How to Dance With a Duke (11 page)

She looked up at him, her eyes troubled. “He is a good man. And I am sorry for whatever happened to him in Alexandria. I know it must be dreadful for your family—the not knowing.”

“Then help me find out what happened, Miss Hurston.” Lucas took her hand in his again, squeezed it to emphasize his point. “You are the only one who can help me learn what happened to make him disappear. Your father is incapable of speech, and the other men who accompanied them on the expedition are unwilling to talk to someone who is not a part of their inner circle. Whatever your father may have thought of your aspirations to become a scholar in your own right, to these men you are. William admired your intellect, and he made it clear to my mother in his letters that the others did as well.

“Did you know,” he continued, desperate now to make her understand, “that they wanted you to come along on that expedition?”

Cecily’s surprise was palpable.

“What?”

“It’s true,” Lucas said, hoping against hope that she would be swayed by the knowledge. “Will said that the translator, Mr. Gubar, the man from the British Museum who accompanied them, was adamant that you should be brought along to help him read the hieroglyphs on the tombs, and had even convinced a couple of the other men, Will included, to approach your father about it, but he was determined that you not be brought along because he didn’t think it appropriate for his daughter to undertake such a journey.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “I had no idea. None. I know that Mr. Gubar respects my work, of course. We have been quite friendly for years, despite his relationship with my father. But if I’d known they felt that way…”

“Miss Hurston,” Lucas said. “Cecily, please. If you were ever a friend to my brother, for his own sake if not for mine, help me find out what happened to him. My mother is despondent. And I … well…” He stopped, unable to continue.

“He was your brother,” she finished for him quietly, squeezing his hand this time.

“I will help you, Your Grace,” she said firmly, “if you promise to help me with my quest to find a member of the Egyptian Club who would suit me as a husband.”

Not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth, Lucas merely nodded. He had no intention of seeing her sacrifice herself on the altar of marriage to someone she did not hold in affection, but she did not need to know that now. The important thing was that she had agreed to help him.

“Thank you, my dear,” he told her, turning to walk the horses back onto Rotten Row. “You won’t be sorry.”

Five

At Lady Willowbrook’s musicale the next evening, Cecily, to her astonishment, found herself surrounded by fashionable young men. Her success at the Bewle ball had apparently lifted some sort of invisibility cloak, which had previously made it impossible for gentlemen of the
ton
to see her among the other wallflowers. In all of her time “out” in London society, she had never dreamed she would be the center of attention as she was now. It was both exciting and overwhelming. And despite her desire to vet these young gentlemen, many of whom were members of the Egyptian Club, as possible husbands, their sheer numbers made it difficult to concentrate. How on earth did someone like Amelia manage this level of attention all the time? If this kept up she would have no need of either Winterson’s assistance or Amelia’s dance card.

The thought of Winterson and the dance card gave her a pang of guilt. She had neglected to tell him about the dance card, fearing he would refuse to help her if he knew she intended to use false pretenses to go about her husband-hunting scheme. But knowing she had both Winterson and Amelia’s dance card to help her, she felt much more secure about her ability to find a member of the Egyptian Club to marry. Besides, tonight there seemed to be no need for either of her secret weapons.

As if to remind her, Lord Ballston interrupted her thoughts. “Miss Hurston, are you quite comfortable there? Perhaps you’d like to sit here, on the end of the row. I’m sure the view is much better from here.”

“Do not be absurd, Ballston,” Lord Dareingham interrupted from his seat next to Cecily. “She can see quite well enough from here. Besides, on that side she might catch a draft.”

“Miss Hurston, surely you would rather sit up here with me,” Lord Fortenbury said, cutting off more talk of drafts from Dareingham. “The view is much better from here, and I have it on the best authority that the pianoforte is best listened to from a more central location.”

“Gentlemen, please,” a new voice interceded. “I’m afraid you are all doomed to disappointment, for Miss Hurston has already promised herself to me for the evening.”

