her butler.
‘This was just delivered for you, madam.’ Benson offered the silver tray. ‘I took the liberty of asking the rider to wait, in case there is a reply,’ he added helpfully.
Mariah could feel Darian’s tension as the two of them watched their hostess break the seal on the letter before quickly scanning its contents. Mariah actually held her breath as she waited for Clara Nichols’s response, which for the moment appeared to be only a displeased frown.
‘What is it, my dear?’ Richard Nichols called out across the room.
A pout appeared on Clara Nichols’s too-red lips. ‘The Prince Regent is unable to attend the ball this evening, after all. Some urgent business requiring he return to town earlier than expected.’
There were several murmurs of ‘too bad’ and ‘bad show’ from the other guests, but it was Richard and Clara Nichols whom Mariah continued to study intently, as she knew that Darian did also.
‘That is a pity.’ Richard Nichols strolled over to join his wife before reading the note for himself. ‘Oh well, can’t be helped, old girl.’ He patted his wife awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘The country’s needs must come first and all that.’
Lady Nichols continued to pout her disappointment. ‘It really is too bad of him,’ she snapped waspishly. ‘I only invited Lady Henley on his instructions I should do so.’
‘I am sure that there are plenty of other gentlemen present to keep that lady entertained. Hey, Wolfingham?’ Richard Nichols attempted a conspiratorial and conciliatory smile at the haughty duke.
‘You are welcome to do so, by all means, Nichols.’ That smile was not returned as Darian looked coldly down the length of his nose at the older man. ‘As I am sure I have made perfectly clear, I am happy in the company of Lady Beecham.’
‘A man can have too much of a good thing, though, don’t you think?’ Nichols suggested slyly.
Wolfingham’s jaw was tight. ‘No, I most certainly do not think,’ he bit out tautly, eyes glacial as he continued to look contemptuously at the other man.
A contempt, a danger, that Mariah knew the older man would be foolish to ignore. Most especially so when he still bore the bruises on his neck from the last time he had managed to infuriate Wolfingham.
She stood up to tuck her gloved hand into the crook of Darian’s arm, administering a gentle squeeze of caution even as she turned to smile at Richard Nichols. ‘I am afraid our...friendship...is relatively new, Lord Nichols, and Wolfingham is quite besotted still.’ She felt the tension in Darian’s arm beneath her fingertips as his response to such a ridiculous claim.
As it was indeed ridiculous to think of the haughty Duke of Wolfingham as ever being besotted with any woman, least of all the scandalous Countess of Carlisle!
‘Well, can’t blame a man for that.’ Richard Nichols wisely backed down. ‘Oh, do cheer up, Clara,’ he turned to instruct his sulking wife impatiently. ‘I am sure we shall manage quite well this evening without the Prince’s presence. After all, we do have the elusive Duke of Wolfingham as one of our guests!’
‘So he is.’ Clara Nichols brightened before turning to the waiting butler. ‘There is no reply, Benson.’ She placed the note back on the tray. ‘Could you see that this is put in my private parlour?’ she added dismissively.
‘Of course, milady.’ The butler bowed politely before withdrawing.
Mariah frowned her puzzlement as she continued to study Richard and Clara Nichols; there did not seem to be any undue reaction to the Prince’s note of apology, apart from Clara’s obvious disappointment.
Clara Nichols now directed another of those coquettish smiles at Wolfingham. ‘Where were we?’
‘I believe that Mariah and I were about to return upstairs,’ he bit out tautly.
‘Again? So soon?’ Clara Nichols gave Mariah an envious smile. ‘My, he is a lusty one, isn’t he, my dear?’
Mariah felt the warmth of colour enter her cheeks and dearly hoped that the other woman would see it as the burn of anticipation at being the recipient of Wolfingham’s passion, rather than the embarrassment it really was. ‘I am sure we are both very grateful to you for allowing us the privacy, in which to fully indulge ourselves, this weekend.’ She curled her nails painfully, and quite deliberately, into Darian’s tensed arm.
He moved his other hand to cover hers, squeezing with just enough pressure not to cause pain, but to administer a warning of his own. ‘Very grateful,’ he drawled drily.
‘We appear to be completely superfluous here, my dear. Shall we return to the entertainment of our other guests?’ Richard Nichols extended an arm politely to his wife. ‘If you will both excuse us?’ He bowed politely to Mariah and Wolfingham as the other couple moved away, Clara Nichols still twittering her disappointment over the Prince Regent as they did so.
Mariah waited only long enough for the Nicholses to be out of earshot before turning to Darian. ‘Should we not wait here awhile longer before returning upstairs?’
‘No.’
‘But—’
‘I believe we have seen all that we needed to see, Mariah,’ he assured grimly.
‘We have?’
He nodded tersely. ‘Besides which, if I do not leave this company very soon, then I am afraid I might lose my temper completely.’
Mariah could see the truth of that claim in the dangerous glitter of his eyes and the nerve pulsing erratically in his tightly clenched jaw.
She held her head high as she accompanied him across the room, knowing they were being observed with interest as she heard the outbreak of whispering and laughter in the room behind them as they stepped out into the hallway. ‘Must you always be so—so obvious as to our supposed intention of disappearing to make love together?’ she hissed the moment they were out in the deserted entrance hall.
Darian was feeling murderous rather than obvious. How much longer must he endure this torture, of watching men like Nichols lusting after the woman he—the woman he—the woman he what? Exactly what was it that he felt towards Mariah?
Protective, certainly.
Proprietary.
Possessive.
To the extent he could quite cheerfully have taken on every man in that room who had so much as looked at Mariah sideways—which was all of them, damn it!
‘You are missing the point, Mariah.’
‘And it appears to me that you are enjoying yourself altogether too much at my expense!’ she came back heatedly.
‘Could we talk of this further once we reach your bedchamber?’ he prompted softly as Benson appeared at the top of the stairs, no doubt after having delivered Lady Nichols’s letter to her private parlour.
‘May I get you anything, your Grace?’ he offered politely as he reached the bottom of the staircase.
‘No,
