Queen of Diamonds by Bárbara Metzger Page B

leaning against the wall in the corridor, sipping another glass of punch and attracting knowing looks from the chaps who passed by on the way to the card room. They must all think he was a fool, so besotted by the Frenchwoman’s beauty that he could not let her out of his sight for more than a minute. What else could they think after that public display of passion during the waltz? He did not suppose anyone would interpret that heated dance as being due to the temperature in the room. And no one would believe that he was now shielding his dance partner from the worst of the libertines. They would assume he was guarding his bit of muslin from other lust-filled men like him.
    Harry wondered what had come over him, to behave so far beyond the lines of proper behavior that he himself had drawn. The answer, of course, was Madame Lescartes, Denise, although that name did not seem to suit her. But she, with her mix of sophistication and staunch morality, did fascinate him. Her looks could turn any man into a rutting goat, he supposed, but there was far more to the female than physical beauty. She could put a needle to Browne’s throat one minute and dance like a Gypsy maid the next. She could blush at an overheard warm remark, yet melt in his arms. No wonder his head was spinning.
    He turned to admire some ugly paintings on the wall rather than suffer any more ridicule from London’s rakehells and roués. But then someone patted his shoulder and said, “Lucky dog.”
    Another called out, “Good show, man.”
    And a third gent, high in the government, said, “I wish you put that much passion in your Parliamentary speeches.”
    Harry turned from the cat-scratch still life on the wall. Gentlemen were winking at him, whistling, looking wistfully at the door that held his dance partner. They were not poking fun at him, he realized. They were congratulating him. They were jealous of him, old Hard-nose Harking. He was not the bumbling country bumpkin anymore, in their eyes, or the stiff, cold chap who so obviously disapproved of them and their ways. He was not even the schoolboy some of them remembered, trying to be better than the other lads. Now he was one of them, the most envied member of their feckless fraternity.
    Harry should have been repulsed, but he was so pleased he started whistling himself. Lud, the star of the night was his, if only for the night, which no one had to know. He’d found the Diamond they were all looking for. He’d captured the prize. He was Viscount Victorious, king of the courtesans’ ball.
    He was drunk.
    He set his glass down on a side table.
    The next gentleman to wander past was actually an old friend of Harry’s, Lord Camden, heir to a dukedom. Cam was a Tulip, but a fine horseman.
    â€œA card game, Harry?” he asked. “We are looking for a fourth.”
    â€œNo, thank you.” Harry tipped his head toward the door, where high-pitched laughter and giggles could be heard. Trying to sound nonchalant, and not like the proudest peacock in the room, he added, “I am waiting for my partner.”
    â€œCan’t blame you,” the other man said, having seen the waltz. They both smiled, with nothing more needing to be said.
    After asking where Harry was staying and how long he might be in London, Camden started down the hall.
    Harry stopped him. “I say, Cam, you haven’t seen my brother-in-law by any chance, have you?”
    â€œWhat, Martin slipped his lead again?”
    Harry resented the notion that he was his in-law’s keeper, although that was what he had been, paying the dastard’s bills, including the mortgage on Martin’s own rundown estate. He was feeding and housing the man’s family, as Cam well knew, as well as paying for the children’s education. Yes, Harry had been insisting the wastrel stay in the country rather than pursue his more expensive pastimes in town, but that was to avoid more scandal