“It surprised me at first, I’ll admit it. Then I realized that I really liked them looking at me. I figure that if they’re actually focused on my parts then it’s obvious I don’t look like such a country bumpkin. But you know, James, I never realized that males found that particular part of the female’s anatomy so mesmerizing.”
If you only knew, he thought. The music started up again and James said, “Are you ready to gallop?”
She laughed until her eyes were tearing.
Along the side of the dance floor, Thomas Crowley, the younger son of Sir Edmund Crowley, one of Wellington’s cronies, said to Jason, “Who is that lovely girl James is dancing with?”
“You know,” Jason said slowly, “I’ve been wondering that myself. Perhaps it’s someone from his mysterious past.”
“James doesn’t have a mysterious past,” said Tom. “Neither do we.”
Jason poked him in the shoulder. “I’ve been thinking that it’s time to start making one.”
Since Jason had told him about the threat on his father’s life, Tom said, “You’re already on your way. Blessed Lord, who’s that? Good God, what a beauty.”
Jason turned to look where Tom was pointing. He smiled, that lazy confident smile that seemed to make ladies from the ages of ten to eighty perk right up whenever he came within fifty feet.
Jason said slowly, in that easy voice of his, “You know, Tom, maybe I don’t need anymore mystery right now.” Thomas saw Jason draw a bead on the dark-haired girl who was peeking at him over the top of her fan, and stride off in a very straight line toward her, paying no attention at all to the score of young ladies, and not-so-young ladies, who tried to put themselves in his path. He didn’t mow any of them down, but it was close.
Tom shook his head and took himself off to where his mother was holding court. He tried to slink behind a palm tree when he realized she was in animated conversation with three dowagers with unmarried daughters.
“Tom! Do come here, my boy.”
He’d been well and fairly caught. He drew a deep breath and went to his doom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JASON SHERBROOKE GRINNED from ear to ear. His worry about his father shifted to the back of his brain. This female looked charming, and the good Lord knew he hadn’t been this charmed by a female since he was fifteen years old and seduced by Bea O’Rourke, a clever young widow from St. Ives who’d been visiting New Romney and liked his smile and his lovely, very busy, hands, she’d told him while she nibbled on his ear.
This girl had dark, dark eyes, alight with intelligence and humor. Then she snapped her furled fan and those lovely eyes disappeared. He saw shiny black hair drawn back from a white forehead. He’d swear she could be Bea’s daughter. But Bea didn’t have any daughters, just two sons who were both in the king’s navy, she told him when he’d last been with her in early August.
He looked about for her mother or her chaperone and found himself staring into the bony face of Lady Arbuckle, known for her lack of humor and her tedious piety. This charming young creature with the wicked eyes was a relative of Lady Arbuckle’s? No, that couldn’t be possible. But Lady Arbuckle did look like the dragon guarding the treasure.
“Lady Arbuckle,” he said, turning on all the charm he’d learned from his Uncle Ryder over the years. “Observe your uncle,” his father had said to him and James. “He can coax the wart off a lady’s chin. If you find it inconvenient to use brute force, you might consider charm to gain what you want.”
“My goodness, is it you, James?”
“No, I’m Jason, ma’am.”
“Ah, how terribly familiar each of you look when I see the other. How are your mother and father?”
“They are well, ma’am.” Jason smiled toward the girl who was now gazing down at the toes of her very pale lilac slippers. “And Lord Arbuckle?”
The lady stiffened straight as a lamppost. “He goes as well as can be expected.”
This made no sense to Jason, but he nodded politely before he said, “May I be presented to your charming companion, ma’am?”
Lady Arbuckle gave only an infinitesimal pause, but Jason saw it and wondered at it. Was she concerned that he wasn’t exactly the sort of gentleman he should be?
“This is my niece, Judith McCrae, come with me to London to make her curtsy in polite society. Judith, this is Jason Sherbrooke, Lord Northcliffe’s second son.”
Jason was fully prepared to be disappointed when she opened her lovely mouth; he was prepared to see and hear silliness or simpering; he was prepared to wish himself a thousand miles away. But he wasn’t prepared for the sock of lust that roared through him when she smiled up at him, the dimple on the left side of her mouth deepening.
“My father was Irish,” she said, and let him take her hand. Long, slender fingers, soft, so very soft was her flesh. He lightly kissed her wrist.
“My father is English,” Jason said, and felt stupid. He’d never in his life felt stupid with a girl, but now he felt like he had nothing at all in his head but relentless waves of lust that were cooking his brain, and the good Lord knew there was nothing at all to lust but more lust. “My mother is also English.”
“My mother was a Cornish girl from Penzance. She and Aunt Arbuckle were second cousins. She calls me her niece because she loved me from the moment I was born. She is my only living relative now. She is giving me a Season. Isn’t that kind of her?”
Jason remembered now that Lord and Lady Arbuckle’s country estate was near St. Ives on the northern coast of Cornwall. He said, “Oh yes, as kind as it is proper. You’ve lived in Cornwall?”
“Sometimes. My father was from Waterford. I grew up there.” He loved the lilting voice, the soft vowels beneath the starchy English cadence. He’d never known English to sound so sweet.
“Would you care to dance with me, Miss McCrae?”
Judith looked toward Lady Arbuckle. The lady’s lips were a disapproving tight seam. He wasn’t a rake by any means-ah, he wasn’t the first son, the heir. She probably wondered about his income. Why would she even think such a thing? It was just a damned dance he wanted, nothing more.
“I will bring her right back, ma’am. Or perhaps you would like to speak to my mother? To assure you that I am not rabid and have no overtly distressing habits?”
Lady Arbuckle seemed to study those arching palm trees for a good thirty seconds before she gave him a stingy nod. “Very well. You may dance with Judith. Once.”
She was small, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. “Do you look like your mother?” he asked as he slipped his arm around her and began to waltz.
“Ah, my coloring. Yes, I have her eyes and her hair, and I am short, like she was, but my freckles come from my dear father.”
He didn’t see any freckles, no wait, there was a thin line marching across the bridge of her nose. “Your mother was a beautiful woman.”
“Yes, she was, but I am nothing compared to her, so my Aunt Arbuckle tells me. I don’t remember my mama really, since she died when I was very young, you see.”
Jason whirled her about, aware that she was a marvelous dancer, light on her feet, an armful that felt natural and-oh damn, the lust was poking and prodding at him, so he danced faster and faster. And very nearly slammed into his brother and his partner, who looked vaguely familiar.
Judith lost her balance when Jason suddenly jerked to the side, and so he simply lifted her off her feet. The thing was, once he had her against him, he didn’t want to put her down. He wanted to press her against his belly through all those damned petticoats and imagine that she wasn’t wearing any.