In reality he was a heartless pig.
"You haven't gotten under her skirts, have you?" Oakenrott sounded gleeful at the prospect. "Her father could take this line about being lost in your sweetness and pressure you to make an offer."
"Never!" Vander sounded so appalled that the word slid over Mia's skin like a snake. "It's a little odd to think that she's been lusting after me. What sort of fifteen-year-old girl thinks in these terms? Though I suppose she is her father's daughter."
Mia could hardly breathe because she was trying to sob without noise. He made her sound repulsive, saying that she was lusting after him. It wasn't like that. She wasn't like that.
"Have you ever noticed her staring at you from the side of the room?" Thorn asked. "Because here it says, Like the bird that gazes all night at the moon, I gaze at you."
"Like a bird, or a Bird of Paradise?" Oakenrott put in. "Maybe she can set herself up as a literary light-skirt. One sovereign for a poem and two for a you-know-what."
"All I can say is she's a God-awful poet," Vander said. "Even I know that poems are supposed to rhyme."
What an idiot. Mia took a shuddering breath. She had to escape. She simply could not stand any more of this.
"I think you should frame it," Thorn said, "because I can tell you right now that no one else will think you're pretty enough to rhapsodize about. Especially given the size of your moonbeam."
That brought on a scuffle and more laughter. At her expense. Mia could feel the air rattling in her throat. Likely it was the death rattle. Maybe she would die, and they'd find her body in this very spot.
"You know, I have to warn the fellows," Oakenrott said. "Some bloke might be chatting with her right now, having no idea what a jam tart she is."
Mia stiffened.
"If she's like that at fifteen, what'll she be like at twenty?"
"Don't even jest about it. You'd ruin her," Thorn said sharply. "You mustn't say a word."
"The poetry is evidence for the obvious," Oakenrott protested. "She's got a sluttish look about her. It's all there. Most girls that age have apple dumplings in front, but hers are more like cabbages than cherries!"
Cabbages? Cabbages?
Mia stifled another sob. There was silence for a second, just long enough so that Mia could imagine Vander standing up for her, like a knight in shining armor. Growling, Shut your mouth, Oakenrott. She does not look sluttish.
That didn't happen.
"There's no need to issue warnings," Vander said flatly. "There isn't a fellow in this house who would bother speaking to that dumpy little thing. The only reason she was invited was that my mother brought along her lover, who dragged along his daughter. She's a charity case, that's what she is."
A charity case. A dumpy one, at that.
She loathed him even more because he was right: she was dumpy. Other girls were tall and willowy, but she was "petite," which was just a pretentious way of saying that she was short.
And round. He meant she was fat.
He was a beast, a horrid beast.
Rage is a useful emotion. Rage burns away sorrow and disgrace. Rage propelled Mia to her feet, and she came out from around the sofa with her fists clenched.
Even knowing what he thought of her poem, despite her rage, the sight of Vander slammed into her. She had loved him too long to be unaffected by seeing him this close.
He was already tall and broad-shouldered. You could see the man he would someday be in the lineaments of his body and the strength of his jaw.
She looked at him up and down, curling her lip, and then gave his friends the same inspection.
Thorn looked horrified, and Oakenrott surprised, but Vander was utterly expressionless. All the things she'd thought she'd seen in him, every good characteristic that she had believed he had, the gentlemanly nature that seemed an antidote to her father's indiscretions . . . well, she must have made those traits up. There was nothing readable in his face, and clearly she had seen whatever she longed to find.
"So," she said, thankfully discovering that her voice was steady. "Three boys whose imaginations are so disgusting that they can read lechery into a silly love poem." She snatched the crumpled page from Thorn's hand and tore it in half. The sound seemed very loud in the otherwise silent room. She tore it again, and again, and dropped the pieces on the floor.
"I may have made a fool of myself by falling in love," she told Vander, "but you have no right to ridicule me for it. Do you know that I was foolish enough to think you a gentleman, unlike-" She caught herself. Her father was her father, no matter his sins. "I should have known better," she added. "You say I am my father's daughter. Well, you, Lord Brody, are obviously your mother's son."
To her left, Thorn made a protesting movement but she swept him a glance and he shut his mouth.
Vander only stared at her. Why had she never noticed his beautiful eyes were hard and cold?
"I shall now take myself and my cabbages into the drawing room," she said, head high, though it took every ounce of willpower she could summon to hold it there. "If you would do me the courtesy to remain here for fifteen minutes, I shall find my father and be gone."
None of them said a word, the pestilent cowards.
One more thing occurred to her. "Moreover, I wouldn't marry a single one of you," she said, making her voice as scathing as she could, "even if I were desperate! Even if you were the only men left in all England!"
Chapter One
Thirteen years later
From the offices of Brandy, Bucknell & Bendal, Publishers
August 27, 1800
Dear Miss Carrington,
I am writing to inquire about the prospect of receiving your new novel. As you know, we had hoped to receive the manuscript some six months ago. We are all most sympathetic as regards the tragic death of your father and brother a year ago. But I would be remiss not to tell you that letters begging for Miss Lucibella Delicosa's next novel are piling up in our offices. Your title, An Angel's Form and a Devil's Heart, has proved so enticing that subscriptions already exceed sales of your last two novels added together.
With deep respect, and anticipating a favorable reply,
I remain,
William Bucknell, Esq.
P.S. I am including Miss Julia Quiplet's latest novel. I believe you said that you had not yet read her work, and we are persuaded that you will find it pleasurable.
September 4, 1800
Rutherford Park
The Duke of Pindar's country estate
Mia hated to admit it, but she was trembling like one of her own heroines. She generally put her poor ladies in Mortal Danger, standing at the brink of icy waters, for example, pursued by a lustful landlord, knees knocking pitiably and delicate hands shaking.
Her readers expected Mortal Danger. In capital letters.
She'd happily choose a plunge over a waterfall to the humiliation that lay ahead of her.
Her own less-than-delicate hands were trembling, so she curled them into fists, watching as her groom announced her name. Vander's butler-or, to be exact, the Duke of Pindar's butler-glanced down at her, patently surprised that a young lady had arrived without a chaperone.
Did intense humiliation count as Mortal Danger?
No, because if it were possible to die of humiliation, she would surely be dead by now. After all, she had survived the mortifying poetry incident in Villiers's library all those years ago, then she'd failed on the marriage market, only to go through an even worse humiliation: being jilted at the altar a month ago.
The truth was that as an author she was always kind to her characters. Mortal Danger never included jiltings. What's more, thanks to her heroines' thin, wispy bodies, they always floated safely downstream, too light to sink. Another author she knew had caused a character to die after an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head. Murder by tortoise?
Not in a Lucibella novel!
Her readers knew that there would be no bloodthirsty birds, no one left at the altar. She had never forced any of her heroines to propose marriage, let alone to a duke.
Gentlemen fell at her heroines' feet, not the other way around. It was a strict requirement of the genre. Lord knows, Lucibella Delicosa disappointed her readers at her own peril: a torrent of indignant letters would pour through her publisher's door if she were to shame one of her heroines the way Mia was about to be shamed.
But at least, Mia reminded herself, she was not, in reality, falling at Vander's feet.