Chapter 5

For someone who had spent most of the previous evening sobbing into her pillow, Letty thought she looked remarkably fresh as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that hung in Lady Cumberland's foyer.

It was the pink gown she had chosen. It flattered her creamy complexion and brightened her plain brown hair and eyes. She had mostly chosen it because she knew her mother would chastise her if she wore purple to two events in a row. Purple, her mother maintained, was for royalty and women with the sophistication to pull the color off.

Letty sighed. Apparently, she wasn't even interesting enough to wear her favorite color.

But the pink was proving to be an inspired choice. She was feeling almost pretty until she stepped into the back garden and beheld the woman to whom she had resolved to introduce Vander.

Vander wanted someone beautiful? Well, Priscilla Peabody was considered to be the diamond of the Season. She had blonde hair. Blue eyes. Rose lips. A figure that was the perfect blend of slender and curvaceous.

And what was even better, she was the daughter of a baron who had run up significant debts expanding his horse racing operation. Letty felt certain that any woman with a pulse would be thrilled by the prospect of being Vander's bride. But some noble families might turn their noses up at him because his father was in trade.

Not Priscilla Peabody's family. Vander's father was one of the richest men in London. He was exactly the sort of man Lord Peabody needed his daughter to catch.

Letty forced a smile to her lips as she approached Priscilla. As easy as it was to be jealous of a girl who had received such natural gifts, Priscilla had never been anything but kind to her. And, in a way, their situations were much the same. Letty had to choose amongst her small handful of suitors, and Priscilla had to choose a man with a fortune.

It was just that Priscilla was about to be presented with the choice Letty yearned for.

"Miss Peabody, might I ask you a question?" Letty inquired.

"Of course, Lady Leticia," Priscilla replied, smiling.

Letty dropped her voice low. "Do you have a partner for the pall-mall match? I ask because there is a particular gentleman who is in need of one. I am already paired with Lord Throckmorton, but I believe he is someone whom you might like to meet."

"Oh?" Miss Peabody smiled, but she was peering over Letty's shoulder to see who else was arriving. "Who is he?"

"Mr. Evander Beauclerk."

Miss Peabody's eyes snapped to Letty. "Evander Beauclerk!" She leaned forward and whispered, "Is he truly coming? I've been trying to make Mr. Beauclerk's acquaintance for months, but he does not usually attend events such as these."

Letty's smile felt brittle as she nodded. "I have it on good authority that he will be here. May I inform him that you will be his partner?"

Miss Peabody's laugh was slightly wild as if she could not believe Letty even had to ask. "Please do. You may tell him I should be delighted." She leaned forward, placing her hand over Letty's and squeezing. "Thank you, Lady Leticia. You don't know how much this introduction means to me."

Letty blinked rapidly, as her eyes suddenly felt moist. It happened that she did appreciate what a blessing it was to spend any time in Vander's company, whether it was an afternoon or a lifetime. "You are most welcome. I'll bring him to you before the match is to commence."

"Excellent!"

Letty excused herself and crossed the garden toward the cluster of chairs where her mother was chatting with friends. As she passed by the back door, it opened, and out walked Vander.

"Good, you're here," she said, striding up to him. "I've arranged for you to partner with your first prospective bride in the pall-mall tournament."

Vander rolled his eyes theatrically. "We're playing pall-mall? Really?"

Letty glanced around to make sure no one else was within hearing distance and dropped her voice low. "If you think pall-mall is insipid, I shudder to think how you're going to get through this month."

He grunted. "It can't possibly get worse than pall-mall."

"Spoken like a man who has never been forced to play blind man's bluff with Arthur Fitzgibbon."

Vander chuckled, looking surprised. "I was at school with Fitzgibbon. I take it his habits of personal cleanliness have not improved."

"They have not, yet paradoxically, I was grateful for the stench. At least I could smell him coming." She leaned toward his ear, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Mr. Fitzgibbon does not seem to grasp the general strategy of blind man's bluff, in that the blindfolded party is the one who is supposed to do the grabbing. He is as handsy as his apparent namesake."

"Son of a gibbon," Vander said, grinning.

Letty paused, momentarily stunned by the sight of his handsome, smiling visage pointing squarely at her. "Precisely," she finally managed.

"Why do you not decline to participate, if it's so odious?"

"Would that I could. But above all else, young, unmarried ladies are expected to be agreeable. I am never permitted to complain about anything. In fact, I am required to express enthusiasm for all manner of horrifying things, from blind man's bluff to hair jewelry to ratafia. I therefore had to be, shall we say, creative, in dealing with Mr. Fitzgibbon."

