Perhaps he ought to have looked away. It would probably have been the polite thing to do. One did not stare at strangers. But he was interested to note that she did not look away from him or blush or appear in any way flustered. Indeed, she responded to his continued gaze exactly as he would have expected and rather as she had behaved at that inn. She lifted first her eyebrows and then her chin as though to ask him how he dared be so bold as to raise his eyes to Lady Jessica Archer.
He was the first to look away. Bertie Vickers had arrived and had come to gather Gabriel into the fold of his particular group of male friends. Though not for long.
“Come along, Gabe,” he said, slapping a hand on his shoulder after the flurry of greetings had ended. “There is a young lady I want you to meet.” He shrugged and pulled a face when his friends made jeering noises. “M’mother presented me with a list this morning—the names of daughters and nieces and granddaughters and whatnot of all her acquaintances. She made me promise to present Gabe to any of them who are here tonight. Don’t look at me like that, Kerson—there’s a good fellow. Gabe is in search of a leg shackle but he don’t know anyone. He just came from America.”
Kerson winced. “I’ll say a prayer for you, Thorne, next time I go to church,” he said.
“Next Christmas, will that be, Kerson?” someone else said. “It will be too late for Thorne by then. He will be caught right and tight in parson’s mousetrap, and he will have Bertie to blame. I mean, to thank.”
“I shall keep it in mind,” Gabriel said with a grin. “Who is this young lady you want me to meet, Bertie?”
But someone else had joined the group of young men, and Bertie, distracted, was shaking him by the hand and exclaiming that he had not seen him in an age and a half, and where the devil had he been keeping himself?
Gabriel was not particularly interested in dancing, even though that was why he had come here. None of the young girls he had set eyes upon thus far attracted him. The only woman who did was surrounded by an army of devoted followers and did not need another idiot making a fool of himself over her.
He glanced across the room toward her while he waited for Bertie to finish slapping his long-lost friend’s back and having his own back slapped in return. Ah. It looked as though after all there might be room for another admirer in Lady Jessica Archer’s orbit. A man was being presented to her by an older lady of regal bearing, clad in royal blue. He had gone there to pay homage and was making her an elegant bow he must have practiced for hours before a looking glass. Someone ought to advise him to change his tailor or his valet or both. His gold evening coat, excellently cut and of a perfect fit, was a touch on the flamboyant side but might have passed muster if it had been worn with the right accompaniments. A waistcoat that was so covered with glittering gold sequins that it might have stood up on its own if set on the floor was not the right accompaniment. He had a thick head of dark red hair carefully shaped into the very Brutus style Gabriel himself had recently rejected.
Lady Jessica Archer, Gabriel was interested to notice, responded to his deep obeisance with a haughty inclination of her head, just as she had responded to him at that inn. A queen honoring a lowly subject.
Bertie had finished with all the back slapping. “Lady Jessica Archer,” he said, noticing the direction of Gabriel’s gaze. “Netherby’s sister. The Duke of, that is. There is no point in wasting your time on her, Gabe. She will have no man, though if she does not change that attitude soon, she will be so long in the tooth no one will want her any longer.”
“Who is that with her?” Gabriel asked.
“That is a trick question, right?” Bertie said with a guffaw of a laugh. “Half the male guests here tonight are with her, as they almost always are. Or do you mean the woman in blue? Her mother, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby?”
“The man in gold,” Gabriel said.
“Don’t know.” Bertie shook his head, but one of his friends provided the answer.
“He is Lyndale’s heir,” he said. “The Earl of Lyndale, that is. Or soon-to-be earl. The ladies cannot get enough of him. They think him a handsome devil.”
“Ah,” Bertie said, “so that is Rochford, is it? I have been hearing his praises being sung all week. Mr. Perfection. Mr. Charming Perfection. One would think someone would change the subject once in a while.”
“Soon-to-be earl?” Gabriel said, his eyes narrowing as he looked upon the distinctive figure of his second cousin once removed.
