Captivated By a Lady's Charm (Lords of Honor #2)(10)

“For the love of God, Pru, stop staring,” her brother bit out.

“Everyone is staring,” she tossed back, not taking her gaze from the marquess. “Who is he?” By her brother’s disapproving glower for the gentleman, he was not someone Sin approved of in any way.

At his silence, Prudence momentarily shifted her attention away from the marquess and to her sister-in-law. Husband and wife exchanged a look. Some silent dialogue seemed to pass between them; an unspoken language that only they two understood, until Prudence wanted to stamp her foot in annoyance the way she’d done as a small girl. Blast. She’d lost the gentleman months earlier and hadn’t seen him since. She would be damned if she allowed her overprotective brother and equally protective sister-in-law to withhold what they knew of the man.

Juliet looked at Prudence and must have seen the resolve in her eyes. “He is the Marquess of St. Cyr.” A detail she was already well aware of. “He was something of a war hero.”

Prudence swung her attention back to the marquess, now being greeted by their host and hostess. “A war hero?” she murmured to herself. War heroes were older men who sported canes and serious stares, not this young marquess with a lazy grin. She tipped her head studying him. “Surely not.” The gentleman who’d rescued her on Bond Street. “But he is so very young to be a war hero.” Surely he’d not fought Boney’s forces.

“Waterloo,” Sin said grudgingly, that one-word admission seemingly dragged forcefully from him. “It is why Drake issued an invite.” Ah, so Sin’s closest friend Lord Drake, another revered, admired hero of the Peninsular Wars called the Marquess of St. Cyr friend.

Hmmm.

Prudence watched on with the rest of Society, as the two marquesses conversed. Both tall, blond, powerfully built men, they easily commanded a room. Yet only one demanded her notice. Her skin burned with the hard frown trained on her by her brother and she reluctantly dragged her attention away from Lord St. Cyr and over to their host. “You do not approve of the marquess?” She attempted to force a breezy nonchalance into that question, so as to not further rouse her brother’s notice.

“I have no problem with the marquess, but rather your unbridled interest in the gentleman.” Her brother spoke with a bluntness that deepened his wife’s frown.

Well, she knew to certainly never mention her chance encounter with the gentleman in the street. Not that she’d been considering it. Now, she just knew to carefully guard her secret all the more.

“Hush, Jonathan,” his wife quietly scolded. She looked pointedly about at the guests milling around them.

The orchestra concluded the reel and the ballroom erupted into excited clapping and cheers, blotting out whatever it was her brother intended to say. As the couples filed off, and the next pairs filed on to their respective places for the next dance, the haunting strains of a waltz filled the ballroom.

Her brother looked to his wife and held out his arm but then froze. He made to offer his elbow to Prudence.

Ugh, if that weren’t the height of humiliation. To be partnered in pity by one’s brother. She snorted and shoved at his elbow. “If you offer to partner me in a waltz, I swear I will clout you over the head right here before all of Society,” she warned. Then there would truly be a Prudence Tidemore scandal to speak of. “Go,” she urged the couple, still as in love as they’d been when she had been a girl of fifteen.

“Are you—?”

“Go.” She gave him another playful shove and with a wave for her sister-in-law, watched as Sin escorted Juliet onto the ballroom floor.

Prudence stared after them. A stirring of envy turned within her once more. As the couples twirled by in a kaleidoscope of colorful skirts, she remained standing so she might better see the lords and ladies present. Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. She searched out the towering gentleman with the look of Apollo to him.

Lord St. Cyr bowed to the Marquess and Marchioness of Drake, ending the exchange, and then continued on. More than a foot taller than her five-foot three-inch frame, he cut an easy path through the ballroom. Periodically, he’d tip his head in greeting to the lords who raised a hand or sketched a bow. It was not, however, the response of the gentlemen that she so cared about but rather the ladies who were not saddled with white gowns, instead wearing crimson satins and wetted silks. She wrinkled her nose. Those same ladies daringly moved into the gentleman’s path and skimmed their fingers over their low décolletages. One overly bold sapphire skirt-wearing beauty managed to halt his determined path—Lady Gemma Torrent, a young widow who’d recently abandoned her widow’s weeds. Prudence pursed her mouth. And the lady appeared to be in the market for the marquess’ affections.

She detested this insatiable urge to gape at the lovely pairing they made, with the young woman and her midnight black curls loosely piled atop her head. Whatever the widow said earned a half-grin from the marquess that caused a maddening flutter in Prudence’s chest. Then, Lady Torrent brushed her fingertips along the swell of bosom spilling from the top of her gown.

Prudence stole a discreet peek down at her rather less impressive décolletage and then back to the marquess with a scowl. White skirts and a non-existent décolletage. Scandal be damned, she’d little hope of garnering any gentleman’s attention with such a meager showing.

The marquess quickly disengaged himself from the attentions of the widow that set the lady to pouting. A trill of pleasure ran through Prudence under the very obvious dismissal. Why, he appeared wholly uninterested in the lady’s blatant self-offering. She drummed her fingertips together and continued to study his movement through the crowd away from those improper ladies. Away. Not toward. From all she recalled of her roguish brother in the gossip columns, gentlemen tended to court those ladies’ favors, and yet this one did not. A slow smile formed on her lips.