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A maid was present to guide them up the staircases to the wide, cool, white-marbled entrance hall, through the house and out to the afternoon comfort of the back terrace. The walk itself was subtly orchestrated to show a guest the level of opulence they’d stepped into. Perhaps it was meant to remind everyone that despite the lack of a title, the Keynes family was not without funds. It seemed she was not the only one with something to prove. Elidh filed the insight away for later.
She was grateful for her father’s presence at her elbow. Whatever the message this home meant to send, it was intimidating to a girl who lived in a tiny two-room boarding-house suite on Bermondsey Street. Her father was, at least, known and familiar to her in this strange wonderland. ‘Don’t look around too much,’ he whispered. ‘A princess would expect such a setting. Our hosts are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, Daughter.’ He was playing his role of princely Italian royalty to the hilt, chin up, shoulders back, not a fearful iota in his gaze as they passed crystal-cut glass vases filled with armfuls of fresh flowers and open doors that allowed for surreptitious peeks into elegantly appointed rooms done in cool, pale colours.
Elidh could not argue with her father’s reasoning. Out on the back terrace, young girls gaped shamelessly at the graduated water ladder running down the centre of the gardens, the strategically placed statuary, the topiary trees cut in animal shapes, the plants arranged in colourful designs to draw the eye. She thought their gaping could be excused. The garden was spectacular.
‘Capability Brown’s best work, I like to argue.’ A stylishly dressed older woman with elaborately coiffed hair swanned up to them. ‘The house has been in the family for three generations. I’m Catherine Keynes, Mr Keynes’s mother and hostess for the party. Welcome to Hartswood.’
Elidh was immediately alert. Their hostess smiled politely, her tone gracious, but her eyes were sharp. ‘Forgive me, I don’t recognise you from London. You haven’t been up for the Season otherwise I would know. I know everyone.’ It was politely said, but the warning was unmistakable.
Elidh swallowed. This was their first test and their last if they failed it. But like any test, they’d prepared for it. They had a script, as her father liked to call it. He launched into that script now, bowing low and taking their hostess’s hand. He was being lavish, placing a kiss on her knuckles, his eyes holding hers, his accent thick. ‘Buongiorno, Signora Keynes. The apology is all mine. I see we have come unannounced despite my best efforts. My note must have missed you in London. I am Prince Lorenzo Balare di Fossano. Please, allow me to present my daughter, the Principessa Chiara Balare.’
He relinquished her hand and swept their hostess another extravagant bow. ‘We’d only just arrived in London when we saw the announcement and thought this would be a splendid opportunity to experience an English house party and to meet people.’ He paused long enough to look troubled. ‘I wrote, of course, enquiring about an invitation, but you’d already left. I hope we have not caused you any discomfort?’
It was cannily done; his wording already implied their appearance had been accepted. Elidh felt Catherine Keynes’s gaze sweep her, assessing her from the wide straw brim of her hat to the peeping toes of her shoes, dyed to match her gown. She’d dressed carefully for this first impression in an afternoon gown of robin’s-egg blue trimmed in expensive falls of cream lace at the short sleeves and a wide band of matching grosgrain ribbon at the waist. Rosie had outdone herself on this one. The transformation had astonished even Elidh. The fabric from her mother’s Lady Macbeth dinner gown combined with yards of lace from one of Titania’s filmy peignoirs. She was accessorised from head to toe, with tiny gold flower-shaped bobs at her ears, to the hand-painted fan at her wrist and the white sheer shawl looped through her arms. Nothing had been overlooked. She appeared both refined and fresh. Elidh wished she felt that way, too.
Assessment flickered in Catherine Keynes’s sharp eyes. Elidh could see her weighing the advantages to an additional guest who was both pretty and hopefully as polished as she looked. Elidh held the woman’s gaze with a confident smile, the sort of smile a princess would use, who did not doubt her acceptance anywhere. Catherine Keynes smiled back before she transferred her attentions to Elidh’s father. ‘It is no trouble at all, Your Highness.’
‘Call me Prince Lorenzo, per favore.’ Her father smiled graciously as if he was doing his hostess a favour by appearing at her party instead of discommoding her and creating the impossible task of finding two more rooms in a home that must already be filled to bursting if the number of girls on the back terrace was any indicator.
