Seducing an Angel

/17/

STEPHEN could not make up his mind whether Cassandra's gown was pure red or a bright burnt orange. It was somewhere between the two, he supposed.

It shimmered in the light of the candles and was really quite magnificent. It dipped low in front to accentuate her bosom. Its soft folds, falling from a high waist, hugged her curves and outlined her long, shapely legs. Her bright hair was swept high on her head while wispy ringlets curled along her neck.

She always carried herself proudly. But tonight she looked almost happy.

How very different she looked from the mysterious lady with the scandalous reputation who had boldly forced her way into Meg and Sherry's ball last week and then looked about her as if she held everyone else gathered there in contempt.

She danced every set before the waltz – which was also the supper dance.

She even danced once with Con and smiled at him and conversed with him whenever the figures of the dance brought them together.

Stephen danced every set before the waltz too. He danced with young ladies who were making their come-out this year and had been signaling their interest in him from the start. It was not a fact that made him in any way conceited. He was, after all, one of England's most eligible bachelors. He conversed easily with them all and smiled at each partner in turn and focused his attention upon each.

But he was always aware of Cassandra.

He was beginning to wonder if his life would ever return to normal – whatever that was.

He looked forward to the supper dance and thought the time would never come.

He must be careful, though. He must not do anything impulsive that he might regret for the rest of his life.

He was not ready for matrimony. He was only twenty-five. He had told himself that he would not even give marriage serious thought until he was thirty. And even then he would take his time, choosing someone who could look beyond his title and wealth to like /him/. Perhaps even to love him. And someone he could genuinely like and admire and love.

The supper dance came at last, and he approached Cassandra to claim it.

She was standing with her brother and a group of guests with whom Stephen did not have a close acquaintance. She turned to watch him approach.

"Lady Paget, ma'am," he said, bowing, "this is my set, I believe."

"And so it is, Lord Merton," she agreed, using her velvet voice. And she reached out her hand to set on his sleeve.

Such formality. The picnic seemed like a dream. Strange that he should remember the picnic far more than he did the two nights he had spent in her bed.

"The supper dance is also the waltz," he said as he led her away. "May I dance the last set of the evening with you too?"

"You may," she said.

They faced each other on the floor as other couples assembled about them.

"Is there anything new to report in Miss Haytor's budding romance?" he asked, grinning at her.

"Oh, yes, indeed," she said, and told him about this afternoon's outing and the upcoming birthday party in the country.

"With Golding's /family/?" he said. "Can a marriage offer be far behind?"

"I think it very likely there will be one soon," she said. "Perhaps even while they are still in Kent. And I believe she will be happy. She must have given up all hope of marrying years ago, must she not? Concern for me kept her incarcerated in the country all those years."

"Don't blame yourself," he told her, not for the first time.

"You are quite right." She laughed. "You will not let me feel guilty for all the world's woes, will you?"

"Absolutely not," he said.

He noticed the necklace she wore. It was the first time he had seen her wearing jewelry.

"Pretty," he said, his eyes focused on it. The point at the bottom of the jeweled heart reached almost to her dГ©colletage.

"It was my mother's," she said, fingering it with her gloved hand. "My father gave it to her when they married, and it was the one thing of value in our household that was never sold. Wesley gave it to me this evening."

Her eyes became suspiciously bright.

"You are fully reconciled with your brother, then?" he asked.

"I think," she said, "the memory of that incident in the park when he drove past pretending not to see me or know me must have gnawed at his conscience. Perhaps it disturbed his dreams. He came to see me yesterday."

"And you do not bear a grudge?" he asked.

"Why would I?" she said. "He is my brother and I love him. He was sincerely sorry for being a coward and trying to ignore my existence. If I had refused to forgive him, who would suffer the more? And perhaps there is no simple answer to that question. Perhaps we would have suffered equally. And for what? To satisfy wounded pride or outraged righteousness? The thing is that he /did/ feel remorse and he /did/ come to set matters right with me. And now he is risking his own reputation by being seen in public with me and openly presenting me to his acquaintances as his sister."

