The Earl Plays With Fire Read online

  Somehow the injuries he’d suffered had dissolved to nothing. She’d failed him, yes, but he was sure that her heart had been honest and true. She’d been the victim of a master seducer against whom her inexperience was no match. And he was partly to blame. He’d been her betrothed, her lover, but he’d not shown her the love she had craved. He’d been stiff, awkward, shy almost. She hadn’t guessed, maybe couldn’t guess, the depths of his feelings for her. He saw her now in his mind’s eye, a young, vital girl, saw her at the very moment that she’d agreed to marry him. They’d stood on the cliff top, the waves thundering beneath, random spray misting the very air between them. She’d gazed up at him, her face warm with happiness, and said yes. Then she’d reached for his hand and tugged him along the path to the cove, her smile urging him on, her eyes laughing with pleasure. She had been honest and true, he was sure.

  After years in which he’d kept the past under lock and key, meeting her again had released a great dam of emotion. He’d thought he would never feel so deeply again, but he’d been wrong. And why was that? He could pretend no longer. Without a doubt, he knew that he loved her. It seemed that he’d always loved her from the days of callow youth through the years of exile to this very moment. His clumsy plan to teach her a lesson and free himself from her power was simply hurt love. He longed for her, burned for her, but he must subdue those feelings. Tomorrow there would be a ball at Mount Street in honour of her tiresome sister and he had been invited. He would bid her farewell in a crowded room and bow out of her life as gracefully as he could. His luggage would be packed and waiting for him at the inn. Early the next morning he would be on his way to Cornwall.

  Number Six Mount Street was a house in upheaval and if Christabel were tempted to dwell on her transgressions at Vauxhall, the preparations for the ball effectively banished all such remorse. For days the housemaids had been dusting and sweeping every corner of the house, shining silver and polishing chandeliers. Every spare glass had been unearthed and washed until it sparkled.

  The house was a modest size and to hold a ball for up to fifty people, though small by the Season’s standards, was an immense undertaking. The two first-floor salons were to be made into one and act as the ballroom by the simple expedient of sliding back the wooden partitioning.

  ‘We must roll up the carpets,’ Lady Harriet instructed three panting footmen, early on the Friday morning. ‘They will have to be taken to the cellar, I fear, but the parquet floor will be excellent for dancing.’ The men, perspiring down three flights of stairs, did not appear overly impressed by this information.

  ‘Bel,’ her mother called urgently to her from the drawing room, ‘do you think the quartet we’ve hired could be stationed at one end of this room?’ She indicated the window enclave.

  ‘That would mean that we can’t open the windows behind them, Mama,’ Christabel warned, ‘and it looks likely to be a very warm day.’

  Her mother’s brow wrinkled. ‘The room is already uncomfortably stuffy, I admit, but I cannot see where else to put the musicians.’ She sighed. ‘It will have to do.’

  ‘It might not matter,’ her daughter comforted. ‘We can fling the windows wide at the far end of the other room and if people get too overheated, they can step out on to the balcony to refresh themselves.’

  ‘Not too many people,’ her mother said wryly. The ironwork balcony which overlooked the gardens to the rear of the house was no more than six feet wide.

  As the day wore on, Christabel became aware of her mother’s increasing anxiety. The evening’s event had been planned as a modest introduction of Sophia to the ton, but somehow it had escalated. More invitations had been issued than Lady Harriet had bargained for and some of these to the most feted in society. Refreshments had been ordered from Gunter’s in addition to those being produced in the kitchen by Cook and her willing helpers, and the best champagne had been ordered at a ruinous cost.

  What should have been a simple occasion had been transformed into a major undertaking. Lady Harriet could not decide just how this had happened, although Christabel could have enlightened her. She knew her sister had been busy. Sophia had not been content with what she’d described privately as a paltry affair and refused to be put off with the promise of a much grander ball in her honour the following year. She was partaking of London society now and she wanted her official launch to be talked of for weeks to come. She had been unable to persuade her mother to hire a more prestigious venue but she was determined that everything that could be done to make the party memorable would be done. It was she who had chosen the champagne and ordered the additional delicacies and she who had ensured that invitations had gone out to the very highest of the ton.

