Lily and the Duke (Regency Spinsters Alliance #1)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

One week later

Gabriel knew the moment he entered the Marquis of Landers’s ballroom that belatedly deciding to accompany Chloe and his elderly aunt to the ball had been a mistake.

He knew that without a doubt because of the murderous rage which took possession of him when he glanced about the crowded room and saw Lily dancing and laughing in the company of a handsome young gentleman. Gabriel easily recognized him as Lord Andrew Maybury, the eldest son and heir of the Earl of Trowbridge.

Lily looked very beautiful this evening in a high-waisted gown of teal-colored silk. It had small puff sleeves and delicate gold braid stitched along the square neckline. Her curling dark hair was brushed back from her face and secured at her crown, with loose wisps in front of her ears.

Gabriel’s thoughts immediately strayed to speculating how long her hair would be when free of its confining pins.

Would those curling locks reach down to cover what he had many times this past week imagined being her ruby-tipped breasts?

Or would it be longer still, perhaps reaching the slenderness of her waist and beyond? Possibly even to the perfectly rounded cheeks of her bottom?

In either case, Gabriel resented seeing the young gentleman, in whose arms Lily was currently dancing, so much as receiving a smile from her. That resentment increased every time he witnessed the light clasp Maybury took of her gloved fingers when the dance called for them to meet before parting again.

“Did you say something, Papa?” Chloe looked up at him expectantly.

Which was when Gabriel became aware that he had been softly growling as he was forced to watch Lily dancing with any man who was not him.

Which, in turn, told him that the torment of wanting to claim Lily as his own had not dissipated in the slightest during this last week of not seeing or being with her.

But Gabriel had already known that.

How could he not when, before the morning of his departure to the countryside on Prinny’s behalf, he had worked Jacobson long into the night in a futile effort to stop thinking about Lily.

Jacobson had not complained at having his day off end in that demanding fashion.

But Gabriel had been forced to relent in his desire to distract himself when he realized the pale light of dawn was slowly creeping into the study window.

It had been a waste of his time and Jacobson’s effort anyway when Gabriel’s thoughts had refused to deviate from Lily and the kiss they had shared. Of how right it had felt when he held her in his arms. And tasted the sweet nectar of her plump lips.

His visit to the country to investigate one of the cabinet ministers he had been assigned had not been in vain, however. It had been a tedious journey and visit to the unsuspecting minister, but it had nevertheless resulted in Gabriel being able to reassure the Prince Regent as to that particular minister’s innocence.

Gabriel had hoped that being away from Lily, from even the possibility of giving in to the burning hunger he felt to kiss her again, would cause his desire for her to fade.

If anything, that need had deepened, until being with Lily again was all Gabriel could think about. All he hungered for or wanted.

Making a complete nonsense of that ridiculous saying “out of sight, out of mind” when Lily had not left his thoughts for a single moment.

“Oh, look, there is Lily,” Chloe exclaimed before giving a girlish giggle. “Maybury is so handsome and such a fine dancer,” she admired.

Gabriel had no time to snap his opinion of that gentleman before he found himself being pulled along in his daughter’s wake. Her elderly chaperone, Gabriel’s aunt, had no choice but to attempt to follow them as Chloe made her way determinedly around the edge of the dance floor to where the same group of friends who had met in the library at St. Albans House the previous week, all stood talking together.

Except Lily, of course.

Who was dancing.

With a man who was not Gabriel.

He and Chloe arrived beside the group at the same time that Lily was accompanied back to them by a very attentive Maybury.

The younger man’s eyes widened when he saw Gabriel. “Your Grace,” he acknowledged with a bow. “It is not often that we see you at these events.” He voiced the observation no doubt many in Society were already discussing, the ladies behind their fans and the gentlemen in lowered voices.

Gabriel gave him a coldly dismissive glance before turning back to the group of young ladies. “Would you care to dance, Lady Tremayne?”

Lily was excruciatingly aware that the whispers of gossip, on the dance floor and off it, had begun the moment the Duke of St. Albans stepped into the ballroom.

Indeed, the moment Lily saw him enter with Chloe on his arm, she had been unable to look anywhere or at anyone else. Gabriel—she still blushed when she referred to him that way, even if it was only in her thoughts—took her breath away with how magnificent he looked this evening in his tailored black evening clothes and snowy white shirt and neckcloth beneath a brocade waistcoat.

She assumed he must be here at Chloe’s request, knowing how persuasive her young friend could be and how indulgent her father was toward her.

Lily had not thought for a moment that the duke would single her out in this way by asking her to dance. A request which had, she realized, halted all conversation in their immediate vicinity and beyond.

Rightly so when this gentleman, if he did deign to attend a ball during the Season, had never been known to dance at any of them since the evening of the ball in which he had danced with Chloe when she was introduced into Society.

Yet that same aloof gentleman was now asking Lily to dance.

Her bodice suddenly felt too tight for Lily to be able to breathe comfortably. Her legs were trembling so badly, beneath her ankle-length gown, she wasn’t sure how much longer they would be able to support her.

As for answering him… Lily’s mouth had become so dry, she could barely swallow, let alone speak.

“If you will excuse us, ladies.” Taking Lily’s silence as agreement, St. Albans bowed to the group before he took a firm grasp of one of her gloved hands and placed it upon his forearm. “Maybury,” he dismissed in a hard voice before leading Lily back toward the dance floor.