Young had not, then, mentioned Stephen's visit to him in his rooms.

Stephen was thankful for that. Even given the happy outcome he had had no right to interfere in her life, and she might well resent his having done so.

Not that he was sorry. Family quarrels were the saddest things.

The orchestra played a chord, and Stephen bowed while Cassandra curtsied. He smiled as he set his right arm about her waist and took her right hand in his. She smiled as she set her free hand on his shoulder.

"I think," she said, "the waltz is the loveliest of dances. I have been looking forward to this one all evening. You lead so well. And your shoulder and hand are firm and strong, and you smell divine."

He did not remove his eyes from hers. She laughed.

"And here I am," she said, "being as outrageous as I was at your sister's ball last week. I should be behaving with a fashionable ennui instead. I should make it appear as if it is as much as I can do to drag myself about the ballroom floor with you."

He laughed.

But their eyes held and hers were sparkling with merriment and sheer enjoyment. He swung her in a circle and continued to do so as they danced so that everything about them became a swirl of color and light with her as the vivid center of it all.

Cassandra.

Cass.

She was still smiling, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly parted, her spine arched so that she kept the correct distance between them. It did not matter. He could feel her body heat anyway. He could smell it and her – a mingling of soft perfume and woman.

A smell of pure enticement.

They paused for a moment between tunes, neither speaking nor looking away from each other, and then continued to waltz to a slower, hauntingly lovely melody.

He /liked/ her, he had told Vanessa.

Ah, it was a euphemism indeed.

Her flush deepened and he began to feel uncomfortably warm. The heavy smell of the flowers began to seem oppressive. Even the music suddenly seemed overloud.

He waltzed her past one set of French windows, which were thrown back to admit the cool air of the night. There was another set just ahead. When they reached them, Stephen twirled Cassandra through them, out onto a wide balcony, which was blessedly deserted.

And even more blessedly cool.

They continued to dance, but without the twirls. Their steps gradually slowed, and he turned her hand in his to set it palm-in against his coat, over his heart. Her other hand slid off his shoulder to twine about his neck, and then he drew her closer so that her bosom was against his chest and her cheek against his.

He did not spare a thought to reality or decorum or any of the social graces that usually came as second nature to him.

When the music ended, they stopped dancing but did not move away from each other. They stood close for several silent moments, their eyes closed – at least, /his/ were.

And then he drew his head back from hers, and she drew hers back from his, and they gazed deeply into each other's eyes in the light of a lamp flickering at one corner of the balcony.

They kissed each other.

It was not a deeply passionate kiss, but it was several degrees warmer than the ones they had shared at the picnic. It was a kiss that spoke volumes without any necessity for words.

He was in no hurry to end it. Once it was ended, words /would/ be necessary, and he really did not know what he would say. Or what she would say.

He drew back his head eventually and smiled down at her. She smiled back.

And they both became aware – at the same moment, it seemed – that they had an audience. A few people must have decided to make their escape into the fresh air after the dance ended. A few others must have looked toward the French windows and seen what was framed in one of them, backlit by the balcony lamp. Others had probably been drawn by curiosity to see what was taking the attention of the first two groups.

However it was, the audience was an embarrassingly large one, and it was perfectly clear that they had all witnessed that kiss. It had not been a thoroughly improper kiss, it was true, except that /any/ public embrace was improper, especially between two people who had no business kissing each other under any circumstances.

They were not married.

They were not betrothed.

Stephen became aware of three things – four if he counted Cassandra's sharp intake of breath. He became aware of Elliott somewhere inside the ballroom, his eyes fixed upon Stephen, his eyebrows raised, his expression grim. He became aware of Con, one eyebrow lofted, his expression inscrutable. And he became aware of Wesley Young elbowing his way through the crowd, his look murderous.

And he realized in a flash that he had ruined everything for Cassandra after working hard for the past several days to restore her to respectability, to see to it that she was accepted back into the /ton/, where she belonged.

