A Ballroom Temptation Page 7

  But there was no retaliating strike. Geoff didn’t grab her wrist, twisting painfully as he dragged Drusilla off for a private conversation. Instead he said, “Ahh, there’s Lord Atherton. Quincy and I must speak with him. Jane, say you’ll dance with me when we come back?”

  The racing of her heartbeat was deafening. “Of course.”

  “Geoff,” Drusilla said, grabbing his sleeve again. “Did you forget you’re on my card for the next set?”

  “I didn’t forget. But Jane is such a lovely dancer, and it’s been so long since we’ve had the pleasure. You understand.”

  They walked away, leaving her alone with Drusilla.

  “He doesn’t actually want to dance with me.”

  Drusilla stopped watching Geoffrey’s retreat. “Excuse me?”

  “He doesn’t want to dance with me. He’s just angry because you embarrassed him.”

  “I—” Drusilla took a deep breath through her nostrils, smoothing the front of her skirt. “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions about my fiancé to yourself, Jane.”

  Jane silently cursed Geoffrey for putting her in the middle of it. “I didn’t mean . . . You just oughtn’t provoke him like that, is all. It’s easier if you don’t upset him.”

  As a child, Jane had once eaten a plant on a dare from Charlie. It turned out to be poisonous and had made her entire body feel like there was fire running through her veins. The look Drusilla was giving her now reminded Jane of that experience.

  “Do you think you’re some sort of expert on Geoffrey?” Drusilla spat. “You, who couldn’t keep him happy? Who lost him?”

  “I—”

  “We talk about you, you know. We talk, and then we laugh over how pathetic you are. Did you really think you could just come back and everyone would forget how far you fell?”

  The room started closing in around Jane. The edges of her vision grew hazy.

  “Geoffrey doesn’t want you. He didn’t want you then, and he doesn’t want you now. Why don’t you stop making a fool of yourself and just go back to being a nobody?”

  Jane sucked air into her lungs, but it wasn’t helping. It couldn’t happen again. Not here, not now. Not with all these people looking. “Excuse me.”

  Drusilla’s sharp laugh followed her across the floor to the doors of the terrace. Jane pushed through them, gasping for breath. They slammed shut behind her, finally blocking out the sound.

  • • •

  Adam was standing in the shadow of a Corinthian column, spying on Sebastian and trying to appear unfriendly enough that no one would approach him. This was what he’d been reduced to. At the beginning of the evening, he’d tried to start a civil conversation, but Sebastian had just turned his back and walked off. Adam had also tried visiting him at his flat—only to find him perpetually not home. So he watched. He was a glorified nanny, keeping a sharp eye out in case his younger brother ended up in over his head.

  Even without a sharp eye, he couldn’t have missed it when Miss Bailey raced past him while some vicious twit laughed at her.

  It doesn’t matter. You’re not here to look after her. You’re here to look after . . . Damn it all. Who was he trying to fool? Adam left his post and followed her outside. She had her arms braced on the balustrade, gulping in air like she was drowning.

  Adam went to her side. “Miss Bailey?”

  The frequency of heaving gasps doubled.

  “Miss Bailey, it’s all right. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Go a . . . a . . . way.”

  He should listen. He should go back to his column and his useless monitoring of Sebastian. She obviously didn’t want his help.

  “Slow down.” He put his palm flat on her back. “I know you feel like you can’t breathe, but you have plenty of air.”

  An irritated noise sounded, followed by a slowing in the lurching movement of her body. After a few more moments, she wasn’t breathing hard at all.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Of course, I—”

  “Now, please go away.”

  Adam took his hand off her back. “Is there something I—”

  “Lord Wesley, you made it quite clear how you feel about me.” She straightened, smoothing a stray piece of hair back into her pins. “I did not ask for your help, but I’m certain you’ll have no trouble adding it to the many ways I am a burden to you.”

  He felt like an utter ass. “When I said that, I didn’t mean it.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have said it,” she snapped. “But you did—in front of Miss Davenport and your brother—and it was humiliating.”

  Adam jumped to keep step with her as she stormed off down the lawn.

  “I would like to be alone,” she said.

  “I feel like you’ve gotten the wrong impression about me.”

  “Have I? Was your opinion of me particularly high before the Rockfords’ ball?”

  Or the right one. She had him there. “I’ve been unkind. I’m sorry.”

  She whirled on him in an explosion of skirts. “Unkind? Unkind.”

  “Arrogant, even. Thoughtless and rude.”

  She took off again, continuing her mad dash. At this point Adam was obligated to follow her just to make sure she made it back. Whatever had happened, it appeared to have sent Miss Bailey a bit over the edge.

  “Miss Bailey?”

  She didn’t answer, striding with determination.

  “Miss Bailey, can I ask where we’re going?”

  “We are not going anywhere. You are callously disregarding my wishes to be alone.”

  “Where are you going then?”

  “Home.”

  It was fortunate that her back was turned, so she couldn’t see his smile. “St. James’s Square is—”

  “I know where St. James’s Square is!” she shouted, throwing up her hands. “I just don’t know why there are so many bloody hedges.”

