She stood and came to his side, bringing with her the scent of white roses. Her bosom brushed his sleeve. “I am happy to see you,” she said softly.
“Constance, your sweet seduction will not stir me into unwarranted disclosures,” he said without looking at her. “I am better at this game than you.” With all but one dimpled girl. His friends did not recognize him because he had become, in fact, unrecognizable, guided by his mind as always but now no longer ruled by it. And . . . he liked it this way.
“You are heartless.” Constance leaned her cheek upon his shoulder. “I adore you.”
“I am eternally yours.”
“You never were,” she said sweetly. “And now I think you never shall be.”
He swiveled to her. “What precisely am I intended to gather from that?” he drawled while the heart he supposedly lacked beat a quick tempo.
“Only that Colin has a letter for you to read. But I shall leave that to him.” She went to the door. “If you depart from London again without telling me, I vow I will send someone after you. Or perhaps I will simply follow you myself. Colin has confined my work to town, but if you cross me again in this manner I will become a wandering hunter like you, and like my cousin and Jin used to be. I vow it.”
“Your vow is my bond. Now, leave, dearest lady.”
The door clicked shut. He drew the bolt and returned to the file resting atop the drawer. At the top a clerk had scrawled Davina Lucas Carlyle, Baroness. He opened the file and read.
“You made it all up?” Diantha sat behind a potted plant in a corner of an enormous ballroom bursting with guests from its cascading entry stairs to its beveled terrace doors. An orchestra’s bright notes leaped into the air, the murmurs and laughter of conversation mingling with the wafting aromas of perfumes and colognes, champagne and melting beeswax.
Teresa sat beside her on another embroidered gilt chair, her short, flaming curls sparkling with tiny pearls laced into a white net that matched her snowy white gown. She nodded somberly.
Diantha shook her head. “I imagined some of it embellishment.” And she had discovered that some of it was enormous understatement. “But . . . everything?”
Teresa’s eyes were pretty round lily pads. “Not everything,” she allowed. “Annie told me stories of her amorous escapades with footmen and stable hands.” Her fingers tangled together on her lap. “I merely told those escapades to you as though they had happened to me.”
Diantha felt astoundingly ill. Regret had nothing to do with it. “But why would you do such a thing?”
“Why didn’t you write and tell me where you were?” Teresa retorted. “After Annie returned to Brennon Manor, I suffered an agony of guilt for having assisted you in leaving. I would have sent my brothers searching for you but they went off hunting with Papa. I could not tell Mama, of course. She would have gone into an instant decline. But more importantly, I knew you would never speak to me again if I revealed you. You’d made me promise not to!”
Diantha peered at her friend.
“I would not have easily forgiven you for betraying me, it’s true.” She reached for Teresa’s hand. “I’m sorry I did not write. I was . . . busy.” Busy throwing herself at a man who had lied to her all along, as her mother had for years, and as Teresa had too. But perhaps she was overly primed to see such lies as betrayal.
Teresa’s eyes welled with tears. “I think I may weep with relief. Di, I am so very glad you are well.”
“Dear T, don’t cry here. And forgive me, please,” she whispered, knowing she should be begging forgiveness of another person as well, a man who had worried over her just as Teresa had.
“You are here, safe and sound. You are forgiven.” Teresa’s lips wobbled into a smile. “Now will you tell me of your adventure? You did not go to Calais, I must assume, for your mother is not restored to your family.”
“I did not go to Calais. I went . . . Oh, it’s too long a story to tell now. Let’s save it for later.” Or never. How could she tell Teresa this? “Now you must tell me about your time in town so far. Has it been wonderful?”
“All my mother speaks of night and day is finding me a husband as quickly as may be.” Her brow pleated. “But in the three days since she and Aunt Hortensia have been taking me about, I have yet to be introduced to even one gentleman with whom I should be inspired to do the sorts of things Annie does with the blacksmith’s son.”
Diantha’s cheeks warmed. They never had before when Teresa told stories. But now she knew what it was to share that sort of intimacy with a man. Everything had changed.
“Actually,” Teresa whispered, “I kissed one gentleman.”
“You did? After I left Brennon Manor?”
Teresa nodded. “He came to visit my brothers before they went off hunting and I felt so guilty that I’d lied to you about all that, so I let him kiss me.”
“How did you find it?” Thrilling. Delicious.
“Unpleasant.” Teresa’s brow creased beneath her coppery locks. “His mouth was wet and he said I had a very large bosom.”
“You do have a very large bosom.”
“He said he liked that about me the best and that he wanted to touch it.”
“He sounds like a nincompoop.” The sensation of Wyn’s touch was indelibly fixed on Diantha’s skin. She could not forget it, no matter how tangled her feelings about him. “But now you know he is no gentleman and you should not allow him to court you.” She was a thorough hypocrite. But Wyn was a gentleman. He was also a man, and he had said he needed her body.
Teresa sighed.
“There now.” Diantha patted her hand. “We will arrange an introduction to the most handsome gentleman here tonight and your bosom will charm him instead.”
Teresa’s sigh became a giggle, which was Diantha’s intent. She glanced beyond thick palm fronds to the ballroom bubbling with elegant ladies and gentlemen. “There must be any number of eligible bachelors here.”
“It is the ball of the season. Aunt Hortensia says that Lady Beaufetheringstone decorated everything with gold to celebrate the new king, and black since we are still mourning the old. But rumor has it that the black swags are not really for the old king but for the travesty of a trial that our new king has imposed upon the queen for infidelity. Of course everybody says Her Majesty is innocent.”
“Oh. Yes.” She hadn’t heard. Or if she had, she hadn’t paid attention. Every day it grew increasingly difficult to attend to gossip. A fortnight had passed and still Wyn did not come to London. Either he had lied to her about intending to marry her, or Mr. Eads had gotten him. Her stomach churned.
“Di, you don’t look well.” Teresa tugged her to her feet. “Let’s find a glass of lemonade for you.” She stepped out from behind the plant and Diantha slammed into her back.
“Oh!” Diantha caught her balance. “I beg your—” She looked over Teresa’s shoulder and her lungs folded up and placed themselves before her windpipe like a door. She choked.
Teresa’s eyes were round. “It is him.” This said in a weak tone that suggested awe for a deity.
But the man standing alone by the French windows, gaze fixed on Teresa, was not a deity. He was a bulky Highlander with suspicious blue eyes and a penchant for tossing ladies about when he wished them to do his bidding.
Diantha hadn’t imagined Mr. Eads could clean up so well. His long dark hair was pulled back in a queue, and he wore evening finery atop with a plaid kilt, stockings, and shining shoes below. But he was still very large, he was still an assassin, and . . . if he was in London, Wyn might be too. The notion was a combined joy and agony.