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‘I noticed Lord Idlefield is on your card later. May I be so bold as to warn you he will live up to his name?’
Lilya nearly missed the joke. She had not expected humour from this man. She caught the reference just in time and smiled broadly in response, her intrigue with him ratcheting up another notch. She cocked her head in a coquettish challenge, daring him to continue along this vein. ‘And Lord Fair-borough? I am to dance a cotillion with him after supper.’
Beldon arched a chestnut brow in doubting question. ‘He aspires to be a breeder of sheep, ewe know.’
Lilya laughed and the rarest of things occurred. Beldon Stratten’s mouth turned up into a smile that took the whole of his face, transforming all the purpose etched there into lines of merriment. For a brief instant they were co-conspirators in jollity, laughing together over their joke.
The dance ended, taking with it his smile and the fleeting magic that had stirred between them. Beldon returned her to her court, every fibre of him once again the polite, aloof gentleman. Cinderella must have felt this way when the clock struck midnight
‘Thank you for the dance, Miss Stefanov. I cannot recall when I’ve enjoyed waltzing more.’ He bent over her hand again, this time in farewell. ‘It is no wonder you’re besieged with admirers—you are truly a diamond of the first water.’
A diamond of the first water.
Lilya stiffened at the comment. She knew what the phrase meant. It was used to describe a young woman of the highest refinements and beauty, a virtuous model beyond reproach. But to Lilya diamonds would always represent something much darker.
‘Then we must dance again soon.’ She mustered a light laugh.
But not too soon, she thought, watching him retreat. She was astute enough to know Beldon Stratten held the ability to be a hazardous distraction for her. Her reaction to him this evening was proof enough. She could not give in to whatever adventure he might offer.
It was for his good as well as her own. She knew what no one else did: she was not an ordinary débutante. No matter how many beaux she collected or how much money Valerian endowed her with, she was not one of them, not really. The other débutantes carried their pedigrees and dowries with them like calling cards. They’d been bred for this just as she’d been bred to be the keeper of a secret; she held in her possession the Phanar Diamond, a jewel that could change the fate of nations.
Chapter Two
That night she dreamt of her home in Negush. She would rather have dreamt of Beldon Stratten and their dance. Instead, it was her father’s face she saw, his eyes bright, his voice low as he whispered the Stefanov legacy.
Whoever possesses the diamond possesses the power to finance a nation. There is no other jewel like it on earth. It is the rarest of rarities. In the hands of the right man it might become a tool for greatness. In the hands of the wrong man, it would become a weapon of tyranny. Who is to say who that man might be or what he might become? For that reason, the diamond has been secretly entrusted to us. It is up to us to see that no one possesses it. The risk is too great. This was the charge given to the Stefanovs four hundred years ago in Constantinople, and it is the same charge we continue today …
Lilya bolted upright in bed clammy with sweat, her breathing coming fast and hard. She’d been dreaming of the last terrible days before the uprising. Her family had been there, all of them; her brother Alexei, her aunt Natasha, baby Constantine, and her father.
Lilya’s breathing returned to its normal pace and she squinted against the invasion of bright light. She’d fallen asleep with the curtains open. It was morning and from the looks of it, the morning was well advanced.
Her stomach rumbled, confirming that she’d slept through her usual breakfast hour. She reached for the hand pull to call for a cup of hot chocolate. But she’d no more than reached for the pull when a knock sounded at her door.
‘Come in.’ Lilya fell back against the pillows, resigned to a rumbling stomach. It would be too much to hope for that her maid would be that efficient.
Philippa stood there, dressed for driving, a sharp contrast to her own nightgown. ‘Good, you’re up. Beldon’s here and he has invited us to ride in the park.’ Philippa smiled warmly and wagged a finger at her, taking a seat at the foot of the bed. ‘You didn’t tell me Beldon was there last night, and that you’d danced.’ Philippa had stayed home from the ball pleading a headache the last minute.
