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“Marvelous!” The earl applauded their convincing performance.
That was all it had been, Angela told herself, a command performance to entertain and edify a very special audience.
During the coming weeks, she must take care to remember that, and not fall under the perilous illusion that Lord Lucifer was capable of caring for her.
Or she for him.
The sensation of Angela Lacewood’s divine lips grazing the back of his fingers brought all manner of provocative, unwelcome memories whispering through Lucius. In his younger years, when his looks had made women swoon, he’d been something of a rakehell, gorging himself on a banquet of pleasures afforded by his wealth, his title and his handsome countenance.
Since the war, and the disfigurement that made women swoon for the opposite reason, he had become as devoted a celibate as he had once been a libertine. Until just now, Lucius Daventry had not realized how little he’d missed the shallow diversions of his youth.
But, his lovely, new fiancée threatened to rouse the sleeping hunger within him, damn her!
The earl held out his hands to Lucius and Angela. “I believe this calls for a toast!”
Lucius made every effort not to drop Miss Lacewood’s hand too abruptly, while battling an equally fierce inclination to kiss it again.
Toast, indeed! They could toast his peace of mind like a crumpet over the glowing coals of his rekindled lust.
“Tell Carruthers to fetch us a bottle of our best champagne from the cellar,” the earl ordered Lucius. “On second thought, have him hunt up three or four so the servants may also drink to your happiness.”
The gleam of delight in his grandfather’s eyes countered the reservations that gnawed at Lucius. Three months would pass by far too quickly. Besides, what was a gift worth without a little sacrifice?
“You don’t want to set the cook drunk, and have her burn our dinner,” he said as he set off to relay the earl’s instructions.
“Drink half a dozen toasts and we’ll never notice.” The earl beckoned Miss Lacewood toward him.
Lucius hesitated at the library door long enough to see her stoop and ask, “May I call you Grandfather from now on?”
The earl pulled her into his embrace, “My dearest girl, nothing could make me happier!”
As Lucius watched them together, a foolish, wistful ache settled deep in his belly. With dogged effort, he reinforced his flagging composure and hurried off to order the wine.
He returned to the library a few minutes later to hear his grandfather ask Miss Lacewood, “How soon shall we set the date? June is always a pleasant month for weddings.”
Set a date? A bottomless sensation engulfed Lucius, as though the library’s parquet floor had suddenly opened up beneath his feet.
Before he could stammer out something that might have exposed their ruse to the earl, as well as making himself sound a complete ass, Miss Lacewood came to his rescue.
“We dare not make plans until my aunt and uncle return from the Continent. In fact, I probably shouldn’t have accepted Lord Daventry’s proposal without their permission.”
Lucius privately applauded her quick thinking.
“Old Bulwick?” scoffed the earl, who bettered his neighbor’s age by at least two decades. “Nonsense! You’ve reached years of discretion?”
“Decidedly on the shelf,” Miss Lacewood admitted. “I don’t doubt my aunt and uncle will be delighted to see me make such a fine match, at last. However, they can be somewhat…jealous of their privileges.”
“Yes, yes,” the earl grumbled. “Since you’ll be remaining in the neighborhood, I suppose we ought not to offend your relations by wedding you off in their absence.”
Carruthers appeared just then, bearing a tray with three tall slender glasses and a bottle of champagne. With a murmur of thanks, Lucius set about uncorking and pouring the wine.
Once in possession of his glass, the earl raised it toward Miss Lacewood in a salute. “Let us drink to the most beautiful addition to the Daventry family in many a year—my dear Angela. I hope I may take the liberty of calling you by your name, since you propose to call me Grandfather.”
She nodded, lowering her gaze while a self-conscious little smile hovered on her lips.
“To Angela.” Lucius raised his glass, adding his voice to his grandfather’s. Her name sparkled on his tongue with an intoxicating sweetness that rivaled the champagne.
The earl sipped his wine and gave an approving nod.
“Anxious as I am to see you settled, perhaps a long betrothal is not a bad thing in your case. The two of you need some time to become better acquainted before you marry.”
Before Lucius could voice his agreement, the earl added, “Of course, I know why you’ve gone and gotten yourselves engaged in the first place.”
Lucius felt his jaw go slack as his fiancée sputtered her champagne.
Chapter Four
Champagne dancing its way down her throat was one of the sweetest luxuries Angela had ever enjoyed. Champagne surging back up, its innocent little bubbles scouring the back of her throat and nose, was another matter entirely!
When she heard the earl declare that he knew the true reason behind her engagement to his grandson, she could not stifle a gasp, which set her choking on her wine. Her eyes watered and she struggled to catch her breath between bouts of violent coughing.
She managed to hold on to her champagne flute long enough for a steadier hand to take it from her. A moment later she felt Lord Daventry gently tapping her on the back.
