“No need to trouble yourself. My father is aware of my condition.”
Lord Walling’s lips thinned with irritation. “Nonsense. It is no trouble at all. I see the earl across the room, and we have much to discuss. I shall call upon you tomorrow then, Lady Isabel. I believe I have the earl’s full approval on the matter,” he said, a critical tone to his voice.
He bowed again and walked away.
“My goodness, Isabel. He’s as persistent as a bloodhound during hunting season,” Charlotte said.
“I fear he needs to marry for money. It’s public knowledge that his country estate cannot sustain his spending habits. Even knowing this, my father is insisting upon the match.”
At twenty, both Isabel and Charlotte were fourth-year debutantes on the marriage mart. One more season to go and they would be official spinsters of unmarriageable age. While Charlotte sought a love match, Isabel wanted nothing more than to escape the marital web and return to Paris to live with her eccentric aunt and study her only true love—painting watercolors.
“I must be more creative in my efforts to dissuade him.”
“As your best friend, Isabel, I implore you, please exercise more discretion than the last time,” Charlotte pled.
Isabel looked away, uncomfortable with her friend’s beseeching gaze.
It was then that she saw him. Two gentlemen had just set foot in the ballroom; both stood tall and straight and were dark-haired. Both were meticulously dressed in breeches and form-fitting double-breasted jackets. But whereas one carried himself with a commanding air of self-importance associated with the nobility, the other was shrouded in an air of isolation and aloofness.
It was the second man who captured her attention, the only one she knew—Marcus Hawksley. A childhood memory brought a wry, twisted smile to her face.
His profile was rugged, somber, and vaguely familiar. He was far from delicately handsome and effeminate as many of the dandies of the ton. His face was granitelike and striking, and his strong features held a raw sensuality, a smoldering dangerousness, which captivated her attention, and which she suspected women would secretly find deliciously appealing.
Hawksley’s face was bronzed and his eyes sinfully dark. His black curling hair was cut short and gleamed in the candlelight from the chandeliers above. He was tall and muscularly built. Even from across the room, Isabel could see the rich outline of his shoulders straining against the fabric of his jacket.
There was a restless energy about his movements as if he did not want to be in the ballroom with these people and wanted to depart as soon as his obligations of attendance were satisfied.
“Marcus Hawksley is here,” Isabel blurted out. “I haven’t seen him in years.”
Charlotte shrugged. “That’s because he hasn’t been to a public event in years. He was quite the rogue in his youth. But then came the horrific scandal when he reformed and entered trade by becoming a stockbroker in the London Stock Exchange. Mother insists that trade is considered worse than the plague amongst the upper classes. Even his father, the Earl of Ardmore, and his older brother and heir, want nothing to do with him.”
Isabel’s lips puckered with disgust. It was just like the beau monde to overlook a gentleman’s roguish behavior—his drinking, gambling, and womanizing—but consider it unforgivable when the same man reformed himself by becoming a successful businessman. Isabel had never paid much attention to the scandals, but Charlotte, whose mother was a close friend of Lady Jersey, one of the powerful patronesses of Almack’s, was obsessed with gossip.
“Who is he with?” Isabel asked.
“Lord Ravenspear, the handsome earl whose wife, Victoria, is increasing with child.”
“I wonder why Marcus is here tonight,” Isabel said.
“Lady Holloway is his godmother. I suspect he has attended out of respect for her.”
As if on cue, their hostess, Lady Holloway, approached the two gentlemen. Marcus bowed, and an easy smile played at the corners of his mouth. The smile was boyishly affectionate, softening his features, and it was clear he held Lady Holloway in high regard. He had the same look years ago when he had caught Isabel, an infatuated impetuous girl, filling his best riding boots with sand.
A sudden thought struck Isabel. “He caused a horrific scandal, you say? You are a genius, Charlotte!”
Charlotte’s brows drew together. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean to gain my freedom.”
Ignoring Charlotte’s confused look, Isabel gathered her skirts and wove her way through the crowd.
The music from the orchestra grew louder as she walked, and couples whirled by in a colorful blur on the dance floor. Several older ladies glanced at her as she hurried past with a purpose—straight for Marcus Hawksley himself.
She came up to Marcus and Lord Ravenspear as Lady Holloway walked away to greet her other guests.
“Good evening, Mr. Hawksley. It has been quite some time since we have seen each other. Do you remember me?” Isabel asked.
Two pairs of eyes snapped to her face—Ravenspear’s were deep blue; Marcus Hawksley’s were dark and unfathomable.
One corner of Marcus’s mouth twisted upward. “Lady Isabel Cameron. Of course I remember you. How many years has it been? Ten or more?”
Eight to be exact, she thought.
As an infatuated adolescent of twelve, she remembered him clearly. He had been a reckless rogue, a sworn bachelor at the age of twenty-two, and had been the object of her schoolgirl fantasies. Looking into his face now, there were no traces of the pleasure-seeking scoundrel.
Marcus Hawksley appeared severe and serious, and quite simply her savior if she played her cards right.
“It has been a while,” she said.
“May I introduce Lord Ravenspear?” Marcus turned toward the earl.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Isabel,” Ravenspear said.
Isabel raised her gaze to find Ravenspear watching her. His cobalt eyes sparkled with humor. Isabel could imagine what the earl was thinking—that a debutante approaching a bachelor without a chaperone or her father in a crowded ballroom was quite forward.
Good, Isabel thought. May all of the upper crust watch, especially Lord Walling.
“If you will excuse me, I see friends I’d like to speak with,” Ravenspear said.
To Isabel’s surprise, the earl gave a sly wink before departing.
She was left alone with Marcus. “Mr. Hawksley,” she said, reaching out to touch his sleeve. “I’m afraid my request may sound forward, but I have not had a gentleman ask me to dance this evening. I cannot bear to be the talk of all the other debutantes here. Will you save me from such a fate?”
Marcus Hawksley’s expression stilled and grew hard. His mercurial black eyes sharpened and blazed down into hers.
Her hand froze on his velvet jacket, and his muscles tensed under her fingertips. Heat emanated from his body, and he appeared as tightly coiled as a spring.
Suddenly, she was unsure of herself, of her outrageous behavior.
What if she had made a grave mistake? Had underestimated his reformation from rogue to serious businessman?
She took an abrupt step back, away from his tense, hard body, and made to turn on her heel. “Forgive me. I—”
He reached out and grasped her wrist.
“For old times’ sake then,” he murmured as he led her to the dance floor, leaving her no choice but to follow.
The