The Wayward Debutante

All she could do was wait for the intermission. It seemed like an eternity, and she was too flustered to pay attention to the action onstage. She just counted the minutes and endeavored not to think about the wicked man behind her.

As the curtains began to close at the end of the first act, Eleanor quickly rose from her seat. She tried not to look too agitated as she walked down the aisle, her eyes trained on the floor and her heart pounding in her chest. He was still watching her. She could feel his gaze on the side of her face.

She was the first person out the theater doors, and once into the foyer she began to run. The street outside was still busy but she had no trouble picking out her driver. In her current state he shone like a beacon.

Thank heavens she’d be home soon.

James Bentley’s office was situated on the south side of his large home. Its floor-length windows filled the room with bright sunlight, light that was gradually bleaching his mahogany furniture of its original dark sheen and endowing it with the warm and weary look of age. Shades of brown and green dominated the office, but were tempered—if one wishes to be strictly honest—by dust. The sunshine brought the dust to prominence, although this fact often went unnoticed by the occupant’s selectively unobservant male gaze. His maid, a girl of about twenty, was too scared of him to enter most days, although he couldn’t fathom why. So the dust quietly collected on the skirting boards; on the chairs and desk; and on the randomly placed piles of books, stacked three, four or five high. It was a cluttered room, but it was an intelligent clutter, a masculine clutter. It was exactly as a productive office should look.

That’s what James told himself as he regarded the room from his desk, even though his day thus far had been marked by inactivity and distraction. He’d accomplished little more than a good lunch at his club.

He rose from his seat and crossed the room to look out the window, onto the well-appointed houses that faced him from across the street. He’d been living at this address for just over a year. Just a year since he’d returned to London after twelve years away. It had been a busy time: furnishing a new home, rekindling old friendships, helping finance a friend’s business and sorting out his own neglected finances. But now the novelty and challenge of these endeavors had begun to fade. He feared he was getting bored.

That thought worried him—he’d been having it too often, and he couldn’t put his finger on the source of his discontent. He supposed taking advantage of the season’s entertainments might help. Despite his lengthy absence, he still received piles of invitations every week—to dinners and balls and every other type of social torture imaginable. And, if he ever decided that standing around in a hot room with a gaggle of silly girls whispering about him behind their hands was a pleasant way to spend an evening, then someday he just might accept one of these invitations.

He ran a hand through his dark hair and glanced at the papers scattered across his desk. He still had work to do, but it could wait until tomorrow. A brisk walk would clear his head, and besides, he was supposed to have dinner with his older brother, Will, in a few hours. William Henry Edward Stanton, now the seventh Earl of Lennox, to be exact.

James grabbed his jacket in preparation to leave, but just as he started walking to the library door it opened. His butler, Perkins, announced, “Mr. Kinsale to see you, my lord.”

Jonathon Kinsale, his best friend and now a business partner, too, was right behind him, not waiting for permission to enter. “You’re not leaving?” he asked in his mild Irish brogue.

James resignedly draped his jacket onto the back of an armchair. He wasn’t in the mood for company, but Jonathon was already helping himself to a glass of brandy. “I’m dining with my brother tonight. Thought I’d take a constitutional first.”

“Oh? And how’s Will?”

“Just returned from six months in the country. Haven’t seen him yet. Why don’t you come along? You’d be doing me a tremendous favor.”

Jonathon made himself comfortable on the worn sofa. “Why, so I can play buffer between you? No thanks. You can handle him perfectly well on your own.”

“He’s bloody persistent, though. Every time I see him, he brings up things I don’t want to talk about.”

“Like Richard.”

James shrugged. Even in the privacy of his home, with his best friend, he still didn’t want to talk about his eldest brother. “Richard is dead. He doesn’t concern me anymore.”

“Of course,” Jonathon said, obviously unconvinced.

James sat back down, wishing Jonathon wasn’t so bloody astute. But the truth was, he didn’t think Richard would ever cease to concern him.

