Chapter Three

" C areful, Lord Foxford," Lady Fenwick chided while Purity sat in stunned silence, feeling all eyes upon her.

"She had a dob of custard upon her nose," her tormentor explained. "No gentleman would let that remain if he could do something about it."

"A gentleman ought to simply tell a lady and allow her to take care of the matter herself," Purity ended on a hiss, assuming her cheeks were now bright red. In a softer voice for only him to hear, she added, "You aren't supposed to draw attention to such a thing, nor should you touch me unasked."

"My apologies," he said, without appearing sorry. He leaned closer again and whispered, "Next time, I shall wait until you ask me to touch you."

Lord Fenwick, at the other end of the table, unaware of the quagmire of inappropriate behavior through which Purity found herself trudging, called out, "Well done, Foxford. I say it was the polite thing to do. You cannot leave a lady with cream upon her pretty face."

To Purity's amazement, a debate broke out over her dining companion's action. Was he insolent or chivalrous?

Sighing deeply to calm herself, she sent her gaze back to her dessert and tried her best to ignore the entire discussion. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, and such an occurrence was not covered in her favorite manners book, The Gentleman and Lady's Book of Politeness and Propriety of Deportment , although she would skim it when she returned home to make sure. How the custard got on the end of her nose, she couldn't imagine.

Then it dawned on her. There probably hadn't been any. But why would Lord Foxford pretend?

A possible answer came after dinner when the guests returned to the drawing room. The men had eschewed sitting alone with cigars and brandy since the evening was intended for spending time with the opposite sex. The Fenwicks had made a few successful matches already, it seemed, by the pairing up that was happening around the hearth.

Purity thought she might speak with a flaxen-haired man standing by himself. He had a pleasant visage.

"Since we are now firmly linked as the two most outlandish dining companions," Lord Foxford said softly at her elbow, "will you allow me to be your partner for charades or whatever entertainment comes next?"

Purity decided that had been his intent all along.

"I don't want to be considered outlandish, nor do I wish to be associated with anyone who is."

Regardless, since a brown-haired lady with a strand of rubies around her neck had taken the opportunity to attach herself to the blond man, Purity settled for one of two empty seats and let Lord Foxford sit beside her.

"I thought by your behavior at Lansdowne House—" he began.

"Shh," she hissed, looking around to make sure no one was paying attention. "Whatever you thought, you were wrong. After all, I didn't go there to meet with anyone, merely to admire some art. Unlike yourself! In any case, why are you pestering me if you are seriously looking for a wife?"

He remained silent, which was a good thing, but he was fiddling with his gloves on his lap.

"Put your gloves in your pocket," she admonished him. "There is no need to have them out unless you intend to depart within minutes."

His eyes widened. "Are you schooling me in decorum?"

"Someone ought to," she muttered, noticing that Lady Fenwick was organizing guests for charades and other games with forfeits.

"Just as someone ought to instruct that young lady over there not to chew her lip," Purity pointed out. "She looks bovine yet probably fancies herself winsome. And that man with the mole on his forehead. Do you see him? He's doing all the talking while the lady beside him has the appearance of a trapped rabbit. Since she can't gnaw herself out of the situation, she must wait for him to take a breath and make an excuse to escape. What a tedious boor!"

"As I was over dinner," Lord Foxford surmised.

Purity had to be honest. "On the contrary, you were doing precisely the correct thing with a dining partner who was feeling surly and untalkative."

She was surprised when he laughed softly.

"You are brutally honest, even about yourself," he remarked. And he put his gloves away as she'd suggested.

"I suppose I am." Purity didn't like prevarication any more than she appreciated slovenliness, poor manners, or disorderly conduct. Life was much more pleasant when people adhered to expectations and behaved as politely as possible.

She sighed, not knowing how to explain herself, nor particularly caring to.

"Everyone!" called out Lord Fenwick while his wife gave a single swift clap of her hands to get their guests' attention. "Find a discreet corner to discuss your challenge."

While Purity had been wool-gathering, she had missed when Lord Foxford took the small square of paper from Lady Fenwick, confirming them as a team of two.

"It's a blindfolded game," he said, handing her their instructions.

"For two," she added upon reading it. "And something of a spectacle!" Why couldn't people settle for cards or a pleasant piano recital when in the mixed company of strangers?

