Страница 56 из 99
By the time Sherry walked back into the ballroom, she'd learned many new things about Stephen Westmoreland, and she detested every piece of newfound knowledge, along with the conclusions she'd drawn from them. Despite what Whitney thought, Stephen Westmoreland was apparently a libertine, a rake, a hedonist, and a notorious flirt. His amorous affairs were numerous, and his lechery was obviously sanctioned by the ton, who seemed to dote on him, and everyone-absolutely everyone-apparently felt that an offer of marriage from him was second only to the crown of England! Worse, much worse, even though he was temporarily betrothed to her, he kept a mistress-and not an ordinary mistress, either, but a member of the fashionable impure who was reportedly breathtakingly beautiful.
Feeling insignificant, appalled, and outraged, Sherry returned to the ballroom and took furious glee in using her heretofore untapped ability at flirtation. She smiled gaily at the gentlemen who were still clustered around a flustered Miss Charity, waiting for her return, and during the next two hours, she promised to save at least two dozen dances for those gentlemen who were invited to the Rutherfords' ball later that evening. Her fiance, however, did not appear to notice or mind her flirtatious triumphs, but merely stood watching her from the sidelines, his expression casual and pleasantly detached.
In fact, he seemed so utterly uninvolved that she felt no qualm whatsoever when he finally approached her and stated that it was time to leave for the Rutherfords', and he didn't seem displeased with her as they waited with Nicholas DuVille and Miss Charity for their carriages to be brought round. He even smiled blandly when Charity Thornton remarked ecstatically, "Sherry was such a success, Langford! I ca
Nicholas DuVille had called for them in a fashionably sleek landau with its top folded back, but the Earl of Langford's luxurious town coach made Sherry's eyes widen as it glided to a stop in front of them. Drawn by six identical, flashy gray horses in silver harnesses, its body was lacquered a gleaming black, with the earl's coat of arms emblazoned on the door panel. Sherry had encountered the coachmen and grooms in the kitchens at the house on Upper Brook, but tonight they were turned out in formal livery of white leather breeches with bottle-green-striped waistcoats and bottle-green topcoats adorned with gold buttons and braid. With their shiny black top boots, white shirts, snowy cravats, and white gloves, Sherry thought they looked as fine as any of the fashionable gentlemen inside Almack's, and she told them so.
Her artless compliment drew fond smiles from the servants and an appalled look from Miss Charity, but when the earl's expression didn't change in the least, Sherry felt a prickle of uneasy foreboding-enough so that when she realized he intended her to ride alone with him to the Rutherfords' ball, she balked. "I prefer to ride with Miss Charity and Monsieur DuVille," she said firmly, already turning toward their carriage.
To her startled horror, his hand clamped on her elbow like a vise and forced her toward the open door of his coach. "Get in!" he said in an awful voice, "before you make a greater spectacle of yourself than you already have tonight."
Belatedly realizing that beneath his smooth veneer of bland sophistication, Stephen Westmoreland was burningly furious, Sherry cast an anxious glance toward Miss Charity and Nicholas DuVille, who were already pulling away. Several other groups from Almack's were waiting for their own carriages to be brought round, and rather than make a useless scene, she got into the coach.
He climbed in behind her and snapped an order at the groom as he put up the steps. "Take us the long way, through the park."
Seated across from him, Sherry unconsciously pressed back into the luxurious silver velvet squabs and waited in tense silence for what she was certain was going to be an explosion of fury. He was staring out the window, his jaw clenched, and she wished he would get on with it, but when he finally turned his icy gaze on her and spoke to her in a low, savage voice, she instantly wished for the return of the suspenseful silence. "If you ever," he bit out, "embarrass me again, I will turn you over my knee in front of everyone and give you the thrashing you deserve. Is that clear?" he snapped.
She swallowed audibly, and her voice wavered. "It's clear."
She thought that would finish it, but he seemed to have only begun. "What did you hope to accomplish by behaving like an ill-bred flirt to every ass who approached you for a dance?" he demanded in a low, thunderous voice. "By leaving me in the middle of the dance floor? By clinging to DuVille's arm and hanging on to his every word?"
The reprimand for her behavior on the dance floor was deserved, but the rest of his tirade about her behavior with the opposite sex was so unjust, so hypocritical, and so infuriating, that Sherry's temper ignited. "What would you expect except foolish behavior from any woman who was stupid enough to betroth herself to the likes of you!" she fired back and had the satisfaction of seeing shock momentarily crack his mask of fury. "Tonight I heard all the disgusting gossip about you, about your conquests and your cherie amie, and your flirtations with married women! How dare you lecture me on decorum when you're the biggest libertine in all England!"
She was so carried away with her own furious humiliation over the gossip she'd heard tonight, that she didn't heed the muscle that was begi
To her utter disbelief, he lifted his brows and gazed at her with enigmatic blue eyes and an impassive expression for several endless, uneasy moments, then he leaned forward and stretched his hand to her.
U
His long fingers curved politely around hers, then abruptly tightened like a painful vise, yanking her off her seat. Sherry gave a muffled scream as she landed in a sprawling, uncomfortable heap on the seat beside him, her shoulders against the door, his glittering eyes only inches from hers as he leaned over her. "I am sorely tempted to toss up your skirts and beat some sense into you," he said in a terrifyingly soft voice. "So heed me well, and spare us both the painful necessity: My fiancee," he emphasized, "will conduct herself with proper decorum, and my wife, " he continued with icy arrogance, "will never discredit my name or her own."