Lilya turned her attentions to her wardrobe, hoping her face didn’t give her away. ‘He did his duty. He was very polite and it was considerate of him to think of me.’ The last thing she needed was Philippa playing matchmaker. Coming up to London for the Season had been an excellent excuse to be in town while the peace talks over Greek Independence were going on. She’d felt compelled out of loyalty to her father and the family charge to be on hand for the occasion for which they’d fought and died. But it was becoming harder than she’d expected to avoid potential entanglements. It seemed everyone was in town for two reasons: marriage or politics, and some were here for both.
‘Beldon plans to marry this Season,’ Philippa announced.
Ah, suspicions confirmed. Everyone was in town for two reasons. Even Beldon was here for marriage. She hoped he wouldn’t marry too soon. The thought of him devoted to another was oddly deflating.
Lilya shrugged into her gown, trying not to think of Beldon married. It would be to someone else, of course. She certainly wasn’t marrying anyone. She could not ask anyone to share the burden of the diamond. Her father had tried to do both. He’d had a family while protecting the diamond. He ended up dead and most of his family with him. She would not make the same mistake and drag anyone into the covert dangers of her life.
She turned her back and let Philippa do up her buttons.
‘Personally, I think he’s going to choose Lady Eleanor.’ Philippa gave the buttons a final pat to signal she was finished. ‘Perhaps that’s the reason he’s so keen on riding in the park today. It’s usually a bit too tame for him.’
‘Lady Eleanor Braithmore?’ Lilya asked, somewhat surprised that the smooth-faced Lady Eleanor would garner the attentions of a man of Beldon’s depths. She snatched up a bonnet, tamping down a ridiculous stab of disappointment. What would a virile man like Beldon want with a girl who had the personality of a milquetoast?
‘Does that displease you?’
Lilya shrugged, unwilling to say anything disparaging. ‘No, Lady Eleanor’s a lovely girl. It’s just happened so quickly, I suppose.’
‘Beldon is not a man to remain idle once his mind is set on a goal. Don’t worry, it will happen for you, too, just wait and see. We’ll find you someone to marry. Now, as to that, has anyone snared your attentions? You’ve been surrounded by so many, surely one has stood out.’
Lilya kept her response vague. ‘No one yet, though many are pleasant.’ She could no more say ‘yes’ than she could say ‘no’. The only man of note was inappropriate. She couldn’t very well say Beldon.
‘Perhaps the marquis’s son will be riding in the park,’ Philippa continued, handing her a pair of gloves. ‘He’s twenty-eight and well situated even before he inherits. I noticed he has been avid in his attentions. Val knows his father. If you would encourage him just the slightest, I think he’d come up to scratch.’
‘Yes, I will consider him especially … to avoid most assiduously,’ Lilya murmured, buttoning up her jacket. What a disaster it would be if she became a marchioness. Any marriage was unthinkable for the risk it posed, but marriage to a high-ranking peer would be the worst. Her life would become excessively public. She’d be written about in society columns and it would be all that much easier for someone to find her.
Assuming that was the kind of marriage she wanted. In all honesty, the diamond protected her from thinking whether or not an English marriage would suit her. In truth she did not think an English marriage would fit her temperament. The English girls she’d met and many of the young wives, too, were insipid creatures with no temerity of their own. They were utterly their husbands’ property right down to the opinions they possessed. She had never lived like that and she did not believe she was capable of it, certainly not for a man.
Philippa’s intuition was correct. They did encounter Lady Eleanor Braithmore in the park, sitting demurely in a white landau twirling a frothy confection of a parasol. Beldon was all dashing solicitude, paying compliments to her beauty from atop his bay hunter, bareheaded in the sun, so strikingly handsome, the very picture of English manhood, that Lilya had to remind herself to breathe.
Did the girl understand the import of his attentions? Surely she must. As an earl’s daughter, she’d been raised to make a match like the one Beldon would offer her.