Cecily looked up to find Lucas looming over the group, his height and military bearing making the other men seem like callow youths. Even his black frock coat and snug fawn breeches were dour when compared to the dandyish high shirt points and intricately tied cravats of her coterie of admirers. They were more of an age with Winterson’s brother, William.

William, who had gone missing on an expedition headed up by Cecily’s father.

Like the basket of a hot air balloon coming into contact with solid ground, the exhilaration generated by her new popularity fell to the earth with a resounding thud.

“Your Grace,” she said, rising from her seat between Dareingham and Selby. “I had forgotten our previous agreement. Do forgive me.”

The laugh lines around his eyes crinkled at her appropriation of his fictional assignation, though the rest of his expression seemed bland enough.

“My dear lady, there is nothing to forgive,” he said, taking her gloved hand in his and bowing over it. “Now, we had best excuse ourselves before the performance begins.”

Cecily allowed herself to be guided away to the other side of the room by her new escort, but was not surprised to see that many of the assembled guests had noted their abandonment of her admirers.

“You have made me the object of talk, you know,” she said as they wound their way through the people who had not yet taken their seats. “I wonder that you were brave enough to come retrieve me from my—”

Her brow furrowed.

“What does one call a group of suitors?” she wondered aloud.

“In the case of that crowd,” Winterson said with an expressive roll of his eyes, “nodcocks.”

“That is not quite fair,” Cecily argued as she allowed him to hand her into her seat, though she did tend to agree with him. “They are perhaps not the most intellectually gifted of men, but having grown up around an intelligent man I can tell you most assuredly that intellect can be highly overrated.”

Winterson flipped out the tails of his coat to take his seat and nodded a greeting to Lady Ashcroft, who boldly surveyed them through her lorgnette.

“Yes,” he responded to Cecily, “but there is a world of difference between nodcock and reasonably intelligent. And that lot is nowhere near the level of reasonably intelligent. I doubt they’ve got enough brains between them to power the mind of a fourteen-year-old boy.”

“Not even a small one?” Cecily asked, amused by the notion despite her discomfort at being the subject of so many curious stares.

“Not even a pygmy one.”

His face remained impassive, but Cecily was sure she noticed a twinkle lurking in his eye. Still, his derision needled her.

“You are quite determined to prevent me from enjoying my brief moment of popularity, aren’t you?”

“If by popularity, you are referring to the fact that you are now surrounded by witless, fashionable young men with little more to occupy their time than flitting from pretty flower to pretty flower,” he said sourly, “then yes, I am determined to prevent you from enjoying it. Besides,” he continued, scowling, “I thought we had an agreement.”

“I am well aware of our agreement, sir.” Cecily narrowed her eyes at him. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of jealousy in Winterson’s frown?

Refraining from voicing her thoughts, she continued, “But our agreement does not stipulate that I must avoid contact with gentlemen all together. That would raise suspicions, surely? Especially given the fact that I was seen just the other evening making a concerted effort to launch myself from the ranks of the social outcasts into the fashionable set.”

“Our agreement was that I would assist you in your quest for a husband if you would assist me in tracking down your father’s travel journals.”

Cecily watched in fascination as the muscles in his jaw clenched with his frustration, only realizing at the last minute that some reply was expected of her.

“Perhaps, Your Grace, I am doing just that.”

He raised one dark brow. “How so?”

A sigh escaped her. “I have it on some authority that there is to be a meeting of the executive council of the Egyptian Club this very evening.”

She watched his expression sharpen with some satisfaction.

“Go on.”

“Lord Willowbrook is a member of the executive council,” she continued. “I know this because my father was also on the council before his … attack.”

“Go on.”

Though she would be hard-pressed to say what exactly had changed, Cecily was aware of an alertness in him that had not been present before. Being the focus of all that energy was at once invigorating and frightening. She fought to maintain eye contact with him, though her every instinct demanded she look away.

