“You speak as though it were a beast.”
“It can be, my Lord. Do not doubt it.”
“Well then, I am pleased you have tamed it. It looks very pretty.”
A flush flooded her high cheekbones, and she smiled as they turned in a leisurely circle about the floor.
“Thank you, my Lord, you are most kind.”
“And did I see your cousin arrive a short time ago?”
“Yes,” Lady Ludlow replied, her eyes moving past his shoulder. “The duke is here with his mother. Indeed, they are dancing just behind us.” Malcolm glanced back at the rather austere duke and the Dowager Duchess Maria Ludlow. His Grace was a wonderful dancer, poised and precise in every movement, making Malcolm feel rather inadequate in comparison.
In truth, Colin was not enjoying dancing. His mother whispered incessantly in his ear as they passed by variousfamilies about the eligible women in their midst and he was very pleased when he could escape to the refreshment table as the set ended.
Hot and sweating into his coat, Colin made for the iced punch just as someone appeared beside him.
“To think of all those ladies you deprived of a dance by standing up with your Mama.”
Colin turned to Elizabeth, who was looking just as flushed. He raised a mocking eyebrow and poured her a glass.
“May I remind you that my mother is just as fond of dancing as all the debutants in the room, and I can hardly deprive her when she asks. I would never hear the end of it.”
Elizabeth took the glass with a mischievous grin. “Still, so many ladies have been disappointed. I wonder that you can bear it.”
Colin rolled his eyes and drank a large quantity of his own glass of punch as they stood with their backs to the table. The ballroom had become stifling and overheated with the number of bodies. Smoke drifted across the company, giving everything a hazy glow.
He smiled at her gratefully. He loved Elizabeth dearly. She had grown into a beautiful and accomplished young woman, more sensible than many others in the crowd. He looked down at her affectionately with a small smile. Perhapsgrownwas too strong a word. He believed since he saw her last, she had shrunk to an even smaller size than he remembered.
***
As the night wore on, Colin danced one more set before he was about to excuse himself for the evening. He was exhausted, having been on high alert to ensure that nothing in his countenance or actions was amiss.
As he sipped his glass of claret, watching the dancing in a quiet moment of peace, his gut clenched when he noticed Lady Norwell and her daughter approaching him. Lady Lavinia was very pretty with strikingly dark hair to match her mother, but that was where her qualities ended. She was a perpetually unhappy woman, complaining about everything she came across. Lady Lavinia had even slighted Elizabeth at a recent ball, and Colin’s shoulders tightened as they neared him.
Is it too much to ask to be given five minutes of peace?
Pretending he had not seen them, Colin finished his glass and squeezed past a group beside him to get lost in the crowds. He looked frantically for somewhere to escape. The room felt suffocating suddenly, and he longed to have some time by himself without the judgment of two hundred eyes on his back.
Spying a door to the terrace, he made for it, walking at a leisurely enough pace so as not to arouse suspicion but ignoring anyone who tried to speak with him.
A cool breeze hit his face as he slipped into the night, thankful that no one seemed to have noticed his escape and headed quickly across the stone walkway and down the steps away from the merry music and the wild chattering of the guests.
The gardens were shrouded in shadow, cool and quiet. A few shapes moved in the distance as couples walked together amongst the trees, but it was immeasurably preferable to the ballroom. For the first time that evening, Colin felt his shoulders truly relax, his muscles losing their tension as he took a long, deep breath.
He wandered forward, keeping an eye out ahead of him for anyone he might know who would wish to speak to him. As he rounded a corner behind some high hedges, the clouds parted, and a stream of moonlight landed upon the ground, bathing the grass in silver light like fish beneath the surface of a stream.
Colin stopped.
Ahead of him, standing beside the bushes and admiring one of the roses, was a young woman he had not seen before. She wore a long green dress inlaid with gold and was standing with another woman as they conversed quietly. It was a calm and pleasant scene, unpretentious and genuine, as the younger woman laughed at something the other said. Colin recognized the younger woman’s companion from a few years before. He felt a surge of relief as the nameGilmorecame to him just as they both looked up in surprise.
He bowed and swiftly approached them. “I am sorry,” he said, bowing again. “I did not wish to disturb you.” Miss Gilmore moved in front of her charge, making it clear that she was her chaperone and looking at Colin rather warily. “Miss Gilmore,” he said softly. “We met a few years ago at a garden party, I believe.”
Miss Gilmore looked extremely relieved and curtsied to him genteelly. “Your Grace, may I introduce Lady Charlotte Wentworth. Lady Wentworth, the Duke of Lindenbrook.”
Lady Wentworth curtsied, bowing her head, her pale neck highlighted by the stark moonlight. “It is good to meet you, your Grace,” she said, glancing up at the windows of the house where the music could be heard across the lawns. “Tell me, have you come to escape, as well?”
Colin stared at her, aware of Miss Gilmore raising her eyes briefly to the heavens in the wake of that statement. Lady Wentworth did not look in the least contrite, however, speaking of escaping society as though it were the most commonplace thing on earth.
