Susan Schonberg - The Phoenix Of Love

Reluctantly Traverston acknowledged the existence of Sir John Whetmore, a distant acquaintance of his from the club, with a barely perceptible nod.

The gentleman stared good-naturedly at Traverston, mistaking the peer’s lack of civility for an inability to recognize him. He took the marquis’s hand and moved it up and down several times like a water pump. “Don’t you remember me?” inquired the gentleman with too much jocularity. “Sir John Whetmore,” he supplied helpfully.

Traverston remained where he was, slouched against the pillar. “What brings you to this insufferable crush, Whetmore?” inquired the marquis languidly.

“Oh, tush-tush!” pronounced the intruder with a booming laugh. “You’ve got too much town bronze, my lord! This party is simply ripping. Never had such a fine time.” Whetmore grasped the edge of his waistband as if to emphasize his own complacency with the affair. “After all, ‘tis a great success for Lady Eddington, don’t you know.”

When Lord Traverston failed to look impressed at this piece of information, Whetmore added significantly, “She’s my niece, don’t you know.”

“Ah,” said the marquis knowingly as he pushed himself upright off the column. He had definitely had enough of this pompous little man. He executed the smallest of bows to his fellow club member. “Then I must apologize, sir. Of course her ball is a smashing success.”

Traverston excused himself from Whetmore’s presence, keeping his exit just a cut above a snub. If there was one thing he was not in the mood for, he thought grimly as he stalked away from his former perch above the main floor, it was issuing mealymouthed phrases to placate some overblown tulip of the gentry.

The marquis fought his way down the short staircase and forward through the crowd, heading in the general direction of the refreshments at the far side of the room. He didn’t make it more than a couple of feet, though, before he was stopped dead in his tracks.

The object that prevented his continued passage through the crowd was perhaps seventy-five feet away from him across the room. In addition to that, there were at least two dozen people between him and her, including several whirling couples. But she stopped him all the same.

She was absolutely dazzling. Unlike most of the debutantes tonight, who looked insipid or even silly in white, this woman was magnificent. Even from a distance Traverston could see that she was unaffected by the oppressive heat and noise of the room. She looked calm, cool and pretty, and the crowd seemed to part for her automatically as she made her stately way through the masses.

“She’s fantastic, isn’t she?”

The voice in Traverston’s ear was so close to his own sentiment that he didn’t realize at first that someone was actually speaking to him. Still somewhat distracted, the marquis turned slowly toward the source of the rhetorical question, his eyes only reluctantly leaving the vision behind.

When Traverston identified the speaker, his reply was smooth and even. “Monquefort. I’ve no idea how you managed to find me in this squeeze, but I’m grateful. This gathering has become intolerable.”

The gentleman Traverston addressed was almost as devastatingly handsome as the marquis himself. Almost, but not quite.

Like the marquis, Lord Buxlcy, the Earl of Monquefort, was tall with broad shoulders and well-formed legs that needed no padding to look good in the formfitting clothes currently in fashion. But his slim, perfectly proportioned physique was where the similarity stopped.

Where the marquis was dark and mysterious, the earl was open and friendly. His smile was famous with the ladies, or perhaps infamous, as the dowagers would say. Women of every age seemed to gravitate to his blond good looks and careless charm, almost against their will.

For the ton, it was the mystery of the decade as to why the two men were friends, for they were almost as dissimilar in temperament as they were in looks. Indeed, it is doubtful that even Traverston or the earl could have said why they were friends. But neither one ever doubted the fact.

Tonight, as always, Monquefort had chosen his clothes with impeccable taste. His blue bath coat fit his shoulders without a wrinkle; his buff-colored pantaloons were snug and firm. The cravat around his throat was intricately tied in the style known as “the waterfall”, and the shine on his Hessian boots made all the dandies present groan with envy.

In comparison with the earl, the marquis was almost casual about his clothing. To be sure, he chose his outfits with the same care as the earl, patronizing only the finest tailors for his raiment. But, unlike Monquefort, once Traverston put on his clothes he forgot about them, never pausing even once during the day to examine his appearance.

As a consequence, the marquis had a certain masculine laissez-faire quality to him—an aura most members of the ton perceived but were never quite able to put their fingers on. His raven black hair, too long to be called stylish, only added to his rakish good looks.

All signs of dissipation, so evident eight years ago, were almost completely erased from the marquis’s appearance. All that remained of the hard living he had subjected his body to back in his younger days were the lines etched around the sides of his mouth, and the hard glint in his chilling gray eyes. They gave him a hard, implacable look. Many members of society had remarked that Traverston looked like a man who had fought with the devil…and won.

Monquefort’s reply to his friend was amused. “Excruciating, indeed, my lord.” His next comment caught the marquis off guard. “I see you have noticed the Ice Queen.”

Traverston’s raised eyebrow was the only prod Monquefort needed to burst out laughing at his friend’s expense. “Come now, man,” he exclaimed. “Don’t try and tell me you didn’t notice her. I saw you gaping.”

“Really, Monquefort,” purred the marquis warningly, “your attempt at levity fails to amuse me. If you really want to amuse yourself, I suggest you seek your pleasures elsewhere. I’m not in the mood to entertain you tonight.”

With his usual lack of respect for proprieties, the earl plowed ahead with his observations. “But that’s why you like me, Trav,” replied the man. “I’m such an amusing fellow. Besides, you know part of my charm is my disarming honesty,” he smirked.

“Cut line, Alex,” demanded the marquis with none of his usual tolerance for the young nobleman’s witty banter. “You’ve obviously got something you want to say. Come out with it!”

Monquefort blinked at the marquis in mock confusion, his hands held up in a gesture of innocence. “I just wanted to give you the information you are looking for. What more could a friend offer than that?”

Though the silence emanating from Travcrston was palpable, the earl managed to retain his easy smile even in the face of this unencouraging response. But he didn’t have to wait long for the marquis’s reply.

“And what,” he growled softly, “is it, pray tell, that I want to know?”

Monquefort’s smile was triumphant. “But her name, of course,” he replied equally quietly.

In the face of the marquis’s black frown, the earl wisely decided not to tease his friend any longer. “The lady in question is Miss Olivia Wentworth.” When this tidbit of information failed to lighten the expression on Traverston’s face, Monquefort cautiously added, “Miss Wentworth is the granddaughter of the Duke of Stonebridge.”

In point of fact, the marquis did not react to Monqucfort’s news for the simple reason that he was stunned. It was a full five seconds before Traverston whipped around to seek out the vision in white again.