Page 67 of The Duke’s Caught Bride

She looked at the dance floor. The dancers moved through their figures with the practiced ease of people who had been dancing since childhood.

“The late Duchess was, by all accounts, a remarkable woman. I hope I do her memory credit.” A pause. “And I do dance, Lady Haverstock. Rather well, as it happens. My husband was kind enough to say so just now, which is the only opinion on the subject that concerns me.”

Lady Haverstock’s smile did not waver. The fair-haired young woman had gone slightly pink.

“Of course,” Lady Haverstock said. “Of course. How sensible.”

She drifted away. Alice watched her go and then looked down at her glass of ratafia and noticed that her hands were perfectly steady.

She was, she thought with a dim surprise, actually perfectly steady. She had shut that down quietly and without raising her voice. The satisfaction of it was a small and uncomplicated thing she allowed herself to feel for exactly the time it took to set the glass on a passing footman’s tray.

She turned to find Lucy at her elbow.

“Well,” Lucy said, in a tone of considerable admiration.

“It was nothing.”

“It was very much something.” Lucy’s eyes were bright. “Who was she?”

“Lady Haverstock. I believe she and the late Duchess were acquainted.” Alice smoothed the front of her gown. “It does not matter.”

“Alice.”

“I mean it. It does not.” She looked out at the room and was surprised that she did.

She had stood in a garden with her eyes squeezed shut and felt the weight of those words like stones in her chest. Tonight, she had returned them at the same altitude at which they had been thrown, and the world had not fallen.

She was still standing. The chandeliers were still burning. The musicians were playing the opening bars of the next set.

“Lord Fenwick is here,” she said, to give Lucy something else to look at. “I believe I saw him near the musicians.”

Lucy straightened. Her eyes moved across the room with a speed that suggested the strategic distance she had maintained during Alice’s conversation was not, in fact, purely altruistic.

“The one with the blue coat,” Alice added. “He is looking this way.”

Lucy did not move immediately, which for her was equivalent to a declaration. “I shall stay.”

“You shall not.” Alice pressed her gloved hand briefly against Lucy’s arm. “Go. I am utterly fine, and Lord Fenwick is running out of courage.”

Lucy went.

Alice watched her cross the room toward the musicians, feeling the faint warm ache of friendship, of having a person who appeared without being summoned.

She turned back to the room and arranged herself against the window frame and prepared, quite consciously, to be alone for a few minutes.

The few minutes lasted four, approximately. Then a voice she did not recognize sounded at her shoulder.

“Your Grace. Forgive the intrusion.”

She turned and found Baron Tidswell behind her.

“Your Grace.” He bowed. “How lovely to see you again.”

“How do you do, My Lord.” She curtsied.

He smiled. The smile reached his eyes, which made it harder to name what was wrong with it rather than easier. “I must congratulate you on your marriage, Your Grace. The Duke of Bearmoor is a formidable man. Though I imagine you know that.”

“I do.”