Perhaps it was the memory of what his mother had probably divulged to him that evening. Perhaps it was simple curiosity. Perhaps it was only that he seemed so utterly misplaced among women who looked as though they had never had a serious thought between them. Whatever the reason, her eyes lingered.
And as if her attention had some physical force, he turned.
Across the room, his gaze found her at once. Aurelia’s breath caught.
It was ridiculous, the small shock of it. There were dozens of people in the room, and he might have looked anywhere. Yet when his eyes met hers, she had the absurd sense that he had been aware of her before he saw her, as though the moment were less accidental than it ought to be.
Then, to her horror, he began to move. He disengaged himself with a bow and some quiet word Aurelia could not hear, and then he was crossing the room toward her.
Toward her.
For one wild instant, Aurelia’s entire composure deserted her. She looked immediately for Clara.
Of course. She would fetch Clara back. Clara was the perfect excuse, the natural shield, the sensible occupation. A chaperone might always be called away by duty. Aurelia’s eyes flew to the window where her cousin stood with Captain Harrow, laughing over something he had just said. Her face was alight with such unaffected pleasure that the sight arrested Aurelia even in her panic.
Clara looked happy, not in that theatrical, romantic, silly way she herself described it, but simply, deeply happy. Aurelia saw in one glance what it would cost to interrupt her now. She could not do it, not for so cowardly a reason as her own sudden nerves.
And besides, what was she to do? Drag Clara away because a gentleman intended to speak to her? Such conduct would require more explanation than remaining where she was.
So, Aurelia stayed. She took a breath, tightened her fingers around the stem of her wine glass, and told herself she was behaving absurdly.
He was only a man. A titled one, perhaps. An intriguing one, certainly. But still only a man. If he had come to speak to her, she need only answer. If he had come to bow coldly and prove that his mother’s account had changed everything, she need only endure it with grace.
Still, her pulse had not settled by the time he reached her. He stopped at a proper distance and bowed.
“Miss Finch,” he called out her name, and she felt it like a slap to the face.
Chapter 7
“It is hardly fair, sir, that you should know who I am when I am still entirely ignorant of your own name,” she managed to reply, even through the cold clarity of being found out.
For one moment he looked almost taken aback, as if the omission still vexed him.
“You are right,” he agreed. “The fault was mine. Please allow me to introduce myself officially. My name is Owen Honeyfield, the Marquess of Westbridge.”
Westbridge.
The name stirred something inside her mind. Only, it was not a full recollection, but an echo. She had heard that name before, somewhere beyond London drawing rooms and fashionable introductions. The image of her father rose, speaking over letters and papers spread across a writing table, weaving some half-overheard conversation in years gone by, before everything had changed.
“A marquess,” she echoed, before she could stop herself.
He gave the smallest grimace. “I am afraid so.”
The answer, delivered without vanity, almost made her laugh.
“I did not realize I was being so improperly informal last night.”
“Nor did I. Perhaps we may forgive each other equally.”
“That is generous,” she retorted.
“Regardless of what others will tell you, I am capable of generosity in the right company,” he assured her with a grin.
There was something in the way he said it that made Aurelia look at him more directly than prudence advised. She told herself at once that this was foolish. A marquess was the last sort of man she ought to find herself at ease with. A marquess with military connections was perhaps worse.
And still, she couldn’t resist divulging the truth. “Westbridge sounds familiar.”
“Does it?” He lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.
