“It is a suitable term for men like him who seek only to marry upward. I hope he falls face first in manure.”
She looked at him with a genuine smile. Julian always had a way about him that was as charming as it was infuriating.
“And your lady alongside him,” she replied. She felt him stiffen slightly. The news of his broken engagement had reached her before she’d gone to Scotland, but she hadn’t spoken to him about it as she’d not seen him.
“They make quite a pair,” he said. “But I do hope that your time in Scotland, and the events preceding it, haven’t robbed you of your romantic nature.”
She dipped her head to one side. “I did not know you ever noticed my romantic nature.”
“I have noticed it as much as you have noticed my charming personality.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You have a charming personality? We ought to alert the broadsheets. I do not think the realm is aware.”
“Do not tell me you did not find me charming when you used to visit me.”
She smiled at him, enjoying his incredulity. “I never visited you, Your Grace. I visited your cousin, who happened to live at your estate. That is all. You merely happened to live there, too.”
“Ha,” he exclaimed. “You seek to wound me, I see. Scotland has hardened you.”
The music slowed them as the dance came to an end. When they stopped, she looked up at him once more, for he stood a head taller than she.
“On the contrary. It has made me wiser. It has been a pleasure, I will say that much. And I do thank you for coming to my aid. Even though it was unnecessary.”
He bowed before her.
“I am always available should you need an unwanted knight in shining armor.”
With that, he departed into the crowd, and Clara shook her head. Who would have thought that on her first day back in London, she should run into Julian? It was like a reminder from a long-ago past, a past she’d almost forgotten.
And one she was pleased to have remembered, even if only momentarily, for it was true—he had always been charming, and the days spent as his estate were among the happiest of her childhood.
Not that she was going to tell him that.
No, Julian was too devoted to his own ego to need such compliments. Still, it was nice he’d stepped in to help her. Chivalry, no matter how self-motivated, was not yet dead after all.
CHAPTER 3
Clara exited the ballroom, desperately in need of some air. Between the unpleasant captain and the unexpected return of Julian, the evening had been rather more eventful than she’d expected.
She spotted Mrs. Wainscott hovering by the refreshment table as she was about to partake in some cake, and she took her chance.
She shook her head and stepped out of the ballroom and made her way down the hall toward the front door. There, she dipped into an alcove, fanning herself with a white feathered fan. It wasn’t truly hot, but she needed something for her hands to do.
“Are you quite all right?” Evelyn Sinclair, the Duchess of Sinclair, said. Nathaniel’s wife was not exactly a friend of hers, but they got along reasonably well. Of the Langley sisters, Clara was closer to Helena and Frances. Clara and Evelyn cared for one another the way you care for someone in the same circle as you.
“I am. Just an unpleasant encounter with someone who presumed to know who I am based on my history.”
“Do you speak of Julian? I saw you dancing together. I’ll ring a right peel over his head if he was unkind to you,” she said in a tone that left no doubt that she meant every word.
Clara shook her head. “No, the gentleman I was dancing with before that.”
“I see. How did Julian come to be involved?”
“He involved himself. He fancies himself my savior, but I let him know I did not need such assistance.”
Evelyn grinned. “Sometimes it is helpful to leave these gentlemen to think that they are indeed rescuing us, even if they are not. Most of the time, it is we who are rescuing them. But it is good for their egos to think they are the hero from time to time.”
“Indeed,” she said. “Julian, however, did not need anyone to pay him Spanish coin, at least where is ego was concerned.”