Catherine Keynes smiled, warmly this time, charmed by her father. ‘Allow me to introduce you to some of our guests. Rooms will be ready after tea. You will have a chance to meet my son at supper tonight. We dine at eight, with drinks in the drawing room at seven.’
They had passed the first test. A bubble of elation welled up inside Elidh. But that elation was short-lived. The prize for winning entrance to the party was to be bombarded with a barrage of names and faces to remember. Lord this, Lady that, Miss Sarah Landon with blonde ringlets in the frothy pink gown, Lady Imogen Bettancourt in the peach confection, Miss Lila Partridge in blue, the Bissell twins, Leah and Rachel, both in a lime-green muslin dotted with cool white flowers. The list went on, and those were only the lovely girls. There were the requisite mothers, but there were men, too. Brothers, uncles, fathers, cousins, who had come as well to perhaps lend additional credence to their female relations’ claims of eligibility. In short, a daunting field. The finest young girls in England were here, in a daunting home, undertaking a daunting task for which the outcome would be a single victor.
Well, it was a good thing she and her father had other goals to accomplish here. With so many pretty girls on hand, Elidh knew she didn’t have a chance, even if she’d wanted one. Now, her father would know it, too. He’d have to recognise their first priority needed to be securing a patron now that they’d seen the field first-hand.
* * *
When their rooms were prepared, Elidh was more than ready to seek the sanctuary of hers.
Rosie was waiting for her, unpacking trunks. ‘Did you see him, yet?’ She was vibrating with excited energy as she shook out a dinner gown.
‘No, we won’t see him until supper.’ Elidh untied her hat. ‘That’s better. All these clothes are so hot. Help me get out of this dress.’ She looked about the room as Rosie worked her laces loose. Even on short notice, the room carried the same opulence displayed throughout the house: pale blue walls, yards of flowing sheer white curtains at the long windows, wainscoting at the ceiling finished with intricately carved cornices, plush carpet beneath her feet, and a bed to die for—crisp linen, soft pillows, and a silk coverlet in easy-to-stain white, the ultimate in luxury.
‘There’s even a little chamber off your room for me to sleep in. My own room. That’s so much better than sharing a bed with my nieces in Upper Clapton,’ Rosie confided. ‘I’ve never seen a place so posh.’
‘I haven’t either.’ Doubt swamped Elidh. ‘Do you think we’re in over our heads, Rosie?’ They could still pull out, leave at any time. There were numerous excuses they could give. It wasn’t too late.
Rosie gathered up her gown and winked. ‘Being in over our heads is half the fun. We’ll manage, you’ll see.’
‘You’re as crazy as my father.’ Elidh stretched out on the bed.
‘Maybe so, but he hasn’t ever let us down,’ Rosie answered. Elidh thought that was debatable. She supposed it depended on how one looked at it. Rosie began going through the wardrobe, sorting through the newly unpacked gowns. ‘Do you remember when the troupe was in Prussia and the axel on the wagon broke?’ She did remember, it had been November and there’d been an early snow. ‘We had no money for rooms and repairs, so your father arranged for us to perform at the tavern in exchange for room and board. We never went hungry even when our pockets were to let.’ They’d slept in the hayloft, all of them crammed together. There’d been little comfort and less privacy, as Elidh recalled. She’d picked hay out of her clothes for days afterwards. ‘We always managed.’ Rosie sighed with nostalgia. ‘Now, what shall we wear tonight? I’ll need to get it pressed and these new skirts with their yards and yards of fabric are the very devil.’
Elidh laughed. ‘Spoken like a true lady’s maid. You pick. You’ll know what’s best.’ She would like to share Rosie’s nostalgic view of the past. Once, she had done so, but from the vantage point of the last few years, all she could see was how close to the edge they’d lived, how risky the adventure of their lives had always been. There’d never been a time of plenty, of ease, where there wasn’t a need to think about where the next meal came from. She envied the girl she’d once been, who hadn’t feared that uncertainty, who hadn’t been bothered by the unknown.
