The Secrets of the Heart. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ Lord Edgar Wexter, heir to one of the premier estates in Sussex.

      All in all, Gabrielle Laurence was at this moment a very happy young woman, which explained her sudden chagrin when she belatedly realized that the young viscount she had been regaling with the latest gossip about Princess Caroline was no longer listening to her but instead staring in the general direction of the doorway, his usually vacant blue eyes glazed over with slavish admiration.

      Gabrielle sighed, snapping open her fan to furiously beat at the air beneath her softly dimpled chin. “I’d look,” she said to herself—for the viscount certainly didn’t hear her, and probably wouldn’t if she screamed the words at him—“but I already know what I would see. It’s that overdressed ape St. Clair, isn’t it?”

      No matter where she was, Gabrielle knew she could not for long escape hearing about Baron Christian St. Clair, arbiter of fashion, purveyor of inane wit, and the single man who held the power of social life or death over the members of the ton.

      No matter what she was doing, her enjoyment of the moment could be instantly reduced to ashes by his entrance onto the scene, where he immediately became the cynosure of all eyes, the center of the social universe.

      The man wielded more power than the Prince Regent, held more social consequence than Beau Brummell had ever commanded, and was more sought after than the Duke of Wellington, hero of the late war against Bonaparte.

      It was indecent the way Society fawned over the man, adopting his ridiculous fashions, aping his effeminate ways, shunning green peas on Tuesdays because he did, strolling rather than riding in the park because he abhorred horses, eagerly hopping through each foolish hoop he set up for them as if his every drawled inanity were gospel, his every soulful sigh to be worried over, his every smile to be cherished as if a gift from the gods.

      It was enough to make Gabrielle Laurence wish she could dare turning her back on the man.

      Which, of course, she couldn’t, not without risking social disaster.

      But that did not mean she would fawn over him the moment he entered a room the way those giggling debutantes and their hovering mamas were doing now as St. Clair leisurely made his way down the long ballroom, his loyal trio of dull wrens undoubtedly freed to go their own way now that their leader was in his glory.

      Counting slowly to ten, and waiting until the last possible moment, until she could absolutely feel the man’s presence behind her, Gabrielle blinked rapidly to put a sparkle in her wide, tip-tilted green eyes, spread her mouth in a welcoming smile, and turned, her hand extended gracefully as she trilled, “La, St. Clair, I would know you were approaching even if I were to be suddenly struck deaf. The visible stir your presence makes in a room is almost akin to that of a Second Coming. All in blue this evening, I see. I believe the viscount is nearing tears, so overcome is he by your exquisite presence.”

      “Miss Laurence, I vow you bid fair to unman me with your sweet compliments,” St. Clair intoned, bowing over her hand, the touch of his firm, dry lips searing her skin, a shiver of awareness, of stubborn, defensive dislike skipping down her spine as his blue-green gaze lifted and met hers, holding her in thrall for several heartbeats. “Zounds, but I can yet again feel my puny attempts at brilliance fading into nothingness, faced with your overwhelming beauty.”

      “Which you have so very kindly served to bring into fashion, my lord,” Gabrielle replied sweetly, inwardly gritting her teeth at the infuriating knowledge that she was speaking the truth. If St. Clair had used his seemingly bubbleheaded yet razor-sharp wit to comment disparagingly on her red hair she might as well have retired to the country and taken the veil for all her chances of ever becoming a success in Mayfair.

      For despite Gabrielle’s planning, all her careful preparation to take London by storm, she knew she owed the man considerable thanks for his unexpected championing of her, and it galled her no end to admit it.

      Yet admit it she did, tonight and every time she was in his company, for if she was young and somewhat sure of herself, she was not stupid. Her ritual obsequiousness was the unspoken price she nightly had to pay for St. Clair’s continued public favor. Shylock, in comparison, could not have been more insidiously demanding than Baron Christian St. Clair when he had called for his “pound of flesh.”

      “I’ve visited your tailor just this afternoon, my lord,” the young viscount piped up after nervously clearing his throat, for he had been hovering around Gabrielle for the past quarter hour, partly because it did him no harm to be seen with her, but mostly in the hope St. Clair would appear, for everyone already knew St. Clair had been making it a point to single out Miss Laurence first at any engagement he favored. “I’ve commissioned an entire wardrobe from the man, paying him double if he has half of it complete next week,” the young man ended, clearly proud of himself.

      “Indeed.” St. Clair inclined his head apologetically to Gabrielle for having to desert her to speak with the viscount, then turned to the young man, inspecting him through the stemmed, gilt-edged quizzing glass he leisurely lifted to his left eye. “How commendable of you, my lord, and how woefully overdue. Ah, that was too bad of me. Please, my lord, forgive my naughty tongue. However, if I may be so bold as to inquire,” he drawled, allowing the quizzing glass to fall to midchest, for the piece was suspended from his neck by a thin ivory silk band, “would you tell me what colors you selected?”

      The viscount swallowed down hard, making it painfully clear to everyone that his throat had gone desert dry. “Green, Clarence blue—and dove gray, I believe. Did I choose correctly?” he asked dully, as if already sorrowfully convinced he had erred in his choices.

      St. Clair allowed time for the silence to grow and for their near neighbors to lean closer to hear his pronouncement when it came. “Bien. Excellent choices, my lord,” he exclaimed at last, beaming at the young viscount. And then he frowned. “Oh dear, how do I put this delicately? I fear you will have to shed a few pounds in order to do credit to the cut of the jacket, my lord, not that anything I say is of the slightest consequence. Still, may I suggest you stable your mount and walk yourself briskly through the park each day for the promenade? That should rid you of your, um, bulges in no time. Don’t you think so, Miss Laurence?”

      Longing to tell him that she thought it would be lovely if the visibly wilting viscount were to quickly search out his backbone and summarily stuff St. Clair’s quizzing glass down the baron’s gullet, Gabrielle smiled and said, “I have always believed judicious exercise to be healthful, sir.”

      “Ah, exactement, Miss Laurence,” St. Clair responded just as Lady Undercliff’s overpaid musicians struck up yet another waltz. “And, so saying, perhaps you would honor me with your participation in the dance, another highly desirable form of healthful exercise?”

      As social suicide was not on Gabrielle’s agenda for this or any evening, she dropped into a graceful curtsy and then allowed St. Clair to guide her onto the dance floor even as other couples joined them, the floor rapidly becoming crowded with persons eager to prove their agreement with the baron’s prescription for “healthful exercise.”

      At last they were alone—or as alone as any two people could be on the dance floor—and now their private war could recommence. St. Clair lightly cupped Gabrielle’s slim waist with his right hand while she rested hers in his left, their bodies precisely two and one half feet apart. A slight pressure from St. Clair’s hand moved Gabrielle into the first sweeping turn of the waltz, and she smiled up at him, saying, “I do so loathe you, St. Clair.”

      His smile was equally bright as he appeared to enjoy her opening salvo of the evening, for they had been throwing verbal brickbats at each other from their first meeting, exchanges Gabrielle could not remember СКАЧАТЬ