An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(66)

Kyria gave Megan a swift, assessing glance, and a small smile touched her lips when she saw the corsage on Megan’s wrist. Stepping forward, she greeted Megan with a peck on the cheek, murmuring, “You look beautiful, just as I thought you would.”

Linking her arm through Megan’s, Kyria said, “Theo, why don’t you and Miss Henderson come with us? Papa’s carriage will be too crowded with all of you.”

As they walked out to the carriage, Kyria leaned closer, confiding to Megan in a whisper, “I want to make sure I am there when you arrive. I am anticipating with great glee the look on Lady Scarle’s face.”

“I cannot imagine that anyone will look at me much, Mrs. McIntyre, when I am standing beside you.”

Kyria let out a light laugh. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Miss Henderson. Besides, everyone is quite accustomed to seeing me, whereas you are someone new and different. Everyone will be wondering who you are.”

“Theo and I will be considered the luckiest men there tonight, to be with two women as beautiful as you,” Rafe put in diplomatically in his lazy drawl.

“I feel a little like Cinderella at the ball,” Megan confessed.

Theo smiled at her, kicking up a clutch of nerves in her stomach. “Just so long as you don’t disappear at midnight.”

“I think I can guarantee that I will not.” Megan could not keep from smiling back. How could this man be a murderer?

But he was, and she had to remember that. Theo Moreland was her enemy. She turned her head away, breaking their locked gazes, and kept it that way for the rest of the ride.





CHAPTER 13




The McIntyres’ carriage pulled into a long line of carriages that rolled down the driveway to the front door of the Cavendish Museum. People were streaming up the steps and into the house, the men in formal black and the women decked out in the finest satins and laces, gems glittering at their throats and ears.

Megan looked out the window at the sight of the richly dressed crowd, unable to suppress her excitement. She was not one who yearned for the glitter of wealth and sophistication, but she had to admit that it wouldn’t be bad to participate in this sort of life every once in a while.

Inside the house, many of the exhibits had been removed or pushed back against the walls, opening up the large rooms to the crowd. The largest of the rooms had been emptied completely, and a small group of musicians were set up at one end to provide music.

They had scarcely entered the house when Megan felt the same uneasy feeling of being watched that she had experienced the other day as she walked home. A quick survey of the place provided the reason. Lady Helena Scarle was standing on the stairs—the better, Megan suspected, to be seen by all—staring down at Megan with hot, angry eyes. Her lovely face was transformed for an instant into a grotesque mask of fury before she managed to pull it back into a cool, politely smiling facade. She turned to the man beside her and gazed raptly into his eyes, letting out a sparkling laugh at some witticism.

If the lady was playing this little scene for Theo’s benefit, Megan thought, she had miscalculated badly. Theo, his head turned to listen to a remark Rafe had made, was not even looking at Lady Helena.

Megan turned toward Kyria, who cast her a devilish grin. Obviously she, too, had witnessed Lady Scarle’s reaction.

“Come, let me introduce you around,” she told Megan, taking her hand and leading her toward a group of women.

Megan could see the interest and speculation in the other women’s eyes as Kyria introduced her, saying only that she was a friend of hers from America.

“Another American?” one of the women said, lifting an eyebrow. “How unusual. You are the second American I have met tonight.”

“Really?” Megan replied, not sure what she could say to that.

“Yes. What was that girl’s name—you remember, the one with that banker fellow, Barchester.”

“Oh, yes. Quiet little thing—can’t say I remember,” the woman on her left replied.

“Barchester?” Megan repeated, her stomach knotting. An American girl with Mr. Barchester?

She glanced around the room, hoping that she looked only mildly curious.

“Yes. Can’t say as I see them right now.”

“Some sort of Irish name, wasn’t it?” her companion added.

Megan had little doubt now that the women were talking about Deirdre. Mr. Barchester must have brought her to the ball with him. The thought made her a little panicky. What if Theo heard Deirdre’s last name and remembered it as Dennis’s last name? At least, she thought, she and her sister were very different in coloring, so with luck Theo would not guess that they were related, even if he met Deirdre.

As she and Kyria strolled around the room, Megan glanced about unobtrusively, looking for her sister. Perhaps she should go to the stairs, as Lady Scarle had done, she thought, so that she could look over the crowd better.

They had covered most of the downstairs when Theo and Rafe rejoined them. Rafe swept his wife off for a dance, and Megan was left alone with Theo.

“I have been besieged by chaps wanting an introduction to you,” he told her, his eyes warm on her face.

“They probably think I am an American heiress since I am with your family. Just tell them I am the tutoress, and they will melt away.”

He grinned. “Perhaps I should try that—although I fear it would scare off only a portion of them. I told most of them that your dance card was full.”