As Caleb stood in the shadows outside the house later that night, watching carriage after carriage roll up the circular drive and its elegantly garbed occupants make their way up the steps to the entry, as he felt the pull of Vermillion's cool, smoky laughter coming from inside the house, he thought that it just might be true.
2
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"Vermillion, darling, I don't believe you've met Lord Derry." In the midst of her circle of admirers, Aunt Gabby stood smiling, enjoying the gaiety around her. The high-ceilinged drawing room rang with noise and laughter, a crush of men and women dressed in expensive satins and silks. If the ladies' gowns were cut a little lower, the fabrics a bit more colorful than those one might find in a fashionable London drawing room, it went unremarked.
Vermillion studied Lord Derry from beneath her lowered lashes and her lips curved into a provocative smile. "No, I don't believe we've yet been introduced. Lord Derry." She sank into a curtsey and offered him a black-gloved hand. The Earl of Derry bowed over it, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the breasts nearly spilling out of the top of her gown.
"A pleasure, Miss Durant."
"Not at all, my lord. The pleasure is most certainly mine." It wasn't, of course. The earl was a decrepit old bag of bones, his shoulders, breeches, and calves padded so heavily he looked like an overstuffed mattress with feet.
"The earl has just returned to England," Aunt Gabby said. "He owns a very successful cocoa plantation in the West Indies."
"How terribly exciting," Vermillion lied, wondering, as she had a thousand times, how her aunt could possibly be enjoying herself. Yet Vermillion knew that she was. Lee had lived with her aunt since she was four years old, when her mother had died and Aunt Gabriella had appeared like a golden-haired angel at the orphanage and taken Vermillion into her home. The two sisters were nothing alike. Angelique Durant was shy and reserved while Gabriella was La Belle, celebrated and adored in the world in which she lived.
She surrounded herself with the wealthy elite and made friends of artisans, actors, and aristocrats, most of them men, of course. She loved her life and the power she wielded, and she couldn't imagine that Vermillion would want to live any other sort of existence.
"Would you care to dance, my dear?" Lord Derry asked, hovering far too close to suit her. "Afterward I shall be happy to tell you all about life in the Indies."
Vermillion inwardly groaned, imagining an hour-long discourse on heat and bugs and the necessity of owning other human beings. But her smile remained in place. "I should adore dancing with you, my lord." The words came out with a throaty purr that seemed to change men from lions into lambs.
She let the earl guide her away from her aunt and her friends, onto the parquet floor at the end of the salon where a four-piece orchestra, garbed in pale blue livery, played the upbeat strains of a contradanse.
Vermillion smiled her practiced smile and fell into the steps of the dance, but her mind was as far from Lord Derry's plantation as it could possibly get. It was a trick her aunt's friend, Lisette Moreau, had taught her. Separate yourself, assume an outward appearance designed to please the gentlemen while inside you go wherever you most wish to be.
As she executed the steps her dancing master had hammered into her, Lee rode like the wind over the green fields of Parklands. Tomorrow morning, she vowed, no matter how tired she was, she would indulge herself in her heart's greatest pleasure.
At the edge of her mind, she heard the music, felt his lordship's bony fingers leading her into a turn. Letting her lashes sweep down to veil her eyes, she moistened her lips, and mentally went back to the feel of the wind in her hair and the sound of thundering hoofbeats. Mounted on Noir, she approached a high rock wall. She could feel the horse straining beneath her, his powerful muscles collecting as they soared over the wall, came down on the opposite side, and made a perfectly executed landing.
"That was marvelous, my dear," Lord Derry was saying, placing a kiss on the back of her hand.
"Yes, it was," she said, remembering the thrill of a perfectly executed jump. "Thank you, my lord."
His lordship's watery blue eyes remained glued to her breasts. "Now… about my cocoa plantation… Perhaps a turn round the terrace would—"
"Sorry to interrupt, but Miss Durant has promised her next dance to me." Jonathan Parker, Viscount Nash, stood just a few feet away, a warm smile on his face. Of all the men of her acquaintance, Nash was among those Vermillion liked best.
"They are playing a waltz, I believe." He took hold of her hand. "Shall we?" The viscount was a tall, attractive man in his late thirties with dark hair silvered at the temples. He was a true gentleman, she thought, a widower these past three years. Jon was intelligent and kind and he had made it clear he was among those men who wished to become her protector.
Perhaps he is the one I should choose, she thought. Jon would be good to her and his demands in the boudoir would likely be less than those of a young stallion like Lord Andrew Mondale.
It was in that moment she spotted that particular gentleman striding toward her, Andrew Mondale, blond and handsome, if a bit foppishly dressed in a grass-green tailcoat with glittering gold and emerald buttons.
Vermillion inwardly sighed, steeled herself, and gave him a sultry smile. The night, it seemed, was going to be a long one.
In the end, to her good fortune, the evening had ended earlier than she had imagined. Midway through the dancing, while her aunt was holding court with her never-ending circle of friends, Lee had given in to her secret wish to retire, pled the headache, and slipped upstairs to her bedchamber.
This morning, amazingly alert and energetic, she climbed out of bed before dawn looking forward to the outing she had promised herself. Eager to reach the stable, she finished her brief toilette, ignored the expensive forest green velvet riding habit that had just arrived from London, and chose instead the form-fitting breeches and full-sleeved shirt she'd had custom-made for her several years ago at L.T. Piver's in London.
Lee had to admit there were advantages to the world in which she lived. One of them was that social dictates did not apply. By the nature of their business, the Durant women were exempt. Walking past the rosewood armoire that contained the cumbersome habit, her long red hair plaited into a single thick braid, Lee reached into a drawer of her rosewood dresser and grabbed a woolen cap in concession to the morning chill, pulled on her kidskin riding boots, and set off for the servants' stairs at the rear of the house.
The mid-May weather was crisp and clear, the sky a purple-tinged haze just beginning to brighten. She preferred to leave before the servants were up and beginning their chores, while the stable was still quiet, giving her a sense of freedom she found only out here with her beautiful horses.
She loved them all but especially Noir Diamant, Black Diamond, her prize Thoroughbred stallion, and Grand Coeur, Great Heart, the tall gray jumper she usually rode. She paused in front of Noir's stall to rub his velvety nose, but the stallion would be racing later in the week, so she chose Grand Coeur instead.
Coeur was an amazing horse that could run like the wind and jump the way she had imagined last night. Her gaze skipped to her comfortable sidesaddle with its padded tapestry seat, but Lee ignored it, just bridled Coeur and led him from his stall. She had worn the shirt and breeches so that she could ride bareback, completely unfettered and free.
Lee smoothed the stallion's dapple-gray coat, spoke to him gently, and led him out of the barn into the pale golden glow of early morning. Coeur nudged her with his beautiful head, danced and sidestepped, as eager for the morning's exercise as she.