Part 2 (2/2)
”Our first meeting, you mean.”
”Exactly.” He gave her another one of his winning smiles. ”My only excuse, if there is one, is that I was bewitched by your beauty and quite lost my head. There was also the goodly amount of spirits I'd consumed prior to our conversation. It may have loosened my tongue a bit more than it ought.”
She sent him a wry glance from under her bonnet. ”Alcohol is often a convenient excuse for untoward behavior.”
He winced visibly. ”Ouch. I deserve that, I suppose. Although you also have room to make an apology, as I recollect.”
”Me?” Her gait slowed, her gaze meeting his. ”For what do I have to apologize?”
”A certain gla.s.s of champagne perhaps.”
”Oh. That.”
He chuckled. ”Yes. That.”
They strolled on.
”I've quite forgiven you,” he continued in an even tone, ”even if you did ruin a perfectly good cravat. My valet had to discard the one that you doused. Apparently wine stains don't come out.”
A faint smile played across her lips. ”A great loss, I am sure. Pray send me a reckoning and I shall have a replacement cravat sent round to your address.”
”I would much rather you agree that we may start over. Act as if we had met only today.” He stopped and turned toward her, taking her hand inside his own. ”Allow me to introduce myself. Lord Leopold Byron at your service, ma'am. And you are?”
”Someone who didn't wish to be introduced the first time.”
His beguiling smile widened. ”Your name, fair lady?”
”You know who I am.”
He waited, clearly expectant.
”Lady Thalia Lennox. There, are you satisfied?”
”Not yet, but I hope to be in the very near future.”
She sent him a warning look. ”Careful, Lord Leopold, or I may find myself in need of another gla.s.s of champagne.”
He laughed, then made her an elegant bow. ”May I say what a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance, Lady Thalia.”
She shook her head. ”You, Lord Leopold, are absurd.”
”Ah good, your barbs aren't quite as sharp. We're making progress.”
”I wouldn't count on it.”
”Now that you've agreed to forgive me and begin again-”
”I haven't agreed to anything,” she said, trying to conceal the fact that she did find him rather charming in spite of her better judgment. But she wasn't interested in men. They were nothing but a great deal of trouble.
”Of course you did,” he insisted.
”No, I did not. And you presume a very great deal on so short an acquaintance.”
”Which is exactly why we need to take the time to get to know each other better. I suggest now.”
”I suggest never. The auction is about to start. We should be finding our seats.”
He held out his arm again for her to take.
Instead, she nodded toward the main salesroom and the rows of occupied chairs. ”I see my maid waiting just there. Thank you, but I can manage to walk the last few yards on my own.”
”If I accompany you, we can sit together. I am sure another chair can be located for your maid.”
”Good-bye, Lord Leopold,” she called in an amused singsong before she set off into the fray of eager bidders.
Leo wanted to go after her, but he realized he'd pushed her enough for one day. Any more and she might bolt completely. It was curious, but for a woman of her experience and reputation, she was strangely reserved. It was as if she lived behind a carefully constructed wall, letting others see no more than glimpses of the real woman beyond.
He'd a.s.sumed she would be more openly flirtatious, more coyly inviting despite their inauspicious introduction at Elmore's party last week. Rumor had it that she was wild and wanton, and that she had a string of lovers whose ident.i.ties were the stuff of whisper and conjecture.
But there was no lover here today, he realized as he took a seat in one of the last unoccupied chairs. She really was here with her maid, doing nothing more than attending an auction, rather than engaging in some clandestine liaison.
Then again it wasn't her days that concerned him but rather her nights. Nights he planned to be spending with her in bed in the very near future. For now, he would have to content himself by watching her from afar-or at least from a few rows behind and to her left.
She sat in profile, her long, sable eyelashes brus.h.i.+ng lightly over her cheeks when she blinked, her straight nose, refined cheekbones and delicately rounded chin cast in lovely angles beneath the brim of her chip-straw bonnet.
On what was she planning to bid? he wondered. Some pretty little objet d'art, he supposed.
Then one of Mr. Christie's senior auctioneers stepped up to the podium and, with the forthright echo of his gavel, began the sale.
Thalia sat in her chair, resisting the temptation to bid as item after item was offered up to the eager crowd. There were dishes, vases, candlesticks and oil lamps; desks and dressers, paintings and portmanteaus, boxes and baubles and far too much more to contemplate. There were even some ancient antiquities from a small but impressive grouping that drove the bidding to eye-popping heights.
Lord Leopold was among those select few gentlemen with the means to bid on even the priciest of items. And he was crafty, hanging back until it seemed the sale was all but concluded, then swooping in with a couple of last-minute bids that decisively squashed the hopes of the final compet.i.tors.
She'd recognized the rich, brandied cadence of his voice the instant he spoke, and looked over her shoulder to discover Lord Leopold seated a few rows behind. Until then, she'd refused to look, not wanting to encourage him by seeking him out in the crowd-even if she had been aware that he was seated somewhere nearby.
When he made his first surprise bid, everyone in the room looked, so she was only one of a mult.i.tude. Yet his eyes found hers immediately as if he had been waiting all this time for her to turn her gaze upon him.
And he didn't look away, his eyes locked with her own in spite of the fact that he was still engaged in the bidding. He smiled with open pleasure when the gavel descended and the auctioneer announced him the winner. It was an expression of victory, satisfaction and command, and it shot straight through to her marrow.
She faced forward again, her fingers knotted in her lap.
Luckily, her maid didn't notice her reaction, her own head bent over her sewing, since she had absolutely no interest in the auction proceedings themselves.
Lord Leopold bid again-on a marble sculpture this time-but she refused to look. Instead she listened to the action, his voice the only one she really heard as he won once again.
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