“Well, Lord Willowbrook visited Papa this afternoon. It was the first time he has done so since my father fell ill. And I could not help but overhear him telling Papa about the meeting.”

“You were eavesdropping.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” Cecily replied, her voice low to keep her from being overheard. “But that should hardly be of concern to you when—”

“It is a concern to me,” he interrupted, “because if you had been discovered, Willowbrook would have been alerted to the fact that you are interested in the goings-on at the Egyptian Club.”

“Do you or do you not wish to know what I learned, Your Grace?”

He waved a hand that told her to proceed, though Cecily suspected he wanted to chide her further.

She smiled and nodded at Lord and Lady Fortescue, who took their seats two rows in front of them, before continuing. “The executive committee meets tonight,” she said in a hushed tone.

Then in a louder voice she trilled, “Oh, Your Grace, you are such a rogue!” For authenticity, she rapped Winterson’s forearm with her fan.

“Ah!” he yelped, clearly not expecting her gambit. “Ah … and you … Miss Hurston”—Winterson widened his eyes and raised his brows in silent rebuke—“are a delightful lady.”

Cecily sniffed.
Delightful lady, indeed.
Ignoring his lame response, she whispered, “They meet tonight, after the first interval of the musicale, in the Red Room.”

Aloud she said, “I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much, Your Grace. I never knew what a sense of humor you have.”

“I’ll leave first,” she whispered. “Then you follow a few minutes behind me.”

“Absolutely not,” he hissed. “You have no idea—”

But he was kept from continuing by the loud voice of their hostess, who had taken her place at the head of the room, and called everyone to order.

Cecily gave a silent prayer of thanks at the interruption. It would be much easier for her to simply do as she pleased instead of having to inform Winterson of her plans. But she had agreed to help him investigate William’s disappearance, and there was a certain comfort to be derived from having a partner in her quest to find her father’s journals. She’d been fending for herself for such a long time now that she’d forgotten what cooperation felt like. “I intend to observe this meeting myself,” she hissed during the moment of applause that followed Lady Willowbrook’s introduction.

The stiffness in his bearing told Cecily that he was not pleased, but he held his peace, holding open the program to point out the number of pieces before the interval.

Risking a glimpse at him from beneath her lashes, she was shocked into stillness when her gaze locked with his. This time she was the first to look away, and the accelerated beat of her heart told her the reaction had little to do with their power struggle over her plans to attend the secret meeting. He was entirely too handsome for his own good, this man.

Determined to maintain her poise, she turned all of her attention to the pianist, Miss Jessica Slaughter, a plain young woman who had a surprising talent for the instrument. Allowing herself to relax, Cecily tried to listen to the music, but found herself hyperaware of the man seated beside her. His arm was warm through the superfine of his coat, and it was difficult for her to concentrate when she could feel him brush against her with each breath.

Restless, she fidgeted in her seat, smoothing her skirts against her legs, folding and unfolding her hands. When Lucas turned his head in question, she shook her head slightly. One could hardly tell a gentleman in the middle of a musicale that his very presence next to her was making her skin feel too tight. Or that he was causing a curious dampness in regions of her person that she had hitherto not spent a great deal of time thinking about.

She didn’t even hear the second soloist, and when the interval came, Cecily nearly leaped from her seat in her desire to remove herself from the Duke of Winterson’s disturbing proximity. Perhaps if she were fast enough he wouldn’t catch up to her in the Red Room.

*   *   *

The musician after Miss Slaughter was not nearly as talented, and it was with some relief that Lucas heard Lady Willowbrook announce that they would be taking a short break for refreshments.

Cecily must have taken that as her cue. Rising, with a speed that surprised him, she said with only a slightly raised voice, “There is something in my eye. Please excuse me.” Lucas stared after her with a rising sense of frustration as she hurried to the doors at the back of the room, and slipped out into the hallway.

He wanted to follow her, but leaving the room together would draw even more attention to them than they had already done just by sitting together for the musicale. Already he had received several curious looks from both male and female attendees.