So few words. Yet they ripped her asunder. She was insulted and complimented at the same time. Which one was right? There was no right with Richard Clark. “Oh, do go away.”
“Very well.” He stepped back, unrolling to his full height. Oh yes, there went the sun. Goodbye, light. Apparently no matter what he did, he shaped her world. “But only because I have much to do.”
She snorted. “Quite busy being a marquess’s son.”
“A marquess’sbastard, you mean, and yes, the to-do list is fathoms long. Goodbye, Miss Bell.”
She let him have the last word this time. Mr. Clark could jump in the lake and sink to its very airless bottom for all she cared. But his head was so very full of air. He just might float. Those muscles, though (her mouth wasnotwatering), big and thick and heavy, surely they would drag him down to the silty bottom. His lack of buoyancy would ensure she and Selena survived the house party and Beatrice found a man willing to warm her bed for a night or two or three.
Let him drown, then. No matter how fine that man’s arse, she’d find one much better.
Three
Richard haunted the shadowed end of the drawing room as the after-dinner crowd began to thin. A group of guests remained near the bookshelves, chatting over refilled glasses of wine, and another group still inhabited a card table. John and Evelina remained, sitting near an open window, knees kissing, hands tangled, as they looked out on the evening garden. Blissful almost matrimony.
Richard snorted and pulled his book up to block his view of the guests.
“I’m done for the evening,” a guest said. Richard peeked over the top of his book. A woman stood up from the card table, and a man sitting nearby stood with her. She nodded to John. “Thank you, Lord Prescott, for a lovely evening.”
“I look forward to tomorrow’s diversions,” the man said, escorting the lady from the room.
When they were gone, the two remaining at the table broke into complaints.
“Who will play with us now?”
“It is too early to retire.”
“Come along, someone. Please. Evelina?” The young woman shuffling the cards looked with pitiful eyes at her host’s betrothed. “Surely you wish to play.”
Evelina shook her head. “I’m not in the mood. And I shall have to return home with my mother shortly.” Her mother lived in a nearby manor house, and Evie had decided to sleep there instead of taking at a room at Slopevale. “But perhaps… Beatrice?”
From her corner, the opposite of Richard’s, Beatrice lifted her head from her own book. She wore green silk this evening, and her dark hair shone in the candlelight. “Me?”
“Yes, they need you for cards,” Evelina said.
“But that’s only three,” the card shuffler’s companion said. “We need a fourth for whist.” She crossed to a different chair.
Beatrice, having abandoned her book, took the now open seat. “I enjoy whist. With the right partner.”
“Mr. Clark.” This from Miss Selena Bell. “You have been alone in that corner all evening. You must come out and have some fun. Partner Beatrice. You must.”
He must not. He waved a hand. “No, thank you. I’m quite happy here in my corner.”
“Come, man,” John said. “Do not be so aloof.”
“Not aloof. Merely tired. I’m afraid Miss Bell would find me a slow-witted partner this evening.”
Her arm resting across the back of the chair, Beatrice lifted a brow, a challenge. “Just this evening?” A slow chuckle rumbled around the room, and she basked in the approval of her insult.
It made him want to sit across from her and show her how very sharp and cunning he could be.
But he didn’t belong at that table. She was a wealthy shipping merchant’s daughter. And the woman who sat to her right was a baron’s wife. The woman who sat to Beatrice’s left was a politician’s sister. They all wore jewels Richard’s own mother had never known; the sort his stepmother had draped about her neck as casually as a chain of daisies.
“I’ll play.” A man stepped away from a group conversing near the fire. Richard had not yet had the pleasure of an introduction, but he knew who he was—Baron Peterson. He settled into the chair across from Beatrice with a warm grin and an easy slouch.
Beatrice returned the grin, her confidence matching his. “Lord Peterson. Thank you for rounding out our numbers.”
“Anything to please the ladies. Do you mind if I smoke?” The baron pulled a cheroot from his pocket.