Vander tipped his forehead toward hers. "Do tell."

"The third time his hands strayed to places they should not have been, I managed to capture him. There happened to be a young girl participating in the game, Miss Jane Burgess. She was twelve years old and very petite. So, after making a show of feeling Mr. Fitzgibbon's hands, I cheerfully declared that my captor must be Miss Burgess because only she could have such small, delicate hands."

Vander burst out laughing. "You didn't!"

Letty grinned, remembering. "I most certainly did, and wouldn't you know it, Mr. Fitzgibbon avoided me for the remainder of the game."

Vander wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, still laughing. "I can't wrap my mind around the notion of sweet little Letty Daughtry delivering such a blistering set-down."

Letty strove to make her voice light as she replied, "Yes, well, I have grown up a bit since those summers you spent with us at Baldridge Hall."

Vander was studying her, and although it was probably a figment of her overactive imagination, Letty thought his expression was one of admiration. "You certainly have." He nodded toward the refreshment table. "So, no ratafia for you. What is your preferred libation?"

"Champagne," Letty said without hesitation. "Not that I'm permitted to have a glass at two o'clock in the… Wait, what are you doing?"

Vander had looped his arm through hers. Tugging her forward, he strode toward the back of the gardens. "Misbehaving, as usual."

Without breaking stride, he snagged two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing footman, carrying them in one hand as he led her to the shade of a flowering crabapple tree.

Smiling, he offered one to her.

"I shouldn't." Letty peered across the garden, trying to ascertain if her mother was watching. "Mama would have a fit."

"Take it." He pressed the glass into her hand. "If anyone says something, blame me. I, of course, am entirely ignorant when it comes to these things, and you were merely too polite to point out my shocking lapse in etiquette."

"Well. When you put it that way." She sipped from her glass, unable to suppress a soft groan of pleasure.

There was just something about champagne. Maybe it was the bubbles. It made her happy.

Vander's smile was genuine. "You, Leticia Daughtry, are full of surprises."

Letty chuckled. "Have I shocked you?"

"You have, but please, continue. It is surely the only way I will survive something as tedious as pall-mall." He took a sip from his own glass. "So, who do you have in mind for me?"

Letty fought to keep any trace of sadness from crossing her features. "Miss Priscilla Peabody." She tilted her glass toward the refreshment table, where Miss Peabody stood. "She's the one in the mint-green gown. Blonde hair, blue eyes… she just accepted a glass of punch."

"I see her." Vander made an appreciative sound. "She looks promising. From this distance, anyway."

"You won't be disappointed when you see her up close. She's considered to be the diamond of this Season. I should warn you that her father has run up significant debts on his horseracing operation."

"How much?" Vander asked, his eyes not straying from Miss Peabody.

"Rumored to be in the neighborhood of thirty thousand pounds."

Vander made a dismissive sound. "That's nothing."

It was more money than most people would see in ten lifetimes and six times Letty's own dowry. Vander's father must be even more successful than everyone said if his son could shrug off such a ruinous sum.

"When I proposed you as her partner, she seemed delighted," Letty said honestly. "She does not lack for suitors, but I am under the impression that most of the men who can afford her are her father's age, or even older. She seemed excited to be meeting someone young and handsome."

"Perfect." He tore his eyes from Miss Peabody's lovely profile to look at Letty. "What about you? Who will you be playing with?"

"I will be partnering with one of my suitors. Lord Throckmorton."

Vander tilted his head. "One of your suitors? How many do you have?"

Letty drew herself up, unsure what he was implying. "Two."

Vander shook his head, an expression of confusion on his handsome face. "But… suitors. The way you phrased it sounds rather serious."

Letty rolled her eyes. Did he not believe it was possible that a man might be interested in her? "Considering they both proposed to me in the middle of Lady Sunderland's ball, I have every reason to believe their intentions are serious."

"They what?" Vander hissed.

Letty laughed, disbelieving. "Do you mean to tell me you have not heard of it? It has been the juiciest on dit for weeks." She couldn't resist poking him in the arm. "Right up until someone was featured in the Rake Review."

Vander scowled, somehow managing to look just as handsome with a sour look on his face. "Never mind that. Who are these two suitors of yours? And what do you mean, they proposed in the middle of a ball? Surely proposing should be a private affair."