Lilya sighed against a tender remembrance of long ago. She’d tried love foolishly once, before she’d understood the depth of her father’s mistakes. At sixteen, she’d had attentions such as the ones Beldon lavished on Eleanor Braithmore. The result had been disaster. The young man, an importer’s promising son, had died. She’d learned from the tragedy of that single indulgence. She must remain alone.
She told herself she did not begrudge Lady Eleanor Beldon’s specific attentions, just the sentiment behind them. Such a courtship would never be hers with anyone again.
A trio of gentlemen approached their carriages where they were pulled over on the verge, drawing Lilya’s attention away from Beldon’s courtship efforts.
‘Pendennys, it is good to see you,’ one of the young men called out. Lilya recognised him vaguely as being Lady Eleanor’s brother, a cocky young blood of twenty-two. She thought she saw Beldon cringe slightly at the young man’s familiarity, but the expression was quickly concealed.
‘Bandon, it’s good to see you.’ Beldon’s jaw tightened with annoyance, affirming her thought earlier that Beldon was not a man to be approached casually.
‘I’d like you to meet some of my friends. This is Lord Crawford and this is Mr Agyros, who is in town for the London talks. M’father is involved with those, of course,’ young Lord Bandon puffed with his borrowed self-importance.
The introductions were made and Lilya was conscious of Mr Agyros’s eyes on her at regular intervals while the others talked. He was a handsome man and she blushed a little under the intense scrutiny of his mysterious dark eyes.
‘You must excuse my impertinence, Miss Stefanov. I can’t help but wonder about your name. It has a Russian sound to it and yet your accent, slight as it is, sounds like home to me. Is there any chance you’re from the Balkan regions or the Phanar itself?’ He flashed a wide, flattering smile and Lilya found herself smiling back in spite of her regular penchant for caution.
‘Where is home for you, Mr Agyros?’ she asked politely, thinking it best to counter a question with a question until she knew more. She’d learned to be vigilant on both fronts, direct and indirect danger. Direct danger operated under the assumption that someone knew she was in London and she had the diamond. Indirect danger operated under the premise that it only took one person to recognise her and pass that information on even inadvertently to dangerous sources.
In Cornwall at Val’s country estate, there’d been little chance of encountering anyone from the Balkan region. But London, during peace talks, was far more perilous. Danger could lurk in multiple guises. It was time to start wearing a knife beneath her gowns again.
He smiled once more and said fondly, ‘Constantinople by way of my uncle’s business in Marseilles these days.’
Lilya relaxed a little, trying to balance a very real danger against a very real paranoia. ‘Are you here long?’
Mr Agyros was probably harmless, a diplomatic aide looking to see the world and perhaps use this opportunity to gain some status back home. This meeting in the park seemed far too random to be anything other than coincidence. Still, her conscience warned, there was the indirect danger. He might tell someone …
Mr Agyros gave an elegant shrug. ‘It will depend on the negotiations.’ Then he offered her another disarming smile. ‘I’ll be here long enough to attend the Latimore rout. May I hope you’ll be in attendance as well? I find I cannot take my eyes off you, as unseemly as it is.’ They laughed at the joke; the Latimore rout was tomorrow evening.
Perhaps she was more homesick than she cared to admit or perhaps thinking of the diamond had stirred emotions and contradictions within her best left alone. Maybe this once she could indulge in conversation, nothing more, with a man from her part of the world, who’d seen the places she’d seen and walked the streets she’d walked. Lilya found herself saying, ‘I would love nothing better.’
His eyes twinkled. The dark-haired Adonis on horseback gave her a short bow from his horse and another of his wide, ready smiles, a very different face than Beldon’s. The others, sensing the conversation was at an end, made their farewells and wheeled their horses around, taking Lady Eleanor and her landau with them. Lilya watched the group go, acutely aware that Beldon studied her with curiosity.
Beldon edged his horse next to hers. ‘Isn’t it enough that you’ve gathered all the gentlemen in England to your banner, but now you must steal the hearts of all of Europe? ‘
He’d been listening. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. ‘Should I be flattered or offended that you were eavesdropping?’
