gaze was warm as he looked at the young woman, and at the same time ablaze with a passionate awareness. She could see his interest and curiosity, which broadened the smile on her lips, for it was a rarity indeed to see Alistair Dunstan—self-proclaimed single man from bitter experience, who regarded all women as being dispensable and irrelevant—look at a woman as he was doing now.
“So, the young lady has taken your fancy, I see, Alistair,” she murmured. “You always did have an eye for a pretty girl, but I think you will find that that particular young lady may be spoken for.”
With a great deal of reluctance Alistair managed to drag his gaze away from the object of his interest and smile down at Lady Bricknell. She was a strong and vibrant woman, five years older than his own thirty years. A strange friendship existed between them, having first become acquainted when she had married his good friend Lord Bricknell, a man of his own age. She was the illegitimate daughter of a countess and had been most cruelly persecuted by her family because of it all her life, until she had caught the eye of Lord Bricknell who, unable to resist such a wild and fascinating creature, a lady who lived by her wits, had married her. Her family had hoped marriage would curb her wilful ways, but it was not to be. Lord Bricknell had died five years into their marriage, leaving her an extremely wealthy woman.
“I wonder who she can be?” Alistair said, looking at the young woman once more, and seeing her give one of the gentlemen an impish glance with sparkling eyes. Her merriment was spontaneous, her laughter, which sounded like the sweetest tones of a bell, full of delight. “I do not recall having seen her before.”
“She’s certainly very pretty, popular too, it would seem, and because she shows no restraint—unlike young ladies of good family and breeding—I would say she has no silken chains to bind her to her parents, which puts her on a different plane to your own.”
“And why do you say that?”
“Owing to the fact that she is alone in the company of a group of idle, pleasure-seeking young gentlemen, with no care for etiquette or polite society. It tells me she is an ordinary girl—an actress, possibly—and from the way she is behaving I would say she is Fraser’s mistress, or would very much like to be.”
“She is no ordinary young lady.”
“Not in your eyes, perhaps,” Lady Bricknell chuckled, “but the familiarity she shows to both Mr Fraser and Mr Hacket tells me she is no innocent. I must ask them to bring her to one of my soirées some time. You must remind me.”
Alistair smiled as she moved on to speak to an acquaintance she saw in the crowd, while his bold, admiring stare seldom abandoned the young lady’s perfect face and figure. The air was full of laughter and conversation, and he watched as James Fraser playfully placed a gardenia in her hair, and by way of thanks she placed a kiss upon his cheek, before being whisked into a lively dance by young Hacket, his hand firmly placed on her hand-span waist, her feet gliding effortlessly in step to his; like a butterfly her body dipped and swayed to the rhythm of the music to reveal the tips of her dainty satin shoes, the flounces and ruffles of her violet-blue gown billowing about her.
Intrigued, Alistair watched her to the point where everything else became a blur around him, as she twirled and spun, completely unselfconscious and unaware of the effect she was having on him. He saw the languor in her eyes as she gazed up at her partner, her lips parted in a smile, but then she seemed to sense Alistair’s eyes on her and turned her head, calmly and irresistibly drawn to his gaze.
And then all too soon it was time for the group to leave, and on the arm of James Fraser she passed close to where Alistair stood, so close that he caught the amorous perfume of the gardenia young Fraser had placed in her hair. He saw that her eyes were filled with joyful laughter, her face aglow and her lips curving gently, her expression marked by so much pleasure that he could have had no indication of the anxiety and unhappiness that marred her life.
As their carriage travelled over the recently constructed Westminster Bridge, taking Louisa, her brother James and their friend Timothy Hacket home from Vauxhall, Timothy took hold of Louisa’s hand and squeezed it affectionately.
“Have you enjoyed yourself, Louisa?” he asked, thinking how lovely she looked with her eyes still shining from the excitement of the evening, knowing that, unlike James, there were few pleasures in her life.
“Enormously,” she replied in truth, for she could not remember when she had been fêted by James so well. His suggestion that he give her a surprise birthday treat had offered her a brief respite from all the troubles that beset her life, and to forget, if just for a little while, the purpose of her visit to London.
Dreamily, Louisa found her thoughts dwelling on the gentleman who had been standing alone on the edge of the dancers, staring at her in a cool, impertinent way. She recalled the impact of his gaze across the space that had divided them, of those intense, vivid blue eyes. His look had been bold, bolder than was customary, and experiencing a feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted the attention of such a handsome man she had found herself looking back for a moment and smiling softly. She remembered how she had felt her limbs shiver like an aspen when his smile had broadened, before Timothy had swept her away in another dance.
She had arrived from her home in Surrey that very day. It was her twentieth birthday, but, her parents both dead, she had long since learned not to expect any form of good wishes or celebration from her brother, who was wrapped up in his own self-indulgent world of gambling and enjoyment. The purpose of her visit was to confront James, to beg him, as she had done countless times in the past, to give up his reckless, expensive way of life and return to live in Surrey, for if he did not heed their situation, then ruination would very soon be knocking on their door.
When she had broached the subject on her arrival, James was at once on the defensive and had become angry, finding her persistence to try to reform him extremely irritating. London, with its splendour and corruption, its squalor and excitement, thrilled and entertained him in a way his provincial home in Surrey had never done. His taste for pleasure and his capacity for enjoyment lifted his spirits in the restless, teeming city.
“Don’t make a fuss, Louisa,” he’d admonished, frowning crossly, uncharacteristically thinking of a way he could silence her on the subject—if only temporarily. “Today is your birthday and it’s not often I have the opportunity to be nice to you, so now you are here I shall give you a birthday treat.”
With that Louisa had concurred, and she’d allowed herself to be fêted and spoiled when he and Timothy had taken her to the Vauxhall Gardens, where they had met up with a group of their acquaintances. Finding herself unexpectedly surrounded by so much beauty and gaiety, and overwhelmed by the sense of occasion and James’s solicitude, it had been impossible for her not to enjoy herself, which she had done, enormously, managing to put her troubles behind her for a while. But on reaching Henrietta Street where James lived, and being told he was to go on to his club, she at once protested and they argued bitterly, at which point James stormed out of the house, an apologetic-looking Timothy following in his wake.
Her wonderful evening in ruins, and the gentleman who had admired her so openly forgotten, there was nothing for it but for Louisa to retire to bed, where she wept copious tears of bitterness and frustration, her inability to penetrate her brother’s stubbornness in his determination to carry on digging them deeper and deeper into the mire plunging her into the depths of despair.
Attending Sunday morning matins the following day at St Paul’s church in Covent Garden—as he often did when he was in London, which was mercifully cool after the intense heat outside—Lord Alistair Dunstan sat in the full congregation, hearing the priest in his ornate robes intone solemn, centuries-old words. It would be some time before he