Elidh rolled to her side and stared out the window, listening to the ripple of the water ladder in the garden below. When had she changed? When had any risk become too much risk? When had she begun to crave certainty and stability? Goodness knew she wouldn’t find any of those things here. This whole scheme was the antithesis of all that.
‘What do you suppose Mr Keynes will be like?’ Rosie asked from the wardrobe. ‘Do you suppose he’s handsome?’
‘He’s certainly arrogant, to think he’ll find a bride in two weeks.’ Elidh sighed. ‘He’s audacious, too. How could he be otherwise, Rosie? I can’t imagine a serious man engineering such a spectacle, not that I need to worry. He won’t look twice at me, not with a house full of lovely girls.’ The sooner Rosie and her father accepted the fact that she couldn’t compete, the sooner they could set aside their fanciful notions.
But Rosie was undeterred. ‘There will be no talk of defeat, not so soon and with a closet of new dresses waiting to be worn. Don’t count yourself out yet. Now, come sit and let’s start to work on your hair for dinner. You have to give old Rosie a chance to work her magic and you might just be surprised.’
* * *
‘We have unexpected guests.’ Sutton’s mother met him in the hall outside the drawing room where the company was gathering before dinner, her voice low as she imparted the news. ‘Italian royalty have arrived. I’ll have them vetted of course. I’ll make enquiries immediately.’
‘I don’t like surprises.’ He’d had enough of those this week to last a lifetime.
His mother shot him a sharp look. ‘You wouldn’t be surprised if you’d been here to greet them.’ He’d spent the afternoon in the dairy and the stables, pointedly avoiding the company converging on Hartswood until the very last minute, which was fast approaching. At the stroke of seven it would all begin—the countdown to his wedding.
‘Why are they here? Does the Principessa want to try her luck?’ Sutton joked drily with a nod towards the drawing room. How odd to think his future bride was in that room right now and he had no idea who she would be. The thought was enough to unnerve him.
‘Hardly. They assure me they are here to experience an English house party. They saw the announcement in The Times.’
‘How intriguing. Guests who aren’t interested in the fortune.’ Sutton held out his arm to his mother. ‘Shall we? I can’t put it off any longer.’
He halted at the doorway, taking in the scene before him, the drawing room so full of guests it might have been a ball. There was no question of the dining room accommodating everyone. Dinner would be served in the ballroom tonight at round tables of eight. His popularity had outstripped the capacity of traditional dining arrangements. He patted his mother’s hand. ‘You’ve done well. I think every eligible girl in London is here.’
She smiled up at him. ‘And then some. The footmen have already evicted six ineligible candidates whose family trees weren’t quite as strong as they purported them to be.’ She shook her head. ‘Granddaughters of earls simply won’t hold up to scrutiny if your cousin contests the will or your marriage. We need the daughter of a titled father, a very clean, direct, connection. That’s trouble we don’t need.’ She grimaced. ‘Speaking of trouble, has there been any word from Baxter yet?’
‘No.’ But Sutton feared Baxter had eyes and ears at this party and that his cousin was merely waiting for him to single out a bride before he made his move. ‘But we’ll see him before this is done. He won’t let the money go without a fight.’ Sutton surveyed the room, taking in all the girls, all of them looking frightfully young and frightfully alike. ‘Which one is she, do you think?’
‘Your wife?’ His mother laughed.
‘No, the Italian Principessa.’ He paused, his eyes lighting on the woman by the long window; blonde hair done up in artfully braided loops, her posture straight, her gaze fixed on a point beyond the room as she looked out into the gardens, and that dress, red—startlingly so—against the backdrop of the room’s virginal palette. There was something about her that made his heart pound, as if she, too, were somehow apart from this world he was forced to inhabit and he knew. ‘It’s her. That’s the Principessa.’
‘Yes, and she’s not for you, my son. Come, let me introduce you to the others.’
* * *
Sutton spent the next half-hour of drinks in the drawing room, smiling and bowing to all the darling daughters. There were plump ones, thin ones, blondes, brunettes, redheads; girls with curls, with straight, silky tresses; girls with blue eyes, brown eyes, pink dresses, yellow dresses, satins and silks. The array was dazzling, overwhelming. His drawing room was crammed with girls waiting to meet him and his fortune. Not one of the girls held his attention. His attention was free to wander about the room at will. And it did, stopping frequently on the slender, blonde woman by the window, who stood alone sipping sherry in that stunning red dress.
