Page 2 of Inconvenient Honor
“Well, perhaps quite a bit older,” she acknowledged when they passed.
“She served as her father’s hostess in his postings abroad since sheturned sixteen. She has shown no interest in the marriage mart until this year,” Richard said. “I don’t care about the gossip. I want to know about her connection to Konstantin Volkov.”
“Ask her,” the countess suggested.
“I intend to,” Richard said as the last notes of the dance faded. He set out in the woman’s direction.
Lily Thornton’smouth hurt from smiling. Her feet hurt from dancing. Her neck hurt from the effort to keep track of Konstantin Volkov. So far he made no effort to approach her, but she could feel his eyes on her. The skin on the back of her neck crawled with the knowledge that someone watched.
“…at Vauxhall next month.”
She smiled up at the speaker, her most recent partner, even though she had no idea what he had said.
He placed her hand on his arm to escort her from the floor. Was this one’s name Roger Heaton or Beaton? Ambitious young men with minor positions in the Foreign Office had flattered her with attention all week. You really ought to pay attention, Lily.
Another one—Walter Stewart, she thought—beamed at her when they approached. This one, she remembered, has at least been to the continent on some brief mission. He will have more conversation. Two others she recognized hovered at his elbows.
You really ought to seriously consider one of these, she chided herself. The need to find a husband weighed her down. The thought of making conversation over breakfast with any of these decent, dim, and woefully narrow-minded young men every morning of her life depressed her even more.
“My dance next, I believe,” Stewart said, offering his arm and shooting a smug look at his friends.
“I think not,” a cold voice cut in from behind her shoulder. She felt the words vibrate through her. “Your lot has danced MissThornton off her feet tonight. I believe she would like to sit for a set.”
When Lily turned to see who had so highhandedly up-ended her evening, a man’s cravat and spectacular sapphire stickpin met her gaze. She had to lift her face to look up past his firm chin and stern mouth, to eyes as blue as ice. He glared at the young men behind her who scattered like geese.
Glenaire. No one but the Marble Marquess could have routed the lot of them so quickly.What on earth does he want with me?
Before she could formulate a coherent response to his arrogant demands, he said, “Your admirers melted away rather quickly. Shall we sit for a moment?” He took her arm without waiting for a response.
“Do I have a choice?” She tripped trying to keep pace with him.
“I want to speak with you,” he said as if it were answer enough.
Does anyone ever tell this man no?She suspected not.
He didn’t lead her to the seats where the chaperones looked after their charges. Lily managed only a glance at her Aunt Marianne sitting among them and smiling vacantly about the room. The Marquess gestured instead to two small chairs placed between massive ferns in marble pots that stood shoulder high. The setting allowed a modicum of privacy but prevented any hint of impropriety.
He handed Lily into a seat but stood for a moment looking down at her.
He looks as if he is going to interrogate me…or eat me!
“Do you plan to loom over me or to sit and talk?” she demanded. “My neck will ache from the effort.” The pulse in her throat pounded; she couldn’t calm it.
She thought perhaps a hint of a smile played at the edge of his mouth just before he sat next to her in one graceful movement.
“Better,” she said. “What does the mighty Marquess of Glenaire wish to speak to me about so urgently that he ignores basic manners?”
Eyebrows, slightly darker than his white-blond hair arched up.Pity, she thought absently,hair that fair is wasted on a man.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
Whatever she expected, it wasn’t that. She thought of several facetious answers, but the Marble Marquess would not tolerate trivia.
“Broadening my acquaintances,” she said. “A woman who hopes to marry requires a wide circle of friends.”
“How do you know Konstantin Volkov?” he demanded.
Lily’s heart beat faster. Even the thought of what had passed between Volkov and her naïve self in Saint Petersburg brought a flush of shame. She had been a fool where that man was concerned. Could Glenaire possibly know about Konstantin? People said the Marble Marquess knew everything.
