Her Enemy At The Altar. Virginia Heath

       Chapter One

      A London ballroom—November 1815

      He was surrounded by the usual gaggle of giggling girls who found him charming. Fortunately, mused Lady Constance Stuart as she watched him from the opposite side of the ballroom, she was not one of them. Like his father, Aaron Wincanton had hair as dark as night and a heart as black as sin, and Constance was predisposed to hate him with a vengeance. But there was something about Aaron Wincanton that had always grated. Perhaps it was his cocky arrogance, or perhaps it was the way he constantly flirted with any woman in possession of a pulse, or maybe it was simply the fact that he was the most irritatingly handsome man in the room, but whatever it was she had developed a deep well of loathing reserved especially for him.

      The gaggle of silly girls all stepped back at his command and Constance watched in reluctant fascination as Aaron Wincanton held an unopened champagne bottle upright in his palm. He had obviously procured a sword from someone and held it aloft in his right hand with far more flourish than was necessary. The blade glinted in the light of the chandeliers above, attracting even more attention to the exciting spectacle at the edge of the dance floor. He lay the flat of the blade against the side of the bottle and his mewling disciples began to count out loud in squeaking excitement. ‘One... Two...’

      On three he slid the blade swiftly upwards against the glass, slicing off the cork and the neck of the bottle in one, deadly clean cut. Foaming champagne spilled from the top of the bottle like a fountain and the audience all held out their wine glasses for him to fill or clapped at the audaciousness of the trick.

      As if he knew that she would be watching him, his eyes languidly lifted and locked on hers. Before she could look away, he was already smiling smugly and winked at her in that oh-so-arrogant way of his that suggested that he just knew she had been staring at him again. It was galling.

      Irritated beyond measure at the man, and at her own stupidity at being caught gawping at him yet again, Constance forced her eyes to another part of the ballroom. The part that she had been deftly avoiding. For the third time this evening she spied her new fiancé, the Marquis of Deal, leering down Penelope Rothman’s ample cleavage. Despite the fact that her father had already instructed her to ignore it, explaining that a good wife understands that a husband might—from time to time—seek the company of other women, Constance still struggled to do so. She and the marquis had been engaged less than a fortnight. And he had chosen her over Penelope. Surely he could keep his urges under control for such a short period of time out of respect for his future wife?

      Unless this was a bitter taste of the life she was destined to have with the man? Despite the fact that the marriage had been arranged, Constance had hoped that they might find some sort of happiness together. Secretly, she had nurtured the belief that he might, one day, actually fall in love with her. That the Marquis of Deal would see beyond the hard exterior she had always presented to the world as a defence mechanism, find some beauty in the unruly, unsubtle, red hair that did its own thing and the tall, gangly, unimpressive figure, and uncover the real woman who lay beneath. The one who felt things a little too deeply and worried constantly that she was not quite good enough. What an idiotic, hopeless fool she was to have such a ludicrous dream!

      Deal would never love her. It was no secret that her father had increased her dowry as a sweetener to lure him and Penelope Rothman was considered to be the diamond of the Season. It was humbling to realise that the Marquis of Deal had chosen his future bride pragmatically and solely for economic reasons. That is where his attraction to Constance started and stopped. Connie’s vivid appearance could never tempt him in the same way that Penelope’s golden hair and ethereal beauty did. She was merely a better financial prospect. It was still Penelope he really wanted and no amount of money would change that. Her eyes flicked back towards Aaron Wincanton and she saw him watching Deal and Penelope briefly before his gaze locked with hers again. She could tell by his bland expression that he also knew that her fiancé preferred petite blondes to gangly redheads. Everybody preferred petite blondes to gangly redheads.

      The surge of disappointment was so sudden that tears threatened to form and hell would have to freeze over before she allowed anyone see her cry. Constance quietly disentangled herself from her mother’s group and slipped away to an empty alcove. Once she was composed she would give Deal the sharp end of her tongue and remind him of the behaviour expected of a gentleman. She might well be able to overlook his indiscretions in time, a very long amount of time, but that did not mean that she wanted to witness them as well. Besides, she reasoned as she watched festivities from a distance, nobody was likely to miss her—least of all her devoted marquis. As always, her dance card was woefully empty, aside from the occasional polite invitation issued from older family friends and the first waltz that she had already danced with her indifferent fiancé. She was now doomed to spend the rest of the evening with the matrons and the wallflowers. As usual.

      It had always been that way. Ever since her come out six years ago, she had been doomed to watch every ball from the far side of the room. A situation that had been made much worse by the unfortunate, but incredibly apt, nickname that she had been given by Aaron Wincanton on the night she had been introduced at Almack’s. Of course, it had caught on almost immediately and Connie had learnt of it when she had overheard another group of debutantes laughing about it in the retiring room. Thanks to Aaron Wincanton, from that moment on she had been referred to scathingly as the Ginger Amazonian.

      The first year had been mortifying. Only her pride had got her through it as she had stoically ignored all of the whispers and giggles, and tried to be grateful for the pathetic trickle of fortune-hunting suitors that still tried their luck. She knew that she looked ridiculous and ungainly up against the other girls. Nobody knew better than she how very unappealing she was. There had never been another debutante who had the audacity to grow to six feet. Nor was there one with feet so enormous that the cobbler had once bragged that he made the biggest slippers in London. The debutante pastels further washed out her already pale complexion and she positively towered over all of the other women—and most of the gentlemen as well. She endured every feeble joke about her height by laughing politely, even though she wanted to smash her fist in the face of the next person who asked her what the weather was like up there or suggested that she slept in a greenhouse.

      In an attempt to blend into the background, for a few months she had even took to standing with her knees bent at all times. While this served to make her appear shorter when stationary, the effect was spoiled the moment she had to move because she found it far too painful to attempt to walk, or heaven forbid dance, in a crouch. Besides, as her younger brother had laughingly pointed out, her crouched gait was oddly reminiscent of that of the apes at the Royal Menagerie. She gave up squatting after that. It was bad enough being compared to a giant female warrior. She did not want to ever have to endure a simian nickname and would not put it past Aaron Wincanton to come up with something even more insulting, like the Giant Ginger Gorilla. Heaven forbid!

      The second year Connie was more prepared. If she was going to be compared to a mythical warrior she might as well act like one. Nobody would ever witness her lack of confidence in her own attractiveness ever again.