Хелен Диксон – The Governess's Scandalous Marriage (страница 3)

The ladies were attired in their finest, their heads adorned with elaborate swaying plumes and ribbons, their throats and fingers dripping with exquisite jewels. Christian’s gaze lingered on those expensive gems, calmly assessing their worth, before moving on to admire and evaluate the fine paintings adorning the walls. A lady brushed against him. He turned to look at her. She was an attractive woman, but it was not her pretty face that caught his eyes. It was what she was wearing about her throat. He stared into the verdant depths of an emerald necklace. Gleaming with regal fire, it motivated him into action, but he was not interested in rubies or diamonds but something else—something much more valuable to him.

* * *

The masked ball was filled with beauty and elegance. Footmen in scarlet and gold livery stood to attention. Finding it all magically impressive, Linnet Osborne absorbed every detail. Above her head chandeliers, dripping with hundreds of thousands of crystals, were ablaze with blinding light. She could not have imagined such a spectacle. It was the most lavish affair she had ever attended. There was such gaiety and so much colour, the people behind the masks inspired with a sense of boldness, of daring as the carnival atmosphere of the ball invaded each and every one of them. But she became increasingly apprehensive as she mingled with so much elegance and wealth and felt a strong impulse to run from it all and leave. She was conscious of the simplicity of her attire among so much flamboyance. Unfortunately she was wearing the one and only gown she owned that was suitable for such an occasion and she could not afford another. For her the evening could not be over soon enough.

Suddenly her feminine senses tingled. Sensing she was being watched, Linnet looked up at the gallery that circled the upper storey of the house. She looked straight into the eyes of a stranger. He was leaning against a marble pillar, an expression of utter boredom on his handsome face. He was extremely tall with powerful shoulders. Through the balustrade she saw that white-silk stockings encased his muscular calves. Unlike the other gentlemen, who were dressed like peacocks in a multitude of bright colours, he was clad in a blue-velvet coat and breeches, the curve of the cut of the coat allowing full display of the gold embroidered waistcoat. Her attention was focused entirely on him. Had she wanted to look away she could not have done so. She had never seen such a figure of masculine elegance. He looked so poised, so debonair. His habitual air of languid indolence hung about him like a cloak. His thick hair, drawn back and secured at the nape, was as black as the mask which covered the upper part of his face, his taut skin, a dark bronze.

The cold eyes behind the mask made her shiver. As he met her gaze, the expression in his eyes was half-startled, half-amused, and something else—something slightly carnal that stirred unfamiliar things inside her and brought heat to her cheeks. It was impossible not to respond to this man as his masculine magnetism dominated the scene. She was struck by the arrogance in his stance, an arrogance that told her he knew everything about her, which made her feel uneasy. Perhaps, she thought, he would have looked at her differently had he known how miserable she was, her heart heavy like a stone in her young breast. Love and passion were unknown to her—waiting to flourish in the warmth of a man’s eyes.

Quickly she looked away.

Stiffening her spine, Linnet snapped open her fan. She picked up her skirts with her free hand, and followed in the wake of her Aunt Lydia with her brother Toby by her side along with her cousin Louisa and Harry Radcliffe, the young man Louisa was to marry. As she began to ascend the elaborate marble staircase, Linnet assumed an expression of fashionable ennui. The beautiful setting and the laughter spurred her on through a sea of nameless faces into the ballroom, where she was swept along by the music and the dancing. She didn’t lack for partners.

* * *

It was during the break for refreshments that Linnet realised she hadn’t seen Toby all evening.

Noting her unease, her aunt tapped her arm with her fan. ‘What is it, Linnet? Is it Toby you are looking for?’

‘Yes. I—I don’t know where he can be.’

Although a smile stretched her lips, her aunt’s eyes were cold. She looked at Linnet with disdain. ‘Perhaps you should try the card room, Linnet. Isn’t that where he spends most of his time?’

Linnet’s heart sank. ‘I—I hadn’t thought... He said he wouldn’t...not tonight.’

‘Really, my dear,’ her aunt said, with a meaningful lift to her brows, ‘you know him better than that.’

‘Yes, I do, Aunt. Excuse me. I—I will go and look for him.’

Linnet was relieved to escape her aunt’s overbearing presence. Tall and statuesque, Aunt Lydia was a striking woman with dark brown hair and pale blue eyes. Her sole ambition in life was to entertain and ingratiate herself with the social elite and she was a stickler for propriety. Her husband had been killed in a riding accident, leaving her an extremely wealthy widow—a widow who saw that none of her wealth reached her impoverished niece and nephew at Birch House in Chelsea. Lydia’s dislike for Linnet and Toby—the poor relations—radiated from her. Linnet knew this, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Anger and disappointment at her brother’s recklessness burned inside Linnet. At twenty years of age, Toby was two years younger than Linnet. Toby was a man of expensive tastes and, in his reckless desperation to improve their lot, he was in danger of gambling everything away, including their wonderful home in Chelsea, where they lived alone, now their parents were both dead.

Ever since their father had died when Toby was a youth, leaving them almost destitute—their situation worsened by Toby’s propensity to gamble—Linnet’s life had been a constant worry. No one knew what the wrenching loss of both their father and his income had done to her and Toby, or understood the humiliation, shame and heartbreak of it all and how it felt to be forced to live in shabby, penny-pinching gentility.

Trouble was looming, which would be too big for Linnet to handle. Her greatest fear was that they would be left with no choice but to sell the house, which would break her heart. Every day was a struggle to make ends meet, a struggle in which it seemed that defeat was waiting to mock her. Linnet felt as if she were constantly banging her head against a stone wall—and there had been too many stone walls of late. She had contemplated seeking work of some kind and would consider anything that would bring her some income. If only she had someone to talk to, someone to advise her. She was sick with worry and striving and she felt tired. What would become of them?

Linnet had begged Toby countless times to give up his reckless way of life, for if he did not heed their situation then he would find himself in gaol—or worse. But Toby was so wrapped up in his own self-indulgent world he always became angry and defensive and found Linnet’s persistence to try to reform him extremely irritating. Now, her resolve to find him before it was too late sent her towards the room where the card tables had been set up, believing she would find her brother there.

Inside the room the noise was muted so as not to distract the players. There were a lot of people throwing away their money sitting around the green baize tables, and even more standing around watching the games of whist, Hazard and other games that took the guests’ fancy in this paradise of chance. Standing in the doorway, Linnet scanned the groups of people clustered around them, where several games were in progress, but there was no sign of Toby.

Relief flooded through her, but she was left wondering where he could be. She did not linger, not wishing to draw undue attention to herself, but it was no easy matter for Linnet was exquisitely attractive, a figure of elegance, one who instinctively drew a second, lingering glance. There was not a thing she could do about it, for it was innate, like drawing breath. She was unaware that in her plain gown she was scintillating and far more alluring than if she had been adorned from head to toe in jewels.

She was also unaware of the attention of the gentleman who now observed her appearance in the card room—the same gentleman who had noted her arrival at Stourbridge House, his eyes following her with an interested gleam. Linnet was in no mood to return to the ballroom, so she turned away from the card room and wandered from room to room, looking for her brother.

She wandered into a quiet part of the house, where the passageways were dimly lit. When a door opened further along she paused and watched in amazement as her brother emerged, his hand in the pocket of his coat. There was something furtive in his movements and the way his eyes darted up and down the passage. Linnet was immediately suspicious that he was up to something.

‘Toby! What are you doing here? I’ve been looking for you. Why are you not with the other guests?’