Page 4 of Enticing the Devil

In the last months, he’d learned the women of the ton tended to see him in one of two ways. They were either scandalized and repulsed by his refusal to conform to the expected appearances and behaviors of polite society, or, like Lady Mayhew, they were fiercely attracted to his rougher qualities and sought to use him as a means of escaping from their boring, genteel lives.

It was all so damned ridiculous.

The attention. The wariness. The sly glances and the gossip and the constant scrutiny.

When he’d eventually decided to acknowledge his position as one of the Earl of Wright’s bastards, he’d agreed to accept everything that went with it. If he’d known how much of a spectacle he’d become in the eyes of the ton, he might have chosen differently.

Before he could look away, the young woman from the garden happened to glance up. As her eyes met his, he muttered a gruff oath and quickly redirected his gaze, hoping she’d think his attention had fallen to her only momentarily. But after another quick scan of the room, he couldn’t help glancing back. Thankfully, she was no longer looking his way. But neither had she reengaged in the conversation around her. The blush pinkening her cheeks was obvious even from his position across the room.

Wonderful.

He redirected his focus once again. And this time caught the unfortunate gaze of his brother.

Roderick lifted the corner of his mouth in a half grin. Then he leaned down to whisper something in his wife’s ear before making his way to Beynon’s side.

Beynon considered walking away, but he’d realized some time ago that avoidance never worked with this man. It was better to face Roderick and whatever observation the man wished to share head on. And this brother always had something to share.

“Good evening, Thomas,” Roderick greeted as he gestured to a footman, who quickly approached with a tray of champagne. “You look like you’d benefit from a drink.”

Beynon eyed the bubbling wine with suspicion. “Isn’t there anything stronger?”

Roderick gave a short chuckle. “Later. For now, we engage in the game of social nicety as we display our sparkling wit and polished manners.”

“And if I’ve neither wit nor manners?”

“Then you get to stand in shadowed corners as you glare and glower at all the happy people gathered about you.”

“I wasn’t glowering,” Beynon protested then wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Roderick had an uncanny knack for drawing him into arguments in which he had no real wish to participate. And he suspected the man did it on purpose.

“But you were glaring,” his brother noted triumphantly, “and rather intently, I might add, at poor Lady Anne.”

Lady Anne. The name suited her. Traditional, meek, and dull.

Beynon’s attention angled back toward the group of women, where a redhead was currently regaling the group with some tale that appeared to require rather animated gestures.

Lady Anne was listening politely, her posture perfect, her hands folded in her lap, her chin lowered just a bit. Her face was rather narrow, which suited her straight patrician nose and the pert shape of her mouth, and although her eyebrows were a bit too dark for her fair coloring, all of her features together formed to an expression of quietly enduring temperance.

Traditional, meek, and dull.

As soon as he confirmed the assessment, the redhead came to the conclusion of her story. While the others around her laughed, Lady Anne offered a faint smile that transformed her face in the oddest way. As if a fairy lamp had just been lit in a hazy dawn, her rather ordinary features took on a quietly ethereal quality.

“See? Just like that,” Roderick noted in amusement before his tone turned earnest. “I wouldn’t stare at the lady with such intensity for too long, brother. People will make certain assumptions about your interest.”

Beynon immediately shifted his focus back to Roderick. “There is no interest.”

“Of course there isn’t,” Roderick agreed as he sipped from his champagne glass.

Frowning in frustration, Beynon knew the only way out of the conversation was to be blunt. “If I were to develop interest in a young woman, it sure as hell wouldn’t be one such as her.”

Now Roderick frowned as he turned an assessing gaze back toward the lady in question. “Why not? What’s wrong with Lady Anne?”

Beynon nearly growled his annoyance at being forced to voice such a thing out loud, but he knew he’d never get Roderick off his back if he didn’t. “Look at her. I doubt she’s ever done anything more physically exerting than a country dance.”

Roderick glanced back to him with lifted brows at that. “Just what kind of physical activity would you have her do?”

Realizing how his words had sounded, Beynon decided to shoot down his brother’s teasing before it could go further. “You forget where I come from. I’m no pampered English lord. The woman I eventually take to wife will have to be prepared for a simple and arduous life of rural domestication. Do you really think any of the ladies present would find that appealing?”

His brother had nothing to say to that, but he continued to meet Beynon’s gaze with a sharp look in his eyes. Then, after a long pause, he finally replied, “I see your point. I apologize.”

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