Mary Balogh - Seducing an Angel

He was openly distinguishing her. It was not poor etiquette to dance twice in an evening with the same lady, but it was something everyone present always noticed. It usually meant that the gentleman concerned was seriously courting the lady.

She ought to say yes to only one dance. But his blue eyes were smiling, and the lawyer had said two weeks, even though he had admitted that it might be one month, and after that she would be leaving London forever to find herself a pretty little cottage in an obscure English village, and she would never see him again. Or have to face the /ton/ again.

"Thank you," she said, her hand falling still as she smiled back at him.

And she remembered how, only a week ago, she had stood alone in just such a ballroom as this, looking consideringly at all the gentlemen before picking him out as her prey.

Now there was a little corner of her heart that might always belong to him.

The more fool she.

"Shall we?" Wesley said, and she could see that couples were beginning to gather on the dance floor for the opening set.

The evening was not, after all, to pass without some unpleasantness.

Mr. Huxtable came to claim the second set very early and led Cassandra onto the floor long before most other couples came to join them. It was clear to her that he wished to talk with her – but that he did not want to do so in anyone else's hearing.

He was an extraordinarily handsome man, she thought as they came to a stop in the middle of the floor and turned to face each other. He was handsome despite, or perhaps because of, his slightly crooked nose. Many women must find him impossibly attractive. She was not one of them. She did not like dark, brooding men who carried an aura of danger about with them. She was very glad indeed she had not chosen /him/ last week. Would she have succeeded? Could she have seduced him – and trapped him into paying her a large salary to be his mistress?

"I do not need to sidle by slow degrees into what I wish to say to you, do I?" he said now.

Oh, he was very dangerous indeed.

She was startled but would not show it. She waved her fan slowly before her face.

"Absolutely not," she said. "I would prefer plain speaking. You wish to warn me away from your cousin, I daresay. He needs someone big and dark and strong like you to protect him and frighten away dangerous women like me, does he? Though I have always thought the devil's function was to destroy innocence, not protect it."

"Plain speaking indeed," he said – and smiled at her with what looked like genuine amusement. "Merton is /not/ a weakling, Lady Paget, though many people may think so. Unlike many men, he does not seem to feel the need always to be flexing his muscles in order to demonstrate how tough and manly he is. Did you choose him because you thought he /was/ weak?"

"/I/ chose /him/?" she asked haughtily.

"I saw you collide with him in Margaret's ballroom," he said.

"An accident," she said.

"Deliberate."

She raised her eyebrows and fanned her face.

"It is really none of your business, is it?" she asked him.

"When outdone in an argument," he said, "it is always good strategy – or perhaps the /only/ strategy – to fall back upon a clichГ©."

Would the musicians /never/ be finished tuning their instruments? Would the dancers never be finished with their conversations on the sidelines?

How many people were watching the two of them? Cassandra smiled.

"How do you fit into Lord Merton's family, Mr. Huxtable?" she asked him.

"He has not told you?" he said. "I am the ultimate bad, dangerous cousin, Lady Paget, the one who is bound to hate all the others with a passion and be ever ready to do them harm. My father was the Earl of Merton, and I was his eldest son. Unfortunately for me, my mother fled to Greece when she knew she was expecting me, and by the time her father – my grandfather – hauled her back to England, breathing fire and brimstone every step of the way, and demanded that my father do right by her or take the consequences, I had run out of patience and decided to put in an appearance two days before the happy couple wed. I was therefore quite indisputably illegitimate. Unfortunately for my father, a whole string of my younger brothers and sisters died either at birth or soon after, the only survivor being the youngest, who was also – in the words of my father himself – a blithering idiot. Jonathan became earl after my father's death, but he died on the night of his sixteenth birthday, and the title passed to Stephen."

Cassandra read a whole world of pain and bitterness in the brief, rather flippantly related story, but it had not been told in order to arouse her sympathy, and she allowed herself to feel none.

"I am surprised, then," she said, "that you really do not hate him. He has what ought to have been yours. He has your title, your home, your fortune."

Other couples were beginning to drift onto the floor.

"Yes," he said, "it /is/ surprising."

"Why do you /not/ hate him?" she asked.

"For one very simple reason," he said. "I know someone who would have loved him, and I love that someone."

He did not explain, though she waited.

"Are you hoping that Stephen will marry you?" he asked.

She laughed softly.

"You may rest easy on that score," she said. "I have no designs upon Lord Merton's freedom. I have known the kind of servitude marriage brings to a woman, and once was quite enough."

They were very soon going to be within earshot of couples in every direction. The musicians had fallen silent and were ready to strike up the tune of the first country dance in the set.

"Shall we talk about the weather?" she suggested.

He chuckled deep in his throat.

"Thunderstorms and earthquakes and hurricanes?" he said. "They sound safe."

STEPHEN could not make up his mind whether Cassandra's gown was pure red or a bright burnt orange. It was somewhere between the two, he supposed.

It shimmered in the light of the candles and was really quite magnificent. It dipped low in front to accentuate her bosom. Its soft folds, falling from a high waist, hugged her curves and outlined her long, shapely legs. Her bright hair was swept high on her head while wispy ringlets curled along her neck.

She always carried herself proudly. But tonight she looked almost happy.

How very different she looked from the mysterious lady with the scandalous reputation who had boldly forced her way into Meg and Sherry's ball last week and then looked about her as if she held everyone else gathered there in contempt.

She danced every set before the waltz – which was also the supper dance.

She even danced once with Con and smiled at him and conversed with him whenever the figures of the dance brought them together.

Stephen danced every set before the waltz too. He danced with young ladies who were making their come-out this year and had been signaling their interest in him from the start. It was not a fact that made him in any way conceited. He was, after all, one of England's most eligible bachelors. He conversed easily with them all and smiled at each partner in turn and focused his attention upon each.

But he was always aware of Cassandra.

He was beginning to wonder if his life would ever return to normal – whatever that was.

He looked forward to the supper dance and thought the time would never come.

He must be careful, though. He must not do anything impulsive that he might regret for the rest of his life.

He was not ready for matrimony. He was only twenty-five. He had told himself that he would not even give marriage serious thought until he was thirty. And even then he would take his time, choosing someone who could look beyond his title and wealth to like /him/. Perhaps even to love him. And someone he could genuinely like and admire and love.

The supper dance came at last, and he approached Cassandra to claim it.

She was standing with her brother and a group of guests with whom Stephen did not have a close acquaintance. She turned to watch him approach.

"Lady Paget, ma'am," he said, bowing, "this is my set, I believe."

"And so it is, Lord Merton," she agreed, using her velvet voice. And she reached out her hand to set on his sleeve.

Such formality. The picnic seemed like a dream. Strange that he should remember the picnic far more than he did the two nights he had spent in her bed.

"The supper dance is also the waltz," he said as he led her away. "May I dance the last set of the evening with you too?"

"You may," she said.

They faced each other on the floor as other couples assembled about them.

"Is there anything new to report in Miss Haytor's budding romance?" he asked, grinning at her.

"Oh, yes, indeed," she said, and told him about this afternoon's outing and the upcoming birthday party in the country.

"With Golding's /family/?" he said. "Can a marriage offer be far behind?"

"I think it very likely there will be one soon," she said. "Perhaps even while they are still in Kent. And I believe she will be happy. She must have given up all hope of marrying years ago, must she not? Concern for me kept her incarcerated in the country all those years."

"Don't blame yourself," he told her, not for the first time.

"You are quite right." She laughed. "You will not let me feel guilty for all the world's woes, will you?"

"Absolutely not," he said.