A Proposition For The Comte. Sophia James

your eyes on?’

      Her stranger was the Comte de Beaumont? The man recently come into English society and sending all its ladies into swoons?

      Such a realisation was shocking, but beneath this truth other things were solidifying. He was unmatched, but he was also full of a darkness that could only hurt her.

      ‘My brother said he saw him going into one of the wicked opium dens in town. To partake, do you think?’ The shock in Antonia’s eyes was underlined by excitement.

      Harland had used laudanum in the last years of his life, too, as an aid to his gambling losses, the sickly-sweet smell still inclined to make her feel ill. The dream weaver, he had called it, as he’d tried to foist it upon her.

       ‘It might loosen you up, Violet. You used to be so much more fun than you are now.’

      He had said other things, too; an undertone of bitter recrimination in each and every word.

      With determination she pulled her thoughts back to this minute, the gentle three-point melody of a waltz in the distance and the chandeliers above twinkling in long lines of muted light. The beauty and energy of the room swirled around her. Here nothing sordid or ignoble could touch her. Here she was beyond reproach and lauded.

      The vanity of such a thought worried her, but she tossed that aside.

      Could the Comte de Beaumont have murdered a man a few moments before she’d found him? There had been blood on the blade in his boot and much more on his clothes.

      ‘The Frenchman is a man of secrets, would you not say, for there are whispers that in Paris his family escaped the Terror unscathed and are rich beyond imagination.’

      ‘Anything can be said of anyone, Antonia, yet that does not make it true.’

      Her friend smiled. ‘Still, is there not something about him, Violet? Some tempting beauty? Lady Catherine Osborne obviously thinks so, for look how she hangs on to him as if she might never let him go.’

      Making no effort to turn in that direction, Violet wished that her friend would show the same sort of reserve.

      ‘His mother was English. One of the Forsythes from Essex, although she passed away a good few years ago in France. His father is still hale and hearty. Duc de Lorraine-Lillebonne is his title as he hails from that ancient family.’

      Lineage and wealth. No wonder the Comte was being fêted by all the women of the ton. But why then had she found him lying wounded on the side of a cold and midnight road, a man who had given her no name by which to place him?

      Secrets. They hung across his shoulders like a heavy mantle; she could see it in the way he held himself and in the quiet watchfulness of his person. Perhaps it took one to know one, she also thought, wondering if her own mistruths were so very easily noted.

      The sound of the orchestra tuning up for another dance caught at her attention and she smiled. The quadrille. More usually on any given night her dance card would have been full, but because she had been so late in arriving this evening she had not even taken it out of her reticule. She was pleased that she hadn’t, for it meant she could leave earlier and without comment.

      Antonia knocked at her arm. ‘De Beaumont is coming this way with my brother. Smile, Violet, for you have the grimace of one marching to her death instead of feasting your eyes and appreciating true masculine beauty.’

      Gregory MacMillan was all eagerness as he reached them. ‘Comte de Beaumont, may I present my sister, Lady Antonia MacMillan, and her great friend Lady Addington. The Comte is recently come from Paris and has asked me for an introduction to the two most beautiful women in the room.’

      When Violet looked up she could see that the flowery words of Antonia’s brother were just that. The Comte de Beaumont looked as surprised by the sentiment as she had been.

      ‘I am pleased to meet you both.’

      So that is how he wished to play it, the recent history between them discounted. With a small tip of her head she noticed that Antonia was doing her very best to crawl up against the newcomer. ‘I do hope that you are enjoying your sojourn to London, Comte?’

      The flirtatiousness in her tone made Violet wince.

      Please, God, she thought, let this finish. Let him move away before the dancing begins in earnest. Let him tip his head and leave us behind.

      ‘It is a city I do not know well any more, I am afraid, Lady Antonia. A city of contrasts.’

       Dangerous and bustling. Lies and truth. Gunshots and dancing. Coyness and peril. Life and death. Love and hate. Light and darkness.

      He did not now exhibit any semblance of pain or discomfort and the scar across his chin looked almost pale, lost in the dim light of candelabras.

      But Antonia had not finished with all her questions. ‘I have heard you have bought a house in Sussex, my lord, and a very fine one by all accounts.’

      ‘Indeed. I was down south for a few weeks last year and purchased it on a whim.’

      A whim?

      The Comte de Beaumont did not look like a man who ever acted upon whims. Light and fancy things, whims. When he saw Violet smile at such a musing his eyes darkened.

      ‘Would you like to dance, Lady Addington? I think I can just about remember the steps of the quadrille.’

      She could not refuse under such close perusal, though Antonia did not look pleased at all.

      Within a moment he had shepherded her on to the floor, the touch of his good arm burning into her back. When they stood to face each other she was lost for words.

      ‘Thank you.’ His voice was low and quiet.

       For the lie? For the dance? For not calling in at the Home Office and telling them her story in detail? For standing there and pretending she did not know him? For rescuing him from certain death on a frozen night?

      ‘You are welcome.’

      Here was not the place for more with the cream of the ton present, as their love of gossip and scandal could ruin him. Violet wondered if de Beaumont held a knife in his pocket even under the lights and among the rustle of silk. She decided that he must.

      ‘You have made quite an impression in society since arriving in England, Comte de Beaumont. Everyone is talking of you and you have not been here long.’

      ‘A daunting thing that, Lady Addington, given our circumstances.’

      ‘I received your note.’ She whispered this, just in case.

      ‘And I meant every word on it.’

      She felt the tightening of his fingers against her hand, a small and hidden communication. Barely there.

      ‘Why?’

      Suddenly she no longer wanted to be so careful. If he had murdered a man the other week he was not someone she should encourage. But then again if he hadn’t...

      ‘When someone saves your life there is a debt owed.’

      ‘And when someone takes a life it is just the same.’

      ‘Touché,’ he whispered as the dance pulled them apart into the arms of others.

      When he returned she felt a giddy sense of place, but firmly squashed it down as his arms linked with her own.

      ‘Do you try to make yourself unattractive, Lady Addington?’

      She nearly missed her step.

      ‘The turban does not suit you. Neither does the gown.’

      The shock of such an unexpected and personal remark ran through her unchecked. ‘My dressmaker would be distraught.’

      ‘How old is the woman?’

      ‘Pardon?’