Loretta Chase - Regency Rogues and Rakes - Silk is for Seduction / Scandal Wears Satin / Vixen in Velvet / Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed / A Rake's Midnight Kiss / What a Duke Dares

In his mind she was Sophy. But she’d never invited him to call her by the name all her family used. And so, even with Clevedon, good manners dictated that Longmore use the correct form of address for the senior unmarried lady of a family.

“With you and Sophy standing guard, the lechers and bankrupts won’t stand a chance,” Clevedon said. “Argus himself couldn’t do better.”

Longmore racked his brain. “The dog, you mean?”

“The giant with extra eyes,” Clevedon said. “ ‘And set a watcher upon her, great and strong Argus, who with four eyes looks every way,’ “ he quoted from somewhere. “ ‘And the goddess stirred in him unwearying strength: sleep never fell upon his eyes; but he kept sure watch always.’ “

“That strikes me as excessive,” Longmore said. “But then, you always were romantic.”

A week later

Warford, how could you?”

“My dear, you know I cannot command his majesty—”

“It is not to be borne! That creature he married—presented at Court! —at the King’s Birthday Drawing Room!—as though she were visiting royalty!”

Longmore was trapped in a carriage with his mother, father, and Clara, departing St. James’s Palace. Though court events bored him witless, he’d attended the Drawing Room, hoping to spot a certain uninvited attendee. But he’d seen only Sophy’s sister—the “creature” his mother was in a snit about. Then he’d debated whether to sneak out or to hunt for an equally bored wife or widow. The palace was well supplied with dark corners conducive to a quick bout of fun.

No luck with the females. The sea of plumes and diamonds held an overabundance of sanctimonious matrons and virgins. Virgins were what one married. They weren’t candidates for fun under a staircase.

“Odd, I agree,” Lord Warford said carefully. Though he’d given up being outraged about Clevedon’s marriage, he’d also long ago given up trying to reason with his wife.

“Didn’t seem odd to me,” Longmore said.

“Not odd!” his mother cried. “Not odd! No one is presented at the King’s Birthday Drawing Room.”

“No one but foreign dignitaries,” Lord Warford said.

“It was a shocking breach of etiquette even to request an exception,” Lady Warford said, conveniently forgetting that she’d told her husband to commit a shocking breach of etiquette by telling the King not to recognize the Duchess of Clevedon.

But it was up to the husband, not the son, to point this out, and years of marriage had taught Lord Warford cowardice.

“I could not believe Her Majesty would do such a thing, even for Lady Adelaide,” Mother went on. “But it seems I’m obliged to believe it,” she added bitterly. “The Queen dotes on Clevedon’s youngest aunt.” She glared at her daughter. “Lady Adelaide Ludley might have used her influence on your and your family’s behalf. But no, you must be the most ungrateful, undutiful daughter who ever lived. You must jilt the Duke of Clevedon!”

“I didn’t jilt him, Mama,” Clara said. “One cannot jilt someone to whom one is not engaged.”

Longmore had heard this argument too many times to want to be boxed in a closed carriage, hearing it again, his mother’s voice going higher and higher, and Clara’s climbing along with it. Normally, he would call the carriage to a halt and get out, and leave everybody fuming behind him.

Clara could defend herself, he knew. The trouble was, that would only lead to more quarreling and screaming and messages for him to come to Warford House before she committed matricide.

He thought very hard and very fast and said, “It was clear as clear to me that they did it behind the scenes, so to speak, to spare your feelings, ma’am.”

There followed the kind of furiously intense silence that typically ensued when his parents were deciding whether he might, against all reason and evidence, have said something worth listening to.

“What with the aunts and all, the Queen would be in a fix,” he went on. “She could hardly snub Clevedon’s whole family—which is what she’d be doing, since the aunts had accepted his bride.”

“His bride,” his mother said bitterly. “His bride. ” She threw Clara the sort of look Caesar must have given Brutus when the knife went in.

“This way at least, the deed was done behind the scenes,” Longmore went on, “not in front of the whole blasted ton.”

While his mother stirred this idea around in her seething mind, the carriage reached the front of Warford House. The footmen opened the carriage door, and the family emerged, the ladies shaking out their skirts as they stepped out onto the pavement.

Longmore said nothing and Clara said nothing but she shot him a grateful look before she hurried inside after their mother.

His father, however, lingered at the front step with Longmore. “Not coming in?”

“I think not,” Longmore said. “Did my best. Tried to pour oil and all that.”

“It won’t end,” his father said in a low voice. “Not for your mother. Shattered dreams and wounded pride and outraged sensibilities and whatnot. You see how it is. We can expect no peace in this family until Clara finds a suitable replacement for Clevedon. That’s not going to happen while she keeps encouraging that pack of loose screws.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Make them go away, will you, dammit?”

Countess of Igby’s ball

Saturday 30 May 1835

One o’clock in the morning

Longmore had been looking for Lord Adderley for some time. The fellow having proven too thick to take a hint, Longmore had decided that the simplest approach was to hit him until he understood that he was to keep off Clara.

The trouble was, Sophy Noirot was at Lady Igby’s party, too, and Longmore, unlike Argus, owned only the usual number of eyes.

He’d become distracted, watching Sophy flit hither and yon, no one paying her the slightest heed—except for the usual assortment of dolts who thought maidservants existed for their sport. Since he’d marked her as his sport, Longmore had started to move in, more than once, only to find that she didn’t need any help with would-be swains.

She’d “accidentally” spilled hot tea on the waistcoat of one gentleman who’d ventured too close. Another had followed her into an antechamber and tripped over something, landing on his face. A third had followed her down a passage and into a room. He’d come out limping a moment later.

Preoccupied with her adventures, Longmore not only failed to locate Adderley, but lost track of the sister he was supposed to be guarding from lechers and bankrupts. This would have been less of a problem had Sophy been watching her more closely. But Sophy had her own lechers to fend off.

Longmore wasn’t thinking about this. Thinking wasn’t his favorite thing to do, and thinking about more than one thing at a time upset his equilibrium. At the moment, his mind was on the men trespassing on what he’d decided was his property. Unfortunately, this meant he wasn’t aware of his mother losing sight of Clara at the same time. This happened because Lady Warford was carrying on a politely poisonous conversation with her best friend and worst enemy Lady Bartham.

In short, nobody who should have been paying attention was paying attention while Lord Adderley was steering Clara, as they waltzed, toward the other end of the ballroom, toward the doors leading to the terrace. None of those who should have been keeping a sharp eye out saw the wink Adderley sent his friends or the accompanying smirk.

It was the crowd’s movement that brought Longmore back to his surroundings and his main reason for being here.