“I shan’t introduce you, Miss Finch-Freeworth.” Lady Beaufetheringstone pursed her lips. “You are far too young and innocent to be thrown into the mouth of the lion . . . just yet.” She took Teresa’s arm. “Now come, child. I will make you acquainted with more suitable gentlemen. That addlepated ninny Hortensia Piffle will succeed in finding you a satisfactory husband when pigs fly. Like two peas in a pod, she and your mother . . .”
Diantha watched them move away. She didn’t worry for Teresa. If one of society’s greatest hostesses took her friend under her wing, it could be only to Teresa’s benefit. And her mind and heart were filled with someone else entirely.
What had Wyn known about Mr. Eads—Lord Eads—that he hadn’t told her? It hurt. And she did not want to hurt, not because of a man who had apparently abandoned her to her fate.
Why hadn’t he come?
She turned about and blindly walked toward the French windows. She must speak with Lord Eads. She must make certain Wyn was safe, even if he did not want her. She realized this now rather belatedly. And hopelessly. She would have forgiven him if he had come to London. She would have forgiven him everything. And begged his forgiveness in return.
Her brother stepped in front of her, his smile broad. “There you are, sis. You look very pretty this evening. Musgrove and Halstead here have been begging me all night to make introductions.”
She greeted Tracy’s friends, smiled at their flatteries, and promised them sets, but she barely attended. Weak inside with a strange sort of tragic longing, she allowed her gaze to wander and, through a break in a cluster of guests, met Lady Emily Vale’s stare. She forced her lips into another smile she did not feel.
Emily’s green eyes remained sober as she turned them directly across the dance floor toward the door to the ballroom. Diantha shifted her attention there and the bottom fell out of her heart.
For it was most certainly her heart that Mr. Wyn Yale commanded. And whether he sat on a stool in his shirtsleeves milking a cow or stood in a ballroom dressed in formal attire and so breathtakingly handsome that she could not breathe, she knew whatever he chose to do with that tangled organ, it would be thoroughly at his mercy.
Chapter 25
Beneath hundreds of chandelier candles she sparkled, dressed not in maidenly white but gold like the firelight sparkling in her hair. The layers of her skirts glittered by some seamstress’s skill, fluttering about her toes in the breeze from the dancers passing by. She seemed unaware of the other guests, and that she was staring at him, her berry lips parted and the pink stain on her cheeks flushing down her neck and across the soft mounds of her breasts.
He went to her, regretting that he had not come directly to London, and abruptly understanding the truth of why he hadn’t. Because he could not think when he saw her, and he greatly feared that—not thinking—he might do something precipitous for her. To her.
She moved toward him, her brow pleating. “Lord Eads is here.”
“Good evening, Miss Lucas.” He bowed and could not withhold his smile. Even cloaked in displeasure she dazzled him.
“Did you hear what I said? Lord Eads?”
“Naturally I heard. I am standing right in front of you.” Yet not close enough. Her scent of wild sunshine twined about him, her slender hands that had been so confident upon his body now clenching in her skirts.
“I knew you did. I was simply emphasizing my point to say Lord Eads twice. Now thrice.”
“I understood that.”
“I am emphasizing in this ridiculous manner, you see, because I am endeavoring to employ irritation to distract myself from alarm caused by the fact that he is in the same place as you. What are you doing here?”
“Watching you dazzle those gentlemen you just walked away from without a backward glance. No, don’t look. They may not like you to see them licking their wounds.”
She expelled a hard breath. “And you say I am nonsensical.”
“Who are they, Diantha? Your brother I know, but the others I don’t recognize. Is one of them Mr. H?”
“Tracy only now introduced us.” A spark of intention lit her eyes then. “But I am surrounded by scores of suitors every day, so it is difficult to keep their names straight in any case.” She gestured with an airy hand. “So I simply call them all George.”
“And does this system suffice?”
“Suffice?”
“To put them all in their places as you are attempting to put me in mine?”
“You did hear me say thrice that Lord Eads is here?”
“I believe I recall you mentioning that, yes.”
She twisted her dance card with fraught fingers. “And why don’t you seem as concerned about it as I?” Her tone had altered, her distress quite real now. Wyn’s smile faded.
“I’ve known Duncan Eads for years, Diantha. If he truly wished to harm me, he would have in Wales.”
She blinked rapidly, quick, short breaths lifting her breasts to press against the bodice of her gown. Her dimples were invisible. “You are a dishonest person.”
“I have been so.”
“I should not have trusted you.”
“You should not have. But you did, and we must both now live with that.”
Her cheeks paled, her gaze seeking, but a spark in it dared him to contravene her again. And Wyn knew he wanted that—her—tenderness and need matched with strength and determination. He wanted to pick her up and carry her from the ballroom and sink himself into her and remain there, lost together until he discovered every secret she held close and until she knew every truth of his life, every villainous deed and heroic desire.
Her eyes shuttered. “I have something to tell you.”
“I am listening. Always.”
“It seems that Mr. H does not care about my virtue, or lack of it. He thinks that a lady of spirit is bound to have had some adventures of the amorous sort, just as he has.”
Jealousy, hot and fierce, gripped him, which she intended, the minx. Carlyle had not mentioned Highbottom in his letter, but perhaps her suitor had applied to Tracy Lucas. But this game of coquetry was new and he would know why she played it.
“A free-thinker, is he?” he said between clenched teeth.
“I’m not entirely certain. I should have asked him, but it’s been a remarkably busy fortnight since I came to town.”
He tried to read her eyes. “I arrived only today.”
“How nice for you.” She smiled politely, as though it meant nothing to her, but there was a brittleness about her raillery that caught at his chest.
“I went to Yarmouth, Diantha.”
“Yarmouth?” She visibly controlled her surprise. “And how is the duke?”
“I did not see him. I delivered Lady Priscilla and came here as swiftly as I could.”
“Oh.” Her brow tightened, then her luscious lips, and her facade collapsed. “Don’t imagine you can saunter in here looking outrageously handsome in all of your London elegance and I will forget everything. I think I am still angry with you.”
“Diantha—”
“I wish you would not address me in that manner. I am Miss Lucas to these gentlemen, and no doubt it would have been better if I had remained that to you too.”
“These gentlemen, I suspect, have never seen you three sheets to the wind.”
“Of course they haven’t.”
“Or on your knees on a dusty floor in prayer.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “You saw that? I did not mean for you to see that.”
“What were you praying for, minx? That I would die swiftly and you could continue on with your
