Historical
Suddenly
By Pamela
Aug 18, 2007, 15:24

The ballroom glistened with shimmering waves of color—glorious flower arrangements, an ocean of women in silk dresses swirling around on the dance floor. Continuous ribbons of music, drawn over the room by the orchestra.

A battalion of servants, dressed in the Richmonds’ livery of red and black, swarmed over the ballroom, adjacent parlors, and dining rooms to insure that the evening’s guests wanted for nothing.

As she surveyed the ballroom, like a commander inspecting a battlefield, Tessa St. Andrew, Duchess of Richmond, sighed with satisfaction. After weeks of planning and preparations, she and her handsome duke presided over what promised to be the most talked about ball of the season. To be certain, the event would play out like a well drawn military campaign. That fact was never in doubt.

Her male relations had every reason to call her “The Little General.” They would no doubt be shocked to know, she took great pride in the title. It did not matter. Tonight, “The Little General” had far more than the success of a fashionable ball in mind.

She had a more vital, daring plan to execute. A plan that required one more thing in order to be launched tonight. She glanced at the top of the stairs again.

“He’ll be here, my love. His sister too,” Wesley St. Andrew, Duke of Richmond said. He gave his wife a knowing look. “You did, after all, order his attendance. He would not dare disobey.”

Tessa could not help but look put out that her furtive glances to the top of the stairs had not been quite so furtive as she thought. Her pout at being discovered, brought a smile to her husband’s face.

“The Marquis of Warren.”

The major domo’s drone echoed throughout the ballroom. Heads turned to reveal a wide variety of expressions - interest, avarice, derision, outrage, scandal, and others.

“Mothers, lock up your daughters,” the none too quiet voice quipped beside her. “‘Wicked’ Warren is in town.”

“Wesley St. Andrew, shame on you,” the willowy duchess whispered as she elbowed him gently. The use of his given name was meant to leave her displeasure with him in no doubt.

“Madame, really. Sherringdon is one of the best men I know, but he does have a rather terrible reputation."

“His reputation is completely unwarranted,” she assured him. “He cannot help it if women throw themselves at him.”

“Or worse,” Richmond teased. “Fall in love with him. The streets of London are littered with chits’ hearts he has broken.”

“As if any of them care a whit for him,” Tessa said. She made no effort to hide the derision in her voice. "If he were not heir to a duke, they would not spare him a second glance. Even if he is handsome as moral sin."

“Yes, but heir to a dukedom and handsome as sin makes him quite a temptation, does it not?” Richmond asked with a wink.

Tessa smiled slightly, while her eyes searched the crowded ballroom in vain. One of the many disadvantages of being married to one of the most powerful men in England was, when one issued invitations, they were always accepted. She would never find Sebastian in this crush.

“I do not think you are attending, Your Grace,” her husband said dryly. “Am I, your adoring husband, to be ignored the entire evening?”

“What?” she asked distractedly.

She looked up and saw a very suspicious and slightly affronted husband staring back at her.

“I am sorry, dear, what were you saying?” She smiled sweetly and knew in an instant that she had given herself away. Richmond was far too clever for his own good, or perhaps more importantly for hers.

“You are up to something, my love. Of that I am certain,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and leaning toward her. “The trick is to discover whom your intended victim is to be.”

“Richmond, really.”

“Or better, pray God it isn’t me.”

Her husband spoke slowly as he followed her gaze until it landed across the room on a figure seated on a tiny gilt chair, bereft of any companionship.

“That is perhaps the most hideous, ill-fitting gown I have ever seen,” he announced, rather more loudly than he meant.

“Wesley!” she cried.

The duke appeared to be in the throws of a coughing fit as Tessa swatted at him with her fan.

                            ***

Having managed to evade the few matchmaking mothers desperate enough to throw their daughters at someone of his “unfortunate” parentage, Sebastian paused for a moment to observe the ballroom. He was well aware of the pointed looks and whispers directed toward him. He simply chose to ignore them.