Lily glanced at St. Albans, a heaviness forming in her chest at the coldness she could see in his austerely withdrawn expression. She could also feel how rigid his arm was beneath her gloved hand. The tension in the rest of his body was also discernable in the stiff manner in which he held himself as the people who had the misfortune to be in his way quickly moved aside.

He appeared to Lily as Moses must have when he took his people through the parted Red Sea!

“I really do not care to dance again so soon.” Lily spoke softly enough so that only St. Albans could hear her at the same time as she heard the hiss of the gossip beginning again in whispers behind them.

He turned to look down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. Whatever he read from her expression caused him to veer slightly to the right and toward the French doors leading outside and onto the terrace that ran the length of the garden at the back of Landers House.

“We cannot go outside together either,” Lily hissed.

“I beg to differ.” St. Albans nodded acknowledgment to a footman as he opened one of the doors for them. “After you,” he prompted Lily.

She gave a desperate glance at the other people now gathered together in groups in the ballroom, talking in hushed whispers.

The quartet of musicians was only playing softly.

Her group of friends were all watching in wide-eyed wonder. Except Georgiana, who was, as usual, scowling her displeasure with the world, rather than only Lily.

Without exception, all the ladies and gentlemen present were openly staring at them.

Her mother’s brows were raised so high in shock, they almost touched her hairline.

But it was the avaricious expression Lily so easily read on her father’s face that caused her to purposefully remove her hand from St. Albans’s forearm. “I am afraid I must refuse your generous offer. I have a headache and had already decided to take my leave before you arrived.” She curtseyed her indication of leaving him.

She could not, would not, be a party to any machinations her father might conceive in regard to the unexpected interest St. Albans was showing in her this evening by taking her out onto the terrace.

The whole idea of that happening made Lily feel as if she might burst into tears if she did not immediately escape the gawping speculation of her family and other members of the ton .

When she looked up from curtseying, it was to find the duke’s pale blue eyes narrowed intently on what Lily was sure must be the paleness of her cheeks.

That questioning gaze remained on her for several long seconds before St. Albans nodded abruptly. “If you insist upon leaving, then I am equally insistent on being the one to escort you back to Truro House.”

“No!” Lily protested loudly enough that she was immediately aware of the increased speculation of the others in the room. “You cannot take me home,” she muttered fiercely. “We both know it would be scandalous for you to do so.”

St. Albans gave a dismissive snort. “My dear girl, I can, and invariably do, behave exactly as I please.”

“And no doubt you do so without fear of recrimination, but I am a far less important mortal than the Duke of St. Albans,” she stated firmly. “As such, I am forced to follow certain rules set by Society.”

He scowled. “I am sure you must agree that the two of us need to talk.”

Because this man had kissed her.

Because Lily had kissed him .

“Even if we do, it does not need to happen now,” she insisted.

“Then when?”

“I have no idea.” Her gaze avoided meeting his before she turned to make her way purposefully through the crowded ballroom toward where she might make her escape through the open double doors out into the hallway.

Once outside, she made her way to the room where the ladies’ and gentleman’s cloaks had been placed upon their arrival. Only to find, after retrieving her cloak and turning to leave, that Gabriel had followed her and now stood in that room with her.

That the two of them were completely alone together in a house that was crowded with the rest of the Landers’s guests.

Dear God, did this man have no sense of propriety?

No hint of self-preservation that ensured he remained free from the traps often set by matchmaking parents?

Or was St. Albans simply so arrogant in regard to no one daring to question his behavior that he really could choose to behave exactly as he pleased?

Even if the latter were true, as Lily had already pointed out, that license did not apply to her own behavior. Which she already knew was going to be questioned by everyone . Some, like her parents and close friends, would do so to her face. Others would prefer to gossip and speculate outside of her hearing.

“Would you please step aside?” she requested when Gabriel remained standing in front of the open doorway.

His boot-clad feet remained firmly in place. “The alliance you made a week ago in my library with my daughter and your other friends means that you should not have been dancing with Maybury when I arrived,” he stated in a hard voice.

Lily felt the warmth of anger enter her cheeks. “We all like to dance, and at no time during our discussion did any of us state we would refuse to dance with a gentleman.”

A nerve pulsed in the duke’s clenched jaw. “So, it is permissible to dance with them, but not to marry them?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean, as I suggested might be the case and which you denied at the time, that it is also permissible to fuck them without marrying them too?”

Lily gasped at what she believed to be the duke’s deliberate attempt to shock her with this vulgarity. The flintiness she discerned in his scathing gaze and the derisive twist of his lips confirmed as much.

Quite what she would have said in answer to his crudeness, Lily had no idea, because the arrival of another gentleman in the open doorway prevented her from saying anything further.

“I suggest you take advantage of my arrival and leave us, Lady Tremayne,” Lucien Lyons, the Duke of Hellsmere, invited with a gentle smile.

Lily gave one last pained glance in Gabriel’s direction before brushing past both gentlemen as she rushed out into the hallway.

She did not breathe easily again until she was safely seated inside the family carriage and on her way home to Truro House.

No doubt her escape was only fleeting, and the earl and countess, along with her brothers and their wives, who were also attending the Landers’ ball, would all have questions for Lily to answer.

At this particular moment, Lily had no interest in what questions they might ask. Her thoughts were all centered upon escaping the outrageous behavior of the Duke of St. Albans.

The same man she had found herself thinking of constantly during the week of his absence.

Wondering how he would behave toward her when they saw each other again.

She now had her answer to that question.

Gabriel could not have shown her, told her, in any more candid terms, how much contempt he now held her in.