Except, as it happened, he’d had just the opposite reaction—and it wasn’t because he’d not reached completion with Bella, either. No, the prospect of being discovered by an irate husband, followed speedily by a bloody duel at dawn had cooled his ardor quite thoroughly, thank you. By the time he’d rolled out from under the settee, he’d been calm in both body and mind. Until, that is, he’d exchanged heated words with that holier-than-thou madam. His cock had seemed to look upon the argument as some kind of bizarre preamble to bedsport, despite the lady’s obvious respectability, her hostility to him, and his own instant dislike of her.
Griffin paused in a shadowed corner, trying to calm himself as he fingered the diamond earring in his pocket. He’d found the thing under the settee and had meant to give it back to Lady Perfect before her tart tongue had made him forget the trinket altogether. Well, served her right to lose her pretty earring if that was how she talked to gentlemen.
He rolled a shoulder. When he’d entered the ballroom half an hour ago, he’d not even had time to greet his mother and sisters before Bella had waylaid him with her naughty suggestion. Had he known her husband was attending the ball as well, he’d never have let himself be drawn into such a dangerous tryst.
Griffin sighed. But it was too late now for self-recriminations. Better to simply file the embarrassing episode under Things Best Forgotten as Soon as Possible and move on. Megs and Caroline probably didn’t care one way or the other that he’d disappeared, but Mater would no doubt be keeping an eagle eye out for him. No use in putting it off. With a last tug at his neckcloth to make sure it was straight, Griffin entered the ballroom.
Lights blazed from crystal chandeliers high overhead, illuminating a veritable crush. This would be the event of the season, and no member of London society wanted to miss it. Griffin began to weave his way through the mass of colorfully dressed bodies, his progress made slower by the frequent need to greet old friends and curious acquaintances.
“How kind of you to attend, darling,” a dry voice said at his elbow.
Griffin turned from a duet of simpering young matrons blocking his way and leaned down to kiss his mother on the cheek. “Ma’am. It’s good to see you.”
The words were rote, but not the sudden emotion behind them. He hadn’t been to London in almost a year, and it had been over eight months since his mother had visited him at the family estate in Lancashire. He tilted his head, studying her. Her fine hair, knotted elegantly under a lace cap, might have a few more gray threads, but otherwise her dear face was unchanged. Her brown eyes, bracketed with crinkled laugh lines, were far too intelligent, the soft-bowed mouth pursed to hide a fond smile, and the straight eyebrows were faintly arched in a perpetual amusement that matched his own.
“You’re as brown as a nut,” she murmured, reaching up to touch one finger to his cheek. “I suppose you’ve been out riding the lands.”
“Perceptive as always, my dear mater,” he said, offering his arm.
She linked her elbow with his. “And how is the harvest?”
A point of pain throbbed in his temple, but Griffin answered cheerfully, “Well enough.”
He felt her worried look. “Truly?”
“It was a dry summer, so the harvest was smaller than anticipated.” A pretty gloss on what in fact had been an abysmal harvest. Their land was not particularly fertile to begin with—something his mother already knew—but there was no point in making her fret. “We’ll do well with the grain, never fear.”
He was deliberately vague about what exactly he’d be doing with the grain. That was his burden to bear for his mother and the rest of the family.
His answer seemed to reassure her. “Good. Lord Bollinger is showing interest in Margaret, and she’ll need new gowns this season. I don’t want to overstretch our funds.”
“That’s not a problem,” he replied, even as he swiftly calculated in his head. It would be a near thing as always, but he should be able to get the monies—providing he suffered no further losses. The pain in his temple intensified. “Buy Megs all the fripperies she wants. The family purse can stand it.”
The line of worry between her brows eased. “And, of course, there’s Thomas.”
He was braced for the subject of his brother, but somehow he wasn’t able to prevent the slight stiffening of his muscles.
Naturally Mater sensed it. “I’m so glad you came, Griffin. Now is the time to put that little contretemps behind you two.”
Griffin snorted. He hardly thought his brother considered the matter a “little contretemps.” Thomas acted with propriety in all things, and he’d not have argued with Griffin over anything trivial. To have done so would be to let emotion rule him, which for someone as proper as Thomas was anathema. For a moment, Lady Perfect’s wide gray eyes came to mind. She, no doubt, would’ve gotten on famously with his priggishly correct brother.
Griffin made an attempt to appear pleased at the prospect of seeing Thomas again. “Of course. It’ll be wonderful to talk to Thomas.”
Mater frowned. Obviously he needed to work on his pleased expression. “He misses you, you know.”
He shot her an incredulous look.
“Truly, he does,” she insisted, though he noticed two spots of color had flown into her cheeks—even Mater had doubts about Thomas’s reception of him. “This estrangement must end. It’s not good for the family, it’s not good for you both, and it’s not good for me. Why it ever dragged on this long, I’ll never know.”
Griffin caught a flash of moss green out of the corner of his eye, and he turned, his pulse picking up. But the lady wearing the dress had already disappeared into the crowd.
“Griffin, pay attention,” his mother hissed.
He smiled down at her. “Sorry, thought I saw someone I wanted to avoid.”
She huffed. “I’m sure there are any number of disreputable ladies you wish to avoid.”