While many bastard sons of the nobility would happily jump at the chance to be legitimized and have their futures secured, Sebastian found the morass that was society all rather debilitating. It did not stop him from doing exactly as he pleased. His scandalous behavior tended to keep most of the ton at a distance. Which was exactly where he wanted them. If only his father would follow suit.

He had only to touch his split and slightly swollen lip to remind him that his father would never leave him alone.

At last, his perusal of the crowded, sparkling assembly afforded him a sight that made him smile. Two of his few friends in society— the Duke and Duchess of Richmond came into view. Surely, he would be safe with them.

“Save me, Sherringdon,” Richmond cried, still ducking his wife’s fan.

“What on earth has this cad done to incur the wrath of such a gentle lady?” Sebastian asked with mock dismay.

He kissed Tessa’s proffered hand and then her cheek with all the grace of a man secure in his place in the lives of the powerful duke and duchess.

“He is being insufferable and rude.” Tessa said. Her gusty sigh painted her as a long-suffering wife. The adoring face she turned on her husband told a quite different story.

“Spending entirely too much time with my disreputable friends is to blame,” Richmond said, giving Sebastian a friendly nudge.

“Thank you, Richmond, old boy,” Sebastian said with a slight bow.

“Think nothing of it, Sherringdon.”

“We shall have to separate the two of you at once,” Tessa declared. “Just as soon as you tell us the story of that lip, Sebastian Sherringdon.”

“Your full name,” Richmond said sorrowfully. “Not good, my friend. Although I must admit, I am all for a good story. Care to enlighten us?”

“Ran into a door.”

Richmond winced. His duchess rolled her eyes and snorted. "Pull the other one, my lord," she said inelegantly.

“Could have told you that wouldn’t wash,” Richmond said out of the corner of his mouth.

“If you and your ruffian brothers told the truth on occasion she would not be such a skeptic," Sebastian suggested. "Can we leave it at that, dear lady?” He felt certain Tessa knew him well enough to leave be. She and Richmond did not need to be told the details. They were familiar with the story.

“Is the real head of the Richmond family here tonight?“ Sebastian asked, watching the ballroom like a fox listening for hounds.

“What a sorry excuse for a rake you are, Sherringdon.” Richmond shook his head. "All of these lovely young ladies in attendance, and you ask after a woman old enough to be your grandmother.”

“What can I say? I have a taste for older women.”

“Aunt Gertrude is in the card room, as well you know,” Tessa informed him, referring to the duke’s harridan of a great aunt.

“I think I will join her. Coming, Richmond?”

“Sherringdon,” Tessa said, her voice suddenly honey sweet. She threaded her arm through his. “I would beg a tiny favor before you run away and hide.”

“A favor?” Sebastian looked at Richmond askance.

“Don’t ask me, old boy,” the duke replied to that inquiring glance. “I just came to keep rakes like you away from my wife. If you . . .” Suddenly Richmond stopped and followed his wife’s darting glances.

“Tessa, darling, what are you up to?”

“Nothing, my love. Nothing at all.”

“Sherringdon?”

“Yes, Richmond?”

“Run.”

“What are you about, my lady?” Sebastian asked, his voice suspicious, even as he looked to plot an escape route.

“I just want you to dance with a friend of mine. One dance,” she assured him. “She has been in attendance all evening, and not one gentleman has asked her to dance. It’s her first ball." She put her free hand on his arm as well and looked up, her gaze pleading.

He was trapped.

“Let Richmond dance with her,” he offered.

“The duke is already married. If you dance with her, other eligible young men will follow suit.”

“Why isn’t anyone dancing with her?”

The lovely duchess quickly lost her ability to look him in the eye. Richmond cleared his throat, covered his mouth with his hand, and with one finger pointed to the dejected figure still seated alone on the gilt chair.

“You cannot be serious,” Sebastian said slowly.

From across the ballroom the woman looked like nothing more than a chaperone. One did not dance with chaperones. Not that he felt himself above such things. It was just most chaperones, at his approach, ran screaming into the night, dragging their charges behind them.

