Page 51 of A Duchess for his Family

Marjorie dissolved into giggles. Even Amelia covered her mouth. Sophia attempted to remain indignant, but laughter escaped her in a soft, helpless burst. Her body loosened beneath Benedict’s hand, and for one brief moment she leaned closer to him than the dance required.

The sensation traveled through him with alarming force. He looked down at her. Her laughter faded. Something changed in her expression.

The room seemed suddenly quieter, despite Nathaniel’s amusement and the twins’ continued dispute over the rules of the wager. Sophia stood close enough that Benedict could see the dark ring around her hazel irises and the faint color still warming her cheeks.

He became aware that his thumb had moved against the fabric at her waist in a small, unconscious stroke. Benedict stilled his hand immediately.

“Uncle Benedict,” Marjorie called, “you stopped counting.”

He stepped back by half an inch. “So I did.”

“That means you lost,” Sophia said, though her voice had softened.

“It means the lesson was interrupted.”

“By whom?”

Benedict met her gaze. “You.”

Her blush deepened. Nathaniel looked between them with far too much understanding. Benedict resumed the position before his friend could say anything intolerable.

“Again,” he said.

Sophia groaned. “You are impossible.”

“And yet,” he replied, “you are still here.”

She looked at him for a moment, surprise passing across her face before that provoking smile returned.

“So are you.”

The simple answer settled somewhere deep within him.

Hours had passed. The light had begun to fade beyond the tall windows. The lesson accomplished almost nothing he originally intended. Sophia did not command the ballroom. She had, however, commanded the room.

Nathaniel and the twins watched her with open affection. Laughter seemed to follow every objection she made. Even Benedict, despite the disorder, the argument, and the growing certainty that she would resist every lesson he ever attempted to teach her, discovered he was not losing patience at all.

He was enjoying himself far too much, which meant, he suspected, that Nathaniel’s wager had been poorly conceived.

Neither he nor Sophia was in any danger of ending the lesson, not while each new step provided another reason to remain close.

Chapter Thirteen

Sophia had never been so nervous in her life.

She’d believed herself nervous before; at her first ball, before accepting Benedict’s proposal, and upon entering Rivermere after their engagement had become known. But those anxieties seemed like small, manageable creatures beside the terror inhabiting her on the morning of her wedding.

Her hands would not remain still. They trembled while Jenny fastened the pearl buttons at her back. They trembled while Emma arranged the delicate lace at her sleeves. They trembled even after Frances caught them both and held them firmly between her own. She felt a slight relief that her mother had stepped out for a moment, to check whether everything was ready.

“You must stop,” Frances urged.

“I am attempting to.”

“You are doing it very badly.”

“Frances,” Emma murmured.

“I mean she must stop worrying, not trembling. The trembling is quite becoming. It makes her appear delicate.”