Letty took a fortifying sip of champagne. "I had promised the supper dance to Mr. Bertrand Strickleton—"

"Bertie Strickleton!" Vander looked appalled. "Tell me he's not one of the two. He's what, seventeen?"

In truth, Letty could see why Vander might be under that impression. Bertie might be slightly older in years, but he was not what you would call an old soul. But she could hardly disparage the man she very well might end up marrying, so she merely said, "He is indeed. And he is two and twenty."

Vander screwed up his nose. "And you said the other one is Throckmorton? He's what, twice your age?"

Letty tried to make her voice light. "Just fifteen years my senior."

"Good Lord. So, what happened next?"

"It turned out that Lord Throckmorton had approached my mother, and she had promised him the supper dance on my behalf. That was the source of the conflict."

Understanding flared in Vander's fine, dark eyes. "Ah, I see. I take it you didn't have any other dances free?"

Letty almost snorted but stopped herself just in time. No other dances free. She was a wallflower. She spent at least half of every ball standing in the corner with Emily.

But if Vander didn't realize that she enjoyed, at best, a middling sort of popularity, she certainly wasn't about to enlighten him. "It happens that I did have some free dances. But they were both strangely insistent upon claiming that particular one."

Vander drained his glass. "Why was that?"

"It turned out that they had both resolved to propose to me during the supper break. By the time this came out, they were shouting at each other in the middle of Lady Sunderland's ballroom. Everyone was staring. It was awful."

Vander huffed. "Awful. I'm pretty sure that says it all, but I'll ask, just to be sure. Do you really want to marry either of them?"

Letty felt her throat constrict. Because this was the question no one had asked her, no one save Emily. Everyone asked which of her suitors she was going to choose. Whether she preferred an older husband or a younger one.

No one had considered that she might not want either of them. Lord Throckmorton was gruff and taciturn. They'd danced together a dozen times, but he still felt like a stranger. Meanwhile, she thought of Bertie Strickleton less as a suitor, and more as a younger brother.

An annoying younger brother.

She blinked back the moisture suddenly welling in her eyes. "I—"

"Lady Leticia," a curt voice said.

In an instant, Letty pasted on a bright smile. "Lord Throckmorton. How lovely to see you. Are you acquainted with Mr. Evander Beauclerk?"

"Indeed. Beauclerk." Unsmiling, Lord Throckmorton extended his hand. Vander took it, but make no mistake, this handshake was not a friendly gesture. As they gripped each other's hands, the baron's face turned red, and a vein popped out on Vander's temple.

"I believe the pall-mall is about to commence," Lord Throckmorton said once the wrestling match had concluded.

"How delightful," Letty said. "Allow me to introduce Mr. Beauclerk to his partner, and we can take up our positions."

Vander pointedly scooped up Letty's hand, glowering at the baron as he placed it on his arm. Once they were a few strides away, he whispered, "I don't like this."

"It is not for you to like or dislike," Letty said firmly.

"Do you really want to marry Throckmorton?" Vander hissed, his voice tinged with disbelief.

"I don't know," Letty acknowledged. "But it would seem prudent for me to spend some time in his company so I can make an informed decision between him and Mr. Strickleton."

She glanced at Vander and found him making the expression of a man who had stepped in something exceptionally foul, likely produced by a pig. "Van-der," she chided. "Don't look so sour. Lord Throckmorton might not be the most scintillating conversationalist—"

"A rather exceptional understatement," Vander muttered.

She poked him in the arm. "But he appears to be a perfectly nice man. And it's not as if I have any other choices." Letty would never know where she got the nerve, but she found herself lifting her chin and staring him boldly in the eye. "Do I?"

The question hung in the air for six beats of Letty's pounding heart before a feminine voice said, "Lady Leticia?"

Letty forced a bright, brittle smile. "Miss Peabody, there you are. Allow me to present Mr. Evander Beauclerk. Mr. Beauclerk, Miss Priscilla Peabody."

Vander bowed neatly over Miss Peabody's hand. "Miss Peabody. A pleasure."

"The pleasure is all mine," Priscilla trilled.

Letty took a step back, considering them. In truth, they made an exceptionally attractive couple. Priscilla's glowing golden mien formed the perfect complement to Vander's dark, brooding handsomeness.

Ignoring the wave of jealousy that washed over her, Letty cleared her throat. "I must find my own partner, so I'll leave you two to it," she said with false cheerfulness.

Vander was looking not at his lovely partner, but at her. "Wait, Letty—"

She dropped a hasty curtsy, unable to meet his eye. "Do excuse me."