Page 58 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

Not until he emerged from his carriage and stepped onto the red carpet that had been laid from door to flagway did he reach for his watch and realize that Shalton had slipped one of the ubiquitous packets of powders in with it.

Smiling, he wondered if Kibworth had managed to conceal another in the lining of his cape or under the rim of his hat.

The thought put him in an excellent humor, and he was smiling as he handed hat, gloves, cape, and stick to the waiting footman, and allowed the butler to direct him toward the line of guests entering the stair hall.

The drawing room and the two saloons behind it had been thrown together for the ball, and they were rapidly filling with guests.

It was not yet a crush, for he had come early in order, he told himself, to lend his support to Penthorpe, but the family and those guests who had been honored with dinner invitations had emerged from the dining room, and at the first landing, the Tarrant family was lined up to receive their additional guests.

Bracing himself to meet the earl’s displeasure, Gideon mounted the stairs behind a fat dowager and her wiry spouse, made his bow to Lady St. Merryn, greeted Daintry and Penthorpe, and held out his hand to the earl. “Good evening, sir.”

“Upon my word,” St. Merryn grumbled, glaring at him, “you’ve a nerve to set foot in this house, sir. By God, you have.”

“I have an invitation, my lord, so I hope you won’t order me thrown out,” Gideon said calmly.

St. Merryn seemed to be of two minds about that, but their conversation had given the stout lady and her husband time to pass farther along the line, and just then, Davina, standing between St. Merryn and Charles, said loudly enough to be overheard, “It is really no concern of yours who gave it to me, Charles, so stop hissing at me. How do you do, Deverill? How daring of you to set foot in the lion’s very den!

Do not speak to Charles. He is being a beast.” She fingered a pretty diamond brooch at her décolletage and fluttered her lashes at him.

Next to her, clearly goaded, Charles said, “Look at that thing, Deverill! If your wife suddenly turned up wearing such a dashed expensive spray of flowers, wouldn’t you wish to know who the devil was so curst impudent as to give it to her?”

Sparing Gideon the need to reply, Susan, at Charles’s other side, said, “Hush, Charles, you are drawing attention and holding up the line. Good evening, Deverill. Pray, pay him no heed.”

Next to her, Seacourt said, “Susan, the orchestra is tuning up for the grand march. You will remain here with Charles to support your mother and father when Daintry and Penthorpe go in to lead it, and when you are released from your duties here, you will please be so good as to look after Catherine to be sure she is well entertained.” Barely waiting for her stiffly murmured agreement, he added, “Come, Davina. Since Charles and Susan must remain to do their family duty, you will stand up with me for the first set of country dances, will you not?”

Davina laughed and fingered her brooch, casting a mischievous look at her husband. “To be sure, Geoffrey, I have been looking forward to dancing again with you this age. Come along, Deverill, we will find you an eligible partner.”

Gideon had no objection, but he soon saw that although Seacourt apparently had no objection to indulging Davina’s blatant flirtation, or to flirting with other pretty women, including Lady Catherine, the moment that the other members of the family appeared, his attention shifted to his wife.

He did not dance with her, but he certainly watched her, and when Gideon claimed Daintry’s hand for the first waltz, he saw that Seacourt was watching Penthorpe through ominously narrowed eyes.

“Geoffrey is making me nervous,” Daintry confessed as she placed her hand in his and let him swing her into the pattern of the dance. “He keeps watching poor Susan like a hawk about to swoop down upon a rabbit.”

“His own behavior leaves little room for him to complain, I should think,” Gideon said, seeing Penthorpe lead Susan into the dance and hoping that he was right and Seacourt would not make a scene.

A moment later, seeing that Seacourt was once more dancing with Davina, he began to relax and enjoy himself.

Daintry, too, had relaxed. “You have more color in your face tonight, sir. I trust you are completely well now.”

“Oh, I think so,” he said, smiling down at her.

She twinkled. “Do your servants still supply you with remedies, or do they too believe you have recovered?”