“Sherringdon, please. She is a wonderful, sweet, intelligent girl.” Tessa favored him with her most lethal smile. He was certain he heard Richmond groan. With a heartfelt sigh he looked at the hopeful woman next to him. “She is a friend of Lizzie’s as well. Your sister will be so terribly pleased, if you dance with Miss Delacroix.”

“If I do not, you will never let me hear the end of it, will you?” Her eyes showed no remorse, not pity and no reprieve.

“I told you to run,” Richmond reminded him, his eyes now sparkling with unspoken mirth.

“Lead on, my lady,” Sebastian said, elbowing the duke forcefully. “I live to serve you. Introduce me to this paragon.”

                            ***

Theadora Delacroix wanted to die. She could not believe she had allowed two friends of sincere, but brief acquaintance to talk her into attending this ball. Had her stepfather not been out of the house for the evening, she never would have dreamed of it. Now, to make matters worse, one of those friends, Tessa, had introduced Theadora to her husband. An introduction to a friend's husband was to be expected. The problem lay with a friend who insisted on being called Tessa, when she was actually the Duchess of Richmond. And the husband to whom one was introduced, happened to be terribly handsome and a duke. Then, as if to add insult to injury, there was another man with the duchess. A man, Teddy was certain, who could not bring himself to even look at her.

That was not completely fair. She had yet to raise her head above the man's perfectly tied cravat. Why would she? When it served her better not to look at all? She knew what she would see—derision, boredom, scorn. As always, if he bothered to look at her, he would see a short, thin, dowdily dressed woman with unfashionably dark hair and a pasty white complexion. It simply was not worth it to lift her head and see a man who wanted to be somewhere—anywhere else.

After the perfunctory introductions, an uncomfortable silence ensued. They stood around the tiny gilt chair, a few steps from the grand staircase, like visitors to some peculiar museum. The chair had been her refuge from the cacophony that was a grand ball. Teddy wished they would just leave and let her make her escape from her own folly. In answer to her prayer, the duke and duchess made their excuses and blended into the crowd. Teddy settled back into her chair with a sigh of relief.

“Excuse me, Miss Delacroix?”

Teddy jumped in her seat and looked up at the source of that rich, deep voice. She suddenly found herself staring into the most striking eyes she had ever seen. Her throat constricted, and she heard a loud roaring in her ears. She was incapable of speech.

A lion. Standing before her was a young lion in human form. As a little girl she had seen a lion in the menagerie at the Tower of London. She had never forgotten it. Just as she knew she would never forget this moment.

His hair was the same tawny color as a lion’s mane and almost as shaggy, hanging slightly over the collar of his cutaway jacket. Long muscular limbs gave his tailor the perfect frame on which to hang the elegant black and white of evening dress.

The visage was that of a creature well aware of his own power, but not terribly impressed with the power of others. Sharp features, a square jaw and those amazing mesmerizing eyes—amber eyes filled with all the wounded knowledge of a fallen angel stared back at her, slightly bemused.

What on earth could he possibly want with her? If she could remember how to talk, she would ask him. Loss of one’s power of speech, in addition to making one look like a bedlamite, was more than a bit inconvenient.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . sir . . . I don’t know you . . . Do I?”

She nearly cringed at the sound of her own inane, idiotic question. Of course she knew him. She recognized his cravat. Why hadn’t he left with their host and hostess?

“Actually we were just introduced by the Duke and Duchess of Richmond. I believe you know my sister as well. Elizabeth Sherringdon?”

The man smiled but there was something in his eyes that spoke to her, something of sorrow and great loss.

“Lizzie, of course,” she said, coming out of her stupor. “That would make you Wick—" Teddy clapped a gloved hand over her mouth. His smile turned into a sly grin.

“Wicked Warren at your service, m’lady,” he said with a click of his heels and a slight bow.

Teddy blushed and shook her head.

“I am terribly sorry, my lord. I should not have—"

He waved his hand to cut her off.

“Would you care to dance, Miss Delacroix?”

“I beg your pardon?” She blinked up at him as if he just said the most outrageous thing.