  “A few moments ago—”

  “When you were arrogant and rude?”

  “When I was arrogant and rude—your path took us into the maze.”

  Miss Bailey did a full turn, noting the surrounding shrubbery. He heard her deep inhale, followed by a barely muttered curse.

  The absurdity of the situation, and the unlikeliness of that word coming from this woman . . . Adam couldn’t help it. He laughed.

  “It’s not humorous.”

  “It’s a little humorous.”

  “No, it’s not,” she insisted, turning to face him again. “Things like this don’t happen to me. Things like this have never happened to me. Not until . . .”

  “Until.”

  “You.” Realization dawned on her face. She pointed her finger at him. “This is your fault.”

  “How is this my fault?”

  “You show up, looking . . .”—she made a vague gesture in his direction—“doing nice things, and being strong.”

  “Strong?” A grin crept onto the corners of his mouth.

  “And you buy medicine for your ailing stepmother. And it’s not fair!”

  “Not fair,” he repeated. Jane Bailey was harboring a tendre for him.

  “Miss Bailey.” He ignored the jolt of pleasure he felt at the confirmation. “You know that I am not the right man for you.”

  “Of course I do!” She set off striding again.

  “Miss Bailey, wait. Please! We’ll only get more lost. You have to stand still.”

  “I can’t.” She made a quick left, followed by a quick right. “If I stand still, I will have to confront how mortifying this entire evening has been. So instead, I’m just going to keep walking.”

  “Forever?”

  “If necessary.” She made another turn and came face-to-face with a dead end.

  Adam realized he was effectively dealing with a spo
oked animal. When she turned to continue her mad dash back the way they had come, he stopped her. “Please just wait a moment.”

  “Why? So you can save me from myself again?” She tried to step past him.

  Adam shifted, blocking the path with his body.

  They stepped back and forth in an odd dance until she gave up in a frustrated scream. “What? What do you want?”

  He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “I just want to talk.”

  “About?”

  “Why did you run out of the ballroom?”

  She tried to bolt past him again, but he was ready for it. She settled for pacing her tiny square of the maze. “I have a nervous condition.”

  Despite her behavior, Adam doubted that. He had seen people with nervous conditions. What Miss Bailey appeared to have was a sensitivity to being embarrassed. “And what set it off?”

  She glared at him. “We’re not friends. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “That’s true,” Adam nodded. “But I’m not going to let you out of this maze until you do.”

  • • •

  The waves of panic just kept coming, and Jane embraced them. As soon as they stopped, she would have to come to terms with a number of things—not the least of which were the things she’d said to Lord Wesley over the course of her flight from the ballroom.

  Had she really admitted to having feelings for him? No. Don’t think about it. Embrace the panic. She started pacing the leafy cage he’d trapped her in again. Could she climb it? Certainly people had considered it, but had anyone ever tried? She tested a branch—it snapped under her hand. Typical.

  “You’d really rather climb out than tell me what happened?”

  “Yes.” It was probably just more hedges on the other side anyway.

  “Miss Bailey—”

  “You might as well call me Jane,” she interrupted. “You seem to think we have some familiar claim on each other.”

  It had nothing to do with wanting to hear her name on his lips. She was merely using it to prove a point about how ludicrous his involvement in her situation was.

  “You were embarrassed . . .”

  “Yes, Adam, I was embarrassed.”

  “By what?”

  Jane stared at the night sky. If there was even a modicum of mercy in the world, the heavens would open up and a lightning bolt would strike her dead. She waited.

  “Miss—Jane . . .”

  The way he said it—low, like a roll of thunder. Like a question. She closed her eyes and breathed it in. It was a mistake. The mania drained out of her and what she was left with . . . “Oh God.”

  “Jane.”

  “I think I’m going to be ill.”

  He was there in an instant, his hand on her shoulder. “Just breathe, Jane.”

  “Don’t . . . I’m . . .” She was going to be ill—and he was going to see it happen.

  She twisted away from him, upending the contents of her stomach in the meager privacy provided by two hedges joining to make a corner. Of course he followed her, his hand like a brand between her shoulders while he said kind and encouraging things. Jane changed her wish. She hoped lightning struck him dead, so he could never tell anyone what he was witnessing.

  When it was over, he led her to the corridor and pressed his handkerchief into her palm. Jane let him. She had no energy left with which to be embarrassed. She just wanted to crawl into her bed and sleep.

  “If I had realized the lengths you were prepared to go to avoid my question, I wouldn’t have asked it.”

  It shouldn’t be humorous. Nothing about anything should ever be humorous to her ever again. And yet . . .

  “Are you crying? I’m sorry. I—”

  The laughter poured out of her. If anything, that seemed to distress him more than the possibility that she was crying, which made her laugh all the harder. She lost her balance, toppling into the grass. That was even funnier. She was a mad woman, cackling on the ground while he stared at her like the bedlamite she was.