Chuckling, he said, “If you will glance down at my waistcoat pocket—the one with my watch in it—you will see that I am still well provided. The one thing that keeps me from knocking their fool heads together is that they both forgot them yesterday.”

She laughed. “I think they must care for you, sir, and want to keep you healthy. Or perhaps you just pay them very well.”

“I do.” He guided her through an intricate pattern before he said, “You did not seem surprised to see me tonight.”

“No, for Aunt Ophelia told me that she had sent you an invitation, and so did Penthorpe. He said I should look after you in case my father decided to cut up a little rough.”

“Very pretty language,” he said, grinning at her.

She looked surprised. “Good gracious, did it shock you? I merely repeated what he said, though I daresay I say such things on my own account frequently enough.”

“No, it does not shock me in the least. You need not ever curb your tongue on my account.” He gazed down into her eyes, and it seemed to him that something stirred there, a memory of other times, perhaps, and he wanted to take her in his arms right then and there and kiss her.

The music stopped and he glanced hastily around, certain that his feelings must be apparent to everyone within a dozen feet of them.

Taking her by the arm he escorted her back to where they had left her mother and aunt, to find Lady Ophelia sitting by herself.

“Letty’s gone to bed,” she said with a twinkle.

“Felt a spasm coming on when she saw St. Merryn glaring at the pair of you. You needn’t fret about him either,” she added when Gideon looked quickly around.

“He’s gone to look after the guests in the card room, which means we shan’t see him again tonight. ”

Gideon did not linger, certain now that he would be wiser to keep an eye on Penthorpe, and certainly the viscount was in a restless humor.

He danced the cotillion with Daintry, but his attention was clearly divided, for he seemed to be keeping an eye on Seacourt and Lady Susan, who danced in the same set.

Watching them, Gideon decided Seacourt was spoiling for a confrontation, and decided to do something to prevent it.

Hurrying to the refreshment table, he demanded two cups of punch from a footman, and when the dance ended, he intercepted Penthorpe just as he and Daintry returned to her great-aunt’s side.

“Thirsty work,” he said casually, handing one cup of punch to Daintry and the second to Penthorpe. “Thought you’d like to wet your whistles.”

Smiling her thanks, Daintry sipped her punch.

Penthorpe’s gaze swept distractedly over the crowd. “Much obliged to you,” he said. “Mighty thoughtful.”

“Drink up, lad.”

“Deverill,” Lady Jerningham said, appearing as if by magic at his side with a rather plain young woman in tow, “allow me to present you to Miss Haversham.”

Moments later, dancing a Scotch reel with Miss Haversham, he looked around for Penthorpe but did not see him.

His sense of relief was short-lived, however, for when the dance ended, he saw the viscount claim Susan’s hand for a waltz.

Cursing under his breath, he looked swiftly for her husband.

Seacourt seemed safely occupied, since he was dancing again with Davina, until Gideon saw Charles Tarrant moving purposefully toward them with a look on his face that boded ill for the continued merriment of the gathering.

Muttering more curses, Gideon moved to intervene.

“Not now, Tarrant,” he said firmly when Charles tried to brush past him. “This is not the time or the place, lad.”

Charles looked at him in surprise but reacted just as Gideon’s military subordinates had reacted to that tone.

“Yes, sir. Guess I forgot where I was, but dash it all, she’s got no business to be dancing a third time with that damned Seacourt.

Bad enough he makes my sister’s life a hell.

What can Davina—Here, what’s o’clock?” he demanded, staring past Gideon.

“He’s taking my wife into that private parlor yonder, damn his eyes! ”

Gideon, following the direction of his gaze, saw at once that Seacourt’s eyes were blazing with fury as he strode toward the parlor and that Davina was trying to hold him back rather than to avoid going with him.

He could not see Penthorpe or Susan anywhere, but just as he was trying to decide whether he would be wiser to follow Sea-court and Davina or to attempt to keep Charles from doing so, he saw Daintry making her way quickly toward the parlor and the question was no longer at issue.

