Page 45 of A Duchess for his Family

The Duke turned to her with immediate interest. “Ah. Then there is a history of dangerous furniture.”

“There is a history of gentlemen moving in the wrong direction.”

“An epidemic,” he agreed.

Marjorie spun once, caught her skirt beneath her shoe, and collapsed onto the settee in another fit of laughter. Amelia covered her face. Sophia laughed with them, the sound escaping before she thought to restrain it.

Then the door opened, and Benedict stood on the threshold. He removed his coat, though not with the air of authority that seemed less an article of clothing than a condition of his existence. His gaze swept over the altered room, the displaced chairs, Marjorie half-sprawled on the settee, and Nathaniel wearing the expression of a man entirely innocent of whatever disorder he had caused. Then Benedict looked at Sophia. The faintest change touched his eyes. She straightened without meaning to. The Duke of Redgrave noticed and smiled to himself.

“I see the lesson has begun,” Benedict said.

“We are discussing essential principles, old friend,” the Duke explained.

“You are teaching them to distrust polished shoes.”

“A necessary precaution.”

“And furniture,” Amelia added.

Benedict’s brows rose.

Sophia folded her hands in her lap, though her smile remained. “Lord Ashcombe was mentioned.”

“That explains very little.”

“It explains everything,” the Duke assured him.

Benedict looked at the girls. “Have you learned anything useful?”

Marjorie nodded vigorously. “Never trust a gentleman who counts badly.”

“And never dance with a vain person,” Amelia added.

“Or near a table,” Sophia finished.

Benedict regarded his friend with grave disapproval. The Duke returned the look with perfect serenity. For one moment, Sophia thought Benedict might dismiss the entire gathering as hopeless. Then the corner of his mouth moved, only slightly.

“All right,” he said, stepping farther into the room. “The amusing portion is over.”

Marjorie groaned. The Duke placed one hand dramatically over his heart. Benedict ignored them both and held Sophia’s gaze.

“Now,” he continued, with a seriousness made more dangerous by the quiet amusement beneath it, “we must attempt to actually learn something.”

Chapter Twelve

“You are holding yourself too stiffly.”

“I am dancing with a man who has criticized my posture six times in ten minutes.”

“Seven,” Nathaniel corrected from the settee.

Benedict did not look at him. Sophia did. That was the first difficulty. The second was that she was not, in fact, a poor dancer as he had originally thought. Benedict had suspected as much even before the lesson began, but suspicion became certainty within the first quarter hour. Sophia knew every step. She moved lightly, kept time without effort, and possessed a natural grace which no instruction of his was likely to improve. What she lacked, in Benedict’s opinion, was presence.

“You retreat,” he told her.

“I step backward because the figure requires it.”

“You make yourself smaller.”