Page 30 of Courting Scandal With The Duke
‘I mean it,’ he said with an intensity that took heraback. ‘I have never seen you look so beautiful. It must be the English air.’
‘The English rain, you mean,’ she said lightly, to hide her discomfort.
‘I am surprised you are not wearing the Upsal parure.’
The Upsal parure, a set of rubies and diamonds, some of which she had worn to Almack’s, had been the only item she had inherited from her second husband.
‘I thought this gown dazzling enough,’ she said.
His tilted his head in agreement. Then laughed. It sounded a little forced, she thought. ‘I hope you did not sell them?’
‘Certainly not.’ At least not yet.
For some odd reason Charles looked relieved, but the expression was gone in a moment so she could not be sure that she had read it aright.
Against his will, Xavier glanced from his perusal of the dance floor towards the entrance upon hearing announcement of the Countess of Lipsweiger and Upsal.
An animated smile wreathed the Countess’s expression.
His heart stumbled at the sight. The reason for her smile was a blond-haired gentleman with as fine a set of whiskers as Xavier had ever seen, who was escorting her in.
The warmth of her gaze on this stranger caused an odd tightening in Xavier’s chest.
Nonsense. Yet he could not lookaway as the Countess picked her way delicately through the crowds at the doorway with cat-like grace, her gold tissue gown clinging to her curves with each sinuous step.
Stunning yet unusual. Lovely yet not pretty. Brash yet… Enough.
A stir around her caught his attention. Whispers rippled through the assembled company as gazes turned her way.
What now?
Lord North was standing nearby. His wife came dashing up to the peer’s side and whispered in his ear. ‘Good Lord,’ North said with a chortle.
Xavier raised his eyebrows in question.
‘She’s painted her toenails,’ Lady North said in scandalised tones. She lowered her voice. ‘Not even a member of the demi-monde would be so daring, I am told!’ Both shock and outrage coloured her voice.
As usual, the reaction of thetonto anything that they thought not quite the thing surfaced swiftly. Clearly none of them had been to Paris recently. Xavier had been there a few months ago, and painted toenails had been quite the rage, and no doubt it would be here before long.
Fashion. Such fickle nonsense.
A spurt of anger on the Countess’s behalf surprised him. Devil take it. The woman was none of his concern. He simply didn’t like injustice, that was all.
Lady North scurried off to join a group of matrons who looked to be in high dudgeon.
North smirked. ‘Now that has stirred up a hornets’ nest.’
And someone was likely to get stung, and badly. He felt a surprising pang of sympathy for the lady in question and cast a bored glance in her direction. Perhaps his apparent lack of condemnation might stem the tide without his actually having to do anything about it. ‘I cannot think why what the woman wears would be of any interest.’
‘Can you not?’ North said. ‘I would say it is because she is so extraordinary and none of them can hold a candle to her.’ He moved off to join another gentleman, who was staring at the Countess through his quizzing glass.
North had more brains than Xavier had given him credit for.
A little space had formed around the Countess. One of those voids that could ruin a reputation.
Thetondid not like unique. They liked conformity to rules of their making. If the woman seemed oblivious to the mores of London Society, it was none of his concern.
To him, she was forbidden fruit. Not the sort of woman he would ever, could ever, consider as a wife.
