Page 10 of The Forbidden Lord (Lord Trilogy #2)

“You should have spent it getting your deuced carriage repaired, so I didn’t have to wait for you.”

“Relax, old chap. Since when do you care if we’re late to a marriage mart? You’re not looking for a wife.”

“No, but Ian is. God knows why he has this urge to marry, but I promised to help him. I was supposed to reach Merrington’s before Lord Nesfield and his daughter Sophie leave, and since it’s nearly eleven already, that’s unlikely, isn’t it?”

Ian Lennard, the Viscount St. Clair, was Jordan’s closest friend, and rarely asked favors of anyone. It galled Jordan to fail him now because of Pollock’s ridiculous vanity.

“St. Clair won’t mind if you’re late,” Pollock said. “He’s not that desperate. If you don’t arrive in time, he’ll merely try his scheme on her at the next ball.”

“It doesn’t matter. I said I’d be there, and I will. I keep my promises.”

The carriage shuddered forward, and the sound of horse’s hooves clopping over cobblestones filled the air. Jordan relaxed.

“That’s not what’s irritating you, and you know it.” Pollock flicked a minute speck of dust off his gloves. “You merely don’t like having your schedule upset. Everything must go precisely according to plan, or you lose patience.”

“Anyone would lose patience with you,” Jordan snapped.

His friend frowned. “I merely believe that being well dressed is the mark of a good gentleman. Besides, I like dressing well. That’s the trouble with you. You don’t know how to relax and enjoy life.”

“Yes, I’m a dull fellow, aren’t I?”

“If the shoe fits …” When Jordan scowled at him, Pollock tugged on his impossibly high cravat, then went on in a mulish tone.

“You must admit you can be a blasted machine sometimes. Your life is consumed with running your estates efficiently and running things in Parliament. Everything’s orderly, everything’s part of some plan. ”

“That’s not true.” But it was. He did like an orderly life. God knows he’d put up with enough disorder as a child without having to endure it as an adult. So yes, he hated it when things went wrong simply because some fool didn’t behave in a logical or timely manner.

“Then there’s the way you treat your women,” Pollock went on bitterly.

“I’ve never seen a man who can take a mistress, then cut her off without a thought because she erred by falling in love with him.

And they all fall in love with you, blast you.

They don’t realize your charm is merely a means to an end.

They think you care. You always make them pant for you, then toss them out into the cold when they want more than sex from the arrangement. ”

Now Pollock was hitting a little too close for comfort. “You’re still angry at me about Julia, aren’t you?”

“She’s my friend.”

“Your mistress, you mean. If I hadn’t ‘cut her off without a thought,’ you wouldn’t have the benefit of her company now.”

Pollock glanced away. “Actually, she and I have parted ways.”

That caught Jordan by surprise. “Already?”

“I grew tired of competing with you for her affections.”

Jordan winced. His parting from Julia had been particularly messy. “That isn’t my fault. She and I had a very clear arrangement: mutual satisfaction of each other’s physical needs and no more. I can’t help it if she changed her expectations. I never did.”

For a moment, the air was thick with Pollock’s sullen silence, punctuated only by the rattling of the carriage wheels on stone.

Pollock’s palpable resentment irritated Jordan.

Ever since Julia, their friendship had been strained, though Jordan didn’t know what he could do about it.

He wasn’t the one suffering from romantic whims.

Pollock sighed. “I don’t understand you. Love isn’t something you turn off and on like a damned spigot. You can’t control it as you control your financial affairs. Haven’t you ever wanted to lose yourself to love?”

“Now that’s a dreadful thought. Relinquish everything for a fickle emotion? Not a chance. What kind of fool abandons reason, good sense, and yes, control, for the dubious pleasure of being in love?”

Only once in his life had he come even close to losing control because of a woman.

Strange how he still remembered that night in the carriage with a certain Miss Emily Fairchild.

What kind of madness had possessed him? It must have been the full moon, as she’d said.

That was the only explanation for why he’d nearly seduced the wrong sort of woman.

He’d paid for it later, too. His stepsister Sara had plagued him relentlessly with questions until he’d deliberately picked a fight with her devil of a husband to take her mind off matchmaking.

A pity it hadn’t taken his mind off Emily’s lavender-scented hair and lithe, enticing body.

Or her fascinating way of making statements that took him completely by surprise. Women rarely took him by surprise.

