Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

naked skin. “It’s the Princess Alice medal for an essay I wrote in German.”
    “How very clever. Ich spreche nicht Deutsch gut .”
    “Neither do I, but the committee evidently thinks I write it fairly well.”
    He laughed, and turned to regard the company moving from the sitting room, where the beverages were laid out, to the buffet in the music room, which was large enough to accommodate the silken, chattering company now that the piano was moved back against the wall.
    “And are you enjoying being queen of the day?”
    “Not particularly.” She caught her breath. If there was anything Lady St. Ives had drilled into her head, it was that in making social conversation with gentlemen, one did not voice one’s true opinions unless they concerned the weather, music, or classical literature. And sometimes, depending on the gentleman, not even then.
    Again, Lord James laughed, though Claire had not meant to be amusing. “And why not? One would think having a party in one’s honor would be most enjoyable.”
    Claire smiled a public smile. “Of course it is. I am enjoying myself immensely. I simply meant I am not particularly a queen—of a day, an hour, or even a minute.”
    He took her hand in his. “Perhaps not. But speaking with you has certainly crowned this minute, this hour, for me. I shall live in the glow of it for the rest of the evening.”
    She blinked, unsure how to respond, while a slow burn of blood crept into her cheeks. She did not blush prettily, like Gloria Meriwether-Astor or Lady Julia. She blotched.
    Claire hated to be made to blotch.
    She pulled her gloved fingers from his. “Sir, pray do not voice pretty sentiments that cannot possibly be true on such short acquaintance.” She sounded as stiff as her own grandmother, but she could not help it. What she really wanted to say to him could not be spoken aloud in her parents’ house. “Excuse me while I see to my other guests.”
    With a swish of apple green silk, she escaped into the sitting room. Where was her father? Perhaps she could prevail on him to speak to Lord James and impress upon him that she was far too young to receive his attentions, particularly when she was still considered to be in the schoolroom until next week. She would not have believed she would take refuge in such a fiction, when she’d been living for today, leaving St. Cecelia’s and its teachers behind and embracing adulthood with joy.
    “I haven’t seen your father, either,” Emilie whispered as Claire pretended to pour her friend a cup of punch so that they could speak privately. “I thought he had promised to be here tonight.”
    “He did, at breakfast. Mama says he is detained in the Lords, voting on some business important to running the country. But still ...”
    “You will only graduate once, and he has missed it,” Emilie finished. “But that aside, I have no doubt he would give Lord James the set-down of his life if he were here. Even if he is not, you still have his protection. This is, after all, his house. Selwyn cannot behave like this and expect to be received by good society.”
    “I shall take what protections I can find if it means not seeing that look in his eyes.” She paused, then said in a rush, “It made me feel as though I were a naked statue from ancient Greece, frozen and unable to pull my draperies over myself.”
    “How dreadful.” Emilie’s eyes held sympathy and the smallest bit of shock. “The man is a cad and your parents will not receive him once they know.” She glanced over the room, bright with light from the electrick chandeliers and scented with the perfumes of girls and the bouquets of white lilies on the occasional tables. “Do I imagine it, or is the crush thinning?”
    “We must be between waves,” Claire said, thankful for the respite. “Now would be a good time to touch up our toilettes. You do still plan to walk with me to Wellesley House, inelegant as that might be? Papa has the landau and Mama is taking my grandmother and my two great-aunts Beaton in the carriage.”
    Behind her, the front door slammed. Claire’s first thought was that she had offended Lord James so deeply that he had finally worked up enough steam to take his leave. But no, there he was in the music room, by the piano, talking again with Gloria. She hurried into the hall, followed closely by Emilie and Lady St. Ives.
    “My lord!” her mother exclaimed as the Viscount staggered across the marble squares of the hall and