Page 36 of One Dangerous Desire
“Thank you, Your Grace. Didn’t Emily join you this evening?”
He glanced left and his eyes widened, as if he was as surprised as May not to find his daughter beside him. “She did indeed. Perhaps she’s refilling her glass or taking a bit of fresh air.”
The night had just begun, and the room was not yet crowded with enough guests to be overly warm.
“I’ll go and see if I can find her. Thank you for coming, Your Grace.”
Emily always provided a sensible perspective. May needed that. Sensibility had abandoned May the moment she’d looked into Rex’s gilded blue eyes. And let him touch her. Again.
“May, there you are!” Lady Caroline zigzagged between two couples to reach her side. “You were nowhere to be found when Henry and I arrived.” Caroline grasped May’s hand and kissed her cheek, a warmer greeting than the earl’s sister had ever offered.
“Forgive me for failing to welcome you both properly. I need more practice as a hostess. I’m forever attending to some detail and missing the party myself.” May signaled to one of the footman, who approached with a tray of properly diminutive glasses filled with a cordial.
“Thank goodness Mother enjoys hosting balls and dealing with all the fuss.” Caroline’s blonde brows lifted and her voice grew huskier. “I imagine myself as a less conventional wife. With a much less conventional husband.”
Rex had entered the room. May sensed him, felt the energy in the air shift, without needing to turn and confirm that Caroline’s hungry gaze followed Rex’s progress across the drawing room.
“Where is Lord Devenham this evening?” He was the man who should be filling May’s mind, making her cheeks flush and her breathing ragged. Regardless of the fact that he’d never achieved it before, perhaps tonight would be the night.
Caroline blinked and pulled her gaze from Rex as if she’d awakened from a daze. “Henry? He was just speaking with your father.”
Not anymore. May’s father was cloistered in a corner, whispering with the Duke of Ashworth. May silently prayed he wouldn’t proposition the duke for a loan twenty minutes into their first dinner party of the season.
“Let me see if I can find the earl.”And Emily. And some tiny sliver of composure.
Out in the hallway, she could finally breathe. Rex’s scent drifted up from her clothes, and she swiped gloved hands down her bodice and skirts, though it only seemed to stir up the aroma of his cologne. Fresh air would do the trick. A few gulps on the front balcony, and she’d resume her search for Emily and the absent earl. After ascending the stairs, she approached a set of French doors. Dueling voices halted her steps.
“Either you tell her, or I will.” Emily’s stern tone carried through the partially open door.
“We’re family, Em. Have a bit of loyalty. You’ll tell her nothing.” Devenham spoke in a half shout, half whisper.
“Henry, you’re in love with someone else.”
May closed her eyes, her breath pinched and painful in her chest.
Devenham huffed out a disgusted chuckle. “You always were too fond of romance, cousin. May Sedgwick will make me a millionaire. Her dowry will secure the estate for generations. I’ll leave love to fools.”
“And give yours to a parson’s daughter.”
A rustle of movement drew a gasp from Emily. May stepped closer to peer through the doorway. Devenham had gripped Em by the upper arms and pulled her near to whisper. “The parson’s daughter can never be my wife. I need an heiress. If not Sedgwick’s, then another like her.”
May pushed the door wider and took one step into the sitting room. “Perhaps you should leave my home now, Lord Devenham, and begin your search for that other heiress.”
“May!” Emily pulled away from the earl and started toward her.
May shook her head. “No, Em. I don’t require an explanation. I know how it works. The game of wealth for titles has never been a mystery to me.” She sought Devenham’s gaze, but he stared at the carpet. “I’ve only just realized I don’t wish to play.”
Spinning on her heel, she headed down the stairs, ignoring Emily, who called after her, and marched past the drawing room where she was utterly failing as a hostess. She sought the small, dark-paneled room where she’d started the evening linked arm in arm with Rex. After slipping into the parlor, she inhaled the sweet odor of fresh-cut peonies. Their powerful scent overtook any remnants of spice and bergamot in the air.
Pulling the thick drapes aside, she sank onto the edge of a settee, turning her body so she could stare up at the full moon glowing over Belgravia. Her hands trembled in her lap. Why tremble to learn what she already knew to be true?
“Silly woman.” She’d made marrying an aristocrat the object of a wager. Were Henry’s intentions any worse? He wished to marry her for money. Rather, her father’s money. No surprise there. Her dowry had always been what set her apart from every other debutante. She’d never been prettier or more accomplished than any of them. Just richer. And yet to be pursued for it, married for it, wasn’t enough. Perhapsshewas the romantic that Lord Devenham accused Emily of being. Was it wrong to want to be loved for whatever unique qualities she might possess rather than her million-dollar dowry?
“Wishing on the moon, are you?”
The voice that usually sent shivers skittering up her spine made her shoulders sag with relief. At least he wasn’t Emily with excuses for her cousin, or Henry, tripping over an apology. Still, Rex Leighton did rank high on her list of people she didn’t wish to see when she was feeling like a fool.
“Right now I’m wishing I was alone in this room.”