"Oh, goodness," he said, taking her hand in his and lacing their fingers while raking the fingers of his free hand through his hair. "This was not quite the way we planned to make the announcement, but it seems our hand has been forced by my own impulsive behavior. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Lady Paget to you as my betrothed? She has just agreed to honor me with her hand, and I am afraid I allowed my enthusiasm to overcome good breeding."

He squeezed her hand slowly.

And he shamelessly smiled his most charming smile.

Cassandra could feel only a frozen sort of dismay.

She had been about to raise her eyebrows, don her most haughty expression, and sweep past everyone on her way to the dining room for supper. She had brazened out worse than that kiss. She could do it again.

Except that there /were/ such things as last straws, and this might very well be it.

Before she could make any move, however, Stephen had taken matters into his own hands and made his announcement.

And /now/ what?

He released his grip on her fingers only to draw her hand through his arm and hold it close to his side.

When all else failed, Cassandra thought, one smiled.

She smiled.

And then Wesley was out on the balcony, having pushed his way past everyone else, and he stood in front of them, fury turning to an almost comic bewilderment.

"Cassie," he said, "is this /true/?"

What else could she do but lie?

"It is true, Wes," she said, and realized as she spoke that she could not after all have simply walked away from that very public kiss and so have averted disaster. Wesley had just rediscovered her. He had just atoned for his own cowardice in ignoring her when she needed him most, and now he had taken on the role of her self-appointed protector. There would have been a nasty and very public scene if Stephen had not spoken up as he had. Wesley would probably have punched him in the nose or slapped a glove in his face – or both.

It hardly bore thinking about.

Wesley smiled abruptly. Perhaps he too had realized the necessity of acting out this charade. He drew her into a hug.

"I misunderstood at first, Merton, I must confess," he said. "But I am delighted by the truth even if it seems to me you might have consulted me first. Dash it all, though, Cassie is of age."

He stretched out his right hand, and Stephen shook it.

The audience did not disperse quickly despite the fact that supper awaited everyone. There was a buzz of conversation, most of it sounding pleased, even congratulatory – or so it seemed to Cassandra, though she did not doubt there were plenty among the spectators who would be horrified to learn that the very eligible and beautiful Earl of Merton had allied himself with an axe murderer.

Many young ladies would be inconsolable tonight, she did not doubt.

Stephen's sisters all converged on him from various directions, and all hugged first him and then Cassandra with apparently warm delight. Their husbands shook his hand and bowed over hers. So did Mr. Huxtable, though it seemed to Cassandra that his very dark eyes penetrated through to the back of her skull as he did so.

It was hard to know how pleased his family really was. They could not /be/ pleased, surely, but they were polite and gracious people – and they were being forced to deal with the shock of such an announcement under the interested gaze of half the beau monde.

They really had little choice but to appear delighted.

"My love," Stephen said, smiling down at her and drawing her hand through his arm again, "we must speak with Lord and Lady Compton-Haig."

"Of course." She smiled back at him.

Must they? /Why/? For the moment she could not even remember who those people were.

Most of the other guests had either lost interest at last or, more likely, chose to discuss the whole salacious incident over supper. The crowd had thinned. Lady Compton-Haig was standing with her husband at the ballroom doors, and Cassandra recalled that – of course! – they were the hosts of this ball.

"Yes, of course," she said again.

They had been kind enough to send her an invitation – her first apart from the verbal invitation to attend Lady Carling's at-home last week.

"Ma'am." Stephen took the lady's hand in his after they had crossed the room, bowed over it, and raised it to his lips. "I do beg your pardon for using your ball as the forum for my announcement without even consulting you first. I did not intend it to be tonight, though the beauty of your ballroom and the loveliness of the music did prompt me into making my offer this evening. Then, when Lady Paget accepted, I – well, I lost my head, I am afraid, and then had no choice but to explain to everyone exactly /why/ I was kissing her out on your balcony."

