Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)(40)

White nodded, as if he regularly dispensed advice on women to lovelorn lords. “Are you wondering if you can trust her? Hypothetically, of course.”

“Oh, I know I can’t do that. What I really want to know is…” Gareth’s thoughts slowed like sap. He really wanted to know if his near-obsession with a woman whose name he didn’t even know would end if he took her to bed. He wanted to know if he’d ever eradicate that cold, lonely emptiness in his heart, the one that still longed to have people about him he could not intimidate.

He wanted to know when his mind had split on the subject of Madame Esmerelda. One half demanded he take her in simple, sexual conquest. The other wanted to…to make her his friend. He swallowed.

That wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Not after the way he’d behaved.

He doubted he’d ever see her eyes cloud with lust again. Not when he’d shown her what an ass he really was. He glanced up at White, who watched him attentively. Envy at the man’s calm complacence flickered in Gareth’s breast. He’d wager White knew what to do in situations like this one.

“White,” he said uncomfortably, “what I really want to know is—do you know how to apologize to a woman?”

THE CLOCK SHOWED ten minutes before eight. Ned’s gut clenched and beads of sweat dampened his forehead. The Arbuthnots’ annual gathering should have been no cause for consternation. But Ned had a plan and it stewed, like an indigestible lump of gristle, deep in his stomach. His every instinct told him he should stop the madness he’d set in motion before it sprouted heads like a mythical hydra. His infernal sense of honor had been twinging all day. Everything he had ever been taught counseled him that what he schemed was wrong. Really, really wrong, in a life-changing, reputation-destroying way.

This would not have been much of a test if the work had been easy. He knew what needed to be done. Madame Esmerelda had told him the matter was entirely in his hands. Her words tumbled through his mind, over and over.

Don’t trust me, she’d said.

But how could Ned not trust her? Long ago, she’d predicted he would win free of the deep malaise that gripped him. He had. She’d predicted Ned would make something worthwhile of himself, something worth living for. He hoped that he would. But now, he sensed that awful darkness lurking, a vile monster hiding just beyond the periphery of his vision.

Not trust Madame Esmerelda?

If he couldn’t trust her, he couldn’t trust that she had been right that day so long ago, when she’d told him to live. He couldn’t believe she’d seen a future for him, free of that stultifying despair. If she hadn’t seen the future then all Ned’s hopes for his future were lies.

She couldn’t be wrong. He wouldn’t let her be.

This, Ned concluded, was a test.

He couldn’t rely on anyone else. He couldn’t rely on Madame Esmerelda’s tasks. He couldn’t even assume Lady Kathleen’s icy elegance would bring Blakely to his knees. No. Ned would make sure Blakely married her, even if he had to trap them into it.

But Blakely had not yet arrived.

In the half hour since Ned had arrived at the Arbuthnots’ soiree, he’d been watching Lady Kathleen from the corner of his eye. He would have been aware of her even without his plan. His chest constricted every time she drew breath. It was a perfectly natural response, he told himself, after what he’d planned.

Even now, across the wide expanse of the great room, he sensed her. She was dressed in a white gown that would have been simple, were it not for the hundreds of brilliants sewn into it, in patterns that dazzled his eye every time she moved. They made her blond hair look almost white, as if it were made of platinum.

She, on the other hand, had spent her evening looking everywhere else—at the other men who danced attendance on her, strutting ravens all, at the orchestra performing in the corner, even up at the ceiling, patterned in red paint and gold leaf. She’d looked at him once—a long, searching glance—and then colored and looked away.

Directly opposite his quarry stood his second group of players. To wit: There was Laura, Blakely’s sister. She stood by Ned’s mother, a stick-thin matron, graying hair twisted and curled and adorned with flowers that reminded him of spring. And close by these two ladies was Lady Bettony, an inveterate gossip, whose talent for spreading rumors was surpassed only by the keenness of her observation.

Ned met Laura’s gaze across the ballroom. She gave him a terse nod. She was ready; she understood the task Ned had appointed for her. Laura had been curious, and therefore easily bribed. He’d given her Madame Esmerelda’s address, in exchange for her services tonight.

It was five minutes before eight now, and Blakely still had not appeared.

Lady Kathleen had betrayed tiny signs of nervousness all evening, which Ned detected even from this distance. Her manners were more formal; her light laugh perhaps a touch heavier than usual.

Hardly surprising, given the circumstances.

After all, Ned had sent her a note.

Correspondence with an unmarried lady was a breach of etiquette. Correspondence suggesting that she meet him to explore the unmarked servants’ quarters at the Arbuthnots’ was downright barbaric. But he hadn’t suggested anything truly indelicate. Instead, he’d thought of that look on her face. For all her haughty airs, she’d almost seemed to enjoy talking to Ned. Strange; inexplicable, even. But then, of course fate would serve Madame Esmerelda’s purposes.