He scowled. “You want a wealthy husband and to advance the family in society like everyone else.”
Yes, wealth and good standing were important factors, but that wasn’t all she wanted in her future. Ellis Worth would laugh if she told him she also hoped to fall in love with the man she gave her hand to. Given all she knew of a bachelor’s life of excess in Town, Ellis Worth would never realize what was missing from his. She did not bother to explain. He’d hold the same opinions as her brother and dismiss her dreams of romance out of hand. She wouldn’t waste her breath on so futile an explanation.
She smiled again, wishing Douglas would hurry back. “What else could be more important than making a good match?”
Worth shook his head, frowning down at his hands. “The Fenwick Masquerade offers every imaginable pleasure a body could want. Any woman there is considered equally interested in wickedness and available for the evening. You should not go. Not if you expect to make an impeccable match. The women who attend care for naught but their own pleasure. Many an innocent has been ruined by foolish dreams.”
Now she really wanted to attend the Fenwick’s Masquerade, but Mr. Worth did not need to know that his words of caution had fired her interest to a higher level. “I assure you, Mr. Worth, that should I require guidance, I will ask my mother and my own brother in future for their opinion and advice.”
Mr. Worth pressed his lips together and then speared her with a sharp glance. “I hope you are as sensible as your words suggest.”
She fanned her fingers over her chest to attempt to appear innocent. “You doubt me?”
A smile quirked his lips. “I know you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You like a challenge.” He glanced toward the door. “And I also know how little you think your brother cares to hear your opinion. He means well, but he’s not going to suddenly see things your way. Any scandal would break your mother’s heart too.”
She stared at him, wondering how this man had come to know her and her family so well. To bring up her mother’s heart and hopes was far too close to the truth. Mama would never find out that she went, though. “My mother wants for me what I want.”
“Finding a gentleman to marry should not depend on his connections or the size of his bank account alone, as you claim. It is how he treats you that you should be more concerned about. Any man you engage in a dalliance at the masquerade could never have marriage on his mind.”
Her eyes widened at the heat behind his words, and she gave up any pretense of civility between them. It was utterly reckless, but she stood and stepped closer to him. He rose to his full height, staring her down. Dear heavens, he was tall. “How dare you think you know me and what’s best for me?”
“I know what it’s like to be alone in the world, without family to depend on. You don’t. You have everything, and you’ll lose it all over a silly whim just to prove your brother a blithering idiot about a trivial ball.”
Mary poked him in the chest. “Searching for a husband is not a whim, you… you… despicable rake! I never said I was going to the ball without a suitable chaperone anyway. I want to marry a man I admire. Someone I might come to love. I assure you, ladies of sense do not want a rake as a suitor. I’m not about to be tempted to throw away my life because a scoundrel smiled at me at a silly ball.”
He stared at her hand on his chest until she removed it. “See that you don’t.”
Chapter 2
Dear God, Mary Vine had a temper and a sharp tongue in her head to label him a rake to his very face. He shook his head. No wonder they’d never gotten along. She would make a man miserable. The red hair on her head was a dead giveaway as to her fiery nature.
“What the devil is going on in here?” Douglas Vine demanded of them from the doorway.
Mary plastered on a false smile and then pivoted away to face her brother. “A lively debate over the foolishness of feathers as part of a man’s riding costume,” she told her brother in a bald-faced lie. “Worth here thinks them the height of fashion.”
Ellis could care less about feathers. However, he quickly calmed himself. There was no point in stirring up trouble between the siblings. Their discussions could go on all day. “You misunderstood me.”
“I certainly did not. I think a sensible man would never consider wearing them,” she sang, her eyes just a little defiant when she glanced his way.
She flounced out of the room, and Ellis was grateful to see her go. The idea that Mary Vine wished to attend a scandalous masquerade troubled him for many reasons. First, Mary was undoubtedly an innocent young woman who hadn’t a clue about the perversity of society. And second, she was clearly meant for marriage, and none of the bounders who attended Fenwick’s yearly gathering were the marrying kind.
He might be the only exception.
Everything he’d said about the Fenwick Masquerade was true, and yet he still went to every ball or gathering with a glimmer of hope in his heart that somewhere in London his true love awaited him. Time was running out for him too. Mary would not find a husband at the Fenwick Masquerade, and he’d never find a wife there either. An adventurous lover perhaps but that was as far as those sorts of connections usually went.
Ellis had a problem he couldn’t overcome. He wanted to marry someone who might love him for more than his link to the Duke of Levinson’s seat. Until this week, the connection hadn’t posed much of a hindrance to his happiness. His only source of funds was a modest inheritance that could support a small family and not much else beyond. “Are we still going to Tattersall, Mr. Vine?”
“Yes, yes,” Douglas Vine agreed.
They moved to the front hall, retrieved hats and gloves, and sauntered out into the street.
After a few dozen steps, Douglas bumped his shoulder. “I apologize for my sister. She can be a silly little fool sometimes.”
Douglas had no idea how bright his sister really was. Douglas Vine was one of those rare fellows who underestimated the fairer sex in general, and his sister in particular. “Don’t worry about it.”