I cannot tolerate this again.
He was about to tell her so, when a thought popped into his head. The only way to get her to stop giving him advice on how to woo a woman was to prove that he needed no help whatsoever.
“Did you learn to dance from your books, or did you have a tutor?” he said in a silky voice that rarely failed to get fans fluttering.
Evelyn blinked, though she did not miss a step. “My books? Whatever do you mean?”
“I have been uncovering the mysteries of Lady Evelyn Bartlett,” he replied, as he turned into a spin and came back to face her. “I hear you are a most diligent scholar, but I cannot believe that you have learned how to dance so well from the pages of a book. Rather, you must have practiced for hours upon hours, and I cannot help but imagine it. How bereft you must have been without a partner to practice with.”
She swept into a turn, her head whipping around so she would not lose sight of him, like she feared he might say something while she was not looking.
“I… had a tutor,” she fumbled to reply. “Briefly.”
As they surged toward each other, and crossed their arms to perform a promenade, his hands holding tightly to hers, he leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Am I your first?”
“Pardon?” she croaked.
“Am I your first partner?” he replied, rather pleased with the reaction.
Her brow furrowed into a scowl. “No, of course you are not. I have been out in society for three years.”
“But I have never seen you before,” he said. “So I have no choice but to wonder where you have been hiding for all this time. I know without doubt that I would have remembered you if I had seen you standing at a ball. Indeed, we would have danced, maybe something slower than this. A waltz, even.”
At his side, her breathing quickened, her face turning very red indeed as they came to the end of the promenade. He had timed it perfectly, leaving her suitably bewildered as they broke contact and danced independently back down the lines of ladies and gentlemen to their former position.
“I have… never danced a waltz,” she remarked as they moved forward again, linking arms so they could turn three circles. “I know it is becoming more acceptable, but my father would never permit it. Nor my brothers.”
“They were not at my cousin’s ball with you,” Hugo pointed out. He did not know it for certain, but there certainly had not been any gentlemen nearby when the auction had been won. As such, it was more of an educated guess.
“Who is your cousin?”
“The Duke of Alderwick.” He flashed a grin at her. “But you knew that already. As your friend has told me, and as you more or less told me yourself, you glean your wealth of information from the scandal sheets and from your books. I will not believe you did not know me or my association to my cousin if you say otherwise.”
They switched arms to turn three more circles, and as they did, Hugo could almost feel the irritation radiating from his dance partner.
“I meant to tell you at the opera,” he continued, “but that gown you wore was a thing of beauty. It became you so very,verywell.”
She lost her footing for a moment, but he held her steady.
“What color was it?” she challenged, her eyes narrowed, as they twirled back into the center of the dance floor, facing one another.
“Midnight blue,” he replied, delighting in the slight widening of her eyes.
Clearly, she had not expected him to actually know, but he was a lot more observant than she thought. He might not have noticed her immediately, that much was true, but he had noticed her since.
“You had little white flowers in your hair,” he added as they pressed palms and moved together for the final part of the dance. “I do not know if they were real or not, and I dare not ask since you so firmly told me I should not, but I could not help thinking that a stray petal came loose. I am almost certain it did, and that it landed right… here.”
His fingertips brushed the curve of her neck for the briefest of moments, as he passed behind her in a horseshoe shape before coming back to stand in front of her, every step, every part of his idea perfectly timed to the dance.
She seemed frozen, her lips parted and her eyes shining, the raspberry color of her cheeks now spreading to the rest of her face. He could not be completely sure, but he thought he saw a faint shiver run through her as her hand came up to touch the spot that he had brushed.
He smiled at her as the music came to an end, his chest puffing with a sensation of strange satisfaction.
If you think me so inept in the art of flirtation, Lady Evelyn, then why on earth are you blushing so furiously?
He would have asked her, but he needed to hold some things back in case she required a second lesson in how not to insult him.
“Thank you for the dance, dear Evelyn,” he whispered instead, as he took her by the hand and led her back to where Selina and her chaperone stood agape.