“Are you all right, Angela?” he asked. “Can I get anything for you?”
If she’d been able to reply, she might have told him it did no good posing questions to someone who was coughing too hard to speak. All the same, the warm concern of his tone eased her enough that she was able to catch her breath again. Before long, she had her coughing under control.
“Poor child!” The earl sounded flustered. “I hope you didn’t think I was implying any sinister motive to your betrothal. I only meant that I know you’ve both undertaken it to please me, in which you have heartily succeeded, I assure you.”
Angela felt doubly foolish. She should have known the earl was not referring to his doctors’ grim predictions. Now her excessive reaction to his remark might rouse his suspicions.
Fortunately, a lifetime of practice smoothing over her many blunders came to Angela’s rescue. “It had nothing to do with anything you said, my lord, truly. This was the first time I’d drunk champagne, that’s all. The bubbles tickled the back of my throat.”
“First taste of champagne?” The earl shook his head at his grandson. “And Bulwick fancies himself a gentleman?”
The hand with which Lord Daventry had been patting Angela’s back came to rest there for a moment, in what he might have meant as a comradely gesture of approval for her quick thinking.
Her reaction to his innocent touch was anything but innocent. A dark, ravenous energy stirred within her and began to rove through her flesh. Her thoughts swarmed with longsup-pressed curiosity about the mysterious rites of lovers.
To her vast relief, those immodest fancies did not blaze on her face for the gentlemen to see.
“Sip slowly, my dear, if you are not used to it,” the earl advised her in a most solicitous tone before taking a drink himself.
Lord Daventry left Angela’s side to refill her glass. His brief touch had made her hunger for more. When he returned with her champagne she made a deliberate effort to brush her fingers against his when he handed the flute to her.
Was it possible he felt something of the strange force he had excited in her? she wondered as he lifted his gaze to hers and held it for a taut, expectant instant.
The earl’s voice broke in on their fleeting private moment. “Perhaps I should be ashamed of myself for meddling in your lives.” He regarded Angela and his grandson with transparent satisfaction. “But I’m not. This modern notion of love matches is folly if you ask me. Let a young man choose his own mistress, I say, but let him be guided by his elders in the choice of a wife.”
“You needn’t preach to me, Grandfather. I quite agree.” As Lord Daventry retreated to the mantel with his own champagne, he tossed the remark off in such a casual tone that Angela decided she must have imagined the potent flicker of awareness between them.
Hoping to quench her own futile preoccupation with his lordship, Angela savored a deep draft of her wine, and then another.
“Wise boy,” the earl commended his grandson. “It occurs to me that if I must postpone the happy occupation of planning a wedding, we might at least celebrate your betrothal properly.”
“Forgive me.” Lord Daventry lifted his glass, from which he’d scarcely taken a drink. “I thought that’s what we’re doing.”
Either the earl did not hear, or he chose to ignore his grandson’s comment.
“A ball!” he cried, then immediately toasted his idea with another drink. “I’ve become an awful old recluse these past few years, turning down invitations and never going out anywhere. It’s time I rectified that by hosting a gathering.”
A ball? For her? Under ordinary circumstances the prospect would have filled Angela with alarm. At the moment it sounded a perfectly jolly idea. She suspected that might be due to the glass of champagne she’d emptied so quickly, but she didn’t care.
A ball. The very word conjured up visions from fairy stories, for Angela had no firsthand experience to counter them.
Invitations to her cousins, Clemence and Camilla, had never included her. Aunt Hester thought the local Assembly Hall quite beneath the notice of her household, so Angela had never been allowed to go there. Uncle sometimes hosted house parties at which there might be a little dancing. But they were nothing compared to a real ball at a great house like Helmhurst.
With herself as the guest of honor.
“A ball?” Lord Daventry’s voice slashed through her soap bubble and rainbow daydreams. “Have you taken leave of your senses, Grandfather?”
That miserable man! Angela’s lower lip thrust out. He wouldn’t let her have any fun at all out of this engagement, would he?
Before the earl could reply, Angela took up her cudgels on his behalf. “Where are your manners, Lucius Daventry? That’s no way to speak to your grandfather. And what’s wrong with a ball, if I may ask? You make it sound like some sort of debauchery.”
She had just enough discretion left to keep from calling him Lord Lucifer to his face, or suggesting that a night of debauchery might accord well with his wicked reputation.
What if Tibby was right about Lord Lucifer after all? Angela wondered as she met his baleful glare. What if he did put curses on people?
Good Lord! Lucius cursed under his breath. A single glass of champagne and the silly chit was foxed.
He could barely refrain from groaning, especially when his grandfather appeared to endorse the young lady’s tipsy talk.
