She came down the steps, and the room looked away.
She did not look at him. She did not, he understood in the next several breaths, have any intention of looking at him.
She greeted Lady Sefton at the foot of the steps. She greeted two other ladies whose names he did not know and had no interest in learning. She allowed Daphne, who had come in behind her, to take her arm. She crossed half the floor with her sister and her mother in a small protective formation, and she did not once look toward the window where he stood.
She knew exactly where he was.
Victor gave a low whistle through his teeth. “That, my friend, is a woman who means to make you work for it.”
“Mm.”
“How does it feel?”
“How does what feel?”
“To be at Almack’s in love in public. Like the rest of us.”
Cassian set the ratafia down on the windowsill. He had not drunk any of it, and he was not going to.
“I shall let you know,” he said.
He stepped away from the window and crossed the room.
CHAPTER 9
On the way in, Alice had counted three things.
She had counted seven women in the receiving line who had looked at her with a particular careful neutrality. They had read the gossip about her in the last three days and did not wish to be caught remembering it. She had counted four gentlemen who had looked at her as though she had recently become more interesting than she had ever been.
And she had counted, without looking once, the Duke of Langton, who was standing by the second window with a glass in his hand and a face like a winter morning, and who had, she was certain, watched her arrive.
She did not look at him. She had decided, in the carriage, that she would not look at him for at least ten minutes. She had decided it as a small private discipline. She had also decided, in case the first discipline failed, that she would not smile at him for at least fifteen minutes.
“Alice.” Daphne’s voice was very small at her elbow.
Daphne always shrank in ballrooms because she did not enjoy being looked at. Though she enjoyed looking. Tonight, however, the looking had presented her with a particular problem because Isaac was here. Alice had seen him from the carriage. Daphne had seen him from the carriage, too. Neither of them had mentioned it.
“You will have to talk to him, you know,” Alice said quietly.
“I will not.”
“You will. He is to be your husband.”
“He is not yet my husband.”
“He will be by Michaelmas. You cannot avoid him until Michaelmas, Daphne. It is not polite. I refuse to spend the entire walk pretending he is not over there.”
Daphne flushed pink. She did, of course, look toward the corner of the room where Isaac was standing with his father’s friends, looking as though he would rather be in any of the world’s libraries—as always. He saw her look. He looked away. Then, with the very poor discipline of a young man in love, he looked back.
“There,” Alice murmured. “Now you are blushing, and so is he. Go and stand near him.”
“Alice—”
“Daphne.”
“He has not asked me to dance.”
“He will. Go and stand near him, so he can ask.”
