Then Comes Murder

Dangerous Games (part four)

For all the rotten luck she'd endured thus far, fortune took pity on Lady Eleanor Fane and spared her the embarrassment of the party's full curiosity. Miss Jane Aubrey had managed a second, very convincing swoon just as Nora re-entered the revelries, and Mrs. Aubrey's gasping scream, just as scripted as the first, drew everyone's attention away from Nora's limping reappearance.

Nearly everyone's attention, rather. Caroline, not yet returned from her clandestine garden liaison, was missing from her previous post entertaining guests. Despite her absence, George spotted Nora within moments and called her over. Surrounded by a group of smiling friends, he threw his head back and roared in laughter at her appearance. Mussed, rumpled, and carrying her shoes in an irritated fist, Nora tried not to take it personally—she knew her bad humor was entire due to his younger brothers—but the guffawing did little to ease her prickly mood.

Unlike George, the ladies and gentlemen around him had the courtesy to limit their amusement to faint smirks. While it normally would not have annoyed her, the tight hold on their manners bristled her quickly fraying patience. What she would have given for sincerity! Even George's gratingly loud laughter was better than the manicured courtesy they paid her.

Nora had received introductions to the group, namely George's friends and sycophants and admirers, throughout the years following her father's acceptance of his title.

She'd met Amelia Osborne last season. Fair and soft-spoken, the woman had a talent for convincing potential suitors that her prettiness nearly accounted for her lack of fortune. A fortune she was very clearly seeking. With Caroline absent, Miss Osborne was hanging on to every one of George's smiles and gestures. It was a tactless endeavor, flirting with an engaged gentleman, but Nora did not bother trying to distract her from the oblivious man: Lord Thornton-Spencer was a man besotted with his fiancée. 

And Nora had been introduced to Lord Robert Grey, the Baron Henley and one of George's closest friends, two years ago at his wedding to Catherine then-St. Clair-now-Grey. It had been claimed the perfect event to mark the end of a scandalous season. The heady passion that had shackled them together had fizzled into polite contempt, but Lady Grey smiled at Nora serenely and Lord Grey nodded his head.

Marcus Swift and Ian Maxwell, however, were more recent acquaintances. Pushing the bounds of propriety—and taking advantage of George's circle of unmatched men—Caroline had arranged a number of introductions for her cousin in a determined fervor to see Nora equally engaged.

It was unfortunate for Caroline, then, that her cousin dwarfed the stout Mr. Swift. To make matters worse for the meddling matchmaker, Nora outshot the proud marksman and, if rumors were to be believed, made him feel smaller than his already lacking height. To further Caroline's dismay, Mr. Swift seemed to regard Lady Eleanor Fane as a perfectly acceptable friend and loudly likened her to a more boyish version of sister, Margaret. Instead of flowers and poetry, they traded hunting tips and discussed pistols. The dowager countess, Caroline's stiff mother, would have sniffed and claimed male friendship as the death of affection.

Swift smiled warmly in greeting. As did Margaret, who, dressed in lavender, had just retired her widow's weeds.

Their warmth was in direct contrast to the icy glare from the gentleman beside them (though Nora did not believe gentle was an appropriate description of the man). Mr. Swift might have been able to brush aside pride in pursuit of friendship, but Ian Maxwell, eldest son of the Viscount Westbourne?

From his immaculately styled dark auburn hair to the tips of his freshly shined boots, Ian Maxwell looked the exact definition of gentleman. Tall and broad-but-not-too-broad shouldered, he was blessed bright blue eyes and with cupid's bow lips.