Robert shook his head, his finger landing on a name. “He’s number two.”
Thomas looked up at Beth. “You cannot dance with him.”
She looked stunned. “I cannot just refuse him after I have accepted his request for a dance. That is not done! You have to be wrong. He’s a duke’s son!”
“So are we,” Robert pointed out.
Thomas grabbed his mother’s hand before the fan landed again. “What if we made sure we were on the floor at the same time? We’ll find partners—”
“And be grateful that’s a quadrille instead of a hole-in-the-wall. Or a waltz.”
Thomas glowered at Robert. “You want me to let her hand go?”
“Preferably not.”
“Then how about helpful comments.”
Beth glowered at them both and snatched her card back.
Robert let go a long sigh. “I have had no luck securing a dance partner tonight. Our reputations are in too much disrepair.”
Emalyn looked at both sons. “I warned you this would take time.”
“So,” Robert continued, “what if I hover around the edges, making sure he doesn’t try to pull you off the dance floor—”
Beth’s face reddened. “He wouldn’t dare!”
“Eight stone,” Thomas muttered.
“And a scream like a banshee,” Beth hissed.
“Good Lord.” Emalyn opened her fan and waved it before her face. “We’ll all be banished.”
“—and you engage in the dance,” Robert finished. “If anything untoward happens on the floor, you could signal me and we could flank him.”
“You make this sound like a military maneuver.” Beth shook her head.
Robert grew uncharacteristically sober. “Pistols will be involved if we don’t stop it.”
Both women stared at the brothers, and no one spoke for a moment. Then Emalyn rested her fan lightly against Thomas’s chest. “You cannot ask a young woman to dance then abandon her on the dance floor. It’s insulting and scandalous.”
Robert lifted his chin, a scheming glint in his eyes. “I know someone you could ask. And if it’s about protecting a young woman’s virtue, she would probably be happy to join in.”
Thomas met his gaze, thinking about Rose’s determination to inundate Northey in lemonade. “You are courting trouble, brother.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. That dance card is the perfect lure because I bet she knows that name as well as we do.”
“Who?” asked Emalyn.
*
Back on Spinster’sRow, Rose found herself in an unexpected good humor. Thwarting Northey—even with Thomas’s interference and help—had lifted her heart. Northey continued to prowl the edge of the ballroom, glowering enough that all potential dance partners had shied away from him. It had all made him a point of interest for theton’sdragons—never a good position for a gentleman with ulterior motives to be in.
Rose had chortled. Actually chortled, a sound she thought only appeared in novels. She wasn’t aware she could make such a noise in reality. Now she and Ann were huddled together, discussing the evening’s possibilities. There were at least two other rogues on the floor that evening who required attention. “Obviously, I could use the lemonade at some point. More than one rogue could use a chilly dowsing. But more subtlety might be required. As Thomas pointed out, this is the first ball of the season.”
Ann grabbed Rose’s arm, then went still, her eyes locked on something behind Rose.
“What?” Rose asked.