  That was her sole contribution to the evening’s success. Her day was spent in her room preparing for her grand appearance. The dress she had originally chosen for this momentous occasion was deemed that morning to be commonplace and she was engaged in a frantic and increasingly bad-tempered search for the perfect ensemble. It was left to Christabel to assist her flurried parent in the hundred-and-one tasks that had to be accomplished. Had the flowers arrived and how were they to be arranged? Was there going to be sufficient room for the musicians in the window enclosure and what should the order of music be? Where were the dance cards ordered at least three weeks ago and why had the ices been delivered so early that they were bound to melt well before they could be served? So it went on as the hours of the day ticked by, Christabel and her mother scurrying from ballroom to dining room to kitchen to hall, solving problems, settling disputes, until they were both so fatigued that all they wanted was to retire to bed and let everyone else dance the night away.

  In the confusion that permeated the house, they hardly noticed Benedict. He had quickly been pronounced useless in preparing for the ball and advised to lose himself for the day. That suited him perfectly. He had plenty to do if he were to carry off Domino early the next morning and his family’s abstraction meant that his constant comings and goings went unremarked. It struck Christabel that he looked unusually serious, but she was too busy to enquire further. Meanwhile upstairs Sophia continued to drive her maidservant to distraction until finally she had decided on the outfit which would eclipse all others and the entire house breathed a sigh of relief.

  At nine o’clock Sophia, primped and pampered, took up her place in the entrance hall at the head of the family, waiting to greet her guests. Christabel, standing slightly behind her, hoped that her own appearance was not too disordered. She had completed her toilette with only a few minutes to go, scrambling into her dress as the first of the carriage wheels were heard rumbling across the cobblestones outside. She need not have worried for her beauty was undiminished. In the short time available Rosa had given up any idea of achieving the latest elaborate style known as a la Meduse and decided on a simple arrangement of soft curls around the face with the rest of her mistress’s unruly hair pulled back into an orderly chignon. Diamond clips on either side softened any severity and matching diamonds sparkled from her ears and nestled in the curves of her bosom. The Pomona-green gauze she wore over a paler underdress accentuated the emerald of her eyes and the small diamond fastenings to her bodice made her seem alive with light whenever she moved. She had made little attempt to appear anything other than acceptable, yet she easily outshone every other woman in the room. Those daring young damsels who had worn gauze dresses over damped and transparent petticoats in order to attract attention looked frankly tawdry in the face of such transcendent beauty. Fortunately Sophia was so immersed in her own absorbing bubble of pleasure that she had no eyes for any of her family, least of all the sister she hoped to supplant.

  Domino and Lady Blythe were among the first to arrive and Christabel noticed how very pale and quiet the young girl was. Something ails her, she thought, but what? Leo Moncaster followed close behind, suave and debonair as ever, but exuding a sense of threat, subtle and unexpressed. She was at a loss to understand why he’d come since he was not a
particular friend of the family, but seeing Sophia’s blush as she curtsied to him, she knew immediately who had pushed for his invitation. Lord Moncaster’s attendance at one’s coming-out ball was a fine prize to win. She had little time to contemplate the oddities of the guest list before Sir Julian was before her, splendid in black satin knee-breeches and long-tailed coat, and reverently taking her hand.

  ‘How good to see you, my dear. And looking breathtaking as always! I seem hardly to have managed a word with you of late.’

  She looked guiltily up at him. ‘I’m sorry. This week has simply sped by—there’s been so much to do for Sophia’s come-out and Mama is without my father’s help.’

  ‘I know how busy you must have been, my dear Christabel, and that is only right. Your mother needs your support and I would expect nothing else from such a loving daughter. But when this evening is over, I hope we will have the chance to spend time together.’

