“You are here, gritting your teeth. You have not flirted with a single lady since you arrived. And you did not even notice thatLady Pembrough has been staring at you for the last five minutes as though she would like to lick your scar.”
Blaise’s head turned, surprised despite himself. Lady Pembrough indeed stood near the rose arbor, half hidden behind an ivy column, her gaze fixed on him with eager suspicion. Once, he would have smiled slowly at her, watched the blush spread under her powder, and taken his time to decide whether to reward her persistence.
But that idea did not stir him. His mind refused the image. It was not indifference, exactly; it was as if some inner doorway had been barred.
“I am… preoccupied,” he said slowly. “That is all.”
“With the widow.”
“With other matters,” he said too quickly.
Alistair’s brows rose. “What is she like? Is she at least pretty enough to excuse your absurdity?”
Blaise’s gaze drifted, unbidden, toward the far end of the lawn, where the garden opened into a small clearing bordered by beeches. There, under a string of paper lanterns that had not yet been lit, a figure stood slightly apart from the crowd.
A faint breeze tugged a few of her rebellious strands loose. Her gown was a soft green that made her skin look almost luminous,and the fabric draped and fell in a way that concealed the curves he had felt beneath his hands.
Iris.
Something in his chest tightened, unfamiliar and unwelcome.
Alistair followed his gaze and gave a low whistle. “Ah. So that is she.”
Blaise did not correct him. He said, instead, “You will not speak of her that way.”
“What way? I have not yet said anything wicked.” Alistair flicked him a sideways look. “But I will tell you this: if that woman were occupying my house, I might find myself inexplicably tolerant of the arrangement.”
“She is not your concern.”
“On the contrary. Any woman who can turn you into a celibate recluse is very much my concern.” Alistair clapped a hand lightly to Blaise’s arm. “Go on, then.”
“What?”
“Go to her. You look like a man on the edge of a precipice. It will either cure you or kill you. And if you will not flirt with anyone else, at least you may lose that murderous expression incompany. You are frightening the debutantes.” Alistair looked around them worriedly.
The quartet had shifted from background melody into the slower strains of a waltz, though only a few couples had yet bothered to take the grass for it. A garden party was not, by tradition, a dancing affair.
Blaise looked at Iris again. She was not laughing. She rarely did so in company, and he had noticed. Her lips curved politely, but her eyes remained watchful. Amber flecks in brown; he had sketched them, without intending to, more than once over the last couple of days.
“It was not a pleasure talking to you,” Blaise muttered to Alistair before he left him standing slack-jawed.
As he crossed the lawn, the air felt thicker, scented with crushed grass and roses. A woman’s laughter rang nearby, high and bright, but he had his eyes on her.
* * *
Iris saw him coming when he was only a few paces off. She had been looking for him and felt relieved when she finally saw him.
“Your Grace,” she said with perfect politeness when he stopped before her.
“Little Blossom.” He bowed. “You look…”
His stalling made her question herself. She looked down at the pale green ball gown her sisters had picked out for her, and she imagined that perhaps it did not suit her.
“…wonderful,” he finished.
Her lips tilted. “What an alarming compliment. I fear you will make me vain.”
“You would be very poor at it,” he said. “You have entirely too clear a view of your own faults.”