‘Eavesdropping doesn’t count in public,’ he countered easily, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘Your trick won’t work twice, you know. Unlike Mr Agyros, I will not be distracted by a question. You never did answer him. Why didn’t you tell him where you’re from?’
She hadn’t really thought it would work twice either, but a girl had to try. Lilya offered a vague truth. ‘I like to be sure of people before I tell them too much.’
‘I thought you would have been delighted to see someone from your corner of the world,’ Beldon pushed.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, and this time with a smile for variation. Lilya fixed him with a coy smile. ‘Hasn’t anyone told you a gentleman doesn’t press a lady for more answers than she wants to give?’
Foiled again. Beldon stayed the course of conversation.
‘I wonder what that says of our Mr Agyros? He seemed quite interested in whatever you had to say.’ Beldon’s tone was sharp, almost defensive, as if he was eager to point out that he hadn’t been the only one guilty of a misstep.
Lilya raised her eyebrows. ‘That is precisely my point.’ She lowered her voice to confidential tones in hopes of putting an end to his enquiry. ‘If I am reticent to disclose personal information, it is my business.’
He nodded. His eyes were upon her, solemn and considering. For a moment, they might have been the only two people in the bustling, crowded park. The power of him, the leashed control that she’d perceived last night, was palpable today.
‘My apologies, Miss Stefanov. I thought simply of how lonely it is for you. England must seem a lifetime away from your homeland.’ He was unerringly polite in his deference, his face a bland mask of gentlemanly propriety, yet, like last night, he stirred her unexpectedly. Last night it had been his touch. Today, it was his words.
A tear threatened in her eye and she quickly looked away. Lilya was moved by the kind direction of Beldon’s thoughts. It was interesting to discover how others might view her interactions with her countrymen. Where she saw danger, they saw offers of companionship. But Lilya could not partake in those perceptions. The moment she set aside her awareness was the moment she’d likely be dead. It was a testimony to the irony of fate that in order to protect her countrymen she was cut off from them entirely. In turn, she suspected them, feared them for the dangers they might pose to her. Constant fear was tiring and there was sadness in knowing she could not go back to those warmer climes, to the arms of her extended family.
‘My home is here. Val and Philippa are my family now,’ Lilya said simply.
‘And me, too. I hope you consider me family as well,’ Beldon added.
‘Of course,’ Lilya amended hastily. ‘But you’ll be starting your own family soon and your life will be even less centred around your sister’s.’ They were bold words from an unmarried girl. Unmarried girls did not speak to eligible bachelors about their matrimonial plans. But it was a good way to establish distance between her and Beldon. She was family, after all. He’d said so himself. Let him regret the remark if he didn’t like the permissions it gave her.
From the tight set of his jaw, she could see he didn’t.
‘Yes, wedding bells are in my future’ was all he said before kicking his horse into motion and returning to the path.
What was wrong with him? A day ago, that pronouncement would have flooded him with satisfaction; another goal achieved, another step forwards for the Pendennys legacy. He had decided on his most likely choices. All that remained was deciding who it would be, something he could accomplish within a month.
He’d need a few weeks for dancing, for drives in the park and other social avenues to get to know the women in question before making an official offer. It would likely be Miss Braithmore. He would not be rejected. He’d danced with her later last night and she’d been amenable to his conversation, staring up at him with dark brown eyes. He would be the one to win the heiress. He could not have hoped of such a match a few years ago.
The prospect did not fill him with the usual contentment and he laid the reasons for it at Lilya’s door. Last night she’d been a potent and uncharacteristic distraction for his customary good sense. She’d been vibrant and alive in a ballroom full of pattern-card girls. There was nothing wrong with the pattern card, he reminded himself. It was a template of virtuous womanhood. The pattern card just wasn’t very exciting.
Lilya was exciting.
There was a level of wit to her conversation and her lively eyes suggested a well-formed mind full of opinions and beliefs behind them. Last night had not been an anomaly. Whatever portion of him that hoped he’d merely been dazzled by the magic of a ballroom last night had been disappointed this afternoon.