At least it wasn't the romantic balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, as her sister had once performed before a roomful of people, including their parents. Purity had been embarrassed for her.

"You don't know one another well enough for games of Make Your Will ," Lady Fenwick said, "or Squeak, Piggy, Squeak ."

"Thank God!" Purity whispered to Lord Foxford.

In her opinion, the former told too much to too many. As for the latter, squatting over someone's lap without touching them while squeaking was too awkward and primed for mishap.

Couple by couple, they went to the room's center where the furniture had been cleared away and did whatever their hostess had written on the slip of paper.

The first couple blew feathers in the air. When the lady's dropped first, her forfeit was to say a proverb backward. She was even allowed to choose it.

"I hope if I lose, I get such a forfeit," Purity confessed. There were so many embarrassing possibilities.

Next another couple played The Messenger , each getting half the room to whom they must tell the same message, starting with the first person in their line. When it reached the last person, he or she said the message out loud. The lady's message came through the line more accurately. Lady Fenwick cried a forfeit from the young man this time.

"You are to be a malleable Grecian statue," she told him.

Bravely, he stood in the center of the room and let the other men move his arms and legs and even twist his body, all the while trying not to laugh and never once complaining.

"More like a gargoyle than a Greek statue," Lord Foxford said when it was over, and Purity couldn't help giving him her first smile of the evening.

Soon, it was their turn to play The Cordial Greeting . Rising to his feet, he offered his hand, which she accepted.

"As they say in France," Lord Foxford remarked, " Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute. "

While Purity was translating in her head — it is only the first step that costs — Lord Foxford drew her into the middle of the room.

"You go to that end, Foxford," said Lord Fenwick, gesturing one way.

"And you go the other," Lady Fenwick said to Purity.

Once they were at opposing ends of the spacious drawing room, Lord Fenwick blindfolded Lord Foxford. Purity watched it happen, his splendid, honeyed eyes gazing directly at her until they were covered, and then Lady Fenwick tied a kerchief around Purity's face, knotting it at the back.

She didn't like the feeling of cloth covering her eyes. Unable to see anything, she shivered.

"You know how this is played," Lady Fenwick said, her voice moving away. "Find each other and shake hands."

Hating the notion that everyone was staring at her, Purity began walking forward, or assumed she was. Keeping her hands up in front of her, she took small, shuffling steps in her butter-soft, gray kidskin shoes. How hard could it be to walk in a straight path anyway?

"That's it," someone said, encouragingly.

"Go left, Foxford," came Lord Fenwick's voice.

A few people chuckled, so Purity assumed he shouldn't do as instructed since the audience was allowed to attempt to misdirect them.

And then, everyone started to clap and some of the gentlemen stomped so she and Lord Foxford couldn't hear each other approaching. It was most disorienting.

Unseeing, she touched something warm, and she gasped. Belatedly, she realized it was a forehead and hair, both at her waist level.

A gentleman laughed, presumably the one seated whom she'd touched so familiarly. Someone else, hopefully a woman, spun her half a turn. She wished she knew whether she'd been sent the correct way.

And then, before she could acknowledge how unpleasant she found this game, large hands brushed across hers. For an instant, Purity thought she and Lord Foxford had passed by each other. But after flailing slightly, she touched him again. This time he grasped hold of her hands with his, and she was certain it was he by the scent of his cologne.

"A proper handshake," Lord Fenwick said.

"I know how to greet a lady properly," Lord Foxford replied.

Purity felt him lift her right hand, and then his warm lips dusted her knuckles.

The guests cheered as Purity experienced her second spine-tingling shiver of the evening. His firm lips reminded her of when he'd kissed her.

For a dreadful second, she imagined he would do it again with everyone watching.

Wrenching her hand free, she stripped off the blindfold and gasped for breath.

In front of her, Lord Foxford removed his. They locked gazes, and he frowned.

"Are you well?"

"Of course," she said. But her heart was racing for she'd had an uncomfortable sensation of suffocating.

"No forfeit from either of you," Lady Fenwick said.

Guests moaned, but Purity was relieved to return to her seat and take up a glass of sherry. Unfortunately, most of the charades, riddles, and pantomimes were short. And within the hour, they had to take another turn. However, with fortified wine and much laughter, Purity felt better about the next game.

