match.
A burble of hysterical laughter caught in her throat. How can I tell her that’s the farthest thing from my mind? No. I must remain. Ah, I’m such a coward to flee.…
She drew in a deep breath to calm herself. After all this time, if she was undone by so trivial a setback as the wrong Lord Northington, then she might as well have remained in America and let Maman’s death go unavenged.
Rising to her feet, she put a hand against the wall to brace herself as she smoothed her skirts and collected her wits. It was fashionable for females to swoon. Perhaps she would use that excuse, though she detested those who yielded to such feeble behavior.
“Are you ill, Miss St. Clair?”
Celia’s head jerked up. Northington stood before her, his dark visage a mask of polite concern. She considered briefly, then stifled the impulse to flee, and nodded.
“I fear I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the noise. I’m accustomed to a more quiet life.”
“So I understand. Lady Leverton informs me that you’re from Georgetown in the American capital.”
“Yes. Yes, I lived there with my parents until their deaths.” She said it calmly, but inside, a volley of angry, baffling emotions seethed.
How distressing to be reminded—and how dare he stand there staring down at her with that cool, confident smile on his handsome face, as if he knew how attractive he was, how intimidated he made her feel…how his voice seemed to reach down into her with the potent heat of fine brandy…
“My father once lived in Georgetown,” he was saying, “but it was over ten years ago. He rarely speaks of his travels, but my mother tells me it’s a lovely region.”
His father…his father…God, it’s his father who raped and murdered…
“Yes,” she said when the silence stretched too long, aware of his narrowed stare, the cock of his black brow and his faintly sardonic smile. “Parts of it are certainly lovely, though much of it is giving way to new buildings and construction…If you will pardon me, my lord, I do feel a bit unsteady yet.”
I have to escape him, she thought distractedly. Oh, why won’t he go away?
But Northington moved swiftly to cup her elbow, his hand easily supporting her as she eased back to the bench cushions. His hand lingered, fingers strong and demanding upon her arm.
“You didn’t seem the type to swoon, Miss St. Clair,” he said with a tilt of his dark brow.
Perhaps swooning would have to remain the convenient excuse for her peculiar behavior, she thought with angry distraction. She took several deep breaths to clear her head, aware of him so close to her, his hand upon her arm, the heat from his body a raw force that threatened to suffocate her. He was unnerving. And he was the wrong man.
Yet he was Lord Northington’s son…Perhaps not all was lost. Through the son, she might yet reach the father.
Yes…
A faint smile curved her lips as she tilted back her head to look up at Northington through her lashes.
6
Shadows draped the recess beneath the stairs, and light filtered through potted palms into the alcove to barely illuminate Celia St. Clair’s face. Wide-eyed, she stared up at Colter in the thin light. A delicate fineness of bone structure rescued her features from the ordinary and made them striking. High cheekbones, a full mouth with well-shaped lips, a hint of cleft in her chin, and wide-spaced gray—no, green eyes were made unusual by a trick of fate. Harvey was right. She was a prime article.
She was also feigning a swoon and doing very badly at it.
“I’ve seen better actresses in the pit at Covent Garden,” he said when she did not reply to his observation, and saw her eyes widen, absorbing dull light like a cheap mirror.
“No doubt you have, my lord,” she said with a lift of perfectly arched eyebrows. “But what has that to do with me?”
“Your swoon. You’re not faint.”
A smile curved her mouth into a tempting bow, and she met his gaze boldly. “Not in the least bit.”
Her voice was husky, low-pitched and slow, each word a rich drawl. He smiled.
“Ah, then I am to understand that you wished to avoid my company.”
“You’re very astute, my lord.”
Little baggage! It was an unexpected response. He had anticipated the usual demur, the protests that she truly was of delicate constitution—or maybe even a shy confession that she had wished to speak with him alone—but not this frank surrender and even more blunt admission that she did not desire his company.
His suspicions may be wrong; her acquaintance with James Carlisle could be as innocent as it had seemed.
“Am I that heinous?” He moved to sit beside her on the bench. She did not move coyly away, but gazed at him with a steady stare. A pulse beat in the hollow of her throat, ivory skin gleaming softly in the pale light as she seemed to consider his question.
“Having just made your acquaintance, I could hardly come to such a conclusion so rapidly. Did you follow me just to ask that question, my lord?”
“No.” He observed her with growing amusement. “Your cousin sent me after you. A rather obvious ploy to extend our acquaintance.”
“Then I trust you are now convinced I had nothing to do with that.”
“Not entirely.” His eyes narrowed, noting that brown lashes lowered over a gleam in her eyes she couldn’t quite hide. For the first time that he could recall, he wasn’t certain of a woman’s motives. It was intriguing.
He leaned closer, saw her involuntary recoil. “It could be a conspiracy between you to compromise me. You needn’t work so hard at it. I can be quite adaptable.”
“That’s very enlightened of you, my lord, but I fear you overrate your charms.”
She turned slightly, giving him an excellent view of the tops of her breasts above the edge of her bodice—a deliberate ploy that revealed an enticing shadow between them. Tempting. Provocative. And damned distracting.
He dragged his attention slowly away when she said in husky, beguiling tones, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do not wish to court unnecessary gossip or nasty speculation as to our activities in a dark corner. Your reputation may thrive on such, but mine, I assure you, will not.”
She rose from the bench and he rose with her, putting out his arm to delay her progress, stretching it in front of her so that she halted and turned to look up at him with a haughtily lifted brow.
“You are impeding me, my lord.”
“Only for a moment.” He resisted the sudden impulse to touch a single golden curl that draped over her bare shoulder; it drew his attention back to the pale gleaming breasts, rounded and perfect above her demure bodice.
“If you are through ogling me, my lord, I wish to pass. Please move aside.”
A slow smile curved his mouth. “But perhaps I’m not through ogling you, Miss St. Clair. I find the view most enticing.”
“And I find you boorish. Step aside or I shall call for a footman to remove you from my path.”
She meant it. There was determination in her eyes, a hot, fierce gleam that convinced him. He let his arm drop and she moved past him without a backward glance to glide gracefully across the hallway and toward the ballroom.
Colter crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Twice in the space of a few minutes, she had given him the cut direct. It was as irritating as it was intriguing.
“I say, old man, looks as if the lady ain’t that