By the time the butler summoned them for dinner, he’d come to a disappointing conclusion: as different as they were in appearance, the girls all shared two things in common—they giggled at everything he said even when it wasn’t particularly witty and they all wanted his money.
‘Give them time, Sutton,’ his mother cajoled, reading his mind as he took her into the ballroom for supper. They’d decided beforehand that it would be an unfair advantage for him to take a girl into dinner the first night. ‘The girls are young. The stakes are high for them. Their parents are watching their every move.’
‘Once I see them in their natural habitats, playing the pianoforte or games, or picnicking, they’ll start to act more like their true selves? Is that it?’ The words came out more cynically than he intended.
‘Dear lord, Sutton, “their natural habitats”? Really? You make this sound like a zoo.’
‘Tell me I’m wrong.’ He was starting to think his fabulous idea of a house party was a mistake and now his ballroom was full of dinner tables and moon-eyed girls. He’d never wanted to be back down in his stables so badly.
She tapped his sleeve with her fan as he walked her to her place. ‘Cream will rise to the top, dear boy, just wait and see.’ Sutton hoped there was enough time. In his experience at the dairy, cream took a while to separate. He wasn’t sure he had that much time.
Sutton made his way to his table, disappointed to find himself boxed in by Miss Lila Partridge on his left and Miss Imogen Bettancourt on his right, their beaming parents beside them ensuring his attention remained fixed on their daughters. A quick glance around the ballroom revealed even more disappointing news. The elusive lady in red was seated at a table near the door, lucky her. She could escape. He watched as she smiled to her tablemates, laughing as she leaned close to the gentleman beside her. She might be having the best time of anyone present and she was clearly not interested in him, not in the least, which suddenly made her, without doubt, the most intriguing woman in the room.
Chapter Five (#uf585f36e-9592-5aa7-bc12-7d868924a2d5)
The first thing Elidh noticed about Sutton Keynes was that he wasn’t interested: in dinner, in the women around him, or in any of the proceedings. He most decidedly didn’t want to be here and, unlike her, he was doing nothing to hide his displeasure over the situation. He was not the showman she’d anticipated. While she laughed and flirted and interspersed her comments with a handful of Italian exclamations, pretending to enjoy herself, he sat woodenly at his table, surrounded by pretty dolls who catered to his slightest indicator of interest.
He might as well have been a doll himself for all the responsiveness he showed. A very handsome doll, though. He had his mother’s dark honey hair, thick with a hint of a wave that saved it from being straight. The candlelight in the ballroom picked up the honey hues, causing them to wink temptingly like veins of gold in a mine. And an open face. She liked that. The firm mouth, the strong nose, the eyes that expressed exactly how he felt at being here. Trapped. She couldn’t see the colour of his eyes at this distance, but she could see how they felt. They were restless, always scanning the room as if he were seeking a way out.
It was an outlandish thought that made no sense. Why would he be wanting to escape his own party? A party he’d planned for the express purpose of finding a wife? If it was not escape he sought, perhaps it was a particular woman he was looking for? His gaze quartered the room again and Elidh felt a little rill of awareness tremble down her spine, accompanied by the sensation that he was looking for her. It took all her bravado not to sink down in her chair, to keep her eyes and attentions fixed on the men at her table, all of whom might be candidates for her father’s play.
She’d felt his eyes on her in the drawing room, his gaze coming back to the window where she’d stood. She’d been careful not to turn around or to cultivate his attention just as she was careful now to be immersed here at her own table. Should he look in her direction, he would see a woman who was enjoying a good meal in a beautiful setting, and enjoying her popularity at her table, giving no thought to her wife-hunting host. But in both cases, it seemed her attempts to keep herself separate from the cluster of girls around him had created the opposite effect. Even now, she could feel his gaze stop on her table. She must put herself beyond his reach. Surely he would forget all about her soon enough if she wasn’t there to be remembered, especially with so many other girls clamouring for his attentions.