“Would you care to dance?” he said more deliberately.

“Me?”

The marquis looked around carefully. “You appear to be the only lady within earshot, Miss Delacroix.” He held out his hand. “Shall we?”

“But . . . We don’t really know each other.”

“Of course, we do,” he assured her, a grave expression on his handsome face. "We were introduced just a moment ago. Are you going to wound my fragile sensibilities by saying I am instantly forgettable?" He continued to hold out his hand.

“I do not believe it is something we should do, my lord.”

“Ah,” he said with a knowing wink. “But life is too short simply to do what we should, is it not?”

“It’s a waltz,” she murmured, tempted beyond all reason. Her hand stole into his as if it had a life all its own

“I am familiar with the waltz, Miss Delacroix.”

“I . . . don’t know how to . . .”

Her other hand came up and slipped into his as he pulled her gently to her feet.

“Just follow me, Miss Delacroix. I’m told I am quite adept at it. The waltz, that is.”

Teddy felt her skin flush as the notorious marquis pulled her into his arms. They began to whirl around the dance floor. For the first few turns, she could only feel and see this lion of a man as he loomed over her. She felt small and light in his arms.

“You are very graceful, Miss Delacroix. Are you sure you have never waltzed?"

“Quite sure, my lord. I think we should stop.”

“Did I trod on your foot?”

“No, my lord, not at all. But . . . everyone is staring at us.”

“Of course, they are. You are dancing with the Wicked Marquis of Warren.”

“And you are dancing with Dowdy Delacroix.”

She tried to pull out of his arms, but he held her fast and swept her into the kaleidoscope of dancing couples. The tempo of the waltz picked up. Teddy felt as if her feet were not touching the floor at all.

“We are quite the scandalous pair, are we not, Miss Delacroix?”

“The most handsome man in the room dancing with the plainest woman in the room? Yes, my lord, that is a scandal."

“Do stop calling me ‘my lord,’ Miss Delacroix. I feel the need to look behind me to see whom you are addressing."

“Then what shall I call you?”

“My friends and people with whom I am creating a scandal call me Sebastian,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

She laughed out loud before she could stop herself. "If you insist on making me laugh I shall trod on your foot, my . . ." She took a deep breath. Dare she? "Sebastian." The act was one of such impropriety that she rushed on to atone for it. "It would be a great pity, as you are wearing a very handsome pair of shoes."

His expression told her he recognized the ploy. "I did notice you made quite a study of them when we were introduced."

She shook her head, more to cool the flush of her cheeks than in denial.

The marquis leaned in to whisper in her ear as they continued to sail around the room on a cloud of music. "It is tiresome to be forced to look at people and smile when, the entire time, you know exactly what they think of you, is it not? I must commend you for refusing to credit what you feared you might see in my face. My shoes are far more interesting."

He was teasing her. She had been having a perfectly lovely dream and now he was just like all the rest, spoiling it with a jibe at her low expectations. Somehow his words hurt more than the others she had endured over the years. Perhaps it was because he had lifted the heavy veil of anonymity that her circumstances draped over her. For just a moment, she had felt like a woman worthy of his attention. How dare he take that away from her.

"I realize the duchess asked you to dance with me, but there is no need to be cruel." She stiffened in his arms. He must have noticed it at once for he pulled her even closer, far closer than propriety allowed.

"You were certainly free to refuse her request."

He moved his hand in a surreptitious stroke of her back and smiled. "Nobody refuses Richmond's duchess. Do you think she is called 'The Little General' for nothing? I sent my regrets to her invitation to this ball and enclosed a note saying I had broken my leg. She sent one of her footmen with a one word reply."

"Which was?" Teddy could not help but ask.

"Limp." She stifled her laugh which turned it into an inelegant snort. He whirled and dipped her slightly. She caught her breath as he continued. "My statement was not meant to be one of derision, but rather one of commiseration."

"I hardly think our situations are comparable, my lord," she snapped without meaning to do so. "I am plain, ordinary Dowdy Delacroix, a poor girl with no expectations. While you, my lord, are the Marquis of Warren, and from what I have heard, you never lack for admirers."