  “I’m sorry, I . . .” More peals of laughter.

  In the moonlight, his face relaxed from concern to amusement. He eased himself—with a great deal more dignity—onto the ground beside her. He helped her into an upright sitting position while she regained control of herself.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Much.” And it was true. The ballroom, the outbursts, the last few weeks . . . it was better. She wasn’t sure how long it would last, but for the moment she felt free from her usual worries. “Drusilla Lyndon told me she and her fiancé laugh about me behind my back.”

  “Drusilla Lyndon sounds like an awful person.”

  Jane grinned. “Her fiancé used to be my fiancé.”

  “Ah.” Adam pulled a blade of grass out of the ground and spun it between his fingers. “I agreed to let my stepmother give me money to turn my brother into a man of character—which he, unfortunately, is not—because I am penniless and have no prospects for supporting myself.”

  She turned her head to the side so she could see his face.

  “The stepmother I fell in love with, causing me to be exiled to the colonies. Where I spent the money I did have on farming equipment because my father and I despise each other.”

  As peace offerings went, it was a good one. “That’s a very embarrassing thing to admit to a stranger.”

  “Quite.”

  “Almost as embarrassing as casting up your accounts on someone’s shoes.”

  He looked at his feet. “You missed my shoes, and falling for your father’s wife is far more shameful.”

  She smiled. The wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the hedges that surrounded them. For a moment, Jane just tipped her head back and enjoyed the sound.

  “We should find our way out of this maze. Someone is going to notice you’re missing.”

  Jane sighed. She nodded. “All right.”

  He helped her to her feet, and they made their way back—presumably—in the direction that they’d come from.

  After seven or eight turns, Jane asked, “Do you have any idea where the exit is?”

  “Not at all.” He chuckled.

  “Are we going to die in this labyrinth?”

  “If we do, it’s your fault.”

  “Of course it is. I’m a catastrophe waiting to happen.” But this time, the idea made her smile.

  “Only because I’m so distractingly handsome . . . and strong, was it?”

  The darkness covered her blush. “I was clearly not in my right mind when I said that.”

  “I don’t know. You seemed quite clear on my overall appeal.”

  “It’s not nice to tease me. I’ve had a very difficult evening.”

  They were smiling when they found the exit. As they walked back toward the lights of the ballroom, Jane’s steps slowed.

  “What is it?”

  She sighed. “I just hate everything about these social events.”

  “You do? They’re practically made for you.”

  Jane laughed. “No, they’re not. Everyone despises us because my brother and I took employment when my family lost their fortune. My brother has earned it back, but no one is likely to forget—or let us forget—anytime soon.”

  Adam stopped at the edge of the terrace. “I owe you an apology, Jane Bailey. I have misjudged you.”

  “You owe me more than one,” she said, trying not to let him see how much his words pleased her.

  “You defiled my shoes.”

  “I did not!” Now that they were in the light, she could see his shoes were perfectly fine. “Only a cad would try to lie to get out of apologizing to a lady.”

  “Well, I think we both know I excel at—”

  “Jane?” Geoffrey’s voice stopped her cold. “Is this man bothering you?”


  He obviously wasn’t.

  “Adam was just walking me back from the maze.”

  “Adam.” Geoffrey said the name like it tasted badly in his mouth. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “Lord Wesley. And you are?”

  “Geoffrey Pembroke.” His irritation was palpable.

  She took charge of the situation before some new embarrassment could occur. “Adam, thank you. This evening turned out much better than I could have expected.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly,” he said, bowing over her offered hand. “Until next time, Jane.”

  He nodded to them both and walked back into the ballroom.

  Geoffrey reached out, pulling a leaf from her hair. “Jane, what on earth—”

  She knew he was upset, but at the moment she was too tired to be worried about it. “I’m sorry, Geoff. I’ve had a long evening, and I’m exhausted. I’m going to find my aunt and go home.”

  Tomorrow she would be mortified at what she’d just done, but tonight she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

  Chapter 7

  The parlor at Number Fourteen was nice. Adam was certain there were better, more refined ways to describe it. The furniture was probably made by someone with a notable name. The paintings were likely created by someone famous. He neither knew nor cared. He just knew it felt nice to sit in it. It was refreshing to finally feel comfortable somewhere.

  Lady Hawthorne sat across from him. At first she’d been rather predatory toward him, but once he mentioned he was there to see Jane, she’d settled into a matronly demeanor with alarming swiftness.

  “Would you like some tea?” she asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  She set the pot aside. “Jane will be down in just a moment.”

  “All right.”

  A man around Adam’s age popped his head through the doorway. “We have a visitor?”

  “Charlie, this is Lord Wesley. Lord Wesley, this is my nephew Charles Bailey.”

  “Nice to meet you. Sorry to be rude. I’m just on my way out.” His movements were loose, as if the cares of the world had no sway over him.

  “He’s here to see Jane.” Lady Hawthorne added extra emphasis to her niece’s name.

  Charles Bailey made an about-face, coming into the room and sitting down. “Our Jane?”