Elidh rose from the table. The delicious supper was coming to a close and she felt a keen need to escape their host’s gaze, keen enough to risk violating tradition. A lady didn’t dare leave the table before the hostess gave the signal, but perhaps with the unconventional seating arrangements and her own table so close to the door, no one would notice. She chose to risk it. ‘Gentlemen, if you will excuse me a moment. I feel slightly faint and in need of some air after such a lovely meal.’ Eight courses. She and her father had never eaten so well. Sometimes they had eight meals all week.
Outside the ballroom, Elidh searched for a door, an exit, anything that led to fresh air and privacy. When she didn’t find one, she settled for a velvet bench set before a large window at the end of the dark hall. No one would notice her there unless they were looking. She needed a moment alone, a moment to think before the post-supper activities began. Sutton Keynes’s visual attentions had unnerved her. Perhaps she was being overdramatic. Perhaps she’d even imagined them simply because they were the one thing she didn’t want. That was the deal she’d made with herself, despite her father’s wishes.
She was here to help her father find a patron. Nothing more. As the Prince and Principessa, they could sing her father’s praises incognito, secure a patron and disappear, resurfacing for the patron as themselves. The patron need never see the Italians again. Sutton Keynes’s attentions made the latter harder to do. If he fixed his attentions on her, disappearing became not only a difficult feat, but a potentially dangerous one.
Perhaps she could blame tonight on the red dress and Rosie’s artful design of braids. She’d hardly recognised herself when she’d looked in the mirror. That woman had been stunning—sophisticated, self-assured. That woman could charm a patron and she had. She could not have done otherwise. She needed the gown, the hair, and the cosmetics to charm the table, to do her duty to her father and to herself. Their survival through the winter would depend on their success here. The gown had succeeded admirably in that regard. Men had been hard pressed to look away. Apparently, even Sutton Keynes, despite the fact they’d been seated on the opposite side of the ballroom.
Yes, that made sense. Tonight was all because of the dress. Without the red dress, she would likely have been invisible. Tomorrow, dressed in pastels like the other girls, she would not stand out and Keynes would forget about her. Elidh closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, starting to feel better. She would give herself just a few minutes more of solitude and she’d go back to the party. She was seeing trouble where there was none. She’d conjured a crisis when the man hadn’t even crossed a room to meet her. He hadn’t even spoken with her yet and it would stay that way.
‘I thought I might find you out here.’
Elidh stiffened at the low voice in the dark. She was alone no longer. She opened her eyes slowly, careful not to jump or to show signs of being startled, careful to buy herself time, time to remember her role, time to hide her fear. A princess was never startled. A princess had the right to be wherever it was she wanted to be. Only guilty people startled when they were found in places they weren’t supposed to be in. But there was no hiding the surprise from her eyes when she saw who was standing there: Sutton Keynes in all his restless-eyed glory.
‘You’ve picked a beautiful place to hide. The view is lovely in the evening with the moon out and the lanterns lit.’ He was so much taller close up. His shoulders broader, his face more handsome, his mouth friendlier than it had been at a distance, the woodenness of him gone, perhaps because now he was smiling. At her and it was dazzling. He bent forward in a bow. ‘A rose for a rose,’ he said gallantly, offering her his plucked offering, liberated from one of the centrepieces that decorated each table. ‘You are a veritable rose in bloom tonight. I apologise for not introducing myself sooner.’
That was her invitation, her cue. Dear lord, it was show time, the curtain was going up on the next scene of this foolish play her father had crafted, and she wasn’t ready: not for the azure eyes that sparked like flames in the dusky hall, or the commanding height of him, or that smile. She’d expected an arrogant man and she’d planned on not being attracted to him, because she couldn’t be. She would garner a patron for her father and leave. She was not playing the same game as her host and as such, she was not prepared for this. She was a two-week wonder, nothing more. And yet, she could not deny the thrill that coursed through her as she took his rose. Perhaps this was how Cinderella felt in the story when the Prince had approached her at the ball—delighted, even knowing that the moment couldn’t last, but excited at the idea of it all the same.
