Stiffly, she made the introductions, her eyes narrowing as Lady Delia batted her eyelashes at Ian. Before she could stop herself, Clair blurted, "Lady Delia, do you have something in your eye? Perhaps I can help?"
Ian coughed into his hand to cover a snicker. It appeared that Clair was jealous! A good sign for his Plan A.
Ian coughed again as Lady Delia gave Clair a look that would have melted iron. "I am fine, Clair. And you? I have not seen you in many weeks. I take it you have been doing your usual manly deliberations in and outside of your dusty lab?" Her voice was sugar-sweet, her fan batting in a mating signal at Ian.
It was a classic Delia move, this opening gambit, the game being to embarrass Clair before a fresh audience. Clair responded coldly. "Yes. You know my work keeps me extremely busy."
"I am always so impressed with your studies. But they are beyond me. I can't imagine researching what you do. I have always heard that science is a field for gentleman scholars, not delicate females. Why, I can't imagine little old me knowing what to do in those laboratory places." She spoke the word "laboratory" as if it were a den of iniquity.
Yes, Clair surmised, Delia was in her prime. "I'm surprised to find that you even know the word 'scientific,'" she responded archly. Check! she thought proudly; she had countered with a bold move.
"Oh dear," Delia mused. "I fear my association with you must be rubbing off. Whatever shall I do? I don't want to be a bluestocking like you who never lets anything keep her from her research. People talk about how unladylike it is. But then, everyone knows you are a lady." Her eyes were fixed on Clair, a slight smile on her lips as she finished, "At least I think they do. They did before that unfortunate pig incident."
Damn! Checkmate. She was going to have to concede the game, Clair thought bitterly, a taste like ashes in her mouth. Clair blushed, both embarrassed and angry at the same time. How like Lady Delia to bring up that little unfortunate misunderstanding in front of Ian!
"That was much ado about nothing." Her reply was firm, her bearing haughty. She would show Delia. She had been mocked by the best and the worst, Delia being both.
Ian, amused, watched the battle raging between the two titans. What pig incident? He knew without being told that the tale would be a whopper.
Observing Clair and her aunt, Ian recognized immediately that neither wanted to talk of it. Clair was staring with desperate interest at the Venetian chandeliers high above. Her aunt Mary had joined her in wonder at the lights. Ian wondered what mischief Clair had gotten into. His curiosity barely contained, he raised a questioning brow at Lady Delia.
With great relish, in her breathy little voice, Lady Delia spoke. "Why, our dear Clair was researching the ghostly disturbances at Murray Manor. It appeared that the cemetery had ghosts residing there. Clair went to investigate the apparitions."
Clair wanted desperately to sew Lady Delia's mouth shut, and Clair did so hate sewing. Lady Delia certainly wasn't her dear anything. This was war!
Glaring at the woman's smug expression, Clair reminded herself that Delia, the daughter of the Earl of Lon, was a woman of a thousand faces, all of them false. Drawing herself up to her full five foot three, Clair engaged in battle. She could still try to save her king.
"I was requested by the marquis himself to help stop the nightly visitations," she said. "The marquis was concerned because his guests had been complaining for quite some time about the noises in the cemetery." She said each word with distinct and stately decorum. "It certainly sounded like ghosts. It could have been ghosts. Ghosts have an affinity for the cemetery. They feel comfortable there. You could say they feel very much at home in the cemetery," she said a bit desperately.
"Dear," Lady Mary said, patting Clair's arm in sympathy. "You couldn't have known that it wasn't a ghost. It could have been. Quite easily indeed. Easily."
Ian stared at all three women, his amusement obvious. "I am agog with curiosity. If it wasn't ghosts haunting the cemetery, what could it have been? Let me see," he teased. "Was it a goblin? No. Goblins aren't real, I recall being told only recently."
Clair pursed her lips, her eyes twinkling.
"Could it have been that dreaded v-word? A vampire?" He gave Clair such a devilish smile that she almost melted on the spot, her embarrassment easing greatly.
But Ian's look had not gone unnoticed by either Lady Mary or Lady Delia. Carefully, Lady Delia composed her features and remarked sweetly, "No, it was pigs. Smelly pigs, rooting around the headstones at night."
Clair glanced down, hoping the ballroom floor would open up and swallow her, but knowing in her rational mind that it wouldn't. She had been the butt of these jokes too many times, and it still hurt.
In spite of himself, Ian caught himself chuckling. Lady Delia giggled. However, Aunt Mary, a veteran of Clair's debacles, kept her grin to herself. It wasn't every niece who could cast for pearly ghosts and end up with swine.
Yes, Lady Mary remembered the ghostbusting mission at Murray Manor had caused her niece quite a bit of old-fashioned embarrassment, not to mention that it had set her back several months in her observations of ghostly spectrals.
Loyally, Lady Mary patted her niece's arm. "It was a mistake anyone could make, dear. I'm sure ghosts sound just like pigs rooting about on their nightly haunts." It really had been naughty, she thought, for Delia to bring the subject up.
Clair wanted to roll her eyes. "Thank you, Aunt," she managed, a rueful smile on her face. Her aunt always meant well, but if Mary wasn't putting her foot in her mouth then she was somehow maneuvering to place Clair's there as well.
Lady Delia wiped a corner of her eye, her mirth still obvious. The shrew was always at her best when making sport of someone else, Clair thought sourly. It wasn't fair, she argued with herself. Delia looked all pink innocence but had the heart of a killer. She'd flesh out a person's weakness and then go full steam for the jugular.
"By the by, did you ever manage to find any evidence of ghosts at all?" Lady Delia asked.
"No. However, I am now working on something altogether different. Much more spectacular than spectrals. It's important. Really, really important research."
"It wouldn't take much to outdo pigs," Delia said.
Glaring, Clair wished just once that she hadn't been born a lady. What she wouldn't do to the black-haired witch. She took a step forward.
Ian, sensing that the battle of wits was moving into a physical reclaim, quickly placed a restraining hand on her arm. "My lady, it is the waltz you promised me." Bowing to both Lady Mary and Lady Delia he said, "If you will excuse us, please."
Lady Delia frowned and Lady Mary smiled. Chalk one up for the baron, Lady Mary thought. The handsome devil had extracted Clair with hautton finesse, diverting a scene, escaping Lady Delia's clutches, and bringing a smile to her niece's lips. Yes, he would do quite nicely for a husband. She watched Ian gracefully sweep Clair into the waltz.
On the dance floor, Ian had to keep reminding himself not to hold Clair too tightly. She felt so incredible in his arms, and light as an angel. Her gaze narrowed on him, making him feel he just might be the devil.
"You're scowling at me," he remarked calmly.
"Ladies don't scowl," she replied stiffly.
"Ladies don't get caught up in catfights in the middle of balls," he responded dryly.
He was right; he had her there. Still, his amusement at her pig disaster rankled. "How clever you are. Yet gentlemen don't make sport of ladies or insult their gowns," Clair said.