“Have you?” Megs darted a worried glance at Godric and the viscount. At least they hadn’t come to blows yet. Although if they did, and over her, that would certainly make this ball very interesting.
Oh, she was wicked! “You must think me a terrible flirt.”
“Not at all,” Lord Caire murmured gently. “In fact, this is the most animated I’ve seen St. John in years.” His eyes were a little sad, but then he caught her gaze and his lips quirked. “High choler is good for a man once in a while. I do hope you plan to stay in London.”
Megs bit her lip at that, for she hadn’t planned to stay past getting herself pregnant. The fact was that she loved Laurelwood. Country life suited her, she’d found, and the estate would be a perfect place to raise her child.
Lord Caire apparently read her face, his own becoming expressionless. “I see. A pity, but I am grateful for what time you can spend with my friend.”
“I’d spend more time with him if there wasn’t a ghost between us,” Megs said, trying not to sound defensive. It was Godric who wanted her gone.
“Ah.” Lord Caire nodded. “Clara.”
Megs winced. “I don’t mean to sound jealous. I know they truly had a wonderful love and were happy together.”
“They loved each other deeply,” Lord Caire agreed, looking thoughtful, “but whoever told you they were happy has lied, I’m afraid.”
She blinked, sidling closer to him. “What do you mean?”
“She took ill very soon after they married. Within a year or so, at any rate, and after bringing in every doctor, both here and on the Continent, Godric realized that there was nothing he could do.” Without turning his head, Lord Caire glanced to where Temperance was chatting with Sarah. “I can’t begin to imagine what it would do to a man to watch the woman he loved die slowly and in pain.”
Megs drew in a breath because while Lord Caire might put on a mask of world-weariness, she suddenly knew: He loved his wife deeply and without any reservations. She’d had that once—or at least the beginnings of it. She’d known Roger for only a little over three months, and while the flames of their passion had burned bright and hot, she acknowledged now that they’d only just begun. Love grown rich and golden over the years was what she really wanted.
What she’d never had.
She bit her lip. She hadn’t had that with Roger, and she wasn’t going to have that with Godric. He might be still trading jabs with Lord d’Arque, but that was a matter of pride, not care for her.
The thought made her frown.
“I’m sorry,” Lord Caire said. “I didn’t mean to cause you pain.”
“No, it’s nothing.” Megs tried to smile and failed. She burst out, “I just wish …”
He waited and when she didn’t—couldn’t—finish the thought, he tilted his head down toward her. “Just because he felt love for Clara doesn’t mean he can’t feel it with you as well. Courage, my lady. Godric is a hard nut to crack, but I assure you, the man inside is worth it. And I feel that if any lady can do it, you are the one.”
Megs watched as Godric glanced up at that moment and met her gaze. His eyes were dark, angry, and sad, and she wished—desperately—that she could believe Lord Caire’s words.
ARTEMIS GREAVES WATCHED anxiously as Lord d’Arque smiled sweetly and said something truly atrocious to Mr. St. John. Lady Margaret’s husband had always struck her as a staid, if very sad, gentleman, but even the most staid man could be provoked into—
“A duel!” Lady Penelope hissed delightedly and much too loudly. “Oh, I do hope this ends in a duel.”
Artemis stared at her cousin in horror. She was very fond of Penelope most of the time—well, sometimes, at any rate—but really, she could be a ninny.
“I thought you liked Viscount d’Arque?” she asked with muted exasperation.
Penelope tossed her head in a gesture she must’ve been practicing in front of her vanity mirror, for it made the jeweled combs in her hair catch the light. There were three of them, and each had tiny ruby and pearl flowers on thin wires that shivered whenever Penelope moved. They probably cost more than Artemis’s entire wardrobe, but they did perfectly complement her cousin’s inky locks.
“I do like Lord d’Arque,” Penelope drawled, “but he isn’t a duke, is he?”
Artemis blinked, unable to follow her cousin’s thought process, which was rather a recurring problem. “What does—”
A tall form cut through the crowd like a saber through an apple. He bore a faintly irritated expression on his face, and though he wore a sedate dark blue suit and waistcoat overworked in black, no one could mistake the command in his carriage. He bore down on d’Arque, while at the same time Lord Caire glided forward and murmured something in Mr. St. John’s ear.
“A duke like that one,” Penelope drawled with so much throaty satisfaction in her voice that Artemis’s brows drew together in honest worry.
“Do you have a head cold?”
“No, silly,” Penelope said with some irritation. She caught herself and smoothed her expression. Penelope had a fear of wrinkles setting on her face. “I’ve decided it’s past time I marry, and naturally I shall wed a duke. That one, I think.”
For of course the gentleman now causing Lord d’Arque’s high cheekbones to darken was Maximus Batten, the Duke of Wakefield.
Artemis blinked. Penelope was the daughter of an earl—a fabulously wealthy earl. And while it was the way of the world that dukes often married fabulously wealthy, titled heiresses, would the Duke of Wakefield really want a wife so silly she insisted on putting ground pearls in her morning chocolate? Penelope claimed the pearl dust added a glow to her complexion. Artemis privately thought it made a good cup of chocolate gritty—besides being a waste of pearls.
