His words only caused her breaths to come harder, pulling against the lacing and making it more difficult to release. “Please, it’s too much.”
Henry continued to pull and fumble. Somehow all of his experience in undressing a woman was failing him now, when a literal life depended on it. “I can’t get it, I don’t know what to do—”
She released a low whine, a keening sound of desperation, and Henry’s heart lurched, desperate to help her. He spun her around and looked directly into her eyes. “Hold still, don’t move.” And incredibly, she obeyed.
Henry drew a small folding knife from his boot, and her eyes widened. Enough encounters with ruffians in alleyways after too much drink required him to be armed. While he had certainly never expected the knife to be useful at a ball, there is a first for everything.
“I’m going to have to cut the stays so you can breathe, all right?”
She once again gave her his back. He swiftly brought the knife to the ties, undoing one after the next as efficiently as possible without touching her skin. She drew in a deep, ragged breath on a sob, clutching the fabric to her chest. Dropping his jacket from his arms, Henry caught her shoulders and held her steady close to his chest, wrapping his garment around her to protect her bare arms from the chill.
After a few moments, she brought her gaze up to meet his.
Those eyes. Like liquid mercury, like starlight trapped in her irises.
And then she vomited.
“A package for you, my lord.” Buttersworth’s low voice sliced through Henry’s foggy brain like a knife. The fog was thick; following the ball, his night became a cavalcade of brandy and whiskey, opera dancers and one strangely erotic circus performance. He was uncertain what time he’d fallen back into his apartments in Grosvenor Square, but he was certain he would need to be at his parents’ home for luncheon the next day. Or the same day. Blast, time got confusing.
“Delivered here?” Henry asked his valet, wincing as as he shrugged off his shirt, reeking of a night of debauchery.
“No, my lord. A footman brought it from Fensworth Hall this morning.” Buttersworth took the soiled shirt from Henry’s shoulders and almost avoided flinching at the odor.
Curiosity piqued as he looked at the carefully wrapped bundle. Who would send him a package to his family home? Anyone who knew him was aware he had long ago left the nest, having grown tired of his overbearing parents and their disapproving looks. He untied the ribbon and paper to find his jacket, cleaned, pressed, and completely lacking in vomit, along with a note on heavy cream vellum. He lifted the card from its envelope and caught a whiff of fresh lemon and rosemary.
23 December 1895
Warwick House
Dear Lord Morley,
I hope you do not think me forward for writing you, but under the circumstances it felt necessary. I deeply apologize for the unfortunate state in which you found me last night in the gardens. Your rescue was indeed heroic; I had fled the ballroom to avoid making a scene and clearly had the opposite effect. I shudder to think what might have occurred had you not come along. My response was lamentably not as heroic, and I therefore apologize for my gastrointestinal pyrotechnics.
Although I am not proud of it, I do, at times, suffer what my mother has termed “nervous fits.” I cannot seem to control my heart or my breathing, and I have a bit of a panic. They sound far more dramatic than they are in reality, although my behavior last night does not provide evidence to support such a claim. I am grateful for your intervention and your tact.
I do hope we can keep this encounter between ourselves; I doubt either of our reputations will be helped by sharing it.
Sincerely yours,
Lady Eleanor Warwick
After the incident at his mother’s ball, he had ushered the mysterious young woman, under the cover of his jacket, to his personal carriage with instructions to deliver her wherever she wished to go, presumably her home.
Despite his subsequent attempts to debauch himself into exhaustion, he could not sleep, unable to get those silver eyes out of his mind as he tossed and turned.
His brows raised. The mystery woman had an identity, the daughter of the notorious Marquess of Warwick. Henry had not been aware the man had a daughter. The marquess had maintained an image as an irredeemable rogue well into his twilight years. Aspiring young rakes considered him somewhat of a folk hero. He maintained a list of mistresses, whom he escorted to society events without a lick of shame. Consequently, the Marchioness of Warwick rarely appeared. Warwick’s son, Victor, was studying on the continent, perhaps to protect his own reputation from his father’s tarnished one.
He smiled as he read her letter once more. Even he would not stoop so low as to ruin an innocent. In fact, he took pains to ensure no one saw her retreating to his carriage. If anyone had seen them, he would be pressed to ask for her hand in marriage. Hell, possessing a man’s jacket and a torn dress would be enough for Lady Eleanor to pin him down.
But she urged him to secrecy. In fact, she made a joke.
Despite the headache threatening to split his mind in two, Henry lumbered to his desk and withdrew a fresh sheet of paper. This grey-eyed woman was indeed different.
23 December 1895
The Amberly
Dear Lady Eleanor,
