A Lady of Means, page 7
Moria leaned into him, letting him guide her. She’d been afraid that a man so large and imposing would drag her around the dance floor clumsily stepping on her feet and tripping to the time of the music. But beyond a long and muscled form, he had an innate and instinctive grace she hadn’t anticipated. Questions tripped through her mind, she almost stumbled but he adjusted his pace and kept her on her feet.
“Something you want to say, Lady Fox?” he asked, that damn smile tugging at his lips again. Moria had never once had to resort to counting the time of the music in her head before, but she was doing it now. Dance had always been a performance, but with him it was something else entirely she couldn’t name.
“Where did you learn to dance, Captain?”
His gloved hands were so large and so warm. “I told you my father was the heir to an earldom, and my brother after him. Believe it or not, I attended lessons in deportment and elocution, and yes, dancing. I think it’s aided in my swordsmanship as well.”
The candelabra above his head shed iridescent light on his night-colored hair.
“You never fail to surprise.”
He let out a low laugh. “Not nearly as much as you, I should think.”
Moria was vaguely aware of people staring in their direction. She changed partners briefly and then was returned to Devyn.
She had to stifle the urge to close her eyes as their hands made contact again. Her mind conjured images of those hands on her skin, the places he could touch with those hands, with other parts of his body as well. Drat her corset, she couldn’t breathe. She’d gone from debauched and jaded debutante to wanting to be debauched in a matter of moments.
“Me? What about an army captain seeking out an elusive debutante at two very different balls in one evening? Now there’s a tale.”
He said his next words low enough that only she could hear them. “I think, my lady, the more interesting tale I have to tell starts with finally getting to hold you in my arms after thinking about it for an entire year.”
Her eyes closed briefly, savoring his words and his nearness. She was vaguely aware of the music ending, of dancers applauding. They were likely too intoxicated to notice she didn’t clap; she was intoxicated on something else entirely. Someone.
Not just someone. Devyn. Moria had lauded herself for being sensible, she’d lost her head to a boy before who clouded all objectivity and reason until the clouds parted and revealed how very solidly he’d deceived her. But Devyn was a man.
There was only raw honesty painted on his face when he looked back at her, only genuine affection when his voice caressed her ear to ask, “Would you like to dance again or would you like to talk?”
Her gloved fingers touched the side of his neck near her mouth as she whispered in his ear, “I would love to talk. Just give me a few minutes.”
“Moria.”
She heard her name at her back and knew who it was.
“Fitzwilliam Pomfrey,” she said through gritted teeth, turning toward her brother-in-law. Fitz had always been one of the tallest men she knew, but he was still more than a head shorter and much less broad than the captain. The two men made quite a stark contrast as they stared at one another. Devyn was the first to introduce himself, Fitz followed suit but the keen amusement and curiosity on his face was telling.
“Captain Winter and I were–”
“Already acquainted before this evening, I gather?” Fitz said, a dimple pulling at his cheek. His ocean-blue eyes were rife with amusement. She was sure her sister would be hearing about this. Somehow the thought was…comforting?
Before she could speak, Fitz held up a hand. “Save your lies, Moria, I won’t tell a soul. Just stay out of trouble and don’t force my hand, alright?” but there was a soft note to his voice. He was her friend, there was a goodness in the young, blonde viscount that understood the weight of secrets and pride in a way that not every man of his station did.
He turned to Devyn, sticking out a hand. “Captain,” he said with a firm shake, “I’m better with a sword or a pistol than I look, so no compromising my sister-in-law on my wife’s rather delicate furniture, I’d hate to call you out.” And with a dramatic flourish he was gone.
A laugh bubbled up from Devyn’s chest. “That was your infamous brother-in-law? This ball’s host?”
Moria put a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “I’m afraid that is indeed the Viscount Ludlowe.”
“Rather disappointed in him for leaving you alone with a scoundrel like me,” he said, taking a step closer to her. They were not alone, they were still in a crowded ballroom in one of Mayfair’s most coveted parties.
“We aren’t nearly alone enough,” Moria said, immediately biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut at how forward she sounded. But somehow, he could find her in a crowded room and she’d watch it all burn down just to have him all to herself.
Chapter Nine
D,
I’ve never seen you at a ball, and you’ve never seen me at a ball. Maybe a time or two, I envision the hand at my waist is yours. Maybe I envision the eyes looking down at me are like a starry night, like yours. If you don’t know, fortunes and reputations are made on a single dance. And no one dances better than me.
Lady M
My Lady of the willow tree,
Naturally. No one dances better than a goddess. But to whose tune are you dancing?
D
D-
I’ve danced to them all. I think I might like to try yours. At least once.
M
She could only be testing him. Teasing him and then darting off to find her female companions, leaving him to navigate the large and overly dressed crush of revelers in the noisy ballroom in search of the billiards room. He was to meet her there. Sounded easy enough, but this party and her brother-in-law's house were gargantuan.
Suddenly, Devyn felt the strength of what could only be a masculine hand at his shoulder.