Even in the bright light of day, Lilya exuded an extraordinary beauty. The delicate line of her jaw mixed with the fire of her eyes and the sensual set of her mouth to create a combination that was both utterly feminine and yet bespoke strength. For all her looks, one should not overlook the subtle power of her, a very attractive power none the less. It had taken a large part of his self-control to keep his attentions focused on Lady Eleanor today when he’d have liked nothing better than to follow the conversation between Lilya and Mr Agyros.
Perhaps he’d merely been too distracted by Mr Agyros’s attentions towards Lilya. The man’s eyes had nearly undressed Lilya with their perusal, his stare bordering on scandalous.
Beldon knew all too well from personal experience the kinds of thoughts Lilya’s person could awaken in a man. Last night he’d not been immune to her charms. He was a man and he knew how men thought. Years ago, he’d spent the better part of a Season making sure Philippa didn’t run afoul of ballroom bounders. He was more than well armed for the role of protector. But Lilya did not seem to need a protector. She had dealt aptly with Agyros’s questions and with his own probe afterwards, making it very clear she was more capable than the usual débutante.
The last provided some level of intrigue. She’d thwarted Agyros’s questions and that raised a question of its own—why would she want to avoid answering in the first place? What was she hiding? If she did have something to hide, it went some distance in explaining that attitude of worldliness he’d noted last night, that indefinable something, that subtle aura of power that set her apart from the other girls. People who kept secrets for a long time had to be successful at deflection.
He was making enormous assumptions. For a man who prided himself on his logic, these speculations were beyond the pale of reason. First, he had no significant grounds on which to found his suppositions. He knew very little about Lilya’s life before she’d come to live with Valerian. He might do well to keep it that way, too.
His behaviour last night had been totally unlike him. The consequence was obvious. He was distracted and tempted away from his plan, his whole purpose for coming to town. This would not do, but it was no less than he deserved for straying from the course. This is what one got for giving in to temptations. An antidote was in order. He must find a way to secure his wayward thoughts in her presence. Failing that, he must avoid her altogether until the details of his marriage were settled.
Chapter Three
Avoidance was proving impossible. Lilya Stefanov was a woman who needed watching. It was the only reasonable explanation for why Beldon found his gaze drifted towards the Latimore dance floor repeatedly where she spun in the arms of Christoph Agyros. There were other less reasonable explanations as well, but Beldon quickly discarded them. As a rule, he did not deal in the unreasonable.
He’d become the de facto chaperon tonight. Philippa had pled yet another headache and Val had taken her home earlier. Beldon wondered about the legitimacy of those ‘headaches’ just as he wondered if he’d have watched Lilya anyway.
He was developing an uncanny ability of knowing when Lilya was in a room and when she had left a room; a good ability for a chaperon to have especially when one’s responsibility looked like Lilya. Positively entrancing in rose silk, she had drawn the gaze of more than one man in the ballroom tonight, Mr Agyros notably among them. The man practically had his eyes glued to her bosom, another reason why Beldon had his attentions riveted on them. It was a chaperon’s job to cull the wheat from the chaff when it came to inappropriate attentions. If Mr Agyros didn’t avert his gaze, he would soon find himself ‘culled’. Agyros looked like the proverbial hungry man at a feast.
Agyros and Lilya whirled by the ballroom entrance and Beldon noticed the Braithmores enter as they passed. Lady Eleanor and her mother saw him and began the slow move his direction. Beldon tried to imagine that Lady Eleanor was already his wife. What would it be like to spot her across a room and know she was his? Certainly looking at her now did not conjure up a host of husbandly feelings. Would he develop an awareness of her presence, knowing when she left a room without actually seeing her go?
Their affections would grow over time as their companionship deepened. In theory that was how it was supposed to work. To date, the reality had been somewhat disappointing with Lady Eleanor. After all, what was the purpose of drives in the park and rounds of balls if not to get to know one another? He’d had several opportunities to meet with her and he still felt he knew nothing about her.