Artemis knew her opinion mattered very little. If Penelope had made up her mind to marry a duke, she would no doubt be a duchess by this time next year.
But Wakefield?
Artemis glanced over now to where he’d straightened, his long face impatient. He was tall, but not overly so, his shoulders broad but lean, and the very sternness of his face kept one from calling him handsome. If she had to use only one word to describe the Duke of Wakefield, it would be cold.
Artemis shivered. From what she’d observed of the duke from countless balls spent in the shadows unseen, he didn’t seem to have a trace of humor—or compassion. And one had to have both to live with Penelope.
“There are other eligible dukes,” Artemis reminded her cousin. “The Duke of Scarborough, for instance. He’s been widowed a year and has only daughters. No doubt he’ll wish to marry again.”
Penelope scoffed without taking her eyes from Wakefield. “He must be sixty if a day.”
“True, but I’ve heard he’s a very kind man,” Artemis said gently. She sighed and tried another tack. “And what about the Duke of Montgomery?”
Penelope swung around to stare at her in horror at the name. “The man spends all of his time in the country or abroad. Have you ever seen him?”
Artemis wrinkled her nose. “Well, no …”
“And neither has anyone else.” Penelope turned back to watch Wakefield with a calculating gleam in her eye. “No one has seen Montgomery in ages. For all we know, he’s a hunchback or has a harelip, or worse”—Penelope shuddered—“is mad. I wouldn’t want to marry into a family that had madness in it.”
Artemis inhaled sharply and looked down. No, no one wanted to marry into a family with madness. She’d tried to immure herself against the pain in the last couple of years, but at times such as now, when something caught her off guard, it was simply impossible.
Fortunately, Penelope hadn’t seemed to notice. “And what if he has run through all his money traipsing about the Continent?”
“You’re an heiress.”
“Yes, and I want my money spent on me, not repairing some run-down castle.”
Artemis knit her brows. “I presume that leaves out the Duke of Dyemore.”
“It does indeed.” Dyemore had at least three castles in need of repair. Penelope nodded in satisfaction. “No, there’s only one duke for me.”
Artemis turned to watch Wakefield’s retreating back. Somehow he’d persuaded—or more likely threatened—Lord d’Arque into retiring with him. The duke might be a proud, cold man, but Artemis still felt a twinge of pity for him.
What Lady Penelope Chadwicke wanted, she got.
“I WOULD BE grateful if you stayed away from the Viscount d’Arque,” Godric said as he led his wife onto the dance floor. He mentally winced at his own stiff tone, but in this matter he could not seem to see reason.
She was his wife and he’d damn well not take her straying lying down.
She cocked her head, looking more curious than outraged. “Is that an order?”
He immediately felt a fool. “No, of course not.”
The music began, the movement of the dance drawing them apart before he could explain further. Godric inhaled deeply as he paced, trying to subdue the incredible wrath that had overtaken him at the sight of Margaret with d’Arque.
When the dance brought them together again, he murmured low so the other dancers could not overhear, “I know it’s hard for you, wanting a child, but this isn’t the way.”
“What way do you mean?” she asked carefully. Too carefully.
Nonetheless, he could do naught but answer truthfully. “With d’Arque as your lover.”
For a second her eyes flashed with wild hurt before she could shield the emotion, and he realized he’d just dug himself into a hole.
“You think I’m a whore,” she said.
A very deep hole.
“No, of—”
But she whirled away, caught in the steps of the dance. This time he watched her anxiously, this wife he knew so little about. Had Clara ever thought she’d been so grievously insulted, she would’ve wept. Or perhaps stomped off. He truly didn’t know because he never would’ve gotten into a discussion like this in the first place with Clara. The very idea was ludicrous.
Margaret in contrast held her head high, her cheeks flagged with a becoming rose color. She looked like a goddess enraged. A goddess who might, if they were alone, assault his person—the thought of which unaccountably aroused him.
When the dance brought them together again, they both opened their mouths at once.
“I never meant—” he began.
“You convict me without trial,” she hissed over him, “and on pathetically thin evidence.”
“You were flirting, madam.”
“And if I was?” she asked, her eyes widening dramatically. “If every woman who flirted in a ballroom were deemed a slut, then all but nuns and babes would be thus branded. Do you truly think I meant to start an affair with the viscount?”
He hesitated a fraction of a breath too long.
Her beautiful brows snapped together. “You are the most maddening man.”
They were drawing stares, but he couldn’t let this bit of outrageousness pass.
“I? I am maddening? I assure you, my lady, that you are the maddening one. I’ve never caused a scene in a public venue before in my—”
“And now you’re on your second,” she flung back.
A childish retort, but also deeply annoying, as she managed to get it off just before they were forced to separate.
Which, naturally, gave her the last word.
He didn’t even bother hiding his scowl as he followed her movements broodingly. A slightly plump matron took one look at his face and tripped over herself, bumping into the next couple.
His scowl deepened.