“Captain,” the man said, and when Devyn turned, he found the blonde viscount, Moria’s brother-in-law, smirking up at him. Devyn was taller than most men, but Ludlowe wasn’t much shorter. He didn’t have a warrior’s build, but he looked fit, for a nobleman. Devyn registered the dandy beside the viscount wearing an aubergine coat and a domino mask, he believed the man had been talking to Moria when he’d arrived.
“Thought you might stoop to join us gentleman for a brandy in my study,” Ludlowe ventured.
“He keeps the good stuff locked up at fetes like this,” explained the man who introduced himself as Valentine.
Devyn eyed the other man through his mask. “And how are you acquainted with Lady Moria?”
Valentine laughed. “She punched me in the face once.”
Ludlowe pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t vouch for the truth of virtually anything Valentine says, except for the high-quality liquor.”
“Lead the way,” Devyn acquiesced.
When they were seated in what Devyn could only call a tastefully hedonistic gathering space, complete with not one but two billiards tables, Devyn complimented his host on his fine taste in vintage.
“Only to loosen your tongue while we interrogate you, Captain,” Viscount Ludlowe drawled.
Devyn choked on his drink. He was a soldier, and a damned good one, he should have seen through the ruse. Valentine slapped him on the back, “I say, Captain, you are built like a tree. I can see why you’ve captured Moria’s interest.”
“That is what it is, isn’t it?” The Viscount swirled the contents of his glass. “Interest?”
Devyn shook his head. “I don’t take your meaning, my lord.”
One blond brow quirked. “Surely you see it from my perspective? A lady who could have her pick of titled suitors, and a Captain in Her Majesty’s Army? You two aren’t planning a torrid affair? An elopement perhaps?”
This time Devyn was prepared and did not choke on his drink. “I have nothing but honorable intentions where she is concerned.”
Valentine tilted his head to the side and asked with a jovial expression. “And does she have honorable intentions where you are concerned?”
Devyn couldn’t help it, he choked on his drink again.
Both men laughed raucously. He should have expected this, should have prepared better. But he led soldiers, men trained in battlefield arts, not politics and social etiquette. Peregrine would know how to navigate conversations with men of their social standing. What would Peregrine say?
Both men were looking at him intently. “Lady Moria is a lady, I am sure such insinuations are beneath her character, my lord.”
“Lady Moria is THE lady, but any ruinous insinuations are neither beneath her character or—“ Valentine scoffed.
“Valentine…” Ludlowe growled. “She is my sister and my oldest friend.”
“She is your wife’s sister, and you yourself thought about getting a look under her skirts before—"
Devyn was shocked at how quickly the lithe young lord had launched from his chair to grab his friend by his ruffled collar. “And she is your friend, Valentine. Her brother is one of your oldest friends too. You absolute twat. Dare you forget I have secrets of yours to keep next time you open your mouth to spout such inane slander about my family, I shall remind you that I can ruin you with a whisper.” And with a forceful shove, Ludlowe released Valentine, who calmly sat back down, brushing off his lapels.
Devyn met Ludlowe’s eyes; the Viscount was looking at him as if he expected him to say something. Devyn merely raised his glass at the viscount and drank. Devyn knew how to bodily threaten a man but such a flaying rhetorical set down? Anything he himself could say or do to the…twat Valentine, would be redundant.
“There were many who thought that Moria would have made a better match for a viscount than her younger sister, still do, in fact. But those people,” Ludlowe looked at Valentine and then back to Devyn, “Don’t know Noelle. They saw past her, but I’m so glad that I didn’t.”
Valentine was looking at Ludlowe apologetically, then he turned to Devyn. “Lady Moria is the other face of her coin. She is impossible to look past. The man who can see through her, will deserve her.”
Devyn knew Valentine was right. From her letters, he saw so much more to the woman than she wanted people to believe. She was a bright blinding light trying to eclipse the darkness she hid inside, he knew it, he’d lived it himself.
The two men turned to him, seeming to have made their amends as quickly as they had broken them. “I have a feeling you might be such a man, Captain—” Ludlowe began.
“But if you are not, there are plenty waiting in the wings to take your place,” Valentine interrupted.
“Was that absolutely necessary, Valentine?” The Viscount asked.
“Was what absolutely necessary?”
Devyn whipped around at the sound of Moria’s voice, having found their little assembly at last.
He drank her in like a dying man, stunned in the heart and vocal cords for a third time that same night at the sight of her. She’d freshened her appearance and her blonde coiffure while she’d been gone, as if she’d needed it. Did he make her that nervous? Perhaps it was the fact that everyone was always looking at her, half to drink her in as he was doing, the other half to find fault.
Standing beside his chair, he brushed her fingers with his own. Her fingers singed his in return. He felt his cheeks heat like a schoolboy at the precise and intimate contact. If anyone noticed, they gave no indication.
Finally, he found his gift of speech. “Lord Ludlowe and Lord Valentine were just singing your praises.”
“You lie beautifully, Captain. I’d never believe such untruths of these two knaves. How many ways did they threaten you?” She turned her gaze to the other two men who were looking at her and the Captain with the avid fascination of two scheming mamas.
Casually, Moria popped a sweet into her mouth, and Devyn swallowed at the movement of her painted lips.
“I’d never dream of threatening a man of his brute strength,” Fitz chimed in.
