It would have been better if Kit had never been given the opportunity to inherit any amount of money. He could exist in the same pleasure-filled haze he always did, dreaming his dreams but without the expectation of fulfilling them.
“I’ve been haunting every ball, tea, and soiree,” Kit muttered, fighting frustration and despair. “To no avail.”
“A sticky conundrum,” Langdon agreed. He yawned into his hand. “There’s a reason why I avoid these dull assemblies. A decided lack of nudity.” He glanced around the ballroom and made a scoffing sound. “I’m off to the theater. Come with me?”
Kit longed to leave, finding society balls as interesting as a sermon about dirt. But . . . “Got to stay here. No future brides wait for me in the demimondaines’ theater boxes.”
His friend nodded in acknowledgment. “When you tire of your hunt, you know where to find me.”
Kit gave him a distracted wave as he strode away, too busy brooding over his predicament to pay much attention to Langdon’s departure. They’d see each other on the morrow, anyway, at White’s. Ever since Kit returned from the War, he and Langdon had met at the club and then gone out every night—with a few exceptions—wringing excitement and diversion from London’s most disreputable attractions.
He’d done his best to avoid those attractions these past three weeks. He’d been so respectable, it fair turned his stomach. But his sacrifice was in vain. He was as brideless as he’d been at the beginning of those three weeks.
Frustrated, impatient, Kit muttered a curse and started for the card room at the other end of the chamber. He wouldn’t find a wife there, amidst the games of vingt-et-un and loo, since the amusements were set up primarily for men and married women. But at least it would help relieve a fraction of the tension that knotted his muscles and made him grit his teeth.
Distracted as he was, his head tucked low, his gaze fixed on the parquet floor, he didn’t see the young woman in his path until it was almost too late. They nearly collided, but he pulled himself up just before smacking into her.
“Excuse me, miss,” he exclaimed.
The girl spoke with a distinct Cornish accent. “No harm done, sir.” She smiled at him.
Her smile set off fires throughout his body. She fairly glowed with vibrancy.
Kit didn’t recognize her, and he wouldn’t have forgotten meeting a girl with such vividly red hair—coppery and bright beneath the light of the chandelier—and he had a fierce need to see it loose about her shoulders. He was drawn in by her wide-set, light brown eyes, slightly tilted at the corners. Her full, rose-hued lips stirred a need in him, baffling in its swiftness.
She had an elfin look, with a long, sleek form. The neckline of her pale green gown highlighted her modest but well-formed bosom, and his hands twitched with the desire to know the feel of her. Though the pink in her cheeks alluded to a life spent frequently out of doors, he easily imagined the same flush in her skin when roused to passion.
The hell? Kit wondered dazedly. He’d seen women and desired them within minutes of meeting, but never had he looked upon a woman and been suddenly dragged under the tide of sensual need.
It had to be because he’d been celibate these last three weeks, a drastic measure undertaken because he’d had to be on his best behavior whilst searching for a bride.
He waited for his reflexive dismissal of her. Yet it never came.
Her eyes were bright with intelligence as she looked at him, and her smile lingered, as though she liked what she saw. That baser part of himself puffed up and preened.
He gave her his best, most winning smile. “I—”
But that was as far as he got before a swain stepped between them. “I believe this dance is mine, Miss Pearce.”
“Of course, Mr. Carroll,” the girl answered. She sent Kit an apologetic look as she was led to the dance floor. He fought the urge to take her hand in his and run off into the night like some underworld king claiming his companion.
It’s finally happened. I’ve lost my goddamned mind.
He could wait for her. Bide his time, and then swoop down on her the moment she was free from this Carroll’s clutches.
Yet his response to her was too powerful. Frightening.
He had to regain control over himself. He needed balance. The only time he’d been this close to losing control of himself was on the eve of his first battle.
Kit turned away from the sight of Miss Pearce swaying on the dance floor like a living flame and made his way toward the room set aside for gambling. At least there, he knew the rules of the game.
Though Tamsyn did her best to keep her attention on her dancing partner, her gaze strayed to the blond man with the wary gaze and wide shoulders as he swiftly exited the ballroom. She ought to stay focused on Mr. Carroll—dancing often led to conversation, which could in turn become a morning call, and a few social calls might give way to an amicable connection, and then, hopefully, an offer of matrimony—but she was unable to help herself. Not only had the blond man been exceptionally handsome, but he carried himself with a singular determination, and sharp intelligence gleamed in his eyes.
Three weeks in London searching for a man she might consider marrying had revealed that, while there were a good deal of attractive men, very few of them possessed lean, athletic bodies, and almost none had a sense of purpose or keen intellects.
However, she didn’t need or want a husband to be observant. Or attentive. The more distracted and heedless the better.
It didn’t matter what she wanted for herself, that she had once dreamed of a marriage as devoted as her parents’. Such hopes were merely fancies, never to come to pass.
Yet as she moved through the figures of the dance, she found herself asking Mr. Carroll, “Who was that gentleman?”
Mr. Carroll seemed to know exactly to whom she referred. “Lord Blakemere.” He gave a puzzled frown when she only looked at him blankly. “You really are a country gel if you don’t know him either by face or name.”
She couldn’t feel embarrassed about her Cornish origins. Some London girls had a pale, pinched look and probably couldn’t walk over the moors without calling for a carriage.
But she couldn’t snap a tart reply to Mr. Carroll—not without seriously damaging her marital prospects—so she merely smiled. “We hear so little about the sophisticated city in Cornwall.”
“Can’t be faulted for being born in a backwater, I suppose.” Mr. Carroll sniffed.
She had considered Mr. Carroll moderately handsome, in a rather watery, overbred way, but her opinion of him took a sharp plummet. It would be bad form to simply walk away and leave him alone on the dance floor, so she kept moving through the figures of La Gaillarde.
“Tell me more about Lord Blakemere,” she said with as much sweetness as she could muster.
“Third son of the Marquess of Brownlowe,” Mr. Carroll said dismissively.
“But he’s Lord Blakemere,” she pointed out. She fell silent as she walked through the steps, pulling her away from her dance partner.
“He bought a commission, the way third sons do,” Mr. Carroll explained when they came back together. “Went off to war. Must’ve shown off over there like a trained lion because he came back and they gave him an earldom. But it didn’t come with any money,” he added quickly, clearly seeing her interest. “He’s strapped. Barely has a groat.”
Tamsyn’s heart sank. So much for Lord Blakemere. The second part of her objective in coming to London was finding herself a rich husband. If she was going to buy Chei Owr from her uncle and keep the smuggling operation alive, she needed a spouse with considerable wealth.
“You