Both Richard and William shared the same mother, but she’d died giving birth to Will. Their father, the fifth Earl of Lennox, had remarried one year later, this time to Diana Bentley, a renowned Irish beauty and his lifelong love. Unfortunately, she’d also been an actress.

James was born a year later and Will, only two at the time, had adored his little brother instantly. But Richard was another matter. He’d been eight when his father remarried, old enough to be aware of the traces of infamy that clouded James’s mother’s past. He’d despised her, and he’d hated James, too. To his sneering and slightly mad eyes, she was a lowborn whore, and her son carried her tainted blood. He’d told James this every chance he’d got. Although James hated Richard right back, these words dominated his childhood. He’d always been afraid that despite a polite facade, the rest of society felt much the same way.

Unfortunately, Richard concealed this side of his personality well, and when both parents died in a fire, no one questioned his ability to be guardian to James and Will, who were only nine and eleven. As the eldest son, Richard would control their education and incomes. He also inherited the title and the bulk of family estates until they came of age.

Will hadn’t fared too badly, but for James, the years that followed were marked by unhappiness and abuse. Will did what he could to protect his younger brother against Richard, but he, too, was just a child. James bore his brother’s cruelty as long as he could, and if only he could have borne it for a few more years he would have come into his inheritance—not a great fortune, but enough to pay his commission and become an officer in His Majesty’s service, like every other third or fourth son. Instead, he’d run away at sixteen, with only the money in his pocket. He’d slept on the side of the road for two days, but then came across a recruiting party at a public house. A red-coated captain had urged all able-bodied men present to protect their fair island from the French scourge, but what sounded most attractive to James—who’d had one pint of ale too many for his youthful head—was the promise of a clean uniform and a hot meal. At least he wouldn’t starve, and although he was presently unable to buy his commission, perhaps he could earn his place as an officer through honest hard work.

“Will just refuses to accept that I’ve created a life for myself separate from everything he values,” James said finally. “I’ve no love for titles and inherited privilege.”

“He just wants to correct past wrongs. Feels guilty because you had to struggle for so many years while his life was easy. Richard was mad.”

“Mad, yes, and not too fond of me, either. I know all this, so let’s drop the subject.”

When he’d left home, he’d thought nothing could be worse than life with Richard, but two years in the army had proved him wrong. The life of a professional soldier was a far cry from the more comfortable existence of an officer. Jonathon had been in his regiment, and they’d become friends whilst sitting in a muddy ditch trying not to be killed. It turned out that Jonathon knew several members of his mother’s family. James’s grandfather owned a Dublin theater, and Jonathon had worked there as an actor and playwright. They’d spent hours plotting ways to escape the service, but these plans became irrelevant when a Frenchman fired a bullet straight at James’s heart; Jonathon shoved him out of the way, taking the bullet himself. James would be forever grateful for this act, although by the end of the day he, too, was struck down. Wounded but alive, both were released from further duty. They’d traveled to Ireland, where Jonathon promised to introduce him to the family he’d never met.

And they’d embraced him. He’d felt for the first time in many years that he had a family. He’d even adopted his mother’s maiden name, a change that Will took issue with; his name would certainly be a topic of conversation at dinner that night. He’d stayed there for almost a decade, until news of Richard’s death arrived.

When he’d returned, Jonathon had come with him, hoping to pursue his dream of owning a London theater. He’d saved a bit of money, and James had helped him with the rest.

“You are being rather stubborn, James, I must say,” said Jonathon, unwilling to let the subject drop that easily. “Will has a point. Richard’s gone. You’ve moved back to London, you’ve claimed your inheritance. So start using your real name, too, and pretend to be respectable.”

James rose, picked up his jacket once more and headed for the library door without responding to that suggestion. “Sure you won’t come tonight?”

Jonathon reluctantly rose from his comfortable position and followed him out of the room and across the marble hall. “Theater won’t run itself. By the by, did you enjoy yourself last night?”

James’s head experienced a tiny pulse of pain at the memory. He knew exactly what Jonathon was referring to. He opened the front door with a quiet groan and stepped outside. “You witnessed my shame?”

