“Not at all, and might I request—while you’re here—that you entertain us with some of your stories and ballads? I’ve been hoping you’d agree!”
“I would be happy to perform for you,” Libby said. “I’m enormously flattered that you’d like me to.”
Luke was next in line, and he couldn’t deduce how she might greet him. He didn’t think she’d offer a humiliating remark, but it would likely depend on how he was described.
He might have seized the initiative and blundered forward on his own, but he couldn’t shake off his perplexity at observing her precisely where she never should have been. But he was also completely puzzled by how much she and Penny resembled each other.
When he’d first arrived at Roland, he’d thought Penny looked a bit like Libby, but with their being side by side, the similarities were disconcerting.
With their blond hair and blue eyes, their comparable height and facial features, they were enough alike to be sisters, with one of them glamorous and chic and the other more common and provincial. It was like contrasting a queen and a dairymaid.
Libby looked like Charles too—the same nose, the same blue eyes, the same tilt of her head. Charles had once had blond hair, but with his being forty-six, it had faded to silver. He was thin and dapper, was handsome and distinguished, and he could have been related to her.
Was Luke the only one who’d perceived it? He could hardly survey the crowd to ask if anyone shared his opinion, but was it possible Libby had a Pendleton in her family tree?
Penny yanked him out of his tormented reverie. “Miss Carstairs, may I present my dear friend and neighbor, Lucas Watson, Lord Barrett?”
“Your dear friend?” Libby inquired. “Are you betrothed and I wasn’t informed? Is this an engagement party? Are congratulations in order?”
“Well . . . ah . . . ah . . .”
Penny was caught off guard by Libby’s query. His arrangement with Penny wasn’t official yet, so there was no appropriate answer, and Libby realized it. She didn’t push for a response. Instead, she spun toward Luke in a slow motion that was nearly terrifying.
She cast a bored gaze over his person. “Haven’t we met, Lord Barrett? I believe we might have crossed paths in London.”
Her comment goaded him into a reply. “You’re correct. I’m an ardent admirer. We met at the theater, after one of your shows.”
“How nice.”
There was a hint of disdain in her tone so the assembled group would suspect she hadn’t been impressed.
An awkward pause ensued, and Millicent smoothed it over by stepping into the breach. “How about if we get you inside, Miss Carstairs? How about if we get everyone in? We’ve been loitering in the driveway, and the servants are irked that we haven’t let them tend all of you.”
Millicent started shooing people in. Libby was in the center of the crowd and whisked along. Penny strolled with her, agog and in awe as she babbled platitudes in a manner Libby probably hated. Libby was polite and attentive though, and she smiled and nodded to all those who talked to her.
Charles and Luke were bringing up the rear, and he frowned at Luke and whispered, “My goodness, but isn’t she something?”
“She definitely is.”
“When Penny told me she was coming, I wasn’t sure what to think, but she’s stunning. You’ve seen her on the stage?”
“Yes. She’s indescribable.”
“I imagine so.” Charles chuckled. “She reminds me of someone, but I can’t place who it is. Did she look familiar to you?”
Luke didn’t dare voice his opinion: that she looked like Charles and Penny.
“No,” he fibbed. “She’s so magnetic though. She practically sucks the air out of the sky.”
“Doesn’t she just?” Charles smirked. “This bloody party just got quite a bit more interesting.”
He sauntered off, not aware that Luke hadn’t accompanied him. The servants and guests went in too, all of them enchanted by Libby. He didn’t know how she pulled it off, but she simply exuded an aura that made others yearn to linger by her side.
That aura had certainly enveloped him with no difficulty at all. From the minute he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d been completely ensnared.
He stood alone on the gravel, watching as Libby’s driver maneuvered her carriage to the barn.
“A pink carriage?” he muttered to no one in particular because there was no one left to hear.
The color offended him, which was stupid. Who cared what color she’d painted her carriage?
The woman was striking and absurd and totally fascinating, and now, she was at Roland and being led into the manor. She’d be given the fanciest bedchamber and would settle in as a prized visitor.
Though he hadn’t been named as Penny’s fiancé, Libby would discover the truth very soon. How would she react? No doubt she’d never speak to him again.
In London, he’d accused her of being loose with her favors, but he was an excellent judge of character, and he was beginning to suppose that she didn’t have low morals.
She wouldn’t pursue an affair with a man who was about to become engaged. Not only was the engagement imminent, but if he broke down and proposed to Penny, the wedding would be held in September.
Whatever scheme he’d hoped to implement with Libby, whatever torrid fling he’d envisioned, it would never transpire. The next fourteen days stretched ahead like the road to Hades. Every time he entered a parlor, she’d be standing there, taunting him with what he couldn’t have. How would he survive the torture she’d inflict?
He couldn’t see her without wanting her, and his blatant attraction couldn’t be concealed. If Penny didn’t notice it herself, cruel gossip traveled fast, so she would quickly have it pointed out to her. What if she accosted him and demanded an explanation? What could he say that wouldn’t sound hideous?
He could have followed Libby’s adoring mob into the manor, but he didn’t. He turned instead and proceeded to the park behind the house. If he took a long, slow walk, perhaps he’d calm
