“No.” Because it was the waltz, and that dance had been thoroughly ruined for her by Galahad. “I do not feel like dancing tonight.” Or likely ever again if it involved a man in any way, shape, or form.
“A promenade around the room perhaps? Or a trip to the refreshment table for a glass of champagne?”
“Neither—thank you—I am quite content where I am.” She had placed herself among the wallflowers in the vain hope of avoiding everyone, her own family included. She had no earthly idea how to tell them that she had been that gullible, trusting idiot who had allowed herself to be let down by a worthless man again when there had been so many of them over the years. “And quite content to remain here alone, my lord, so do not trouble yourself.”
Ever.
Not that he ever had.
“I, too, am content to dally awhile.” He sat beside her and she almost screamed in frustration. “It seems like forever since we last conversed and I feel as if I owe you an apology for the way I behaved at the Rokebys’ the other week. I was neglectful of you and for that I am sorry.”
She slanted him a disinterested glance, willing him to get the message that her misguided attachment to him—and romanticized hope for the entire male species—was over. “Think nothing of it. I can assure you thatIhaven’t.” Good heavens, whathadshe been thinking to think this self-centered oaf might somehow be more worthy than all the selfishmen before him? Now that Galahad had shattered the rose-tinted lenses from her spectacles, it was as plain as the dandruff dusting Dorchester’s sloping shoulders that she had been clutching at straws. Selling herself short exactly as Olivia had cautioned. A clear case of desperation over discernment, because she wanted a family of her own.
Well, no more!Now she would make do with the family she already had and be supremely grateful for them. She hardly needed to add to their number when both Minerva and Diana had already done that, and she could shower all her love on her nieces and nephews as well as she could her own child. That way, at least she could avoid the interminable and depressing effort of trying to search for a perfect man who did not exist. At least as a doting aunt she wouldn’t have to suffer this pathetic specimen’s nighttime passions. The thought of any intimacy with Dorchester now made her skin crawl and it was so visceral, her lip actually curled in distaste.
Seeing it, the pompous lord shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. “These past few weeks without you have made me realize how much I value our acquaintance—” He cleared his throat, his expression uncharacteristically boyish and unsure. It did not suit him. “—I also realize that I have taken it for granted and sometimes failed to give you the attention you deserved.”
Sometimes!That was rich. He had given the wallpaper more attention than he had given her. If she’d had an ounce of self-respect, she would have acknowledged that from the outset. But she had been both gullible and desperate, and so had still labored to find the good that didn’t exist in a succession of useless men. Her ceaseless ability to keep putting all of her eggs in entirely the wrong basket was staggering.
But no more!
“As I said, my lord, think nothing of it. I cannot stress enough how little thought I have given to it since we last conversed.”
“I am relieved to hear it.” Dorchester was as immune to sarcasm as he was to humility. “Only I had assumed, when I received no acknowledgment of thetwobouquets I have sent since, that you bore a grudge.” His remonstrative expression suggested he felt aggrieved by that.
“Not at all.” She was, however, beyond bored of pinning her colors to the wrong masts. The grudge she now bore thanks to Galahad’s all-too-recent manipulative treachery was so large, there genuinely wasn’t enough jaded and embittered space in her heart to bear another one.
And speaking of jaded… “Thank you for the flowers.” She knew full well Dorchester had only sent them because he couldn’t bear to lose out to a man as lowly as Galahad. “Although you really shouldn’t have bothered.” She vowed there and then that if he dared to send her any more, as a newly converted but devoted spinster she would send them straight back. After she had jumped on them first!
“I am glad you were pleased to receive them, for hothouse blooms are very expensive this close to Christmas.” As Vee struggled to find the right reply to that ungallant and unromantic statement, Lord Dorchester surprised her again by reaching for her hand.
Unsurprisingly, the contact had absolutely no effect on her body.
There were no tingles.
No fizzing bubbles of excitement, attraction, or awareness.
No confusing and befuddling frisson to cloud her perennially flawed judgment.
“Miss Vee, might I speak plainly?”
Her pulse quickened at that question, more in wariness than anticipation.
“If you must.” The sooner he said his piece, the sooner this awkward interlude would be over, the sooner his clammy hand would release hers and she could go back to wallowing in her private, humiliating misery.
His features did something peculiar as he squared his sloping shoulders. Both actions filled her with dread. But not nearly as much dread as his words did. “I believe the time has come tofurtherour acquaintance.”
Honestly! It never rained, it poured. Except in her case, it just poured duds.
Ingrained politeness made her stutter rather than send him packing as any devoted and jaded spinster would. “While obviously I am… um… flattered, my lord, I…”
“Now, now.” He wagged his finger like a pendulum, pouting in a distasteful attempt at flirting. “Now that we are to bemorethan acquaintances, I insist that you call me Marmaduke.”
“My lord, I do not recall agreeing that we would become more than…” Whatever else she planned to say evaporated in an instant, because if Lord Dorchester was a passing rainstorm, what was approaching with determined fury and narrowed green eyes was thunder.
Galahad wasn’t dressed for an evening soiree in Mayfair. Judging by the windswept, unshaved, scruffy look of him, which of course suited the duplicitous wretch down to the ground, he had apparently come directly from the muddy road from Brighton without bothering to change first.
Even from fifty feet away, his angry gaze latched onto hers unwavering. He was a man on a mission, and it was clear that mission involved her. Although what else there was to say, she couldn’t fathom; he had done quite enough damage already. Never mind that she was nowhere near ready for another reminder of her own naive stupidity, and the only thing she had close enough to hide behind was the useless lord who was apparently now besotted with her.
