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“No,” she answered with an indignant expression. “I’ve just turned ten.”
“Oh dear. Is that too young for balls?”
“Decidedly,” came the deep-toned reply of the duke. “Don’t be encouraging her, Sterling. I’m going to have enough trouble with her as it is.”
Finally, Alex allowed his mirth to express itself. He offered the child another brief bow. “I promise, if I’m invited, I’ll dance with you at your first ball, and you can tell me for yourself what you think of my ability.”
She stared at him for a moment, her brows drawn. “You could be my dancing instructor, if you’d like.”
“I’m reasonably sure his lordship is far too occupied for such an activity, Lady Adelina,” Lady Grace answered before he formulated a response. She spoke as though she couldn’t hold her silence any longer. The child folded her arms in a defiant manner, making Alex afraid that a dreadful scene was about to unfold but to his surprise, Grace approached the girl and quietly solved the problem.
With an arm around Lady Adelina, Grace spoke in a whisper loud enough for all the room to hear.
“Surely, you’d rather have lessons before you take a chance on the earl, my dear. I’ve danced with him, and I can vouch for the fact that he is quite skilled. Because of that, I can assure you, if I were you, I’d rather make sure I knew what I was doing for fear of embarrassing myself. Imagine if you trod on his pretty shoes?”
Everyone in the room glanced at Alex’s feet, making him hope the heat in his cheeks wasn’t making itself noticed, but he still admired how Lady Graciela handled the situation. Despite the fact that she was the youngest of Lord Sherton’s daughters, she seemed skilled in negotiating childish impulses.
“Perhaps, you can interest Lord Sterling in discussing the route from his estate to yours,” she suggested, again surprising him.
“Do you have a map, my lord?” Lady Adelina asked eagerly.
“Of my estate, do you mean?”
The girl shrugged. “And the countryside around it, I was thinking.”
“I do at home, but I didn’t bring it with me, I’m afraid.”
“That’s too bad. Does that mean you don’t know how to read maps?” she asked, her tone challenging.
Alex laughed again. “No, that’s not what it means. It just means that I know the route between my house and yours well enough that I didn’t think I would need a map. The roads are reasonably well marked with directions that I haven’t found a need to use maps in this area.” He paused for a moment before asking, “Why do you ask about maps? Have you learned to read them?”
The girl nodded vigorously. “Jonesy taught me,” she said with a grin as her father made an exasperated sound, and the duchess fought to hide her smile.
Alex wasn’t certain what was behind everyone’s reactions, but he kept his focus on the girl and praised her abilities.
“What do you intend to do with this knowledge, my lady?”
“I’m not fully certain at this point, my lord. Jonesy and I were supposed to travel, but now she probably won’t be able to,” she said with a glower at her stepmother, leading Alex to the conclusion that the child was referring to the duchess.
“We’ll still travel, darling,” the duchess assured Adelina. “Now, we might not have the same constraints as we once might have. Just you wait. We’ll speak of it another time, I promise.”
The girl continued to stare at Alex with the lack of self-consciousness that seemed exclusive to children, making Alex want to check if he perhaps had a smudge on his cheek. He ought to have looked in the mirror before taking his seat.
Lady Graciela, apparently incapable of witnessing anyone’s discomfort, stepped in once more. It was a fascinating quality to note about a young,tonnishwoman. Alex was almost distracted by wondering over her unselfish concern.
“Perhaps his lordship would be able to tell you about his grand tour. That might satisfy your thirst for travel for a bit,” the young woman pointed out, offering an encouraging smile to both him and the child.
“That was quite a while ago,” Alex started, but the girl waved away his words.
“That’s quite all right, my lord. You can tell me about your favourite place.”
She was quite obviously a duke’s daughter, with all the imperiousness that accompanied the position. He coughed a little to swallow the laughter bubbling up from inside. It was the lightest he had felt in ages. He was grateful to the child for the sensation and wished to reward the gift.
“I would have to say it’s a tie between Paris and certain villages of the Rhine.”
“Truly,” the child demanded. “How could there be a tie? Aren’t they terribly different from one another?”
“Oh yes, quite,” he answered promptly, noticing from the corner of his eye the rapt attention both the duchess and her sister paid to his words. Alex tried not to grow too uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “But that’s why it was a tie. In each their own way, I found them equally fascinating even though they were so different from one another. Paris, of course, is by far the most sophisticated. I didn’t find the architecture so very different from what I’m familiar with in London, but the atmosphere there is just exactly what you would expect from the French. On the other hand, the villages of the Rhine were far more quaint and diverse than what we have in our own countryside. You will quite enjoy them when you get to see them for yourself.”
Alex held his breath, hoping he hadn’t opened up a parcel of trouble or ruin the evening, as the girl and her stepmother again exchanged speaking glances. They then turned their almost identical expressions upon the duke, causing him to hold up his hands and laugh.
“Sterling, I feel as though I’m going to owe you some sort of dreadful retaliation after this,” he said, making Alex’s heart sink at first, until he noticed the note of laughter in the duke’s voice and the almost syrupy expression of love in his eyes as he regarded his wife and daughter.
Clearly, the duke wasn’t holding a grudge. Alex relaxed back into the comfortable settee just as the butler came to call them for dinner.
