“No…I needed a rest,” Grace lied.
Lying had never been her talent and she doubted Lady Prudence was fooled. Her friend gave a tip to her head so the candlelight caught the tiny diamonds and sapphires threaded through her dark hair. Lady Prudence was so lovely. It was astonishing to Grace that she had such a friend.
“Don’t believe a word he says,” Lady Prudence warned, her gray-blue eyes very solemn. She bent close to be heard clearly over the graceful melody of the waltz. “My brother is a scoundrel.”
Couples twirled past, elegant and glittering beneath the glow of a thousand candles. Gentlemen’s hands rested lightly on slender backs; ladies’ gloved hands entwined with those of their partners. Skirts swirled around graceful ankles and coattails fluttered to give glimpses of muscular male bottoms.
Grace sighed. “Aren’t most of the men we encounter scoundrels at heart? That is what makes them so interesting. But no gentleman would ever really behave as a scoundrel with me.”
“For which you should be profoundly grateful.” They were the same age, both eighteen, but Lady Prudence suddenly looked wise and mature. “You are so exceptionally beautiful, Grace, you will make a devastatingly successful marriage.”
“Will I?” She was running out of time. Within a week or two, the fashionable world would all be in London. Her eldest sister Venetia was already in London, in a rented townhouse, drawing erotic art to save their family, and their mother was sick with worry.
And Grace could save them all. All she had to do was marry.
She ground the toe of her slipper into the gleaming parquet floor and gripped her fan until the splintered spokes bit through her gloves. All she had to do was capture a titled man and she could keep her family from the workhouse. She could return her mother to the world that had cast her out.
Since Grace had turned thirteen, her plan had been direct and simple. She would marry a title. She would make things right. Everyone had told her she was lovely, that she would grow to be a great beauty. She had overheard the secret conversations, when matrons had told her mother how valuable her beauty would be.
“Grace, I am serious.” Lady Prudence gripped her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. The silk of Grace’s gown—one of Lady Prudence’s that she had bought but later decided she did not like—shimmered around her legs. “Do not believe a word my brother says,” Lady Prudence warned. “There is not a young woman on this estate that he has not…had intimacies with.”
“I know.” And Grace did. She knew she was a fool to imagine that Lord Wesley, a wealthy heir, a devastatingly handsome man, would want to marry a nobody like her. But she knew, even after only a week, that she could not bear to settle for anything less. It was not his title she wanted—it was him. The man.
Grace tapped her lips with her torn fan. She wanted it all. Could she not only marry well, but also marry a man she loved and desired? Or was she simply hoping for too much, when her family’s security was at stake?
Prudence had adopted a motherly air. “There are many gentlemen who are already besotted with you, Grace. Lord Ornsbrook, who is a viscount, and a wealthy one, is a thoroughly respectable catch. Pelworth hangs on your every word, and he is an earl!”
Grace swallowed hard. Either man should be perfect: young, reasonably attractive, and tongue-tied around her, which should be a good sign.
Prudence pointed with her fan at a lanky blond man laughing his way through the dance set. “Even Sir Randolph Thomas, over there. He possesses a fortune! Yes, he’s an atrocious dancer, but, really, a woman never dances with her husband.”
“Prudence, no—”
“Or Lord Wynsome. Such a suitable name. He melts every woman’s heart. And he’s heir to the Earl of Warren. He’s delicious, isn’t he? I’m certain he would take one look at you and—”
“Stop!” Grace cried. The Earl of Warren was her grandfather—her mother’s father. He had thrown her mother out and barred all of them from his house. Lady Prudence, of course, knew not of that. Like everyone else, Prudence believed the lies Grace had carefully cultivated—the lie learned by her and her sisters. Her mother was respectably married, her father, a sea captain who was away, far across the world, hoping to make his fortune. But that father was her mother’s fictitious creation.
She would never dare tell anyone that she was Lord Warren’s illegitimate granddaughter and that her father was really Rodesson, the famous and scandalous artist of erotica. Or that her eldest and talented sister was the one now painting the erotic works that bore Rodesson’s name.
Lord Wynsome had no idea she was, in fact, a cousin to him. There was no way he would guess, but it was still her greatest fear that he somehow would, that he would expose the truth to Lady Prudence.
Prudence was her entry to the ton, to the world of rich and titled and delicious gentlemen—
She couldn’t dare risk Prudence’s friendship. And, in truth, she dearly loved her friend.
“But, still, there are more,” Prudence said cheerfully. “Over there—” She stopped abruptly. “Oh good heavens, what is he doing here?”
Grace never heard that tone of voice from Prudence. Low, serious…fearful. Surprised, she strained to look.
A gentleman stood at the entrance to the ballroom—he towered head and shoulders above the crowd. He must have been over six and a half feet in height. And his hair—it was a wild mane of dark blond that streamed past his shoulders, unruly and wild. She knew, by instinct, that it suited the man.
He gave an enormous grin, which revealed deep dimples framing his handsome mouth and brilliant white teeth. Several servants were trying to push him out. With his arms crossed over his huge chest, he appeared to be an immovable wall.
The butler hastened up to the fray, but the mysterious guest merely amiably punched the servant in the shoulder.
Laughing, openly amused, the gentleman refused to budge. To Grace’s shock, she saw his head turn and his gaze slide over the crowd. Toward her. She was staring, but so was everyone else. There was no reason he should feel her curious gaze out of the hundreds of others.
Polite decorum decreed she should look away, but she could not stop watching him. His skin was golden bronze, close in color to his luxurious hair. He was obviously a man who exposed his body to the sun. Even bathed in the light of a chandelier, he stood too far away to reveal the color of those penetrating eyes, but she guessed they would be blue.
A silly fancy. She forced her gaze to move demurely away. But she was still aware of him; it was as though the music had stopped and the dancers had whirled away into the night, and there was no one in the ballroom but the handsome stranger and her.
The strangest sensation gripped her, along with a heat that threatened to set her skin on fire.
She’d desired Lord Wesley, but she’d felt nothing like this—
Every forbidden erotic picture, every one of her father Rodesson’s erotic drawings—those she’d secretly looked at—spilled through her heated mind.
She wanted this man, this powerful, compelling stranger. She wanted to know what it would be like to lie underneath him and part her legs and take him inside her. She wanted to know how his skin would taste to her lips and her tongue. To know if he would be rigid and big and if he would fill her completely and make her scream in pleasure. She wanted to see him naked, taste him naked, and make love to him until they were both sweaty and senseless—
He was staring at her.
Grace felt it. Felt an answering fire rush over her skin.
Preposterous! How could he even see her? But she glanced up, enthralled by the moment, knowing their gazes would lock—
Or