There, a laugh that sounded almost right for Lillian apart from a strange high-pitched trill at the end of every sentence, as if the speaker was deliberately leaving a question mark at the end of each speech. Nervousness? If it was Lillian, she had good reason to be nervous. And when Brent caught up with the two women, they’d have good reason to be nervous because he was furious with Lillian’s unknown companion, and her.
Yes, he’d wanted his best friend to find happiness, but he’d envisaged her slowly renewing friendships next year in London, chaperoning her sister, and perhaps sometime in the future accepting a marriage proposal. The idea of any man making advances to her when her emotions were still raw after her husband’s demise and the pain of the appalling rumors that said she’d urged her husband to his death, made his blood boil. Though he couldn’t put his finger on why he was so incensed.
Lillian was his friend, nothing more, and she knew his feelings about marrying again any time soon. She was also one of the few people who knew of his first wife’s numerous affairs and what he’d done afterwards. He’d forgiven Marion for her affairs as his heart had never been truly engaged in their union and Marion had craved attention, constantly. What he couldn’t forgive, never would, was emotionally wounded their daughter at every chance because she hated that Brent lavished his attention on their delightful daughter and not her. During the first months of their marriage, he’d tried. Very hard. But Celeste had become more and more obsessed her about her looks and had been horrified when her stomach had swelled with their child and silvery lines appeared across her trim abdomen. He’d assured her that he loved those streaks as they meant they’d soon be welcoming their child into the world, but she grew angrier with each month and by the time their daughter was ready to enter the world, Celeste had been throwing daily tantrums and heaping blame on Brent’s head that carrying their child had ruined her figure. Being banned from her bedchamber had been grim, and yet a blessing, as by then he’d nearly used up his supply of patience and was simply biding his time until the baby arrived.
As he wove a path through the crowd, he listened for Lillian’s voice and tried to smell her particular scent, though the air in the ballroom was thick with heavy scents from both females and males. The smell of desire, and arousal, swamped him as he squeezed around several couples in the final stages of negotiating the terms of their associations, with the women listing what they’d like their protectors to provide. A house, gowns, jewels, and visits to the theatre. The air reeked of sexual awareness, not something he’d been surrounded by for quite a long time and a smell he’d have gladly avoided for many more years.
The push and shove, and the manipulation and capitulation made him inwardly shudder. Though he’d visited his share of brothels and indulged himself at wild house parties in his younger years, he’d never employed a mistress. Swagger and boasting had been part of every young buck’s introduction to society, both at London’s upper class’s balls and at country assemblies. Jostling and teasing during brothel visits had also been a normal part of his younger days. But then he’d married Marion and they’d added Margaret to their family and he’d been content to live the conservative life of a married man who believed in the sanctity of marriage. More recently, he’d simply felt jaded after one unhappy marriage and he couldn’t dredge up excitement over two hundred primped and primed gentlemen and the equivalent number of ladies of the night playing games of intrigue and seduction.
There were many parts of married life he missed, desperately. Lust, desire, and passion he understood and, to be perfectly honest, yearned to experience again. The shared intimacy of conversations in bed after a bout of rigorous sex. Waking to a woman’s soft body wrapped around him and taking his time rousing her from sleep and then making sweet slow love to her. That he missed. Fake relationships, the sort formed here, left him cold, yet he yearned for the connection and sense of belonging that came with having a lover, or being in love.
There! That voice. That was the voice he knew as well as his own, and the scent that had often tempted him to rethink his views on marriage. Maneuvering around the dozen men and six women surrounding her, Brent eased into the lady’s intimate circle and stood at her shoulder. He sniffed. Oh, yes!
His senses hadn’t led him astray, nor had his sanity deteriorated and tumbled into madness, where his imaginings spiraled out of control and his fantasies sprang to life. Lady Armstrong, Lillian, was truly here in the midst of this decadence and debauchery. He shifted so they stood shoulder to shoulder, their arms touching.
Leaning in, Brent whispered in Lillian’s ear. 'Well, well, well. I certainly didn't expect to find you in attendance.'
CHAPTER TWO