Page 10 of A Duchess for his Family

“Leaving us already?” she asked. “How very like you, Miss Norton. Always slipping away just as the conversation is becoming lively.”

“Perhaps she has remembered her emergency book,” Miss Penrose chuckled.

The little circle tightened. Sophia’s throat felt dry. The music swelled around them, a bright, elegant country dance, all order and motion.

How absurd that a room filled with people could contain no easy path of escape. Everywhere she looked, there were shoulders, skirts, smiles, eyes. She wanted the garden, the oak tree, the quiet press of bark beneath her hands and the honest danger of a broken branch.

Danger, she thought, was preferable when it did not wear perfume.

Then the crowd parted. For one foolish instant, she thought she had summoned him by memory.

The Duke of Rivermere crossed the ballroom with the same controlled force with which he crossed the grass that afternoon. He wore black with severe elegance, his broad shoulders making lesser gentlemen seem designed in haste. Candlelight caught the dark gloss of his hair and the clean line of his jaw. His expression was composed, but not soft. Yet his eyes moved through the room with a searching steadiness that made Sophia’s pulse behave in a most unreasonable manner.

Miss Vane saw him and transformed at once.

“Your Grace,” she greeted him, turning with a brightness that seemed to require no effort at all. “What a pleasure.”

Miss Hartwell fluttered her fan. Miss Penrose straightened her posture so abruptly that Sophia feared for the poor girl’s spine.

“Ladies,” the Duke said, bowing.

His voice was deep enough to be felt before it was quite heard. Sophia looked down at her fan, suddenly aware of every crease in her gloves.

“We were only speaking of the dance,” Miss Vane chirped. “How fortunate you should join us, Your Grace. Were you in search of someone in particular?”

The boldness of it made even Miss Hartwell blink.

The Duke’s gaze moved over the little group. “Yes.”

Sophia’s stomach dropped.

Of course. He wished to speak to one of them. Miss Vane, perhaps, with her golden hair and practiced smile. Or Miss Hartwell, who had three thousand a year and never had grass on her hem. Sophia prepared herself for the awkward little rearrangement that would follow, for the ladies’ triumph, for her own invisibility restored in a more painful form.

Then Benedict Langley looked directly at her.

“Miss Norton,” he spoke her name, “would you do me the honor of this dance?”

For a moment, Sophia did not understand him. The room seemed to hush, though she knew it had not. Miss Vane’s smile remained fixed, but some vital warmth left it. Miss Hartwell’s fan stilled. Miss Penrose looked from the duke to Sophia as though a side table had been asked to dance.

Sophia rose from her curtsey only because her body remembered what her mind abandoned. “Yes, Your Grace.”

His hand extended. She placed her gloved fingers upon it. The contact was nothing. It was entirely proper, brief, controlled, and visible to half the county. It nevertheless traveled up her arm like a question.

He led her to the dance area. Sophia felt the stare of the three ladies between her shoulders with every step. She also saw Frances’ eyes widen across the room. Emma, beside her, looked pleased and puzzled. Their mother looked as though Providence suddenly developed excellent manners.

The music began. For several turns, Sophia said nothing. She was too occupied with breathing correctly, stepping correctly, and not thinking about the fact that the Duke of Rivermere’s hand had settled at the proper distance from her waist and still managed to disturb the air between them.

At last, when the figure brought them near enough for speech, she spoke quietly. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

His gaze lowered to hers. “For what?”

“For rescuing me.”

“I wished to speak with you privately, and a dance appeared the only proper method.”

Sophia nearly missed the next step. “Privately?”

“As privately as one may be while observed by an entire ballroom.”