficulties had kept her from the sanctuary of her room, from giving way to temper and tears in equal measure.
Whenever she thought of what had happened, her emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Knowing she could not afford to be distracted, not tonight, with so many eyes to see, she pushed the jumble of outrage, guilt and hurt betrayal to the back of her mind. With a smile firmly in place, her serenity to the fore, she stood beside her brother and prepared to greet their neighbours.
As the first of the house guests drifted into the room, chatting easily, Lenore heard the clang of the front doorbell. She turned to Jack. “Papa isn’t down yet.”
Jack grimaced. “Doubt that he’ll show, not till later.” When Lenore gazed at him, bewildered, he said, “Never one for doing the pretty, you know that.”
Lenore sighed. Retrieving her smile, she turned as Smithers announced Major and Mrs. Holthorpe. Their other neighbours arrived in good time, the ladies making the most of this opportunity to brush shoulders with their London sisters and catch up on both fashion and the latest on-dits. Conversation buzzed, punctuated by gay laughter. When the time to announce dinner was at hand and her father had yet to appear, Lenore cast a questioning glance at Harriet. Her aunt shrugged. Wondering if perhaps her father had been taken ill, Lenore started for the door.
She had cleared the crush of the guests and was but a few yards from the double doors when they swung inwards, propelled by two footmen. Her father entered, Harris pushing his chair. Beside it walked Eversleigh.
Lenore froze, presentiment dropping like a cold cloak about her shoulders.
“Friends!” Archibald Lester, wreathed in smiles, waved a lordly hand at his guests. He saw Lenore, too distant for her face to be properly in focus, and his smile grew brighter still. As the guests, as a body, turned to face him, he continued, his old voice carrying easily over the last shreds of dying conversations. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you to Lester Hall. Doubly so for I’ve an announcement to make!”
Jason, standing alongside, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on Lenore, stiffened. He turned to Archibald Lester, only to hear his host declaim, “I have today given my blessing to a union between my daughter, Lenore, and Jason Montgomery, Duke of Eversleigh.”
A buzz of excited comment rolled through the room. Archibald Lester beamed with pride and gratification.