Elidh gathered her wits. This was no fairy tale. Later, when this scheme of her father’s was finished, she could look back on the encounter and indulge in it. But not now. Now, she had to think and act like a princess. A princess wouldn’t sit here and gape as if a handsome man had never spoken to her. A princess would take his attention as her due. ‘Shouldn’t you be in the ballroom with the others instead of playing truant in the hall?’ she teased, once more the vivacious, confident woman from the table.
‘Shouldn’t you?’ he responded easily, his blue-flame eyes turning merry. ‘I think your table finds itself duller for the lack of your company.’ So he had noticed. She’d not imagined it.
The hallway suddenly seemed overheated. Elidh flicked open her fan. Perhaps she could appear cool if she felt cool. ‘My table will survive. You will be missed. I will not be. I dare say the ladies in the ballroom would be glad for one less woman in the room.’
‘They will understand that I am the host and it’s my duty to greet all my guests. If I am out here in the hall chasing you down, it’s because you’ve eluded me, or is it that you’ve avoided me, Principessa?’
Elidh fluttered her fan, managing a look of sophisticated amusement. ‘Allora, an introduction is superfluous, then. You already know who I am and I already know who you are.’
‘You have not answered my question, Principessa. Are you avoiding me?’
‘You are already surrounded by so many admirers, you hardly need to add one more.’ Elidh snapped her fan shut and speared him with a piercing stare full of haughty, royal contemplation. ‘So, I will hazard another reason for your presence in the hall. You don’t want to be in there. It’s been written all over your face the whole evening. You were looking for a reason to escape and I gave you one.’ Perhaps boldness would drive him into retreat.
Instead, the remark won her a laugh. ‘You are beautiful and insightful, Principessa. I can see now why my mother thought you’d be a delightful addition to our party.’ He offered his arm. ‘Come walk with me and tell me how you find our part of the world. In exchange, I’ll show you the portrait gallery, it’s just up ahead. If you’d kept going, you would have run into it.’
Her mouth went dry at the request. Any other girl in the ballroom would have craved such an opportunity. But to her, it was a reminder of how real the game had become and how fast. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ Elidh asked, but she was already slipping her arm through his and strolling down the corridor away from the faint clink of dishes and the murmur of indistinct conversation.
He arched a slim, dark brow. ‘I don’t know. Are you planning to compromise me?’ It was a wicked joke. He lowered his voice to a mock whisper of conspiracy, making fun of the game he’d devised himself. ‘I do suspect some desperate sorts might try, but not on the first night when everyone considers themselves still in the running.’ It was further proof for her claim that he didn’t want to be here, that he’d been looking for an escape. But still, how odd to have designed a scenario one loathed and then forced one’s own self to play along with it.
He leaned close to her ear and she breathed in the pleasant scent of sandalwood and basil, all man and summer. It was enough to intoxicate any girl. Even her, Elidh feared. ‘Perhaps I should tell you, Principessa, we have taken every security measure to ensure such a mishap doesn’t happen. There are guards posted outside my bedchamber so that I am not surprised upon retiring. I assure you, that’s not usually the case for most English house parties. Quite the opposite, in fact.’
His whispered confession coaxed a laugh from her. ‘A necessary but unfortunate precaution under the circumstances, I’m afraid,’ Elidh paused, remembering an incident from their travels. ‘And not quite as unique as you might think, if that brings you any consolation. There was a duc we knew who had guards posted day and night outside his daughter’s bedchamber the week before her wedding for fear of a kidnapping attempt by his rival.’ The story was true, only the implications he’d draw from it were false. They hadn’t been guests, but paid workers hired for entertainment. She gave a light laugh, enjoying too much the refreshing boldness of her role. The Principessa was a vivacious, charming young woman, so much fun to portray, so different than the self plain Elidh showed the world. It was like the inside of her had come to live on the outside. And yet, she must be cautious. Mr Keynes needed a reminder about her unsuitability.
She gave him a soft, reassuring gaze. ‘You may rest easy, Mr Keynes. You needn’t fear such antics from me. I will make no move to compromise you.’
He smiled, warm and charming, so charming she forgot to be nervous. After the woodenness he’d displayed at dinner it was surprising to find he could put a girl at ease. ‘No, not from you. Perhaps that’s why we’re strolling the portrait gallery. I have nothing to fear from you. My mother said you were here to take in the house party, nothing more. Is that true?’
