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Marcus strolled toward the house in Curzon Street. It was spectacularly lit up, and there was a small army of servants in livery directing carriages as they arrived. Ladies in beautiful evening dresses and gentlemen in sober jackets made their way past the footmen standing rigidly on either side of the doorway and into the Gillingham residence.
Marcus followed them inside. It had been no easy matter to get hold of an invitation. For the past three days and nights he had been on the hunt for someone who knew the Gillinghams well enough to get him inside. In the end he had been reduced to begging Lady Annear, Sebastian’s godmother. She surprised him by managing to secure the invitation within an hour.
“I don’t know why you want to go to Lara Gillingham’s gathering,” she’d said, waving aside his thanks. “Dreadful snob of a woman, and as for the husband…looks like a poet. All that flopping hair and soulful eyes. I never trust men who look like poets.”
Marcus smoothed
his cuffs and felt no such qualms. He knew he was looking his most elegant; the perfect gentleman. No one would dare question his credentials. Just because he chose not to mingle with the blue bloods did not mean he could not, if he wished to. He had the breeding, the education, the contacts to charm a duchess at twenty paces. It was true he found situations like this a dead bore and avoided them like the plague, but this time was different.
Portia Ellerslie made it different.
What would she say when they came face-to-face? She would not be expecting him to seek her out on her home ground. He could catch her off guard, get under her skin. He smiled. Oh yes, he’d very much like to get under her skin.
Anticipation buoyed him up as he handed the invitation to the bewigged servant waiting at the salon door. Inside, a sea of guests seemed to wash back and forth beneath the brilliance of the gaslit chandelier.
He saw her at once, mainly because she was wearing black. Her deep mourning stood out starkly against the other women’s whites and pinks and bolder colors, making them seem frivolous and somehow shocking. For a moment he wondered whether she had worn her widow’s weeds as penitence for her meetings with him, but he doubted it. She did not seem like a woman who punished herself for her pleasures. There had been nothing furtive in the way she took her fill of him at Aphrodite’s Club; she had impressed him as being confident and certain of herself and her place in the world, and what she wanted from it.
The bewigged footman had been squinting at his invitation, but now he cleared his throat and read aloud: “Mr. Marcus Worthorne!”
Marcus watched to see Portia’s reaction. She was standing in line with her stepdaughter and husband, greeting newly arrived guests. She was with an elderly gentleman, clasping his hand and smiling gravely as he leaned toward her, but at the sound of his name, her head came up. Her face seemed to pale as she looked straight into his eyes.
He allowed himself a moment to drink in the sight of her—the perfect O of her mouth and the wild glitter in her eyes. All that pent-up anger couldn’t be good for her…she needed to be tumbled into bed, and often. But her true feelings only registered on her face very briefly, and then the mask was back in place—polite, cold, her vapid smile focused on the elderly gentleman.
Marcus sauntered down the steps and joined the line. He was looking forward to seeing what she did next.
“Mister, eh, Worthorne. Good evening.” The sharp-eyed woman with the large nose was inspecting him curiously. “I do not think we have met.”
“Mrs. Gillingham, you look magnificent.” She did, or would have, if she was not outshone by Portia.
“Thank you. I don’t remember exactly where we’ve met…?” She gave him a questioning smile.
“Ex-Hussars,” he murmured in explanation.
“Oh. Yes, of course. You must have known Papa.”
“Your father was a great inspiration to us all.”
She beamed at him.
Well, that was easy. Marcus moved on to the husband. Arnold Gillingham was an indolent-looking gentleman with rather long fair hair, pale blue eyes, and a handsome if horselike face. With his faintly otherworldly air, he did give the impression that he was composing poetry.
“Ex-Hussars?” he repeated with a cool glance. “You knew my father-in-law, Mr. Worthorne?”
“His fame encompassed us all.”
“Just so.” But there was a flicker in his eyes, as if he was fully aware that Marcus had not answered his question. “Enjoy your evening, Mr. Worthorne.”
Finally Marcus took the step that brought him face-to-face with her. The hem of her skirt brushed his shoes. The black mourning accentuated her pale beauty and the bright glory of her hair. He could smell her scent, warm and sweet but with an exotic overtone. She seemed to be trying to decide whether she could withhold her hand from him without anyone noticing her lack of good manners.
“Lady Ellerslie,” he murmured, and held out his own. He was prepared to stand here for an hour, but it didn’t take that long for her to give in to a lifetime of training and conditioning.
Slowly, unwillingly, she reached for him. He did not allow her to rush their clasp, sliding his fingers down to grasp hers firmly before squeezing them through her glove.
Her eyes flashed up at him in angry frustration as she realized she was trapped by her inability to forgo the social conventions. She was her own prisoner as much as his.
“Mr. Worthorne,” she said through stiff lips, and pointedly looked beyond him.
“I don’t imagine any of these people know you have a small beauty spot, just to the left of your spine, where the swell of your—”