At least their encounter had been brief, and the illusion that he’d found the only female in England who could totally bewitch him had finally passed. No doubt if he met Miss Emily Fairchild again during the light of day—and he wouldn’t—he’d find her ordinary and distinctly unbewitching.

“I’ll never understand your cynical view of marriage,” Pollock said, “but obviously St. Clair chose you well for his scheme. Any other man might be tempted to steal a winsome thing like Lady Sophie after dancing with her. But not you—the lord with the granite heart.”

“Mock me if you will, but I’m well pleased with my granite heart. It doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t fester, and it can’t be wounded.”

“Yes, but it can break if someone hits it with a hammer. One day a woman will come along who shatters it into a million pieces. And I, for one, can’t wait to see it.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time then,” Jordan said, growing bored with this subject.

“And it won’t happen tonight. Tonight I’m dancing with Sophie merely to oblige Ian.

He thinks it’ll prompt Lord Nesfield to accept his suit and thus get Sophie out of my foul clutches.

Ian assured me I’d be done quickly. Good God, I hope so. These affairs are tedious.”

“I don’t mind them. But then I can appreciate a good party. You can’t.”

Pollock’s insistence on making him sound like a cold bastard began to irritate Jordan. “And I’m not looking for a wife to enhance my standing in society. You are.”

Pollock glared at him. “Is that an allusion to my lack of a title or connections? To the fact that my father was in trade? My word, you’re pompous. You can have any woman you want, so you lord it over the rest of us.”

The vehemence in Pollock’s voice startled him. “That’s not true. Any number of merchant’s daughters would happily lead you to the altar.”

“I don’t want a merchant’s daughter. As you so crudely put it, I want someone who can increase my standing in society.”

“Why? You already move in exalted circles.”

“Yes, but I want a woman who can be the jewel in my crown, a woman so stunning that my position is secured forever. And preferably someone who can love me despite my faults.”

Jordan couldn’t restrain his laughter. “You think to find it at Merrington’s? With a lot of simpering virgins and scheming mamas?”

“Perhaps.” Pollock fingered the cravat he’d spent so much time torturing into a Mathematique.

“Before St. Clair set his sights on Lady Sophie, I’d planned to try for her myself.

” He scowled. “Then St. Clair came along and captured her fancy. He isn’t even in love with her.

He just wants a docile wife, God knows why. ”

Yes, that was curious. Jordan himself had wondered why Ian seemed bent on marrying these days. “I wouldn’t envy him his conquest of Sophie, if I were you. She’s tolerably pretty and good-natured, but her father’s a bastard. I fear Ian will rue the day he marries into that man’s family.”

The carriage drew up in front of Merrington’s, and Jordan checked his watch. They’d made good time; the girl might still be here. If so, he’d give it an hour. That should be sufficient time to enrage Lord Nesfield and promote Ian’s suit. Then he could go to his club and be done with this nonsense.

The two of them left the carriage and entered Merrington’s handsome town house in silence.

The place was all got up in spring flowers and ribbons, enough of them to make a man ill.

When they reached the ballroom, Jordan paused to survey the scene.

As usual, Merrington’s ball resembled a ship’s hold full of doves and crows, cooing and cawing and taking wing whenever they liked.

White-gowned women swirled down the lines of dancers accompanied by their black-tailed companions, whose cinched waists, tight knee-breeches, and brilliant-colored waistcoats enhanced their birdlike appearance.

Hovering on the sidelines, he scanned the crowd for Ian or even Lady Sophie. But despite the glow of a thousand candles and Argand lamps, he saw nothing but flashes of fans and trains and white slippers.

Then he and Pollock were surrounded by Pollock’s friends, all of them bachelors attending the ball in search of mates.

A few moments of pleasantries ensued, but they soon gave way to earnest comparisons of the young women’s attributes.

Jordan wanted to laugh at them. What romantic drivel these young pups spouted!

If they had to have wives, at least they should choose them sensibly.

That’s what he would do when the need for an heir became overwhelming. He would find some experienced woman—a widowed marchioness or some such—with taste and good judgment, who could preside over his household without a lot of fuss. A businesslike marriage. Sensible. No emotional entanglements.

The one thing he would not do is marry some chit out of the schoolroom who would expect him to dote on her every word and indulge her whims. Like the tittering young women the men around him were discussing.

Impatient with their talk, Jordan turned to Pollock. “Have you spotted Ian yet?”