Elidh sensed a test in those words. His eyes were steady on her, looking for affirmation as he continued. ‘You, Principessa, are a safe harbour in a veritable storm of female attentions.’ There was a rueful tone about him now, as if he regretted the safety of her, as if he wished she might pose more of a danger to him. If he only knew, she was quite dangerous to him, to his fortune, more danger than he wanted in fact if he chose to pursue her. But that was not her intention, to encourage that pursuit. She would keep both of them safe by establishing her distance.
She faced him with another soft smile, making the implication of her words sound reassuring instead of cruel. ‘It seems we are in agreement, then. You are safe for me as well.’ Sutton Keynes would know precisely what she meant by that safety, that a title as lofty as hers could not be courted by a man who had only a fortune to offer. The Keynes were wealthy gentry and soon to be even wealthier, but they were not titled and they were not Italian. Her father would be reeling if he knew how the ruse he’d designed to attract the wealthy bachelor was now being used to push him away.
But subtlety was not her friend. If Sutton Keynes knew what she intended in that message, he did not let on. Instead, he held her gaze with blue eyes that sent butterflies fluttering in her stomach. ‘What do you mean by that, Principessa?’
She was going to have to be blunt, and she would be, right after she calmed those butterflies. Elidh looked down where her gloved hand lay on his dark sleeve. It was not hard to feign a moment of awkwardness. Other than on stage with people who’d been like family to her, she’d never been this close to a man before, never flirted on her feet. She’d always had a script telling her what to do. But she was on her own in the hallway. ‘Surely you already understand, I could never consider entertaining an offer such as the one you need to make at the end of the party.’
There. The words were out, gently spoken, and all the tawdry unspoken implications that went with them: that aside from the difference in their stations, his search for a wife in this manner was scandalous to a well and high-born girl of her rank, and that the conditions surrounding the attainment of his money were even more so. She was firmly waving him off, knowing that any girl in the ballroom would gasp at treating the rich Mr Keynes in such a manner. Then again, they’d come to play his game. She had not.
To his credit, Mr Keynes took the rebuke smoothly, as he apparently took all things, except ballrooms full of girls he’d invited but appeared not to want. ‘Of course not. I would not think to presume. I appreciate the clarification.’ He cleared his throat. ‘May I ask, Principessa, are you always this plain-spoken?’
She glanced up with a coy smile on her lips. ‘A necessary measure for one in my position, Mr Keynes. I find it prevents unpleasant surprises, much like your bedroom guards.’
‘Touché.’ He pressed his free hand over his heart in an exaggerated gesture, his eyes laughing as if to reassure her she had not truly hurt his feelings. ‘Now that’s settled, we can move on with our evening. Might I persuade you to call me Sutton?’
‘Familiarity is dangerous, Mr Keynes. I thought we had established that,’ Elidh cautioned.
‘We’ve already established there is no danger here. We said nothing about first names,’ he countered easily. ‘Besides, I’m about to show you my...ancestors. Surely one can’t get more familiar than that.’ He was a dreadful tease. For a man who gave the appearance of eschewing crowds, he was extraordinarily confident and funny when he was alone. Yet one more thing she could add to the list of items she knew about Sutton Keynes. He was a charming man possessed of a sense of humour, who’d arranged a party he didn’t want. There was a mystery in that. If she was smart, she would leave it alone. To solve it would be to know him and to know him might lead to other things she’d not come here for. She’d do best to leave the mystery alone, make her excuses and walk back into the ballroom. But that’s not what Cinderella had done and it wasn’t what she was going to do either. This was a moment out of thousands. Surely it would not endanger her masquerade entirely if she prolonged that moment, just this once.
Elidh laughed up at him. ‘Well, if we’re about to view your ancestors, you should call me Chiara.’ She would take the middle ground and enjoy this interlude now and worry about it later.
He led her through the gallery, narrating with dry humour as they went. ‘Shall we start with my uncle, the man who’s caused this whole mad tangle? That’s him right there just to the left, Sir Leland Keynes, my father’s brother. He was knighted for establishing a British presence in the extremely lucrative Soojam Valley of Kashmir, a place noted for its sapphires. Too bad he hadn’t found some more. He might have been made baron and this whole fiasco could have been avoided.’