Viscount Compton-Haig pursed his lips. His wife smiled warmly.

"But you must not apologize, Lord Merton," she said, "for making the announcement tonight. I am vastly pleased and honored that you /did/. We have no children of our own, you know, though Alastair does have two sons from his first marriage, of course. I never expected to have such an announcement made in my own home. I intend to make the most of it.

Come, Lady Paget."

And she linked her arm through Cassandra's and led her off in the direction of the dining room, nodding and smiling about her as she went.

She seated Cassandra at the head table, next to herself. Stephen, who had come along behind with the viscount, sat beside her on the other side.

Most of the guests seemed intent upon their supper and their own conversations, Cassandra noted in some relief. It did seem, though, that the buzz of conversation had a higher, more animated tone than usual.

And there were a number of people who looked their way and smiled or nodded or simply stared. On the whole, the atmosphere did not seem unduly hostile, though the mood of the /ton/ might well grow more ugly tomorrow when everyone had had time to digest the news and realize that a widow who was still something of a pariah – she had received only this one invitation, after all – was about to walk off with one of the most eligible, most coveted matrimonial prizes in all England.

The funny thing was that since that kiss, she and Stephen had scarcely glanced at each other. They had not exchanged one private word. Although they were sitting next to each other at supper, they were each kept busy talking with other people. And smiling – eternally smiling.

He was going to have to suffer some acute embarrassment for a while when no notice of their betrothal appeared in the papers and when it became clear to everyone that they were not in fact engaged at all.

But men recovered easily from such embarrassments. And the female half of the human race would rejoice and quickly forgive him.

Oh, she wished she had not come tonight. Or agreed to dance the waltz with him. Or allowed him to twirl her out onto the balcony. Or allowed him to kiss her there.

Though that was unfair. She had not /allowed/ anything. She had been a full and willing participant.

But not in the announcement he had then felt obliged to make.

Though honesty forced her to admit that he had had very little choice but to do exactly what he had done.

She hoped the lawyer had not exaggerated when he had said /two weeks/.

Lord Compton-Haig, at the prompting of his wife, rose to propose a toast to the newly betrothed couple, and everyone rose and clinked glasses and drank before heading back to the ballroom and a resumption of the dancing. Stephen led out the Duchess of Moreland, his sister, and Cassandra danced with the duke. Fortunately it was a rather intricate country dance and did not allow for much private conversation. From the sober look on Moreland's face, Cassandra guessed that he would have had a great deal to say to her if he had had the opportunity.

He had, once upon a time, she remembered, been Stephen's official guardian.

He said only one thing of a personal nature, and it somehow sent shivers along Cassandra's spine.

"You must come to dinner one evening soon, Lady Paget," he said. "I shall have the duchess arrange it. And you may tell us at your leisure how you plan to make Merton happy."

She smiled back at him.

"You must not concern yourself about that, your grace," she said, noticing his very blue eyes, the one distinguishing feature between him and the dark-eyed Mr. Huxtable. "My hopes and dreams for the Earl of Merton must be very similar to your own."

He inclined his head and moved off to dance the next figure with another lady.

After that set, Cassandra really wanted nothing else than to beg Wesley to take her home. It could not be done, however. She could not so publicly abandon the man whose marriage offer she had supposedly accepted just this evening.

But that thought gave her another, better idea. The duke had returned her to Wesley's side, but her brother was busy conversing with a group of friends and did no more than flash a smile in her direction. She opened her fan and looked about the room. It was easy to spot Stephen – he was striding toward her, a warm smile lighting his face.

Oh, how he must resent her!

And how she resented him. There /must/ have been another way to deal with that crisis. Heaven alone knew what it was, though.

"The final set is about to begin," he said, "and it is mine, I believe."

"Stephen," she said, "take me home."

His eyes searched hers, his smile arrested. He nodded.

"A good idea," he said. "We will avoid the crush after the set is ended.

You came with your brother?"

She nodded.