"You are neither plain nor ordinary, Miss Delacroix, merely underappreciated. Poverty can become prosperity in the blink of an eye, and well I know it. I am the bastard son of a duke and no amount of appreciation or prosperity can change that." He grinned as several of their fellow dancers gasped. "And I have an exceedingly wicked reputation."

He was making a habit of taking her breath away. More than that, his expression before and after his declaration revealed a great deal. A very great deal indeed. It placed her in a somewhat awkward position. She knew now, without a doubt, there was no cruelty intended in his words. In fact there was a degree of understanding in him that astounded her. How could she ever apologize for such an unjust assumption?

"It is terribly lowering, you know, Miss Delacroix." The man sighed with all the affect of a Drury Lane heroine.

"What is, my lord?"

"First you are fascinated by my shoes, and now even my cravat is more interesting than I. It is enough to make a man despair of ever attracting the notice of the fairer sex."

Teddy rolled her eyes. "According to your sister attracting the fairer sex is not one of your failings."

"Apparently neither is my appearance," he replied in a tone of mock disgust. "I must remember to tell Fordham what a success his cravat and shoes were."

"Fordham?"

"My butler."

"You are wearing your butler's cravat and shoes?" she teased. How delightful it was to tease a lion. At least she thought the feeling was delight. Whatever it was, it made her skin tingle, and she craved the taste of it like some long-forbidden sweet.

"Minx," he whispered with an odd gleam in his eye. "Fordham tied the cravat. The knot is his own creation. He picked the shoes out for me as well."

"They are quite nice. Few gentlemen would admit to allowing a servant such influence over his wardrobe."

"Fordham is anything but a servant, Miss Delacroix," the marquis said cryptically. "He has far better taste than I."

For some reason his answer made her smile. She felt it pour through her body like hot chocolate on a rainy day. "It is indeed fortunate that he dresses you."

"Absolutely. I would be quite the eyesore without him." He said it so solemnly she had to laugh.

"That would certainly add to your reputation," she assured him. The glitter of the ballroom had brightened to such a degree that she was nearly dizzy with it. She looked into his face to anchor her spinning emotions. A foolish choice, as his intent regard only served to send those emotions sailing towards the vaulted ceiling and into the arms of the cherubs painted there. Her eyes, however, were drawn to the handsome clean lines that defined the Wicked Marquis of Warren to the rest of the world. There was so much more there than the eye alone could see. He raised his eyebrow to accompany his quirk of a grin and she knew she was caught. Searching for a plausible excuse she lighted on his cut lower lip.

"Is that lip a result of your wicked reputation or merely an enhancement to it?" she asked lightly.

"A little of both, actually." Like lightning a flash of bitterness shot through his voice.

"What happened?" They were moving through a sea of bodies. The music moved as waves, gently lapping the shore. For all the chatter and noise and light that was a grand ton ball, they were as two people in a tiny boat made of some fragile, intangible sense of connection.

"I ran into a door."

"Ah."

In one word they exchanged a lifetime's history - his and hers. No amount of discussion could elucidate the truth more clearly than that one word. He looked directly into her eyes. It was as if he searched for something there. And found it.

A portly man in a too tight jacket and his partner, wearing enough feathers to clothe an entire flock of birds, crashed into them before careening across the parquet dance floor leaving hopping, grumbling couples in their wake. Teddy found her body pulled flush into that of the marquis. He hesitated slightly before resuming their dance, but did little to widen the distance between them.

"I daresay my shoes are ruined now. Poor Fordham will leave the house in a huff when I show him."

"Oh dear," Teddy said. Her voice sounded so foreign to her. Who knew the brush of a pair of muscular thighs to one's skirts had the power to alter one's voice? "Where will the poor Marquis of Warren be without his butler to dress him?"

"Quite naked, I fear." She stared at him incredulously. What a paradox of feelings crashed over her. The thought of him naked made her blush and curiouser, made her itch in places where one should not itch. His complete lack of reverence for society and his own consequence made her laugh, a loud lusty laugh that drew all measure of attention. "You really must stop doing that, my lord."