Leaving Charles several paces behind, he moved through the crowd as hastily as he could without drawing the eye of everyone in the room.

As he reached the parlor, he heard Daintry cry out, “Don’t you dare to touch her, Geoffrey!

Don’t touch either one of them! It was not what you’re thinking at all, for I saw them.

Susan was feeling faint, that’s all. She has not been in spirits all evening, and it was plain as a pikestaff—No, don’t! ”

Gideon now saw that Penthorpe, who had apparently been seated beside Susan on a small sofa, had leapt to his feet to stop Seacourt, but Seacourt had shaken free of Davina’s clutches and clearly intended either to knock Penthorpe down or thrust him aside to get to Susan.

He was able to do neither, however, for Daintry dashed in front of him.

“Stop where you are, Geoffrey,” she snapped. “You will bully no one in this house, do you hear me?” But her words ended in a sharp cry when Seacourt, clearly in a blind rage, backhanded her hard enough to send her spinning into a heap on the sofa.

Before Penthorpe could react, Gideon covered the space between in a few long strides, grabbed Seacourt by the shoulder, spun him around, and felled him with a right to the jaw.

Behind him, Charles exclaimed, “Well done, by God! Now pick the bastard up and give him to me, for I’m going to finish the job. First my wife, then my sister. By God, I’ll murder him!”

“Charles, no,” Davina cried. “You mustn’t!”

“Won’t do you a particle of good to stand up for the fellow, Davina.

He hit my sister, and I’ve had my fill of him chasing after you, giving you presents—Oh, I could tell right enough, just by the way you were looking at him tonight, that he gave you that damned diamond brooch! I won’t have it, I tell you.”

Catching him by the arm, Davina said hastily, “That’s not true, Charles. I bought the spray myself. It’s a trifle, paste, I swear it! I did it to make you jealous. I thought you didn’t care a button for me, but oh, Charles, you do, don’t you?”

“Well, of course, I do,” he said, looking searchingly at her. “Look here, Davina, what about all those other fellows?”

There were tears in her eyes. “I kept trying to get a rise out of you, Charles, but you’d just go off and play cards and drink, or flirt with some other woman.

How was I to know you cared? You never said a word, except when you would get angry about me spending too much money on a gown or some such thing.

And when I borrowed the rouleaux from Alvanley, I didn’t know if you shouted at me out of jealousy or just because it was money. ”

Charles suddenly became aware of his interested audience, and said, “Look here, Davina, this ain’t the place to chatter about this. We’ll go somewhere and have a good talk.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Oh, how I wish I had told you all this before. It would have been so much simpler if we had both just said what we really felt straight out, instead of each of us expecting the other to know what was in his mind.”

Susan, who had watched Gideon knock her husband to the floor without much change of expression, stepped from behind Penthorpe when Seacourt groaned and began to sit up, and said clearly, “Davina is right. One cannot expect things to change if one does not say one wants them to change. Geoffrey, if you please, since we will return to Cornwall when Mama and the others do, I want you to ask Catherine to make other arrangements. I am perfectly capable of running my household without her assistance, and I am certain that we shall get along a great deal better without her. Moreover, since Daintry will need help preparing for her wedding, Melissa and I will want to make frequent visits to Tuscombe Park to help her. Surely, you will not object to that, sir.”

Seacourt, still shaken, did not speak until he regained his feet, but then, casting a look around at his audience, including Charles and Davina, who had been halted in their steps by Susan’s Words, he turned a malevolent eye on his wife and said, “You seem to have forgotten your place, my dear, but you will soon be painfully reminded of it. As to visiting Tuscombe Park, you can forget about doing any such thing until you learn better manners. Moreover, you will go nowhere in Melissa’s company.

I thought I had made that quite plain to you before now.

” He looked around again, this time with a clear challenge in his eyes.

“Does anyone here dare deny my right to command my own wife?”

No one did, and with a fulminating look at Gideon and a second at Penthorpe, he took his weeping wife out of the room.