“Kitty Budgen is rather conspicuous, I’m afraid. Laughs like a jackal.”

“A real friend would have stopped me.”

“It was too amusing to stop.”

James hadn’t intended on spending his evening with Kitty Budgen, sometime actress and notorious flirt. He’d gone to the theater merely to sign some papers and had been about to leave when he’d spotted a lone woman seated in the audience. Unaccompanied women were invariably prostitutes and not good for business, so he was going to ask her to leave. He’d been waiting for the right moment, but the longer he watched her the less convinced he became. He couldn’t see her face, but her tight, priggish hair and drab clothes didn’t correspond to a prostitute’s colorful appearance. Furthermore, she definitely wasn’t trying to solicit anyone’s attention. He’d started to lose interest, and then Kitty had come along and he’d forgotten about her altogether…

How surprised he’d been when he finally surfaced from Kitty’s charms to see the woman now turned around in her seat, staring at him with a mixture of shock and opprobrium. Any doubts he’d had about her status vanished—he didn’t think he’d ever seen such a sincere display of maidenly outrage. He couldn’t blame her, either, all things considered.

And he’d been damned shocked himself. She was remarkably pretty, a fact he would never have guessed from the back of her head. She was beautiful in a way that Kitty, with her garish clothes and painted face, could never be. He rather regretted the fact that he’d held back from approaching her. He had an idea she’d have been a far more interesting companion.

“James?”

He looked up, realizing he’d become lost in his thoughts once more.

Jonathon sighed. “I said that if I were in your position, I certainly wouldn’t be wasting my time with the likes of Miss Budgen. I’d be dancing with a different heiress every night and fathering weak-chinned, aristocratic brats. What about marriage?”

James frowned. “You’re as bad as Will. I’m not sure that any self-respecting heiress would waste her time with me, nor am I interested in the least. Now—” he paused, looking north, in the direction of Hyde Park “—I’m walking this way.”

Jonathon took the hint, but he couldn’t help calling out over his shoulder as he headed in the opposite direction, “Perhaps you should try to be interested. It might cheer you up.”

Chapter Three

Eleanor didn’t exactly know what she was doing there, seated once more in the shadowy outer edges of the theater, just two weeks after her first ordeal there. She’d anticipated spending a quiet evening at home with Beatrice and Charles as no social events had been organized. Only that had changed late in the afternoon when Charles’s mother, Lady Emma Summerson, invited them all to dinner.

“You’ll come, of course, won’t you, Eleanor?” Beatrice had asked. “The invitation is rather tardy, I know, but that’s because something novel has come up. Mrs. Parker-Branch visited Emma late this afternoon with her latest protégé in tow—she fancies herself a great patron, as you know. He’s a Florentine tenor and has agreed to sing for Emma tonight.”

Normally Eleanor would have agreed immediately, but something—she wasn’t sure what—had made her hold back. “It sounds like a late evening.”

“I suppose, but you’ve done nothing all day. It won’t be anything too formal, I promise. Say you’ll come.”

Indeed, Eleanor had meant to say just that. But when she’d opened her mouth something else came out entirely.

“Perhaps I’ll give Miss Pilkington a visit.”

A braying voice coming from the center of the audience bought her attention back to the present with a snap. Her first instinct was to turn to see what was happening, but she caught herself in time. She’d been coaching herself all night to practice restraint, only it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. She’d been raised to speak her mind, not to lower her eyes demurely.

The curtains parted, and she took a deep breath, trying to relax.

Only she couldn’t, nor could she concentrate. She glanced over her shoulder to look at the rows of seats behind her, but they were still empty.

Don’t be silly, Eleanor, she chided herself as she turned her head back around. He will not be here this time. That would be too great a coincidence.

The evening’s play was As You Like It, again. She’d returned for a second viewing—not that she’d been able to see it properly the first time—and the chance that he’d also be there a second time was too slim to worry about. It was highly unlikely that she’d see him again in any context. His physical appearance might have suggested he was a gentleman, but his behavior certainly did not. She’d never seen him at any ton events before, and she would have remembered.