"What, Miss Delacroix? And please stop reducing me to a mere my lord."

"Making me laugh. Sebastian," she added his name emphatically.

“I like making you laugh, Miss Delacroix. You look lovely when you laugh. Not many women do.”

There was no reply equal to that statement. The waltz ended all too soon, and they bowed to each other. As she turned to go, the marquis caught her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Thank you, Miss Delacroix. It was a genuine pleasure.”

“My friends and people with whom I am creating a scandal call me Teddy. The pleasure was all mine.” She curtsied briefly and turned toward the stairs that led up and out of the ballroom. She dared not turn back. The look on his face was engraved in her memory and she would allow nothing to displace it.

                             ***

Sebastian stood at the fringes of the ballroom and watched her walk past her gilt chair, up the stairs and out the doors. It seemed every bit of the air had suddenly left the room. Richmond's servants must be remiss in their duties. The lighting in the ballroom appeared to grow dim. Surely the candles need replacing.

He stared at the doors, willing her to reappear. He knew he could not say what she was wearing. Her hair was dark, but he knew not what shade. Her face was a mystery as well. Of one thing he was certain. Green eyes. Those incredibly deep green eyes, that seemed to go on forever, called to him. Something very important had just happened. It was in those eyes. He knew it. He just didn’t know what.

“I say, Sherringdon,” Richmond said as he looked Sebastian up and down. “You look a bit . . . off.”

Sebastian was so caught in the net of his own thoughts, that he did not realize his friend had joined him, until he spoke.

Richmond shook his head. “Sherringdon, are you feeling quite the thing?”

“Hmm?” came Sebastian’s rather distracted reply. “What are you on about?”

“You look quite stricken, old man,” the duke continued in the same vein. “I think you may well be taken with Miss Delacroix.”

Sebastian looked at him. He felt he had just awakened from a deep sleep.

“Where is your wife, Richmond? I have a word or two for her,” Sebastian snapped.

“Ladies retiring room. Shall I stand as your second?”

“Oh, stubble it, Your Grace,” he growled as he strode determinedly up the stairs

                            ***

Elizabeth Sherringdon, the marquis’s sister, and Tessa St. Andrew came out of the retiring room, laughing and talking. A group of gentlemen entered the grand hallway of the first floor from the card room. Before Sebastian could open his mouth, a disturbance in the entryway below caught everyone's attention.

A lean-faced man, who looked to be in his fifties, swept hurriedly through the crush of people milling about in the foyer. As he crossed back toward the mansion’s front doors, he pulled a reluctant young woman in a yellowed dress.

“There is no need for you to bother saying goodbye to your so-called friends, my dear,” he announced loudly. ”You had to know it was a waste of your time to come. Even if I had the money for a dowry, no man would ever offer for the likes of you.”

The foyer was instantly as quiet as a tomb. Elizabeth and Tessa started down the stairs toward an ashen-faced Teddy. A voice like iron rang out, firm and clear.

“On the contrary, sir.”

Sebastian spoke in a deceptively amiable drawl as he seemed to prowl down the stairs and across the marble floor.

“I had every intention of calling on you in the morning, but as we are all here . . ." He looked at Theadora Delacroix and did not look away. "I would like to offer for your daughter's hand in marriage."

A collective gasp accompanied Rutherford’s incredulous reply. "I beg your pardon, my lord?" The man's expression gave all the appearance of an accident of nature, with owl-wide eyes and mouth agape like a fish.
“If she is agreeable, I would like to marry Miss Delacroix.”

Sebastian glanced at Rutherford and then walked to where the petite young woman with the big green eyes stood in stunned silence. He took her hands in his, gazing down into her amazed face.

“What say you, Theadora?” he asked. His voice soft and gentle, it seemed he feared his very words might frighten her away. “Will you marry me?”

It took a moment for her to find her voice.

“Yes . . .yes, my lord. I will.”

And then she fainted dead away.