“That might be the first time common sense prevailed for you,” said a feminine voice over Moria’s shoulder. She was joined by a woman with black hair in a dress so dark purple it was almost black. Devyn recognized her from the door, she’d been the one who’d accepted his note as collateral for entry. He couldn’t help but notice the way Ludlowe’s eyes lit with mischief as he roved the length of her body in a way that was entirely beneath a happily married man.
“Should have known you’d turn up at the first opportunity to make a jest at my expense.” Ludlowe parleyed. Devyn met Moria’s eyes, she was stifling a laugh behind her hand.
“May I join you?” the woman said, motioning to the open seat next to the Viscount. Devyn felt protective of the virtue of that burgundy damask settee.
“I’m afraid I was saving this seat for my wife,” Ludlowe answered with a debonair smile that Devyn had attempted on women before but never perfected to this degree. It was punctuated with a casual draping of his long arm on that innocent settee.
“Shall I go and find her?” the dark-haired woman answered astutely with a toss of her tousled dark curls.
Valentine groaned. “I can’t witness any more of this foreplay, I’m going to get another drink.”
Devyn met Moria’s eyes in confusion, surely her brother-in-law wasn’t flirting with another woman in front of her? Moria touched Devyn’s arm and whispered into his ear, “That’s Noelle, she’s in character.” He barely registered her words at the sight of her cleavage so close and her breath warm and sweet against his neck.
Devyn answered, “For the masquerade?”
He barely had three brain cells left with which to ponder her words; they’d all fled south to his groin.
Moria chomped on the sweet she was holding in her mouth and shook her head. “No, it’s a ruse. She’s a writer, that’s her character, Fitz is her publisher. Apparently, this is something they both…enjoy.” She said the last word with a toss of her champagne flute.
Devyn used this opening to his advantage. “And do you also…enjoy other personas?”
Devyn enjoyed that Moria was the one this time to choke on her champagne.
“Perhaps I do.”
And at her lowered tone, her unblinking gaze, he finally saw beneath her mask. All the Moria’s she inhabited. A dutiful sister. A sought-after debutante. A pretender holding on to all her masks. And most simply, A Woman asking to be cared for by A Man.
As Moria’s sister sat atop her brother-in-law’s knee, Devyn took Moria’s hand and led her out of the billiards room. When they rounded the top of a set of marble stairs, Moria pulled on his hand in the direction of an empty sitting room. The room behind a solid oak door was dark.
As soon as she shut the door behind him, she was on him like a scent in a matter of moments. Her gloved hand clutched greedily at the front of his shirt, her face indelibly close. His own hands removed her mask and then stole to her waist, one of them curling a fist around the fullness of her skirts.
“Did you come to claim your kiss?” Moria spoke the words so close to his mouth he could taste the lingering notes of champagne and sugar on her breath. Her fingers curled into his hair; he fought the urge to close his eyes as her nails scratched against his scalp. Christ. No woman had ever captivated him so fully with so little.
Just kiss her already, his body screamed.
On the other side of the door, there were voices. Moria let out a curse and hung her head at his shoulder. He tore his gaze away from the rapid rise and fall of her breasts against her dress, surely her nipples were hard from the way her dress must be scraping against her tender flesh.
She pulled away and turned to step around him. He stopped her, a hand at her wrist. “Stay.”
He tightened his hold on her hand, feeling her pulse leap under his touch. Her teeth were clinched but there was a flicker, then a glimmer of longing in her eyes, but she withstood it.
“I can’t.”
Why was she walking to the door?
“I should not have come. The girl who meets men in secret and accepts only a half-life, I should have left her in the past.”
He was beside her in a moment, thanking God for his long, powerful strides. He closed the door just as she had opened it and put his back to it.
Her nostrils flared in challenge just as her body pressed into his. “What do you want from me?”
“My letters for the last 13 months weren’t clear enough? My asking you to dance at more than one ball in the same night wasn’t clear enough?”
“Not necessarily, no. How is this supposed to work?” she gestured between them. “You and me. A captain in Her Majesty's army and the season’s incomparable? Are we having tea and discussing military strategy?” A small smile played up at the corner of her bow-shaped lips before she turned her head to the side.
“I’m sure you could hold council on waging war with the best military strategists in Britain.”
He came from a long line of men who had served The Crown, he and his brother had played at strategy with tin army men and practiced swordsmanship and marksmanship farther back than he could remember. But her kind of battle tested even his own tactical skills.
The wood panels of the door cut into his back. His hands found her waist. The way that her waist dipped down to her hips was made perfectly for his hands.
She was of average height or a little taller, but he was not. He towered over her. Her chest was flush with his abdomen, her arms around his torso.
She tilted her head back as his lips lilted over her skin, up her jaw, a breath of temptation against her earlobe. “Tell me one truth, General Moria, and I’ll tell you one of mine.”
Moria swallowed, her eyelids stuttering, then went to smooth her skirts. He stilled her hand and brought her hand to his lips. Her eyes rose to his.
She must have found something to trust in his eyes, as she nodded and said, “I’m not a nice person.”
Devyn shook his head, but she continued.