So why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? He was no longer a threat; he was nothing more than a spine-tingling—make that very spine-tingling—memory. She wasn’t unused to attractive men, either. Her brother, Ben, was terribly good-looking and Charles, until two weeks ago, anyway, was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. But, well, that was Charles, for goodness sake. It wasn’t the same.

Eleanor closed her eyes and tried to remember the stranger’s face. Since she’d dreamed about him just the other night it wasn’t that difficult. She sank back into her seat and looked up at the plasterwork ceiling. She couldn’t help grinning. Dear God, why have you made me so depraved? His boldness had shocked and thrilled her, and all he’d done was smile at her with a little more masculine approval than she was used to. Few men had ever flirted with her; she wasn’t used to that sort of attention.

The sound of a large form easing into the seat in front of her drew her attention back to earth. That form was a very tall and spherical man.

Oh…!

She frowned at his broad back and leaned her body to one side and then to the other, trying to see around him. How dare he not only come in late but obscure her view, as well? She stared at the back of his bald head, willing him to change his seat. She certainly wasn’t going to move. In the first place—just as a matter of principle—she’d sat down before him. In the second place, however, looking for another seat would require standing up, searching about and drawing attention to herself in the process. Just when she’d been avoiding notice so well.

With an annoyed sigh, Eleanor realized she had no choice but to crane her neck.

From the comfort of his private box, James looked out over the audience. He wasn’t really paying attention since he’d already seen the play, and had actually only come along because Jonathon had invited him for a closing night drink. With each successful play, he came closer to repaying the loan, and he liked to celebrate.

His gaze faltered as it drifted across a blond head. A woman, seated on the right side of the theater. Unlike most of the audience, her face was turned toward the stage, and she appeared to be following the play with interest. She was also completely alone. He narrowed his eyes, instantly certain he’d seen her somewhere before, although he couldn’t remember where. Other than the fact that she was alone there wasn’t anything remarkable about her. Her body, what he could see of it, anyway, was slim and covered in a dreary, gray dress. Her hair was pulled into a severe knot.

He watched with amusement as she shifted her weight, apparently trying to see around the large man seated directly in front of her. If he’d been any closer, he was certain that he would have heard her huff in annoyance.

Where had he seen her before?

With a frown, he reached for Jonathon’s opera glasses. As he watched, she leaned forward once again, trying to crane her head around the impenetrable form blocking her view. He chuckled as she sat heavily back into her seat in frustration.

As if she heard him, an impossibility from that distance, she turned her head to the side quickly, almost suspiciously. He stopped laughing, his eyes on the face that was now presented to him in profile. Suddenly, he remembered.

“See anything unusual through those?” Jonathon asked, regarding him with mild interest.

“Perhaps.”

Jonathon glanced down at the audience toward the nondescript blond woman. She still fidgeted miserably. “Really?” he asked dubiously.

“Have you seen that woman before?”

Jonathon frowned. “Don’t think so…honestly can’t remember. Have you?”

He shrugged. “When I was here last…about two weeks ago. She was unaccompanied then, too.”

Jonathon sighed. “What a nuisance. Do you want to remove her, or shall I?”

James didn’t respond. He wasn’t going to throw her out, not until he’d satisfied his curiosity, anyway. He didn’t know why she so intrigued him, but he’d thought about her several times since he’d first seen her. She was quite pretty, but she definitely didn’t seem out of the ordinary. Yet he remembered a slightly different picture from before: bottomless azure eyes; flushed cheeks; full, parted lips…he hadn’t expected to see her again, and he wasn’t going to let her run away so soon this time.

With a departing nod to the still-doubtful Jonathon, he left the box, heading down the dimly lit flight of stairs to the seats below. It took only a moment to locate her, and he had to hold back another grin as he walked slowly down the aisle. If she’d been paying attention before, that was no longer the case. Her attention now seemed to be entirely focused on boring holes with her eyes into the man’s thick neck. She was so absorbed that she didn’t even notice as he took a seat directly behind her. She just exhaled loudly in frustration and craned her head once more.