Lady Eleanor and her mother approached as the set ended. Lady Eleanor would want to dance and he ought to oblige. Tonight, Lady Eleanor was dressed prettily in a gown of pastel pink with thin white ribbons for trim. She looked like a strawberry ice from Gunter’s, smooth and unruffled. She always looked smooth and unruffled.
‘Good evening, Lady Eleanor. You look delicious enough to eat.’ Beldon bowed graciously over her hand. A man should be more than satisfied with such a lovely woman to call his wife. ‘I believe the next dance is a waltz. Would you do me the honour?’
‘It would be my pleasure.’ Lady Eleanor blushed, looking so very young to his eye and yet there couldn’t be more than a year or two between her and Lilya.
Lady Eleanor leaned forwards a little and said in a small whisper, ‘Almack’s granted me permission last week. May I confess? You’ll be my first waltz at a real ball.’
‘I am doubly honoured.’ Beldon offered her his arm and escorted her on to the floor. He most properly placed his hand at her waist and felt her delicate touch at his shoulder, her flush deepening at the supposed intimacy of the contact.
‘Do not worry over a thing, Lady Eleanor, I will make sure your first waltz is most memorable,’ he reassured her.
Lady Eleanor danced with perfunctory correctness. There was nothing wrong with her steps; still, Beldon couldn’t help but compare her textbook movements with Lilya’s fluid grace, his waltz with Lilya suddenly and vividly clear in his mind. There were other comparisons, too, that rose unbidden. He rather wished they hadn’t.
Both women were as equally unknown to him, but there’d been nothing mechanical about his conversation with Lilya. She had looked him in the eye instead of over his shoulder. Their conversation topic had been nothing out of the ordinary and yet their conversation had flowed easily. There had been wit and laughter and something else indefinable he wasn’t willing to name. He was using that word ‘indefinable’ quite a bit lately when it came to Lilya. For a man who liked a very defined world, it was an uncomfortable adjective.
‘I think the decorations tonight are divine,’ Lady Eleanor was saying. ‘Pink roses are some of my favourite flowers.’
‘Yes, pink looks especially nice on you.’ Beldon turned his attentions back to Eleanor, back to the plan. He simply must try harder. It was not to his credit that he’d thought of little else except dancing with Lilya since last night. She’d felt exquisite in his arms, confident and sure of her physicality. But it had been more than that. They’d laughed together. He wanted that moment again, although he suspected once more would not be enough. Such a need was not well done of him on the eve of proposing to another.
The waltz lasted an eternity. Lady Eleanor talked of decorations and gowns, her father’s new carriage and her mama’s new hat. Somewhere in the ballroom he heard Lilya laugh, a sound throaty and mellow like an aged whisky. His eyes roamed until he spotted her rose silk, her dark head tilted, contemplating something Mr Agyros had apparently leaned forwards and said, probably while the bounder stole another glance at her bosom.
He had every intention of extricating Lilya the moment the dance was over. He was the chaperon, after all. But when the dance ended, she was nowhere to be found. She and Mr Agyros had quietly disappeared from the ballroom.
There had been no way to refuse the request politely. The gardens would be well populated tonight with couples taking the air between heated dance sets. Christoph Agyros wasn’t whisking her off to dark, unlit paths. In fact, anything remotely resembling seduction would be virtually impossible in the gardens. But there would be more privacy for conversation than what the crowded ballroom afforded. Lilya wanted to avoid that as much as she wanted to avoid the other. Too much refusal, though, would look odd.
‘Fresh air would be delightful,’ Lilya assented after they’d had taken a glass of punch on the sidelines. She’d caught sight of Beldon dancing beautifully with Lady Eleanor. There’d be no help from that quarter. She was on her own for the time being.
Outside, they walked along the paths, surrounded by others taking the night air. ‘London and all its industry intrigue me.’ Christoph waved his free arm in a generous sweep to encompass the garden. ‘Does it captivate you as well?’
