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He chuckled. The little coquette! No wonder the poor bastards in her entourage behaved like lovesick fools. It was obvious to his practiced eye she was an expert at the game of inviting a man with her eyes and then dismissing him with her cheek, whetting his desire all the more. “And you say this is her second Season?”
“Aye.”
“And she turned down how many offers?”
“Five,” said Wells from between clenched teeth, his eyes chips of ice as he stared at the woman. “The highest ranking was a viscount like me. The wench is biding her time, waiting for a bigger catch.”
“My rank certainly ought to be enough of a lure for her avarice. May I surmise you were one of those she declined?”
Sullen silence greeted the question, but the other man’s face told the tale. A slow smile lifted Percy’s cheeks. Miss Lowther was indeed the perfect candidate: beautiful and heartless.
…
From her corner of the gallery, Eden regarded her hopeful devotees with carefully masked disdain. Mice, all of them. Not a real man amongst the lot—unless one counted Lord Abingdon, which she didn’t. She repressed a shudder. Almost old enough to be her grandfather, Abingdon was out of the question. If only he would realize it and leave her be.
Reformed rakes make the best husbands her married friends had all said. Such was her belief, too. After all, her own dear Papa had been one before Mama tamed him.
Snapping open her fan, Eden fluttered it to hide a smile that twitched with the strain of overuse. The newly married Lord Creighton, who was now openly admiring her décolletage, was reputed to have numerous unwed friends of that ilk, but where were they?
A flash of peacock blue embroidered with gold caught her eye, and her heart beat a little faster. She knew of only one man who wore such clothes.
George’s great toe, he’s here! Lord, but he’s a handsome devil. In his early thirties, Lord Tavistoke’s russet hair was yet untouched by frost. With every year that passed, he grew more handsome. His face had matured beyond the boyish handsomeness she’d fantasized about since she was in pinafores, transforming into something far more devastating.
Now there’s a man… Pity he’s interested only in married women.
A sharp elbow in her ribs jolted her back to the present. With a reproachful look, her friend Genevieve admonished her to pay mind as Lord Ellsworth declared his love for her in the form of some very badly written prose.
Again.
Smiling, Eden demurred with as much grace as was possible with her teeth clenched. Ellsworth was the worst of the mice. Weak-chinned and soft about the middle, he was as milquetoast as they came. He had kind eyes, but there was no fire in them. There ought to be fire in a man’s eyes when he declared “passionate” love for a woman. She doubted whether he’d ever been passionate about anything besides a Sunday roast.
“Lord save us,” hissed Genevieve, clutching at her arm. “It’s The Terror of the Ton—he’s coming this way!”
On her other side, Adelaide gasped, “And he’s looking right at you!”
Heart in her throat, Eden watched Tavistoke approach, his long stride eating up the floor.
She’d seen a lion once. Even caged, the beast had been magnificent. The raw power of the animal, the unsuppressed rage and hunger in its amber gaze as their eyes had met through the iron bars had imprinted upon her memory. She shivered.
Every instinct had screamed at her to run as the great cat had paced the length of the enclosure, never taking its eyes off her. And yet she had stood there, mesmerized by a creature that viewed her as nothing more than a tender morsel to be devoured. The same sensations ran riot inside her now. The only difference was that the look in Tavistoke’s dark eyes as he smiled at her made her want to be his prey.
Her legs trembled, and her knees felt watery, prompting her to send up a quick prayer of thanks that she was sitting down. Every rumor she’d heard, every warning, jostled for recall. Outrageous affaires, reckless duels, drunken debauchery and wild bets—and of course his fondness for beautiful women. Married women.
With the exception of Lady Montgomery…
The woman had thrown him over the year prior to Eden’s coming out, and to her delight no one had snapped him up yet. If an unwed female could capture his heart once, it could be done again. Looking at him now, she marveled that any woman would choose another over him. Lord Montgomery must be one hell of a lover.
Quashing her rising excitement, she tore her gaze off Tavistoke’s face—and noticed Viscount Wells at his side. Her nose pinched with distaste, and she had to make an effort to relax her features into passivity. She ignored the two men and instead whispered to Adelaide until they were standing right in front of her.
“Miss Lowther, I am your servant,” Wells addressed her, bowing.
Eden turned to stare at the man with wide eyes. He was one of five whose proposals she had declined last year. “Why, Lord Wells! What a pleasant surprise. I did not think to see you here this Season. I thought you and Lady Wells were to visit the Continent.”
His beefy face turned deep red. “Lady Wells dislikes traveling and preferred to remain in London.”
Resisting the urge to scoff, she maintained her sweetest smile. The truth of the matter was that Lady Wells had refused to board ship at the last moment, revealing a previously unmentioned terror of the sea. Rumor had it she’d proven fearful of her marriage bed, too. It was whispered that after their wedding night she hadn’t allowed her husband near her again for a month. Eden pitied the woman. She suspected Wells was as crude and repulsive in the bedchamber as he was outside it.
“What a shame,” she simpered. “She would have come back in the latest French designs and been the envy of us all.”
