“But we are in the middle of a riveting discussion.” Dorchester seemed put out by her interruption. “You do not mind if we pass this time, do you?”
Vee smiled tightly, put out by his continued indifference, and humiliated to have been dismissed so curtly in front of Galahad. “Of course not.” He had turned back to his friends before she even uttered the second word.
“You should mind.” Galahad appeared furious on her behalf and was glaring at Dorchester’s back. “That is no way to treat a lady.”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
“That’s as good as saying that you don’t matter, Miss Venus.” His stormy emerald gaze flicked to hers. “If he asked you to dance, he should honor it. Especially if he nabbed the honor of the first waltz.”
Technically, it had been Vee who had done the asking. Not outright in an overt would-you-dance-the-waltz-with-me way, but more in the casual, rhetorical, should-I-save-a-space-for-you-tonight kind of way that had forced Lord Dorchester to nod. Probably on sufferance. It had been she who penciled his name beside the first waltz. Her contriteness at that must have showed on her face as Galahad gaped open-mouthed in despair. “Unless he didn’t—and you forced his hand.”
“Lord Dorchester isn’t a huge fan of dancing. He is a scholar at heart.” Good heavens, this was awkward. “Like me. To be frank, I really couldn’t care less if I ever danced at these affairs or not.” She feigned boredom to cover her embarrassment. “I much prefer the conversation, especially if it leads to a stimulating debate.”
He glanced back at Dorchester, who was still holding court and hadn’t paused for breath, or even noticed that he was rudely ignoringher. “Where I come from a conversation is a two-way affair, Miss Venus, and a debate is an exchange of ideas and opinions, not one participant dominating and drowning out everyone else with his pontificating.”
“He simply feels very strongly about the current political climate in Europe, that is all. He isn’t usually so—”
“Lecturing? Domineering? High and mighty? Selfish? Downright thoughtless?”
Urgh!She hated that Galahad’s criticism echoed all of her own in this precise moment. “I can see how you would think that, but he isn’t the least bit like that once you get to know him as well as I do. Lord Dorchester—”
“LordDorchester? Surely if you know him so well, he wouldn’t be a lord to you?” She wanted to kick him in his irritating shins for his galling perceptiveness. “Or are you, like me, too beneath him to use his Christian name? Or worse, he thinks himself so superior to everybody else, only his mother gets to call himMarmaduke.” He said the name with an impeccable and clipped aristocratic English accent, making it sound foppish and daft. “And I thought our names were bad.”
“None of us can help our names, Galahad.”
“We can’t, but we can all help the way we behave and treat others.”
She was furious at both men now. Galahad for being his usual annoying self and Dorchester for forcing her to defend the indefensible. “It’s clear that you do not like him.” Yet another name to add to an ever-growing list of people who didn’t. Including hers at this precise moment. “But…”
He groaned aloud. “But?What the hell do you see in him, Miss Venus?”
“Lord Dorchester is a proper gentleman of quality—unlike some I could mention!”
“I’m not sure that the daughter of a forger is in any position to criticize my pedigree.”
Maybe she would kick him in both shins. Or higher. “By quality, I meant that he knows how to behave!”
“Thatis quality behavior?” Galahad frowned as if she had taken leave of her senses. “He’s rude and obnoxious, thinks he knows everything, and refuses to be corrected. Looks down his nose at everyoneandhe’s a narcissist. I’ve never met a man who considers himself so undeservedly superior to everyone else in a room.”
“He is very different in private than he is…”
“Why are you so blind to his flaws when the rest of us have already worked out that your droning viscount is a dead loss?” A question that Olivia had asked her almost verbatim in the carriage tonight, as well as yesterday and the day before when she had lectured her on the importance of the frisson and urged Vee to hold off picking a mate until she truly felt it.
“Olivia put you up to this, didn’t she?” Vee wafted her hand in the direction of her meddling relation, who was watching them with interest while pretending not to. “You didn’t really want to bury the hatchet at all, did you? You were dragged over here expressly to find a way to enlighten me regarding your disapproval of Dorchester.”
He went to deny it then huffed. “Yes… and no.” He winced. “Yes, I cannot deny that Olivia is worried about your attachment to him when she does not see any evidence that your regard is reciprocated, but no, that isn’t why I came over. While I do think that windbag is a pompous ass—” He jerked his thumb in Dorchester’s direction. “—I also think that whoever you’ve pinned your colors to is none of my business, and I told Olivia so. But Ididcome over here to bury the hatchet.”
“In my back, apparently.”
She knew it had been too good to be true. She and he attempting cordiality and sociability when they had never been able to manage it before. Not that this failed attempt had lasted long thanks to his thinly disguised ulterior motive.
“But at least you can report this inconsequential slight back to Olivia. It will add weight to her argument that he is wrong for me in every possible way, and you’ll both get to gloat about my continued poor judgment regarding the male of the species while you congratulateyourselves that you told me so.” All of a sudden she wanted to go home. Wanted to run out of this stupid ballroom and have a good cry at her own continued stupidity wherever men were concerned. Because they were right. She knew they were right. Every sign from the universe screamed that she was barking up the wrong tree—yet again—out of desperation. Instead of admitting that aloud and surrendering to the truth of it, she folded her arms and summoned what remained of her battered pride. “You’ve had your fun, so go away, Galahad.”
“Miss Venus, I…”
“I said go.”
With a sigh, he did exactly that, but he hadn’t gone six feet before he marched back to grab her hand. “Let’s dance.”