Elidh furrowed her brow. ‘How so?’
He looked surprised for a moment and she worried over a misstep. Should she have known? Was the reason obvious to anyone but her? ‘Because everything would have been entailed,’ he explained, ‘Nothing could have stopped my cousin from getting his hands on it. Not even if I married the Queen herself.’ The bitterness was self-evident in his tone. She didn’t understand entirely why. The gossip column had only provided so much detail.
They started to stroll again, moving on to the next portrait, this one of a great-grandfather on his mother’s side. ‘You make it sound as if you don’t want the money.’ Elidh slid him a sideways glance. She couldn’t imagine not wanting that much money or the security that came with it. ‘Or is it the marrying you’re opposed to?’
‘Both, I suppose, but especially the latter. I doubt any one of those women in there is interested in me. I am just the living embodiment of British pound notes.’ He chuckled drily, but she could see the admission bothered him. ‘I am sure you understand.’ He sighed, his blue eyes seeking hers, two sombre flames. Oh, how that gaze seared her with its attention, its intensity, a slice of his soul on display. His voice was quiet, thoughtful. ‘It’s ironic. You are a stranger to me, entirely. But you are the only one here I can confess that to who would know how it feels to lose their humanity, to become a representation of something other than who they truly are.’
Elidh was silent. For a moment, she mistook his meaning and thought he’d somehow guessed her ruse and seen through the disguise. Then she understood and the knife of guilt twisted a little deeper. She’d not come here to mislead this man. She hadn’t her father’s nerves for deep schemes. She tried to push the guilt away. An attractive man was showering her with attention. But that only made it worse. He was showering the Principessa with attention. Sutton Keynes would never look twice at plain, twiggy Elidh Easton, a girl who knew nothing about titles and fortunes, who was, in fact, the embodiment of what he professed to hate: a representation of something other than her true self.
Chapter Six (#uf585f36e-9592-5aa7-bc12-7d868924a2d5)
She’d been worth leaving the party for. The promise of that red dress had not disappointed. He’d feared it might, that she might be all dress and nothing else—a red-silk illusion best enjoyed at a distance, like the other girls who had nothing on the inside or, worse, like Anabeth Morely, who’d been all kinds of soft and beautiful on the outside but cruel on the inside. She’d had no qualms about destroying a young man’s heart.
They stopped before another portrait, this one of a funny-looking gentleman with a long nose, protuberant, froglike eyes and a powdered wig, a toad of a man in demeanour and build, but highly ambitious and resourceful. ‘Randolph Sutton Keynes, my namesake of sorts. His service to King George I earned him this house. It certainly wasn’t his looks.’ He tried for levity and fell short. She was withdrawing and had been since his remark about being an object. He couldn’t blame her. It was hardly the sort of conversation one had with a stranger at a party, nor was it the sort of conversation he was used to having with others. As a rule, he didn’t make a habit of self-disclosing.
‘Forgive me, I’ve made you uncomfortable. I’ve taken terrible advantage of you with my maudlin sentiments.’ He was doing it again. Pouring out his thoughts. ‘It’s just that everything has happened so fast. Last week I could take refuge in my club like any other gentleman. Then the announcement came out and now I can’t step foot anywhere, my club included, without someone approaching me with an introduction, or producing another female to meet.’
What was wrong with him? He blamed it on the dark intimacy of the hallway and the emotions of the week, and her own, welcoming boldness, not that a gentleman should ever take advantage of such a trait. She’d been open with him and he had been open with her in turn. She made him feel as if he could tell her anything. Perhaps it was because she’d made it clear she was not interested in the game of the party. Or perhaps it was because she was a stranger, someone he’d never see again. Maybe, in some way, that made it easier to pour out his heart. He sensed she would never take advantage of that knowledge, never tell another soul. Whereas, if he told anyone else in the ballroom, the news would circulate within minutes. London couldn’t keep a secret if its life depended on it.
‘I don’t mind, truly. You’ve barely had time to grieve your uncle and yet there are expectations that must immediately be managed, regardless.’