“Actually, this one is rather too reputable,” he said easily. His hand had drifted to his coat pocket, and he fingered the little diamond earring. He ought to return it to her, he supposed.
“Really?” For a moment, he thought his mother might be diverted from her harangue. Then she shook her head. “Don’t try to change the subject. It’s been three years since you and Thomas began this wretched argument, and my nerves are terribly frayed. I don’t think I can take one more freezing letter between the two of you or dinner watching my every word for fear I’ll raise the wrong topic of conversation.”
“Pax, Mater.” Griffin chuckled and bent to kiss her outraged cheek. “Thomas and I shall shake hands and make up like good little boys, and you shall dine with the both of us while I’m in London.”
“Promise?”
“On my honor.” He held his palm to his chest. “I’m going to be so pleasant and thoroughly nice that Thomas won’t be able to stop himself from falling on me with protestations of fraternal love.”
“Humph,” she said. “Well, I certainly hope so.”
“Nothing in the world,” he assured her blithely, “can possibly stop me.”
“HAPPY?”
Hero turned at the deep male voice and saw her dear elder brother, Maximus Batten, the Duke of Wakefield. For a moment, her mind blanked at the question. In the two months it had taken to arrange her engagement to the Marquess of Mandeville, Maximus had asked her several times if she was content with the match, but he had never asked her if she was happy.
“Hero?” Maximus’s straight dark brows drew together over his rather arrogant nose.
She’d often thought that Maximus’s looks suited his rank perfectly. If one closed one’s eyes and tried to paint the perfect duke in one’s mind, Maximus would appear. He was tall, his shoulders broad but not heavy, his face long and lean and just a tad too coldly commanding to be truly handsome. His hair was dark brown—though he cropped it close, as he habitually wore immaculate white wigs—and his eyes were brown as well. Brown eyes were often thought warm, but one impatient glance from Maximus was enough to disabuse anyone of that notion. Warmth was the last thing one would associate with the Duke of Wakefield. But despite all that, he was still her brother.
Hero smiled up at him. “Yes, I’m quite happy.”
Was that relief she saw in those stern eyes? For a moment, she felt a traitorous flash of irritation. Maximus had shown no sign before this moment that her happiness might be a factor in the match. The consolidation of lands and interests, the strengthening of his parliamentary alliance with Mandeville, those were the important considerations. Her feelings, as she well knew, played no part at all in the negotiations. And that was fine with her. She was the daughter of a duke, and she’d known from the cradle what her purpose and place in life was.
Maximus compressed his lips, surveying the crowded ballroom. “I wanted you to know that there is yet time for you to change your mind.”
“Is there?” She glanced about the ballroom. Mandeville House was exquisitely decorated. Blue and silver swags—the Batten family colors—intertwined with Reading scarlet and black. Vases of flowers stood on every table, and the marquess had hired and outfitted a veritable platoon of footmen. Hero looked back at her brother. “The contracts are settled and signed already.”
Maximus frowned in ducal displeasure. “If you truly wished to escape this engagement, I could break it.”
“That’s very generous of you.” Hero was touched by Maximus’s gruff words. “But I am quite pleased with my engagement.”
He nodded. “Then I think it time we joined your intended.”
“Of course.” Her voice was steady, but her fingers trembled just a bit as she laid them on her brother’s deep blue sleeve.
Fortunately, Maximus didn’t seem to notice. He led her toward one side of the ballroom, moving unhurriedly but with his usual determination. Sometimes Hero wondered if her brother even realized that his way was made smoother because people were quick to step out of his path.
A man stood by the dance floor, his back to them. He wore somber black, his wig a snowy white. He turned as they approached, and for a moment Hero’s heart stuttered in disbelief. Something in the set of his shoulders and the jut of his chin in profile reminded her of the rogue she’d argued with just minutes before. Then he faced her, and she curtsied gravely to the Marquess of Mandeville, chiding herself for her silly imagination. It was hard to think of anyone less like Lord Shameless than her betrothed.
Mandeville was tall and appropriately handsome. If Mandeville smiled more often, his looks would come perilously close to beautiful. But one felt somehow that beauty in a marquess would be gauche, and gauche was the last thing one could call the Marquess of Mandeville.
“Your Grace. Lady Hero.” Mandeville executed an elegant bow. “You are even more lovely tonight than usual, my lady.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Hero smiled up at him and was pleased to see a faint softening of his usually somber lips.
Then his gaze moved to the side of her head. “My dear, you’re wearing only one earring.”
“Am I?” Hero automatically felt both earlobes, her face heating as she remembered what had happened to the missing earring. “Goodness, I must have lost one.”
Hastily she removed the lone diamond earring and gave it to her brother to place in his pocket.
“That’s better,” Mandeville said, nodding approvingly. “Shall we?” he asked the question of her but glanced at Maximus.
Maximus nodded.
Mandeville signaled to his butler, but already the room was growing quiet as the guests turned toward them. Hero pasted a serene smile on her face, standing straight and still as she’d been taught from the nursery. A lady of her rank never fidgeted. She disliked being the center of attention, but it rather went with being the daughter of a duke. She glanced at Mandeville. And a marchioness would draw even more stares.
