He followed her gaze and wished he hadn’t. A half dozen debutantes tittered back at him from behind painted fans.
This was one of many reasons he rarely attended society functions. First, accepting an invitation implied reciprocity, and he lacked the funds for more than a single annual gathering. Second, any unwed gentleman was presumed on the hunt for a wife. An unwedlord, on the other hand, was attacked on all sides by hopeful young ladies and social-climbing mamas alike.
Now that he was here, however, he might as well make the most of it. For his own sake—specifically, his pursuit of Miss Philippa York—his interests were not best served by idling about with Miss Chloe Wynchester.
Yet he might have done so all evening had Lord Bussington not chosen that moment to whisk him away.
“You must save me,” young Bussington whispered to Lawrence, his tone urgent. “The next set is a country-dance, at which I’m obliged to stand up with my sister’s nettlesome friend. But that means there’s no one left for my sister. If I must suffer, so must you.”
Lawrence tossed a helpless look at Miss Wynchester, but her blank gaze slid elsewhere, as if she’d already grown bored with the entire concept of a ball. Or had she simply failed to cause a stir and was salvaging her pride however she could?
“Good Lord,” Bussington chided him as soon as they were out of earshot. “What’s come over you, Faircliffe? My sister isn’t here, and you’re lucky for it. Mrs. York has been staring daggers at you for visiting wallflowers before greeting her daughter.”
Miss York.How had Lawrence forgotten to dance attendance on Miss York?
“You aren’t the sole unwed lord in England,” Bussington continued. “If the rumors are true and you’re after a wife, then fish in the best pond. To a man trying to swim upstream, even the best Wynchester is nothing more than an anchor.”
12
Chloe was still gazing after the Duke of Faircliffe’s attractive backside when her sister returned from the refreshment table.
“I see what you mean.” Tommy handed her a glass of orgeat. “That overbearing lord absolutely reeks of arrogance. The awful way His Disdainfulness sensed your presence like a haughty bloodhound, plowing through his peers to contemptuously inform you that nothing disgusts him more than your pretty eyes—”
“That’s not what he said,” Chloe mumbled. “Besides, you weren’t here. I thought you went after ratafia.”
“The queue was too long. This is better.”
Chloe wrinkled her nose. “Insipid orgeat is better than ratafia?”
“Previouslyinsipid.” Tommy lowered her voice. “I may have given ours a splash of gin.”
Chloe gasped as if scandalized. “Great-Aunt Wynchester, you crafty old bird!”
Tommy’s eyes crinkled all the way to her temples, thanks to tonight’s extra wrinkles. “What else are chaperones for?”
“I feel like thereissomething else. Something important.” Chloe tapped her cheek as if in deep thought. “I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Now, now, dear. It is I who can’t remember things. You concentrate on your duke.” Tommy’s temporarily liver-spotted hand clinked her glass of orgeat and gin against Chloe’s. “I deduce that’s no hardship?”
“He’s vexingly handsome,” Chloe admitted.
As the musicians prepared to play the next set, she could not help but watch him. The sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones were stern and rigid, much like the man himself, but his lips were quick and mobile, giving the impression that kissing them would not be stiff and cold at all but rather a tender onslaught of wicked sensations.
Faircliffe’s tall figure and raw power drew her like pollen attracted bees. Her blood buzzed with the yearning to rend his buttons from his well-tailored clothes and splay her fingers against the hot flesh beneath.
Her pulse jumped at every glimpse of him, as though recklessly leaping toward him despite her protective layers of silk and shift and stays. Her body’s attraction was instinctual, and no amount of silent inner lectures could stop her from holding in a tiny little breath every time she glimpsed him through the crowd.
His eyes met hers as if he sensed her watching him. Although his expression did not change, the temperature in the ballroom increased from the intensity of his gaze. Her lungs caught. Every breath attuned to him and the tension crackling between them.
But when the music resumed, he turned and extended his arm to Philippa York.
Chloe tried not to feel the loss. She was not there for him. Who cared who he danced with? Yet she could not help but wish her sister Marjorie were present to read their lips.
Then again, perhaps it was better not to know what flirtatious compliments or words of love Faircliffe might murmur to Philippa. After all,shewas the one he intended to make his bride.
The thought soured Chloe’s stomach.
“Do you think he’s courting her for her large…dowry?” Chloe tracked their progress about the dance floor. She wished she could like Philippa less.