This time their piece of paper said, "How? When? Where?"

"Out of the room," Lord Fenwick ordered, "while we choose an object. The first one of you who guesses what it is wins, and the other one pays the forfeit."

Purity could hardly listen because Lord Foxford, with a grin that spoke of wicked amusement, opened the drawing-room door and ushered her out into the empty hallway.

"Shut the door," Lord Fenwick ordered from inside. "And no listening at the keyhole."

"You heard our host," Lord Foxford said. "Come away from the door."

With that, Purity allowed him to draw her down the dimly lit passageway.

Matthew couldn't have asked for a better game. Surely, protective mothers didn't know about this. Even better, there was no one to witness and whisper to The Times , which had been dogging his every step since his return.

Regardless, he wasn't going to waste a second of the perfect opportunity at an otherwise tepid dinner party for tame single people.

Taking her hand, he pulled her along behind him, down the Fenwicks' hallway toward the back of the house. In a few steps, he found an empty spot of wall with no painting or candle sconce. With his smoothest maneuver, he waltzed her in a half circle until he could press her back to the wall.

"My lord?" she asked.

"I have been desperate to kiss you again." Earlier in the evening, he wouldn't have said such an exaggeration, but by this time, having been beside her for hours and kissed the soft skin of her hand, he was not lying. He was desperate to have her mouth under his.

Without hesitation, he pressed close, feeling her soft curves meld to his firm chest. He couldn't help tilting his hips against hers, too, while he caged her with his hands on the striped wallpaper at either side of her head.

She said nothing, blinking her blue eyes at him as he lowered his head and claimed her mouth. He nearly groaned from the relief of tasting Lady Purity again and of drinking in the same delicate floral fragrance that clung to her skin and, this time, to her hair as well.

As before, her body relaxed as soon as their lips fused. Also as before, his desire flared like a fatty candle. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and take her away, anywhere they could be together.

After ravishing her mouth as quickly as he dared, he kissed his way along her sweet chin and down the column of her neck.

"My townhouse is on this square, just a few doors down," he said against the creamy soft skin of her collarbone.

She went rigid at his words. He ought to have expected it, but he'd been instantly caught up in the heady sensation of joining with her, able to imagine how good it would be if they made the two-backed beast. Obviously, his hasty invitation was impossible since the drawing-room door would open any second, but still, maybe they could arrange a tryst later.

Leaning back to see if she enjoyed it, too, he asked, "What are you thinking, kitten?"

He didn't see it coming this time since the hallway was dim on all sides. In fact, he heard it first before he felt it. Slap!

At the same time, the door opened, and he sprang back and away from her as one of the guest's heads popped out, followed by a lady's shoulders.

"We're ready for you."

Lady Purity was already strolling away from him, head high as if nothing had happened. Entering the room behind her, he couldn't find it in himself to regret the kiss, not to mention nibbling on her neck, although his cheek still stung. Without her gloves on, she'd delivered an impressive wallop.

Forgetting what they were doing, he was surprised when Lady Purity asked, "How do you like it?" followed by "When do you like it? Where do you like it?"

Asking all the correct questions within the confines of the game, she received equally informative answers and said, "A bow" before he could even consider them or formulate his own questions.

"A forfeit from Lord Foxford," Lady Fenwick said. "Lady Purity, you may be seated."

His dark-haired partner glanced at his cheek before smirking at him, which made him wonder if it was telltale red. Then she left him alone in the center of the drawing room.

His forfeit was to illustrate three of his best qualities in pantomime.

Matthew considered the roomful of people and what he could get away with. First, he pretended to mount his horse and ride. The other guests clapped. Then, since it would be difficult to mime making money, he pretended to draw back a bow and shoot an arrow, then lift his fist in triumph as if he'd hit the target dead center.

Lastly, after turning and looking directly at Lady Purity, he wrapped his arms around himself, closed his eyes, and tilted his head as if kissing.

The men fell silent, but the ladies clapped and laughed as he'd hoped. Except for Lady Purity!

When he opened his eyes, she appeared in a high tweague, with her arms crossed and her luscious lips pursed into a straight line. Moreover, if looks could kill, he would fall lifeless upon the thick Persian rug.

Instead, he grinned at her and winked.