pity,” he replied. “May I escort you inside?”
No! Clara wanted to shout. What would people think if they entered here together? Think! They would believe they knew. A female stranger of such dubious social heritage accompanying a man like Lord Paris Mulholland must be “under his protection.” What little reputation she might have hoped to maintain with a demure manner and extremely plain and modest gown would fly away like a frightened sparrow. She should have insisted that she remain at home tonight!
He held out his arm, but toward Aunt Aurora, not her. It was the most impeccably correct thing to do, and Clara thought she must have been temporarily deranged to imagine that he would want to escort her.
“How perfectly delightful,” Aunt Aurora said as she stepped ahead to take his proffered arm. “Now, about your portrait....”
“I shall have to give it some thought,” Lord Mulholland said, and Clara could hear the laughter in his voice.
A man of his wealth could have any painter from the Royal Academy. He would never want to sit for Aunt Aurora, so why did he have to lead her on? Did he enjoy making sport of others or placing them in embarrassing positions? Probably. It would be in keeping with what she had heard of him from some of her aunt’s friends: that Paris Mulholland’s sole goal in life was to enjoy himself.
If he did decide to have Aunt Aurora paint his portrait—and Clara had to admit that they needed the money—and if he did come to her aunt’s lodgings to sit, she would ensure that she was out of the house. Or perhaps, finances notwithstanding, it would be better to discourage any talk of a portrait entirely. Although Clara loved her aunt dearly, there was no escaping the fact that every portrait her aunt painted bore a marked resemblance to the Duke of Wellington. She could almost hear the cutting criticism Lord Mulholland would make of the picture, and the way he would regale his equally ne’er-do-well friends with tales of her relatives’ eccentricities.
“A fine fellow! ” Uncle Byron whispered in her ear as they followed him into the well-appointed house.
Clara didn’t answer. Instead, she concentrated on the large, ornately decorated foyer, which was nearly the size of their entire flat. The floor was Italian marble, and the wallpaper was of intricate design, obviously costly. “So noble, so charming,” Uncle Byron continued. “Worthy of his name, wouldn’t you say? I can believe a man like that could seduce the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“And I can believe he wouldn’t care that such a selfish act would start a war,” Clara said, reminding her uncle that the name Paris was not one a man should be particularly proud of.
Lord Mulholland, having handed his flamboyant cape and hat to a footman, suddenly whirled around to face her. There was a smile on his good-looking face but also something that looked suspiciously like criticism in his brilliantly blue eyes. “I believe I mentioned that I am not named for the man who seduced Helen of Troy. My mother, in a flight of fancy, named me for the City of Light, where I was apparently conceived.
“Now, if you will all excuse me, I see an old friend inside,” he concluded coldly. He made a slight, polite bow before striding away.
Clara flushed again, and told herself she had been a fool to speak her thoughts out loud. She had been rude, too. Of all people, she should know how it felt to be judged by a name or an occupation.
“We must speak later, my lord, about the portrait!” Aunt Aurora called after him, waving gaily. “My dear, just think!” she exclaimed rapturously, clasping her plump hands together and ignoring the footman who waited to take their wraps. “Lord Paris Mulholland! If he agrees to sit for me, I shall be quite famous!”
Clara kept quiet, but she would rather walk barefoot to Dover in the middle of winter than have a man like Paris Mulholland in the studio.
She told herself that her reservations had absolutely nothing to do with his provocative manner and handsome face, or that the evening dress of pristine white shirt, white cravat and black tails seemed to have been designed with him specifically in mind. After all, her guardians’ bohemian friends had been trying to seduce her for years, with no success. She could fend off Lord Mulholland, too.
Even if he was the most tempting man she had ever met.
Chapter Two
“Don’t you agree, Mulholland?” Lord Pimblett demanded, smacking his palm on the marble mantle of the drawing room, which was decorated with all the embellishments currently in vogue. “Give ’em a bit, and they only want more! Workhouses and the Poor Law Amendment Act are the best things that ever happened to this country, sir!”
Paris was quite sure Lord Pimblett was adding, “You young muttonhead!” in his mind, even though the man clearly cherished hopes of having his eldest daughter wed to the Mulholland name and fortune, if not the physical embodiment of those things. He was also very well aware that he had an audience of young female admirers gathered about him like so many colorful butterflies, so he waved his wineglass in a shallow salute.
“I myself have never lived in one of their hovels,” he replied to the indignant nobleman, whose face flushed with irritation, “worn filthy, flea-infested clothing or eaten one of their pitiful meals. Since I do not possess the imagination of your lordship, so necessary to pass judgment when one lacks experience, I must bow to your superior knowledge of the lives of the lower classes.”
Lord Pimblett’s face turned scarlet, which made an interesting contrast with his white muttonchop whiskers. Paris knew he had made his point and gone quite far enough in exposing the shortcomings of his host’s opinion. Therefore, he smiled graciously and took a sip of his wine.
“Fancy you in rags!” one of the ever-present young women said with a shocked gasp and a giggle.
“None of you would ever look at me again,” Paris said sorrowfully and waited for the young women to protest. As they immediately did.
It amused him to watch their reactions—one of the few things in London that did amuse him anymore. Some bored young men turned to drink, or gambling or more sordid vices when life palled; Paris Mulholland amused himself by playing the charming wastrel, with the additional benefit of being the center of attention for such delightful bevies of carefully bred young ladies.
Not that he had any desire to seduce even one of the eager women, although it pleased his vanity to make them swarm around him. They were too innocent and unworldly, most of them, and despite his name and not completely unearned reputation, he would not take advantage of their naiveté. Trying to maintain their adulation simply made the interminable Season pass.
He turned away to hide his satisfied smile, and encountered the watchful eyes of the young woman he had met outside, the artist’s niece, Clara. She sat in the farthest corner of a window seat, nearly hidden behind a large potted fern, as if she were afraid to be seen.
She looked like a nun in a cloister, and a strict one at that, with her dark brown hair pulled back plainly in a hard little knot of a bun, her dark brows slightly too thick to be conventionally pretty, and her full lips pressed together repressively. She wore an abominable gray dress with an absurdly high neckline and tight sleeves. A hair shirt would be more comfortable than that garment, he thought, which did nothing to flatter its wearer. Perhaps she enjoyed the mortification of the flesh.
As