  ‘We will, of course,’ she reassured him hastily.

  ‘I am very much looking forward to taking you to Rosings as soon as ever it is convenient with you—and your mother, of course. I’m sure that you will both enjoy the country air and I hope it’s not too boastful to say that you will be well pleased with the home that you find there. Every member of my staff is ready and eager to welcome the new Lady Edgerton.’

  She brushed aside this reference to their marriage, but tried to sound enthusiastic about the forthcoming visit.

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing Rosings as much as you are to showing it to me.’ This was only half a lie at least. ‘But until Sophia and Benedict return to Cornwall, you must see that it is impossible.’

  Sophia, who had moved towards Sir Julian as soon as she saw him enter the room, caught the tail end of the conversation and looked thunderous. Only the arrival of a new dance partner prevented an outburst. Instead she smiled extravagantly at the young man who stood before her and made a play of ticking off his name on her dance card. With a withering look at her sister, she allowed herself to be swept back on to the ballroom floor.

  It was halfway through the evening before Sir Julian caught up with his beloved again. Her duties had not stopped with the arrival of guests; she and Lady Harriet had constantly to mingle, to introduce, to smooth the social waters. He finally ran her to ground just as she had finished giving instructions to one of the footmen to begin opening the final crate of champagne.

  ‘Christabel—’ he pounced ‘—this dance must be mine!’ The musicians were just tuning up for the first quadrille of the evening.

  She found herself having to apologise yet again. ‘I regret I cannot, Julian—there are a hundred-and-one things I should check before I can think of dancing.’

  His face fell and she glanced wildly around. ‘I see Sophia is temporarily without a partner. It would be most kind of you to ask her to join the quadrille.’

  Sir Julian gave a resigned smile. ‘If you wish it, my dear. It’s well that your sister dances so creditably.’

  He moved obediently to where Sophia stood disconsolate. The name on her card had failed her and she was without a partner at her very own party, but Sir Julian’s arrival transformed the miserable situation. Seeing the genuine smile of warmth directed at him, he felt that his sacrifice had not been in vain. They were soon dancing easily together, chatting almost as old friends, Christabel noted. She was satisfied. The better Sophia knew Julian, the less likely she was to continue to weave fantasies around him.

  By eleven o’clock the ball was in full swing. Almost every guest who had been bidden to the party had arrived and those who were planning to go on to other and grander events had not yet left. The dance floor was crowded, a kaleidoscope of jewelled shades as the women twirled and pirouetted in interweaving patterns of colour. If the musicians felt stifled in their embrasure, they did not show it, playing without pause for the eager dancers. The temperature of the room had been rising all the time and the copious banks of flowers which decked the walls on either side were beginning to wilt. The starched shirt points of the gentlemen showed a definite tendency to limpness and even the most elegant of the women had recourse to their fans as the evening wore on. The call to partake of refreshments when it came was greeted with some relief.

  Supper was a sociable event. The Tallises’ dining room had been cleared of furniture and in its stead trestle tables set up, covered in starched white linen and furnished with white porcelain and silver cutlery. Small crystal bowls of deep pink roses dotted the length of the buffet and a splendid centrepiece of mauve-and-white lilies towered majestically over the whole. The table groaned with every conceivable dainty that the combined efforts of Cook and Gunter’s could produce. It was an intimate space and people gathered in groups around the table or arranged the few chairs still remaining in small clusters. The flushed, happy faces and the buzz of chatter was evidence that the event was deemed a success and Christabel could relax.

  At last she had leisure to look around her. Sophia was in high gig, sitting with Sir Julian and two of her female confidantes. She was evidently pleased to have netted the man she clearly considered the beau of the evening. Benedict hovered in the background, a jumpy look on his face. Christabel watched him for a while, feeling concerned, but unsure why. She saw that he was staring rather too fixedly at Domino, who seemed to be involved in some kind of altercation with Lord Moncaster. How extraordinary! Leo Moncaster rose from his seat at that moment and made for the door. Immediately she sped to the hall to bid him goodbye, her brain teeming.

