Louise noted her expression. Brows faintly rising, she passed on to her chair at the end of the table, waited until Colthorpe had poured her tea and stepped back. Amelia sat opposite Amanda, silently tending her own thoughts, letting her twin cogitate undisturbed. Shaking out her napkin, Louise looked at Amanda. "I imagine it'll be the talk of the ton. For a gentleman of Dexter's rank, let alone his peculiar status, to emerge from his seclusion with his eye fixed so definitely from the outset on you…"
She didn't complete her thought, but fell to buttering a slice of toast. Crunching a corner, she meditatively chewed, then took a sip of tea. Glanced again at Amanda. "One thing you'd be wise to bear in mind."
Amanda looked up; Louise caught her eye.
"Whatever the emotion that's moved him to forsake his determined isolation, it won't be anything mild."
Louise's words rang in Amanda's ears as she stood on the verge in the park later that morning, and considered the large hand extended toward her.
Arrogant. Commanding. Impatient. Definitely not mild.
Also difficult, not to say dangerous.
Gripping her parasol, she laid her fingers in his, let him pull her up to the phaeton's seat. She settled her skirts. With a brief salute to Amelia and Reggie, left standing on the lawn, Martin clicked the reins and they were off.
"Tell me," she said, having determined to take the lion by the mane, "why have you decided to rejoin the ton?"
He flicked her a glance. "As I told Lady Matcham, it seemed to be decreed."
"Decreed?"
"By some higher authority."
She ruminated on that. "So you intend to reclaim your rightful place?"
The glance that gained her was somewhat harder. "If necessary." They were nearing the most popular section of the route, currently jam-packed with carriages. "Now you may tell me-who the devil are all these women?"
As "these women" were all nodding graciously, eyes avidly alight, and as their number included the majority of the principal hostesses, she considered it wise to oblige. "That's Lady Cowper-you must remember her?"
He nodded. "Is the one in green Lady Walford?"
She glanced at him. "Your memory's quite remarkable, but she's now Lady Merton." The lady had been an acknowledged beauty before her second marriage some years before.
His lips twitched, but he continued peppering her with questions, not all reflecting felicitously on their subjects. His recollections were erratic, sometimes devastatingly detailed; he'd last seen these people ten years before through the eyes of a youthful hellion. Some of his observations made her laugh; she learned a surprising amount she'd never known, yet equally, there was much he didn't know that she dutifully told him.
When they reached the end of the crowded section and he set the horses trotting, she slanted him a considering glance. She'd wanted to bring him back into this world, his world and hers; part of her rejoiced in his presence-her success. Another, more cautious part warned her not to count her chickens yet.
She'd lured him out of his lair, but he'd come for only one thing.
He was focused on getting it. That became clear as the days progressed. Every morning brought three white orchids; everywhere she went, he was there, waiting for her.
To claim her attention, her hand, the first waltz and if there was one, the supper waltz, too. Regardless of the nature of the entertainment, he would remain by her side, impossible to shift. His attentions, however, were perfectly gauged-socially acceptable, yet what those watching couldn't see was the sensuality behind every look, every touch. They couldn't see the net he wove, link by link about her. She knew, but could do nothing to prevent it, to deny the hold he already had over her senses and her heart.
He had indeed changed the rules of their game. Between them, there was no longer any pretence that desire didn't burn just beneath their skin, waiting to flare into passion. That they wouldn't much rather be alone, by the fire in his library or anywhere else, rather than whirling about countless dance floors. But he was after her submission, after her agreement to marry him as he now was, to accept him as he had thus far revealed himself to be. To place her hand in his, to give herself up to him, without further promises. He'd shifted the field to the ton, changed the rules to those society played by, but what he was after hadn't changed.
Day by day, night by night, he continued to stalk her. Through ballrooms, drawing rooms, at the opera house, in the park. He never, not once, stepped over the line, yet he continued to single her out, not simply as above all others, but to the exclusion of all others. He was uninterested in any other lady; he hadn't shied from making that brutally plain.
To her astonishment, amazement-to her increasing consternation-he proved adept at bending society's dictates to his own advantage. And worse. She hadn't thought it possible that on this field-one where she was so much more experienced than he-he could run her to earth.
Yet he was winning.
The hostesses were starting to come around, to lean his way.
She could barely believe her ears when at the Castlereaghs' ball she overheard Emily Cowper, kindly as ever, murmur to Martin before she moved on, "An excellent choice, my boy-she'll do very well
as your countess."
Glancing around, ceasing to hear the story Mr. Cole was relating, she saw Martin smile, incline his head and reply, "Indeed. So I think."