"I will tell him I am going home with you instead," she said. "He is just here."

Wesley turned away from his group even as she spoke.

"Wesley," she said, "Stephen is going to take me home in his carriage.

Do you mind?"

"No," he said. He held out a hand to Stephen. "I will expect you to treat her kindly, Merton. You will have me to answer to if you do not."

Oh, men! They were such ridiculous, possessive creatures. Sometimes it seemed they believed women could not breathe without their assistance.

But there was some comfort in knowing that Wesley was now a man. /You will have me to answer to if you do not/. There had been no one to say those words to Nigel before she married him, except her father, who had been too genial and too trusting for his own good.

She kissed his cheek.

"I do not expect, Young," Stephen said, "ever to have the need to answer to you. Your sister will be in good hands."

They found the Compton-Haigs and asked to be excused from participating in the last dance. Lady Compton-Haig appeared charmed more than offended, and she and her husband accompanied them downstairs and waved them on their way after Stephen's carriage had been brought up to the door.

Cassandra set her head back against the soft upholstery of the carriage seat as the vehicle rocked into motion and closed her eyes.

Stephen's hand found hers in the darkness, and his fingers curled about it. She was too weary to withdraw it.

"Cassandra, my dear," he said, "I am so very sorry. I ought to have wooed you more privately and far less recklessly. I certainly ought to have made you a marriage proposal before announcing our betrothal to all the world. But disaster loomed for you, and it was all I could think of to do."

"I know that," she said. "I was furious with you for only a very short while. We were incredibly indiscreet – /both/ of us. I do not blame you, and I do assure you that I was not involved in any deliberate seduction.

It was just – indiscreet. Unfortunately, your response will make tomorrow and the days following it uncomfortable for you as people look for the official announcement in the papers and do not find it. But they will recover. People always do. They even started sending out invitations to an axe murderer after a scant week."

"Cass." He squeezed her hand. "There /will be/ an announcement. Not in tomorrow's paper, it is true. It is too late for that. But it will appear in the morning after's. And we will have to decide when the nuptials will be and where – either here at St. George's with half the /ton/ in attendance, or somewhere more private. Warren Hall, perhaps.

People will want to know either way. They will shower us both with questions."

Ah. She might have guessed that he would take gallantry to the extreme.

"But Stephen," she said without opening her eyes or turning her head,

"you did not make me an offer, did you? And I did not accept. And /would not/ accept even if you were to make one now. Not tonight, not ever. Not you or anyone else. One thing I will never do again in this life is marry."

She heard him draw breath to reply, but he said nothing.

They rode the rest of the way to her door in silence.

He vaulted out of the carriage as soon as it had rocked to a halt, set down the steps, and assisted her to alight. Then he put the steps back up, closed the door, and looked up to instruct the coachman to drive home.

"Stephen," she said sharply, "you are not coming inside with me. You are not invited."

The carriage rumbled off down the street.

"I am coming anyway," he said.

And she realized, as she had done last week after she had chosen him, that there was a thread of steel in Stephen Huxtable, Earl of Merton, and that in certain matters he could be quite inflexible. This was one of those matters. She might remain out here arguing for an hour, but he was coming inside at the end of it. She might as well let him in now. A few spots of rain were falling, and there was not a star in sight overhead. There was probably going to be a downpour in a short while.

"Oh, very well," she said irritably, and bent to find the house key beneath the flowerpot beside the steps.

He took it from her hand, unlocked the door, allowed her to step inside before him, and closed and locked the door behind him.

Alice, Mary, and Belinda would have gone to bed hours ago. They would be no help whatsoever. Not that they would even if they were present. A glance at Stephen's face in the dim light of the hall candle confirmed her in her suspicion that he was angry and mulish and was going to be very difficult to deal with.

He strode into the sitting room, came back with a long candle, lit it from the hall candle, extinguished the latter, and led the way back into the sitting room.

Just as if he owned the house.

Of course, he /was/ paying the rent on it.