Martin had taken possession of her hand. Helen glanced up and discovered that the expression in his eyes went far beyond the acceptable, a warm and distinctly intimate caress. He raised her fingers to his lips.
‘Until tomorrow, fair Juno.’
It was all she could do to nod her farewell.
Much later, in the privacy of her chamber, Helen stared at her reflection in the mirror, and wondered when such madness would end.
Chapter Six
Not soon, was Helen’s conclusion when, the next day, Martin called as promised to take her for a drive in the Park. Bowling along beneath the trees, their leaves just beginning to turn, perched in her familiar spot beside him on the box seat, she discovered that he intended to give her no chance to ponder the wisdom of the outing. Instead, he seemed intent on following the Dowager Marchioness of Hazelmere’s advice and enlisting her aid.
‘Who is that quiz in the shocking purple toque?’
Helen followed his glance. ‘That’s Lady Havelock. She’s a bit of a dragon.’
‘And looks it. Does she still hold sway with the Melbourne House set?’
‘Not so much these days, now that Lady Melbourne lives so retired.’ Helen raised her hand in acknowledgement of a bow from a painted fop.
‘And who’s he?’
At the possessive growl, Helen’s lips twitched. ‘Shiffy? Sir Lumley Sheffington.’
‘Oh.’ Martin glanced again at the white-painted face above an outrageous apricot silk bow. ‘I remember now. I’d forgotten about him—entirely understandable.’
Helen giggled. Shiffy was one of the more memorable figures among the ton.
Martin kept up a steady stream of questions—on the other occupants of the Park, on the happenings in town and whether certain personages were as he remembered them. Engrossed with her answers, Helen did not notice the passage of time. Their hour together vanished more swiftly, and with greater ease, than she had expected.
Descending the steps of Helen’s small house in Half Moon Street, having seen his goddess safely inside, Martin startled Joshua, standing at the bays’ heads, with an exceedingly broad grin. Gaining the box seat and retrieving the reins, Martin waved Joshua to his perch. ‘The day bodes fair, my projects proceed apace—what more could a man ask for?’
Scrambling up behind, Joshua rolled his eyes heavenwards. ‘No mystery what’s come over you,’ he muttered, sotto voce, making a mental note to learn more of Lady Walford. In blissful ignorance of his henchman’s deductions, Martin gave his horses the office, well-pleased with his beginning.
As the week progressed, he had even more reason for satisfaction. His re-entry to the ton was accomplished more easily than he had hoped. A visit to the theatre, escorting fair Juno to view the latest of Mrs Siddons’ dramatic flights, had brought him to the notice of the major hostesses. The pile of white cards stacked upon his mantelpiece grew day by day. Eschewing all subtlety, he determined which of the parties his delight intended to grace by dint of the simple expedient of asking. Thus forearmed, he felt assured of enjoying those assemblies he deigned to attend.
Climbing the stairs to Lady Burlington’s ballroom for the first of the larger gatherings on his list, Martin spared a moment to contemplate how the ton would receive him. Invitations were one thing, but how would they treat the black sheep in the flesh? If he was to marry Helen, the ton’s approbation was a hurdle he would have to clear.
He need not have worried.
‘Lord Merton!’ Lady Burlington positively pounced on him. ‘I’m so thrilled you could find time to attend my little party.’
Replying all but automatically to his hostess’s gushing comments, Martin reflected that, from what he could see, her ‘little party’ numbered over one hundred.
‘Pleased you could come.’
The gruff accents of Lord Burlington were a welcome release. After shaking hands, Martin moved into the room, only to find himself surrounded. By women.
Blonde hair in ringlets, black hair in curls, every shade and hue pressed in on every side. A medley of perfumes washed over him, light fractured in their gems. ‘Lord Merton!’ was on each pair of lips. The hostesses of the ton, many the very women who had, thirteen years before, closed their doors in his face, all but fell over themselves in their eagerness to impress him with their credentials. Manfully quelling an unnerving impulse to laugh in their powdered faces, Martin drew on his experience, cloaking his antipathy with just the right degree of patronising superiority, and accepted their admiration as became one who knew how their games were played.
‘I do hope you’ll find time to call.’
Martin allowed a black brow to rise at the tone of that particular invitation, coming from a blonde whose eyes vied with her diamonds in hardness. He could hardly be unaware of the heated glances some of the younger matrons were flinging his way. Cynically, he wondered if, had he returned as plain Martin Willesden, unadorned with an earldom and colossal wealth, he would have been welcomed quite so enthusiastically.
Due to the importunities of the more clinging mesdames, it was late before Martin saw Helen. Instantly, he knew she was aware of him, but, unsure of whether he would notice her, she was making every effort not to notice him. With a devilish smile, he nodded a brief but determined farewell to his court and escaped across the ballroom to his goddess’s side.
Helen knew he was approaching long before he reached her. It was not simply that the majority of female eyes in the vicinity had suddenly found a common target, nor that Mrs Hitchin, with whom she was conversing, had stopped, slack-jawed, in the middle of a sentence, her eyes fixed on a point beyond Helen’s left shoulder. Her flickering nerves would have told her he was near and getting nearer even had she been blindfold.
Quelling her traitorous senses, ignoring her increasing pulse, Helen turned and, smoothly, surrendered her hand into his. ‘My lord.’ His fingers closed about hers in a warm, possessive clasp. Determined not to fluster, Helen curtsied.