  ‘Are you leaving us already, Lord Moncaster?’ she said lightly.

  He turned, smooth as always, his face giving no inkling of his thoughts.

  ‘I regret, Miss Tallis, that I have business elsewhere. Do accept my thanks for a most enjoyable evening.’

  His tone was genial, but there was a metallic ring to his voice and his smile was tight and controlled. What could have upset him so much that he would risk gossip from an angry dispute and an early departure? She noticed that his antagonist, too, was making her way to the door. Domino, still pale faced, must have persuaded her aunt to leave betimes.

  The musicians struck up again and the ballroom filled with couples still determined to enjoy the evening. Christabel had just decided that this might be an opportune moment to offer Julian the dance he desired when a tall and striking figure was ushered through the door. The man wore the black satin knee breeches of the gentleman of fashion and a black tailcoat which fitted him to perfection. A white frilled shirt set off the lean, tanned face and a single diamond stud held in place a neckcloth tied in the intricate Oriental style. It was Richard and he looked superb. She could hardly believe her eyes. Richard! Who on earth could have invited him? Her sister’s cunning smile told the story. Of course, Sophia would hope to cause trouble if she could and this was her master stroke. Well, she would not succeed.

  ‘Good evening, Lord Veryan.’

  Christabel’s voice strove to remain unhurried and calm. The remembrance of their last encounter came rushing back; her eyes were held captive by the figure before her, lingering on the seductive picture he presented. She gave herself a mental shake; she could not afford to show any sign of the feelings he aroused in her.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Tallis, I hope I see you well?’ His tone was crisp and businesslike. It helped to steady her.

  ‘Yes, my lord, very well,’ she responded formally.

  They stood, unable to continue the conversation, unable to stop their eyes from feasting on each other. He was the first to recover.

  ‘I’ll not be staying long. I came only to say goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye? You are leaving London?’

  ‘I’ve always had the intention of returning to Cornwall as soon as I could, but circumstances have made it difficult.’

  ‘Really?’ There was a challenge in her voice. ‘I imagine Lady Anne must be very glad that circumstances now allow you to return home.’

  He bowed his head, acknowledging her hit. She
looked at him again. His eyes held a wistfulness that she did not remember before and the intensity of his gaze made her limbs begin to weaken, her strength dissolving as she stood there.

  ‘Won’t you stay to dance a little while?’ she managed. ‘Unfortunately Miss de Silva has just left—she could not have known you were attending—but there are many others who would be delighted to partner you.’

  He blinked at the mention of Domino’s name but then recalled that Christabel still believed in the fiction of their relationship, a fiction he had been at pains to foster.

  ‘I need no other partner, but if you will dance with me, I would be delighted. A waltz is just beginning.’

  Mindful of having refused Sir Julian earlier in the evening, Christabel demurred. If she accepted, he would feel justifiably offended and she had no wish to snub the man she was soon to marry. More truthfully, she knew that dancing with Richard was likely to unleash a tumult that would crack open the social facade she wore.

  ‘I am not dancing this evening, Lord Veryan.’

  ‘Come—a few steps only and then I’ll leave.’

  She hesitated; the temptation to find herself in his arms again and for the last time seemed overwhelming. But she must not succumb to this insistent longing; such feelings were inadmissible and must be put behind her for good. Her hand was trembling as he took it and raised it to his lips.

  ‘A few minutes of the waltz should not take up too much of your time.’

  As if in a dream she allowed herself to be swept on to the dance floor. He held her tightly, his form fitting hers, two halves making a whole. Swaying sinuously to the strains of the music, they moved as one. They heard and saw nothing other than themselves: two bodies locked in hot intimacy. Their fever mounted inexorably, licking them with its flames, consuming them with its ardour. They could not bear to keep dancing. And so it was that as they neared the far window, Richard pulled the curtain swiftly to one side and danced her on to the balcony.