Shock made Silas trip, he who had learned to dance at eight years old and hadn’t made a misstep since.
“West?” he choked out, forgetting all his plans for a subtle pursuit. Luckily his inamorata watched that popinjay West waltz with Helena a few feet away. Caro was too distracted to notice that her dance partner contemplated murder.
“We’ve met several times. He’s articulate and handsome and seems considerate.”
The unconcealed interest in her dark blue eyes threatened to make Silas lose his dinner. In an attempt to rein in his explosive reactions, he looked at Vernon Grange, Baron West, the man he’d previously considered his best friend. “Until he moves on to his next mistress. West has an appalling reputation with women.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” she retorted.
He looked down into Caro’s piquant face under the elaborate coronet of dark brown curls set with glittering diamond pins. His darling was no fragile beauty like her friend Fenella Deerham. Her face was too angular and full of character to be fashionably pretty. But the sight of her transformed his day from the mundane to the extraordinary.
And she talked about wasting herself on that scoundrel West.
Silas told himself that a short affair with another man didn’t toll a death knell to his dreams. But everything male roared denial. Silas didn’t want Caro Beaumont in West’s bed. He wanted her in his bed. For always.
With difficulty, he found the rhythm of the music again. “He’ll leave you once he’s bored—and that usually means after only a few weeks.”
She was back to regarding him like a complete stranger, blast her. “Stone, I’m contemplating a fling, not lifelong slavery.”
Slavery? What a clod he was. Finally and reluctantly, he recognized that her opposition to a second marriage was real—and deep-seated. Dear God in heaven, all the clues had been there. He’d just been too lost in a rosy fog of love and hope to see them.
Given time, that was a problem he could surely overcome. The threat of Caro tumbling into West’s bed in the meantime was far more immediate. “He’s a debauchee and incapable of fidelity.”
She frowned in puzzlement. “I thought he was your friend.”
He used to be. “That doesn’t mean I’m blind to his faults.”
Silas’s blood thundered to haul her out of that blackguard West’s reach. Not to mention all the other boneheads infesting this room. He retained enough of his previously civilized self to resist the impulse. Just.
Love, it seemed, made beasts of men. How wise he’d been to avoid it all these years.
“You could be useful in my search for a lover, you know.” Her tone was thoughtful rather than hostile.
Yes, I can kill every one of the encroaching buggers, until I’m the only man standing.
“I can certainly alert you to the rogues and wastrels.” Which meant London’s entire male population, except for the newly reformed Lord Stone. He tightened his hold on her trim waist and performed a breathtaking twirl, privately claiming her as his and devil take any fellow with different ideas.
“That’s what I mean.” Despite his childish acrobatics, she remained disgustingly level-headed. “Ladies are at such a disadvantage when it comes to what a man is really like. We see gentlemen all polished and careful of their manners, when any fool knows that they show their true selves to their friends, away from the artificial light of polite society.”
Silas regarded her in horror. “You expect me to pimp you to my friends?”
She blushed again. It was odd—until tonight, he’d never seen her blush. This made twice in the space of half an hour. “No, of course not. But if you think I’m making an unwise choice, I’d like you to tell me.”
His gut tightened with self-hatred. Her trust remained, despite tonight’s numskullery. Now she invited the wolf to guard the sheepfold. If he retained a shred of honor, he should say no. He used to have some principles, for pity’s sake.
“I’ll do my best,” he said, and knew himself the biggest rogue of all.
She glanced over his shoulder again. “Good. Although despite what you say, I still think West might be my best bet—and he’s indicated an interest.”
Had he, by God? Silas began to plot a slow and painful demise for a man who had been a lifelong companion. “That doesn’t mean much. He pursues anything in petticoats.”
Another turn and Silas realized that Caro examined the satanically handsome Lord West with a speculative glint in her fine eyes. “So it wouldn’t be difficult to win him as a lover? I’d rather not devote months to the preliminaries. He seems more appealing by the minute.”
And Silas realized that in becoming his beloved’s conspirator, he signed up for a special place in hell.