“The old earl died almost seven years ago,” Bertie explained, “and his son with him. The nephew who got the title after him never claimed it and is almost certainly dead. If he is not found very soon, he will be called dead whether he is or not and there will be a new earl—that idiot’s father.”
“Idiot, Bertie?” someone asked. “Just because he is Mr. Charming Perfection?”
“Well, I ask you,” Bertie said, “who but an idiot would wear that waistcoat in public? It is an abomination—that’s what it is. Come along, Gabe—let me make that introduction, or the dancing will be starting and you will not have a partner for it and I will never hear the end of it after m’mother asks tomorrow.”
The girl in question was the daughter of a dear friend of Lady Vickers, a viscountess. She—the girl, that was—was almost painfully thin and pale of both hair and complexion. It was nothing short of a crime that she had been clad in white, surely the worst possible color for her. And it was a shame that someone had tried unsuccessfully to powder over the outbreak of spots that plagued her chin. Gabriel bowed to her and her mother when Bertie introduced him, and he smiled and made conversation until, when the time finally came, he led the girl out to join the first set, still with that odd feeling that he was an uncle fondly humoring a beloved niece. He led her to the end of the line of ladies, took his place opposite her in the line of gentlemen, and tried to convey reassurance in the way he looked at her. He glanced away to see if the orchestra was about to start playing and found himself looking at Lady Jessica Archer, who was vivid and lovely among the delicate whites and pastels to either side of her in the line. She caught his eye, and he nodded to her. It would be disrespectful to his partner to look longer. But he did notice that her partner was not Rochford.
That one glance confirmed everything he had thought about her.
She was perfection.
He danced the second set with Miss Parley herself, her mother having summoned him with one white-gloved hand and an imperious nod of her tall hair plumes. It was during that dance that he realized he was no longer virtually invisible as he had been at the start of the evening. Word had apparently spread about who he was—Mr. Thorne from America, as though the from America was part of his name and perhaps the most fascinating part of it. Lady Vickers, it seemed, had done her work well and aroused interest in this man who was her kinsman and godson and who had made a fortune during the years he had spent in America before coming home.
After he had returned Miss Parley to her mama’s side when the set was over, Lady Parley suggested she introduce him to someone else. “I know you are new to town and know virtually no one, Mr. Thorne,” she said. “That will change after this ball, I do assure you. But in the meanwhile, perhaps I may present you to Miss—”
“Perhaps Lady Jessica Archer, ma’am?” he suggested before she could finish. He had spoken impulsively. There were even more men gathered about her now, after the second set, than there had been at the start. Why would he wish to swell their numbers? He did not wish it, of course. He had no intention of becoming one of her hangers-on, vying with a dozen others for one of her glances or—pinnacle of all happiness—one of her smiles. His only intention was to marry her.
But first, an introduction.
“Of course,” Lady Parley said, and like a ship in full sail she set off across the ballroom, her hair plumes announcing her approach so that the cluster of men split apart to allow her access to the lady in their midst. Ladies, that was. There was another young woman with Lady Jessica, a very slender, dark beauty dressed in a gown of pale spring green.
Both watched their approach. Lady Jessica Archer closed her fan and slightly raised her chin. It was clear to Gabriel that by now she had recognized him as the man who had given up the private parlor for her use at that inn, albeit somewhat ungraciously.
“Lady Jessica, Lady Estelle,” Lady Parley said, “I have the pleasure of presenting Mr. Thorne, who has recently returned from America. Lady Jessica Archer and Lady Estelle Lamarr, Mr. Thorne.”
“Lady Jessica. Lady Estelle.” Gabriel bowed to them, though with none of the ostentation his cousin had displayed earlier.
Lady Estelle Lamarr greeted him with a smile and a curtsy before turning to a blushing young man who had touched her arm and seemed intent upon inviting her to dance the next set with him.
Lady Jessica acknowledged Gabriel with the same slight inclination of the head he had seen twice before. “Mr. Thorne,” she said.
Lady Parley was hailed by someone to their left and hurried away with a murmured apology.
“For how long were you in America, Mr. Thorne?” Lady Jessica asked.