“Angela’s quite right, my boy.” The earl lobbed his words back at Lucius. “In the first place, I taught you better manners than that, and in the second, I believe this engagement of yours is the perfect excuse for a little festivity.”
All his old friends…and enemies strutting about his quiet sanctuary, staring at his masked face, whispering to one another about what had happened to him. Poor Daventry. Such a shame. And he used to be so handsome—the toast of the ton.
Why didn’t the old man just order one of his limbs amputated for amusement? Lucius wondered. Perhaps his helpful fiancée could wield the surgeon’s saw, damn her!
Angela rose from her chair and walked toward Lucius with a weaving gait that looked graceful but precarious.
“If a ball to celebrate our engagement will amuse your grandfather, isn’t that reason enough for us to agree?” Her large liquid eyes and lopsided smile beseeched him in a manner he found difficult to resist. “After all, wasn’t that the whole point of—?”
He had to silence the fuddled little fool before she blurted out everything. Perhaps because he’d thought more about kissing in the past several hours than he had in the previous three years, Lucius seized on the one means to quiet his fiancée that would least arouse his grandfather’s suspicions.
Catching Angela’s hand, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her as if he meant it. That would teach the little goose to mind her tongue!
He had not forgotten how to kiss a woman, Lucius was gratified to discover, as he claimed Angela’s delectable lips. What he had forgotten, or tried to forget, was how it felt to kiss a woman.
Unless this one was somehow different from all the others.
The aftertaste of champagne he imbibed from her had the most delicate bouquet, with heightened sweetness and sparkle. His head began to spin as though he’d guzzled an entire bottle. He finally parted from her as reluctantly as a drunkard from his favorite bottle.
His kiss had the effect he’d hoped in temporarily robbing Angela of speech. Lucius had not anticipated that it might have a similar effect upon him.
Meanwhile, the earl continued to sit with his back to them, sipping his champagne and turning a deaf ear to whatever minor liberties the newly betrothed couple might be taking.
“D-did it ever occur to you,” Lucius asked, when he had finally regained command of his vocal organs, “that I might prefer to keep my engagement a private matter?”
Though he addressed his grandfather, Lucius shot Angela a look that he hoped would penetrate her tipsy haze and the dumbstruck outrage of his sudden kiss.
The more public their engagement, the more difficult it would be to break when the time came. Not that Lucius cared much on his own account, but the scandal might ruin Angela’s chances of contracting a proper marriage later on.
Why did the prospect of her wedding someone else bring such a sour taste to his mouth?
“Privacy is one thing, my dear boy,” replied the earl, “but this smacks of something furtive. Surely you don’t wish to encourage any ridiculous tattle that you’re ashamed of this connection?”
“Of course not!”
Lucius stalked over to the side table where the champagne bottle rested. He needed another drink. He also needed to put some distance between himself and Angela, lest the urge to kiss her again should overpower him.
“I doubt anyone will think such a thing simply because you fail to host a ball. It’s well-known I’ve retired from society.”
The earl gazed heavenward. “That has fueled enough unsavory gossip to tarnish our family name for a generation. I, for one, am anxious to lay such malicious talk to rest. A lavish celebration of your betrothal to a sweet, beautiful young lady like Angela should go a long way to rehabilitate your reputation.”
For such a frail old stick, his grandfather had a will of iron, Lucius mused with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. The earl would not be balked. He would keep answering every objection Lucius threw up, raising the matter tomorrow and the next day and the next until he wore his grandson down.
It didn’t help that his grandfather had recruited an ally in Angela Lacewood. From halfway across the large room, her wistful, coaxing gaze found Lucius with the power and precision of a well-aimed artillery barrage.
Surely she didn’t believe he would be ashamed to wed a beauty like her?
Lucius bolted another drink of champagne. He had one last scrap of ammunition. Though it was of a powerful calibre, particularly against Angela’s soft heart, pride made him shrink from deploying it.
“Do either of you understand what you’re asking of me? To spend an evening under the glare of chandeliers?”
The looks on both their faces told him he need not mention the glare of so many curious stares.
“Apologies, my boy,” the earl murmured. “I hadn’t considered that.”
His grandfather looked so disappointed Lucius rather wished he’d held his tongue. As Angela had been about to say before he’d stopped her with his kiss, the whole point of their sham engagement was to make the earl’s last months happy. Compared with what he’d already undertaken in that cause, what was one little ball?
“I know!” cried Angela. “What if we don’t hold it indoors under all those bright lights?”
Once again she approached him with unsteady steps. Was she not afraid he might kiss her again?
“Helmhurst has some of the most charming grounds in the country. Why don’t we hold the ball outside, under the stars?” As the soft shine of starlight shimmered in her eyes, Lucius knew he was lost.
“By Jove!” The earl clapped his hands like a child delighted with a new plaything. “What a clever idea, my dear!”
