gushed Susannah Treadwell emerging in a fragrant cloud of burgundy damask and heavy musk.
Devon’s eyes snapped open, Blackburn’s face a fraction from her own.
Over his broad shoulder, she watched as Susannah took the last steps of the stairs with sinuous grace before tucking an errant black curl into her elaborate chignon. Her eyes narrowed with disapproval as she absorbed the intimate scene.
Recovering herself immediately, she cooed, “So sorry we missed your little concert, Mademoiselle Caravelle. Time just seemed to slip away for the Marquess and me as we managed to find vastly more amusing entertainment elsewhere. Didn’t we, darling?” she asked, draping herself around Blackburn before confidently placing a possessive hand on his arm.
In what seemed like slowly infinite degrees, Blackburn relinquished his hold on Devon, transforming it into a light caress. Which wasn’t lost on Susannah.
He flashed her a tight smile. “I’m surprised you haven’t made your way to the ballroom, Lady Treadwell. You wouldn’t wish to miss the evening’s many diversions.”
Devon’s stomach pitched at her narrow escape. And yet looking at the Marquess and Lady Treadwell together, her fear coalesced into a flare of outrage.
England and Europe could disappear in an apocalyptic conflagration, her father’s work could be exploited for malevolent purposes, and she could hang—all the while Blackburn disported himself in bed with one of London’s most amoral and avaricious women.
He seemed quite comfortable with Lady Treadwell who had nestled herself beneath his shoulder and he had the arrogance to look completely unaffected by her coyly delivered revelation about their earlier encounter.
For a moment she thought she couldn’t move. Her body was stiff, her thinking scrambled. Blackburn’s hands on her body, and around her neck. Her defenses were wearing thin.
She turned to Lady Treadwell, but the words were meant for Blackburn. “I believe we’ve concluded our discussion.” Her voice echoed along the corridor.
“Of course, you’re finished,” agreed Lady Treadwell in dulcet tones.
Another heavy silence before Blackburn stepped back, the shadows in the hallway hardening the lines of his face.
“Discussion is not on the agenda, Mademoiselle. It never was.”
They waged a silent battle, a contest of wills. But he made no move toward her.
“My apologies for intruding on your interlude.” Devon deliberately addressed Lady Treadwell. She refused to meet those dangerous eyes, her arm still tingling from his large hand at her throat, her body resonating shamelessly from just being near him.
Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, she simply turned and walked away, Blackburn’s gaze scorching her bare back.
Opportunities for escape were narrowing, the noose slowly tightening around her neck. Her tightrope walk had just become more dizzying.
When Blackburn moved in for the kill—and it would be tonight—she had a long way to fall.
The ballroom was ablaze with candles and loud whispers.
“Good riddance! I think that instrument is one of those monstrosities that Broadwood had designed expressly for Beethoven, for extra volume, in the hope that the deaf musician might be able to hear it better,” sniffed Lady Hester. “Furthermore, women’s finer sensibilities do not equip them for such indecorous public displays,” she added, eagle-eyed, as the Broadwood pianoforte was moved into storage by several of Le Comte’s blue liveried servants.
“Never knew a woman to be either particularly sensitive or sensible,” groused Lord Treadwell, raising his quizzing glass to better see his much younger wife, Susannah, surrounded by a clutch of admirers. She hung possessively from the Marquess of Blackburn’s arm who, it soon became patently clear, was having no small difficulty keeping his intense gaze from Le Comte and his mistress.
“I trust there won’t be a scene.” Lady Hester raised her own lorgnette to take in the view. “The whole situation is unsavory to begin with. Let us not have to witness a contretemps over some ridiculous foreign creature.” She surveyed the Marquess critically. “I simply do not see what either Le Comte or the Marquess might find attractive about this Mademoiselle Caravelle.
You would if you were a man, thought Lord Treadwell, leaning heavily on his cane. Devon Caravelle had every gentleman in London under the age of eighty smoldering, while rendering every other woman in the ton all but invisible.
“I do believe the Marquess is hoping to see if her dance card is filled,” Lady Hester huffed in disapproval. “The rogue—as though half of London’s eligible and ineligible women were not enough.”
Lord Treadwell did not seem to take offense that his wife was included in the latter group.
The violin ensemble, pressed into service once again, began with a lively gavotte just as the Marquess disengaged himself from Susannah.
“The effrontery,” Lady Hester said to no one in particular. “This will certainly not endear Blackburn to our host.”
“I don’t think he’s worried on that score,” added Treadwell, watching, along with at least half of the other guests, as the Marquess of Blackburn offered Devon Caravelle his arm to lead her onto the ballroom floor.
Across the room his wife’s face darkened like a thundercloud, a beautiful woman supremely unaccustomed to such a blatant show of male indifference. Tossing back her champagne and with a swing of her hips that had seduced scores of men, Susannah sauntered toward Le Comte who stood momentarily alone, an island in a sea of tulle and silk.
The Frenchman’s pale eyes narrowed at her approach and he bowed cursorily over her hand before Susannah flicked open her fan and plunged in without preamble.
“What are your plans for the Marquess and that French tart, Monsieur, if I may ask?” Her usually sultry tone was strained despite the coquettish tilt of her head.
“As a matter of fact, you may not ask, Susannah.” Le Comte clasped his hands behind his back as his eyes followed the couple in question on the dance floor. “And please don’t tell me that you’re actually jealous. You’re far too old and experienced for that sort of thing.”
Susannah’s eyes flashed fire at the multiple affront so casually delivered. Her smile tightened as she saw old Treadwell look their way over the heads of swirling couples entranced by the strains of Scarlatti. Useless codger. She wondered, uncharitably, why she couldn’t have Blackburn sharing her bed permanently rather than a man three times her age.
“Quite right, Henri, I have become older and more experienced under your tutelage,” she admitted, closing her fan with a decisive snap. “I also learned from your example never to forget an insult, although for just this moment I shall try.”
Infuriatingly, the Frenchman kept his eyes glued on the dance floor.
Throwing back the last drop of champagne, Susannah suddenly found it bitter. She followed Le Comte’s gaze and watched Blackburn and Devon trade partners twice before the two of them were brought together again by the music. She was unwilling to account for the instant and insistent desire for the Marquess, the one man she was learning