James watched her for several minutes, enjoying her irritation. The act soon ended, and the man rose and walked off, presumably to stretch his legs before the second half of the play began. With a relieved sigh, she leaned back into her seat.

And he leaned forward, his lips only inches from the back of her head. In a whisper, he asked, “Why don’t you change your seat if you can’t see?”

She didn’t turn around. He wasn’t sure if he’d expected her to. For an instant she looked as though she was about to jump out of her seat, but then she merely stiffened her shoulders. She was pretending not to have heard him.

He narrowed his eyes. The volume in the theater had increased as the scenery was changed, but it wasn’t that loud. She’d heard him, and it wasn’t as if she had anyone else to speak to, either. She was just sitting there, intentionally ignoring him. James wasn’t used to that sort of treatment. He slid from his seat, stepped over the row of seats in front of him, and sat down right next to her.

Eleanor kept her neck as rigid as a flagpole. She’d no idea who this beastly man was, and she certainly wouldn’t dignify his presence by looking at him. Making eye contact would only invite further liberties; better just to ignore him and hope that he’d go away. She’d rehearsed this tactic many times in her head just in case such a scenario should pass.

“Are you enjoying the play?”

She made no answer and still didn’t turn her head. Instead, she imagined what he’d look like. Pudgy. Ugly. His nose would be bulbous and lined with red veins from too much drink.

He sighed elaborately next to her, leaned back in his seat and stretched out his legs. In turn, she edged sideways in her own seat and tried to make herself as small as possible so she wouldn’t accidentally touch any part of him. Odious man.

“Well, you must like it, as I’ve seen you here before,” he said. His voice was deep and rich and didn’t fit the unattractive physique her mind had conjured up. “Unless, of course, you just make a habit of wandering around the less savory parts of London by yourself at night.”

She hoped he didn’t notice her eyes grow slightly wider as the meaning of his words sank in. Had he really seen her there before? Her muteness was positively killing her, but she refused to speak, hoping that if she ignored him long enough he’d get bored and leave.

But he didn’t get bored. He got impatient, and he reached out and grabbed her hand, tugging gently.

She gasped and pulled it away with a jerk. She was so outraged that she completely forgot about ignoring him and turned her entire body around to rebuke him. But the nasty words that were ready at her lips died before they were ever formed.

Oh, no.

“Hello again,” he said, his voice laced with humor.

She didn’t reply. She was still too stunned. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but there he was. Right next to her, regarding her with curiosity and waiting for her to say something. And she could think of nothing to say. Her head felt as if it had been emptied of all intelligent content and all she could do, again, was stare. She’d thought he was handsome the first time she’d seen him, but now, up close…she really shouldn’t be looking at his lips. She lifted her gaze from his mouth but instead became trapped in his eyes. Mesmerizing eyes, not dark at all as she’d previously thought, but leafy green with veins of gold and brown.

“What’s your name?” he asked, his voice growing softer.

She didn’t know how or when it had happened, but he’d reclaimed her hand; with his thumb, he lightly stroked her palm. If not for that fact, she surely wouldn’t have answered him. But with his hand covering hers she couldn’t think too clearly. Her voice didn’t sound quite like her own. “Eleanor.”

He cocked his head, waiting for more. His fingers drifted up her arm, across her shoulder, to trace a gentle line along her jaw.

“Surely you have more of a name than that?”

Did she? What was her name? “Um…Smith.”

“Are you newly married, Eleanor…um, Smith?”

“Why do you ask such a question, sir?” Her sense was finally returning, and she pulled her head away from his wandering hand.

He smiled, his eyes darkening wickedly. “You stumbled a bit over your name, Eleanor Smith,” he explained. “I thought perhaps it might be…new to you.”

She blushed deeply, but her voice was sharp. “I stumbled because I am unused to such rudeness.”

“I see. Are you married at all, then?”