"Yes, but I'm not blind to his faults," Judith said with a wry smile. "He's not overly tolerant of what he considers failings, I grant you. Have you angered him in some way?"
Charlie shook his head and tried to laugh. "Oh, it's nothing. It'll put itself right soon enough… Have you had enough dancing? Shall I fetch you a glass of champagne?"
Judith let the subject drop since Charlie clearly didn't want to pursue it. "No, thank you," she said. "But I would like you to introduce me to Gracemere."
"Certainly, if you like. I'm not in his set, of course, so I don't know him well, but I could effect an introduction.''
Judith cast a rapid eye over the ballroom, looking for Sebastian. She spotted him dancing with Harriet Moreton. He was often dancing with Harriet Moreton, she realized with a start, though shy, soft-eyed, pretty, seventeen-year-olds weren't his usual style. She fixed her eye on her brother until he looked up from his partner. He knew she was going to engineer an introduction to the enemy tonight, one on which he would intrude quite naturally, and he was waiting for her signal.
"I swear, the country is a damnably tedious place at this time of year," the Earl of Gracemere was saying to the knot of people around him as Judith and Charlie approached. "Mud… nothing but mud as far as the eye can see."
"Can't think why you didn't come up to town sooner, Gracemere," one of the group observed.
"Oh, I had my reasons," the earl remarked with a little smile. His eye fell on Charlie and his companion and his smile broadened. "Ah, Fenwick, I trust you're going to introduce me to your charming companion. Lady Carrington, isn't it? I've been hoping for an introduction all evening." He bowed, raising her hand to his lips.
"My lord." Judith looked upon the man who had obsessed her thoughts, both sleeping and waking, for the better part of two years, from the moment she and her brother had read their father's deathbed letter and had finally understood that his disgrace and exile had not been the simple result of his own unbridled passion for gaming.
Bernard Melville had pale blue eyes-fish eyes, Judith thought with a surge of revulsion. They seemed to be looking into her soul.
She withdrew her hand from his, resisting the urge to wipe her palm on her skirt. She felt contaminated even through her satin gloves. He had a cruel mouth and a sharply pointed nose beneath the fish eyes. A dissolute countenance. How on earth was she to hide her loathing and revulsion sufficiently to charm him?
Of course she would. She was an expert at hiding her emotions… thanks to the Earl of Gracemere. She unfurled her fan and smiled at him over the top. "You've just returned from the country, sir. Whereabouts?'
"Oh, I have an estate in Yorkshire,' he said. "A bleak place, but occasionally I feel a duty to inspect it."
Cranshaw. The estate he had won from her father. Sebastian's birthright. A hot, red surge of anger swept through her and she lowered her eyes abruptly. "I'm unfamiliar with Yorkshire, sir. "
"I understand you've spent most of your life abroad, ma'am."
"I'm flattered you should know so much about me, sir." She laughed, the coquette's laugh that she'd perfected.
"My dear Lady Carrington, you must know that the news of your marriage enlivened an otherwise dull summer for us all."
"You pay me too high a compliment, Lord Gracemere. I had no idea my marriage could have competed with Waterloo as the summer's seminal event," she said smoothly. It was a mistake, but she hadn't been able to resist it.
An appreciative chuckle ran round the group and Gracemere's eyes flattened, a dull flush appearing on his cheeks. Then he laughed, too. "You're right, ma'am, to point out my foolishness. It was a facetious compliment. Forgive me, but your beauty has quite overtaken my wits."
"Now that, sir, is an irresistible compliment," she said, tapping his wrist lightly with her fan. "And an admirable recover."
He bowed again. "Is it too much to hope that you will honor me with this dance?"
"I had promised it to my brother, sir, but I don't imagine he'll insist on his prior claim." She turned to where Sebastian stood, having made his seemingly casual approach. "You'll release me, Sebastian?"
"A brother's claims are notoriously low, m'dear," he said cheerfully.
"Are you acquainted with my brother, Lord Gracemere?"
"I don't believe so," Gracemere said. "But the family resemblance is striking."
"Yes, so people say." Sebastian bowed. "Sebastian Davenport, at your service."
"Delighted." The earl returned the bow, his eyes calculating, as they scrutinized the young man, who maintained a rather fatuous smile. Agnes had seen him at Dolby's, so he must be a gamester. How good a one remained to be seen. "You must come to one of my card parties," he said with an air of condescension. "If you care for that sort of thing."
Sebastian assured him that he did and murmured something about being honored. Then Judith laid her hand on the earl's arm and Bernard Melville took her into the dance.
"So you didn't follow the world to Brussels for the great battle, my lord?"
"Alas, no. I have a shameful -or perhaps I mean shameless- lack of interest in military matters."
"Even when such matters involve Napoleon? That's indeed shameful." She laughed, peeping up at him through her eyelashes.
"I'm a lost cause, ma'am." He smiled at her. "Your husband, on the other hand, is known for his expertise on the subject."
An expertise that took him onto the battlefield, Judith reflected, remembering the agony of that day. It seemed so far away now, so far removed from this glittering round of pleasure. No wonder Marcus was often so scornful of Society's priorities. She inclined her head in silent acceptance of the earl's comment.
"Yes," he continued musingly, "your husband makes us all look like mere fribbles. It's well known that he looks down on our simple pleasures."
Judith sensed an underlying point to her partner's comments. It occurred to her that Bernard Melville didn't like Marcus Devlin. "Each to his own," she said neutrally.
The earl's glance sharpened. "But you I take it, ma'am, don't share Carrington's scorn for our idle amusements." He gestured expansively around the ballroom.
If you only knew, my Lord Gracemere, just how purposeful my idle amusements are, Judith thought. But she smiled and agreed, fluttering her eyelashes at him and watching with inward revulsion the shark of interest that swam under the flat surface of his pale eyes.
Marcus strolled up the staircase just as his hostess was about to abandon her post at its head, having decided the hour was now too advanced to expect further guests. Lady Gray greeted him with flattered surprise and the information that the last time she'd seen Lady Car-rington, she'd been in the ballroom.
Marcus made his way to the ballroom. For a few minutes he couldn't see her in the melee. And then he did.
His hands clenched involuntarily as he watched her turn gracefully in the circle of Bernard Melville's arm, her eyes laughing up at him, her hand resting on his arm.
What the devil was she doing with Gracemere? But it was a futile question. She was bound to have met him sometime. It would have been too much to hope that Gracemere would have remained in rustication throughout die Season. Presumably he needed to find another pigeon to repair his fortunes at the card tables.
The dance ended and he watched the earl escort his companion off the floor. Judith was smiling in a fashion that set her husband's teeth on edge. He had watched her accomplished flirtations in Brussels with amusement and not a little admiration, and hadn't been troubled by the lighthearted coquettry that made her so popular in London. But with Gracemere, it was a very different matter. Struggling with the old rage that had barely diminished over the years, he saw the earl lead Judith toward the open French doors.