That man might have been sitting next to her now, glancing at her gloves and thinking about how delicate and dangerous her hand seemed in his, like he’d caught a fledgling sparrow and was holding it, concentrating on not gripping too tight or too loose, because either option could lead to disaster.
He wasn’t holding her hand anymore, and yet that fear, fear of losing her, still hung thick in the air around him. He took a deep breath and shoved those fears aside. Shewashere with him, and he should be enjoying it. As long as his manners remained impeccable, she wouldn’t have any reason to see behind his facade of propriety and glimpse the uncontrolled man of overzealous passion he’d been with Lady Plymton. He cleared his throat and nodded toward the line of silver. “Your maid gave you a bracelet?”
“Yes, although I begged her not to. The little imp probably knew what she was doing though. There is no possibility of her losing her position as long as I have this present.”
“So it was a bribe?” An expensive bribe. The bracelet could be sold for months’ worth of work.
“No. She isn’t really an imp, and she knows her position is secure. It was a gift from her heart when I promoted her from maid-of-all-work to my lady’s maid. Her mother had given it to her as a means to feed herself if she couldn’t find a position here in England. Once she became my maid, she no longer feared going hungry and wanted me to have it.” She stroked the chain softly with her thumb. “I wear it always, even when Mama claims the silver doesn’t match the other jewelry she wants me to wear.”
“A woman who despises emeralds but loves a chain of silver. Must you always surprise me?”
“Did I say I despise the emeralds? I love them. They werea present for Mama, given long before it would have seemed proper.” Lady Mercy smiled. “I could never despise anything that represented my parents’ love. If I showed them any disdain, it is only because they are difficult to dance in. That is their only flaw.”
“A grave blemish indeed.”
* * *
Lord Bryant was the only man foolish enough to remove Nicholas’s gloves from the seat across from him in the cardroom after supper. “You don’t mind, do you? You weren’t saving this seat for any reason?”
Nicholas lifted his paper back up to reading level and grunted. “Only for some peace and quiet.”
“Oh well.” Lord Bryant scoffed. “I can provide that.”
Nicholas raised an eyebrow at the baron but didn’t bother refuting the man’s unsubstantiated claim.
Lord Bryant was quiet for the space of one paragraph before his hand reached to the top of Nicholas’s paper and pulled it down. “Tell me about this Lady Mercy you were dancing with. She seems lovely.”
“Come to think of it, Iwaswaiting for someone. Ottersby. He should be here any moment. Perhaps you could torment some other person in this room.”
“I don’t think I particularly like anyone else in this room.”
“How fortunate for me.”
Lord Bryant gave him a dashing grin, as if to say,True. You are fortunate, and then he leaned forward over the table. “But I did like Lady Mercy. I wasn’t certain you did though. Or, rather, I was quite certain you did. I just wasn’t certain the young lady would be able to deduce your intentions from your actions.”
Nicholas sighed heavily. This was the last thing he needed. Advice from a rake. “I don’t think there is another man in England who possesses your ability to make their interest soblatantly obvious to the women around them. Do not hold me to your standard on that. You and I are very different creatures.”
Bryant cocked an eyebrow. “Are we?”
Nicholas went cold. His past indiscretions were public enough at the time, but since the death of his father, no one had dared mention them to him. “We are. I learned my lesson from the follies of my youth. You, however, learned a very different one.”
Lord Bryant stilled, and his ever-present smile faltered. “Our lessons were very different ones, Harrington. It is no wonder they yielded dissimilar results.”
Blast. He was correct. It was a simple matter to forget how serious Lord Bryant had been before his first wife had died. The person he’d become soon after her death was so much louder than the quiet young man Nicholas had known in his youth. Still, the fact that Lord Bryant’s follies had started when he was older and wiser did not make the two men similar. Not at all.
“I don’t claim to know what you went through in your past. Only I in mine.”
“And I don’t claim to know all that happened in yours, but I will say this: if you want to marry that woman, you are going to have to woo her, and I’m not certain you are doing that yet.”
Nicholas took another quick glance around the room. “You speak too freely.”
“And you don’t speak freely enough.”
“I never will, not when it could damage a young lady’s reputation.”
“Or your reputation.”
“Yes. Unlike you, I need mine.”
