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“Am I? Do you think the duke will approve?”
“My brother will be speechless with awe,” Daffy said. “Now come, it is time.”
She released a long sigh and followed Daffy out of her room. Daffy then took the stairs to stand below beside the duke and Freddy.
In black velvet with a white brocade waistcoat and an intricately tied cravat, his black layered hair framing his handsome face, the duke took her breath away.
He had not yet looked up, but as though he felt his eyes on her, he did at that moment, and their gazes locked.
It was a frightening thing to have to make one’s entrance for the first time with all the fashionable world watching and ready to find fault.
She was sure she would trip and falter … but she did not. With one lace-gloved hand she touched the railing, and with the other she lightly held her gown just a few inches up as she made her descent.
The duke came forward to receive her, and the nervous smile she had worn vanished, in its place a warm smile of gratitude. On his arm, there was nothing and no one to fear.
Everyone else faded away.
He led her to the ballroom and he said, “You beauty, you. I don’t think I was alive until I met you.”
She looked at him sharply. What was this? What was he saying?
A sudden, short hush swept over the ballroom as the duke and she were announced. She was aware, vaguely aware of the admiring stares as he led her onto the dance floor and requested a waltz.
How daring he was. He had asked for a waltz and claimed her for it.
She was sure that more than one dowager was heartily shocked. As he moved with her in perfect grace, she smiled breathlessly at him and said, “Ashton … Ashton, I can’t breathe.”
His silver eyes twinkled. “It seems we are both overcome with the same malady. I lost my ability to perform that necessary function the moment I saw you at the head of the stairs.” He shook his head, and his tone was despondent as he said, “I will lose you tonight.” He indicated with a lift of his chin quite a number of young gentlemen ready to claim her hand.
She scoffed, “Oh, but don’t you know yet … you have never claimed me for yourself and, therefore, cannot lose me.”
“I wish you would call me by my given name,” he said, changing the subject.
“Does one call one’s chaperone by his first name? I think that would not be quite the thing,” she answered on a tease.
“I have checked the rules. It is acceptable, and besides that … within days, my guardianship will be at an end.”
She gave him a long look and said in a small voice, “You are quite breaking my heart.”
He laughed this off. “Why? Because I want you to address me by my given name?”
“You know why, and still you mean to give me away … don’t you?”
“Felicia, my own dear heart, what you feel for me … will pass. It isn’t real. It is I who shall suffer the heartache. Not you.”
“I take leave to tell you, Glen Ashton, Duke of Somerset, you haven’t a notion what you are talking about.” She shook her head at him during the movements of the waltz and added, “I have quite a few suitors already, but I want none of them. So what then, Duke, what do you say to that?”
“We shall see,” was all the answer he was going to give her.
* * *
The waltz came to an end, and he stood back and sighed to watch her go off with Reinhart, who had been impatiently waiting in the wings to claim her.
Ah, Felicia, he thought despondently. When she looked at him like she had just done, he almost believed there was something more than infatuation in her eyes. Love was elusive. He didn’t used to believe in love. Lately, Felicia had made him hope …
Hope was a dangerous thing. Her infatuation would pass as soon as her interest was locked elsewhere. He had wanted her to have her pick of men, and as he looked at all the puppies following her about, he knew that had been accomplished.
This sent him further into his despondency.
