“I do wonder how he shall dress,” Beatrice gushed. “Do you think he will keep to his aunt’s theme?”
“Heavens knows. He barely abides to anything the ton expects of him. However, I will change that upon making a good first impression. When I am Duchess of Blackthorn, I shall reacquaint him properly with the ton and its expectations.”
Beatrice gasped. “Cassandra, you must not speak so! You cannot get involved with him in such ways. There is a reason he stays away from society.”
“I am well aware.”
“He isbeastly, the ton says. Why would you, as beautiful as you are, subject yourself to such a thing?”
“Because as beastly as he is, he is wealthy,” Cassandra replied smugly. Her fan waved frantically. “It is all about status and wealth, is it not? AndIwill have my duchy.”
Beatrice gazed at her as if in awe of the ambition she spoke of. Cassandra looked pleased with herself, her smile almost a smirk, as she looked around the room.
“The only duchess Cassandra will be is the Duchess of Downright Snobbery,” Eleanor whispered, glaring at the other girl. She sighed, but Amelia couldn’t help looking towards the direction Cassandra had suddenly focused on.
The Duke of Blackthorn entered the ballroom, and all eyes swung to him.
The music did not stop yet something stilled in Amelia as she looked at him, even as Lady Victoria went to embrace and greet him, along with two other women at each side of him. Amelia knew that Elizabeth would know but she herself did not. Yet she could not help herself looking at him—at his dark hair that hung in soft waves around his face, and eyes that were of the deepest coffee brown. He looked intensely out at the sea of faces that looked at him.
“I do believe he looked right at me,” Cassandra boasted to Beatrice. She looked around, as if waiting for somebody else to notice the attention. Her gaze caught on Amelia, who flushed at being caught looking at the duke. Cassandra huffed a laugh, flicking her hair over her shoulder, before looking back to the duke.
Amelia could not help but notice how stiff the duke looked as he spoke with his aunt. A sense of fear washed over Amelia, unable to sense what captivated her about him. Perhaps it was how dismissive he was of his surroundings, or how imposing he was with his broad shoulders and tall height. Those eyes were filled with displeasure, as if he disliked being at the ball and was not afraid to show it. Yet curiosity also gripped her for all those very same reasons.
“It is a shame he is tainted by that ghastly scar,” Cassandra whispered behind her fan, and Amelia looked over, surprised. Indeed, there, she beheld it shimmering in the light. “It has been, I daresay, five years since the fateful duel in which he was embroiled. A most lamentable affair.”
“I am surprised he even shows his face in society,” Beatrice scoffed. “Everybody knows the truth. Surely he knows that. It is precisely why I warn you away from him.”
“Wealth is wealth,” Cassandra snapped.
Amelia averted her staring from the duke, wondering if there was more to him, to that night of the duel she recalled him being involved in, than society knew.
“Lady Eleanor,” a voice spoke up, and both she and Amelia turned, curious. A young lord looked at her with hopeful eyes. “I am no Duke of Blackthorn but I am the heir to some very extensive, impressive land in the eastern countryside. May I take your hand for the next dance?”
Eleanor glanced, unsure, at Amelia, but she only nodded. Simplybecause she was the wallflower nobody noticed did not mean Eleanor should spend the balls in misery. Eleanor left with the lord, and Amelia was left, unsure, alone.
Her mother’s gaze fixed on her from across the room, a silent warning of trying to apply herself to tonight’s potential matching.Secure a dance, she could almost hear the beg.Secure anything. A mere conversation. Something to be recalled by tomorrow when suitors make their visits.
But even if Amelia hovered, looking at young lords with shy hopefulness, they never looked her way. She was ignored, pushed further into the background. The only person to break her silent reverie was a servant, offering her a glass of lemonade. She accepted, sipping to busy herself, but the lemonade did little to settle her nerves.
A sea of dancers painted grace before her, yet Amelia was a floating, lone island in the sky, having no place in a vast ocean.
***
Graham abhorred ballrooms.
They were too big, too tall, toocrowded. He could barely see sharply for the blur that became the skirts of women, all sporting different springtime shades. He felt almost dizzy with how constantly the crowd moved. He was the highest rank of them all yet he had never felt so out of place.
“Your Grace, you must attend Rowden House!” one lady gushed, all but shoving her daughter at him. “Georgina often tends to the most lovely rosebushes. Heavens knows, I advise her to leave it to the gardeners but she simply has the best creative eye. She iseverso talented.”
He looked over them, took in the mother’s desperately hopeful look, and the daughter’s embarrassed wince. “I do not like roses. Excuse me.”
He pushed past them, hearing Owen laugh behind him.
“You do know how to reject them, do you not? It is actually rather impressive. If I could see the visual manifestation of their hearts, the poor organs would be scattered all over this floor. Broken, red glass.”
“Stop it,” he muttered. “I am not breaking hearts. I am removing myself from the picture before hearts are even stirred.”
“Oh, I am sure you are stirring several things tonight.” He winked and clasped Graham on the back. Graham stiffened as Owen steered him deeper into the ballroom. He had escaped his mother for now, at least. Still, the stares followed him until he felt as though he did not walk through people but merely a wall full of large, ogling eyes.
